Bf-109 vs Spitfire vs Fw-190 vs P-51

[john brewer]

Are you saying strat bombing as a campaign was sucessful or unsuccessful. I hear you when you say it did not turn out as had been envisaged in the pre-war planning, but that was not the position you adopted in your earlier post. Did it have an appreciable effect on the outcome of the war. Was it worthwhile, or was it a waste of time, in your opinion?

The strategic bombing campaign had a major effect on the war in my opinion but not quite in the way the planners imagined. It was possible to flatten major cities without the enemy being demoralised, it wasnt possible to easily hit idustrial targets by day or night, massive bomb loads were required and industries managed to re locate hide and re start production. The surprise to me is that anyone was surprised at Germany they were only doing what the British did.....we spread aircraft production evacuated cities etc.
Churchill and the government were anxious that bombing may wreck moral and the will to fight it had the opposite effect in Britain so i will never understand why they thought it would work on Germany, bombing at night time especially was so innacurate that the raids on berlin frequently moved rubble from on place to another.


I acknowledge that you dont accept the opinions of the Reich armaments minister, and to a degree you may be right, however, I also think his assessments were at least partially plausible. At the time the Hamburg raids were the most devastating in history....50000 dead, with over 250000 homeless. The city did not return to any meaningful level of production for 4 months, and never returned to pre-raid levels of production ever. If only that could have been repeated in the vital Ruhr district, things may have been different. Instead, Harris committed the strategic blunder of pressing onto Berlin, a hard target if ever there was one. All this raises a question.....if you dont believe Speer, the USSBS(which reaches similar conclusions) and other sources, who then are you relying on. I would like to examine the evidence....[/QUOTE]

Hamburg was a special case for bombing...being a coastal target it was easily identified by radar from the coast outline and was easily approached over the sea so ground defence wasnt possible. I have worked in the Ruhr area (Dusseldorf/ Mulheim/Essen) they were flattened during the war but night time bombing only was capable of hitting a city Germany still managed to produce steel tanks and planes until very late in the war.
I agree that harris made a blunder in going for berlin, it was inexplicable to me because he was repeating
hitler/the luftwaffes blunder with london. maybe he thought more bombers with bigger payloads would achieve the desired effect of a surrender through strategic bombing. History showed it wasnt achieved.
I dont know what "evidence" you require Speer was wrong because the allies went on to kill many more in berlin dresden and many other cities without any of these raids bringing about a surrender......they did have a major impact though. speer didnt know that the terrain radar used on Hamburg didnt work nearly so well inland.

 

[drgondog]

Just as a matter of interest AFAIK - and I could be well wrong in this! - the 109 didn't have washout at all, as it had leading edge slats to perform the same function instead.

Kurfurst - I would respect your opinion re: Me 109 above all.

Having said that it is possible that the 109 did not have any twist but improbable that the leading edge slats alone would provide adequate compensation for some washout benefits for the ailerons.

I need to think about the 'how'.

What the slats did superbly is provide low speed boundary layer control over the wing aft of the slatted region at high angles of attack.. but offhand I am at a loss regarding whether the region outboard of the slats would stall later than the slatted area.

Theoretically the slats delay stall at increasing AoA but the leading edge outboard of the slats should experience the same AoA as an un-slatted wing.

When you have a chance see if you can verify zero twist?

 

[john brewer]

The SPECIFIC washout for the P-51A-K was 1 degree, for the P-51H it was one degree 18 minutes....the washout for the Fw 190 was 1 1/2 degrees for ~ the external 25% span, while the Mustang was continuous. I would have to take the time to look up the P-47 and the Me 109 specifics - but, candidly I don't care.

With well designed tooling it is no harder to make than for a wing with no washout...

On the other hand a wing with no washout is less stable in roll at low speeds and/or high angles of attack.

You don't listen John, nor do you absorb what you have already been told on this forum. I mentioned yesterday that all of them were in the 1 1/2 degree 'range'... and that ALL had washout as a design feature. Therfore I am wondering what you are waiting for. Look it up!

Washout tends to reduce induced drag for a non-eliptical wing as well as improve aileron control at the low speed of the airplane's performance threshold. The eliptical wing represents the lowest possible induced drag plan form, but a well designed trapezoidal wing with a goog tip/chord ratio and wing twist will approximately 1-1 1/2 degrees of twist will close the gap significantly.

From what I read the eliptical wing has the lowest drag but will stall without warning therefore the wing was designed with washout so the inner wing stalls before the outer wing giving the pilot some feel or control. The washout on the mustang was to reduce drag (as you say) I dont know how the same twist on one wing increases drag (eliptical) and on another reduces it but thats what the article Ive just read says without describing any difference in the washout they had the same design feature for different reasons.

