In place of Bomber Command

[FONT=&quot]From Max Hastings ‘Bomber Command’

[/FONT] The Allies possession of a heavy-bomber force was an important military asset, seen to most advantage in support of Overlord. But Churchill made a major error of judgement in the winter of 1941-42 by committing British industry to the enormous heavy-bomber programme that came to fruition at the end of 1944. The Prime Minister could have achieved his strategic purpose with a far less extravagant outlay of resources. Instead, although they were denied their ‘4,000 Plan, the airmen were allowed to embark on their own ambitious war aims. Tizard said after the war, ‘No one thinks now that it would have been possible to defeat Germany by bombing alone. The actual effort expended on bombing Germany, in manpower and resources, was greater than the value in manpower and resources of the damage caused.’

[FONT=&quot]Whether or not this is precisely true, the British investment in Bomber Command was immense. Webster and Frankland suggest that the bomber offensive employed only 7 per cent of the nation’s manpower, but this figure can hardly be accepted literally, since it discounts the exceptional quality and skills of those concerned. It is difficult to compute the exact proportion of the nation’s war effort that was involved, but A. J. P. Taylor, one of the critics of the bomber offensive, argues around one third. Bomber Command took the cream of Britain’s wartime high technology, and the rue cost of a Lancaster fitted with H2S, Gee, the Mark XIV bombsight and other supporting equipment must have been staggering. The fact that Britain was compelled to buy from America all its transport aircraft (and enter post-war civil aviation at a serous disadvantage[/FONT][FONT=&quot] (although we did make some transport aircraft and post war, British airlines seemed to adopt a ‘Buy American’ attitude despite wanting subsidies from the British taxpayer to buy and operate those aircraft (my words)), most of its landing craft, a large proportion of its tanks and vast quantities of ammunition stemmed directly or indirectly from the weight of British industrial effort committed to the bomber offensive[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]In another part of the book[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]‘Sir John Grigg, the Army Minister, said in the House of Commons in the Army Estimates debate of 1944: ‘We have reached the extraordinary situation in which the labour devoted to the production of heavy bombers alone is believed to be equal to that allotted to the production of the whole equipment of the army’[/FONT]



However, if Bomber Command had been used more effectively....

Target: Hitler’s oil, Allied attacks on German oil supplies 1939-45 by Ronald C. Cooke and Roy Conyers Nesbit

Apart from the oil plants and transport network, there were other weak points in the German economy, which would have been very worthwhile targets for attacks by the Anglo-American strategic bombers. These were plants producing key war chemicals such as synthetic nitrogen, methanol (synthetic wood alcohol), tetraethyl lead and synthetic rubber. Nitrogen was vitally important in the manufacture of explosives and V2 rocket fuel; it was also essential in the production of agricultural fertilizer. Tetraethyl lead was an indispensable ingredient of aviation fuel; without it the Luftwaffe’s fighter aircraft would have been deprived of 40 per cent of their engine power and have been hopelessly outclassed in combat. With the almost complete cessation of imports of natural rubber from overseas on the outbreak of war, the production within Germany of synthetic rubber, needed for many types of wheeled vehicle, assumed great importance.

In the case of some of these products, for example nitrogen, the plants that manufactured them were very few in number and of large capacity. Direct attacks on them would probably have had an even more crippling affect than the raids on the oil installations. Although, the Western Allies know a great deal about German industry even before the war began, the military leaders did not appreciate the crucial importance of the chemical industry or of the close interdependence between certain branches of production, as between the manufacture of oil, chemicals, synthetic rubber and explosives. This information came to light only after the war, when American and British survey teams carried out post mortem investigations in Germany into the effectiveness of Allied strategic bombing.

None the less, manufacture of the above key items was greatly hampered as a by-product of the oil-offensive, although this fact was not fully realised at the time. When the oil plants at Luena and Ludwigshaven were temporarily put out of action, Germany was deprived of 63% of its current output of nitrogen, 40% of its synthetic methanol and 65% of its synthetic rubber production.

Now its easy to say 'benefit of hindsight' but how much effort was put into seeing just how vulnerable Germany was to disruption in supply of certain materials.
 
