American Iron

[Rattlesnake]

7 hours ago, Porkins said:

I agree with a lot of what you write, but would recommend the recently published "The Most Dangerous Enemy" book of the Battle of Britain. The book supports a premise that has grown over the last decade that the British were never really in any serious danger of losing the BoB militarily. When you look at rate of aircraft production, kill ratios, and the tyranny of distance, the Luftwaffe was given a mission it probably had no chance of winning. The most dangerous enemy referenced in the book's title is actually the RAF, not the Luftwaffe. 

 

As for Bodenplatte, here's how it will go. I'll immediately jump in a P-38 because it's my favorite plane of all time. I'll then be disappointed that it doesn't turn as well as a single engine fighter. Then I'll tell myself that I need to "boom and zoom" with it. Then I'll remember that I hate boom and zoom and am bad at it. Finally, I'll start flying the Spitfire and spend my time not flying gazing lustfully at the P-38 in the game's main menu screen. 

.It does have heavy wing-loading, but it also has Fowler flaps that hugely increase lift. According to this document those flaps could get stalling speed astonishingly low.

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/p-38/p-38-67869.html

 

 

[JtD]

7 hours ago, Ehret said:

 

By burning all British assets which they couldn't do because LW didn't have heavy long-ranged bombers. Just like LW failed at inflicting damage to Soviet moved factories.

 

Didn't work for air forces which had full strategic capability at the time, so it wouldn't work for the Luftwaffe.

[Psyrion]

7 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

 

Agreed.  The P-47 and P-38 are the planes that really interest me in Bodenplatte. 

 

We're getting the P-38J now, I believe.  Will the pilot workload - or rather engine management be similar to the P-47?  

The Turbos are linked with the throttle I think so it should be one control less than the p-47. 

[Rjel]

It's amazing what clarity the passing of nearly 80 years brings to how the air war in WWII should've been fought. Hindsight is perfect. Every nation fought with the tools they possessed at that time. Their real time intelligence was minimal compared to today. They couldn't, with 100 percent certainty, know what was happening on the ground. 

 

With their backs to the wall, the Russians and the western allies fought back against the Axis powers who'd planned their wars, started them and prosecuted them without any regard to collateral damage to the civilian population of their foes. Now the allied air war is vilified by revisionist historians, when in fact, it simply turned the tables on what the Axis nations had done from the beginning of WWII. The difference only being that the Western Allies did it in a much larger scale. To say the efforts of hundreds of thousands of airman didn't matter to the eventual outcome of WWII negates their sacrifice. 

[Aap]

9 minutes ago, Rjel said:

With their backs to the wall, the Russians and the western allies fought back against the Axis powers who'd planned their wars, started them and prosecuted them without any regard to collateral damage to the civilian population of their foes.

 

I don't want to derail this thread to another off topic discussion, but what you said here is a somewhat skewed perception of facts. 

WWII started in September 1939. Germany had hoped to avoid ending up in war with France and Great Britain. Fall Gelb (plan how to defeat Western European nations) was issued on 9th of October, more than a month after being at war already, after which Germany still offered peace several times and was turned down. Battle of France finally started on 10th of May 1940. So to give the perception that Germany had planned it's war against France/Britain from the beginning, while allies were caught by a surprise that there was a war going on, is just not true. 

Anyway, it seems that this discussion could slip into prohibited topics, so I guess it is better to stop it here.

[Diggun]

I'm not sure if there's enough hype around at the moment, so I would like to express my own excitement at the thought of just how freaking cool it is going to be to have the P-38 in this sim. I especially hope that, along with the ground pounding ordinance, we see some mods for PRU versions....

[Talon_]

6 hours ago, Psyrion said:

The Turbos are linked with the throttle I think so it should be one control less than the p-47. 

 

P-47 was a single lever thanks to interlocking controls until you reach critical altitude at 27,000 ft

[Legioneod]

17 minutes ago, Talon_ said:

 

P-47 was a single lever thanks to interlocking controls until you reach critical altitude at 27,000 ft

It's not required though, the linkage was optional you could put it on and off as you wish.

[LukeFF]

4 hours ago, Legioneod said:

It's not required though, the linkage was optional you could put it on and off as you wish.

 

Yes, but it was far more convenient to just keep everything interconnected. Otherwise, you're fiddling with as many levers as a typical Soviet fighter. 

[Legioneod]

14 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

Yes, but it was far more convenient to just keep everything interconnected. Otherwise, you're fiddling with as many levers as a typical Soviet fighter. 

