The Winning Strategy - WW2 air campaign against Germany (1 Viewer)

[Dimlee]

Great post, Geoffrey. A lot of data.

Martin Sorge in the Other Price of Hitler's war claims 410,000 civilians killed and "hundreds of thousands" missing. The 410,000 figure appears to be German civilians killed, then add 23,000 police and civilians working in the military, 32,000 foreign workers and PoWs plus 128,000 displaced persons, total 593,000.

Do you have figures for other European countries, outside of German pre-WW2 borders?

It is reported USSR air raid casualties were comparable to Germany's including Hamburg like death tolls in the bombings of Stalingrad before the Heer arrived

As usual in the USSR, there are issues with civilian casualties statistics.
Among others, two important factors:
1. Political bias. Every civilian death during the "Great Patriotic War" was supposed to be caused by the Germans or their Allies. Despite the (unavoidable and recognised by the Soviet military) collateral damage, mass executions, etc.
2. The lack of systematic research, peer reviews, and public discussion. It became possible in the post-Soviet era, but didn't last long in the RF, where most archives were.
Also, we can assume that the Luftwaffe did not have the capacity compared to the Allies to inflict the same damage to Soviet cities as the damage in Germany. The very last sustained bombing campaign by LW was Operation Karmen in May-June 1943 against the industrial centres in Povolzhye (Volga river area). The total death toll on the ground was probably (my estimate) under 2,000, including crews and passengers of the vessels sunk.
Stalingrad bombing could be compared to Hamburg, indeed.

 

[swampyankee]

Great post, Geoffrey. A lot of data.

Do you have figures for other European countries, outside of German pre-WW2 borders

I posted a link. It's not too hard to find the data, although those data may have large error bands.

Research Starters: Worldwide Deaths in World War II | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

See estimates for worldwide deaths, broken down by country, in World War II.

www.nationalww2museum.org

Combatants & Casualties of World War II – The World War II Multimedia Database

www.worldwar2database.com

World War II Casualties by Country 2025

Discover population, economy, health, and more with the most comprehensive global statistics at your fingertips.

worldpopulationreview.com

World War II Fatalities By Country

World War Two was the deadliest war in human history. Between 70 to 85 million people died, either as a direct result of the conflict or due to war-related factors.

www.worldatlas.com

As mentioned, Soviet civilian casualties may conflate deaths directly due to Axis action with those due to internal Soviet actions. This is why I ignored the USSR when adding up civilian deaths in Europe. To a great extent, German war aims included depopulating Eastern Europe, so most of the civilian casualties there were not collateral damage, but deliberate genocidal policies.

 

[Jabberwocky]

The bombing campaign against the European Axis oil supplies could have certainly started much earlier, talk September of 1939.
But neither French nor British governments were allowing it.

It certainly could have started earlier, but I'm not convinced that it would have produced any war-changing impact.

French and British bombing efforts in 1939-1940 were desultory and their effects on Germany productivity marginal. The Butt Report highlights some of the scale of the problem on the side of the Allies - primarily issues with navigation, accurate bombing and actually doing long-term damage. Similarly, the amount of slack/idle capacity in the German oil sector in 1939-1941 shows just how much damage could have been absorbed at least until Barbarossa is launched.

The only alternate universe where I see an 'Oil Plan' being effective in 1939 is if the French and British had developed a unified bombing plan in the pre-war period (a 'combined bomber offensive' if you will) and had pursued it 100% from Day 1 of the war, without fear of retaliatory bombing and concerns about civilian casualties (on either side).

Even then, I think it's questionable whether the RAF and Armée de l'Air had the mass, training, manpower and equipment necessary to produce really significant/crippling results before the German invasion in 1940.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Even then, I think it's questionable whether the RAF and Armée de l'Air had the mass, training, manpower and equipment necessary to produce really significant/crippling results before the German invasion in 1940.

Daytime, it ain't working. Night-time, hit the damned thing and we'll see what you've done ... which is probably not much.

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

I find the USSR air raid casualty figure possible given the amount of Luftwaffe bombing done over the roughly 3 years of combat within the USSR plus the location of settlements and the real advantages of proper shelter making the buildings themselves important targets. In Normandy the British artillery deliberately and systematically shelled churches, the spires were too good as observation points, buildings are useful.

While crude and needing correction factors based on how accurate the weapons were, consider the following.

