Greatest aviation myth this site “de-bunked”.

[33k in the air]

Hitler's annoyance at a raid on Berlin, itself caused by stray bombs on Croydon played a part in shifting LW attcks from airfields to London inn the Battle of Britain.

This is largely a myth. The shift from airfields to London was prompted by intelligence estimates that had the RAF down to its last hundred or so fighters. It was argued that the best way to force that small remaining remnant into the air where it could be destroyed was by attacking London. (Others argued for continuing the raids on airfields but were ultimately overruled.)

 

[pbehn]

This is largely a myth. The shift from airfields to London was prompted by intelligence estimates that had the RAF down to its last hundred or so fighters. It was argued that the best way to force that small remaining remnant into the air where it could be destroyed was by attacking London. (Others argued for continuing the raids on airfields but were ultimately overruled.)

Attacking London was a tactic that Adolf held to his domain. He had to give permission for London to be bombed specifically as a target. I posted "played a part" I didnt say it was 100% of the cause.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Strategic bombing had some value. The simple fact that it tied up a few thousand 88s that would otherwise perhaps be on the frontlines was in itself useful. It also forced the dispersion of production, which in itself hampers production, and of course there's the civilian toll -- dead, wounded, sleepless and making mistakes on the production floors -- to account for.

That strategic bombing did not achieve its objectives is not arguable; it didn't. But I think the Oil Program and to a good extent the bombing of rail-junctions and disruption of strategic transport helped against both internal mobility as well as production.

The bomber barons were wrong in that era. They didn't have the power to destroy the life of a nation until nukes came about. But anywhere from 16-30,000 tons of bombs dropped on one target could neutralize it in a day or three, as shown in Hamburg and other examples.

 

[pbehn]

The bomber barons were wrong in that era. They didn't have the power to destroy the life of a nation until nukes came about.

We have only one example for that, Hitler had to be surrounded in his bunker before he killed himself, he didnt fight to the end as he demanded his subordinates should do. If Japan had a leader as nutty as the daft corporal was, then the USA could have been dropping nukes on all the Japanese cities and islands for years.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

We have only one example for that, Hitler had to be surrounded in his bunker before he killed himself, he didnt fight to the end as he demanded his subordinates should do. If Japan had a leader as nutty as the daft corporal was, then the USA could have been dropping nukes on all the Japanese cities and islands for years.

Well, the Germans shrugged off Hamburg, Cologne, Dresden, the RAF Ruhr program, and so on. -109 production rose in 1944 despite our specific targeting of that.

So I think we have more than one example of how the bomber barons underestimated the resilience of their enemies.

Heavy bombers helped win the war, but they did not win the war. And until nukes came about, they literally could not pound the life out of a nation. The only thing they could do is make a sane leader think twice, but neither the Japanese nor the Germans did until the former caught a shit-ton of rads in Aug 45. The latter had already surrendered to main force upon the ground, having been carved up.

Bombers helped, but didn't carry, the war effort.

 

[33k in the air]

Strategic bombing had some value. The simple fact that it tied up a few thousand 88s that would otherwise perhaps be on the frontlines was in itself useful. It also forced the dispersion of production, which in itself hampers production, and of course there's the civilian toll -- dead, wounded, sleepless and making mistakes on the production floors -- to account for.

Quoting from The Crucible of War 1939-45 (p.867):

Of much greater significance . . . was the extent to which the bomber offensive against Germany constituted a 'Second Front' long before the Allied invasion of Northwest Europe, and even only when Bomber Command was heavily involved in it. In terms of manpower alone, the Germans used between 500,000 to 800,000 workers to repair bomb damage and organize the dispersal of vital industries, labourers who could otherwise have been involved in the direct production of war materiel, while the Flak arm required some 900,000 men in 1943 and was still 656,000 strong in April 1945 --- many of who might otherwise have played a significant part in the ground war.

