1944 -You are in charge!

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delcyros

Tech Sergeant
2,068
83
Mar 2, 2005
Berlin (Kreuzberg)
Ok- let´s discuss this:

It´s early 1944 and for some strange reasons You have become in charge of the combined british and US air forces at Europe.
What would You do to shorten the war?
 
Focus on POL bombing.

Reduce POL production to as low as possible, as it should have been done.

Then switch to disruption of production and infrastrucure, while continuing to revisit and wreck repair work at POL sites.

That would be my only bone of contention with Bomber Harris's campaign.
 

I whole heartedly agree!

I would also target the marshalling yards, trying to destroy as many engines and rolling stock as possible.
 
Ok- understood. I too think that bombing of the oil refeninery infrastructure is worth the money. But then You would account for a larger number of losses.
POL as well are high level targets and by early 1944, the heart of the Luftwaffe is still intact. This would be kind of a risky manaeuvre to be taken first.

Would You change to night bombardment for reduced losses and spare most of the fighters for fighter sweep and ground support for a rapid advance?
 
delcyros said:
Would You change to night bombardment for reduced losses and spare most of the fighters for fighter sweep and ground support for a rapid advance?
Click to expand...

Keep both day and night bombing. Even if the B24 and B17 were not as effective as the Lanc, at least the Luftwaffe HAD to go after them.

Thats where the long range fighters would come in.
 
(1) Cease senseless bombing of German cities and focus soley on strategic bombing.

(2) Attempt to make contact with anti-Hitler elements of the Wehrmacht, offering assistance in his elimination.

(3) Support an anti-Nazi German military government lead by Rommel.

(4) After assuring the SS disarmament, liberation of the concentration camps, and promise of Germany to pay reparations to all invaded nations, ally with the new Germany to eliminate the Soviet Union.

Live in peace with the Cold War averted.
If only.
 
I wholeheartedly disagree; the problem first time round was that there had not been a clear military defeat of Germany, which paved the way for the following generation with their "stabbed in the back" claptrap. And we know where that took us.

Allied policy was not to negociate with Germany, and that included using German dissident organisations - which incidentally were generally such a joke that even the GeStaPo didn't bother arresting most of them. That policy was drawn up for the very reason that Germany had to be clearly and utterly defeated on the battlefield, and therefore invaded.

If Germany today is a staunch-ish ally and a bastion of democracy - I shall begin to cry in a minute - it is because Allied policy was correct, and correctly applied.

I'm not at all convinced that there is much to be changed in Bomber Command's approach to the problem. Bear in mind, while you're at it, that A: hindsight is easy, and B: people like my father, a bomber pilot in the RAF, wanted an opportunity to do to them what they had done to us, in London, Liverpool, Hull, Coventry and so on. The public as a whole needed to hear not of POL facilities getting flattened, important though that was, but of cities getting flattened - like ours, with a bit of interest. While that should not be the sole guide to good strategy, it is a part of it.

And as for getting together to go into the Soviet Union, there is NO WAY that the British people, who had been listening to "Good Old Uncle Joe" propaganda for four years while sending weapons and equipment to them - often before getting it to our own people - would have gone along with it. SIX years of war is enough for anybody.
 
Overall:

Take Harris and Spaatz out of the Chain of Command and stop area bombing as a valid tactic


RAF:

Throw in the Battle of Berlin for aviation industry and POL targets instead of the final two desultory onths of bombing;

Maintain Mosquito B Mk IX production and increase B Mk XVI production, trippling the size of the Light Night Striking Force;

Have the Spitfire Mk VIII redeployed to the ETO in 1944 = 16 squadrons of long range escort Spitfires which can reach to the German border, slowly have the Mk VII and VIII replace the Mk IX as the predominant front line fighter until switching to the Mk XIV in mid 1944;

With your new Spitfire escorts, expand the limited RAF daylight campaign against POL targets and industrial targets up to the German border. Maintain the night time industrial bombing of Germany.

Increase the RAF commitment to Point Blank by 5-10%.

USAAF:

Eliminate the side gunners on B-17s and B-24s

Initiate an earlier switch towards exclusive use of the B-17s in the ETO

Greater concentration and repetiton on industrial targets.

