In the bombing of Germany warcrimes thread several points have been raised that weren't to relevent to the topic at hand that were however interesting. Some of the people here astound me at their knowledge of WW2. I know alot but compared to some people here....

Anyways leaving the morality of the bombing to the other thread ( all sides bombed civilians) how effective was level bombing in WW2? What could have been done differently by both sides etc. Some points to consider.

German Bombing Warsaw 39
German Bombing Western Front 1940
Battle of Britain 1940
Blitzkrieg 41 (Barbarossa, Yugoslavia)
Stalingrad 42
Start of Allied Bombing Campaign 42
Hamburg 43
Dambusters 43 (44?)
Destruction of German Industry/Cities 43-45
Ploesti Oilfields 44
Dresden 45

Some of the main bombing eras in Europe in WW2. Put yourselves in command of the Luftwaffe or RAF/USAF. What would you do to win the war and when/how. Try and keep in mind the technical limits of the time and the range of the bombers- ie no German bombers hitting New York. Recently I have read a good book about the Luftwaffe from May 44 to May 45 which went into some detail about the last year of the war. Also while the bombing campaign vs Germany failed to break the will to resist it did cause massive disruption to industrial capacity, transport, and most importantly fuel. For example the Luftwafe had thousands of planes left at the end of the war but virtually no fuel to fly them with or to train new pilots. For the few German pilots still flying it seemed easier to get a new plane than repair a damaged one.

I would also like to see a few "What if" responses about what could have been. Perhaps the Allies could have concentrated on the German rail network or fuel production/distribution to end the war quicker. The Germans concentrating on getting the ME 262 into the air in 43/early 44 with reliable engines or changing the Luftwaffe targets form English airfields to cities AKA the Blitz.

And finally (and most importantly) try and keep it civil. We have a thread for the morality of the bombing here already. Also remember that no matter how careful either side would have been some civilian casualities would have been inevitable. Not saying that the destruction of Dresden or Stalingrad from the air was justifiable but factories and railway stations tend to be in populated areas.

I'll respond to my own thread 1st (hopefully). Once here at CFC Adler17 (in another bomb Germany thread) maybe a year or so ago he said rather than bomb the cities they allies should have bombed the fuel refineries. I know the Germans had trouble with fuel when Ploesti got bombed but I don't know how they got it from Romania to Germany. I also don't know where exactly the refineries were located or if they were withen range of the western Allies. I've read the German tried to make synthetic fuel but once again details are sparse- when/where/how etc. I presume someone here knows more than me.

The airdales have been promising for the past 90 years that airpower can win wars. The ONLY campaigns in which airpower was decisive were the Battle of Britain (1940) and the strategic bombing of Japan (1944-45), which included use of two nuclear weapons. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. enjoyed total air superiority, but it wasn't enough.

I read an interesting book recently, The Blitzkreig Myth by John Mosier. He has a lot of interesting points but statistic I didn't realize was that the Allies lost thousands and thousands of airmen during their bombing campaign of Germany. His point was that the bombing of the German cities was a waste of resources that should have been spent further destroying the German army.

I read an interesting book recently, The Blitzkreig Myth by John Mosier. He has a lot of interesting points but statistic I didn't realize was that the Allies lost thousands and thousands of airmen during their bombing campaign of Germany. His point was that the bombing of the German cities was a waste of resources that should have been spent further destroying the German army.

Bomber command had some of the heaviest casualties on the Allied side.

Okay I will try to analyze the air war of both Luftwaffe and western allies in western Europe:

1. Western allies:
In the first phase (until Fall Gelb (France invasion)) there was only bombing of ships by both sides. Not many other missions were flown in the west, except some reconnaissance missions. The RAF got a bloody nose by attacking German ships due to heavy German resistance.
Phase 2: BoB. Here the RAF was only saved by the switching of the Luftwaffe from industrial military targets to terror bombardments, which were started after the British bombed Berlin because of three German bombers missing the objective. They bombed London living quaters instead of the docks. Here is nothing else to be done by the British.
Phase 3 (end of 1940- 1945): This is a huge time scale and should be devided in some parts. However they are very near together, so I decided to analyze them all in one.
The British started to bomb German targets in the night which was not very effective in the beginning. Since German night fighters and FlaK were also not so effective the first phase is only a prelude.
Under Harris the bombers got the orders to bomb civilian targets instead of industrial ones. This was indeed a warcrime, but that discussion is in another thread not here. Nevertheless from 1943 on many times over 1000 bombers tried to bomb German cities, like Hamburg, Cologne, Königsberg, Berlin and Dresden. The British losses were high as the crews survived only 3 bombing runs. However the industry was effected but not in the extent which was neccessary. Indeed industry was only a "bonbon" how Harris once mentioned. The main target was the population to terrorize the population and kill the workers of the factories. Well the morale was not down but more strengenthed. Also the output of weapons was the highest in 1944, in the time of the biggest bombardments. Here was a strategic error: Instead of bombing civilians the British should have bombed the railways and the refineries. The biggest refineries were near Leuna in Saxony- Anhalt, in the range of British bombers since a long time. Not before end of 1944/ 45 these crucial areas were bombed. Although there were other refineries these were the biggest. A massive collaps of the German Wehrmacht would have been caused if the British bombed these targets as well as railway centers earlier the war.
The US bombed at the beginning mostly industrial targets before switching to terror bombardments in the end. Although they bombed factories they were not very effective since, as I mentioned, the industrial output was never crippled. Also they made the mistake not to attack railway stations or refineries.

2. Germany
Phase 1 (1939- 1940):
In this phase the Germans overrun Poland. In the west nothing serious happened, except attacking British ships.
Phase 2 BoB 1940:
The German Luftwaffe did at the very beginning everything correct: Attacking airfields, sweeping British fighter out before bomber attacks, although the Germans had no strategic bombers until 1942/ 43. This kept and the British would have lost the BoB within a short time. This was cancelled by Göring because of the British bombing of Berlin. Then the British were winning.
Phase 3 1940- 1942:
This time was a time of defence but there were only minor operations in western Europe. The Germans still bomb British targets as ships and industry but not in the extent (except ships, which were successfully attacked by FW 200 Condor for example on the Atlantic). Or the Operation Cerberus, the Channel dash of the German Fleet.
Phase 4 1943- 1945:
Here the German air force was aggresively defending Germany against an enemy who became much stronger with the time. And also the bravery is in no way behind the bravery of the British fighter pilots in the BoB. But they were loosing because of several harsh mistakes:
1. No strategic bombers in the early phase and later not enough.
2. No sufficient ammount of fighters produced.
3. Not hearing on the fighter pilots who demanded changes, especially General Galland.
4. Not hurrying the technological advance in the production and not using newer better planes instead of old ones (He 219, Me 262).
5. Using the few fighter reserve not for a big air battle but for a useless operation in the Ardennes.
However most of these errors would have been able to be solved until autumn 1944. At this time the allied bombers didn´t attack railway stations or oil refineries. Also they had still very high losses. Loosing 50 heavy planes per attack was the general not an exeption. But Galland had the idea to throw once 2.000 fighters on the enemy. This and the use of jet fighters, rockets and missiles would have caused tremendous losses the allies would have had to stop all offensive actions against the Reich. Even the few Me 262 fighters which flew were responsible for the loss of over 1.000 enemy planes, making general Spaatz nervous when he heart about that in late summer 1944. Such a victory would have crippled the allied air offensive dramatically. The German losses would have been high too, but not as high as the allied (expected losses: 400 planes with 4000 men). Also a morale boost would have happened in Germany and a morale break down in Britain and the US. (After the Germans won the air battle of Oschersleben, US soldiers captured a few days after said there were many people suddenly "ill" after this event).
On this way Germany was far away from winning the war but not from a negotiated peace. Also this tactics could only have been used in the case of the replacing of Hitler and Göring as they were the biggest part of the problem.

This is despite the lenghth only a short analysis. I would have to go in the deep in some areas but this should be enough for the first post here.

Adler

In considering the Luftwaffe in WW2, one important aspect to look at is its leader, Hermann Göring.

