Luftwaffe Firestorms

Firestorm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Firebombing is a technique designed to damage a target, generally an urban area, through the use of fire, caused by incendiary devices, rather than from the blast effect of large bombs. Such raids often employ both incendiary devices and high explosives. The high explosive destroys roofs making it easier for the incendiary devices to penetrate the structures and cause fires. The high explosives also disrupt the ability of firefighters to douse the fires.[8]

Although incendiary bombs have been used to destroy buildings since the start of gunpowder warfare, World War II saw the first use of strategic bombing from the air to destroy the ability of the enemy to wage war. London, Coventry and many other British cities were firebombed during the Blitz. Most large German cities were extensively firebombed starting in 1942 and almost all large Japanese cities were firebombed during the last six months of World War II. As Sir Arthur Harris, the officer commanding RAF Bomber Command from 1942 through to the end of the war in Europe, pointed out in his post-war analysis, although many attempts were made to create deliberate man made firestorms during World War II, few attempts succeeded:

"The Germans again and again missed their chance, ...of setting our cities ablaze by a concentrated attack. Coventry was adequately concentrated in point of space, but all the same there was little concentration in point of time, and nothing like the fire tornadoes of Hamburg or Dresden ever occurred in this country. But they did do us enough damage to teach us the principle of concentration, the principle of starting so many fires at the same time that no fire fighting services, however efficiently and quickly they were reinforced by the fire brigades of other towns could get them under control."
—Arthur Harris, [8]

According to physicist David Hafemeister firestorms occurred after about 5% of all fire-bombing raids during World War II (but he does not explain if this is a percentage based on both Allied and Axis raids, or combined Allied raids, or U.S. raids alone).[20] In 2005 The American National Fire Protection Association stated in a report that there were three major fire storms resulting from Allied conventional bombing campaigns during World War II: Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo.[21] They do not include the comparatively minor firestorms at Kassel, Darmstadt or even Ube into their major firestorm category. Despite later quoting and corroborating Glasstone and Dolan and data collected from these smaller firestorms:

based on World War II experience with mass fires resulting from air raids on Germany and Japan, the minimum requirements for a fire storm to develop are considered by some authorities to be the following: (1) at least 8 pounds of combustibles per square foot of fire area/(40 kg per square meter), (2) at least half of the structures in the area on fire simultaneously, (3) a wind of less than 8 miles per hour at the time, and (4) a minimum burning area of about half a square mile.
—Glasstone and Dolan (1977).[22]

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Historically the Luftwaffe firebombed a great number of British cities:
The Blitz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Between 7 September 1940 and 21 May 1941 there were major raids (attacks in which more than 100 tonnes of high explosives were dropped) on 16 British cities: the capital, London, was attacked 71 times, Birmingham, Liverpool and Plymouth eight times, Bristol six, Glasgow five, Southampton four, Portsmouth three, and there was also at least one large raid on another eight cities.[1]

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London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 57 consecutive nights.[7] More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged, and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, almost half of them in London.[4] Ports and industrial centres outside London were also heavily attacked; the major Atlantic sea port of Liverpool was the most heavily bombed city outside London, suffering nearly 4,000 dead.[8][9] Other ports including Bristol, Cardiff, Hull, Plymouth, Southampton and Swansea were also targeted, as were the industrial cities of Birmingham, Belfast, Coventry, Glasgow and Manchester. Birmingham and Coventry were heavily targeted because of the Spitfire and tank factories in Birmingham and the many munitions factories in Coventry; the city centre of Coventry was almost destroyed.

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Some of the bombings had greater effect than others:
Second Great Fire of London - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The "Second Great Fire of London" is a name used at the time to refer to one of the most destructive air raids of the London Blitz, over the night of 29/30 December 1940. Between 6 pm and 6 am the next day, more than 24,000 high explosive bombs and 100,000 incendiary bombs were dropped.[1]

The largest continuous area of Blitz destruction anywhere in Britain occurred on this night, stretching south from Islington to the very edge of St Paul's Churchyard. The area destroyed was greater than that of the Great Fire of London in 1666. The raid was timed to coincide with a particularly low tide on the River Thames, making water difficult to obtain for fire fighting. Over 1500 fires were started, with many joining up to form three major conflagrations which in turn caused a firestorm that spread the flames further, towards St Paul's Cathedral.

