"The case for the P-47 Thunderbolt being the greatest fighter of the Second World War " (1 Viewer)

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Much better. You are making the conspiracy mix pile big enough to be unassailable even with a backhoe.
 
No indeed. But its important to note it wasn't a one-off.

Hamburg and Kassel in 43, Darmstadt in '44 , Dresden in Germany in 4'5 by the RAF, Tokyo and Yamaguchi in Japan by the USAF in 45

As you say, the collective casualties and even strategic damage to industry caused by those raids far outweighed that of even both nuclear raids combined. That is clearly often overlooked by those who diminish the impact of conventional bombing.

Of course against that, the enormous cost in terms of allied airmans lives needs to be taken into account in the grim ledger of war - as well as all of those millions of civilian lives.

80 years on, its a tragedy that so much seems to have been forgotten.
 
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I recall reading that over the war about 50% of UK industrial output was spent on BC. Which is really a staggeringly high fraction if you think about it. With a heavy bomber lasting on average something like 10 missions before being shot down, it took a lot of production effort not only to expand the force but just to replace losses.

So it's quite clear the opportunity cost of that was huge. I think a good case can be made on spending part of those resources on something else with a better cost-benefit ratio. Though of course in addition to the damage from the bombing itself, it also extracted a big cost from Germany in terms of night fighters, flak, radars etc.
 
Probably adding little to the previous high quality contributions. The inter war thinkers had little real evidence to work from. The German raids on Britain in WWI dropped around 300 tons of bombs, killing about 1,400 people and wounding about 4,800, First Blitz by Neil Hanson. Translate to 500 mid 1930's modern bombers dropping 1,000 tons of high explosive killing say 4,000 and wounding 16,000, and many more if chemical and/or biological weapons were used. Then doing it again the next day. I believe one of Admiral Tirpitz's pre or early WWI quotes was along the lines of a small bombing raid on a city is "odious", but a big raid, now that becomes a war weapon. The logic of Mutual Assured Destruction meant no bomber gaps. At the same time the cost and capability of that bomber was going up, using weights as a proxy the Do17 and Ju86 weighed in at around 5 to tons empty, the He111 had upped that to around 8 tons and the Ju88 to 10 tons. If the He177 was deployed it would be around 18 tons empty. Made it hard to obtain large numbers in peace time (or even desirable given the pace of development) and had repercussions on fighter armament, heavier aircraft tend to be harder to shoot down. The British Bombing Survey Unit put the cost of Bomber Command at 7% of war effort, calculated in worker hours, British Civil Defence is put at 3% of effort. The cost was higher in industrial terms but remember Bomber Command was a minority of the world wide RAF, the way tanks cost around the same as a fighter plane and the RN and civil ship construction programs

In WWI there was no warning system so the public was generally unaware of the danger and had little shelter options anyway. Apparently the first Gotha raid encountered cloud and one bomber released over Folkestone as a target of opportunity, hitting the shopping area and killing 56 women and children. The third raid was on 13 June 1917 with 14 Gothas and caused 600 casualties. There were 54 Zeppelin raids, 277 sorties of which 202 attacked, 17 lost including 5 to weather. Almost all raids at night, the defences seem to have made attacks too expensive in the second half of 1916. There were 8 daylight aircraft raids, 193 sorties of which 143 attacked, 14 lost including 4 to weather. There were 19 night raids, 253 sorties, 187 attacked, 16 lost, including 2 to forced landings.

The western allies had started "strategic" attacks late in WWI, including at night using the glow of foundry furnaces as guide. Air power was in many ways a late arrival in WWI, I think it was 1918 before the RAF had 100 squadrons, while peaking at a nominal 204 squadrons at the armistice. Again lots more air power promise than evidence.

The German civilian morale had definitely cracked in 1918, with the usual assortment of reasons why, pick the one that fitted your view. The bombing of Britain in WWI had a shock of new effect, given how safe Britain had been for centuries, or not, pick the view that fitted your outlook

Look up what (almost) happened to some of the early balloonists when they landed in areas that had never seen a balloon, the introduction of rapid fire weapons required a rapid fire supply system and the real risk troops might blow though their ammunition so quickly their only options were retreat or surrender. A Napoleonic infantryman could expect to carry all the ammunition he needed for the campaign in his kit, not so much the artillery. The way little actual evidence tends to result in loud groups of people dividing into this changes everything versus a total waste of time, with everyone locked deeper into a view as time goes on.