In terms of United Kingdom civilian casualties the totals look like this, table is cause, killed, seriously injured, and total.

Bombing / 51,509 / 61,423 / 112,932
Flying Bombs / 6,184 / 17,981 / 24,165
Rockets / 2,754 / 6,523 / 9,277
Cross Channel Guns / 148 / 255 / 403.
Totals / 60,595 / 86,182 / 146,777

Of the 146,777 killed or seriously injured 80,397 were in the London Civil Defence Region.

The V-1 caused 10% of deaths and 21% of serious injuries. This was from around 10,492 V1 launches of which the British observed 7,488. Of these 3,957 were shot down, around 232 by balloons and the rest split nearly 50:50 between fighters and guns.

The conventional bombing came to around 70,000 tons of bombs, the V-1s "eluding defences" were 3,531, there were 1,054 V-2 impacts on the UK. With the V-1 and V-2 carrying roughly a 1 ton warhead. However a number of shot down V-1s exploded on impact, killing people.

Around 70,000 metric tons of conventional bombing killed 51,509 civilians in the UK, about 0.66 deaths per short ton of bombs.
About 3,600 tons of V-1s killed 6,184 people, 1.5 deaths per short ton
About 1,100 tons of V-2s killed 2,754 people, 2.2 deaths per short ton.

You can see way air raids had more warning and therefore a lower killed per amount of explosive. The flying bombs and rockets came at all hours while at some point people have to go about their daily business and so expose themselves to the danger, the end of sounds from the V-1 engine gave people a short time to find shelter, the V-2 sounds arrived afterwards, meaning more people in vulnerable positions, while the lower impact speed of the V-1 enabled a larger blast area.

The 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne in May 1942 dropped 1,697.8 short tons of bombs, killing either 469 or 486 people including 52 military personnel, or about 0.3 deaths per ton of bombs. This was a new high for deaths in a single raid.

The Mosquito only raid on Hamburg on 30 September 1944 dropped 65.5 short tons of bombs, 103 people were killed including some trampled to death in a panic, 1.6 deaths per ton of bombs.

The 5th April 1943 8th Air Force strike on Antwerp, 104 B-17s of which 82 were rated as effective, dropping 245.5 tons of bombs on the industrial area, as the primary target, 936 civilians killed or around 4 deaths per ton of bombs.

When the 15th AF attacked rail facilities in Marseilles on 27 May 1944 over 1,500 French civilians were killed, along with 500 houses destroyed. There had been an attack in December 1943. According to the French report on the raid the population discounted the chance of further attacks and did not take good precautions. Some 72 bombers attacked, dropping 177.5 short tons of HE bombs versus the French estimate of 130 aircraft attacking, so about 8.5 deaths per ton of bombs.

The raid that caused the Hamburg firestorm dropped 2,707.2 short tons of bombs, causing somewhere around 15 deaths per ton.

The raid that caused the Dresden firestorm dropped 2,978.4 short tons of bombs, about 8.4 deaths per ton of bombs.

The German air raid death total is put at 593,000, the two big firestorms account for around 70,000 of these. Other firestorm raids, Kassel in 1943 which probably killed over 6,000 people, and Pforzheim in 1945, killing another 17,600, can be removed but that still leaves around 500,000 deaths, or 0.4 deaths per ton of bombs, ignoring any Red Air Force operations or RAF/USAAF tactical bombings.

Switching back to long tons, in the 11 months June 1944 to April 1945 Bomber Command says it dropped 95,553 tons of bombs on oil targets, plus some more on raids that were meant to be on oil targets but found bad weather. From September 1939 to end January 1942 Bomber Command dropped 94,673 tons of bombs on all targets, it took until end April 1943 to drop 94,575 tons of bombs on Germany. These were raids done dropping on average smaller bombs with lower percentages of less powerful explosives with less accuracy and taking lots more than 11 months to do so.

Assuming the early war bombing caused half the lasting damage thereby needing twice the bombs an all out bombing on oil alone absorbs all Bomber Command effort to end August 1943, or all effort against German targets to around end November 1943 to achieve the same amount of damage as the 1944/45 attacks.

The 8th Air Force figures are not as dramatic and if anything the correction factor is the other way, while visual bombing accuracy did generally improve over time the amount of non visual bombing also went up, sending average accuracy down. Richard Davis thinks the 8th Air Force dropped around 77,000 sort tons on oil targets, including storage, the USAAF Statistical Digest says 68,000 tons. Using the USAAF figures an all out attack on oil comparable in bomb tonnage terms to historical would absorb all 8th Air Force effort from the start until during February 1944, if every mission to Germany was against oil it would mean all such effort to during April 1944.

