Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
I think the problem for the Americans related to the weather conditions of Western Europe.
I always thought that the obvious flaw to a daytime precision bombing raid was that if you use 600 bombers targeting the same point they will all release at the same point.
And the resulting Battle of the Frontiers. Truly a grotesque spectacleNot that that makes them unique, look at European reaction to the Russo-Japanese war and what it suggested about the direction of warfare at the start of the twentieth century.
To their credit the Americans still tried to target 'military targets' within cities. You will see marshalling yards as a typical aiming point. The reality was, even in good visual conditions, that a lot of bombs missed even such a large target.
How did they plan to do this? Use radar to get them to within visual range? The angular accuracy probably wasn't good enough -- if I recall they were sometimes off by as much as 2000 feet in altitude alone...There was an assumption that ADGB's zone fighters would intercept bombers at night, it is why they were specified with a day/night capability. The reality was that they could not, yet another abyss between the reality and rhetoric.
I thought it was General Smuts, though he did push for the creation of the RAF among othersThe RAF was doctrinally committed to the aerial offensive, but never stopped thinking about fighters and other methods of home defence. Dowding did not invent the concept of integrated air defence. General E B Ashmore, who had directed Britain's air defence in WWI, argued after the war for the development of an information network to aid the interception of bombers.
It's weird how people can have such gaps in thinking -- it seems we all have blind-spots like this. On one hand they argue the bomber will always get through... then they argue they can shoot them down.There is a clear contradiction in RAF policy and doctrine. On the one hand it argued that its bombers would get through and deliver a devastating counteroffensive in the case that Britain was attacked. This was nothing less than wishful thinking, events from 1939-1942 would prove it so. On the other hand it imagined that it might prevent the enemy bombers from getting through. In daylight at least this proved almost accidentally correct.
When doctrine goes against facts -- stick with doctrine unless absolutely forced to agree with facts -- then after the war's over -- go back to doctrine.It is Overy (with whom I seldom entirely agree) who wrote "To admit that there was a defence against the bomber was to question the whole basis on which an independent air force had been built." In this case he is absolutely right. The RAF had a tendency, as do many organisations, military or otherwise, to preserve its fundamental assumptions whenever possible.
That's a common strategy when the policy becomes unpalatable -- sanitize.Richard G Davis, who was (may still be) the official historian of the USAF, says that the USAAF deliberately changed the "city area" category to "marshalling yard" as a means of claiming they weren't area bombing, but continued to carry out area attacks anyway.
Well, saying "We'll be carrying out a systematic policy of killing civilians by bombing and setting fire to the towns and cities they live in under the presumption that, if we create enough pain, suffering, and death, they'll do anything to make it stop" tends to be viewed kind of negatively..."The AAF never officially acknowledged that it had bombed German city areas as a matter of policy. Analysis of the Eighth's bombardment policy, of its employment of incendiary bombs, and of its targeting of "city areas" and "marshaling yards" clearly reveals that, despite denials, it did engage in the deliberate bombing of German population centers."
I think it's more than that -- generally, the idea is to paint the enemy as completely and totally evil, and to paint your side as totally good, or at least reasonable and fair.The Americans wanted to dissociate themselves from the British effort
Eye to posterity: The original plan for Thunderclap called for using the USAAF to wreck around 2-3 square miles of city with 5,000 tons of ordinance with a day-raid, followed by a night-raid by bomber-command (I would not be surprised if sector bombing would be used for this, as it had been employed in Darmstadt a month earlier).When Eisenhower told Spaatz to prepare plans for 'Thunderclap' the latter protested that it would compromise American claims regarding "precision" targeting of military objectives. Eisenhower replied that while he too had always insisted that "US Strategic Air Forces be directed against precision targets" (he had not), he was prepared to try anything that "gives real promise of ending the war quickly." This was to be an attack on the morale of the people of Berlin. Spaatz instructed Doolittle to be ready to bomb Berlin "indiscriminately". Maybe because 'Thunderclap' had originated with Portal and the British Spaatz also protested to Arnold, "There is no doubt in my mind that the RAF want very much to have the US tarred with the morale bombing aftermath which we feel will be terrific." He either wrote that with an eye to posterity, or in an act of self delusion.
We viewed the Germans as humans that went bad; many viewed the Japanese as subhuman (General Hansell actually said more or less that he thought there was some sort of unwritten rule that the Japanese were viewed as subhuman -- I admire his candor actually, though I don't think it's right to view people as subhuman).Le May finally dropped all pretence with the low level, night time, incendiary raids on Japanese cities, but that was bombing Asian people. In Europe the pretence was maintained, and many still believe it today.
If that's correct, then you're right. More bombers actually were blipped-out on their way out of enemy territory than on their way in.As much as everyone chortles at Stanley Baldwin's (and Douhet's) expense, they were -- and are -- 100% correct. With regard to the one line anyway.
As I've said before, it's gotta be one of the most misunderstood quotations in aviation. He didn't mean that every bomber that takes off will make it through the enemy's air defences unscathed -- he meant that no matter what a government does with regard to defence, it wont be able to prevent its citizens from being bombed.
The death tolls would probably have been greatly higher (I have no idea by how much, but phosgene is remarkably deadly and, from what I remember, the amount needed to kill is below the amount one can smell) and damage to the cities would likely have also been worse because the fires would have spread more (you can't put out fires if you're dead).That said ... he, like most others at the time, might have overestimated the effects of that bombing.
Though as I've also mentioned, we luckily never got the full test. Things might have gone differently if everyone's cities were also contaminated with phosgene, mustard, etc. for weeks/months on end in addition to being blown apart and burned (as pre-war theorists had every reason to suspect was a possibility).
That was exactly what Churchill said he would do in July 1941 and was applauded by all at the time. (my bold)Well, saying "We'll be carrying out a systematic policy of killing civilians by bombing and setting fire to the towns and cities they live in under the presumption that, if we create enough pain, suffering, and death, they'll do anything to make it stop" tends to be viewed kind of negatively...
I think it's more than that -- generally, the idea is to paint the enemy as completely and totally evil, and to paint your side as totally good, or at least reasonable and fair.
.
He didn't explicitly say what I said -- not as overtly anyway.That was exactly what Churchill said he would do in July 1941
My uncle was in Bomber Command, it was a war, the Germans had been singing "bomben auf Engeland" quite cheerfully, the meaning of Churchills speech is quite clear. as far as he was concerned it was unrestricted warfare. This apart from the fact that you cant choose what you hit from 20,000 ft at night. As far as I am concerned revenge was part of the motive and de housing was part of the strategy, whether that is judged lawful or unlawful in retrospect doesn't concern me at all. V1 and V2 weapons were launched on London until they couldn't launch any more and as far as I know they were all targeted on Tower Bridge.He didn't explicitly say what I said -- not as overtly anyway.
The RAF often had a tendency to pussy-foot around the issue interestingly -- when pulled in front of Parliament, they would often say that the bombing policy hadn't changed, and things to that nature. The only person that seemed to come remotely close to telling the truth (in the RAF anyway) was Harris, interestingly.
There was one book either "Among the Dead Cities" or a book by Richard Overy which mentioned that right after Rotterdam, he wanted to know the public view of the event. This leads me to suspect that he wanted to carry out similar raids at that point in time.As far as I am concerned revenge was part of the motive and de housing was part of the strategy
There was one book either "Among the Dead Cities" or a book by Richard Overy which mentioned that right after Rotterdam, he wanted to know the public view of the event.