Bombing targets in the enemy homeland was the genuine independent air force role, most other operations overlapped with the other services, leading to the inevitable who ends up in charge arguments. The WWII RAF had infantry and armoured car units for airfield defence, run that idea past the Army Command in 1938.

Then comes who is the designated bad guy in the planning, in Europe it was repeat WWI but there were votes for the USSR. For the US it was more ambiguous, in 19th century only the British Empire could provide a credible threat of invasion and WWI had way diminished that threat, while USN and IJN had designated each other and largely agreed on war plans, the only major difference being who wins.

Realistic training means more losses, and in peace time more losses translates to less public support. Blowing things up to find out how to blow things up requires paying for the things to blow up. One of the interesting effects of the clash between what was possible now versus what was forecast to be needed in the next war is in the USAAF deliberations, the plans for what to do in a major war could devolve down into debates about small units of aircraft or maybe single aircraft. The reality of what they had now being projected onto a situation where they are expecting to have thousands of everything.

The rise of radar had a radical effect on the situation, including an increase in the power of aircraft carriers, but only Britain could claim to have a good handle on this when war began and it was very recent and still to be tested. While the Luftwaffe had good radio navigation aids. The USN had its carrier beacons. Everyone kept building fighters etc. as no one could be really sure who would be fought, when and where, and what force mix that would require, but the bombers were the capital aircraft, everything else in support. That included fighters flying as escorts.

The doctrine became rapid precision destruction of important objectives causing the collapse rather than due to people being killed in the raids, it moved into faith territory and rejected opportunities to gather and evaluate evidence. Actually buying or taking donations of obsolete factory equipment and bombing it before selling the scrap, the one pre war RAF trial bombing staked out obsolete aircraft, results showing it was harder than theory said. Exercises where bombers were sent to take target photographs of nominated targets, some done, results below theory. Finding the camouflaged target on the bombing range, again some done, results usually below theory. Do all this again in cloudy weather. The problems of navigation even by day and more at night were clear. The issue of ground defences forcing bombing from higher altitudes and that effect on accuracy, again some work done better bomb sights. The need to attack in formation and that effect on accuracy, how much did all this decease the average accuracy versus the one aircraft at a time on a good day on a clearly marked target the crew would end up attacking many times? All the above were within the scope of the Air Forces to come up with better data than they actually did. But you can always do more and we have hindsight.

Beyond that are the ones that require some leaps in thinking, like in large day raids the way the initial bombs would create enough smoke and dust to often obscure the target. How accurate could a wartime weather forecast be for an area hundreds of miles in enemy territory?

Even beyond that is no one had ever tried to stop an economy, or at least an important bit, some important bits, by selective destruction and it had to be some vital parts were harder to destroy than others, so which were the vital parts the bombers could knock out? Was one part easy to hurt but too big, another small enough but too hard to hit? How to tell the damage done?

All leading to the situation that on 26 October 1940, the RAF sent 3 Whitleys carrying a total of 3.5 tons of bombs fully expecting to do real damage to the Wessling oil refinery, finding their way using astral navigation, the 1944 attacks were in the order of 200 bombers with 1,000 tons of bombs, using radio beacons as much as possible to navigate, with specialist crews to mark the target. The pre war theory was that far out across the board for night operations and by not much better for day ones.
 

Hiram Maxim was British, of US origin.
What the French had in 1870 was the De Reffye gun from 1866 that was not a true MG but a balls firing cannon.
 
Geoffrey Sinclair said:
For the US it was more ambiguous
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If you can believe it, the USA war-gamed (on paper) around this time, that to develop their military planning they had to try to make up some sort of rough guess about what sort of adversary they might face, at the time their best guess was to make up an imagined enemy who would try to attack the USA, formed of an imaginary force approximating the actual forces possessed at the time by the British Empire, a selection of other European nations and Japan in a collaborative attack on the US mainland.