The enemy was also forced to allocate considerable equipment to air defence. In March 1942, as the Germany army was fighting crucial battles in Russia and Bomber Command had not yet launched its first 'thousand' or its initial battle of the Ruhr, there were already 3970 heavy Flak guns deployed around German cities.which could have been made into mobile artillery or bolstered anti-tank defences in the east. By September 1944 that number had grown to 10,225. Indeed, according to Albert Speer, of the 19,713 88-millimetre and 128-millimetre dual-purpose Flak/anti-tank artillery pieces produced between 1942 and 1944, only 3172 could be allocated to the army for use in the anti-armour role because of the pressure of air attack. Similarly, the threat posed by Bomber Command's night raids meant that the German night-fighter force accounted for a consistently increasing percentage of Luftwaffe front-line strength --- more than 20 per cent of the total by December 1944. Several hundred of those on strength in late 1943 and 1944 were machines which could have been used to great advantage in other roles on other fronts.

 

[pbehn]

Quoting from The Crucible of War 1939-45 (p.867):

Of much greater significance . . . was the extent to which the bomber offensive against Germany constituted a 'Second Front' long before the Allied invasion of Northwest Europe, and even only when Bomber Command was heavily involved in it. In terms of manpower alone, the Germans used between 500,000 to 800,000 workers to repair bomb damage and organize the dispersal of vital industries, labourers who could otherwise have been involved in the direct production of war materiel, while the Flak arm required some 900,000 men in 1943 and was still 656,000 strong in April 1945 --- many of who might otherwise have played a significant part in the ground war.

The enemy was also forced to allocate considerable equipment to air defence. In March 1942, as the Germany army was fighting crucial battles in Russia and Bomber Command had not yet launched its first 'thousand' or its initial battle of the Ruhr, there were already 3970 heavy Flak guns deployed around German cities.which could have been made into mobile artillery or bolstered anti-tank defences in the east. By September 1944 that number had grown to 10,225. Indeed, according to Albert Speer, of the 19,713 88-millimetre and 128-millimetre dual-purpose Flak/anti-tank artillery pieces produced between 1942 and 1944, only 3172 could be allocated to the army for use in the anti-armour role because of the pressure of air attack. Similarly, the threat posed by Bomber Command's night raids meant that the German night-fighter force accounted for a consistently increasing percentage of Luftwaffe front-line strength --- more than 20 per cent of the total by December 1944. Several hundred of those on strength in late 1943 and 1944 were machines which could have been used to great advantage in other roles on other fronts.

It is dark comedy that talks of a second front, that is harking back to the days of Napoleon when battles were on land fronts, and even Napoleon had a massive battle at sea. Adolf had fronts in the east and the west and in Africa, in the air and in the Atlantic and many others like Greece and Crete, all of these battles drained his strength.

 

[Shortround6]

I'm not entirely sure what moles BC was in a position to whack from 1939-1942. If BC aircraft couldn't survive in daylight, then they aren't much use operating against defended airspace, which potentially would include North Africa and other nearby theatres....and if they can't hit a city at night, what chance of them hitting anything at the tactical end of the fight?

I suspect the operational results from switching to support tactical operations in the first 2-3 years of the war wouldn't have done much, if anything, to shorten the war. Losses would likely have been just as bad and it's not entirely clear what operational benefits would have accrued..

Just got done reading this.

Which is some rather dismal reading. I may not agree with some peoples assessment of changes to the Battle (I doubt very much it could have been turned into the IL-2 of the west) but the Battle could not perform the strategic mission before the Germans attacked from British bases. Or rather it could but would have violated Dutch or Belgian air space to do so.
SO the only way to use as a strategic bomber was to base it in France. BTW the range thing should have been known before the attack on Poland. Once the Wellingtons got shot up attacking the German anchorages the idea of flying either Battles or Blenheims over land in daylight on deep penetration raids should have been trashed quickly.