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Coventry Blitz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In one night, more than 4,000 homes in Coventry were destroyed and around two-thirds of the city's buildings were damaged. The raid was heavily concentrated on the city centre, most of which was destroyed. Two hospitals, two churches and a police station were also among the damaged buildings.[21][22]The local police force lost no less than nine constables or messengers in the blitz.[23]Around one third of the city's factories were completely destroyed or severely damaged, another third were badly damaged, and the rest suffered slight damage. Among the destroyed factories were the main Daimler factory, the Humber Hillman factory, the Alfred Herbert Ltd machine tool works, nine aircraft factories, and two naval ordnance stores.
The raid reached such a new level of destruction that Joseph Goebbels later used the term coventriert ("coventried") when describing similar levels of destruction of other enemy towns. During the raid, the Germans dropped about 500 tonnes of high explosives, including 50 parachute air-mines, of which 20 were incendiary petroleum mines, and 36,000 incendiary bombs.[26]

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Even with the major fires that were created, especially in London, none truly qualified as a firestorm the way Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, or Hiroshima did. As Arthur Harris noted above the Luftwaffe missed opportunity after opportunity to literally burn British cities to the ground, though it should be noted that the Luftwaffe was innovating these tactics and were still learning how to bomb a city, while the RAF later exploited the lessons they were taught on the receiving end.
Coventry Blitz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The raid of 14 November combined several innovations which influenced all future strategic bomber raids during the war.[27] These were:
The use of pathfinder aircraft with electronic aids to navigate, to mark the targets before the main bomber raid.
The use of high explosive bombs and air-mines (blockbuster bombs) coupled with thousands of incendiary bombs intended to set the city ablaze in a firestorm.

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Still the Luftwaffe had limitations that the RAF later did not have:
Coventry Blitz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the Allied raids later in the war, 500 or more heavy four-engine bombers all delivered their 3,000–6,000 pound bomb loads in a concentrated wave lasting only a few minutes. But at Coventry, the German twin-engined bombers carried smaller bomb loads (2,000–4,000 lb), and attacked in smaller multiple waves. Each bomber flew several sorties over the target, returning to base in France to rearm. Thus the attack was spread over several hours, and there were lulls in the raid when fire fighters and rescuers could reorganise and evacuate civilians.[28] As Arthur Harris, commander of RAF Bomber Command, wrote after the war "Coventry was adequately concentrated in point of space [to start a firestorm], but all the same there was little concentration in point of time".[29]

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Hypothetically speaking could the Luftwaffe have achieved a true firestorm in Britain? I've been told that British cities are built with less wood, so aren't able to combust as easily as continental European cities, though it seems in Hamburg that the coal in the basements of buildings were a major reason that that city was able to combust so well along with the dry conditions and 4 days of continuous allied bombardment dropping something like 3000+ tons per raid, while the Luftwaffe didn't manage even 1000 tons in a single raid during the Blitz.

Perhaps if the Luftwaffe had a strategic bomber Geschwader capable of carrying 4000kg of large ordnance like the blockbuster bombs the RAF used (the Luftwaffe only had small 1000kg blockbusters, rather than the 1800kg and up bombs the RAF used) to open up buildings on a large scale to follow up firebombs?

If say there were Ju89s carrying 4000kg bombs with 70% explosive filling by weight as blockbusters and then concentrated bomber streams like those used over London on the night of the Second Great Fire with 600 or so medium bombers to drop mixed HE and incendiaries, could there have been a true firestorm as Arthur Harris suggested?
It seems the conditions on the night of December 29-30 in London, so weather-wise it was doable provided the right tools were used in the right concentration.

It was doable.
There is plenty of wood in typical British houses. Bombing a city you would be bombing largely rows of terraced houses whose slate roofs are supported by an entirely wooden structure,often with tar paper insulation,all of which burn nicely. Once you get the place alight the skirting,dados,doors,door/window frames and even the lathe in the plaster and lathe in the ceilings should go up nicely along with the furnishings.
You need to get your incendiaries into the roof spaces,that's why the RAF bropped blast bombs (Cookies) to blow in the tiles and windows.
The British at the time tended to store coal as domestic fuel in coal bunkers,not always in a cellar,but it would still burn.
Brick walls don't stand up to blast very well either.