(see: Greer, T. H., The Development of Air Doctrine in the Army Air Arm. 1917-1941., 1955,)


The Committee of Imperial Defence in Britain were planning for something essentially similar to WW2 as early as 1923.

"British air must include a Home Defence Air Force of sufficient strength adequately to protect us against air attack by the strongest air force within striking distance of this country"

(Hyde, H. Montgomery, "British Air Policy between the Wars", 1976, {pg 119}

The Committee of Imperial Defence is probably the most interesting part of British History which appears to be almost completely untouched by historians, possibly because study of it would reveal that the entire "poor little Britain all by itself with no resources or help" narrative is almost complete nonsense. I suspect this is why mainstream study of it has been supressed. There is a very good US military essay on it, which you can find online.
 
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Frog said:
Hiram Maxim was British, of US origin.
What the French had in 1870 was the De Reffye gun from 1866 that was not a true MG but a balls firing cannon.
Click to expand...
Yes. Sorry. Got mixed up with the Mitrailleuse. The Mitrailleuse was an interesting beast with multiple barrels which could be used by firing
either all it's ammo in one shot (canister) or seperate rounds as per MG. The French army also had 25 gatlings.
 
Interesting (to me) is that the last several posts encapsulate the unfolding technologies and philosophies that both guided and beguiled the US and British architects of Airpower. Only in the US and Great Britain in the mid 30s' through (for US) the beginnining of our 'all in involvement in foreign affairs' was the concept of long range strategic bombing considered and executed - requiring large aircraft and 4 engines, and major invetment of national treasure in an economically troubled era.

The British model failed with respect to daylight operations because the strategic bomber altitude/speed envelope was not above the rapidly evolving Bf 109 or the Bf 110 - nor believed in the concept of LR escort based on techologies at hand. The USAAC/AAF did consider and develop High Altitude Interceptors which placed emphasis on obtainable combat ranges - but nobody in AAC considered self sealing internal tankage, and looked at external tankage as major fire hazard items, useful for Ferry operations. The concept of LR escort airframes, because of low fuel fractions for S/E fighters, wasn't deemed feasible - independent of external tankage concepts. The design of bomb racks were instituted but no US airframe manufacturer until Lockheed actually proposed to, and was accepted by, local AAF-Wright Field project/pgm managers in late 1941 at Lockheed to design and install external fuel/internal plumbing modification of P-38E wing. There is no evidence that I have found yet that approval went above Wright Field. Bodie has covered this topic well, but it it not yet clear that the reason was primarily based on extending AAC/AAF thinking went beyond Recon.

The major thinkers and planners in AAC, then AAF, enderwent some major transformational thinking as a result of Intelligence gleaned from bomber/interceptor/bomb damage assesments. First, they regarded current reliance on B-17 as sound based onhigh altitude range, performance and bomb load. Second they (Arnold and Emmons primarliy as respective leaders of AAC and GHQ combat operations arm of AAF(Spaatz, Naiden, Lyons), plus highly regarded thought leaders from CalTech and MIT and Industry - including Lindbergh- convened to study and recommend R&D priorities to support the Air Mission. From the Emmons Board and the Kilner Boards of 1939, emerged the Plans Division FM 1-15 "Tactical and Technology of Air Fighting" in September 1940 - as BoB reached a crescendo. Also emrging from the Kilner-Lindbergh Board was a priority to develop "A Fighter Aircraft to rank with the best in the world". Also included were "Improve liquid cooled engine development and "Improved Fire control systems".

The TWO important FM 1-15 objectives for Pursuit aircraft were to 1. "Deny the Hostile Force Freedom of the Air" and 2.) "Provide Bmbardment Escort Into Hostile Skies".