Wider general use of target marking and radio/electronic aids to improve accuracy, especially bombing through overcast and limited visibility conditions (greater than 40% of daytime bombing in Europe was done in reduced visibility conditions)

Use of High Capacity bombs (1000lbs and 2000lbs class with a 75% charge to weight ratio)
 
Plonker.

Hallooo, is anyone home. Apparently not.
Excusing the git occifer from the pommie Army what might have a clue.

Attack the POL, as a primary source.

Run nuisance raids, critical target raids, use fighter sweeps, co-ordination is the key.

POL is a prime target, not the only one, just a priority.

It is no time for my knackers are bigger than yours, or my bomber is better. every mission you order WILL get people killed.

Accept you are in a space where you KNOW your most effective night bombing device (H2S) has been compromised and is getting your crews killed.

Accept that until your fighters can get the range and experience your day bombers are getting stuffed.

Know that unless you knock the juice out from the enemies motors, they WILL kill your men.

Now sort your FACTS out and start again, in the beginning of 1944....

You have 6 months before the due date for invasion.

Seriously,

Strategic.....


Tactical......


The difference is simple.

Strategicaly, "I wanted to bonk her"

Tacticaly.... "I got her away from her friends"
 
ndicki said:
I wholeheartedly disagree; the problem first time round was that there had not been a clear military defeat of Germany, which paved the way for the following generation with their "stabbed in the back" claptrap. And we know where that took us.
Click to expand...

No. What lead to WW2 was the Anglo-French-American Treaty of Versailles which, devised with total lack of reality and forsight, did nothing but GUARANTEE that a second world war would have to be fought. You cannot tell a nation that is isnt allowed to have an army that can actually defend its country, tell a navy that it can only have ships that are so weak they are useless (and no submarine force), tell an airforce it cannot exist, annex vast areas of a country to other nations, and THEN tell that same country to pay reparations until it is bankrupt and continue to do so for years to come, and expect that country to become a stable democracy.

Germany is guilty for starting World War Two, the allies are guilty of ensuring that it had to happen.
 
The French were at the heart of that one - don't forget that WW1 was not the first time, but the second, that Germany had attacked France within less than 50 years. They did not want Germany to rise again. Of course, when Germany - inevitably, as you say - did, they once again failed to have the necessary guts to do anything about it.

Britain merely tagged along at Versailles.
 

It was'nt a lack of guts, it was because some of the Allied leaders in 1940 failed to understand the effectivemess of aircraft, tanks and infantry working in combination, and failed to invest in large numbers of high quality air superiority fighters, ground attack aircraft and tanks with a good balance of firepower, armour, agility and reliabity.

The military of Germany did have such tactics and equipment, so made enormous advances in 1940, which then set the stage for 5 more years of war.
 
I would focus on the destruction of facilities to reduce the output of new weapons, especially tanks and aircraft factories. I would also try to support the plot to kill Hitler creating a cantact with the german officers that planned it; so Germany would had surrended and many lives could had been saved.
Nick
 
What about R&D? Would anybody take ressources to improve one or another field or do You all put ressources in proven concepts to get the tools where they are needed most?
 
I think I would leave a couple cities standing. The Lanc would have had less to do. And maybe not trusted Stalin so much. But I guess they had no choice on the last one, did they?
 

Got nothing to do with that; if the French, being the first concerned, had reacted in 1936 when Germany re-militarized the Saarland, then it most probably would not have reached that point. The German troops had been ordered to turn round and not resist if the French Army confronted them.

Furthermore, do not make the classic mistake of over-rating the German Army, and under-rating the Allies in 1939-40; aircraft apart, the French and British had equipment which by-and-large was just as good as what the Germans had. The British Army of 1939-40 was the ONLY army in Europe to be entirely motorised, for example. The German Army NEVER achieved this.

German tanks were largely Czech-built Pz35 and Pz38 types; the majority of German-built types at the time were PzIIs. There were nowhere near as many PzIIIs and PzIVs (actually used as a support tank) as people like to think. Faced with Matilda IIs, for example, they were relatively powerless. The French also had some not bad stuff, such as the R-35 series of tanks; overall, they compare reasonably well with the German AFVs of the time.

You are right about tactics; although the British Army had come to see the sense in Basil Liddell-Hart's theories, it took the Germans to prove the point.

But as I said above, if the Allies had shown more political willpower during the late 30s, it would probably not have reached that point.
 
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