Then comes the 15th Air Force contribution, plus operation Tidal Wave.

Romania was trading as normally as possible and officially neutral until 1941 while in 1939 Hitler was quite happy to give parts of the country to the USSR, by end June 1940 the options the Romanians had were limited. They could become occupied or axis allied. Bombing the Romanian refineries still left the option of transporting the crude oil to the refineries in axis controlled Europe, a reason the Danube was mined, to stop any bulk shipments.

The British history The Economic Blockade reports the USSR supplied the following, in 1940 202,292 tons of petrol, 15,831 tons spindle oil, 32,561 tons machine oil, 16,627 tons solar oil, 16,729 tons lubricating oil, 234,145 tons gas oil, 134,820 tons fuel oil, in 1941 278,958 tons of petroleum products. Total imports from the USSR in 1940 were 3,032,830 tons, for 1 January to 22 June 1941, 1,362,269 tons.

 

[tomo pauk]

It certainly could have started earlier, but I'm not convinced that it would have produced any war-changing impact.

French and British bombing efforts in 1939-1940 were desultory and their effects on Germany productivity marginal. The Butt Report highlights some of the scale of the problem on the side of the Allies - primarily issues with navigation, accurate bombing and actually doing long-term damage. Similarly, the amount of slack/idle capacity in the German oil sector in 1939-1941 shows just how much damage could have been absorbed at least until Barbarossa is launched.

The only alternate universe where I see an 'Oil Plan' being effective in 1939 is if the French and British had developed a unified bombing plan in the pre-war period (a 'combined bomber offensive' if you will) and had pursued it 100% from Day 1 of the war, without fear of retaliatory bombing and concerns about civilian casualties (on either side).

Even then, I think it's questionable whether the RAF and Armée de l'Air had the mass, training, manpower and equipment necessary to produce really significant/crippling results before the German invasion in 1940.

Thee is a world of difference in the statements like 'start the anti-oil campaign' and 'the anti-oil campaign is crippling ww2 Germany'. I don't doubt that the initial part of the campaign would've been a rocky start, however the earlier it is started, the earlier it should give some results. So with an early start, instead of Germany really struggling with fuel for anything in the mid-1944, the similar effect might've happened a full year earlier.

I have no illusions that crippling results would've happened in 1939/40, at least not with the mindset and equipment available in the day.

 

[Just Schmidt]

What was a 'thing' that Germany was lacking the most?

Good sense?

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

16,627 tons solar oil

Geoffrey, what is this? I tried looking it up but only got hits for tanning lotions.

 

[pinehilljoe]

The bombing campaign against the European Axis oil supplies could have certainly started much earlier, talk September of 1939.
But neither French nor British governments were allowing it.

An effective Oil Campaign in Sept '39 would have been an well planned ground offensive to take the Ruhr coal fields while the Wehrmacht was occupied in Poland. The synthetic oil production using the Bergius process required coal. Forgive me for digressing.

 

[z42]

An effective Oil Campaign in Sept '39 would have been an well planned ground offensive to take the Ruhr coal fields while the Wehrmacht was occupied in Poland. The synthetic oil production using the Bergius process required coal. Forgive me for digressing.

The Bergius process used lignite, which AFAIK even back then was extensively mined in the east part of Germany (roughly around Dresden and Leipzig). That's why the giant Leuna facility was over there.

There is lignite in the Ruhr area too, but its critically for Germany stems from metallurgical coal and extensive concentration of heavy industry.

 

[Dimlee]

I posted a link. It's not too hard to find the data, although those data may have large error bands.

Research Starters: Worldwide Deaths in World War II | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

See estimates for worldwide deaths, broken down by country, in World War II.

www.nationalww2museum.org

Combatants & Casualties of World War II – The World War II Multimedia Database

www.worldwar2database.com

World War II Casualties by Country 2025

Discover population, economy, health, and more with the most comprehensive global statistics at your fingertips.

worldpopulationreview.com

World War II Fatalities By Country

World War Two was the deadliest war in human history. Between 70 to 85 million people died, either as a direct result of the conflict or due to war-related factors.

www.worldatlas.com

As mentioned, Soviet civilian casualties may conflate deaths directly due to Axis action with those due to internal Soviet actions. This is why I ignored the USSR when adding up civilian deaths in Europe. To a great extent, German war aims included depopulating Eastern Europe, so most of the civilian casualties there were not collateral damage, but deliberate genocidal policies.

