Bomber offensive vs. Gemany: you are in charge

[FLYBOYJ]

You are clearly wrong about that opinion! You should have said a resounding YES! When you fight modern war, the civilian population that powers the war machine is a valid target. The answer to carpet bombing civilians is that they are not really civilians, they are accessories before the fact in legal terms. If they had stopped Hitler before he started the war, they would not be targets afterwards!

Civilization faces the same question today! Islam is the source of the vast majority of all suffering and premature death in the world today! ( And for the last 1400 years!) If we really wanted to reduce the total suffering and premature death in the world we should threaten and then NUC Mecca if they choose not to clean up their own mess!

Pal, you better start behaving yourself and backing up your BS with some factual references or your life span around here is going to be VERY short. So far your gibberish is on the same scale as the last dump I took so this is your time to turn your attitude around and either participate accordingly or enjoy a quick trip into cyberspace. I hope I am abundantly clear!!!!!

 

[wuzak]

From what I know Mosquitos cruised at 240

There were different cruise settings, but most Mosquitos could cruise at over 300mph.

 

[mhuxt]

There were different cruise settings, but most Mosquitos could cruise at over 300mph.

Account of fuelled-up USAAF Mustangs not being able to keep up with a fuelled-up USAAF Mossie is here:

German Jet Encounters

 

[tyrodtom]

The Germans kept track of how their planes were shot down. They assumed that bullet holes in the front came from a bomber's deffencive guns and those with holes from the back were downed by fighters. The bomber gunners "Claimed" they shot down over 28,000 Nazi planes, But German records show that it was closer to 10-11,000, IIRC! The vast majority, 2/3rds, by B-17s!

A shot down fighter is nothing but a smoking hole in the ground, there is no front or rear. If the pilot survives, or he gets off a message before impact, they might know what brought him down.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Shooter needs to can his attitude. He should go and start his own forum, since he wants to be banned from every forum he plays in. He is about to make this his next one.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Shooter - you have come on this forum like a drunken cowboy stumbling out of a saloon. Be advised that many of our members have spent many years studying, maintaining, building and even designing aircraft. You are not dealing with a bunch of new-bees or kids so if you're going to come on here and spew baseless claims and comments, be prepared to be challenged by members who will back up their claims with documented and verifiable facts. If you want to throw insults around, you're dealing with the best and I guarantee you will not win. Heed the warning, pull you're head out of your @ss and conform or say good-bye.

BTW and for the record - many of us are former military. IMO anyone who "advertises" that they are a former spook is either an idiot, full of sh!t or delusional.

 

[Glider]

Account of fuelled-up USAAF Mustangs not being able to keep up with a fuelled-up USAAF Mossie is here:

German Jet Encounters

The RAF also had this problem. Mosquitos were often escorted by Mustangs but on the really long range missions there were times when Mosquitos were escorted by Fighter Mosquito's

 

[bbear]

Newbie effort in reply to original question (mostly off the TV and internet - just sanity checking):

What i would do? Don't attempt strategic bombing as a single route to victory by demoralisation. Don't bomb unescorted. Dont bomb by day. Don't attack targets simply because they are heavily defended. Don't let politicians take operational decisions or select targets. Don't go anywhere near a high attrition rate (above the 2% per missioin that was inevitable in those days)

Do train extensively for interdiction, close tactical support, night flying. Do go after U boats and pens with everything you can spare until May 1943. Do attack coastal shipping from Norway to the spanish border whenever you can. Do support the Archangel convoys.

Do build up your forces for as long as it takes to have enough numbers to overwhelm the enemy. As and when you are ready to attack deep into Germany, do keep analysing and looking for intelligence on the effect of bombing different targets. Do perfect and practice pathfinder, master bomber and bomber stream coordination for the larger raids. Do use intelligence to strike where important targets are weakly defended.

That's my 99% answer: don't do anything we now know was dumb. Trust each other. Integrate the bomber effort with the total Allied strategy. Use the tools you've got.

Personal obsessions:
Do practice bombing with TIs and Norden sight from maximum height and speed consistent with accuracy. Accept low levels of individual accuracy - if the target is in the destroyed area 2km wide- good enough. Do look for ways to habitually attack far and wide and move aircraft, spares, command and ground crews from one front to another quickly, to disperse the enemy defences. Do attack USAF and BC together on different targets but the same time to overwhelm area defences for big raids.

Pure fantasy/prejudice of a novice
Only use main force bombers that can maintain the same (stream air speed) highest possible fraction of the speed of the defending night fighters at a height where flak is a minimal problem. Take out defences and armour from the B17s and Lancs as necessary. Bomb with a minimal load even, but keep height and speed factors uppermost. These are the best defences. Build as many Mosquito's as possible so pathfinding, target marking, night bomber escort, radar carrying, information sifting and control of the target area are made easier. That is : build a rudimentary Airborne Warfare Control System function in this way.

Oh, and don't apply moralistic judgement to the decisions of commanders who were working under conditiions of pressure and uncertainty we cannot dream of.

 

[TheMustangRider]

Interesting summary bbear.
If I'm allowed I'd like to make a couple of points regarding some of them.

