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Also in 1944, the Allies started bombing German synthetic oil plants and reduced production by ~95%. These plants also produced nitrogen for explosives, so their destruction contributed to the general shortage of ammunition at the end of the war.
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Feb 12, 2012 22:32
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Pyle posted:Just how much did the strategic bombing of Europe affect the outcome of the WWII? I have always understood that the role of bombing was so insignificant that it was close to useless. Every time Allied bombed some German factory, the Germans were able to rebuild it the next day. In order for the bombing to be effective, they should have bombed the manufacturing plants to ruins and then continued to bomb the ruins everyday. The Blitz over London was useless in the war effort, except it really hardened the will of British to fight. Same could be said about retaliation bombing of the German cities. Did the bombing campaign against Germany achieve anything in the huge scale of WWII? Its not the fact that there are a lot of B-17s that single-handedly won the war. Its that the Americans were able to produce so many of them.
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Feb 12, 2012 22:41
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Oxford Comma posted:Its not the fact that there are a lot of B-17s that single-handedly won the war. Its that the Americans were able to produce so many of them. And also could operate them, unlike Japan that by the end of war didn't have enough fuel to even train new pilots. USA had large enough oil that she could execute two offensive wars on separate sides of Earth simultaneously. US civilians weren't too badly hit by rationing either, compared to everyone else, and the rationing also ended there before anywhere else.
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Feb 12, 2012 23:07
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Albert Speer once said that if the Allies had been able to do a few more bombing campaigns on the scale of Hamburg the war would have been over in 1943. The Allies did not have the resources to do that though.
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Feb 13, 2012 02:16
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Albert Speer once said that if the Allies had been able to do a few more bombing campaigns on the scale of Hamburg the war would have been over in 1943. The Allies did not have the resources to do that though. Not in 1943 but what about in 1945 (where, obviously, it wouldn't have been needed. My point is that by the end of the war the US was able to crank out obscene amounts of goods when compared to the Axis powers.)
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Feb 13, 2012 04:02
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Pyle posted:Just how much did the strategic bombing of Europe affect the outcome of the WWII? I have always understood that the role of bombing was so insignificant that it was close to useless. Every time Allied bombed some German factory, the Germans were able to rebuild it the next day. In order for the bombing to be effective, they should have bombed the manufacturing plants to ruins and then continued to bomb the ruins everyday. The Blitz over London was useless in the war effort, except it really hardened the will of British to fight. Same could be said about retaliation bombing of the German cities. Did the bombing campaign against Germany achieve anything in the huge scale of WWII? If you live in a city, imagine the effects a bombing run would have on the city and try living and working through that. It was not insignificant.
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Feb 13, 2012 04:14
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Pyle posted:Just how much did the strategic bombing of Europe affect the outcome of the WWII? I have always understood that the role of bombing was so insignificant that it was close to useless. Every time Allied bombed some German factory, the Germans were able to rebuild it the next day. In order for the bombing to be effective, they should have bombed the manufacturing plants to ruins and then continued to bomb the ruins everyday. The Blitz over London was useless in the war effort, except it really hardened the will of British to fight. Same could be said about retaliation bombing of the German cities. Did the bombing campaign against Germany achieve anything in the huge scale of WWII? If you are a chicken, imagine the effects of another devastating attack on German agriculture and try living and laying eggs through that. It was not insignificant.
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Feb 13, 2012 05:04
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coolatronic posted:If you are a chicken, imagine the effects of another devastating attack on German agriculture and try living and laying eggs through that. It was not insignificant. Could you elaborate on this? I'd previously assumed that most damage to the German agricultural base was caused by ground fighting in the Eastern front.
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Feb 13, 2012 07:53
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Chopstix posted:If you live in a city, imagine the effects a bombing run would have on the city and try living and working through that. It was not insignificant. The problem of course was that people didn't stop working and living despite the hardship. The "de-housing" concept wasn't as effective as Harris and his crew thought.
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Feb 13, 2012 12:05
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Another important part of the bombing campaign was tying up resources that could have been used at the front. A million men (then women, then children) operating AA batteries, which sucked up artillery and ammunition. I believe someone in Army high command wanted to dismantle the AA batteries and send them to the East to stem the advancing Russians (the 88 could be used as a decent anti-tank gun), but leaving the cities defenseless would have damaged civilian morale.