Now somehow the BC idea that escort fighters weren't needed (or were technically impossible) for long distance raids was transferred to short range tactical raids.
The idea that planes with a single fixed Browning out the front and flexible (or turret mounted) Vickers K gun out the back could take care of themselves with mass firepower from "formations" (of 12 planes at the most) when the Wellingtons couldn't take care of themselves with twin Brownings front and back in power mounts defies belief.
There was quite a bit of arguing about using them for 'support' of the BEF which had only Lysanders as close support aircraft.

Unfortunately in use the Battles were NOT used to bomb the leading elements of a column or the first enemy they saw ,thus limiting their exposure to both ground fire and fighters but were sent almost to the German border to try to interrupt "supply". The list of mistakes is rather long.

At the time the RAFs idea of "escort" was that a squadron of Hurricanes would be assigned to "sweep" the sky in the area the bombers were headed to at around the same time. The Bombers never saw the "escorting" fighters.

Now the damning part is that this was NOT the way the RAF had conducted trench strafing or interdiction missions in 1917-18. Escorts were provided, attacks were done either at the front or shortly behind. (granted the WW I planes had shorter range). The Sopwith Salamander trench strafer was built (but not in time) with a 605lb armored box as part of the forward fuselage in the hope of reducing losses. The Battles for some reason were at the bottom of the list to even get self sealing fuel tank material. With initial high losses some in the RAF high command used this as justification to say that tactical bombing did not work and was a waste of resources.

Hmm, wonder why they said that???? to justify their plan of strategic bombing in which the RAF would win the war without the aid of either the Navy or the Army?

The RAF had a small selection of suitable bombs for ground attack (sound familiar?) and the Battle needed to be modified to carry the 40lb bombs. When bombing from low level the 250lb bombs had to be fitted with 11 second delay fuses to allow the bombers to get safely out of the blast area.

The RAF was not going to save France (except in the most extraordinary circumstances) but more effective attacks might have slowed the Germans down a few days.
Better tactics and doctrine about how to do ground attack/close support might have been worked out much sooner making a difference in North Africa.

The argument about diverting aircraft to CC has some validity but, again, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Would such a move have further delayed development of bombing aids to improve BC's performance from the summer of 1942 onwards?

It is not all or nothing. With over 1/2 of coastal command flying Ansons they didn't need to take a large number of bombers and squadrons away from BC. 6-8 squadrons of Blenheim's might have made a significant difference to CC while hardly affecting BC operations except in the number of bombers they could tell the newspapers they were sending to Germany.

BC was vehemently opposed to any use of aircraft except the long range strategic bombing role. It seems they would rather have lost the war than share any credit with the other services or RAF commands.

BC should have been working on bombing aids (both navigation and bomb aiming) back in the late 30s. A number of their exercises were not really successful.
There was no real need for Whitley's or Wellingtons in CC in 1939 or much of 1940. The Germans didn't have that many U-boats and many of the ones they had were the small type IIs. Let BC keep big twins and figure out what they were doing wrong (practically everything) in their night bombing missions.

Close air support requires different thinking. It at least requires planes on short standby on air fields waiting for recon reports or calls for support. In France many of the planes were on two hour standby ( few on 30 minute) and recon reports sometimes took several hours to get passed to the bomber squadrons. By the time the planes reached the target area 4-6 hours could have elapsed.

 

[nuuumannn]

It seems nowhere else in the world can grow that particular flavor combination.

You need to get yourself down here to try our hops. The Moutere valley in the South Island is our country's biggest hops growing region and it all started with German settlers in the 1800s who brought hops, tobacco and grapes to the area. There's even a Lutheran church, which went against the strictly Anglican sensibilities of the nearest cathedral city of Nelson.

 

[nuuumannn]

Now the damning part is that this was NOT the way the RAF had conducted trench strafing or interdiction missions in 1917-18.

Funny you should say that, air forces around the world forgot the lessons learned in the Great War, just like after WW2, many lessons were forgotten by the Korean and Vietnam wars... we never learn.

As for doctrinal and tactical mistakes, between-the-wars concepts at work in a modern combat environment makes for lots of egg-on-the-face errors...

