The Allied Bomber Offensive

Your memory is correct regarding YAMATO; she was attacked by both dive and torpedo bombers.

 

Synthetic fuel

I put this on the Synthetic fuel post but a lot of the links have relevance to the Allied bombing campaign

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=403163

 

Re: Synthetic fuel

The Allies should have hit the Axis oil facilities in a systematic manner long before they actually did, there's no doubt about that. Such a sustained campaign might very well have significantly shortened the war.

 

Post war analysis showed that the German power grid was actually a better "panacea" target than oil was. 82% of German electric power was produced by about 400 (out of a total of 8200) power plants and the German power grid was not set up to for quick and efficient re-distribution of power. Just two large plants outside of Berlin provided most ot the capital's power. 79% of the power was produced by coal fired plants, the rest being hydoelectric. The coal plants were concentrated and difficult to repair, much like the oil refineries. It was estimated that 20 tons of bombs (10 B-17s) could knock out a plant for three months. 40 tons would do it for a year. If only 1% of the total bomb tonnage dropped had been targeted on the 100 largest electrical power generation palnts it would have knocked out 50% of German industry's power.

 

But an oil refinery is a much bigger and easier target than a power plant. And the armaments factories could have been equipped with their own generators within a short time, IMHO.

 

A large coal fired powerplant is a pretty large sized target, comparable to an oil refinery. Generators large enough to provide for industrial plants would require a lot of fuel. I think it unlikely that the Geramns would have bene able to operate for long in that fashion.

 

Vital areas

The key vital area of the synthetic oil plants was the high-compressor house - destroy this and th whole plant grinds to a halt. The RAF hit the Bottrop-Welheim (Ruhroel) hydrogenation plnat on 27th and 31st October 1944 and hit the compreeor house with 3 4,000lb and 8 1,000lb bombs and since it was impossible to replace the destroyed machinery under the then circumstances it was put out of action for the rest of the war. The RAF ddsn't realise this and made another 4 attacks on the plant.


RAF attacks seemed to be more effective that USAAF attacks possibly due to larger bomb size and possibly due to the different method of operation - USAAF aircraft released in one big bunch and the raid was over quickly while RAF raids flew in extended streams with each bomb aomer relaesing individually meaning the raid went on for longer and the fire crews had to remain under cover for longer - after the war Albert Speer said the RAF raids were more terifying.

 

Here is a question: Which were more effective, the American daylight attacks, or the British night raids?

 

Define effective

If we ignore how much the target is worth to the Germans (Oil refineries vs railway yards, for example), but concentrate on the actual effectiveness of the bombers on the target...

RAF: bombing at night meant a big reduction in accuracy. In the early war years a crew was extremely lucky to get a bomb within 5 miles of their target. However, things progressed. Oboe, H2S, etc, coupled with Pathfinders and Master Bombers meant that the majority of aircraft could be sure of hitting a largeish target. RAF practice at night was for all aircraft to approach individually, and bomb individually. This meant (in theory) that each aircraft could bomb the exact target. In practice, you get a long, drawn out saturation bombing of the target area. Regarding bombs, RAF bombers could carry a wide range of ordnance, from 500-lb bombs to 8,000 lb blockbusters. We perfected the art of city-burning, using a mixture of HE blockbusters to knock buildings down, then fire-bombs to burn them.

USAAF: On paper, daylight bombing with the Norden meant absolute precision. As long as you were in Nevada. In Europe, with far more vairiable air conditions, and most importantly with clouds blocking your view, the Norden did not always live up to its boast. USAAF practice was for the formation to drop bombs on the signal from the leasd bombardier, resulting in a sudden, quick saturation bombing of the target area. USAAF bombers were far more restricted in the ordnance they could carry, owing to their lack of long & roomy bomb bays.

Basically, if you wanna destroy a big, sprawling target, choose the RAF. If you wanna destroy a small target, choose the USAAF (or light/medium bombers).

 

Good answer, Ricky. As far as effective goes, I suppose I meant regarding the destruction of the assigned targets and overall impact on the German war effort.

 

Ah - that is 2 different questions!

well, target types:

Urban areas - RAF was king, no question. Sure, the USAAF burnt Tokyo to the ground, inflicting more casualties in one raid that the nukes, but then Tokyo was largely built of wood & paper.

Railways / marshalling yeards - well, either, really. The USAAF was probably more likely to hit them (smaller target) unless it was cloudy.

Factories - well, neither. destroying factories with bombers was found to be very tricky - the larger industrial machinery is unaffected.

Oil refineries / wells - either. large target area.

Missions:

USAAF had the better strategy - going for war work rather than the war workers.
RAF's strategy was based partly on pre-war thinking which we knew from experience did not work, and partly on the capabilities of our aircraft in the early war years.

 

How good, oeverall, was the operational leadership of the strategic bomber forces? How do men like Harris, Eaker, and Doolittle stack up in the performance of their jobs?

 

Harris could never quite see past his obsession with flattening cities. :cry:

 

Arthur Harris

Not just flattening cities, but bouncing the rubble - I think he ultimatley did a great disservice to the men under his command as thanks to him all they are remembered for by your average man in the street is for flattening cities to no good effect.

 

Re: Arthur Harris

That cannot be blamed entirely on Harris. The main responsibility for that perception goes to revisionist historians and atonement types who are dead set on altering history to what they believe it should be and not as it was. Those types abound here in the USA, unfortunately. They seem to feel that what was done to the Axis powers was somehow "wrong", and that the Allies need to "atone" for what they did. And they will twist any fact they can (and make some up, too) in order to "prove" their point.

 

The most significant effect of the allied bomber was that the Luftwaffe was destroyed fighting the day bombers. It also forced the Germans to shift aircraft rpoduciton almost entirely to fighter aircraft.
Important secondary effects included the diversion of manpower, artillery and ammunition produciton to AA, including vast numbers of 88mm guns.

 

Very true. The thousands of men needed to man the antiair defenses of the German cities were a drain they could ill afford.

 

Although they alleviated this a bit by using the Hitler Youth (male & female branches) to crew the guns. 15 year old girls shooting 88mm guns... :cry:

 

Yeah, really. Can you imagine how many of them got killed during the raids? Very sad.

 

Now here is a qustion...

Post-war, the RAF (or at least Harris) has come in for some serious 'flak' (pardon the pun) about it's policy of knocking over German cities then setting fire to the rubble. Much is made of the almost 'war-crime' like aspects of bombing civilians.

However, nobody ever turns around and points out that the Americans bombing Japan actually did exactly the same thing. And Japanese cities were built mainly of wood, and so burned a treat. The fire-bombing of Tokyo caused more (initial) casualties than the atomic bomb, and guess how many air-raid shelters the Japanese had...

Now, according to a book I have (admitedly not the best WW2 history book, but it does have some interesting figures), looking at civilians killed by strategic bombing campaigns (It looks at Britain, Germany and Japan, obviously), it calculates 860,500 victims, with 7% being British, 35% German, and 58% Japanese (feel free to debunk my figures, but give evidence!!)

The book is 'The Experience of World War Two' by John Campbell - look forward to more stats dragged from it!