German Jets introduced in 1941.

CalBear

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MerryPrankster said:
Quit worshipping the US and the A-Bomb. The Allies would have the advantage, but if several British population centers are dead and they take heavy losses on the beach (from German survivors using gas and their own lack of understanding of radiation), the Allies could be in for manpower problems.

That's bit harsh.

It is a fact that poison gas is not as effective a weapon as Nuclear detonations. Poison Gas can be quite effective if a large numbers of factors are present, but those factors are rarely available at the same time. Gas also has to be employed is massive quantities to be effective (using WW II systems). You can not look at idea PPK to determine volumes. Even a hugely effective gas warhead will have effective kill radius of perhaps 3 or 4 city blocks. The number of of poison gas warheads that Germany would have needed to launch against a British City to leave it dead would have exceeded the German ability to launch V-2's. This is especially true if the German launch sites can be struck with Nuclear warheads.


Nukes don't much care which way the wind is blowing or if it recently rained. This, combided with the effective zone of destruction, makes them far more useful as a weapon. They also have the added bonus of clearing obstacles on the ground. No houses = no house to house fighting.
 
Calbear,

Apologies to you and AMBOMB if it seems I'm being too unpleasant.

The situation with AMBOMB is somewhat similar to the discussions I've had with you, except you can justify your position better.

He seems to think that once the US has the A-bomb, even if it only has a few and the Germans have all continental Europe, the Allies have already won. That is not necessarily true, and his attitude does seem a bit hubristic.

For starters, the Allies did not have effective missile technology, and assuming German dominance in Western Europe and the destruction (or severe beating) of the Soviet Union, will have to be waging the entire war at the end of a lengthy supply line.

In real life, the Western Allies only defeated 20% of the Wehrmacht. If the Soviets are beaten in 41-43 thanks to German possession of jet fighters (and Soviet non-possession), the amount of enemy soldiers the WAllies would face would be much higher.

Assuming the Allies can keep cranking out warheads (and the Germans don't build their own or some other equivalent wonder-weapon necessary to destroy Britain and/or Iceland to keep the US from operating in-theater), the Allies will eventually win. However, it will take a long time. No magic "automatic victory August 1945" scenario here.
 
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backstab

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MerryPrankster said:
Calbear,

Apologies to you and AMBOMB if it seems I'm being too unpleasant.

The situation with AMBOMB is somewhat similar to the discussions I've had with you, except you can justify your position better.

He seems to think that once the US has the A-bomb, even if it only has a few and the Germans have all continental Europe, the Allies have already won. That is not necessarily true, and his attitude does seem a bit hubristic.

For starters, the Allies did not have effective missile technology, and assuming German dominance in Western Europe and the destruction (or severe beating) of the Soviet Union, will have to be waging the entire war at the end of a lengthy supply line.

In real life, the Western Allies only defeated 20% of the Wehrmacht. If the Soviets are beaten in 41-43 thanks to German possession of jet fighters (and Soviet non-possession), the amount of enemy soldiers the WAllies would face would be much higher.

Assuming the Allies can keep cranking out warheads (and the Germans don't build their own or some other equivalent wonder-weapon necessary to destroy Britain and/or Iceland to keep the US from operating in-theater), the Allies will eventually win. However, it will take a long time. No magic "automatic victory August 1945" scenario here.

I agree,
I think people don't relize that most of the German Army was on the eastern front. Put them on the west and you would have a lot of dead yanks !
If the US decided to use a Nuke on .... say Berlin.... I think that there would be a good chance that this bomber would be shot down by Flak. Remember that in the OTL, the US flew a LONE bomber over the target area, the Japanese did not have the Flak assets like what was protecting Berlin so it was rather easy for them to drop it.
 
I tend to oppose the *we have nuclear weapons, the Nazi's can rule the rest of the world, but one bomb into Berlin and they must surrender unconditionally and be ready for partition!* view point.

Now if while dominating all Europe Berlin, Hitler, a significant number of other leading Nazi's go up in smoke and the allies offer something a bit less than unconditional surrender, then maybe they have won. The Nazi's "might" have been willing to withdraw from some or possibly all of western Europe but even then possibly not if there are next to no Allied boots in Europe.