That's part of the fun, hope it's an option in-game and not required.

[357th_Dog]

Well IIRC...quite a bit was automated on the P-47...IE TSC and throttle interlinked..plus doesn't the P-47 have auto prop pitch like the 109/190, etc?

 

[ZachariasX]

54 minutes ago, JohanLoton said:

Well IIRC...quite a bit was automated on the P-47...IE TSC and throttle interlinked..plus doesn't the P-47 have auto prop pitch like the 109/190, etc? 

 

Mixture -> Auto, bt you can choose between "Full rich", "auto rich", "auto lean" and "idle cut off", but you must choose wisely.

Prop -> constant speed. RPM is your pick as well. "But you must choose..." well, you know.

Oil rad -> manual

Engine cooling gills -> manual

Intercooler -> manual

Turbo -> manual, you gotta watch the blinkenlight. Turbo linkage is provided to fly in formation and get a decent throttle response for fine power adjustments that actually happened before you left the formation. Linked is a postion that actually works and gives you throttle response, it is NOT the efficient way to fly the aircraft. Watch the blinkenlight! Watch the manifold temperature! THINK!

 

It is a very "manual" plane. It featuring a constant speed prop doesn't really reduce the workload. It just makes the plane flyable under adverse conditions.

[357th_Dog]

39 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

Mixture -> Auto, bt you can choose between "Full rich", "auto rich", "auto lean" and "idle cut off", but you must choose wisely.

Prop -> constant speed. RPM is your pick as well. "But you must choose..." well, you know.

Oil rad -> manual

Engine cooling gills -> manual

Intercooler -> manual

Turbo -> manual, you gotta watch the blinkenlight. Turbo linkage is provided to fly in formation and get a decent throttle response for fine power adjustments that actually happened before you left the formation. Linked is a postion that actually works and gives you throttle response, it is NOT the efficient way to fly the aircraft. Watch the blinkenlight! Watch the manifold temperature! THINK!

 

It is a very "manual" plane. It featuring a constant speed prop doesn't really reduce the workload. It just makes the plane flyable under adverse conditions.

I could have sworn the P-47 had a Auto Pitch setting for the Prop, with manual control possible with a RPM INCREASE and RPM DECEASE switch on the left sidewall consoles...

 

[Legioneod]

1 minute ago, JohanLoton said:

I could have sworn the P-47 had a Auto Pitch setting for the Prop, with manual control possible with a RPM INCREASE and RPM DECEASE switch on the left sidewall consoles...

 

You can interlink the rpm with the throttle but that's about as automatic as the P-47 gets.

Edited November 6, 2018 by Legioneod

[357th_Dog]

Well fair enough...today I learned things 

 

[Talon_]

30 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

Turbo -> manual, you gotta watch the blinkenlight. Turbo linkage is provided to fly in formation and get a decent throttle response for fine power adjustments that actually happened before you left the formation. Linked is a postion that actually works and gives you throttle response, it is NOT the efficient way to fly the aircraft. Watch the blinkenlight! Watch the manifold temperature! THINK!

 

Not in a D-28. You don't even need to look at the turbine overspeed warning light until critical altitude is reached.

 

 

[=621=Samikatz]

23 hours ago, VO101Kurfurst said:

 

it just turned out that strategic bombing was not nearly as effectice as people believed prior to the war.

 

Copying this from a an old, well sourced post on reddit

 

 

[ZachariasX]

13 minutes ago, Talon_ said:

Not in a D-28. You don't even need to look at the turbine overspeed warning light until critical altitude is reached.

Well, at least in the real aircraft you better check carb temperature when playing with that turbo lever. In your brain there should be a connection to the intercooler lever, that is best kept at neutral. Getting good turbo settings is not trivial. But it's nice that they at some point came up with a way of not being constantly at risk of blowing that turbo.

[Talon_]

3 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

Well, at least in the real aircraft you better check carb temperature when playing with that turbo lever. In your brain there should be a connection to the intercooler lever, that is best kept at neutral. Getting good turbo settings is not trivial. But it's nice that they at some point came up with a way of not being constantly at risk of blowing that turbo.

 

I just posted the real aircraft manual for you. In European conditions the P-47D does not overheat during climbs at normal climbing power of 42", 2550rpm Cowl Flaps Open intercooler shutters Neutral (66%) oil cooler Neutral (50%)

 

 

[ZachariasX]

9 hours ago, Talon_ said:

In European conditions the P-47D does not overheat during climbs at normal climbing power of 42", 2550rpm Cowl Flaps Open intercooler shutters Neutral (66%) oil cooler Neutral (50%)

It is not about the turbo that overheats. What you are also doing is controlling manifold air temperature in all flight regimes. You control that by the ratio of supercharger compression and your intercooler setting. This one has an effect on the power you are getting from your engine, whether such subtleties will be modelled or not.

