Air war question

[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.