Strategic Bombing Campaign Impact on German Oil Production

mhuxt · Aug 5, 2011

mhuxt · Aug 5, 2011

mhuxt · Aug 5, 2011

Quick cross-check of bomb tonnage by air force by month on oil targets.

Very good match with Davis' numbers, except for BC in August 44 - not sure how 7,800 tons go missing.

May try to use Davis to do an assessment of "% of total effort against oil targets" by air force.

mhuxt · Aug 5, 2011

I guess this is the real criticism of Bomber Command vs Oil.

Using Davis numbers and judgement of target type, BC never seems to have taken oil quite as seriously as the 8th and 15th until after the job was done.

Ratsel · Aug 5, 2011

just finished taking all this in, outstanding! thanks! everything seems to coincide with Operation Overlord. It would also seem that BC got more into SBC of German oil industry after the Luftwaffe was effectively neutralized. that is to say, the LW did not have the means to send its forces, due to lack of aviation fuel. I say this becouse for example in June/1944 and January/1945 the LW had more fighters then any time in 1939/40/41/42/43. I think that the USAAF and her allies knew that aircombat alone would not get them air superiority over Europe, and their losses would be to much to justify. Hence the Oil Bombing campains. losses were still severe, but not as bad as it could have been. B-17's and its crews were expendable acceptable. I believe that the RAF BC did not think the same way. Hope this makes sense. thanks again for the posts.

Ratsel · Aug 5, 2011

to further illustrate my point:

For January-April 1945 the following total—supplies can, according to the, present position, be reckoned with, that is including the Hungarian
production ::
—•Estimated
January Tons

Aviation spirit ... 13,000
Carburettor fuel 68,000
Diesel fuel (with J.2) 73,000
Total ... 154,000

if Theoretically inadequate possible.
—• AirDefence.
January Tons.
Aviation spirit ... 12,000
Carburettor fuel 60 000
Diesel fuel (with J.2) 65,000
Total ... 137,000

so in a nutshell: planes the LW had, Pilots the LW had. chemicals for the planes they did not have. I also think that the glory of the P-51 should be put into perspective too, as the above data would seem to say. limited fuel.. do you attack the heavies, or the fighters? Goering said heavies(in this case all day/night fighters attack allied heavies), Galland said fighters ( in this case only the Bf109 attacking allied fighters). This applies to mid 1944 doctrine. so what won the air war? certainly not he P-38/P-47/P-51. It was the allied Heavies.

drgondog · Aug 5, 2011

Ratsel - the entire USAAF was 'expendable', based on Allied spectrum of losses by perhaps Churchill and Stalin, if Germany was defeated, but nobody in operational coommand took the notion that 8th BC was expendable. The losses to achieve air superiority over the LW was considered acceptable in 1944. In fall of 1943 the losses had creeped above the 'acceptable line' and didn't come down for good into 'easily acceptable' until May 1944 during the start of the Oil/Chemical campaign

Ratsel · Aug 5, 2011

drgondog,

Did I get this wrong? who then from the 8th AF ordered B-17's into meaningless raids into Germany, the ordered escorting fighters upon seeing LW fighters, to engage and completely ignore the -17's? the Bait Trap scenario. I believe the -17s suffered serverely for this.

Milosh · Aug 5, 2011

A much better target would have been the electrical power producing plants.

THE UNITED STATES STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY

Electric Power

The German power system, except for isolated raids, was never a target during the air war. An attack was extensively debated during the course of the war. It was not undertaken partly because it was believed that the German power grid was highly developed and that losses in one area could be compensated by switching power from another. This assumption, detailed investigation by the Survey has established, was incorrect.

The German electric power situation was in fact in a precarious condition from the beginning of the war and became more precarious as the war progressed; this fact is confirmed by statements of a large number of German officials, by confidential memoranda of the National Load Dispatcher, and secret minutes of the Central Planning Committee. Fears that their extreme vulnerability would be discovered were fully discussed in these minutes.

The destruction of five large generating stations in Germany would have caused a capacity loss of 1.8 million kw. or 8 percent of the total capacity, both public and private. The destruction of 45 plants of 100,000 kw. or larger would have caused a loss of about 8,000,000 kw. or almost 40 percent, and the destruction of a total of 95 plants of 50,000 kw. or larger would have eliminated over one-half of the entire generating capacity of the country. The shortage was sufficiently critical so that any considerable loss of output would have directly affected essential war production, and the destruction of any substantial amount would have had serious results.