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Quoting from The Crucible of War 1939-45 (p.867):

Absolutely. For some reason folks seem to think I'm denigrating the efforts of the bomber crews; I'm not. After all, my grandfather lost his life in that effort.

What I'm saying is that strategic bombing did not win the war, and lacked the means to do so in that era.

 

[33k in the air]

Well, the Germans shrugged off Hamburg, Cologne, Dresden, the RAF Ruhr program, and so on. -109 production rose in 1944 despite our specific targeting of that.

No, it didn't "shrug off" Hamburg. Again quoting from The Crucible of War 1939-1945:

Such were the scale of suffering and the length of the casualty lists on this single night that it was known immediately as Die Katastrophie, and the psychological impact on all of Germany was enormous. Feldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, Chef der Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, told his wife to 'leave Berlin as soon as possible' since Hamburg-like raids could be expected there once 'the nights are long enough. I am afraid of vast conflagrations consuming whole districts, streams of burning oil flowing into basements and shelters, phosphorous, and the like.'

The industrial damage, too, seemed spectacular. Production at several chemical works, engineering firms, and shipyards was halted altogether; 'the entire tram and Underground system was brought to a standstill'; all the large gas works were put out of action; electrical supplies were interrupted; and some 250,000 of the city's 450,000 flats and apartments had been 'completely destroyed.' Indeed, Albert Speer informed the Fuhrer that raids of similar intensity on six other cities 'would bring Germany's armaments production to a total halt.' Josef Kammhuber was profoundly disturbed by the thought that his crews would have to stand by 'helplessly' and 'watch the great cities of their country go up in flames one after the other' if the results of this raid could be replicated elsewhere.

Quoting from Reap the Whirlwind:

In a few nights and days of intensive aerial operations, Europe's largest port and Germany's second largest city had suffered a catastrophe. Five hundred public buildings destroyed. More than two thousand commercial enterprises wrecked. Half the residences in the city eliminated; most of the rest damaged. Some 45,000 people dead. Nearly a million made homeless. Four big shipbuilding yards heavily damaged. Dock installations a shambles. Approximately 180,000 tons of shipping sunk in the harbour. General of the Air Force Erhard Milch, state secretary at the German Air Ministry, wailed: "If we get just five or six more attacks like these on Hamburg, the German people will just lay down their tools, however great their willpower . . . What the home front is suffering now cannot be suffered much longer." Albert Speer, Hitler's armaments minister, wrote that the Hamburg disaster put the "fear of God" in him; like Milch, he believed that the same treatment meted to half a dozen more cities would put an end to the war. Goebbels termed the firestorm a catastrophe that "staggers the imagination"; the city had been "destroyed in a manner unparalleled in history." He saw the problems of food shelter, and evacuation as "almost impossible" to solve. Worried about an immediate collapse of civilian morale, the Nazis sent truckloads of SS troops to patrol the streets of the shattered city and to put a speed stop to defeatist talk.

The July 1943 raid on Hamburg achieved results not unlike that of the atomic bomb, but done with conventional arms.

The problem was it was impossible to replicate those results on other German cities in short order. Firestorms were the result of rare conditions and could not be created on command. Indeed, there were perhaps only two more firestorms created during the rest of the war in Europe, at Kassel in October 1943 and at Dresden in February 1945.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

The problem was it was impossible to replicate those results on other German cities in short order. Firestorms were the result of rare conditions and could not be created on command.

That's quite my point: heavy bombers could hurt, but not kill, a nation, in that era. The war continued for 20 months after that raid.

It ended three weeks after Nagasaki. The doctrine was not wrong, but the means of execution simply wasn't there in 1943-44.

 

[33k in the air]

What I'm saying is that strategic bombing did not win the war, and lacked the means to do so in that era.

Win it by itself? No. Boots on the ground, standing in the nation's capital, would always be necessary. But the effect of the Bomber Offensive made getting those troops into Germany a lot easier that it would have otherwise been.