Göring had been a magnificent pilot during WW1. He won the Pour le Merité and commanded Jagdgeschwader I after Richthofen's death. However, his rise in the 1930s was political and, in spite of being the only six-star general who ever existed, he was a politician rather than a military leader.

As leader of the Luftwaffe, Göring committed many blunders. His cancellation of the German four-engine bomber robbed the Luftwaffe of the chance to destroy London in 1940 and the Soviet industry beyond the Urals in 1941. Both were potentially war winning operations. In May 1940 his promise to Hitler to destroy the British forces in the Dunkirk pocket with air power alone allowed the Royal Navy to evacuate a third of a million troops, without which the pressure on Churchill to make peace may have proved irresistible. At the start of the Battle of Britain Göring's failure to concentrate attacks on the British radar stations resulted in defeat. If the German defeat at Stalingrad was one of history's decisive battles, Göring's attempt to supply the trapped Sixth Army was one of history's great mistakes.

Göring was never a serious military commander. He had too many personal deficiencies for that. Although he was undoubtedly intelligent he could not take war seriously enough because it interfered with his love of culture and the arts. Fate provided him with immense wealth and the power to loot the galleries and museums of Europe, but fate exacted a high price: namely that he spend time at war which he hated and in which he experienced continual failure as well as having to report to a boss who terrified him.

Eric Zilmmer wrote that Göring's biggest flaw was his narcisstic personality which interfered with everything he did. He allowed his feelings to cloud his decisions and over-personalized situations. As Zilmmer says:
Göring was quite careless about how he connected details, what pyschology calls an under-incorporative style. He did not take all available information into account when making decisions. He not only ignored information, but he lied to himself and to others about what the information actually said. Göring made decisions based on emotions, which made him vulnerable to a stronger personality like Hitler's.Edward Milch, one of Göring's senior deputies, said: "Deceit plus incompetence equals one Reichsmarschal."

Also we shouldn´t forget Göring was a morphine junky! That is one reason why he was so fat. An Austrian, in whose family inbreeding was tradition and who was mentally sick, a junky, and several other degenrated men, leke Goebbels and Himmler. I wonder how the nazis were able to come so far...

Adler

Set aside any moral aspects, Harris' bombing campains were immensely effective. It was the dedicted goal of the Air Command to hit the medieval city centres, using the medieval church towers as target points.
Exactly because hardly anything else could be seen in the night raids. And exactly and literally because those wooden quarters are easly to ignite.
And considering one single run sufficed to level 80%+ of a city like Würzburg or Halberstadt, the efficiency was amazing.

Now, if that had any impact on the outcome if the war is another question.
But it's pretty mood to discuss the efficiency of the British level bombing considering anything else but mass destruction of living quarters - it wasn't meant to be something else, and worked extremely well.

Well....

Leaving aside the RAF's terror raids for a moment, I once read about the German army supply situation in Normandy. Between the RAF, the USAAF and the resistance the rail system in France was in such a state in 1944 that by the time of the Normandy campaign the supply situation at the front was pretty close to critical. This would have obvious effects like limiting the strategic ability of the Wermacht, and less obvious ones. For example, due to an inability to move supplies via rail past certain points, many of the prime movers and trucks at the front were forced to be used to deliver the supplies there. This left situations were groups of say four 88s would be left with one prime mover between them, which obviously limits tactical manouvering also.

Now of course this wasn't the only thing the allies did, and the terror raids have to be taken into consideration as well, but there's also dozens of other things the respective allied airforces got up to which had a major impact on the war, for example the ground attack planes. Going back to the above for a moment, the point of the article was that from a wargames perspective, the German player nearly always has wall to wall tigers/panthers with limitless fuel and ammunition, and half tracks and trucks galore. Usually the only realistic way to knock the tanks out is to either surround them or call down airstrikes. The ground attack aircraft that the allies used had a critical part to play in defeating the Germans, for example at Falaise and so on.

Which is where terror bombing (IMO) comes in as an effect on the war. The raids on German cities forced the Luftwaffe back and the defensive and stripped the Wermacht of any hugely effective fighter cover, in effect ceding air superiority over the battlefield to the Allies at a critical point in the war. It's debateable whether the astronomical cost of the raids balanced this side affect though.