Thank you. Probably I was not clear, I asked about the civilian casualties caused by Allied bombing outside of Germany's pre-war borders.
Agree about the Soviet statistics.

 

[Dimlee]

Geoffrey, what is this? I tried looking it up but only got hits for tanning lotions.

Probably, Solaröl, Solar Oil or adaptation from the Russian "solyar" (itself based on the German word).
Diesel fuel in the Russian language was called "solyar" or "solyarka" since the early XX century, if not earlier.

 

[Just Schmidt]

Geoffrey, what is this? I tried looking it up but only got hits for tanning lotions.

In Norway ,'solarolje' was between the wars used to designate diesel oil importert from Germany, which was made by bestilling tar from coal (brunkulltjære). Used fx in fishing vessels driven by 'semi diesels'.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I appreciate y'all forgiving my ignorance and giving me straight answers. To be perfectly clear, I was wondering why sunflower oil might be so valuable as to rank in statistics.

Now I know better -- much thanks.

 

[Engineman]

The British history The Economic Blockade reports the USSR supplied the following, in 1940 202,292 tons of petrol, 15,831 tons spindle oil, 32,561 tons machine oil, 16,627 tons solar oil, 16,729 tons lubricating oil, 234,145 tons gas oil, 134,820 tons fuel oil, in 1941 278,958 tons of petroleum products. Total imports from the USSR in 1940 were 3,032,830 tons, for 1 January to 22 June 1941, 1,362,269 tons.

Yes, Interesting question about "solar oil"? Sorry, but I don't have an answer. However, if it does refer to Diesel fuel, then wouldn't that be the 234,145 tons of gas oil?

5port

 

[Juha3]

Geoffrey, what is this? I tried looking it up but only got hits for tanning lotions.

Sunflower oil can be used in diesel engines by blending it with diesel oil, Not working very well in cold temperatures. I have no idea if it was used that way in 30s and 40s.

 

[bf109xxl]

From "The Oil Industry in Nazi Germany, 1936-1945" by Raymond G. Stokes, The Business History Review, Summer, 1985, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Summer, 1985), pp.254-277

The German oil industry was collapsing far more rapidly. In December 1944, while total industrial production stood at 85 percent of its second-quarter level, production of petroleum products was less than 40 percent of the level achieved during the first four months of the year. By March 1945, petroleum production in Germany, both synthetic and crude, had decreased to about 12 percent of its level during the first four months of 1944.50​ A major factor in this decline was the effect of Allied bombing on the German transportation system, since with transportation outages coal could not be brought to the synthetic plants and finished products could not be distributed. Allied bombing also crippled production directly in the German oil industry, as Figure 2 shows.52​
The synthetic oil sector of the German oil industry declined much more rapidly than did the crude sector. In December 1944, total synthetic production was proceeding at only 16 percent of its pre-bombing rate, and by March 1945 that statistic had dropped to 3 percent. From an average monthly rate of 359,000 metric tons of petroleum before the bombing, production had dropped to only about 11,000 metric tons.52​ It is not surprising that the Allied bombers concentrated on the synthetic sector, given its relative importance to the German economy. However, one of the very factors that had led to the sector's rapid rise - efficient use of technological interdependence - speeded its downfall. Hitler himself expressed this problem well at a meeting on 9 May 1944 at Obersalzburg with the most important economic policymakers in the Third Reich: Keitel, Göring, Milch, Krauch, Pleiger, Bütefisch, E. R. Fischer, Kehrl, and Speer. "In my view," he said, "the fuel, Buna rubber, and nitrogen plants represent a particularly sensitive point for the conduct of the war, since vital materials for armaments are being manufactured in a small number of plants."53​ Air strikes on synthetic petroleum plants yielded unexpected dividends, reducing the production not only of oil but also of synthetic alcohol, synthetic rubber, and synthetic nitrates, which in turn hastened the decline of the economy.
Within the synthetic sector of the German oil industry, hydrogenation plants suffered more from the Allied onslaught than did Fischer-Tropsch plants. Bergius facilities represented nearly half of all German petroleum production capacity, and received a corresponding percentage of the tonnage of bombs dropped by the Allies. But production losses in the hydrogenation plants constituted over 65 percent of total German petroleum production losses due to the Allied bombing. Overall, 36 metric tons of production were lost for every short ton of bombs dropped on the Bergius plants. In contrast, Fischer-Tropsch plants, with 6.5 percent of total installed petroleum production capacity, were responsible for 7.5 percent of the production loss. For every short ton of bombs dropped on Fischer-Tropsch facilities, only 10 metric tons of production were lost. The Allies, like the Nazis, attached great importance to hydrogenation plants, recognizing their crucial role in the German war economy.54​