All planes will stall eventually I just read and heard that a mustang gave little or no warning......i will try to find the articles

 

[Colin1]

However for the Japanese many preferred suicide to surrender
How many? Do we have a percentage? A ratio of soldiers vs civilians? How many wanted to, how many felt they ought to and how many were too terrified of the military to say otherwise? Or is this another ballpark statement?

and for the Americans and Allies to invade Japan would have cost millions of lives on both sides.
interesting and true but lacks coherence/relevance with the rest of your argument

Losing control of the front in the air lead to Japans surrender but that doesnt make the enola gay a front as it didnt win control, it was able to drop the bomb unhindered because of the fact though.
The Japanese still had the capacity to 'hinder'; what spared Enola Gay any unwelcome attention was the Japanese policy of neither sounding air raid alarms nor putting anything up for single aircraft incursions.

The people who died after the surrender did not have any effect on the decision to surrender
Impeccable logic but then, they wouldn't do, would they? Nobody suggested that they did, we were arguing the point over the relative long-term lethality of conventional vs nuclear

I said the military and the emperor didnt I? I wasn't there when the military discussed the situation with Hirohito, the Japanese are different to others, the military had to fight on, it was what honour demanded in their code. Whether they believed they had any chance or even wanted to was immaterial, the Emperor was a God on earth

You didn't have to be there, first-hand experience is not a premise for comprehension of events. The military were split, some WANTED to fight on. Hirohito had to intervene by casting his own vote (that's right, it came down to a show of hands) to sway the decision in favour of surrender.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Parsifal
I regard you as one of the read-up, well-informed members of the forum and I don't want to get into the wrong sort of argument with you for any reason, but:


Why?


How?

This individual walked a ragged line of rapid-fire glib statements and unsubstantiated half-truths, his response to questions on those submissions was to fire off another, unrelated volley. He still hasn't substantiated the statement he made about 10% of BoB kills going to friendly fire. What were we going to learn from him?

Several posters, most eminently more qualified than I tried to correct or substantiate on his behalf some of the mostly incoherent babble that he was coming out with, he either ignored it or failed to understand it. What was he going to learn from us?

The last straw was aiming defamatory remarks at said eminently qualified posters. At what point did you think dialog with JB was salvageable?

I wouldn't condone my own behaviour for a second but I'm finding it difficult to come up with an apology, he behaved like an ass.

The thread will not be closed, but if people can not debate in a mature manner, they will take a vacation to the beach. That goes for everyone involved. Especially if I am ignored one more time when I tell people to quit with the BS.

 

[john brewer]

The 10% figure isn't a ball park figure, its a guess, a wild guess, a wild guess based on nothing, if fact its a wild guress based on absolutely nothing. A ball park figure is an estimate based on some research or information.
The implication seems to be that because Bader was shot down by a Spitfire 10% of all losses of all airforces were Blue on Blue. A pretty amazing leap of logic that left me way behind.

Suggest you pick a unit, track its losses and than come up with a figure.

I used Bader as an example, in one action he misidentified some 109s and joined them he them got shot down and misidentified the spitfire as german (despite being in a spitfire himself) while the spitfire pilot shot down another spitfire (the same as he was flying) thinking it was a german. That is three cases in one action by very experienced pilots which until recently was claimed as 1 lost me 109 and 1 lost spitfire it was only because only one other me 109 was lost that day and accounted for that this was found out. Since the above records involving britains most celebrated fighter pilot were completely wrong which records do you want me to research then? and what would be the point such investigations only lead to pilots like Casson being deducted 1 kill and told they shot down a comrade when he was doing his best but made a mistake.

Show me a squadron record that has any mention of friendly fire that is a pilot saying" I shot down one of our own" by your own standards you must be able to find 2% (good luck on that one) and then look at the claims which on both sides overestimated by at least 100%, it is that discrepancy that provides the logic for 10% that is 10% of enemy claimed shot down and wernt were actually FF.

In another case a pilot claimed a 109 but his gun cam showed it was a 262....that is he hadnt a clue what he hit just that he hit something if it was a mustang he would have hit that too.

Almost all german pilots claimed to be shot down by spitfires which means they probably didnt see the plane at all (Bader probably didnt) if they didnt know what it was but said it was a spitfire it could just as easily been a 109

The typhoon was mistakenly involved in FF so often they painted stripes on the wings, during D Day all planes had D Day stripes due to experience in other theatres like Dieppe and Anzio you say 2% I say I read 10% and believe it.....lets leave it at that

 

[drgondog]

From what I read the eliptical wing has the lowest drag but will stall without warning therefore the wing was designed with washout so the inner wing stalls before the outer wing giving the pilot some feel or control. The washout on the mustang was to reduce drag (as you say) I dont know how the same twist on one wing increases drag (eliptical) and on another reduces it but thats what the article Ive just read says without describing any difference in the washout they had the same design feature for different reasons.

