German Strategic Bombing on the Eastern Front: Better, the same, or different?

A thought, inspired by teh book Luftwaffe Victorious

The author basically posits an effective Luftwaffe with a strategic bombing arm, that's capable of, when combined with a more effective stalingrad, keeping the USSR from winning the war in the East (It doesn't lose either).

I have my doubts, but it does seem to me that the USSR might be vulnerable to attacks on its rail lines and refineries, although I am sure some one will persuade me otherwise.

Thoughts?
 
A thought, inspired by teh book Luftwaffe Victorious

The author basically posits an effective Luftwaffe with a strategic bombing arm, that's capable of, when combined with a more effective stalingrad, keeping the USSR from winning the war in the East (It doesn't lose either).

I have my doubts, but it does seem to me that the USSR might be vulnerable to attacks on its rail lines and refineries, although I am sure some one will persuade me otherwise.

Thoughts?

Faeelin

A more efficiently organised and updated Luftwaffe used tactically might well have inflicted even greater losses on the Red Army, especially as it sought to advance back across the open steppes in the south. However I very much doubt that Germany, building as fast as it could historically and with so many other commitments could have managed a strategic bombing arm of any real size. Also Russia is so huge and so little was known about much of it that it would be difficult even for the historical western strategic bomber forces to have real effect, excepting possibly on the Baku oil-fields. [And that in part because the western powers could attack them from closer bases than the Germans are likely to be able to]. Also once their cut off the tap by attacking Russia where are the Germans going to get the oil to operate a huge heavy bomber force from?

Steve
 
It would take a significant number of heavy bombers to cripple the industrial capacity of the Soviet Union. The '20's and '30's air power theorists - assuming a handful of bombers would bring the enemy to its knees - were surely proven wrong by the events of WWII. It was not until the US and Britian had 1009's of bombers - and accompanying fighters - that Germany was unable to supply its arrnies. And then the collapse was due to the actual capture of the factories, as well as a more intelligent choice of targets. You can cause problems by attacking railroads but the damage can be repaired. As far as refineries are concerned, it took over a year to knock out the Roumanian oil industry and the German synthetic oil plants. Let's not forget that the Soviet Air Force has a lot of fighters to intercept German raids.

If we assume Germany can afford to build 300 to 400 strategic bombers - this would be about 5-10% of the Luftwaffe's strength (maybe more because these airframes would mean fewer of the other types) - they could keep some Russian resources away from the front, but hardly enough to lead to a German victory in the war. It's interesting to note how much military equipment the Soviets had in the rear areas as opposed to the front. This surplus could have been made available for front line duty.

Finally, we need to remember that the further the Germans advance into Russia, the worse their supply situation gets. If these bombers were successful, the Germans would advance further. If Stalingrad fell because the strategic bombing campaign worked, the flanks, manned by sattelite armies, would still be open to attack. The situation of AG A and B would still be critical. Germany would still lose the war.
 
Thoughts?

The cheap answer is that if Germany is building a big strategic bomber arm, then it isn't doing something else. Leaving that aside...

A decent German strategic bomber arm still means that most Soviet heavy industry is out of range.

Strategic bombing is expensive in men, machines, and money. Pilots will be used up terror-bombing who would otherwise be supporting the Germans at the front. Fighters and pilots for them will be in shorter supply. Attrition on the strategic bomber forces is heavy: if they are going in under fighter escort then the situation isn't much better for the Germans than OTL, if they're out of escort range losses are high. Russian AA will become fairly high quality as well.

Transportation is less of a problem than you might think. Hitting railways and bridges is difficult in the best of times, and that requires experience and luck. While the Germans are on the advance, blowing the rail links and bridges close to the front isn't all that helpful. By 43*, the Soviets have all those lovely lend-lease trucks supplying the advancing Red Army.

One think you've probably done here is to butterfly the V2 and V1 programs out of existence. With consequent effects on the career of one Wernher von Braun, and the history of space flight...

Refineries? Out of range, most of the time. Except maybe as the Germans near Baku.

Unless strategic bombing is the Nazi hair that breaks the Soviet camel's back at the worst of 1941, it won't do much to not lose the war.