Cheers
Steve

It was the Germans who initially developed the idea of causing massive conflagrations in target cities from the air. Burning cities down was hardly a new idea, it was just the means of delivery that was novel. The RAF, still nominally concentrating on specific targets whilst missing them by a large margin in 1940 carried mainly high explosive ordnance in its bomb bays. The Germans did not.

As early as September 11th 1940 Goebbels wrote in his diary.

"The reports from London are horrendous. An inferno of unimaginable extent. The city is coming to resemble a hell. It is already possible to discern small indications of deteriorating morale. How long will this city of 8 million people hold out? We have no examples we can judge by.....the question is: can London be brought to its knees in this way? I would assume, yes. But we must wait thigs out and attack, attack."

Speer quotes Hitler slightly later that year saying.

"Have you ever looked at a map of London? It is so closely built up that one source of fire alone would suffice to destroy the whole city...........Goering wants to use innumerable incendiary bombs of an altogether new type to create sources of fires in all parts of London."

A certain Arthur Harris watched the attempt from the roof of the Air Ministry.

"The blitz seemed to me a fantastic sight and I went downstairs and fetched Portal up from his office to have a look at it........Having in mind what was being done at that time to produce heavy bombers in Britain I said out loud as we turned away from the scene: 'Well, they are sowing the wind.' Portal also made some comment to the same effect as mine, that the enemy would get the same and more of it."

On 14th November 1940 the Luftwaffe attempted to create a firestorm in Coventry. It dropped 500 tons of high explosive, 30,000 incendiary bombs (the oil filled 'flammenbombe' and the phosphor/petroleum 'phosphorbrandbombe') as well as 50 parachute mines and 20 incendiary petroleum mines. The Luftwaffe knew that their incendiaries would burn for between 8 and 30 minutes but doors, roofs and windows needed to be blown in to create the draughts needed to sustain and spread the fires. The results were a success (unless you were in Coventry) and the destruction is well documented.

The problem for the Germans, creating real fire storms, was the light loads the German bombers carried. They also had to 'shuttle bomb' returning to their bases to refuel and rearm which led to inevitable lulls during which fire fighting and other rescue efforts could be undertaken.

Harris was a quick learner and noticed the flaws in the German method.

"The Germans again and again missed their chance, as they did in the London Blitz of setting our cities ablaze by a concentrated attack. Coventry was adequately concentrated in point of space, but all the same there was little concentration in point of time."

The concentration in space was due to navigational devices which would also target area 'Otto', the city of London, not the docks or other installations as some claim.

On the night of 16/17 December 1940 the RAF sent a force of 134 bombers to Mannheim. For the first time the target was officially the heart of an urbanised area and not a specified 'military' target. A moral line had been crossed by both sides now. The raid was not very successful but the bombers did carry an unusually high proportion of the British 4lb incendiary magnesium 'sticks'.

The British development of incendiary ordnance and navigational aids gathered pace. The ordnance was tested at the Building Research Department, near Watford, where German style buildings, complete with German furniture and furnishings were used to tailor the incendiaries to the buildings which they would be destroying.

Lubeck was chosen for a practical experiment. It lay outside the range of the RAF's own navigational system 'Gee' but being on the coast it was considered findable. It was also an industrial city, training centre for U-Boat crews and its docks were the principle route for the importation of Swedish iron ore. More important to the RAF planners was the combustible nature of the medieval Altstadt. Harris wrote that it was.

" More like a firelighter than a place of human habitation."

Two waves of bombers dropped 160 tons of high explosive and 144 tons of incendiaries, including a new 30lb bomb containing a mixture of benzol and rubber, reckoned to cause fires over a distance ten metres from its point of impact. The results were devastating and well documented.

Harris said of this raid.

"The main object of the attack was to learn to what extent a first wave of aircraft could guide a second wave to the aiming point by starting a conflagration. I odered half an hour interval between the two waves in order to let the fires get a good hold before the second wave arrived."