All planes will stall eventually I just read and heard that a mustang gave little or no warning......i will try to find the articles

The elliptical planform has the lowest induced drag of any wing planform - all other factors being equal. Consequently when you introduce twist to the wing with the least induced drag profile possible (Elliptical planform), you will ADD a component of inviscid drag above the optimal.

When you add twist to other wing plan form shapes (eg Trapezoidal) it 'shoves' the lift distribution 'profile' closer toward the optimum 'elliptical' Lift Distribution - There is a threshold of twist which represents the minimum Cd for that planform. For the Mustang that might be (I haven't seen the data) 1/2 degree to achieve the lowest possible drag for that wing. However, for handling purposes more twist is often added to improve handling characteristics, such as delayed stall over ailerons as the inboard wing lift distribution stalls out at high Angles of attack.

This 'extra' twist is accounted for in Cd of lift dependent drag components. There is a Planform component as well as zero lift drag due to the twist.

I am not totally interested in articles which describe "stall with little or no warning" unless an explanation is present to define the phrase. My own experience (and others with far more time than my own) is as I described it.. you get classic control buffeting input to the stick along with vibration noise - and if you pull a little harder the bottom drops out. A Mustang may take more altitude to recover than some other ships but virtually all high performance, medium to high wing loading, high torque fighters are nasty suprises when they depart.

In my personal experience the stall characteristics of a Mustang that stalls at the peak of a steep climb is nastier than the 'reefer stall'. You reach a point at the stall when the flow past the rudder and ailerons 'goes' and you get a huge torque roll that you can no longer control with rudder or ailerons - then it is 'katy bar the door'.

I have never flown any of the other warbirds other than AT-6 but I imagine that the 109 and 190 had similar nasty characteristics... I have heard from several pilots that have flown the 190 (including my father) that the 190 was another bird that had viscious stall characteristics when it departed.




"Stall without warning" is an elusive phrase.

 

[john brewer]

You didn't have to be there, first-hand experience is not a premise for comprehension of events. The military were split, some WANTED to fight on. Hirohito had to intervene by casting his own vote (that's right, it came down to a show of hands) to sway the decision in favour of surrender.

Didnt I say the military and the emperor?...........you say there was a show of hands but that I was wrong to say the military and the emperor if only the emperor wanted to stop he would have lost his show of hands but previously you said I was wrong.

Some in the military were unconcerned about losses (death was honourable) and they thought by causing massive losses to the allies they could get a contitional (honourable) halt to fighting as opposed to an unconditional ( dishonourable) surrender.

 

[parsifal]

what I am saying is that for (for example) both sides claimed approximately 2 times the kills they actually made so they wernt sure of what they hit or missed. In the case of hitting a target the pilot automatically claims a kill even though it was FF (this happened with Sailor Malan) Sim ilarly all evidence now points to Bader being shot down by a spitfire, the spitfire claimed a 109 and Bader himself said he was shot down by a German. Similarly two planes attacking a bomber and colliding would be claimed as two kills by the bomber

There is no consistency in the extent of overclaiming, it varied wildly. There is a thread I have been involved with, concerning the Zero versus the Spitfire in the pacific. In that thread we discussed the heavy Spitfire losses over Darwin. The Allied claims for Zeroes shot down over a three month period was something like 28.....they actuallly shot down four. Conversely, the british victory claims over France in 1941 were only about 60% over actual losses. And many of those battles were fought at night, or over enemy territory. There just isnt any trend in the way that losses are exaggerated.

With regard to FF, I can see what you are saying, but this is a long way fom proving the point. As I said, I have the details of every action stretching from February to July 1941 looking at the returns for each unit involved, drawn up by the daily loss sheets from both sides. This has to be THE way to check for loss by cause. As Glider says, you would need to look at the loss records for a unit to find a pattern of error in the contemporary records. It would be, in my opinion, impossible to prove that losses to FF incidents are five times those that are actually recorded. I cannot claim that FF incidents across the board are a uniform 2%, but then you cannot claim it was 10%, or even near it, based on the research you have done. You have taken a couple of isolated incidents, (which are recorded incidentally), and then extrapolated that by some obscure means to arrive at a figure you consider to be reasonable. No-one else, here, or anywhere, shares that view of reasonableness. You either must abandon the claim, put up with these endless demolitions of the position, or undertake more research.

At the time of the battle people were only interested in kills and losses friendly fire wasnt much talked about unless it was chronic like ack ack batteries shooting at everything. In the melee of a battle pilots crossed others paths and got hit missidentified friend and foe it was chaos. Malan was cleared at the court martial, he probably wouldnt have been cleared if he reported that he shot down a hurricane, no one would ever admit to a friendly fire kill even iff they knew they had done it.