50​Percentages calculated from figures in USSBS 109, Oil Division Final Report, 23.
51​For transportation systems outages, see U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (European War), USSBS Report 2 (30 Sept. 1945), 64, and Milward, German Economy, 173. Arnold Krammer contends that "the bombing raids destroved the German fuel network not by crippling production but by causing a complete breakdown of transportation" (see Krammer, "Fueling," 418). It is more accurate to say that both effects of the bombing-crippled production combined with transportation breakdown-contributed to the downfall of the industry. Krammer himself admits, for instance, that high-octane fuel production fell because of production losses brought on by the bombing, and Bütefisch claimed that "the actual bombing of the [synthetic oil] plants was far more important" than transportation outages. (See BIOS 1697, Synthetic Oil Production, 6.) American technicians in Germany after the war estimated that it would take at least a year (until June 1946) to restore synthetic production, because of damage to the plants. See D. M. S. Langworthy to members of the Army-Navy Petroleum Board, 24 May 1945. Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs, CAD 463 (6-1-43), sec. 2, RG 165, NA.
52​USSBS 109, Oil Division Final Report, 23.
53​Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York, 1970; Avon books edition, 1971), 446-47.
54​USSBS 109, Oil Division Final Report, Table 11, 24.

 

[bf109xxl]

in the east part of Germany (roughly around Dresden and Leipzig). That's why the giant Leuna facility was over there.

"Around Dresden" means ''within a distance of about 50 kilometers or more''. In addition to the Leipzig-Halle area, there were (and still are) coal pits in South Brandenburg/North Saxony (Lausitz district) and to the east of Bautzen.

There is lignite in the Ruhr area too, but its critically for Germany stems from metallurgical coal and extensive concentration of heavy industry.

Lignite from the Ruhr was similarly used to produce synthetic fuel - the Hydrierwerk Wesseling was built.

 

[ThomasP]

Solar Oil was an English brand name for solarol - a German designation for heavy(?) diesel fuel oil made using using lignite coal as the primary source. Solarol originally got its name back in the late-1800s from the heavy yellowish colour of the finished product due to relatively poor prevention of oxidation. Later generations of hydrogenation of lignite processes (like the Bergius process during WWII) produced higher grades of fuel and were often almost clear when finished. Diesel made from petroleum distillation is normally clear or almost clear (depending on the lighting it may have a very slight green tint to it when new, or a very slight yellow-brown tint when older) - any other colours are due to dyes.

Incidentally, diesel fuel is still sometimes called solyarka in some areas of Russia, and solar in Indonesia.

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

Thanks to those supplying the oil type definitions.

Before the 15th Air Force finally received permission to officially target the Ploesti refineries it had been attacking the rail marshalling yards which were located roughly in the middle of the refineries, as part of the authorised transport targets. The bombing of these yards had been strangely inaccurate, more of the bombs appear to have hit the refineries than the rail lines. HE bombs unless noted

5 April 1944, 516.4 tons (including 140.9 tons of incendiaries) on the yards, 71 tons on Astra Romano refinery
15 April, 290.1 tons on the yards, 56.5 tons of incendiaries on the Industrial Area.
24 April 793 tons on the yards
5 May, 814.3 tons on the yards, 295.8 on oil pumping stations, 227 tons on refineries.
18 May, 493 tons on the refineries

General Spaatz deliberately waited until the weather was near perfect to order the first major oil attacks, the 8th Air Force did attacks on 5 synthetic oil refineries on 12 May with 1,383.6 tons of bombs out of 1,717.9 tons dropped that day, all visual bombing. October 1943 to May 1944, 8th Air Force tons of bombs dropped visually on Germany and their percentage of total bombs dropped on Germany for the month, 3,015.2 - 72.05%, 1,483.8 - 27.56%, 2,705 - 30.41, 2,053.4 - 24.78%, 7,073.8 - 54.14%, 4,920.3 - 33.61%, 11,813.8 - 77.34%, 11,487.9 - 57.79%. Bombs dropped on Germany final quarter of 1943, 18,462.1 tons, dropped in May 1944 19,800 tons. To put it another way of the total wartime bomb tonnage dropped by the 8th Air Force on Germany 5.22% by end 1943, 18.9% by end May 1944.