The Oil and Transportation Plans were critical elements in crippling the German war economy. The Ruhr campaign, had it been continued, could have as well (assuming losses could be kept to an acceptable level, which might not be the case given the region's heavy defences).

 

[GrauGeist]

If I recall right, the RAF sent in lead bombers with conventional HE bombs ahead of the bombers carrying incendiary bombs in order to knock the slate off the rooftops.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Win it by itself? No. Boots on the ground, standing in the nation's capital, would always be necessary. But the effect of the Bomber Offensive made getting those troops into Germany a lot easier that it would have otherwise been.

The Oil and Transportation Plans were critical elements in crippling the German war economy. The Ruhr campaign, had it been continued, could have as well (assuming losses could be kept to an acceptable level, which might not be the case given the region's heavy defences).

Agreed on all counts. I'm not saying the CBO was a wasted effort, only that it was not of itself a war-winner.

 

[33k in the air]

Well, the Germans shrugged off Hamburg, Cologne, Dresden, the RAF Ruhr program, and so on. -109 production rose in 1944 despite our specific targeting of that.

German production, as measured by Speer's armaments index, stagnated for some nine months after the Ruhr campaign, as compared to the twelve months prior when it had been growing steadily.

Sustained growth did not resume until early 1944, and peaked in July, after which it began to fall rapidly. While Germany could produce aircraft, thanks to the attacks on synthetic oil plants, it could not produce pilots to man them.

Part of the problem for the Allies was bomb damage assessment. While recon photos from 30,000+ feet showed what looked like a wrecked landscape, the damage at ground level was often much less serious. It took time for the Allies to realize that a target would have to be hit repeatedly to knock it out and keep it out. There was also the fact that the number of bombers needed to hit all the targets necessary with the frequency needed required a much larger force than previously anticipated. The Allies didn't really get that size of bomber force until mid-1944.

If you grant the Allies in early to mid 1943 the benefit of 1944 electronic navigation and bombing aids and force size, and get Bomber Command and the USAAF to coordinate their efforts and focus on oil and transportation, the results would be quite different.

As it was, some important targets were never the subject of sustained attack. A concentrated effort against the German electrical supply could have been as decisive as the one against oil, but for various reasons that target system was mostly left off the target lists.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

If I recall right, the RAF sent in lead bombers with conventional HE bombs ahead of the bombers carrying incendiary bombs in order to knock the slate off the rooftops.

Didn't they also carry the occasional Cookie to bust water mains while the incendiaries played their merry havoc? Or were those in the main force bombers?

 

[33k in the air]

If I recall right, the RAF sent in lead bombers with conventional HE bombs ahead of the bombers carrying incendiary bombs in order to knock the slate off the rooftops.

In 1943 it's mixed HE and incendiary bombs on nearly all raids. For a Lancaster it was a single 4,000-lb 'cookie' and along with varying numbers of 4-lb and/or 30-lb incendiaries. For the Halifax it was typically a 2,000-lb or two 1,000-lb HE along with incendiaries.

In 1944-45, even in raids on German cities, the loads became mostly or entirely HE. Load outs like those of 1943 occur far less frequently.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

If you grant the Allies in early to mid 1943 the benefit of 1944 electronic navigation and bombing aids and force size, and get Bomber Command and the USAAF to coordinate their efforts and focus on oil and transportation, the results would be quite different.

Sure. As it was, the oil plan was, in my opinion, as decisive in defeating the Luftwaffe as was the P-51 -- because they didn't have the fuel to train their pilots proper.

The Allied bombers turned in valuable service, and I'll say once again that I hope no one misunderstands me on this point. The Oil Plan actually was probably as good a defense against LW fighters as was Doolittle's turning the fighters loose, because the latter shot the hell out of everything around, and the former meant that the LW had a hard time replacing their losses.

It's a shame indeed that us Americans and the Brits couldn't co-ordinate more closely on a combined objective that we could probably just murder. I think we got as close as hopeful with the targeting of fuel and railway resources.