What are your sources for claiming it was not much talked about,, in the squadron loss sheets, at least for the allies, where an FF was known to occur, it was recorded, and investigated. Hiding an FF incident was an offense punishable by courts martial, admitting it would only get a pilot into trouble if he was found to have done it deliberately, and that happens almost never. In the absence of any well documented figures, I cannot see how this figure of 10% can be maintained, when what records we do have show a far lower figure.

My experience is post war, but all the pilots I have ever worked with were always very concerned about IFF, whether such identification was by electronic means or by simply eyeballing the target. Shooting down a colleague is not something any pilot wants to do, and the psychological imperative to establish whether the target is a friendly or not was always very strong ihn my experience. Cowboy style attacks were certainly not tolerated in my experience, and I am willing to bet they werent tolerated under wartime conditions either. I am sure FF happened, but not nearly as often as you think they do.

The figure of 10% is a ball park, no one knows for sure or will ever know, it has more to do with the psychology of pilots under battle conditions. The main factor in identification seems to have been not what a plane looks like but where it is coming from or going too. A twin engined plane heading from france was seen as enemy when it could be RAF, a single seat fighter climbing towards a bomber formation was seen as a friend when it could be a 109. It was only at very close quarters that actual visual recognition played a part.

See my comments above. I have some actual experience with witnessing pilot psychology, although not wartime , and I think your theorisations are incorrect. I think most pilots, other than sheer rookies, are very careful to minimise the risks of FF. Not all interceptions , especially those at night during the war were visual, the latter part of the war, aircraft caried IFF devices, and the whole concept of the "bomber stream" was implemented to avoid FF incidents at night

 

[john brewer]

The thread will not be closed, but if people can not debate in a mature manner, they will take a vacation to the beach. That goes for everyone involved. Especially if I am ignored one more time when I tell people to quit with the BS.

Appologies Adler

I got extremely angry at some posts such as these which accused me of insulting the men in the battle of britain and other theatres i considered it extremely cheap and underhand especially as I had two uncles in bomber command in 1940.


You paint a picture of exhausted frightened out of their wits nimrods blazing away at anything that moves, which IMO is insulting to the men who fought there.

 

[Milosh]

I used Bader as an example, in one action he misidentified some 109s and joined them he them got shot down and misidentified the spitfire as german (despite being in a spitfire himself) while the spitfire pilot shot down another spitfire (the same as he was flying) thinking it was a german. That is three cases in one action by very experienced pilots which until recently was claimed as 1 lost me 109 and 1 lost spitfire it was only because only one other me 109 was lost that day and accounted for that this was found out. Since the above records involving britains most celebrated fighter pilot were completely wrong which records do you want me to research then? and what would be the point such investigations only lead to pilots like Casson being deducted 1 kill and told they shot down a comrade when he was doing his best but made a mistake.

Just after Bader's section of four aircraft crossed the coast, 12 Bf 109s were spotted flying in formation approximately 2–3,000 feet below them travelling in the same direction. Bader dived on them too fast and too steeply to be able to aim and fire his guns, and barely avoided colliding with one of them while continuing his dive. He levelled out at 24,000 ft, pulled himself together, and on taking a look around discovered he was now alone in the sky. Separated from his section, he was considering whether to return home when he noticed three pairs of Bf 109s a couple of miles in front of him. Bader dropped down below them and closed up before dispatching one of them with a short burst of fire from close range. He was just opening fire on a second Bf 109 when he noticed the two on his left turning towards him. At this point he decided it would be better to return home and made the fatal mistake of banking away from them, and towards the two on his right that were continuing straight ahead. In the following moments Bader lost the tail of his Spitfire, and was forced to bail out over Le Touquet in German-occupied France where he was taken prisoner.

Bader had no trouble IDing the 109s.

 

[john brewer]

what I am saying is that for (for example) both sides claimed approximately 2 times the kills they actually made so they wernt sure of what they hit or missed. In the case of hitting a target the pilot automatically claims a kill even though it was FF (this happened with Sailor Malan) Sim ilarly all evidence now points to Bader being shot down by a spitfire, the spitfire claimed a 109 and Bader himself said he was shot down by a German. Similarly two planes attacking a bomber and colliding would be claimed as two kills by the bomber

There is no consistency in the extent of overclaiming, it varied wildly. There is a thread I have been involved with, concerning the Zero versus the Spitfire in the pacific. In that thread we discussed the heavy Spitfire losses over Darwin. The Allied claims for Zeroes shot down over a three month period was something like 28.....they actuallly shot down four. Conversely, the british victory claims over France in 1941 were only about 60% over actual losses. And many of those battles were fought at night, or over enemy territory. There just isnt any trend in the way that losses are exaggerated.