Military: The same, in the overall picture. A tiny bit worse, if you happen to be a Soviet civilian behind Red Army lines, a tiny bit easier if you happen to be a Red Army fighter pilot or soldier. Better, if you happen to live in London in 1943-1945, since the V-blitz goes away. Worse, if you like the OTL US Space program. Better, if you think the US space program was a dumb white elephant. Different, since "if we could put a man on the moon, then we can [unrealistic expectation here"] requires some editing. Also different in modern debates about the morality of strategic bombing.
 

Kiwiguy

Banned
Had the Nazis not dismissed the Russians as untermenchen in 1941-42 and bombed strategically then, perhaps they could have done it with He-111s etc, but the opportunity was missed.

As others point out once the tank factories were out of range in the Urals there was little Germany could do.
 
It would take a significant number of heavy bombers to cripple the industrial capacity of the Soviet Union. The '20's and '30's air power theorists - assuming a handful of bombers would bring the enemy to its knees - were surely proven wrong by the events of WWII. It was not until the US and Britian had 1009's of bombers - and accompanying fighters - that Germany was unable to supply its arrnies.
It is little-known fact, but Germany actually increased it's military production as Allies bombings intensified. According to most research, synth. fuel production was the only industry seriously affected by bombings.

Speaking of original question - I doubt that German SAC would affect war's outcome very much. 1st, a LOT of military production had been transferred to Ural and Syberia by 1942, and those area were NEVER accessible for enemy planes (even Le May wasn't sure in 1950's he could do it, and he needed only one raid to nuke those places, as opposed to sustained effort to suppress military production with ordinary bombs). 2nd, Russians proved to be extremely resilient. Leningrad was encircled and beseiged by Germans and Finns for approx. 900 days, with only lifeline between it and mainland being boats (trucks in winter) across Ladoga lake, Germans camped in near suburbs and among major problems Russians had was... how to get huge quantities of weapons, produced by city's factories, across the lake to arm Red Army.
 
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Maybe the germans could have done much harm with a small force and a good target selection. In OTL, Richtofen claimed that they had lost a good chance when they did not bomb the Baku fields in late 1942, when the Luftwaffe bases were in range (probably Hitler still counted on taking them).
Later on the war, as Speer says in his memories, there was a plan to bomb the huge hidroelectric plants that concentrated much of soviets electric production. The project was resurrected in the last months of war, and intended to do with the so called Mistel program (a remote controlled bomber attached to a fighter). Done in 1942-43, it could have done much damage.
Anyway, I believe the best use of planes against the Red Army would be, as was, tactical on the front.
 
Another thing to note is that the tank and armaments factories in the Urals and beyond were so centralized (those Soviets and there eggs-in-one-basket buildings...) that a serious raid could well cause a shortage of that vital equipment.
 

trajen777

Banned
I mostly agree with the limitations of Strat Bombing however in the case of a strat bombing of the USSR this would have been more successful then in Germany.

To understand my reasons for this you have to look at the manf production on the USSR. To build the industrial infrastructer of the USSR as quickly as they did the Russians needed to build a very large state run factories vs the western independent factories.

So you have very large factories with critical industry bottle necks that could have devestating effects on the Russian production - for example ball bearings (read somewhere their only was 5 factories in the USSR) were a product used in all production - Tanks / Planes / cannon etc. I know in Albert Speer's book if the allied bomber forces had continued to focus on this industry (in 44 they did for 1 month) the Germans were down to 3 months supply
 
Another thing to note is that the tank and armaments factories in the Urals and beyond were so centralized (those Soviets and there eggs-in-one-basket buildings...) that a serious raid could well cause a shortage of that vital equipment.

Yep. Hence the term 'Tankograd', used to describe Chelyabinsk. That city also produced Katyusha rocket launchers.
 
Yep. Hence the term 'Tankograd', used to describe Chelyabinsk. That city also produced Katyusha rocket launchers.
Yeah, and there were two more like this in Sverdlovsk and Omsk. As I said before, 3 was minimum number of producers for any kind of equipment, if you planner didn't yearn for a trip to frosty Gulag camp or an appointment with firing squad.
 
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