 

For our purposes indeed, the cooler settings at the marked positions will do fine. We have excessive range anyway in most cases and fuel flow/mixture settings would need some more live for „good turbocharger practise“ to pay off.

 

But just because you don‘t need (to know) all that in this sim to put bimbs and rockets on stuff, it doesn‘t mean it is a good thing to ignore that in a real aircraft in real weather.

 

Edit:

I‘m not really thinking here in terms of what it takes to break an engine (although I recognize the importance of such in a computer game) but much rather what it takes to give you most of what you want, disregarding the possibility that in a computer game, such dividends might not be worth the effort to model.

Edited November 7, 2018 by ZachariasX

[=475FG=_DAWGER]

On 11/5/2018 at 8:58 PM, CMBailey said:

.It does have heavy wing-loading, but it also has Fowler flaps that hugely increase lift. According to this document those flaps could get stalling speed astonishingly low.

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/p-38/p-38-67869.html

 

 

The engines provide as much benefit as the flaps. Power on stall in the P38 is 25 mph slower than power off. The maneuver flap added with the G model made it a very competitive turn fighter.

 

Quote

The P-38G turns much better than the P-38F (will close 180° in 360° circle) due to maneuver flaps.

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/p-38/p-38.html

 

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/p-38/p-38g-tactical-trials.html

 

 

Doing the math with the assumption that the power on, flaps up stall speed is 74 mph (From the J model data) we arrive at a 3.8 G turn to stall at 145 in the F. That makes the power on stall speed of the G with maneuver flap 57 mph. The J will be similar in stall performance if it is modeled correctly and the J model has the power to sustain turn pretty well and maneuver in the vertical.

 

It was the best American fighter in level acceleration as well. Properly modeled, it will be formidable in the hands of the very experienced online aces of the world.

[IckyATLAS]

16 hours ago, =621=Samikatz said:

 

Copying this from a an old, well sourced post on reddit

 

 

 

There is a moment were bombing becomes effective, if you have nearly unlimited supply of equipment and people,  total air supremacy, and time against a completely encircled enemy. When the size of the bombing is such that you are wiping out everything and burning it to the ground: cities, people, factories, infrastructure. Is it ethical, morally acceptable, economically, and in terms of own losses sustainable, all these are questions for the historians and philosophers. The reality is that it was a no limits total war with one clear objective, the total destruction of Nazi Germany, in short a large chunk of Germany, which was a very different approach  from WWI.

Only solution is to dig in, which the germans did, but they could not put the whole industry underground. There comes a moment again were you may continue production but you do not have the people to fight. Large number of planes, tanks in perfect condition were found, but nobody able to use them. And even if you have new pilots you can't train them in caves (at that time) you have to fly. And comes a moment were even the caves, tunnels entrances will be destroyed, collapsed. I know that some bunkers resisted any bombing of that time. But what good is it worth around you are in the middle of a lunar landscape.

 

An interesting question, would Germany have surrendered without any ground military occupation, just by aerial bombing (in Germany once all german forces are out of the occupied territories and pushed back inside their border). Maybe not immediately, and allied aerial forces would have a larger loss, but after some time of continuous pounding at such high levels and people starving from famine  there would not be much left through fast attrition to oppose and slowly but surely the losses of the strategic air force would be nil except for accidents. The question would then be, when do you stop, and I suppose it would not be for military but humanitarian reasons.

 

And interestingly, if instead of ground fighting, it was only aerial bombing , you would have had probably much less global losses, but this is not a proven thing.

 

Just imagine a 1000 strategic bomber flight composed by B29, nearly unopposed every day routinely flattening everything around for 365 days. It is not precision bombing, here you do not need it any more. We talk carpet bombing, with all avilable type of bombs (up to the 5 and 10 ton Grand Slam type). Soon or later all targets will be hit. Just be methodic and it step by step. Is it effective, well it all depends what dou you use as a measure for effectiveness: cost, time, material or human losses,  etc..

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Talon_]

That's kinda a weird post I think bro.

[ZachariasX]

38 minutes ago, =475FG=DAWGER said:

It was the best American fighter in level acceleration as well. Properly modeled, it will be formidable in the hands of the very experienced online aces of the world.