With regard to FF, I can see what you are saying, but this is a long way fom proving the point. As I said, I have the details of every action stretching from February to July 1941 looking at the returns for each unit involved, drawn up by the daily loss sheets from both sides. This has to be THE way to check for loss by cause. As Glider says, you would need to look at the loss records for a unit to find a pattern of error in the contemporary records. It would be, in my opinion, impossible to prove that losses to FF incidents are five times those that are actually recorded. I cannot claim that FF incidents across the board are a uniform 2%, but then you cannot claim it was 10%, or even near it, based on the research you have done. You have taken a couple of isolated incidents, (which are recorded incidentally), and then extrapolated that by some obscure means to arrive at a figure you consider to be reasonable. No-one else, here, or anywhere, shares that view of reasonableness. You either must abandon the claim, put up with these endless demolitions of the position, or undertake more research.

At the time of the battle people were only interested in kills and losses friendly fire wasnt much talked about unless it was chronic like ack ack batteries shooting at everything. In the melee of a battle pilots crossed others paths and got hit missidentified friend and foe it was chaos. Malan was cleared at the court martial, he probably wouldnt have been cleared if he reported that he shot down a hurricane, no one would ever admit to a friendly fire kill even iff they knew they had done it.

What are your sources for claiming it was not much talked about,, in the squadron loss sheets, at least for the allies, where an FF was known to occur, it was recorded, and investigated. Hiding an FF incident was an offense punishable by courts martial, admitting it would only get a pilot into trouble if he was found to have done it deliberately, and that happens almost never. In the absence of any well documented figures, I cannot see how this figure of 10% can be maintained, when what records we do have show a far lower figure.

My experience is post war, but all the pilots I have ever worked with were always very concerned about IFF, whether such identification was by electronic means or by simply eyeballing the target. Shooting down a colleague is not something any pilot wants to do, and the psychological imperative to establish whether the target is a friendly or not was always very strong ihn my experience. Cowboy style attacks were certainly not tolerated in my experience, and I am willing to bet they werent tolerated under wartime conditions either. I am sure FF happened, but not nearly as often as you think they do.

The figure of 10% is a ball park, no one knows for sure or will ever know, it has more to do with the psychology of pilots under battle conditions. The main factor in identification seems to have been not what a plane looks like but where it is coming from or going too. A twin engined plane heading from france was seen as enemy when it could be RAF, a single seat fighter climbing towards a bomber formation was seen as a friend when it could be a 109. It was only at very close quarters that actual visual recognition played a part.

See my comments above. I have some actual experience with witnessing pilot psychology, although not wartime , and I think your theorisations are incorrect. I think most pilots, other than sheer rookies, are very careful to minimise the risks of FF. Not all interceptions , especially those at night during the war were visual, the latter part of the war, aircraft caried IFF devices, and the whole concept of the "bomber stream" was implemented to avoid FF incidents at night

we can agree to disagree without need for "demolition of positions" even with todays technology we still have FF in the air and on the ground.

 

[john brewer]

Just after Bader's section of four aircraft crossed the coast, 12 Bf 109s were spotted flying in formation approximately 2–3,000 feet below them travelling in the same direction. Bader dived on them too fast and too steeply to be able to aim and fire his guns, and barely avoided colliding with one of them while continuing his dive. He levelled out at 24,000 ft, pulled himself together, and on taking a look around discovered he was now alone in the sky. Separated from his section, he was considering whether to return home when he noticed three pairs of Bf 109s a couple of miles in front of him. Bader dropped down below them and closed up before dispatching one of them with a short burst of fire from close range. He was just opening fire on a second Bf 109 when he noticed the two on his left turning towards him. At this point he decided it would be better to return home and made the fatal mistake of banking away from them, and towards the two on his right that were continuing straight ahead. In the following moments Bader lost the tail of his Spitfire, and was forced to bail out over Le Touquet in German-occupied France where he was taken prisoner.

Bader had no trouble IDing the 109s.

I was quoting from
Douglas Bader
opens a whole new can of worms

 

[Colin1]

The Typhoon was mistakenly involved in FF so often they painted stripes on the wings, during D Day all planes had D Day stripes due to experience in other theatres like Dieppe and Anzio you say 2% I say I read 10% and believe it.....lets leave it at that

First fronts and now theatres
So Dieppe was in a different theatre to the D Day landings?

You can leave it where you like but I doubt you'll get any concensus on the 10% figure just because you read it somewhere and believe it. We'd like to see a conscientious attempt to validate your figures with a breakdown of unit losses.

 

[john brewer]

You didn't have to be there, first-hand experience is not a premise for comprehension of events. The military were split, some WANTED to fight on. Hirohito had to intervene by casting his own vote (that's right, it came down to a show of hands) to sway the decision in favour of surrender.