USSBS, The How and Why Air attacks crippled the German Oil-Chemical Industry

""Production loss at Ammoniakwerk Merseburg, at Leuna, on the other hand, was due entirely to reparable damage. Following the first two attacks, 94 percent of the utilities damaged had to be repaired before the plant could start up again. Compressors and pumps could run with tarpaulins strung overhead, but pipe and cable breaks had to be patched up. By November, there had been over 1,500 breaks in the Leuna water piping system alone, and in all 22 attacks on the plant over 5,000 individual breaks were sustained by the utilities distributing systems."

"The Leuna versus Allied air forces bout resembled in some ways a prize fight. The plant was knocked down nine times but never out, and recovered rapidly at first but more slowly as the accumulating punishment began to tell. Its recovery capacity also slackened as indicated by the decreasing percentages of the recovery plans. It might be said that the plant was finally defeated on points. To have achieved a complete knockout the Allied air forces would have had to destroy its recovery capacity, and they did not deliver a sufficiently strong punch to accomplish this."

After the 22 raids the USSBS thought it could recover to around 70% capacity in a couple of months.

The US first tried H2S in September 1943, by end February 1944 two 8th Air Force bomber groups had been equipped with H2X, end May it was 6, end July 11, end August 24. Then add the acute shortage of people trained to use the sets and the way February serviceability of the sets was around 77% while for the second half of 1944 it was around 88 to 90%. The 8th pioneered using radar and had teething problems like crews switching between radar and visual and back again in the middle of a bomb run, which made things worse. In mid 1944 the radar and Norden sight were used together to eliminate this. The idea should have been to bomb blind and take a visual shot as a "bonus" not decide the other way round at the last moment.

As bombing usually suppressed economic output instead of destroying it the bombers needed to mount a sustained attack, otherwise as per Arthur Harris objections, the Germans would be back to about normal output sometime after the weather turned bad. The USAAF needed radar bombing to mount a sustained offensive and the way European weather works the 8th Air Force needed every group to have bad weather bombing abilities, the 15th could usually expect good weather each day over some useful target between France and Bulgaria, enabling a more measured introduction of H2X. The output of radar sets and people trained to use them remained a problem to around the end of 1944.

The book America's pursuit of Precision Bombing by McFarland confirms the 8th had the worst blind bombing accuracy, the 15th and 20th Air Forces and Bomber Command were more accurate. The 15th was about twice as accurate as the 8th in combat conditions. In 285 test runs the 8th found 55.5% of bombs within 4,000 feet, 68.1% within 5,000 feet for an average crew, exceptional crews had 50% of bombs within 2,500 feet. Combat errors were considered to be 1.5 to 2 times the test runs. The 20th could land 50% of bombs in combat conditions within 5,500 feet. The British, in combat conditions (presumably at night) had 50% within about 6,400 feet (1.2 miles).

It appears a lack of instructors, the need to train so many people, the way tour expired men were temporarily held back to be trainers instead of being sent home to the US all meant the 8ths training program was the worst and the results followed. The 8th had a 4 week course. The British a 6 month course. The 15th had a 5 day initial course followed by 40 hours in the air, 20 bomb runs, with a 3,000 foot error from 15,000 feet as the pass. Graduates then became 3rd or deputy lead for at least 10 real missions.

In order to build enough fighters and have the trained aircrew the Luftwaffe cut bomber production in 1944, add things like the night fighter force had 342 Ju88 on 31 January 1944 and 647 on 10 September. The Luftwaffe cut its bomber units due to them being ineffective in the west, and replaced by V-1, and not as effective as the ground attack units in the east, as well as fuel reasons. The Luftwaffe training system decreased due to lack of safe training areas and the time it would have taken to produce new aircrew as well as the fuel situation.