It will be cannon fodder for a 190D9.

 

About the P-38F

 

g.    While the rate of climb is superior to all other types tested to date, this is not as great as required, especially below twenty-thousand (20,000) feet, and all excess weight in the structure and installations not vital to combat operations should be reduced or eliminated whenever possible.

                 h.    Cooling capacity of the intercooler is not sufficient to allow maximum horsepower to be extracted from the engine at altitude.

                 i.    The guns will not feed properly during maneuvers which create a pull of greater than 3-1/2 G’s.

 

Slightly more of a careful wording about the "superior climb", especially since the intercooler is dimensioned not sufficienty. You will notice that in climb first.

 

About the P-38J, where

 

a.    All conclusions and recommendations applying to the P-38F, apply to the P-38G.

 

and

 

b.    Inasmuch as the general maneuverability of this aircraft is probably the lowest of any type of current fighter aircraft, and in view of the competition facing the P-38G in the European Theatre, all possible effort should be made to improve its rate of climb and high speed.

 

I would not place too much hope in maneuver flaps. Any D9 driver worth his pay knows that he better be fast to trade blows. Flaps never help you to be fast. Besides, they still are careful about the climb. It may be a tad higher than the competition, but being all around slower than the competition this is of little consolation.

 

Also that the guns jam at around pulling 3.5 g is not so cool. But we won't get failures like that.

[Atomic_Spaniel]

18 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

It is a very "manual" plane. It featuring a constant speed prop doesn't really reduce the workload. It just makes the plane flyable under adverse conditions.

 

It sounds fantastic. I want one.

[ZachariasX]

2 minutes ago, NickM said:

 

It sounds fantastic. I want one.

Same here. I also am looking very much forward to the P-38, even though I just didn't advertise it very much in the post above. The P-38 has the turbo and throttle linked, so you have just one lever that takes care of both settings. In the Lightning you have to play more with the rpm for getting effcient settings, in the P-47 you can be a bit more creative.

[Sgt_Joch]

off topic, but yes, allied strategic bombing in 1943-45 turned out to be very effective against the German Economy. Tooze's "Wages of Destruction" shows that very well. The Allies had the firepower from 1943 on to seriously damage industrial sectors. The problem was the fog of war which made it difficult for the Allies to identify the key sectors and how much damage they were doing. For example, the British came close to knocking out the Ruhr steel industry in early 43 in the "Battle of the Ruhr", but shifted to other targets too quickly because they thought the offensive was not working.

 

They also waited a long time before going after the synthetic oil industry, but when they did, they managed to knock out most of the plants by mid-44. After that, Germany was running basically just on reserves and was running out of oil by early 45. By then, the German Economy was on the verge of collapse even before the Allies invaded Germany proper.

Edited November 7, 2018 by Sgt_Joch

[Bremspropeller]

30 minutes ago, IckyATLAS said:

An interesting question, would Germany have surrendered without any ground military occupation, just by aerial bombing (in Germany once all german forces are out of the occupied territories and pushed back inside their border). Maybe not immediately, and allied aerial forces would have a larger loss, but after some time of continuous pounding at such high levels and people starving from famine  there would not be much left through fast attrition to oppose and slowly but surely the losses of the strategic air force would be nil except for accidents. The question would then be, when do you stop, and I suppose it would not be for military but humanitarian reasons.

 

Given Hitler's stance on surrendering: Probably not. He had everything to lose by a deal - his only option was dying while trying to win.

 

Strategic bombing will only work once destruction outpaces re-buidng and de-centralisation. A de-centralized industry is hard to hit and blow out during a single attack. It is incredibly vulnerable to strikes against infrastructure and supply-chain requirements. Knock out a marshalling-yard, a critical tronsportation-route (like busting a vital bridge, shutting down a tunnel or a pass-road, etc.) or any other irreplaceable transport-means and you'll get much quicker to a position where the enemy just can not make up for material losses.

 

Denying roads, railways and other critical transportation-routes was probably more decisive in strangleing Germany than just knocking out production-facilities.

 

POL is another varible that needs to be seen in the big picture and not just looked at as an isolated campaign.

[JtD]

It cost the British an average (over the course of WW2) of about 3000£ to drop one ton of bombs on Germany through the bomber command. Certainly a lot more early on, certainly less late in the war.

 

In the first half of the war night bombing accuracy was abysmal, and hitting specific targets say the size of a square kilometre, would require about 700 bomb drops. Day bombing lead to unacceptable losses. Therefore you can forget about attacking anything specific. Essentially limiting the bomber forces to attacks on city sized targets. 30% would hit a five mile radius - roughly the size of a large German city.