Generating and distributing facilities were relatively vulnerable and their recuperation was difficult and time consuming. Had electric generating plants and substations been made primary targets as soon as they could have been brought within range of Allied attacks, the evidence indicates that their destruction would have had serious effects on Germany's war production.

United States Strategic Bombing Survey: Summary Report (European War)

drgondog · Aug 5, 2011

Ratsel said:
drgondog,

Did I get this wrong? who then from the 8th AF ordered B-17's into meaningless raids into Germany, the ordered escorting fighters upon seeing LW fighters, to engage and completely ignore the -17's? the Bait Trap scenario. I believe the -17s suffered serverely for this.

If you are referring to Big Week - forward - name one 'meaningless' target between Feb 20 and June 6? You will not find any - and Fighter Group CO's that ignored the role of escort had opportunities to explain their motives first to Kepner who would be asked the same question if a bomb wing was hammered - before getting a chance to explain to Doolttle. Those were not pleasant conversations and Doolittle didn't 'wink' when he was chewing out a Group CO!

You are making a mistake in extrapolating Eisenhower/Spaatz/Doolittle acknowledgement that the LW would not be destroyed by close escort - into believeing the 8th AF high command could care less about bomber crews.

That is why the 'piecemeal tactics' of dribbling flights, sections, then squadrons to face an enemy attack, were developed.

drgondog · Aug 5, 2011

Ratsel - go get a serious documentary like Eighth Air Force War Diary and LOOK at the targets that were bombed in 1944. If you think Oberphaffenhofen where the LW was buliding Do 335s, or Augsburg (109s) or Brunswick (190s), or Berlin, or Schwienfurt, or Posnan or Leipzig or Halberstadt or Kassel or Brux or Stettin or Misburg or Hannover or Halle or Regensburg or Munich were 'meaningless' maybe you need to research the word's definition or explain why all those targets were foolishly selected as 'easy' or 'meaningless.

You suppose the LW would defend cornfields and picnic grounds? The targets were incredibly strategic, the Germans wished them to remain undamaged and responded in great force to stop the raids.

Where are you getting your 'facts'?

Ratsel · Aug 5, 2011

yep. not gonna argue. your right and I'm wrong. congratulations.

mhuxt · Aug 5, 2011

I mentioned in an earlier post that some of the documents from the Technical Oil Mission had damage reports from the various refineries. The relevant pdfs are located here:

T.O.M. Microfilm Reels 214 AND 215

Nota bene though, the individual pages ARE mixed up, as noted in the blurb, and are in German, so I assmume Ratsel may have the inside track on deciphering how many bombs, of which type, fell inside and outside the plants, what damage was done, and the estimated repair times.

Will also post up the supporting tables from the USSBS/Official History. May also get a chance to scan in a couple more chapters of the latter, which continue to discuss the tensions within the Allied leadership around the relative priorities of oil targets.

Will also take a crack at the Davis list of oil raids, but I think it will be too large for the board software.

Offer still stands on the Davis spreadsheets, which list pretty much all major raids by the allies, early BC stuff and Light Night Striking Force stuff less so.

Ratsel · Aug 5, 2011

for sure.. beim at live dot ca

I'll also translate some German docs. on USAAF bombers being sent to allready destroyed areas. should be a good read

wuzak · Aug 5, 2011

Ratsel said:
drgondog,

Did I get this wrong? who then from the 8th AF ordered B-17's into meaningless raids into Germany, the ordered escorting fighters upon seeing LW fighters, to engage and completely ignore the -17's? the Bait Trap scenario. I believe the -17s suffered serverely for this.

drgondog said:
If you are referring to Big Week - forward - name one 'meaningless' target between Feb 20 and June 6? You will not find any - and Fighter Group CO's that ignored the role of escort had opportunities to explain their motives first to Kepner who would be asked the same question if a bomb wing was hammered - before getting a chance to explain to Doolttle. Those were not pleasant conversations and Doolittle didn't 'wink' when he was chewing out a Group CO!

You are making a mistake in extrapolating Eisenhower/Spaatz/Doolittle acknowledgement that the LW would not be destroyed by close escort - into believeing the 8th AF high command could care less about bomber crews.

That is why the 'piecemeal tactics' of dribbling flights, sections, then squadrons to face an enemy attack, were developed.

