Global Strategic Air War?

Delta Force

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In the 1930s people viewed the prospect of a strategic air war similarly to how people would later view global nuclear war. It was expected that hundreds of thousands of people would be killed by conventional and chemical bombing of cities within the opening weeks of war.

The dire predictions were based on extrapolating some assumptions from World War I that didn't quite apply to the situation with aerial bombers attacking cities, and also with the development of early warning systems (especially radar) and civil defense infrastructure. However, the final year of World War II and the Korean War show that aircraft of the 1940s were quite capable of inflicting massive destruction. Curtis LeMay almost ran out of targets in Japan during World War II, and air strikes were making the rubble bounce in Korea. The deadliest air raid in history (possibly the deadliest day in the history of human conflict) wasn't one of the nuclear attacks, but the firebombing of Tokyo. That involved 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs (the equivalent of 1.67 kilotons of explosives, smaller than even many early tactical atomic weapons) but killed possibly over 100,000 people and destroyed most of Tokyo.

If radar and other early warning and civil defense systems hadn't been developed, and/or a major war had taken place with more developed aircraft, might the dire predictions of the 1930s have come true? Could a conventional or chemical air war have repercussions on par with a nuclear war?
 
No it could not.

Remember before World War Two the "bomber" was viewed in the same manner we have viewed ICBMs since 1960s or so.

There was even a saying

"The bomber will always get through".

This is typical of reactions to any destructive new technology.

Someday there might be a saying like

"The Nanites will always win".

or

"There's no stopping the Superflu"
 
Might not have been more than an order of magnitude off in actual reality, but the problem was that it was so secret nobody among the Allies and very few among the Axis armed forces actually knew it existed. You can't deter somebody with something that they are unaware of.

(The assumptions of WWI, it turns out, didn't even apply during WWI. Wild overoptimism and wishful thinking.)

Anthrax bombing maybe could have inflicted that magnitude of slaughter, if anyone was mad enough to do it.
 
the Germans had nerve gas, and the ability to make a lot of it. The Americans had the ability to make a lot of it (probably far far more) because the US built a lot more plants to make pesticides.

The bombing campaign of Japan, without nuclear weapons, was a bad as bombing could get, and it was pretty horrifying. Especially the Tokyo Fire Raids.

Luckily for civilian populations, a firestorm requires ideal weather conditions (dry air, lots of wind, plenty of fuel in high densities of concentration). Thus firestorms could be counted on one hand in World War II (Stalingrad in the big bombing raid that killed 30,000 people according to Soviet sources, Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo are the ones that come to mind).

Also luckily, the medium and light bombers available at the start of the war couldn't carry much of a payload, and the nations at war had relatively small bombs in the first couple of years of the war. We didn't see the blockbuster bombs until later, and they required big 4 engine bombers to carry them.

So to get something akin to "The Shape of Things to Come" we need 4 engine bombers in 1939-40, big bombs in the 2,000 lb range, or a lot of cluster type incendiaries with thermite and white phosperous, or napalm (which came late war) and throw in actual chemical bombs like mustard and nerve gas and just possibly in a big enough raid (at least a few hundred bombers dropping around 30,000 tons of bombs in a single raid (what was dropped on Tokyo) and you could very well see the expected panic and despair HG Wells and so many others predicted

Hell of a technical challenge though for the era
 

Delta Force

Banned
Also luckily, the medium and light bombers available at the start of the war couldn't carry much of a payload, and the nations at war had relatively small bombs in the first couple of years of the war. We didn't see the blockbuster bombs until later, and they required big 4 engine bombers to carry them.

So to get something akin to "The Shape of Things to Come" we need 4 engine bombers in 1939-40, big bombs in the 2,000 lb range, or a lot of cluster type incendiaries with thermite and white phosperous, or napalm (which came late war) and throw in actual chemical bombs like mustard and nerve gas and just possibly in a big enough raid (at least a few hundred bombers dropping around 30,000 tons of bombs in a single raid (what was dropped on Tokyo) and you could very well see the expected panic and despair HG Wells and so many others predicted

Hell of a technical challenge though for the era

It would likely require mid to late 1940s aviation technology, with bombers akin to the 20,000 pound payload B-29 or 72,000/86,000 pound payload B-36.
 

Delta Force

Banned
The devastation caused by a major conventional or chemical air war could vary greatly depending on if the attacks can be sustained.

How well would the strategic bomber bases be protected against counterforce attacks? Would they be vulnerable to direct attack by conventional weapons, or would they mostly have to worry about chemical attack? Could aircraft ground operations occur under sustained chemical weapons attack, and could contamination of the aircraft interiors be avoided?
 
B29s, Lancasters ect with no radar. Probably no cathode ray tube and possibly no radios. Your early warning system is sound location which gives very little information. Manually aimed heavy AA was more useful as a moral boost than an actual weapon. The defending fighters have to mount standing patrols and once in the air may not be able to be guided to a target.

It's not far fetched. If military aviation had advanced only a little more quickly than it did then the offensive power of the Bomber would have been greatly in excess of the defensive power available. The Bomber would have almost always got through and the only effective counter is that your bombers could do to your enemy what they did to you. Mutually Assured Destruction 1930's version.

We know dictators didn't think twice about attacking defenceless towns but where they could face retaliation from countries as strong never used gas. So long as neither side is willing to risk been gassed themselves MAD worked.

It worked then, it worked in the 50s & 60s and so far it works now.

Could they have fumigated cities perhaps. That it didn't happen is down to the sanity of the least stable governments. Law and order may have broken down for a time but civilisation would have survived. It would have been bad but not to the extent feared by the profits of doom. Against a prepared society gas isn't that effective a weapon. Biological weapons are a different matter but not exactly new. The oldest texts have examples but they didn't end society either and with the medical technology both for developing and protecting against them in the 30s it wouldn't have then either.
 