Pause - my points:
1. The leaders most cited as Bomber Mafia 'killing gud ol' Merican boys in the ETO' via passionate enslavment to "The bomber will always get through" were Eaker, Spaatz and Arnold. Nope - they were confronted with results in both Spanish Civil War and BoB and clear eyed regarding what needed to be devloped to make Airpower the force thay believed in.
2. The AAC?AAF-Hq Planners were clear eyed with respect to what the role of the Fighter had to be to compliment the concept of strategic bombardment in the destruction of enemy industrial capability.
3. The US had to go to war with what it HAD., But the leaders knew what they had to have to be successful over the long run.
4. I point to the failures of Wright Field leader Echols as primary reason that no RFP for SINGLE ENGINE FIGHTER be developed with 1500 mile range unil the concept of P-75, said concept demonstrating Echols lack of undertanding which attributes said fighter must have to survive in the escort role. In defense of Echols, we could say he was inhibited by narrow thinking of a.) not considering the rapid devlopment of R-R technolgy in his RFP development, that b.) his 'go to' airframe manufacturers were Curtiss, Bell as the 'old guard' until the success of the P-38, then P-47. Personally I believe that he was not open to Mustang as a potential platform despite the demonstrated low/medium altitude superior performance - either because he was butt-hurt by NAA rejection to build P-40 for RAF, or because he considered the NAA product to be tainted by British input to the development of the P-51. In fairness to Wright Field, his direct reports led the development of the P-38, the P-47 and the B-29.

I want to thank all of you, particularly including, but not limited to Buffnut(s), SplitRz, Snowy Grouse, Thumpa----, Reluctant Poster, Pbehn and other for a.) offering keen insight to the myriad 'bomber/strategic bombing/industry commitment/technology development and 'what ifs' to help Greg along in his educational endeavors. I learned some new stuff fromeach of you.
 
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Agreed. I have learned so much just reading on this site. I also find it quite ironic that Greg felt the need to produce an entire YouTube video criticizing Mark Felton about the Lancaster and the atomic bomb when Greg himself has a lot to clean up in multiple videos.
 
Frog said:
Hiram Maxim was British, of US origin.
What the French had in 1870 was the De Reffye gun from 1866 that was not a true MG but a balls firing cannon.
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or better was British citizen with former US citizenship of british ancestry (i get that ancestry is better american word for that i want write)
 
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SplitRz said:
No indeed. But its important to note it wasn't a one-off one-off.

Hamburg and Kassel in 43, Darmstadt in '44 , Dresden in Germany in 4'5 by the RAF, Tokyo and Yamaguchi in Japan by the USAF in 45
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Yes, but in terms of Speer's point, there were months between the (few) other firestorms which occurred during the remainder of the war. Had Bomber Command, within a week of Hamburg, done the same to Essen, then, a week later, done the same thing to Stuttgart, and then to Cologne several days after that, it's an entirely different scale of destruction.



As Sherman correctly observed, war is hell.


SplitRz said:
80 years on, its a tragedy that so much seems to have been forgotten.
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Forgotten, or perhaps worse, misremembered, with the historical reality often obscured with myths and incomplete or cherry-picked facts.
 
Agreed, heard dad and his brothers use the term more than once over the years.
 
In the 1920s and 1930s, the Canadian army actually planned an invasion of the USA.

If you are an army planner and it is peacetime, you have to practise planning stuff.
 
Just about every nation with a competent military has some kind of war plan for most contingencies. There were some YT videos about some truly ridiculous scenarios. I think there just might be such plans. Planners still on the clock who ran out of potential opponents or who were bored. I doubt those plans would ever see the light of day.
 
Howard Gibson said:
In the 1920s and 1930s, the Canadian army actually planned an invasion of the USA.

If you are an army planner and it is peacetime, you have to practise planning stuff.
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Well, does the Canadian Army plan to invade the US or do they make plans in 1920s/30s to invade somebody else using the Canadian Navy to transport them to the Invasion site?

September 1939, however, the RCN still had only six River-class destroyers, five minesweepers and two small training vessels,[21][22][23] bases at Halifax and Victoria, and altogether 145 officers and 1,674 men. And this was it's high point after the end of WW I. they had 366 men in 1922.

At least you can make and criticizes plans to invade the US, they know they would lose but it is training. Just saying march to dock, get on board the HMCS Nonexistent and sail to Norway doesn't even provide that.
 
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