I tend to see Hitler or whoever takes charge just demanding that efforts towards the bomb (which is evidently very possible) are redoubled, efforts towards Jet interceptors and other interception technology is redoubled and some effort to spread industry throughout occupied Europe to ensure it cannot be easilly targeted by American bombs. I highly doubt the US is going to start nuking Paris/Warsaw for example without a major reason such as it being the heart of Nazi nuclear research or something of that ilk. (On the otherhand some shall no doubt argue they would do so in a heartbeat :p )

At the best outlook, no one person comes to lead the Nazi's and the resulting power struggle see's a bloody civil and the bulk of the German army descends into petty banditry as generals carve out bloody fiefdoms with their armies. I suppose in the best situation German forces everywhere get up, say sod the war and march back home to Germany but thats hardly likely. I suspect Europe is butchered (even more than OTL), quite possibly beyond reconstruction and certainly couldn't imagine how that timeline would go.
 

CalBear

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Much of this thread proceeds from a series of faulty assumptions. Specifically:

1. Germany had the sole workable jet engine in the world. False.

2. Germany had the available resources to build large numbers of Jet engines. False

3. Jet aircraft would be decisive if employed on the Eastern Front. False.

4. Jet Aircraft would have utterly defeated the allied bomber offensive. False

5. The Western allies would have been unable to develop a reasonable counter to German Jets in time to prevent the fall of the USSR & the subsequent transfer of Wermacht forces to the West. False.

To conterpoint these assumptions.

1. Sir Frank Whittle (GB) invented the turbojet & patented it in 1930. Hans von Ohain (Ger.) invented and patented his version in 1936. 1st flights were in 1941 & 1939 respectively. An engineer at Junkers was able to improve on the von Ohain design. Intial engines from both inventors had nearly identical performance.

2. Germany lacked reasonable supplies of EVERYTHING, from decent rubber for tires to the rare earths needed to construct Jet engine fan blades need to truly mass produce jets. It was also short of fuel to fly the aircraft it did produce.

3. Germany HAD air SUPREMACY over the Eastern Front until late in 1943 & did not lose air parity until early 1945. The Red Army still kicked the Wermacht all the way to Berlin. It should also be noted that early jets were poorly suited to close air support due to poor responsiveness at low speeds. The short range of early jets would also have been a serious hinderance on the Eastern Front.

4. Prior to the introduction of the P-51 Daylight & until war's end Night Bombers were subject to ongoing assault by huge numbers of German fighters and even medium bombers adapted to fire large caliber cannon & rockets at the bomber formations with NO fighter cover AT ALL. This did not stop the allied attacks. Even after the introduction of the ME-262, the Allied Air offensive continued unabated. The ME-262 did not even cause a speed bump for the bomber offensive. If it had been available in 1943, Allied losses would have been higher, perhaps the Americans may have given more thought to night attacks (although I doubt it. There is no one more stubborn than a General, except a whole bunch of them) but the Reich would still have been bombed into ruin.

5. The British jet engine designs were very close to the equal of, if not superior to, anything developed in Germany during the war. The Gloster Mereor flew in early 1943, (when compared post war, it proved to be at least the equal of the Me-262 in every respect). Given the almost unimaginable production capacities of the Allies (including the oft ignored efforts of the USSR) it is easy to imagine THOUSANDS of Meteor's and other more advanced offspring filling the skies over France (and the Ukraine?) by the spring of 1944 HAD THEY BEEN NEEDED. Given how quickly Allied engineers were able to adapt designs, it would not have been surprising to have seen production B-29's & B-32's sprouting jet pods a la the B-36 and some version of the P-51 or a successor receiving a jet/prop combination power set-up that would combine range and, as needed, additional sprint speed.


The Me-262, He-162 & other German jet & rocket designs were innovative aircraft, helping to break new ground. That the Germans used them in combat 1st makes sense as they were losing the war. Many innovative American, British, and Soviet (especially British, which seemed to be a fertile ground for invention throughout the war) were not built, or only built in demonstration models, simply because they were not needed. There was no need to rush the Meteor into full production, or for American designers to throw huge resources at jet designs, they were already crushing the enemy with what they had. Change that fact, even a little, and many of the designs that are only remembered as experiements would have pummelled Germany instead of the familiar Flying Forts, Lancasters, Liberators, & Mustangs.

Germany had a lot of brilliant scientists & designers. They didn't have ALL of them.
 
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backstab

Banned
CalBear said:
Much of this thread proceeds from a series of faulty assumptions. Specifically:

1. Germany had the sole workable jet engine in the world. False.

2. Germany had the available resources to build large numbers of Jet engines. False

3. Jet aircraft would be decisive if employed on the Eastern Front. False.

4. Jet Aircraft would have utterly defeated the allied bomber offensive. False

5. The Western allies would have been unable to develop a reasonable counter to German Jets in time to prevent the fall of the USSR & the subsequent transfer of Wermacht forces to the West. False.