Harris noted that this technique led not only to target marking fires but increased the chaos in the target city as local fire brigades and those called in from elsewhere were hampered in their efforts by the attacks of a second and subsequent waves of bombers.

This set Bomber Command firmly on a course that, via Hamburg, Kassel and others, would reach its apogee at Dresden.

Steve

I believe the Coventry raid was aided by a guidance beam which improved concentration. As has been said not all cities were liable to a firestorm Hamburg was Berlin wasnt.

To the original post Hiroshima wasnt a fire bombing it was nuclear

Wiki is missing a rather important aspect of this. The Germans attempted this starting in early WW1 with a Zeppelin equipped with special incendiary bombs wrapped in hemp. The purpose was to create such a storm. Later on even more complex bombs were stockpiled to burn a few cities down with massed attacks but was halted by the end of the war. There is an excellent special on this I believe on the Smithsonian Channel.

@viking: IIRC the 'Elektron' thermite incendiary bomb that was used in WW2 was developed for use in WW1 (August 1918). Apparently the first 1 ton bomb was also used in WW1.
Elektron BombHistory Of Britain | History of Britain

Now as to the point about the Germans lacking sufficient concentration in time, it wasn't solely due to the lack of payload, as the 2 tons of the HE111 and other loads of the Ju88 would be sufficient in the right numbers; however there was a distinct lack of bombers with sufficient range and payload to pull it off in July 1940 due to losses during the invasion of France. The Do17 was also in widespread service still, but with its very short range and limited payload, it was pretty much of limited use. After t he BoB things got real tight for the Luftwaffe; by mid-August there were a total of 960 twin engine bombers (He111s, Ju88s, Do17s) in all theaters, of which IIRC about 600 or so operational. Losses in the BoB reduced these numbers even further despite the 100+ bombers being delivered per month. So by the time the LW started the Blitz in October they had only a few hundred Ju88s and He111s left operational, though bomber units were worn down by the back to back campaigns of 1940. By the time the Blitz started their numbers went up again, but with lower quality personnel due to losses of veterans in France and the BoB. But the Blitz was effective from October through December, after which weather grounded most bombing from January-February when detachments were made for North Africa and soon even the Balkans, leaving fewer and fewer aircraft to bomb Britain.

So the primary problem was the losses in the BoF and BoB so soon together sapping bomber strength and the presence of older bombers of limited capabilities for night bombing deep in Britain. The dive bombing choice for the Ju88 limited its utility and delayed production, which kept the Do17 in place and compromised the utility of the design before the A5 redesign that entered service after the BoB. For the Luftwaffe the primary problem in achieving firestorms was poor pre-war design choices, poor industrial mobilization, and a bad strategy after the fall of France. Had they preserved their twin engine bomber strength and started a night campaign in July instead of October, they would have saved some 500 twin engine bombers that would have been very helpful during the Blitz, plus a huge amount of wear and tear on surviving machines and crews. Let's also not forget fuel usage during the BoB either, which Germany could ill afford.

800+ He111s and Ju88s would have been sufficient during the Blitz to achieve concentration in space and time, but they just weren't available in those numbers due to a variety of poor choices by LW leadership (Udet, Goering, Hitler, Jeschonnek, etc.). The German suggestion that the spread out attacks were to wear down morale is more likely justification due to the lack of sufficient bombers to actually mass for attacks, which was LW doctrine pre-war. It also didn't help that they spread out their attacks on multiple targets and didn't launch many 'heavy' raids, which already were pretty weak by anyone's standards after 1941 (counted as 100 tons or more dropped in a single night).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz#Bombing_raid_statistics
Looking at the stats its clear that too much dispersion was used for bombing given the bomber numbers and too many little raids were launched. There were for instance only 8 'heavy' raids (>100 tons) on Liverpool from September 1940-May 1941 for a total of less than 2000 tons for the entire 9 month period, which was less than half of what was dropped on Dresden in 4 raids in 3 nights in February 1945.

pbehn said:

I believe the Coventry raid was aided by a guidance beam which improved concentration. As has been said not all cities were liable to a firestorm Hamburg was Berlin wasnt.

To the original post Hiroshima wasnt a fire bombing it was nuclear

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X-Great guided the Luftwaffe accurately to Coventry.

