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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (6994)	10/23/2001 8:36:41 AM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

We are splitting hairs here :-) Time was an important factor. The Allies could not allow the Germans time to develop her war machine. She could have otherwise (possibly) beat Russia and that would have upset the whole apple cart. The Russians had millions and millions of casualties as we both know. You have to attract the fighters up to fight a war on your own terms. The daylight bombing achieved that purpose. What would have you suggested? Fighters just attacking the German airfields? Ground strafing had a high rate of losses. The Germans would have used their smarts too. A lot of the German special weapons programs were geared to defeating the bombing campaign as well. They had no real choice but to try and destroy the bombers....and they got minced. So the question is this. Which was worth more, militarily speaking, one B-17, six A-36s or five P-51s? Interesting to see the actual % proportions of each kind were made. My guess? Every two B17's escorted by five P-51's. During the Battle of Britain the Germans got to the stage where each bomber was escorted by 3 fighters. The Germans very nearly did beat us by bombing the airfields. I agree they lost the initiative when they switched to bombing London. Incidentally Hitler decided to do that after the RAF started dropping the medicine on Berlin. All in all, it's difficult to criticize how WW2 was conducted unless you were actually there reviewing all the factors imho. Enough I'll allow you to win the strategic bombing bit, but only if I win "Japan wins WW2 with nukes after the USA sat on it's thumbs for four yrs" bit. -g-

To: Bilow who wrote (6994)	10/23/2001 8:54:10 AM
From: Snowshoe	Respond to of 281500

>>Which was worth more, militarily speaking, one B-17, six A-36s or five P-51s?<< Oh, Hedy Lamar is a beautiful gal, Madeline Carroll is too But you’ll find if you query a much different theory amongst any bomber crew That the loveliest thing of which one can sing This side of the heavenly gates Is no blonde or brunette of the Hollywood set But an escort of P-38s -Anonymous WWII POW

To: Bilow who wrote (6994)	10/23/2001 8:01:57 PM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

Just out of interest I've been looking around to see if any links on the net support my view re WW2 European Air Offensive, and it's importance. Found a nice little summary by this guy... Richard Overy is Professor of Modern History at King's College, London. He has written extensively on the Third Reich and the Second World War, including The Air War, 1939-45 (1980), Why the Allies Won (1995), Russia's War (1998) and most recently, The Battle (2000). His next book, Interrogations: the Nazi Elite in Allied Hands will be published in the autumn. I see he uses the "It has always been fashionable to see the Combined Offensive as a failure" words -g- And no, I never heard of him till now. Just knew the support of the Russians was critical. ====================================================== German errors It has always been fashionable to see the Combined Offensive as a failure. Yet its effect was to distort German strategy and economic capability decisively between 1943 and 1945. This was achieved in three distinct ways. First, bombing forced the German Air Force to divert most of its fighter force to the defence of Germany, and to reduce sharply the proportion of bomber aircraft produced. The effect was to denude the German frontline of much needed bomber and fighter aircraft; by 1944 German air power was easily eroded around the periphery of German-controlled Europe, where pilot losses reached exceptionally high levels. Second, bombing placed a ceiling on the ability of the German- dominated European economy to produce armaments in quantities that matched the vast resource base of the occupied economies. This was achieved through direct destruction, the interruption of raw material, transport and energy supplies on a large scale, and the forced dispersal of German industry away from the most threatened centres. Third, bombing forced Hitler and the German leadership to think of radical ways to combat the threat it posed. Huge resources were diverted to the production of vengeance, or 'V', weapons, which had a very limited impact on Britain when rockets and flying bombs began to fall in the late summer of 1944. A gigantic construction project for an underground economy was authorised by Hitler in 1943. Organised by Himmler, using camp labour under the most rigorous and deadly regime, millions of man-hours and billions of marks were spent trying to achieve the impossible. Bombing provided the key difference between the western Allies and Germany. It played an important part in sustaining domestic morale in Britain and the USA, while its effects on German society produced social disruption on a vast scale (by late 1944 8 million Germans had fled from the cities to the safer villages and townships). The use of bombers and fighter-bombers at the frontline helped to ease the path of inexperienced armies that threatened to get bogged down in Normandy and Italy. Conclusion The long-range fighter, introduced from late 1943, made bombing more secure, and provided the instrument to destroy the German fighter force over the Reich. The debilitating effects on German air power then reduced the contribution German aircraft could make on the Eastern Front, where Soviet air forces vastly outnumbered German. The success of air power in Europe persuaded the American military leaders to try to end the war with Japan the same way. City raids from May 1945 destroyed a vast area of urban Japan and paved the way for a surrender, completed with the dropping of the two atomic bombs in August 1945. Here, too, the American government and public was keen to avoid further heavy casualties. Air power provided a short-cut to victory in both theatres; British and American wartime losses were a fraction of those sustained by Germany, Japan and the USSR, and this in turn made it easier to persuade democratic populations to continue fighting even through periods of crisis and stalemate. ...no misjudgements were more costly in the end than the German belief that the Red Army was a primitive force... There are many other factors that explain victory and defeat beside von Ribbentrop's trio. Yet without Soviet resistance and reform, American rearmament and economic mobilisation, and western air power, the ability of the three major allies to wear down German and Japanese resistance would have been highly questionable. This still leaves open the question of German miscalculation. There were weaknesses and strengths in Hitler's strategy, but no misjudgements were more costly in the end than the German belief that the Red Army was a primitive force, incapable of prolonged resistance, or Hitler's insistence that the USA would take years to rearm and could never field an effective army, or the failure to recognise that bombing was a threat worth taking seriously before it was too late. Military arrogance and political hubris put Germany on the path to a war she could have won only if these expectations had proved true. ========================================================== When you try the links you might get a questionaire, but you can click box to ignore it. bbc.co.uk Here is a handy timeline by the way.I see Midway is not even on it...can't be important -g- (it was of course ) But I think it's important to see all the events that were going on at the time. historyplace.com