To conterpoint these assumptions.

1. Sir Frank Whittle (GB) invented the turbojet & patented it in 1930. Hans von Ohain (Ger.) invented and patented his version in 1936. 1st flights were in 1941 & 1939 respectively. An engineer at Junkers was able to improve on the von Ohain design. Intial engines from both inventors had nearly identical performance.

2. Germany lacked reasonable supplies of EVERYTHING, from decent rubber for tires to the rare earths needed to construct Jet engine fan blades need to truly mass produce jets. It was also short of fuel to fly the aircraft it did produce.

3. Germany HAD air SUPREMACY over the Eastern Front until late in 1943 & did not lose air parity until early 1945. The Red Army still kicked the Wermacht all the way to Berlin. It should also be noted that early jets were poorly suited to close air support due to poor responsiveness at low speeds. The short range of early jets would also have been a serious hinderance on the Eastern Front.

4. Prior to the introduction of the P-51 Daylight & until war's end Night Bombers were subject to ongoing assault by huge numbers of German fighters and even medium bombers adapted to fire large caliber cannon & rockets at the bomber formations with NO fighter cover AT ALL. This did not stop the allied attacks. Even after the introduction of the ME-262, the Allied Air offensive continued unabated. The ME-262 did not even cause a speed bump for the bomber offensive. If it had been available in 1943, Allied losses would have been higher, perhaps the Americans may have given more thought to night attacks (although I doubt it. There is no one more stubborn than a General, except a whole bunch of them) but the Reich would still have been bombed into ruin.

5. The British jet engine designs were very close to the equal of, if not superior to, anything developed in Germany during the war. The Gloster Mereor flew in early 1943, (when compared post war, it proved to be at least the equal of the Me-262 in every respect). Given the almost unimaginable production capacities of the Allies (including the oft ignored efforts of the USSR) it is easy to imagine THOUSANDS of Meteor's and other more advanced offspring filling the skies over France (and the Ukraine?) by the spring of 1944 HAD THEY BEEN NEEDED. Given how quickly Allied engineers were able to adapt designs, it would not have been surprising to have seen production B-29's & B-32's sprouting jet pods a la the B-36 and some version of the P-51 or a successor receiving a jet/prop combination power set-up that would combine range and, as needed, additional sprint speed.


The Me-262, He-162 & other German jet & rocket designs were innovative aircraft, helping to break new ground. That the Germans used them in combat 1st makes sense as they were losing the war. Many innovative American, British, and Soviet (especially British, which seemed to be a fertile ground for invention throughout the war) were not built, or only built in demonstration models, simply because they were not needed. There was no need to rush the Meteor into full production, or for American designers to throw huge resources at jet designs, they were already crushing the enemy with what they had. Change that fact, even a little, and many of the designs that are only remembered as experiements would have pummelled Germany instead of the familiar Flying Forts, Lancasters, Liberators, & Mustangs.

Germany had a lot of brilliant scientists & designers. They didn't have ALL of them.

Agree with all your points exept counter point 4.
Cause enough losses and the US would have sencond thoughts about bombing full stop. Strategic Bombing was not as effective as it was claimed to be, Factories in Germany kept producing and increased their production in 1944. The Strategic Rail net in germany was still operational in 1945. The Strategic Bombing Campaign was kept going to apease murderers like Bomber Harris happy who wanted to Bomb the Germans back to the stone age
 

MrP

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backstab said:
Agree with all your points exept counter point 4.
Cause enough losses and the US would have sencond thoughts about bombing full stop. Strategic Bombing was not as effective as it was claimed to be, Factories in Germany kept producing and increased their production in 1944. The Strategic Rail net in germany was still operational in 1945. The Strategic Bombing Campaign was kept going to apease murderers like Bomber Harris happy who wanted to Bomb the Germans back to the stone age

Thought it was largely concerned with persuading Stalin that we were doing something. Naja? :confused:
 

CalBear

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backstab said:
Agree with all your points exept counter point 4.
Cause enough losses and the US would have sencond thoughts about bombing full stop. Strategic Bombing was not as effective as it was claimed to be, Factories in Germany kept producing and increased their production in 1944. The Strategic Rail net in germany was still operational in 1945. The Strategic Bombing Campaign was kept going to apease murderers like Bomber Harris happy who wanted to Bomb the Germans back to the stone age

1st, I couldn't agree more with your depiction of General Harris. My greatest hope is that he shares a barracks in Hell with Stalin & Hitler.