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Feb 13, 2012 12:36
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meatbag posted:Another important part of the bombing campaign was tying up resources that could have been used at the front. A million men (then women, then children) However, this includes all the old geezers, cripples and others who were not fit for service in the front even as donkey cart drivers. In that sense it was a bad deal. I'm also under the impression that the bombings were not particularly efficient, in that for each ton of bombs that hit their targets or did something of effect, there was x or y tons that hit nothing of worth, or bomb runs were aborted due to clouds. Soviets also bombed Helsinki with great intensity in February 1944, trying to force Finland out of the war by destroying the capital city. In the first night raid 728 bombers dropped 6991 bombs in and around the city, with 331 hitting the centre, killing 103. Ten nights later came the second raid, but the defenders were better prepared this time. A decoy 'bonfire town' was built to east of the city, to resemble a burning city, and was set on fire when the bombers approached. To perfect the illusion a decoy flak battery was also placed there. 383 bombers dropped 4317 bombs, but only 130 hit the city centre. 25 people died. Another ten nights later came the final and largest raid, lasting 11 hours from late evening to break of dawn in three phases. It was carried by 896 bombers dropping 5182 bombs. 338 bombs hit the centre, killing 18 people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Helsinki_in_World_War_II In an interesting twist, since bombing Leningrad was politically unviable Finns retaliated by having Blenheims and Dorniers tail the Soviet bombers returning to their bases, turning the bombers into bombees. quote:"On 25th February the air force CO ordered bomber squadrons PLeLv 42 and 46 to attack these bases under suitable conditions. The Russians were to be mislead by the Finnish bombers joining the formations at night over the Gulf of Finland, when returning, say from a mission to Helsinki. http://www.virtualpilots.fi/hist/WW2History-NightOfTheBombers.html
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Feb 13, 2012 13:28
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Quick question: Any suggested reading about the military organization/equipment of the Mali Empire?
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Feb 13, 2012 13:59
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coolatronic posted:If you are a chicken, imagine the effects of another devastating attack on German agriculture and try living and laying eggs through that. It was not insignificant. And that is why Hitler was a vegan.
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Feb 13, 2012 16:54
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Truly evaluating the use of the WWII bombing of Germany requires a lot of what-if thinking. How much could men like Speer have done if they were free to focus on improving production on top of a reliable infrastructure, rather than constantly trying to improvise? How much more powerful would the Luftwaffe have been on D-Day if it hadn't been worn down by the 8th Air Force? What would all those bomber factories have done instead? You can't build transatlantic shipping capacity at Willow Run, so it's overly facile to simply say that the US could have prioritized shipping or whatever. In total war, it pays to find ways to turn every resource you have into munitions, even if they can't all be the highest performers.
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Feb 13, 2012 21:27
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Zorak of Michigan posted:In total war, it pays to find ways to turn every resource you have into munitions, even if they can't all be the highest performers. But it wasn't "either we use these resources to build and support heavy bombers, or we waste them". Those same airmen and plane production capacity and the fuel and munitions the bombers used could have been used for other purposes. Long range fighters, more CAS, air transport, there's a lot of alternatives. And those German WW1 veterans and cripples and women and children weren't going to participate in frontline operations (apart from Volksturm), but they could do their part in defense of the Reich by manning flak batteries and killing able bodied Allied airmen. Nor should it be seen as a matter of "either there is strategic bombing or there isn't." There could have been more strategic bombings than there historically were, or less. If less, either somewhat less or a whole lot less. It's noteworthy that especially the British commanders (but also the US) liked to use carpet bombing as a starting blow for their offensives in Normandy (Monte Cassino also comes to mind). Harris of course objected to this kind of use of his assets because he believed the best way to win the war was to bomb Germany itself, not German frontlines. But the effectiveness of the carpet bombing use was obvious, if you consider what happened to Lt.General Lesley McNair in the opening of Cobra, who fell victim to friendly bombs: Omar Bradley posted:The ground belched, shook and spewed dirt to the sky. Scores of our troops were hit, their bodies flung from slit trenches. Doughboys were dazed and frightened....A bomb landed squarely on McNair in a slit trench and threw his body sixty feet and mangled it beyond recognition except for the three stars on his collar. 
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Feb 13, 2012 22:27
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Nenonen posted:But it wasn't "either we use these resources to build and support heavy bombers, or we waste them". Those same airmen and plane production capacity and the fuel and munitions the bombers used could have been used for other purposes. Long range fighters, more CAS, air transport, there's a lot of alternatives. And those German WW1 veterans and cripples and women and children weren't going to participate in frontline operations (apart from Volksturm), but they could do their part in defense of the Reich by manning flak batteries and killing able bodied Allied airmen. Nor should it be seen as a matter of "either there is strategic bombing or there isn't." There could have been more strategic bombings than there historically were, or less. If less, either somewhat less or a whole lot less. Agreed, but then the conversation just becomes one of second-guessing individual operational decisions. It's hardly surprising and barely interesting that if the planners of the WWII strategic bombing campaigns knew all the facts that were gather in the decades after the war, they'd have been able to make better choices. quote:It's noteworthy that especially the British commanders (but also the US) liked to use carpet bombing as a starting blow for their offensives in Normandy (Monte Cassino also comes to mind). Harris of course objected to this kind of use of his assets because he believed the best way to win the war was to bomb Germany itself, not German frontlines. But the effectiveness of the carpet bombing use was obvious, if you consider what happened to Lt.General Lesley McNair in the opening of Cobra, who fell victim to friendly bombs: It killed the crap out of anyone hit, and incapacitated even more, but it also rendered the ground extremely difficult to cover even in tracked vehicles. As a way of preparing for a breakout, it was disastrous. If the C&C arrangements had been up to it, it would have been a fascinating way to cover flanks or blunt armored spearheads.