Berlin was considered as a possible target for a devastating raid, with the intention of creating a fire storm. The idea of a series of raids by both the USAAF and RAF was first raised (under the code name Thunderclap) in the summer of 1944. It was expected to kill or injure 220,000 Berliners. In August the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) concluded that such an operation was not likely 'to achieve any worthwhile degree of success'.
The JIC's report of January 1945 did look at such an operation again in the context of aiding the Soviet forces on the offensive in the east. It was time, the JIC thought, for major air strikes behind the Russian front.
I don't have time or the will at the moment to go through the saga of target assignation. To cut a long story short there was a meeting of the Targets Committee on February 7th at the Air Ministry in Whitehall. The next day its conclusions were sent to SHAEF, Bomber Command and the U.S. Strategic Air Force Command. It declared.

"The following targets have been selected for their importance in relation to the movement of evacuees from, and military forces to, the Eastern Front"

Berlin was in first place, Dresden second and Chemnitz third.

A raid on Berlin of the scale envisaged in 'Thunderclap' was not possible. It would have to be carried out over several days, both day and night. A committee headed by Sir Douglas Evill looked into the feasibility and concluded.

"At this time of year it is most unlikely that the weather would be such as to allow concentrated bombing on four consecutive days and nights."

Dresden was another matter and had the advantage in the eyes of some, notably Portal, of being "hitherto undamaged."

Some imagine that Saxony's 'Florence on the Elbe' a city of some 750,000 inhabitants in one of the oldest established industrial regions of Europe, the seventh largest city in Germany, concerned itself only with harmless and cultural pursuits and the making of luxury goods and China, even in the midst of Hitler's 'Total War'.
This is absolute nonsense. The 1944 handbook of the OKW's Weapon Office lists no fewer than 127 factories that have been assigned their own three letter manufacturing codes. An authority at the Dresden City Museum described this list as 'very incomplete'.

The cities biggest single employer was Zeiss-Ikon (code dpv) and it was a long time since that company had contented itself with making cameras for home snap shots.

In 1940 Dr Walther Schmidt, president of the Directorate of State Railways in Dresden described the railway industry as 'at the core of its being, so closely connected to the Wermacht'. The railways slogan was 'Rader Mussen Rollen fur den Sieg' (wheels must roll for victory). In 1939 (August and September) the Dresden directorate had laid on 15,000 trains for the invasion of Poland. 1945 was no different. The railway directorate itself recognised that the Hauptbahnhof, yards and areas to the north and south west, lined with industrial sites and warehousing might make a good target. One official noted that "by their size and location they represented a good target." A look at the Allies target maps confirm that he was correct.

It is not for me to pass moral judgement on the concept of area bombing and the ensuing losses on both sides. But by the targeting criteria used by the Allies Dresden was certainly a 'valid' target. Had the means been available it would certainly have been devastated sooner.

Steve

Hello Guy's, I can chip in on the Coventry raid as I have lived in Coventry my entire life.

The raid was most deffinatly a fire storm. The entire city centre was burnt to the ground including our Catherdral.
The city centre was almoast entirely made of wood with very small narrow streets. There now stands no more than 20 original buildings as a result of the raid. Due to the layout of the city the fire did not spread out of the main centre. This is owed to the fact the city previously had a wall and as such no real join to the surrounding areas.

Here is a few shots of the the Orginal Luftwaffe target map for the bombing of Coventry "operation Korn" -




As you can see from the map the raid wasnt entirely focused on the city centre.

I live basically on target .13. This was the local coal mine. This area was targeted mainly with mines and in the street behind where I live now is a large gap in the housing where one was dropped and missed the coal mine.

I believe wartime Britain played down the ferocity of the Coventry raid. For many years and to this day the question is asked as to why Coventry wasn't evacuated before the raid as Churchill himself had been made aware of the raid in advance due to Luftwaffe message interceptions. The opinion is that an evacuation if noticed by and reported back by Germans on the ground would have given away the fact we had intercepted and had the ability to decipher German communications.

The raid on Coventry changed the way in which the RAF conducted it's raids from that point on. Just take a look at the Dresden raid which was conducted as a retaliation for the Coventry raid.