-Not using aerial bombardment as means of civilian demoralization while not bombing by day is IMO a tough task to accomplish given the rudimentary technology available during WWII (specially early in the war) to pursue night-time bombardment of industrial targets without devastating the urban areas in which they were located.
-Going after U-boat pens is exactly what the 8th AF did during its initial phase of operations over Nazi-occupied Europe without much impact to the German U-boat campaign in the Battle of the Atlantic and causing the AAF escalating losses.
-Integrating the Allied effort with commanders that had vastly different views of strategic air power applications was a very difficult challenge to overcome and IMHO one that consistently pursued throughout the combined Allied strategic campaign.
-Taking defenses (defensive machine guns?) and armor away from heavy bombers would have been seen as suicidal to bomber crews as their light-loaded Libs, Forts or Lancs would not have been able to outrun single or twin engine LW fighters.

 

[tomo pauk]

-Going after U-boat pens is exactly what the 8th AF did during its initial phase of operations over Nazi-occupied Europe without much impact to the German U-boat campaign in the Battle of the Atlantic and causing the AAF escalating losses.

Care to elaborate the bolded part?

...
Dont bomb by day.
...
Oh, and don't apply moralistic judgement to the decisions of commanders who were working under conditiions of pressure and uncertainty we cannot dream of.

Hi, bbear,
Many agreeable points in your post.
Could you please explain why there would not be the day bombing? And elaborate a bit about the last commentary?

 

[VBF-13]

Could you please explain why there would not be the day bombing?

I was kind of wondering that, too, as, from perhaps the broadest of strategic perspectives, what those missions accomplished for us was, they kept the Germans, and, in particular, the Luftwaffe, tied up, literally, day and night. This was no Quinn-Martin Production. That is to say, those missions came at a very great sacrifice. But, think if they weren't there. Britain, I'd think, would have been pounded a lot harder. In other words, there was a defensive component incorporated in that strategy, as well, which contemplated that around-the-clock bombing.

 

[drgondog]

Yes this is true, but also irrealivant! Just because the Nazis chose to send half to a dozen single engined fighters to look for Mossies with little support, what do you think would happen if there were no heavies to chase? RIGHT!

Is taht you NeoConShooter? This group of Admins will snuff you out in a heartbeat...

 

[drgondog]

From what I have seen, he uses the red font on many forums. Most of those forums he is not very well liked. Shooter2000...

Chris - on the two forums I have seen him bounced from the Admins were overly tolerant. I predict a short life cycle here...

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Chris - on the two forums I have seen him bounced from the Admins were overly tolerant. I predict a short life cycle here...

He has not been active since May. I think he took the hint that we will not tolerate his behavior here.

 

[gjs238]

The ETO Strategic Bombing Campaign was another Front in the War.
I think it was Parsifal who wrote of the economic feasibility of the bombing campaign, i.e., it was cost effective.
Overall, the Germans expended much more treasure in the Defense of the Reich than the Allies expended on their end.

 

[Tante Ju]

I think it was Parsifal who wrote of the economic feasibility of the bombing campaign, i.e., it was cost effective.
Overall, the Germans expended much more treasure in the Defense of the Reich than the Allies expended on their end.

It's extremely hard to believe and goes against pretty much all the established facts..

 

[fastmongrel]

It's extremely hard to believe and goes against pretty much all the established facts..

It has been established by economists that the UK spent 12% of its war budget on Bomber Command. I dont know the figures for the USAAF 8th but as a % it would probably given the size of the US war budget be a lot less. Does anyone have any genuine ie not Luft46 type figures for the German defensive and repair effort as a % of the war budget.

 

[gjs238]

This is from the "Target Schweinfurt" thread
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/target-schweinfurt-34434.html

I agree that choke points are overrated, but I dont agree at all that the WWII strategic bombing campaign did not profoundly affect Axis production. Even if you wish to discount the the effects of the bombing itself (which I dont...i think it affected german production capabilities greatly in itself), the Germans were spending well over 50% of their military budgets on air defence and civil defence by 1944, and had sucked out well over 2 million personnel either directly or indirectly in their attempts to counter the Allied bombers. For the RAF, this effect came at a cost of 12% of their military budget. Thats an excellent investment.

Then we have to factor in the effects of the bombing itself. There is a sharp wide difference of opinion on that score, but the USSBS and the post war British equivalent (the name escapes me, but I have read it), both estimate German production was affected/downgraded by up to 50% by the middle of 1944. There was no magic bullet, although targetting the oil industry comes close, and the allied effort came at a steep cost. it was an even steeper cost (and markedly so) for the Germans in their efforts at defence.

Even the Germans (the ones not attempting to rewrite history that is) acknowledge the strategically important effects of the bombing campaigns

 

[parsifal]

Im flattered to have been quoted across two threads. thanks guys. There are a number of sources for the numbers I quoted, but a good single volume English history that I use a lots is Professor Westermans "Flak - German Anti-Aircraft Defences, 1914-45" - University Of Kansas Press 2001. Westermann makes an exhaustive study of the costs of German defences, and does make some claims that many find hard to accept. But his credeentials are pretty impressive and research first class.

Defending against a sustained bombing camapign was very costly for the Germans, let there be no mistake or misinformation in that regard. Where most of the criticism of the Bombing campaign arose is becuse claims were made about what it could do before and during the war, that it simply could not do. Countries could not be brought to surrender by bombing alone. From those bombastic and embarasing claims has arisen in the postwar endless debates, the opportunity for revisionists and German apologists to raise questions about the fundamental failures of bombing on a much more generic and widespread scale. none of these postwar aopologists and revisionists have much to go on, but it hasnt stopped virutally an entire cottage industry springing up to support the various notions that are carried with it.

 

[bbear]

Thank you for your kind comments and questions. I'll wait a while. But I will answer every query.