Now of course planes alone don't win wars, but the allied bombing forces in WW2 certainly contributed a fair lot. The Battle of Britain for example saw the loss of many planes and experienced pilots in a campaign the Luftwaffe really were not suited to, planes and pilots that could have been used to great effect elsewhere.

Bomber command had some of the heaviest casualties on the Allied side.
Apparently there were some 100,000 casualties (or dead not sure) among the air force men on the western front.

I read an interesting book recently, The Blitzkreig Myth by John Mosier.

I've been meaning to read this, mostly because of the furor it ignited amongst military historians -- who, of course, find his treatise rather apocryphal.

One interesting effect I have notice is while the bombing was going on German war production peaked in 44. I wonder how much higher it could have gone if no bombing was carried out. The main effect of the campaign seemed to be the fuel and tansport disruption. Theres photos howing entire airfields full of planes that can't go anywhere for lack of fuel and idle factories because raw materials can't be transported.

Fighter/Dive bombers were effective and were the WW2 equivlent of a guided missile. France 1940, Falaise gap 44, Rudel on the eastern front. Coulod the Luftwaffe have been destroyed if the Allies contrated on the Airfields?

Alder I'm not sure how effective Gallands plan would have been had the last Luftwaffe reserves hadn't been used in the Ardennes. He stockpiled planes, fuel and pilots for several months and he couldn't sustain a counter attack for long as in late 44 fuel shortages started to bite. The HE177 was also a mechanical failure and in 44 by the time it was deployed it was removed form service due to lack of fuel.

One interesting Luftwaffe plan involved the Ju88+Fighter hybrids. Basically I Me 109 or FW190 was attached to the top of a Ju88 which was basically a massive bomb filed with fuel and explosives. Fighter points it at a target and flys off and the unmanned bomber collides with it. The theory was good but the accuracy was dreadful but for its intended role good enough. The hybrids were to fly to Courland and the target wwas the massive soviet dams near Moscow which ironically were built with German technology. The Soviets couldn't repair them as spare parts came from Germany. The planes were used on Soviet bridgeheads and failed miserably. A bridge is harder to hit than a dam. Theres some photos showing them deployed in Czechoslovakia in March 45. Wouldn't have changed the war but knocking out a good chunk of Soviet electrical capacity was an interesting idea.

The He-177 was a total failure; the whole concept didn't work. I think even those who constructed it weren't really convinced - but were forced to do it, since Göring/Hitler didn't want a better construction, with the usual 4 engines instead (based on the successful FW-200 Condor, most likely).
If OTOH you consider how much work went into carrier based aircrafts, with only the highly questionable Graf Zeppelin even somewhat in sight, it just again shows the shortsightedness of the so-called GröFaZ (Greatest Leader of all times, "Größter Feldherr aller Zeiten") and his bootlickers.
Same as the Me-262 as Fighter-Bomber, or not producing the Ta-152 in larger numbers (which was not a rationale decission, but based on the fact Willi Messerschmitt was the favorite of the 3rd Reich leaders, while Kurt Tank was not).
"Efficiency" and "3rd Reich leaders" simply exclude each other.

Don't forget Willi's white elephant of the ME321/323 ;)

The He 177 had 4 motors! But two were together working with one propeller each. And although the He 177 had big problems most of them were solved. However then was the plane put out of action.
I have to admit PH you´re right concerning the situation in the Normandy. But I thought we speak here about the strategic situation, not the tactical one.
Galland´s plan could have worked and together with an increased fighter production, the earlier commissioning of the Me 262 as fighter the losses of the allied air forces. The Luftwaffe shot down 42.000 western allied planes from 1941 to 1945. 25.000 of them were shot down by fighters. This figures would have been much higher with Galland´s plan. Also the bombing campaing was ever debated in both countries because of the high losses. Such a defeat of 400 planes lost would have crippled the Allied bomber offensive. To a date where the oil refineries were still running, the railways still intact the whole strategic situation would have shifted dramatically. Oh the Luftwaffe fighter wings lost 11.200 men and 22.500 planes, the Soviet losses were about 77- 80.000 planes, of which the Luftwaffe fighters shot down 45.000 and German allies 16.000.
Also the Mistel, a Ju 88 bomber full of explosives flown by an attached fighter, was a seldomly used kind of "missile". The attack on the Soviet dams were never made. Such an attack would have caused a loss of 2/3 of the Soviet power production. I don´t know why this attack was never made...