Burning cities, or attempting to, is as old as war itself. Dresden itself was more or less burnt to the ground on July 19th 1760 by that well known flute playing friend of French philosophers and patron of the arts Frederick II of Prussia, later termed Frederick the Great.

Cheers

Steve

In defence of the Luftwaffe the majority of weapons and munitions production was located in the centre of Coventry. The consequence of them trying to hit these targets was the firestorm and devestation of the area.

The December 16/17 1940 raid on Mannheim was officially designated a revenge for the Coventry attack. The devastating raid on Dresden didn't take place until 13th February 1945 by which time many German towns and cities had been 'coventriert'.

The Luftwaffe bombed Coventry 'on a beam'. Essentially the aircraft received a signal at the point when and where it should release it's bombs and this was done automatically. It was very accurate, bombs could be placed within an oval pattern a few hundred metres long and about one hundred metres wide as Coventry discovered.

Steve

Ahh I have been misinformed although Dresden is widely spoken of as the retaliation raid locally.
Thanks for correcting that Steve.

Is Coventriert the German translation of Coventrated?

Cheers Chris

s1chris said:

Ahh I have been misinformed although Dresden is widely spoken of as the retaliation raid locally.
Thanks for correcting that Steve.

Is Coventriert the German translation of Coventrated?

Cheers Chris

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No worries and yes it is (though I think that's the other way around if you know what I mean, the Germans invented the word)

Steve

s1chris said:

Ahh I have been misinformed although Dresden is widely spoken of as the retaliation raid locally.
Thanks for correcting that Steve.

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I think that was post war justification by either participants in the planning or apologist historians, when in fact the raid was much more about hitting a legitimate military target both in aid of their ally the Soviets but also as a warning/example (to prove their contribution via the air war) in their path about the power of allied strategic bombing...though this last part might be incidental rather than a specific reason for the raid.

s1chris said:

Is Coventriert the German translation of Coventrated?

Cheers Chris

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Yes. Goebbels used that phrase in propaganda.

Retaliation is an emotive word. It was used to describe the Mannheim operation, but the word itself provokes arguments about who did what first. These are somewhat pointless. Both the RAF and Luftwaffe started the war with high minded intentions to limit their assaults to strictly military targets and both, very soon and for a variety of reasons, abandoned even the pretence of this. A series of moral lines were crossed by both sides leading to the targeting of an enemy's civilian population. The only nation to be reticent about admitting so was the USA.
Whether a line was crossed at Guernica or Mannheim, Coventry or Dresden doesn't really matter. You might as well ask whether Alexander the Great committed some kind of moral outrage when he burnt Persepolis in 330 BC. Was that revenge for the Persians previously burning the Acropolis in Athens?
Steve

stona said:

Retaliation is an emotive word. It was used to describe the Mannheim operation, but the word itself provokes arguments about who did what first. These are somewhat pointless. Both the RAF and Luftwaffe started the war with high minded intentions to limit their assaults to strictly military targets and both, very soon and for a variety of reasons, abandoned even the pretence of this. A series of moral lines were crossed by both sides leading to the targeting of an enemy's civilian population. The only nation to be reticent about admitting so was the USA.
Whether a line was crossed at Guernica or Mannheim, Coventry or Dresden doesn't really matter. You might as well ask whether Alexander the Great committed some kind of moral outrage when he burnt Persepolis in 330 BC. Was that revenge for the Persians previously burning the Acropolis in Athens?
Steve

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Did the LW really go into the war with high minded ideas about city bombing? Perhaps in the West, but in Poland they went after civilians from day one; in the East in general the Germans were exceptionally brutal from the beginning, while they 'evolved' in the West.

