original poster, T. Williams
Professor Richard Overy is one of the foremost historians of WW2 and this was the full conclusion of a lecture about the Allied bombing campaign he gave recently:
"Bombing: The Balance Sheet
The effects of the bombing campaign went far beyond the mere physical destruction of factories and dwelling-houses, although these effects should not be underestimated in a complex and technically sophisticated industrial economy stretched taut by the demands of war. The bombing produced serious social dislocation and a high cost in terms of man-hours (or woman-hours in many cases). Evacuation, rehabilitation and welfare provision were carried out on the largest scale in an economy struggling with serious manpower losses and cuts in civilian production. Bombing also encouraged a strategic response from Hitler which placed a further strain on the war economy by diverting vast resources to projects of little advantage to the German war effort.
The net effect of the many ways in which bombing directly or indirectly impeded economic mobilisation cannot be calculated precisely. But in the absence of physical destruction and dislocation, vvithout expensive programmes for secret weapons and underground production and without the diversion of four-fifths of the fighter force, one-third of all guns and one-fifth of all ammunition to the anti-bombing war the German armed forces could have been supplied with at least 50% more equipment in the last two years of war, perhaps much more. In an environment entirely free of bomb attack the German authorities and German industrial managers would have had the opportunity to exploit Germany's resource-rich empire in Europe to the full. In 1942 the air force had begun to plan the production of 7000 aircraft a month, yet at the peak in 1944 a little over 3000 were produced, of which one-quarter were destroyed before even reaching the front-line.
Bombing took the strategic initiative away from German forces, and compelled Germany to divert an ever-increasing share of its manpower and resources away from production for the battlefield. As it was, German forces proved a formidable barrier to the end of the war. With more men, more heavily armed, an intact transport system and an uninterrupted flow of industrial resources Germany might well have kept the Allies at bay in 1945. Then the Allies would have faced the agonising decision about whether or not to drop atomic weapons on German cities rather than on Hiroshima and Nagasaki."