Day or night strategic bombing?

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Well, aint it kinda hypocritical labelling the [admittedly quite nasty] militaristic dictatorships [Stalin included] as evil, since evil is as evil does, including wanton destruction/killing of civilians on self-evidently spurious "demoralisation" grounds..
 
Isn't that the point?
The WW2 strategic bomber offensives [ Allied claims of upholding decent moral values]were tainted/side-tracked by blatant terror-punishment of civilians atrocities..
 
"If you're going to use military force, then you ought to use overwhelming military force"
Gen. Curtis LeMay (USAAF)

It's no hard to see the Axis Powers using overwhelming military force against their enemies to achieve their ideological, strategic and territorial ambitions; and, by the same token, their enemies responding in kind, resolved to prevail.

When a faction enters a World War of the likes the first half of the 20th century witnessed; there's no point of return.
Survivors combatants of both sides have to live with the consequences.
 
Yeah, but did the dirty stuff done by the RAF/USAAF actually help win the war?
I dont like that it gives Nazi apologists unrepentant Nippon nationalists a 'you were just as bad, worse in fact, for being hypocrites as well' -retort..
 
No matter what we did or how we carried out the war, there would still be Nazi apologists and unrepentant Nippon nationalists.
 
My conscience or lack of it is not the epicenter of this rather spirited discussion.
If you want a view unhindered by prejudices of the effectiveness of Allied air power during the war, take a microscopic view of the operations undertaken by both air forces and you will find answers and facts even if they are not to your likings.
 
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About effectiveness, hitting certain particular targets hit paydirt, but so much of the rest was simply wasteful...resources, human materiel.
For example fitting 4-engined bombers with defensive guns gunners, when, if - like the Mosquito or Republic Rainbow, effort had been put into the best performance, then just like the PRU flights, interceptions would have been much more problematic..
I saw a war-time proposal for a scaled-up Mosquito using Napier Sabre mills that could`ve done 2 trips to Germany in the time it took a Lancaster to do 1, but carrying the same bombload, with only 2 crew...at 400mph cruise.
 
I'll not enter the debate about morality of bombing raids, but add my 2 cents about was it worth it. The bomber offensive was a way to bring the war to Germany proper, making it devote great assets for defense, over-stretching thin German war machine. In the process some important targets were being hit, destroyed, forced to relocate, while using material manpower assets to repair facilities etc. If we remove the bomber offensive from picture, Germany has more assets to devote against Allies, not a good thing for Allied war effort.
 
J.A.W. said:
Yeah, but did the dirty stuff done by the RAF/USAAF actually help win the war?.
Click to expand...

Yes. Sit down and read the USSBS. Take a good look at all those histograms and graphs tailing off towards the end. Take a good look at the same peaking in 1944 and imagine where they'd have been had there been no strategic bombing campaign
Now take a look at German records and make notes of the resources poured into air defence that could have gone elsewhere. Armaments,man power,fuel,transport etc.Night defence tied up almost the entire electronics industry even denying resources to pet V projects.
Finally stop making ridiculous contemporary moral judgements with the benefit of seventy years of hindsight. You sound like the Pope who tried to ban the cross bow.
Cheers
Steve
 
Crossbow? Barbaric!,BAN THEM [but only for use against Xians in good standing...lol.] No doubting the key bottleneck industry target effects, but contemporary commentators indeed spoke up about the needless area fire-bombings even war-mongering Churchill got squeamish after Dresden..
As P.Closterman wrote, "As these results were gained at the cost of colossal losses...which made the American public blench, a discrete veil had to be drawn over the activity of the Luftwaffe"
 

So it did help win the war then?

The losses were significant and the expense enormous. Bomber Commands losses might have been mitigated with better strategic planning but hindsight is a wonderful thing. Whether the effort was worth it is an entirely different question as to whether it was a contribution to winning the war in Europe.


The fire bombing was not needless. It was the only way to effectively destroy a city and its economic capacity given the technology of the day.We should have returned to cities thus treated and done more, Speer's opinion on Hamburg,not mine.

Moral judgements are redundant. If we'd had to kill every living German to win that war it would bother me not one jot. If you hold back in a fight with a determined opponent you will lose.

Would you have dropped the atomic bombs on Japan or organised some ridiculous demonstration on an uninhabited island in the hope that this would force a surrender?
Would you have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Americans,and their allies,in an invasion of Japan or killed 200,000 Japanese in two flashes?
These choices are not difficult for me today.

Cheers

Steve
 
stona said:
We should have returned to cities thus treated and done more, Speer's opinion on Hamburg,not mine.

Cheers

Steve
Click to expand...

Albert Speer said the exact opposite, he said that he was thankful that the British continued their stupid and pointless terror bombings of cities instead of attacking industrial bottlenecks.

So don't misquote him.
 
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