I will have to differ with you regarding the Stategic Bombing campaign & it's impact on the war. The greatest impact that the Bomber offensive, especially the Daylight offensive, was the amount of manpower & war materiel that it occuppied throughout the war. Even if one takes into account the number of women & Hitler Youth assigned to man the flak guns, the sheer amount of munitions expended against the Bombers, the amount of production deferred to the construction of defensive fighters, the manpower devoted to keeping the Luftwaffe in the air, and the limited, but noteworthy, damage the bombing had on German production & Morale, constituted a "Second Front" fully as draining on German efforts against the USSR as either the Italian or two French invasions. Perhaps more importantly, the "Air Front" was able to have it's effect before the Allies were prepared for a North European offensive. Every 88, 105, and 125mm gun set into a flak position or tower was one less available to confrom the Allies in the West or the USSR. At the very beginning of the serious Bomber offensive the Luftwaffe deployed over 14,000 88mm guns against the bomber forces, with this number increasing as the war progressed. It is worth considering what the impact of an additional 2-3,000 88's would have had at Kursk or in Normandy, not to mention the huge number of quick firing 20mm, 37mm, and 55mm guns that were deployed to counter the bombers.

There are many ways to measure impact of an offensive.
 

MrP

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CalBear said:
1st, I couldn't agree more with your depiction of General Harris. My greatest hope is that he shares a barracks in Hell with Stalin & Hitler.

I don't know enough about him to question your analysis of the man - but I will question that rank! He was British, old boy. Air Marshal Harris - not any form of general. ;)
 
MerryPrankster said:
Calbear,

Apologies to you and AMBOMB if it seems I'm being too unpleasant.

The situation with AMBOMB is somewhat similar to the discussions I've had with you, except you can justify your position better.

He seems to think that once the US has the A-bomb, even if it only has a few and the Germans have all continental Europe, the Allies have already won. That is not necessarily true, and his attitude does seem a bit hubristic.

For starters, the Allies did not have effective missile technology, and assuming German dominance in Western Europe and the destruction (or severe beating) of the Soviet Union, will have to be waging the entire war at the end of a lengthy supply line.

In real life, the Western Allies only defeated 20% of the Wehrmacht. If the Soviets are beaten in 41-43 thanks to German possession of jet fighters (and Soviet non-possession), the amount of enemy soldiers the WAllies would face would be much higher.

Assuming the Allies can keep cranking out warheads (and the Germans don't build their own or some other equivalent wonder-weapon necessary to destroy Britain and/or Iceland to keep the US from operating in-theater), the Allies will eventually win. However, it will take a long time. No magic "automatic victory August 1945" scenario here.

Who said anything about a victory in August, 1945?
 
backstab said:
Agree with all your points exept counter point 4.
Cause enough losses and the US would have sencond thoughts about bombing full stop. Strategic Bombing was not as effective as it was claimed to be, Factories in Germany kept producing and increased their production in 1944. The Strategic Rail net in germany was still operational in 1945. The Strategic Bombing Campaign was kept going to apease murderers like Bomber Harris happy who wanted to Bomb the Germans back to the stone age
Claimed to be by whom? I've never seen an overstatement of its effectiveness. But, I've seen a number of understatements of it. The strategic bombing campaign was continued because it was working , not to appease anyone. Calling Bomber Harris a murderer is the height of ridiculousness. He was a military officer who did his job. If you want to call him a murderer you have to call every officer who ever ordered his troops into combat a murderer. Besides, it wasn't even Bomber Harris who decided to implement strategic bombing. That decision had already been made when he became head of Bomber Command.
 
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There has been a point made first by Amerigo, then by Steve and then by Calbear that's been unduly ignored. The Germans didn't have the resources to build large numbers of jets. Given that, earlier introduction of jets into the war wouldn't have made a significant difference.
 
Would prob end up in a stalemate.
With a cold war between Gemany and Britian and US.
Germany would control europe and russia up to the urails.

Oh and NO NUKES going off (some ppl seem to be obsested with them) :D
 
And it seems that Calbear has won the argument, or at least gone a very good ways to winning it.

However, if earlier German jets mean more advanced later German jets, then the Germans might have a better chance in the East. One factor in the Soviet victory IIRC was that the Soviets built aircraft that were BETTER than those of the Germans, and that helped them with reconnaissance.

