RAF attacked in 44 and 45 also oil targets (IIRC Harris was ordered to make them in spite of his objections) and according to my memory Germans noted that British powerful blast bombs made worst damage/damage most difficult to repair to machinery and piping.
1000 lbs bombs on Wellington Mk.X
- Thread starter alsaad
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The British made a significant effort against oil targets towards the end of the war. Harris receives a lot of criticism for his reluctance to attack what he called 'panacea targets'. However, from 1 June 1944 to 8 May 1945 Bomber Command devoted 15 percent of its total sorties, 22,000 out of 155,000, against oil targets and dropped 99,500 tons on them. Both these figures exceeded those of the Eighth Air Force, which devoted 13 percent of its effective sorties, 28,000 out of 220,000, and dropped 73,000 tons of bombs on oil targets from 12 May 1944 to 8 May 1945.
That's a statistic which should probably go in the thread refuting WW2 myths.
Yes, I agree, near the end of the last millenium I tried to convince an US aviation author that the RAF made a significant contribution to the oil offensive. When I produced facts on British attacks his last ditch defence was that after all he was interested in only daytime attacks, I could only answer that some of RAF attacks were daytime ops but did not bother to go again through my books to pich up examples.
Not much of an author. The data is easily available and it doesn't really matter whether your oil infrastructure is being bombed by night or by day.
It was the 8th AF's initial attacks, in May 1944, which dropped production of synthetic oil from 380,000 tons per month to 200,000 tons. But thereafter both strategic bombing forces made their contribution.
On 27 August 1944 Harris sent the first major RAF daylight heavy bomber raid of the war to Germany. 243 bombers attacked the synthetic oil refinery at Meerbeck (Homberg). At this stage of the war, Bomber Command was more accurate by day than the Americans, though this raid was made through 5-8/10ths cloud on Oboe marking. In September, Bomber Command made nine more daylight raids of 300 or more tons on oil targets in Germany.
Between 16 august '44 and January 1 '45 the number of days and nights on which Bomber Command undertook operations were almost exactly equal, 116 and 115 respectively*, though there were still far more night sorties (43,819 to 28,992). This is partly due to intentionally lower numbers sent by day on each raid. Typically no more than 150 aircraft attacked the same point, as Bomber Command's ORS had calculated that this would maximise accuracy when bombing visually. If more aircraft were sent the accuracy of the "excess" aircraft would be severely degraded by smoke and damage from the preceding units' attacks, and losses might be increased due to the extra time given German antiaircraft artillery to fix the range of the incoming planes. Harris bombed up to the point of diminishing returns and no further. These problems always dogged the US effort.
*Is that another statistic for the WW2 myth thread?
Reluctant Poster
Tech Sergeant
- 1,698
- Dec 6, 2006
The precipitous decline in production of synthetic fuels was in June, not May. In May the production decline was 70,000 tons (in comparison to the average monthly production for the first 4 months of 1944). In June the output dropped by a further 140,000 tonnes, by far the biggest monthly decline in the war.
The RAF deserves much of the credit for this as they conducted more raids in June and dropped more tonnage. In addition, one of the RAF raids had a disproportionate impact. In "Operation Pointblank" Steven Zaloga states:
"These reports were so encouraging that Eighth Airforce badgered RAF Bomber Command to join the attacks, and a mission on the night of June 12-13 against Gelsenkirchen-Nordstern Bergius was the most destructive of the war, accounting for the destruction of 200,000 tons of synthetic fuel and depriving the German war effort of a further 1,000 tons of aviation fuel every day for an indefinite period of time before the facility could be repaired. In fact, subsequent attacks kept it inoperative."