Adler

I have to admit PH you´re right concerning the situation in the Normandy. But I thought we speak here about the strategic situation, not the tactical one.

The impact was very much also on a strategic level. It would limit the German army's ability to engage the Allies for prolonged periods for example, limit their ability to redeploy formations from one area of the front to another and so on. In a similar fashion this lack of a dependable railway infrastructure in 1944 would force the allies to transport the bulk of their own supplies by truck from the Normandy beacheads, thus buying the time in late summer of 1944 for the Wermacht to form the crust that would defeat the likes of Market Garden. Kershaw's It Never Snows in September suggests that had Market Garden been possible a week before it's eventual date it's highly likely that it would have been sucessful. Outside of the problems of organising the campaign in such a short time, the biggest obstacle to this was a lack of suitable supplies and/or available transport due to their use elsewhere.

Also when you say in 1944 (leastways I assume then I can't find what date you mean by "to that date") the railways were still running, this is not the entire picture. Though they still ran there were huge problems throughout the system caused by various air attacks that imposed delays or in cases the need to switch to motor transport for sections of journeys. A cursory glance at the accounts of Germans moving to the front during that period would confirm this.

As for the mistel I believe the problems lay in a lack of fighter cover available to reach the dams. When this problem was resolved they ran into the problem of building up the reserve of the planes needed to launch the attack, and a lack of suitable weather conditions. These delays lead to the airbases the mistel were based at being destroyed or captured. Besides this, their eventual effects were rather limited, for example their use against shipping in the Seine failed to sink a single ship, and their attacks on bridges in the east had little concrete effect given that the Russians simply built emergency pontoon bridges quickly after.

The Russians didn't have anyy rader cover so a Mistel attack on the dams would have had a reasonable chance of success. However the worsening situation on the ground resulted in them being squandered in stupid atacks. Wouldn't have changed the outcome anyway but made life more difficult in the USSR.

From a view of disruptive economics, projection of force and so on, the bombers had a tremendous impact, and the German failure to develop large bombers ended their air supremacy.

The Russians didn't have anyy rader cover so a Mistel attack on the dams would have had a reasonable chance of success. However the worsening situation on the ground resulted in them being squandered in stupid atacks. Wouldn't have changed the outcome anyway but made life more difficult in the USSR.

The russians may not have had Radar, but once the massive formation was spotted it would have been pretty vulnerable if it went without fighter suport. The Mistel could usually only manage 380 kph and was easy prey for fighters if unprotected.

The russians may not have had Radar, but once the massive formation was spotted it would have been pretty vulnerable if it went without fighter suport. The Mistel could usually only manage 380 kph and was easy prey for fighters if unprotected.

One would think so but the Red Airforce was really bad. If the Germans flew at night I don't think the Russians even had airborne rader.

It was thought to use a captured Russian bomber or even a US B 17 to destroy the dams. These planes would have had an even better chance to come through the lines. However no order was given.

Adler

KG 200 was involved, so the use of such planes cannot be ruled out, but I imagine the issue of sufficent allied planes to actually achieve the damage necessary caused the order not to be given. Later the task was going to be given to the Mistels but this never came about.

The Russians didn't have anyy rader cover so a Mistel attack on the dams would have had a reasonable chance of success. However the worsening situation on the ground resulted in them being squandered in stupid atacks. Wouldn't have changed the outcome anyway but made life more difficult in the USSR.

Werent they all used up to attack Allied shipping across the english straits ??

I've been meaning to read this, mostly because of the furor it ignited amongst military historians -- who, of course, find his treatise rather apocryphal.
It's interesting to read. He does dig up some facts I didn't know but I would guess more knowledgeable world war 2 historians are familiar with. He does however totally ignore the Eastern Front where the majority of the war was fought. However he does a pretty good job explaining why France and Britain were defeated so rapidly by the Germans.