"How many? Do we have a percentage? A ratio of soldiers vs civilians? How many wanted to, how many felt they ought to and how many were too terrified of the military to say otherwise? Or is this another ballpark statement?"

From the attack on Iwo Jima of the 22,785 Japanese soldiers entrenched on the island, 21,570 died either from fighting or by ritual suicide. Only 216 were captured during the battle. The Allies suffered 6,821 deaths out of 26,038 total casualties. The number of American casualties was greater than the total Allied casualties on D-Day (estimated at 10,000, with 125,847 American casualties during the entire Operation Overlord). Perhaps you would like to calculate the percentage and extrapolate for an invasion of Japan?
The reasons why they fought to the death or committed suicide is immaterial the fact is they did. iff 22000 japanes can kill 6800 and injure 26000 then an invasion of Japan on the same terms would run to millions.

"and for the Americans and Allies to invade Japan would have cost millions of lives on both sides.
interesting and true but lacks coherence/relevance with the rest of your argument"

Of course losing a few million is irrelevant and incoherant.......are you kidding me?


"we were arguing the point over the relative long-term lethality of conventional vs nuclear"

No Colin you were arguing for the sake of it, The nuclear bomb didnt bring about surrender because of the number of people killed more died in Tokyo no one knew what the long term effects would be even on the bomb project itself. The nuclear bombs brought about surrender because it was a new type of weapon which Japan couldnt defend even the emperor wasnt safe from and showed America didnt need to invade.

 

[parsifal]

The strategic bombing campaign had a major effect on the war in my opinion but not quite in the way the planners imagined. It was possible to flatten major cities without the enemy being demoralised, it wasnt possible to easily hit idustrial targets by day or night, massive bomb loads were required and industries managed to re locate hide and re start production. The surprise to me is that anyone was surprised at Germany they were only doing what the British did.....we spread aircraft production evacuated cities etc.
Churchill and the government were anxious that bombing may wreck moral and the will to fight it had the opposite effect in Britain so i will never understand why they thought it would work on Germany, bombing at night time especially was so innacurate that the raids on berlin frequently moved rubble from on place to another.

It was unlikley that flattening a city would cause a collapse in morale on a nationwide scale, but it could seriously affect morale at alocalised level, and in fact there are a number of occasions, both allied and axis where this can be amply demonstrated. I can think of occasions where it actually worked.... Rotterdam and warsaw are two examples. The French concerns about German retaliation if the Britsh used French bases to bomb the Ruhr are another. The bombing of the Italian controlled Island of Pantelleria, and at Amba Alagi, to name the more well known. The US Heavy bomber attacks at St Lo and the tactical strikes at Falaise esstially shattered the defenders, and very often caused the individual surrender of the german defenders (a tactical strike admittedly in this case) On several occasion in the BoB the british populationshowed signs of cracking under pressure, though this is not apparent in the post war accounts. And as far as i am aware, BC never said that they could achieve the surrender of germany by bombing alone, or that their would be a national level of morale collapse. they simply thought they could achieve a collapse in marale....I think they were referring to local morale, and not national morale

But even in the context of what bombing really can do, this discussion about how the British were concerned about only breaking enemy morale is taken do out of context. Read Harris' actual reports to the government, and a different picture of what actually was being said emerges. BC was not saying we will break morale. It was more the case they were saying"we will bomb them until either their morale cracks, or we level each and every city in Germany". They essentially made good on the threat. The Germans did not crack, so BC levelled over a hundred major cities and towns in occupied europe. The actual impacts of setting fire to cities over HE on industrial targets has never been fully analysed, except by the USSBS, which as I said estimates the effect on production outputs as 40%. Thats consistent with what the germans thought they could produce, and what they actually produced. Then ther are all those other effects that I spoke of previously


Hamburg was a special case for bombing...being a coastal target it was easily identified by radar from the coast outline and was easily approached over the sea so ground defence wasnt possible. I have worked in the Ruhr area (Dusseldorf/ Mulheim/Essen) they were flattened during the war but night time bombing only was capable of hitting a city Germany still managed to produce steel tanks and planes until very late in the war.

When you are referring to Hamburg being easily identified by radar, thats true, but radar, in the form of H2S was only one navigation aid, and in fact the least accurate of the electronic means, of finding a target at night. Far more accurate, more accurate than the US visual bombsights was the GCI based "OBOE" systems and their derivatives. The problem with OBOE, until mid 1944, was its range, and therein lies Harris' mistake. By targetting Berlin, he was not only attacking into the teeth of the toughest defences in Germany, he was also operating beyond the range of OBOE, and thereby significantly decreasing the accuracy of the bombers.