Also, the superior mobility that enabled the Soviets to advance so far so quickly was due to the enormous numbers of trucks they imported from the US. If the Germans set their jets to antiship duties (perhaps they develop something resembling an early cruise missile as a result of their jet research), the Soviets might get a lot fewer trucks.

On the matter of the necessary materials for the jets, are there any places in Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East where they could get the necessary amounts? Perhaps they build a somewhat larger amount of jets (straining their resources to the limit) and that helps them win a victory or two that gets them more resources?
 
MerryPrankster said:
And it seems that Calbear has won the argument, or at least gone a very good ways to winning it.

However, if earlier German jets mean more advanced later German jets, then the Germans might have a better chance in the East. One factor in the Soviet victory IIRC was that the Soviets built aircraft that were BETTER than those of the Germans, and that helped them with reconnaissance.

Also, the superior mobility that enabled the Soviets to advance so far so quickly was due to the enormous numbers of trucks they imported from the US. If the Germans set their jets to antiship duties (perhaps they develop something resembling an early cruise missile as a result of their jet research), the Soviets might get a lot fewer trucks.

On the matter of the necessary materials for the jets, are there any places in Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East where they could get the necessary amounts? Perhaps they build a somewhat larger amount of jets (straining their resources to the limit) and that helps them win a victory or two that gets them more resources?

MP

On stopping the supply of trucks to Russia I think the bulk of L-L supplies. 60%, came via Vladivostok so not a lot the Germans can do about that.

On necessary raw materials I think the two key metal alloys could have been obtained, in theory, from Finland and Turkey respectively. However not enough was done to develop the resources in Finland and the allies bought out the production from Turkey. [can't remember what materials were involved as it a while ago]. However would still have problems with rubber and fuel and to develop a fairly new industry, for jet a/c from scratch, would means something else has to go. It would also need the Germans to realise earlier they had to recruit and train far more pilots

As such, even without the mess that was the Nazi system of government, I think your probably verging on ASB territory.

Steve
 
First of all, I don't think one can quite compare Germany's supply situation in ´41 to that of late ´44. But that said, the Germans managed to build quite a few jet fighters as it were, and God knows what else nonethelss.

If a good design and the political will was there, I see no reason why the Luftwaffe shouldn't be able to field jets in numbers by '42-´43. A more successful conduct of the war will most likely open up for the purchase of Turkish ore, and the continued Finnish posession of Petsamo (I think it was).

That will mean two things. 1) The Bomber Offensive will be stalled if not stopped. The Germans nearly did it in OTL with "lightly armed" piston engined Me-109s, nightfighters and the odd Fw-190, and a jet an evolutionary step up from the Me-262 will tear holes in the massed bomber streams... 2) Luftwaffe can keep its main focus on smashing the Soviets flat. In OTL they shifted not only lots and lots of fighters to the West, but also bombers - the conduct the Little Blitz f.x., not to mention the fact the the entire production of He-177, to the best of my knowledge, served on the Western Front. The fairly successive Allied Bomber offensive led to Hitler's absurd orders to attack Britain again and again, and indirectly to used wast amounts of scarce resoruces on the V-programmes. Please bear in mind that the bulk of the Luftwaffe in these years were shifting to, if already not on, the Western Front.

Anyone claiming parity or even German superiority vis a vis air warfare on the Eastern Front are sadly mistaken. Any account from around '43 to '45 (doh) again and again mentions the nefarious Soviets fighter bombers. Not to mention another little fact like the Red Army Airforce fighting the Luftwaffe to a stalemate over Kursk, and that was a OTL Luftwaffe that had gathered almost all its available strength. My God, the Soviet Red Army Airforce always outnumbered the Germans, and the Eastern Front was a bloody big place to boot, so the Germans were always short on airpower. The Geman held a slight, but decline qualitative edge from '43 onwards, but suffered from the contineous bleeding on the Western Front.

Regarding the Atomic Bomb as a war winning tool. Well, first of all the US had to deploy it successfully, and against the German air defences that will be - as mention by others - quite tricky and, well, down to luck, basically. And it will have to force the Germans (read: Nazi leadership) to give up and surrender unconditionally - not something I can see happen, but of course without the July '44 Plot some officers might have the pull to initiate a successfull coup.

I do think that the introduction of jets by Germany in 1941 will set butterflies loose en masse (as I've raved about in my others posts :) ).

Regards and all!