 

A ton of bombs is about good for the destruction of five city houses. A city house in London cost about 800£ at the time. So you need to drop bombs costing you 9000£ to do damage worth 4000£. And that's about as cost efficient as it gets.

 

So unless you have an overwhelming industrial and economical superiority, like the Allies did, you couldn't win or positively effect the war through strategic bombing.

Edited November 7, 2018 by JtD

[Ehret]

11 minutes ago, JtD said:

It cost the British an average (over the course of WW2) of about 3000£ to drop one ton of bombs on Germany through the bomber command. Certainly a lot more early on, certainly less late in the war.

 

In the first half of the war night bombing accuracy was abysmal, and hitting specific targets say the size of a square kilometre, would require about 700 bomb drops. Day bombing lead to unacceptable losses. Therefore you can forget about attacking anything specific. Essentially limiting the bomber forces to attacks on city sized targets. 30% would hit a five mile radius - roughly the size of a large German city.

 

A ton of bombs is about good for the destruction of five city houses. A city house in London cost about 800£ at the time. So you need to drop bombs costing you 9000£ to do damage worth 4000£. And that's about as cost efficient as it gets.

 

So unless you have an overwhelming industrial and economical superiority, like the Allies did, you couldn't win or positively effect the war through strategic bombing.

 

You are ignoring the time and manpower factors and external costs. A house could cost 800 pounds only but rebuilding it would take time and would have opportunity costs because it displaces workers.

Then people die in the bombings... How much costs to replace an adult human, especially in metric of time? A LOT. What about psychological factors and how much bombings one can resists before affected persons degrade?

 

Due the latter; to avoid people feeling defenseless Germans wasted a lot resources in flak defenses around cites. It took 10K shells weighting 50-60t per one heavy bomber shot-down. A material parity basically; no gain for Germans at all.

 

And there is more... the increasing dependency on slave labor and increasing average age of German soldiers. The Nazis were running out of manpower and constant bombings accelerated that.

Edited November 7, 2018 by Ehret

[unreasonable]

I do not think that a simple cost effectiveness calculation - even if you make it much more sophisticated that JtD's example - can ever tell you much about strategic bombing as a military option. While management measures of efficiency have a role to play in war, the priority is not efficiency - even in a battle of attrition - but effectiveness. So the real question is did strategic bombing accelerate meaningfully the defeat of the 3rd Reich? I am convinced that it did.  One sound military principle is to attack an enemy through the whole depth of his position, allowing no "safe spaces": strategic bombing was the only way to do that. 

There is no doubt at all that the early proponents of bombing thought that it would bring countries to their knees almost immediately through morale and shock effects and of course we know now that they were completely wrong about that.  Bombing did, however, have far reaching effects beyond the immediate destruction, as previous posts have pointed out. 

Quite apart from the production costs and manpower used up in AAA and nightfighter defence against bombing, after the firestorm at Hamburg the priority for the whole GAF was switched to defense of the Reich, resulting in the eastern front being starved aircraft and AA guns, speeding up defeat on the ground to the Soviets. 

 

Whatever you think about night bombing, the American entry to the bombing campaign forced the GAF to fight by day as well as by night. The Germans obviously thought that strategic bombing was effective enough that it had to be opposed as a top priority.  Hence the relevance to "American Iron":  whatever the considerable contribution to ground attack and tactical operations generally, the defining feature of the US fighter arm in WW2 in Europe was crushing the GAF when it was forced up to defend it's own airspace. The USAAF did to the GAF what the GAF had failed to do to the RAF in the BoB.

 

I suspect that at least some of the arguments that strategic bombing was ineffective are motivated by the feeling that it was immoral. It is a bit like insisting the Adolf must have been a lousy artist because he was so evil. 

[JtD]

8 hours ago, Ehret said:

You are ignoring the time and manpower factors and external costs. A house could cost 800 pounds only but rebuilding it would take time and would have opportunity costs because it displaces workers.

 

It took the British more time, manpower and external costs to stage another sortie than it took the Germans to rebuild the damage on the ground. That's the whole point of a cost comparison.

 

8 hours ago, Ehret said:

Then people die in the bombings... How much costs to replace an adult human, especially in metric of time? A LOT. What about psychological factors and how much bombings one can resists before affected persons degrade?

 

Initially, the bomber command losses were higher than the death toll caused on the ground in Germany, though admittedly the Luftwaffe flying short distance raids from France during the Blitz killed a lot more civilians than it lost crew (and was far more efficient with destroying houses than 5 per ton).