As a point of interest I've recently read that the supposed Stalingrad Firestorm actually never happened or was greatly exaggerated:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad#Attack_on_Stalingrad

A massive German strategic bombing on 23 August caused a firestorm, killing thousands and turning Stalingrad into a vast landscape of rubble and burnt ruins. Ninety percent of the living space in the Voroshilovskiy area was destroyed. Between 23 and 26 August, Soviet reports indicate 955 people were killed and another 1,181 wounded as a result of the bombing.[2].73 Casualties of 40,000 were greatly exaggerated,[5].188–189 and after 25 August, the Soviets did not record any civilian and military casualties as a result of air raids.[Note 4]

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the thing i have a hard time understanding ( which i chalk it up to adolf being his own intel analyst and doing a crappy job at it )...is the germans had to know the RAF capabilities...the range, bomb load, and approx # of lancasters and other heavy bombers. in a " i will bomb your citys with He's and Do's and you bomb mine with lanc's" scenario i cant see how anyone thinks they would come out on top. you are relying on an airforce that is not accomplishing its mission in the BoB to defend your cities. i am not using hindsight...the logis doesnt make sense. i would like to know the rationale behind the thinking to embark on this kind of campaign. to me its is like playing checkers with floyd mayweather or julio ceasar chavez and constantly ending in a stalemate so in frustration decide to take a swing at them....now i can land a punch but thier capabilities far out match mine....it would be a really bad, bad move. and one i shouldnt do to begin with..

stona said:

X-Great guided the Luftwaffe accurately to Coventry.

Berlin was considered as a possible target for a devastating raid, with the intention of creating a fire storm. The idea of a series of raids by both the USAAF and RAF was first raised (under the code name Thunderclap) in the summer of 1944. It was expected to kill or injure 220,000 Berliners. In August the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) concluded that such an operation was not likely 'to achieve any worthwhile degree of success'.


Steve

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Stona the point I was making was that not all cities are the same (obviously) Hamburg was like London made of more wood. Berlin was laid out with large boulevards (still is) which act as natural fire breaks, there were huge fires but not a firestorm as such.

bobbysocks said:

the thing i have a hard time understanding ( which i chalk it up to adolf being his own intel analyst and doing a crappy job at it )...is the germans had to know the RAF capabilities...the range, bomb load, and approx # of lancasters and other heavy bombers. in a " i will bomb your citys with He's and Do's and you bomb mine with lanc's" scenario i cant see how anyone thinks they would come out on top. you are relying on an airforce that is not accomplishing its mission in the BoB to defend your cities. i am not using hindsight...the logis doesnt make sense. i would like to know the rationale behind the thinking to embark on this kind of campaign. to me its is like playing checkers with floyd mayweather or julio ceasar chavez and constantly ending in a stalemate so in frustration decide to take a swing at them....now i can land a punch but thier capabilities far out match mine....it would be a really bad, bad move. and one i shouldnt do to begin with..

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Intelligence was severely lacking especially by the time the British heavies came online (not just Lancasters). By that time too the war was too deep to quit, the Holocaust had started, and there was no going back. Bombing British cities in 1942 and later was retaliation for British bombing (and a waste of effort IMHO), but the RAF wasn't going to stop because Germany did. In 1940-41 Hitler thought he was going to win, so did what he did with the knowledge he had at the time: BC was a joke in terms of numbers and accuracy, while losing heavily. Germany was on top, so Hitler thought he could get away with it; by 1942 and later the game changed, but it wasn't like Hitler could just quit and go home; he started a war of total annihilation and was going to have to play it out to the bitter end, because surrender meant death for him if he were lucky, probably prison torture otherwise (Hitler was deathly afraid of being paraded around Moscow in a cage, so he shot himself).

the thing i have a hard time understanding ( which i chalk it up to adolf being his own intel analyst and doing a crappy job at it )...is the germans had to know the RAF capabilities...the range, bomb load, and approx # of lancasters and other heavy bombers. in a " i will bomb your citys with He's and Do's and you bomb mine with lanc's" scenario i cant see how anyone thinks they would come out on top

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The Luftwaffe started the mass bombing of British cities in September 1940. At the time Bomber Command was much weaker than the Luftwaffe. Their best bomber was the Wellington, which was similar in capabilities to the He 111.

In the 9 months of the Blitz the Luftwaffe dropped about 45,000 tons on Britain and killed about 43,000 civilians.

Bomber Command wasn't capable of anything like the same sort of effort until 1942. BC tons of bombs dropped:

1940 - 13,000
1941 - 32,000
1942 - 46,000

German civilian casualties:

1940 - 975
1941 - 2,785
1942 - 4,327

It wasn't until 1943 that Bomber Command could do to a German city what the Luftwaffe had done to the UK in 1940.