- B.
 
stevep said:
On stopping the supply of trucks to Russia I think the bulk of L-L supplies. 60%, came via Vladivostok so not a lot the Germans can do about that.
Really? I always thought that most of it by far came via Murmansk and surrounding area and Persia?

Regarding pilots btw, if the Luftwaffe had a better, faster, heavier armed plane in 41, I think it's a given they will not suffer the horrendous losses in pilots as OTL. All on all, the German problem was that they lost their pilots too quickly, and they wasted a lot of their best ones as night fighter pilots or because they simply got worn out fighting a loosing battle over Germany in the latter part of the war.

My regards!

- Bluenote.
 
Prunesquallor said:
The effort devoted by the Germans to anti-bomber measures. Had there been no bombing offensive I dont believe that the manpower (leaving aside the question of how much of this was low grade fit only for garrison duties or part time soldiers) and resources would have gone to the east. It would just have contributed to the slack in the German domestic economy.
There is that, and I'm inclined to agree with you (argh, what am I saying?!! :p ). However, if the Germans had to step up production due to losses or what not, the possibilities would have been way better than OTL. That said and done, there would still be more guns and ammunition available - the Germans faced a rather servere lack of modern tank ammunition for most of the latter part of the war due to so much material being used on advanced AA-gun ammunition f.x. and so on... As CalBear states;

CalBear said:
I will have to differ with you regarding the Stategic Bombing campaign & it's impact on the war. The greatest impact that the Bomber offensive, especially the Daylight offensive, was the amount of manpower & war materiel that it occuppied throughout the war. (...) There are many ways to measure impact of an offensive.
Well said, CalBear, I couldn't agree more! The resources dedicated to the defence of Geramny against the Bomber Offensive was mind numbing!

Best regards!

- Mr. B.
 

CalBear

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AMBOMB said:
Claimed to be by whom? I've never seen an overstatement of its effectiveness. But, I've seen a number of understatements of it. The strategic bombing campaign was continued because it was working , not to appease anyone. Calling Bomber Harris a murderer is the height of ridiculousness. He was a military officer who did his job. If you want to call him a murderer you have to call every officer who ever ordered his troops into combat a murderer. Besides, it wasn't even Bomber Harris who decided to implement strategic bombing. That decision had already been made when he became head of Bomber Command.

Again, I must differ with you. Any reasonable review of "Bomber Harris" and his record makes it clear that he had a stunning desire to kill German civilians, even to the point of hurting the military requirements of the allies. I would point you to he refusals to shift his attacks from German civilians to French transportation infrastructure targets in the run-up to D-Day. It was only after the most dire of warnings that he reassigned the RAF to preparation of the ground of THE INVASION OF OCCUPPIED EUROPE! The Strategic Bombing campaign was supposed to be Strategic, had Harris agreed he would have jumped at the opprotunity to help the Invasion succeed. He did not.

War is the application of force. Using the tools available in WW II large scale civilian deaths were unavoidable when that force was applied, as the American bombing campaign in the Pacific made clear. The American firebombing campaign againt Japan was acceptable only because the Japanese had decentralized it's industry into the homes of the workers, making those homes legitimate targets (although had the Allies lost the war, you can be sure that LeMay et al would have been in the Dock for genocide). Germany never did this, yet Harris firebombed area targets, without any particualar interest in concentrating on factories or other military targets, from the moment he had sufficient bombers.

As I have mentioned in other posts, additional research into this position may be helpful.
 
Mr.Bluenote said:
Really? I always thought that most of it by far came via Murmansk and surrounding area and Persia?

Regarding pilots btw, if the Luftwaffe had a better, faster, heavier armed plane in 41, I think it's a given they will not suffer the horrendous losses in pilots as OTL. All on all, the German problem was that they lost their pilots too quickly, and they wasted a lot of their best ones as night fighter pilots or because they simply got worn out fighting a loosing battle over Germany in the latter part of the war.

My regards!

- Bluenote.

Bluenote

From what I have read the bulk went via Vladivostok. Can't remember were I read the 60% value as it was some time back. Murmansk was important because stuff could get there quickly, rather than being hauled 3/4 of the way around the world. The Persian route needed some development before it could be used and also meant, with the Med. closed, items had to be carried around Africa. For the Pacific Soviet shipping, which had no other real use, transported the goods and didn't need to bother about protection. Suspect either it or the capacity of the Trans-Siberian railway were probably the limiting factors.

On the German pilots I think until about 42/43 they only had one flying school and were only producing small numbers of new pilots. They did start increasing the production after that but it was too late and they had serious supply problems.

Steve
 
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