IMO the RAF was in reality, and in future policy, based not on the joining of the RFC & the RNAS but the Independent Air Force & the fighters defending Britain against the Zepplins & Gothas.
Trenchard when in and out of office, campaigned for bombers and more bombers, most of his officers - trained in his zeal and vision thought the same way - Dowding being an exception.

Chamberlain & Inskipp, delayed heavy-bomber production orders, due the cost - if there wasn't a war they won't be needed!

But once it started, with in '40 Britain alone, Bomber Command was the only way of hitting back. Unfortunately, they began to believe they own proganda - with ideas of winning the war by themselves!
Harris preferred the Stirling he had, rather than risk loss of production for the Super-Stirling.
Personally, preferred the Boulton-Paul P91, and have Shorts make more Sunderlands + earlier design of longer range version.
 

perfectgeneral

Donor
Monthly Donor
I'm not ignoring the blame attributable to the Air Ministry. The thread only addresses blame on Bomber Command which is not warranted. The Air Ministry made decisions based on assumed dicta, such as
The Bomber will always get through
A naval fighter cannot compete with a land-based fighter
A long-range fighter cannot compete with a short-ranged fighter
A heavy twin-engined fighter has no use whatever
A bomber requires defensive fire-power and close formation flying to be considered invincible
A fighter with a turret has more flexibility than a fixed gun fighter
These and many more.
I'm not sure where the blame lies for the lack of ventral protection on British bombers. In rare cases where fitted, it wasn't good. When not fitted, an invitation for schrage musik.
But that's the same Air Ministry that said in 1929 that there's no need for jet engines. Flames coming out the back of a tube-and-rag biplane? Poppycock! Oh, and their adherence to the tube-and-rag biplane.

I'm not sure why this thread got so heated, but the OP is purely asking what if BC doesn't exist. Nothing there to blame or praise. No Bomber Command.

Long range bombing might still have been attempted (on a smaller scale) by 'Tactical' Command or even Coastal if they felt underemployed over the Atlantic.

I surprised nobody mentioned Hitler's Blitz directive in response to the initial bombing of Berlin during the BoB. The Luftwaffe were winning until then. More air combat over Kent? No Sealion certainly, but more resources put into trying?

Without long range bombing, the Cavity Magnetron 10cm and 3cm sets wouldn't have fallen into German hands (downed aircraft). How would Germany do without mobile radar and microwave technology?
 
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There was generally a massive exagerration of the effectiveness of strategic bombing throughout the 20s and 30s - which probably contributed to the amount of resources chanelled to bomber command.

This is visible only in hindsight. Based upon the results of the German air offensive against the UK in WWI, the beliefs of most notably Trenchard, Douhet and Mitchell become a lot clearer and understandable.
 
This is visible only in hindsight. Based upon the results of the German air offensive against the UK in WWI, the beliefs of most notably Trenchard, Douhet and Mitchell become a lot clearer and understandable.

Hardly.
What the Blitz showed was that the ideas of bombing were grossly eggagerated.
 
Xchen08 wrote:

Britain needed centimetric radar and VT shells and didn't have the brains or money to do the development work itself

I don't know which universe you are living in, but Britain invented both centimetric radar and the proximity fuse, plus the atom bomb, the jet engine, the gyro-gunsight, the LST, LCI and LSD and a host of others.

Perhaps what you meant to say was:

America needed centimetric radar and VT shells and didn't have the brains to do the development work itself
 
Bomber Command as I understand it was an absolute resource hog, siphoning huge amounts of men, material and money away from the other services.
Absolutely right. Plus radar & VLR a/c from Coastal Command, which makes no damn sense at all,:confused::confused::confused: when Britain's survival is at stake.:eek::eek:
A smaller Bomber Command would ...lead to greater production by the Germans, and less ability for the British to say they were actively in the fight, which would hurt them in the long term, especially with the Soviets screaming for a second front.
Not at all. If BC changed emphasis from city bombing, which was demonstrably ineffectualy, to attacks on canals & railyards, & mining rivers, canals, & sea approaches, the impact on German electricity production would be enormous & immediate: hamper deliveries of coal, you cripple power stations, which mainly use coal, plus interfere with rail movement. This dramatically impacts industrial production of all kinds, so weapons don't get built, or completed (missing, say, ball bearings mean tanks don't get finished...). It also means completed weapons, & supplies, don't get delivered where they're needed.... (Have a look for the USSBS summary report online.)