Psychology goes both ways, losing 10% the attacking force every night does effect the crews tremendously.

 

8 hours ago, Ehret said:

Germans wasted a lot resources in flak defenses around cites. It took 10K shells weighting 50-60t per one heavy bomber shot-down. A material parity basically; no gain for Germans at all.

 

These stats come mostly from the later part of WW2, which is a different game, in particular due to the involvement of high flying US daylight bombers. Early on, there was quite a bit less AAA and it still shot down quite a few aircraft owing to lower altitudes attacked at. Additionally, if the target was indeed well defended, accuracy dropped to the point where only 10% of the dropped bombs were put into the 5 mile radius, meaning it cost 30000£ to destroy 4000£ worth of housing. That's a lot of defence you can afford with that.

 

2 hours ago, unreasonable said:

I do not think that a simple cost effectiveness calculation - even if you make it much more sophisticated that JtD's example - can ever tell you much about strategic bombing as a military option.

 

It's actually a quite sophisticated calculation, but I can't put 500 pages here, so I gave the bottom line. I believe the efficiency matters a lot, because the effort the UK put into building up the bomber command could have gone elsewhere, where it would have been more useful. The scale of the resources put into the BC were immense. Assume you could launch operation Dragoon at the time the Allies launched Torch, if the Allies had instead of strategic bombing focussed on tactical/amphibious warfare. I think that a second front in France by 1942 would have been more helpful to the Soviets and the rest of the world than the withdrawal of fighter aircraft from the eastern front.

 

Edit: If a mod comes across this topic, I'd appreciate if the last four posts could be moved to the free subject section, new topic "cost of strategic bombing" or some such. I'm totally off topic.

 

Edit: Attached a pdf. It arrives at 3000£ per ton of bombs dropped. On the bottom line I find the figure plausible, which is why I used it.

costofstrategicbombing.zip

Edited November 8, 2018 by JtD

[unreasonable]

14 minutes ago, JtD said:

 

It took the British more time, manpower and external costs to stage another sortie than it took the Germans to rebuild the damage on the ground. That's the whole point of a cost comparison.

 

 

Cost comparison of individual components of a strategic mix is simply not the correct approach, even if your analysis is correct, which many historians dispute.  It is a bit like asking if you are at the most fuel efficient mixture setting in the middle of a dogfight.   The UK approach - like the American later - was to use resources, of which they had plenty, to reduce casualties.  Although the bomber crews took large percentage casualties, the absolute numbers were trivial compared to those of massive ground operations.

 

The early, inefficient part of the bomber campaign was a necessary prelude to the later, highly efficient part. The planes, crews, technological aids and operational methods did not come out of nowhere: they had to be built up with a certain amount of trial and error.

 

Taking into account opportunity cost - ie what else might have been done with the same resources - is a fairer approach, but it has to take into account what the Germans might also have been able to do with the resources freed up with no strategic bombing campaign.  The idea, however, that the British could have launched a second front in Europe in 1942 - or even in 1943 - is a complete fantasy. The army was still re-equipping and retraining after Dunkirk,  the US had barely begun to build up it's armed forces from close to a zero base, the RAF on it's own was unable to achieve air superiority and the convoys were still taking a hammering from the U-Boats.  It would have been a bloody fiasco. 

 

As for other areas of investment: more resources in Asia might have made a Japanese attack more costly and perhaps even saved Malaya, but I doubt it would have deterred the Japanese attack as this was driven by their own warped logic.  The war against the U-Boats was pretty well resourced, with a fair bit of whining from Harris, of as it was the UK's top priority. By the time the bomber offensive got into full gear the Battle of the Atlantic had been won.  

 

You can always quibble about specific decisions but I have yet to see an analysis of an alternative plan for the allies that left out strategic bombing that is remotely credible. 

 

 

[Aap]

Let's remember where this discussion started - some people believing that Germany could have won the war (or achieved better results) by committing to strategic bombing, instead of tactical air war. Now, German leadership never considered surrendering to allies because of this strategic bombing. Germany was also able to increase war production year by year, despite this massive strategic bombing. It took the tactical war and boots on the ground to force Germany to surrender. Why on earth would Britain, USSR or USA have decided to surrender to German strategic bombing, if Germany never considered surrendering due to strategic bombing?