Hamburg was a special case because it was the most effective raid, and also because the Reich defences werere defeated by the use of window for the first time. However, it was emulated across western germany and europe in many cities. To try and argue that city after city was not levelled as a result of BC bombing is simply untrue. Cologne for example after being attacked in 1942 was essentially out of action as a production centre for three months after the first 1000 bomber raid. Its true that Night bombing was only capable of hitting the city, but the british got around that by setting fire to the city, and using massive concentrations of bombers to overpower the defences. The British became extremely adept at mixing their bombloads....a mix of delayed action fuses, incendiary cookies, very heavy HE bombs, and antipersonnel bombs. By far the greates majority of the 1 million civilian casualties suffered by Germany in my opinion were at the hands of this instrument. It would often take days or weeks to render the rubble safe, and get the terrified populace out of their bomb shelters, and then weeks or months to get the city back on its feet again. Whilst production might get under way again, bombing did have an effect on output rates. Just how much, I cannot say, but I am willing to stake my reputation that it was a significant impact

I agree that harris made a blunder in going for berlin, it was inexplicable to me because he was repeating
hitler/the luftwaffes blunder with london. maybe he thought more bombers with bigger payloads would achieve the desired effect of a surrender through strategic bombing. History showed it wasnt achieved.
I dont know what "evidence" you require Speer was wrong because the allies went on to kill many more in berlin dresden and many other cities without any of these raids bringing about a surrender......they did have a major impact though. speer didnt know that the terrain radar used on Hamburg didnt work nearly so well inland.

See my comments above, but agin whilst surrender was the ultimate prize, it was not the only prize, or indeed the realistic objective of that campaign. Berlin was targetted for a number of reasons, including the unhinging of the Nazi seat of government and to force the attrition of Nazi Night fighters (Nazi losses were grossly over-estimated) . My view is that it was a mistake, because it was an attack into the teeth of the toughest opposition in Germany at the time, with a multiplying effect that each bomber committed was achieving proportionately less than if the focal point had remained around the rhine

 

[john brewer]

First fronts and now theatres
So Dieppe was in a different theatre to the D Day landings?

You can leave it where you like but I doubt you'll get any concensus on the 10% figure just because you read it somewhere and believe it. We'd like to see a conscientious attempt to validate your figures with a breakdown of unit losses.

Colin

Dieppe is not in Normandy in geography or time (referring to the Dieppe raid) call it a front a theatre a battle a landing a conflict a skirmish a debacle ar whatever you like it was a learning experience one of which was friendly fire. Dieppe may be close to Normandy but it is a port...the dieppe raid showed that capturing a port which was desirable involved so much fighting that the port was no longer any use at all. That was a major factor in Normandy being chosen so I wouldnt say Normandy and Dieppe were the same theatre at all ....just close on a map

....I didnt realise I was running for election and had to get any concensus at all. Who is the royal "we" you refer to. you are patronising and facetious and quite clearly playing to a crowd as adler said please stop it I have tried to.

 

[Colin1]

Of course losing a few million is irrelevant and incoherant.......are you kidding me?
You have consistently demonstrated that you are not clever enough to be this slippery, we were not debating the imminent invasion of the Japanese mainland by US ground forces

The nuclear bomb didnt bring about surrender because of the number of people killed
Oh, I think you'll find that played a BIG part in it

The nuclear bombs brought about surrender because it was a new type of weapon

Novelty had nothing to do with it, the impact of a deployed nuclear weapon had everything to do with it

 

[Colin1]

Dieppe may be close to Normandy but it is...
...in the same theatre of operations

I wouldn't say Normandy and Dieppe were the same theatre at all ....just close on a map
Just close on a map? Do the letters E-T-O mean anything to you?

....I didnt realise I was running for election and had to get any concensus at all. Who is the royal "we" you refer to. you are patronising and facetious and quite clearly playing to a crowd as adler said please stop it I have tried to.

Once again read the thread and make a mental note of all the incredulous posts regarding most of your claims, that's the 'we' I'm referring to. This 'crowd' you allude to, who do you think they're here to see - me or you?

 

[john brewer]

The strategic bombing campaign had a major effect on the war in my opinion but not quite in the way the planners imagined. It was possible to flatten major cities without the enemy being demoralised, it wasnt possible to easily hit idustrial targets by day or night, massive bomb loads were required and industries managed to re locate hide and re start production. The surprise to me is that anyone was surprised at Germany they were only doing what the British did.....we spread aircraft production evacuated cities etc.
Churchill and the government were anxious that bombing may wreck moral and the will to fight it had the opposite effect in Britain so i will never understand why they thought it would work on Germany, bombing at night time especially was so innacurate that the raids on berlin frequently moved rubble from on place to another.