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Feb 13, 2012 22:36
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There were several cases in World War 2 of a massive use of strategic bombers to "blast open" a hole in the front lines not working well, with Monte Cassino being a prime example. It worked in Cobra, but I'd argue that German Lines were already about to crack at the beginning of that operation due to the strain of 2 months of combat in Normandy.
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Feb 13, 2012 23:12
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New Division posted:There were several cases in World War 2 of a massive use of strategic bombers to "blast open" a hole in the front lines not working well, with Monte Cassino being a prime example. It worked in Cobra, but I'd argue that German Lines were already about to crack at the beginning of that operation due to the strain of 2 months of combat in Normandy. It worked to the extent that the enemy lines were marginally more heavily bombed than your lines, and your entire area of advance became a unnavigable mass of craters.
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Feb 14, 2012 00:00
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Alchenar posted:It worked to the extent that the enemy lines were marginally more heavily bombed than your lines, and your entire area of advance became a unnavigable mass of craters. I won't disagree with you. I think Cobra would have worked fine without the heavy bombers doing their bit.
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Feb 14, 2012 01:08
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Could the Sky Marshal's have done more to stop the meteor from smashing into Buenos Aires?
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Feb 14, 2012 02:25
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Nenonen posted:But it wasn't "either we use these resources to build and support heavy bombers, or we waste them". Well, it sort of was, if the Western Allies wanted to do something to help the war effort along. Strategic bombing was almost certainly the most effective way to engage the Germans prior to Normandy. To that end, I'm sure the Russians appreciated (or at least should have) that half of the Luftwaffe's assets were being used in the West, not to mention the effort and materiel going into manning and operating the big AA guns (not just the soldiers, but the ammunition, maintenance, etc as well). It really was just a series of division-sized elements fighting one another every day for three years, and it accomplished quite a bit as far as the war effort went. The bombs themselves weren't really that relevant though, all things considered.
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Feb 14, 2012 02:31
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Oxford Comma posted:Could the Sky Marshal's have done more to stop the meteor from smashing into Buenos Aires? Did Heinlein really call them "Sky Marshals?" Sheeyit, we named our airplane cops after them! Edit: At what point did societies begin to differentiate between civil and military leaders? I remember some of the greeks having different offices for generals and politicians, but did the Sumerian cities?
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Feb 14, 2012 03:07
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Hey bewbies why did you ask that sword question a few pages ago?
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Feb 14, 2012 03:10
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Oxford Comma posted:Could the Sky Marshal's have done more to stop the meteor from smashing into Buenos Aires? Yes (they could have dropped it on any city besides Buenos Aires).
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Feb 14, 2012 03:11
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Sven Lindqvist's A History of Bombing argues that not only was Allied strategic bombing of German cities failing to achieve its stated goal (demoralizing German citizenry), but also that British commanders knew of this and continued it anyways. Bombing's contribution to victory is mentioned in terms of diversion of resources for AA efforts, but the general thrust of the book is that strategic bombing in general is morally indefensible. I can't really do justice to his arguments, this book is worth reading. It's not the most academic text, but that means you can polish it off in a couple of relaxed nights. http://www.amazon.com/History-Bombing-Sven-Lindqvist/dp/1565848160
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Feb 14, 2012 05:29
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Oxford Comma posted:Could the Sky Marshal's have done more to stop the meteor from smashing into Buenos Aires? They knew that the loss of human life would be worth the price of motivating Rico to become the best soldier he could ever be. Petty liberals can cry about the loss of human lives, but even their privileged "oh give me hand outs! don't kill the bugs!" asses know that the people of Buenos Aires sacrificed themselves so that our troops could be turned into non-stop, non-forgiving bug squashing machines. By the way, have you joined the army yet? No? What a shock 
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Feb 14, 2012 08:56
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Oxford Comma posted:Could the Sky Marshal's have done more to stop the meteor from smashing into Buenos Aires? Actually in the book they're never able to stop meteors from smashing into the Earth and lose several more cities to it. But then in the book the Arachnids have spaceships and laser beams so I don't know why they were messing about with asteroids.