 

Secondly, like JtD (and many other studies) pointed out, strategic bombing was more costly to allies than to Germany. Just that allies could afford it. Of course strategic bombing also achieved something - it made Germany spend resources on home defense, rebuilding, more Luftwaffe units away from Eastern Front, losing many pilots that it could not replace efficiently etc. It was just an expensive way of doing that, but if you are in a position of having ten times larger industrial capacity and resource pool, you might be willing to swallow the expenses. Now, Germany, with it's limited resources, should it have picked a route, where it would have depleted it's industrial capacity and resources more quickly than the enemies, when they started with less capacity and resources to begin with? Would it have any realistic means to do any damage to USA through strategic bombing? It is comparable to saying that, hey, look Soviet Union sent hundreds of thousands of men storm Finnish machine gun emplacements and eventually won the war against Finland - so, if Finland would have wanted to conquer Soviet Union, it should have used the same tactics.

Edited November 8, 2018 by II./JG77_Kemp

[ZachariasX]

1 hour ago, II./JG77_Kemp said:

Let's remember where this discussion started - some people believing that Germany could have won the war (or achieved better results) by committing to strategic bombing, instead of tactical air war.

This is actually funny. It's mostly the same people that say Germany was so successful with the "Blitzkrieg" by using the air force in a tactical manner. One just can't make it right for everyone, huh?

 

Strategic bombing is nothing more but the opening a further front. By doing so, you are drawing ressources of your enemy away from the previous to the newly opened front. In case of te Aliied bombing offensive, this withdrawal of force that could have been placed on other fronts was huge and very significant, as it generally comrpsed the best material the Germans had at hand at the time. Smashing of real estate etc is a distant second effect. I think JtD's summary shows that pretty well. You can only use strategic bombing along with the ulterior motive. If you don't understand that, you wil lose your war.

 

That strategic bombing as such is not good for more than enviromental pollution and a hazard to people and livestock can be clearly seen in Vientam. There, the US did a great lot more of "stratecig bombing" with the effect of losing a couple of bombers. And that was it. If your enemy desn't need to fight you at that front, he will not relocate forces and your initiative is moot.

[unreasonable]

41 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

This is actually funny. It's mostly the same people that say Germany was so successful with the "Blitzkrieg" by using the air force in a tactical manner. One just can't make it right for everyone, huh?

 

Strategic bombing is nothing more but the opening a further front. By doing so, you are drawing ressources of your enemy away from the previous to the newly opened front. In case of te Aliied bombing offensive, this withdrawal of force that could have been placed on other fronts was huge and very significant, as it generally comrpsed the best material the Germans had at hand at the time. Smashing of real estate etc is a distant second effect. I think JtD's summary shows that pretty well. You can only use strategic bombing along with the ulterior motive. If you don't understand that, you wil lose your war.

 

That strategic bombing as such is not good for more than enviromental pollution and a hazard to people and livestock can be clearly seen in Vientam. There, the US did a great lot more of "stratecig bombing" with the effect of losing a couple of bombers. And that was it. If your enemy desn't need to fight you at that front, he will not relocate forces and your initiative is moot.

 

While I agree with the point of your post about opening a new front you have got it completely wrong about VN. The US could have destroyed the NV dyke system and flooded the whole Hanoi area, killing perhaps hundreds of thousands with many more later from starvation.   Remember that the US and ARVN had already beaten the VC through the Phoenix program. They chose not to defeat NVN on humanitarian (or PR) grounds and hence lost the war: leading to far more people being killed by the communists in purges and camps after the  NVA invaded the South, not including what happened in Cambodia and Laos: perhaps a million unnecessary deaths overall. 

 

In the case of WW2 there were no such scruples. Once the bombs had fallen on Warsaw, Rotterdam and London hardly anyone in the west cared how many German civilians were killed.

 

To me the take away is not so much strategic bombing good or bad - just do not get into a war if you are not prepared to do whatever it takes to win. You cannot fight a limited war against people who are fighting an unlimited war and expect to win.

Edited November 8, 2018 by unreasonable

[ZachariasX]

1 hour ago, unreasonable said:

To me the take away is not so much strategic bombing good or bad - just do not get into a war if you are not prepared to do whatever it takes to win.

As long as you have those means in the first place, fair point.

[Ehret]

8 hours ago, II./JG77_Kemp said:

Secondly, like JtD (and many other studies) pointed out, strategic bombing was more costly to allies than to Germany. Just that allies could afford it. Of course strategic bombing also achieved something - it made Germany spend resources on home defense, rebuilding, more Luftwaffe units away from Eastern Front, losing many pilots that it could not replace efficiently etc. It was just an expensive way of doing that, but if you are in a position of having ten times larger industrial capacity and resource pool, you might be willing to swallow the expenses. Now, Germany, with it's limited resources, should it have picked a route, where it would have depleted it's industrial capacity and resources more quickly than the enemies, when they started with less capacity and resources to begin with? Would it have any realistic means to do any damage to USA through strategic bombing?