Losing Ploesti was a problem for the Heer in the east as it was drawing supply directly from it, with the refineries knocked out the option remained of shipping the crude oil to refineries elsewhere, hence the campaign of mining the Danube. The fighting in Normandy and in general did not put a big strain on Heer fuel supplies until operations became mobile. Using reserves and the importance of the fighting meant the mid 1944 German operations only suffered shortages due to tactical fuel supply, not strategic, that came later.

The following is a rather artificial calculation of Bomber Command's damage potential. Start with the average number of aircraft of each type and crews available for the month, multiplied by the average war time bomb load for the type, then multiplied by accuracy, that is the percentage of bombs that landed within 3 miles of the target located German cities (excluding Berlin) for the month in good to fair weather at night (in other words where the bombing photographs could identify location). The first column is all aircraft, the second is the Mosquito bomber contribution only, giving an idea of how many more Mosquitoes were required to match the overall damage potential.

aircraft with crew times bomb load times accuracy equals damage potential

Feb-42 11.73 0
Apr-42 14.95 0
Jun-42 26.05 0.2
Aug-42 24.36 0.19
Oct-42 29.98 0.29
Dec-42 30.16 0.28
Feb-43 42.72 0.76
Apr-43 58.02 0.84
Jun-43 131.03 1.29
Aug-43 155.07 2.11
Oct-43 158.26 2.37
Dec-43 175.52 2.75
Feb-44 181.76 2.3
Apr-44 249.89 4.76
Jun-44 288.92 6.49
Aug-44 328.97 8.18
Oct-44 459.69 10.43
Dec-44 515.47 13.88
Feb-45 476.39 15.21
Apr-45 567.83 19.48

Lots of approximations with this calculation but it essentially says at night over Germany, assuming the aircraft could carry their average bomb load to target then for the month the average amount of potential damage done to the target by the average number of aircraft and crews available nightly is the given number. In June 1943 the average bomb raid would cause about half the damage of June 1944, bomb raids in the second half of 1943 would cause a third to a half the damage of raids run in the second half of 1944, thanks to a combination of greater accuracy, more aircraft and the increasing percentage of Lancasters in the main force bomber units during 1944, from an average of 475.6 with crews in January to 932.5 in December. The better performing Halifax III started to be issued to Bomber Command in September/October 1943, in February 1944 it was over half the force, heading to around 90% in May. Average bomb loads for the war, Stirling 6,622, Halifax 7,539, Lancaster 10,065, Mosquito 2,383 pounds.

Bomber Command was being defeated over Germany in early 1944, the USAAF was rebounding from its October 1943 defeat and fighting hard, according to the USAAF Statistical Digest losing to enemy aircraft, 139 heavy bombers in January, 170 in February, 178 in March, 314 in April and 211 in May, total 1,012, losses for the rest of the year were 504. The 8th started 1944 with 25 operational heavy bomber groups, to 29 end February, 35 mid May, finally 40 on D-Day, on the face of it a 60% increase in strength, in fact what was called effective strength for combat (operational aircraft with an operational crew) went from an average of 723 heavy bombers in December 1943, to the following for the first 6 months of 1944, 822, 981, 960, 1,049, 1,304, 1,855, or about a 260% increase in strength. For the 10 months July 1944 to April 1945, the combat strength figure averaged 1,840.

On 15 January 1944 the 15th Air Force reported an effective strength of 155 B-17 and 71 B-24, total 226, up to 305 on 18 January, on 10 May 1944 when its final heavy bomber group did its first operation 200 B-17 and 623 B-24, total 823, 9 May strength was 891, 11 May strength was 934. Daily figures tend to fluctuate.

A successful campaign against German liquid fuel production could only start a matter of days to weeks, not months before it actually did in 1944, until then the allies lacked everything, acceptable loss rates, numbers, accuracy, bad weather capability. The earlier the campaign starts the more time the Germans have for building passive and active defences, start early enough and there is the option for Germany boosting synthetic oil production capacity.

The bombing campaign was very end weighted, not only in terms of bombs dropped but also the effectiveness of the bombs (better explosives and more explosive content, better size and type mixtures) and their accuracy along with the amount dropped in a given time - the ability to sustain daily operations, thereby giving the quantity of damage done a quality of its own through cumulative effects and overwhelming the repair system.

The attack on oil deprived the Germans of their tactical mobility, the attack on transport their strategic and economic mobility, adding up to more than the sum or the parts, as has been noted interdicting coal shipments to the synthetic oil plants played a part in reducing output.