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Feb 14, 2012 09:26
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The real question is whether the Klendathu campaign was winnable. I posit that if the Sky Marshals had deployed even more troops to the surface, the Arachnids would have been forced to terms.
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Feb 14, 2012 09:36
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Without the specialized training and equipment for underground warfare, and in particular the gene tailored chemical weapons with the heavy gas that could be used to clear out the Bug warrens, there was no practical way to win First Klendathu. No number of troops would have been sufficient when the Bugs could always withdraw to safety underground whenever the odds were against them, while creating new tunnels to hit Federal forces whenever they had an edge. The situation was unwinnable from the get-go.
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Feb 14, 2012 09:57
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First Klendathu was an entirely acceptable course of action in order to purge the Mobile Infantry of soldiers who lacked the proper Elan to properly combat the bugs. Had First Klendathu not happened then the Mobile Infantry would have found themselves to be an untested and disorganized mess, and it would've been an ordeal to capture Brain Bug.
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Feb 14, 2012 11:07
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jng2058 posted:Without the specialized training and equipment for underground warfare, and in particular the gene tailored chemical weapons with the heavy gas that could be used to clear out the Bug warrens, there was no practical way to win First Klendathu. No number of troops would have been sufficient when the Bugs could always withdraw to safety underground whenever the odds were against them, while creating new tunnels to hit Federal forces whenever they had an edge. Except that we know that Second Klendathu was conducted as a similar conventional campaign because of the problem of human prisoners being held below the surface. This derail is worse than WW2 tank chat.
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Feb 14, 2012 11:46
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Zorak of Michigan posted:It killed the crap out of anyone hit, and incapacitated even more, but it also rendered the ground extremely difficult to cover even in tracked vehicles. As a way of preparing for a breakout, it was disastrous. If the C&C arrangements had been up to it, it would have been a fascinating way to cover flanks or blunt armored spearheads. This reminds me of Notes On Town Clearing, prepared by an officer of the 51st Highland Division, wherein he describes the lessons learned by his battalion from assaulting towns which have been heavily damaged by bombing and also ones which are more intact. His conclusion is: quote:From the infantryman point of view, heavy bombing has every disadvantage and no advantage, unless carried out immediately before the assault. Then air photos loose some of their values and the danger area for heavy bombs precludes the immediate rushing of the objective as the last bomb falls. Craters and rubble preclude the use of tanks, crocodiles or wasps and make the evacuation of casualties even more difficult; it makes the drill of clearing through the back gardens impractical and clearing houses from the top impossible. It also makes the enemy's task of hiding and camouflaging himself many times easier; his snipers always preclude the use all bulldozer till very late in the operations.
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Feb 14, 2012 13:24
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John Charity Spring posted:This reminds me of Notes On Town Clearing, prepared by an officer of the 51st Highland Division, wherein he describes the lessons learned by his battalion from assaulting towns which have been heavily damaged by bombing and also ones which are more intact. His conclusion is: Fascinating link! Thanks!
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Feb 14, 2012 16:12
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Alchenar posted:Except that we know that Second Klendathu was conducted as a similar conventional campaign because of the problem of human prisoners being held below the surface. 
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Feb 14, 2012 20:14
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Revolvyerom posted:This derail is actually fascinating to someone who has only seen the movie
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Feb 14, 2012 20:27
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Another 'what if' question. What would have happened if after France surrenders Germany offers a cease fire and possible peace treaty to the BE? No bombing of the UK, no further aggression of any type. If they just stuck with what they had conquered which at that point would have been Poland, Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Luxembourg (am I missing any?). Would the BE and the USA have just said 'oh OK, just don't gently caress around any more' or was the allied invasion inevitable? Seaside Loafer fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Feb 14, 2012 |
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Feb 14, 2012 20:37
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Seaside Loafer posted:Another 'what if' question. The Germans wouldn't have offered and the British wouldn't have accepted. Lebensraum and fighting Fascist aggression and all that. This is in addition to Japan's own imperial desires(which would have likely drawn the United States and Germany into a war) and the shaky non-aggression pact with Stalin.
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Feb 14, 2012 21:00
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That offer was basically made.
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Feb 14, 2012 21:07
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Alchenar posted:That offer was basically made. In some alternate universe, Rudolf Hess was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1941. And Hitler had a goatee.
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Feb 14, 2012 21:55
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Germany's entire strategic problem in 1940 was that they'd completely won the war yet somehow weren't at peace and didn't have a way of getting peace.
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Feb 14, 2012 22:11
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