 

They were doing a bit of "strategic" level damage in the Atlantic. That was a serious concern to the US and British. They lost it and it accelerated their downfall.

It's a poor excuse that Germany lost the war because of discrepancy in resources. Nazis knew about it yet ignored long-term consequences; they were almost blind on the strategic level and that they lost "efficiently" well... it'd be saying like one should be praised because he hang himself on a budget rope.

 

A protracted war is going to be a strategic affair. If Germany wanted anything resembling of "victory" there was no other way than to prosecute the war strategically. Or, do not indulge in one at all if the discrepancy in resources was too high. At least, don't commit outrageous crimes so you became totally nonnegotiable.

Edited November 8, 2018 by Ehret

[Aap]

59 minutes ago, Ehret said:

It's a poor excuse that Germany lost the war because of discrepancy in resources.

 

Excuse? It is not an excuse, it is more like a fact. The only way they could have won a war or achieve a white peace was through tactical warfare or the threat of it, just like they beat France and had Britain on the verge of considering peace. Look up "May 1940 war cabinet crisis" from google. Going for a resource-wasteful strategic bombing instead would have just depleted their resources and given them nothing. Look at what I have said before and look at what JtD has brought up. I don't know how much more clearly I could explain it.

 

59 minutes ago, Ehret said:

Nazis knew about it yet ignored long-term consequences; they were almost blind on the strategic level and that they lost "efficiently" well

 

Nazis knew about what? We know what happened in the past. People from that time could make evaluations or take their guesses about future, what they did not know what would happen in the future. Nazis had hoped that France and Britain would not declare war on them, when they attacked Poland, despite being their allies. It did not go as nazis had hoped, but they did not know it beforehand. Then they hoped that winning in France and doing a submarine blockade would enable to get peace with Britain. They got close to it, but it did not happen. They did not know beforehand, how it would play out. Then they hoped that the fear of invasion would make the British accept peace - again, it did not happen like they had hoped. In general, people know less about what is going to happen in the future than they know about what has happened in the past. In that sense, someone in the 30's might have thought that strategic bombing could be a useful way to force peace, but we know from history that it was not so. In hindsight, Germany probably had pretty much the best chance of getting a peace treaty in the west by fighting the war like they did in 1940. They might have done some things better here or there, but spending their resources on strategic bombing would have clearly been a wrong  approach. Like I said before, once they declared war on USA, there was no realistic way of winning the war any more.

 

59 minutes ago, Ehret said:

it'd be saying like one should be praised because he hang himself on a budget rope

 

Who is praising them? But to say that in their economic situation they should have a picked a doctrine of fighting a prolonged resource-wasteful war against enemies with  more resources, instead of choosing a fast blitzkrieg type of doctrine is like saying that if a Jamaican "body type" runner wants to compete against Ethiopian "body type" runner, then he should choose 10 000 meter distance instead of 200 meters.

 

59 minutes ago, Ehret said:

A protracted war is going to be a strategic affair. If Germany wanted anything resembling of "victory" there was no other way than to prosecute the war strategically.

 

So, could you lay out your ideas, how Germany would have won the war by strategically bombing Britain, Soviet Union and USA?

Edited November 8, 2018 by II./JG77_Kemp

[Ehret]

55 minutes ago, II./JG77_Kemp said:

So, could you lay out your ideas, how Germany would have won the war by strategically bombing Britain, Soviet Union and USA?

 

They could not because they had not comparable ability.

If they could not bomb enemies (like the US) then they could not win the protracted total war. Then, they should not indulge in one. At very least Germans could stick to some rules to retain diplomatic options.

 

Don't make Nazis look naïve... they had every bit of knowledge to able to understand what the consequences will be. Especially, if they would antagonize the US which they did. There was no "peace by tactical means" after the atrocities Germans committed. Strategic bombings worked - Germany was hurt badly by them and it was the total war - only victory counted; if costs were possible to bear then they did not matter.

 

It's hilarious, really - claiming that "strategic bombing was senseless because it wasn't economically viable!" By that logic a chemotherapy is senseless too, because it can kill more healthy cells than cancer ones. A total war is just like that.

Edited November 8, 2018 by Ehret