DBWI WI Britain adopted 'area bombing'

Early in 1941 the decision was taken to use fast bombers like the Mosquito to target communication points like railroads and bridges and canals.

The casualities amongst aircrew were fairly high, 3% per raid.

There is no doubt that German industry was disrupted to some extent.

Then too the delayed action bombs, dropped with leaflets, did slow down the nazis but lots of Concentration camp inmates died from them. Then again some escaped.


There was an idea to order thousands of 4 engined machiens and simply to bomb the general area of cites.

Could Britain have actually adopted a policy that was so plainly terror?

Would it have made any difference?
 

abc123

Banned
Considering that Mosqitos didn't made any significant damage to the German war effort IMO it is possible to have "area bombing" accepted...
 
There would be four major consequences, the first being that the British would have had to take resources away from Coastal Command (which had some very impressive 4-engined bombers, such as the Handley-Page Halifax and the Avro Lancaster*) which would give the U-boats an easier time in the Atlantic, perhaps averting the abject disaster that was Doenitz's campaign against British shipping.

The second would be that resources would be taken from Britain's superheavy bomber project which led to the development of the Avro Vulcan, which entered service just in time to drop (in USAAF colours) the first nuclear weapons on Japan. The successful American and British nuclear weapons programs could be left either without or with an inferior delivery platform, such as the American B-29.

The third consequence is that the American nighttime area bombing campaign that began in late 1942 will be complemented by a British daylight campaign leading to an around-the-clock series of sustained bombardments that may or may not be more effective than the pinprick-pathfinder/marking-overnight firebombing pattern of the OTL war.

And the fourth consequence lies in that the Germans (who also preferred to use twin-engine bombers) will see the British switching over to using heavy four-engined long-range bombers and will also come to the conclusion that the twin-engine planes are ineffective sooner than the did. In OTL this realization came too late as the Germans needed to focus on producing fighters to drive the American heavy bombers out and thus couldn't field a decent four-engine heavy before doing so became pointless. As the british would have to make the change sometime before the spring of 1941 to be able to field a decent design or three in time to actually make a difference, the Germans would probably be able to produce a design of their own and set off a second 'Battle of Britain' before the British get American help in 1942.

*The Lancaster was a variant of Bomber Command's failed Manchester twin-engine heavy bomber, with four Rolls-royce Merlins in place of the troublesome and unerpowered Rolls-Royce Vultures and about half of the bomb-load replaced with fuel tanks. The four engines allowed for an extra margin of safety on those long patrols over the open ocean while also being lighter and more efficient (two Merlins weighed slightly less than one Vulture while having 30% greater horsepower)than than the the Vulture-driven Manchester ever was. Once the Lancaster and the Halifax began operating out of RCAF Kefalik and RAF Reykjavik in Iceland, either as RADAR-equipped search airplanes or more commonly with the ASW loadout of air-dropped depth charges, the German U-Boat campaign in the Atlantic, already quite costly and of limited effectiveness due to patrols off of the coast of Britain, was transformed into an ignominious failure.
 
I'd interpret the ATL a bit differently. First off in OTL the medium bomber campaigns against transportation targets were fairly effective. Specifically that vs the th LoC to the Axis Tunisian enclave in 1943, Operations Strangle vs the north Italian transportations system in the first half of 1944, the campaigns vs the NW France transportation, and the final campaign over western & central Germany in the winter/spring of 1945. ATL absent a heavy bomber campaign it is very likely the Brits will develop the techniques for attacking railroads, bridges, canals, ports, ect... sooner & faster.

Second, even if the RAF passes on 'stratigic' bombing the USAAF is certain to give it a go anyway. It looks to me like they learned little of nothing from the efforts of the B17s in the South Pacific during 1942 and the first half of 43, so in this ATL the US 8th AF is liable to be bombing Schwienfurt & Regensburg, and Ploesti just as in OTL.

For the Brits this ATL presumes a lot fewer heavy bombers built. Now the RAF amy not recive the resources 'saved', but my guess is far more lighter attack aircraft will be built. If each four engine heavy not built equals two twins or four singles then the 14,000 sorties the Allies put over Normandy on 6th June will seem like a shortage in the world of this ATL. The Germans wont simply lurk under a 'Aluminum Overcast' with the potiential number of tactical bombers of twin & single engines there will be a solid roof crushing the German LoC and field armies like a prarie hailstorm on a herd of cattle.
 
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