It was unlikley that flattening a city would cause a collapse inmorale, though there are a number of occasions, both allied and axis where it came close to achieving just that. I can think of occasions where it actually worked.... Rotterdam and warsaw are two examples. The French concerns about German retaliation if the Britsh used French bases to bomb the Ruhr are another. The bombing of the Italian controlled Island of Pantelleria, and at Amba Alagi, to name the more well known. The US Heavy bomber attacks at St Lo and the tactical strikes at Falaise esstially shattered the defenders, and very often caused the individual surrender of the german defenders (a tactical strike admittedly in this case) On several occasion in the BoB the british populationshowed signs of cracking under pressure, though this is not apparent in the post war accounts.

But even in the context of what bombing really can do, this discussion about how the British were concerned about only breaking enemy morale is taken do out of context. Read Harris' actual reports to the government, and a different picture of what actually was being said emerges. BC was not saying we will break morale. It was more the case they were saying"we will bomb them until either their morale cracks, or we level each and every city in Germany". They essentially made good on the threat. The Germans did not crack, so BC levelled over a hundred major cities and towns in occupied europe. The actual impacts of setting fire to cities over HE on industrial targets has never been fully analysed, except by the USSBS, which as I said estimates the effect on production outputs as 40%. Thats consistent with what the germans thought they could produce, and what they actually produced. Then ther are all those other effects that I spoke of previously


Hamburg was a special case for bombing...being a coastal target it was easily identified by radar from the coast outline and was easily approached over the sea so ground defence wasnt possible. I have worked in the Ruhr area (Dusseldorf/ Mulheim/Essen) they were flattened during the war but night time bombing only was capable of hitting a city Germany still managed to produce steel tanks and planes until very late in the war.

When you are referring to Hamburg being easily identified by radar, thats true, but radar, in the form of H2S was only one navigation aid, and in fact the least accurate of the electronic means, of finding a target at night. Far more accurate, more accurate than the US visual bombsights was the GCI based "OBOE" systems and their derivatives. The problem with OBOE, until mid 1944, was its range, and therein lies Harris' mistake. By targetting Berlin, he was not only attacking into the teeth of the toughest defences in Germany, he was also operating beyond the range of OBOE, and thereby significantly decreasing the accuracy of the bombers.

Hamburg was a special case because it was the most effective raid, and also because the Reich defences werere defeated by the use of window for the first time. However, it was emulated across western germany and europe in many cities. To try and argue that city after city was not levelled as a result of BC bombing is simply untrue. Cologne for example after being attacked in 1942 was essentially out of action as a production centre for three months after the first 1000 bomber raid. Its true that Night bombing was only capable of hitting the city, but the british got around that by setting fire to the city, and using massive concentrations of bombers to overpower the defences. The British became extremely adept at mixing their bombloads....a mix of delayed action fuses, incendiary cookies, very heavy HE bombs, and antipersonnel bombs. By far the greates majority of the 1 million civilian casualties suffered by Germany in my opinion were at the hands of this instrument. It would often take days or weeks to render the rubble safe, and get the terrified populace out of their bomb shelters, and then weeks or months to get the city back on its feet again. Whilst production might get under way again, bombing did have an effect on output rates. Just how much, I cannot say, but I am willing to stake my reputation that it was a significant impact

I agree that harris made a blunder in going for berlin, it was inexplicable to me because he was repeating
hitler/the luftwaffes blunder with london. maybe he thought more bombers with bigger payloads would achieve the desired effect of a surrender through strategic bombing. History showed it wasnt achieved.
I dont know what "evidence" you require Speer was wrong because the allies went on to kill many more in berlin dresden and many other cities without any of these raids bringing about a surrender......they did have a major impact though. speer didnt know that the terrain radar used on Hamburg didnt work nearly so well inland.

See my comments above, but agin whilst surrender was the ultimate prize, it was not the only prize, or indeed the realistic objective of that campaign. Berlin was targetted for a number of reasons, including the unhinging of the Nazi seat of government and to force the attrition of Nazi Night fighters (Nazi losses were grossly over-estimated) . My view is that it was a mistake, because it was an attack into the teeth of the toughest opposition in Germany at the time, with a multiplying effect that each bomber committed was achieving proportionately less than if the focal point had remained around the rhine

I dont disagree with one word of what you have posted. I was stating the difference between the theory and planning and the results. I suppose morale and resistance depends on hope rotterdam and warsaw had no hope and so capitualted, the Germans were knocking on the door with overwhelming strength anyway. I have visited Cologne and after the bombing only the Cathedral was standing ( you can still buy post cards of the aftermath). I was making the point that it took many more bombs and bombers and involved many more casualties than anyone dreamed and didnt achieve what was thought possible surrender through bombing alone. The impact was huge and draining not only in losses but also in defending against it.

PS please dont mention falaise as we may get onto friendly fire again