It would likely require mid to late 1940s aviation technology, with bombers akin to the 20,000 pound payload B-29 or 72,000/86,000 pound payload B-36.

well the Lancasters did a bang up job creating fire storms in Hamburg and Dresden, but yes I tend to agree. To routinely destroy large cities requires large bombers, large bombloads and more powerful HE bombs, more efficient firebombs (both types) and you need some pretty decent sized bombs to drop those nerve agents and mustard gas.

thankfully by the time that technology was available so were the fighters to make such attacks expensive or even prohibitive in a long campaign unless the defending fighter force had first been crushed.
 
The bomber did get through, usually. The best performance for the German air defences IOTL was about 20% casualties inflicted on the attacking force, and more usually around 5%. Trouble is, if the defence performs at that level the average bomber completes 13.5 sorties. Even if the defence does its' historical best, the bomber still makes 3.1 sorties before it's shot down.

With conventional weapons, and the numbers of aircraft needed to deliver them in useful quantities, sustaining that loss rate gets very expensive very quickly. Attrition of the force renders it combat-ineffective before the enemy's will is destroyed. Gas might be effective enough to undermine enemy will before the bomber force is attrited too badly.

Nuclear weapons change the calculus entirely. There, one penetrating bomber means at least one city destroyed.

The trick to destroying the enemy's will is doing it quickly - that was one of the lessons of WW1 artillery barrages. A constant low-level bombardment just gets people used to being bombed; destroy all the cities in a few hours, as you can with nuclear weapons, and the population loses its' will entirely. Gas might or might not be able to do that.
 

Delta Force

Banned
B29s, Lancasters ect with no radar. Probably no cathode ray tube and possibly no radios. Your early warning system is sound location which gives very little information. Manually aimed heavy AA was more useful as a moral boost than an actual weapon. The defending fighters have to mount standing patrols and once in the air may not be able to be guided to a target.

It's not far fetched. If military aviation had advanced only a little more quickly than it did then the offensive power of the Bomber would have been greatly in excess of the defensive power available. The Bomber would have almost always got through and the only effective counter is that your bombers could do to your enemy what they did to you. Mutually Assured Destruction 1930's version.

We know dictators didn't think twice about attacking defenceless towns but where they could face retaliation from countries as strong never used gas. So long as neither side is willing to risk been gassed themselves MAD worked.

It worked then, it worked in the 50s & 60s and so far it works now.

About how much warning time would there be of an air attack without radar systems? Would air attacks turn into four minute warning scenarios?

Could they have fumigated cities perhaps. That it didn't happen is down to the sanity of the least stable governments. Law and order may have broken down for a time but civilisation would have survived. It would have been bad but not to the extent feared by the profits of doom. Against a prepared society gas isn't that effective a weapon. Biological weapons are a different matter but not exactly new. The oldest texts have examples but they didn't end society either and with the medical technology both for developing and protecting against them in the 30s it wouldn't have then either.

What if persistent agents such as mustard gas were used?
 

Delta Force

Banned
The bomber did get through, usually. The best performance for the German air defences IOTL was about 20% casualties inflicted on the attacking force, and more usually around 5%. Trouble is, if the defence performs at that level the average bomber completes 13.5 sorties. Even if the defence does its' historical best, the bomber still makes 3.1 sorties before it's shot down.

With conventional weapons, and the numbers of aircraft needed to deliver them in useful quantities, sustaining that loss rate gets very expensive very quickly. Attrition of the force renders it combat-ineffective before the enemy's will is destroyed. Gas might be effective enough to undermine enemy will before the bomber force is attrited too badly.

Nuclear weapons change the calculus entirely. There, one penetrating bomber means at least one city destroyed.

The trick to destroying the enemy's will is doing it quickly - that was one of the lessons of WW1 artillery barrages. A constant low-level bombardment just gets people used to being bombed; destroy all the cities in a few hours, as you can with nuclear weapons, and the population loses its' will entirely. Gas might or might not be able to do that.

The Germans had radar though. If they didn't have radar, wouldn't the shoot down and intercept rates be much lower?
 
Might not have been more than an order of magnitude off in actual reality, but the problem was that it was so secret nobody among the Allies and very few among the Axis armed forces actually knew it existed. You can't deter somebody with something that they are unaware of.

(The assumptions of WWI, it turns out, didn't even apply during WWI. Wild overoptimism and wishful thinking.)

Anthrax bombing maybe could have inflicted that magnitude of slaughter, if anyone was mad enough to do it.

dr-strangelove1.jpg
 
WMDs

I thnink it coudl work.

By using WMDs you smaller payload per same demage.
Lets say that Mosquito líke aircraft are deployed in large numbers outpacing intercpetors. (Even 4 engine fast bomber).
By reducing payload you gain speed with speed you gain surprise and lower loses with lower losses you gain more sortie rate..

By low altitude bombing you reduce warning time.
Do not forget about whole range of WMDs. Besides nuke you have.
Bio, Chem and radiological. Definitely do able..
I have nasty Idea but I will send it only over PM.
(Write me if you want to know.)
 
The Germans had radar though. If they didn't have radar, wouldn't the shoot down and intercept rates be much lower?
They had radar, but a god-awful command and control network that meant they didn't reap the full benefits of it, and the Allied air forces got very good at working around it.

Without radar, peripheral targets would be more vulnerable due to the loss of early warning, but deep targets wouldn't be as poorly off. The big change is that night bombers are effectively invulnerable without radar - searchlights and acoustic detection will work, in theory, but not very well.
 
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