Air war question

[H.v.F.]

Before becoming a wargamer and ground war interested, I started as aviation and air war fan, mainly about WW II periods. Of course I bought a lot of books on airplanes, and several of these spike of the allied bombing campaign in Europe. As you know, searching for the best way to abbreviate the war, the allied strategists went after ball bearings, then fuel plants, then transport network, and so on. But, and here is the strange thing, not one book, never, quotes or gives an account of some raid on ammunitions or explosive plants. Not ammo dumps and depots - they were bombed by tactical air forces - but I intend a strategic raid or campaign against the most indispensable substance for war: explosives. And, I think, despite the fact that, with thousands of tons of ammos burned daily, the germans explosive plants should had to be huge, alot and very difficult to defend.
We can read even of a raid on the Tega film (a little glue industry) which stopped the production of Ta 154 Moskito, but don't know of any explosives industry destroyed........
Who can say something about this subject ?

Gio

[jonnymacbrown]

Right, the German army never ran out of ammunition and explosives. In fact Allied "Strategic Bombing" was aimed mostly at civilians. See Larry J. Bidinian, The Combined Allied Bombing Offensive Against the German Civilian (Lawrence, Kansas: Colorado Press, 1976). In 1942, prior to any bombing, German industry produced 15,596 aircraft of all types. In 1944, after two years of strategic bombing, they produced 39,870 aircraft. See Eugene M. Emme, The Impact of Air Power (New York: Van Nostrand, 1959), US Strategic Bombing Survey, excerpts, pp. 268+. Allied bombing of Rumanian oil production was ineffective and German oil imports only dried up when the Red Army took Ploesti in August 1944. Obviously the boys at the top in Washington wanted those awful Nazis to keep on shooting for as long as possible. von Egan:smg:

[jonnymacbrown]

I might also add that Alfred Dupont, owner of Dupont Chemicals, the "better things through chemistry" guy, got a medal from Hitler during the war! Most of the German chemical/munitions plants were owned by Dupont and his factories were never bombed. von Egan:smg::rolleyes:

[Steel God]

I have found, and I think it is basically true, that the more I read about the Strategic Bomber Offensive, it was simply a matter of the technology of the 1940s not being able to support the operational approach that the Allies wanted to follow. In short, even the USAAF's vaunted "precision daylight bombing" was wildly inaccurate. If you can't have a reasonable chance of hitting what you aim at, all of the plans about targetting this industry or that is merely a desire that can not be executed. Doesn't mean they didn't try, and for all the numbers reported about growth in production, just think how high they would have been otherwise. Also, so of that growth can be contributed to the fact that the Germany Economy didn't even go on a war footing until about 1941 anyway.

The main achievements of the bomber offensive were not intended (the diversion of what was ultimately almost the entire fighter element of the luftwaffe, giving the front line troops almost no cover); or not discussed by anyone other than Air Marshall Harris (the deliberate targetting of the civilians to break their morale).

Paul

[jonnymacbrown]

[Steel God]

Nobody knows it, but the Steel God and I grew up within the same cultural environment, in a faraway mythical place, since completely paved over, called Lawn Guyland,

Well, I know it ;) And the Prinz speaks truth.

Since many of you will miss the reference: "lawn guyland" is how those of us who grew up on Long Island, mispronounce it because of our thoroughly superior, albeit unique, accents.

Paul

[Huib Versloot]

I know the Gustloff Werke in Weimar (Kar98k production) were bombed killing many people used as slave laborers from KZ Buchenwald. So it seems bombing ammo/ armament plants was something that was done.

[Mike Abberton]

Ask the Japanese if they think stategic bombing was ineffective. I think they might have a different opinion on the B-San raids on the Home Islands. Granted that again was much more about bombing civilian areas, killing or displacing workers and razing basic services. I have read, in fact, that the B-29 raids were so devastating to civilian areas that many of the Japanese Generals were not all that impressed with the Atomic bombs. Their cities were already being devastated wholesale, and so what if they Americans had a more effective way to do it. They knew that the Americans could not have that many a-bombs anyway.

British night-time raids seemed to be mostly about doing the same in the ETO. Going after the workers rather than the industry. US daytime bombing efforts were generally intended to target the factories/transportation network, but the basic lack of accuracy made that largely ineffective.

I think with the case of mostly not targetting the armaments industry, it was a case of scale and dispersion. Simply because the armaments industry was so huge and spread out, it just wasn't a viable target. The targetting of ball bearings was done because the industry was relatively small and was thought that it would have a large impact on the war. Allied strategic bombing just couldn't close down large industry sectors.

I agree with SG that the primary contribution of the bombing campaign was diversion of the luftwaffe and limiting the growth of German industry. Compare the growth of German industry to US industrial during 1942-45. Even accounting the relative sizes and population differences (and availability of raw materials), and you can get an idea of what the German industry might have achieved if it was unmolested. If Germany doubled aircraft production from 42 to 44, US production went from 6000 per year in 1939 to 9000 a month in 1944. In early 1944, the US actually had to start pulling back on production, because they couldn't hope to actually use all the planes they were producing.

[jonnymacbrown]

[Steel God]