When Doolittle took over the 8th AF from Eaker in early 1944 he changed the role of the escort fighters - instead of close escort they were instructed to engage and destroy the Luftwaffe. To that end the routes taken by the bombers to target no longer contained diversionary tactics and they flew more directly to the target. The bombers became the bait, but they still had important missions to accomplish.

If the Luftwaffe didn't come to fight then the escorts were encouraged to go find them and destroy them on the ground, or otherwise destroy targets of opportunity.

The initial results of the new tactics didn't change the number of losses of the 8th AF much, but it did have a greater effect on the losses of the Luftwaffe.

Ratsel · Aug 5, 2011

meaningless was perhaps the wrong word for me to use.. my name isn't google so I don't pretend to know everything.

wuzak · Aug 5, 2011

Ratsel said:
B-17's and its crews were expendable acceptable. I believe that the RAF BC did not think the same way. Hope this makes sense. thanks again for the posts.

I think the strategic importance of the target also came into the acceptable losses calculations. I think Miller mentions that for some targets late in 1943, which were not attacked mainly due to the weather, Eaker was willing to lose as much as 50% of his attacking force. This could not possibly be acceptable for the majority of raids.

Ratsel said:
just finished taking all this in, outstanding! thanks! everything seems to coincide with Operation Overlord. It would also seem that BC got more into SBC of German oil industry after the Luftwaffe was effectively neutralized. that is to say, the LW did not have the means to send its forces, due to lack of aviation fuel.

The initial attacks on oil by the 8th AF were in the months leading up to the invasion, and were essentially secondary targets at that stage. The 8th AF and RAF BC had come under the command of Eisenhower, and the direction was to hit targets which would maximise the chances of success of the invasion. To that end Spaatz put forward the oil industry, but the plan adopted was the Portal's (or was it Tedder's?) Transportation Plan. The 8th AF and the RAF were free to hit other targets when the transportation targets were not available - eg in case of weather over transportation targets.

As BC operated primarily at night the effect the 8th AF had on the Luftwaffe day fighter strength had less influence on them. The night fighters still gave strong resistance into 1945.

BC had a couple of tricks to tackle the Luftwaffe. First was the Light Night Striking Force, whose main mission was to draw opposition away from the main attack - which they did with some success. Second was the decision to allow night fighters to operate over Europe, from late 1943 IIRC. At first these were the older NFs with the older radar systems, but from mid 1944, if not earlier, the latest NFs were used. While the RAF NFs did not have the numerical superiority of the 8th fighters late in 1944 it could be argued that they held a greater technological advantage.

BC could have hit the oil industry harder and sooner, but chose to concentrate on other targets. Also, during the lead up to the invasion they had less excuse to divert to alternate targets due to their methods. If the target was clear they would mark with TI bombs. But if the target was obscured by cloud or smoke screen BC could and did use sky markers to designate the target.

wuzak · Aug 5, 2011

Number of oerations against oil targets:

Code:

Month          8th AF 15th AF  RAF BC
May 1944           11      10       0 
June 1944          20      32      10 
July 1944           9      36      20 
August 1944        33      23      20 
September 1944     23       8      14 
October 1944       18      10      10 
November 1944      32      19      22 
December 1944       7      33      15 
January 1945       17       5      23 
February 1945      20      20      24 
March 1945         36      24      33 
April 1945          7       1       9

Short tons dropped on oil targets:

Code:

Month          8th AF 15th AF  RAF BC 
May 1944        2,883   1,540       0 
June 1944       3,689   5,653   4,562 
July 1944       5,379   9,313   3,829 
August 1944     7,116   3,997   1,856 
September 1944  7,495   1,829   4,488 
October 1944    4,462   2,515   4,088 
November 1944  15,884   4,168  16,029 
December 1944   2,937   6,226   5,772 
January 1945    3,537   2,023  10,114 
February 1945   1,616   4,362  15,749 
March 1945      9,550   6,628  21,211 
April 1945      1,949     124   5,993

From Oil Campaign of World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also, some interesting info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_Campaign_chronology_of_World_War_II

Many of the RAF raids used relatively few aircraft.

wuzak · Aug 5, 2011

Wouldn't mind seeing the operations table expressed in number of sorties - that would be a more telling statistic, I think.

Ratsel · Aug 5, 2011

'with Leuna a total of 6,552 bomber sorties were flown against the plant, 18,328 tons of bombs were dropped and an entire year was required.'

Strategic Bombing Campaign Impact on German Oil Production

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