This also means far fewer losses in a/c & aircrew, which has additional benefits for the other services, & for Britain's war economy. Moreover, smaller-scale missions could mean less expenditure of precious avgas. If we accept 2-engined a/c were good enough (& Manchesters with Merlins might've been), more might be built. (Yes, that affects pilot training; balance against drastically lower losses on these kinds of ops. They were so safe, they were used for crew training.:rolleyes:)

The better question, & one I've never seen answered, is: how fast would this happen? Anyboy have any idea?
German U-Boats would be much less effective,
Given even a 3-4 squadrons in Newfoundland, I could see Coastal Command defeating U-boats entire by 1942.:eek::cool:
The problem is that the Germans expended immense resources on air defences for their cities. Without Bomber Command, there are a lot more German guns and air resources on the Eastern Front. ...German war production will also be significantly higher.
Not necessarily, as noted.
I think the BC mindset was established long before the war started.
It was. BC neede a mission, & this was it. The trouble was, when the Butt report revealled how inaccurate BC was, nobody thought to take another approach. Bombing cities was taken as effective as an article of faith.

Nor did anybody AFAIK consider the moral failure of BC commanders. This one really burns me up. If it was lunatic for WW1 commanders to send their troops to the slaughter against heavy German defenses, why wasn't it when Harris sent his against defenses that would get increasingly stronger, at targets the Germans knew he'd come back to?:mad::mad: It's not like the a/c factories or weapons works were going anywhere.:rolleyes:
It seems to me that the knowledge that Bomber Command was a waste of resources is only provable in hindsight. It would have been very difficult to refute Bomber Harris's claims, given that there was no practical experience in the concept. Except, of course, the much smaller scale "Blitz" of London, executed with much smaller and less capable aircraft. Given the fear and morale issues it caused, it shouldn't have been too much of a leap in logic to apply the same results, writ large, to a BC-esque entity.

Am I totally off base?
There were estimates of production stoppages (which as I understand it relied on British insurance people, guessing:eek: to some extent). The morale question never arose.:eek::eek::confused::confused::confused: Nobody ever even considered asking if bombing was having any effect on German morale, good or bad.:eek::confused::confused:
Bomber Command is the only way the British can strike back at the Germans.
This is an argument for not abolishing or for not stopping bombing entirely. (Yes, HMG had a genuine political need to be seen to be striking back.) It's the usual "bombing or nothing" bullshit. I'm not suggesting attacks on Germany be stopped. I wouldn't even say some token city bombing shouldn't happen, since I'm not sure if bombing railyards wouldn't suffice. (Some good film from bombers of railyards aflame would go a long way IMO, without diversion from the main mission.) All you need is to maintain the impression something is being done.
Until laser and GPS guided bombs and missiles start to be used, bombing just isn't that accurate.
Can you say Fritz-X? AZON? Bat? Gargoyle? It was perfectly possible in 1942-3 for BC to deploy IR- or radio-guided PGMs capable of hitting powerstations. They didn't need them to hit railyards or canals, nor for mining rivers or canals. In short, technology was not a stopper: wrong thinking was.
Umm, strategic bombing most certainly did work in WWII. It just took 2 years of not working with heavy loss before the proper doctrine and technology got worked up.
:rolleyes::rolleyes: End of the war, over half a million aircrew dead.:eek::eek: Yeah, that was a success.:rolleyes::mad: Moreover, the claims for it ending the war or breaking morale are obvious fails.

BTW, I honestly don't see the connection to the Tizard Mission. Am I missing something? (Can I vote for the contracts going to Canadian industry, instead?:cool::cool::) We built a lot of radars anyhow, tho most of them apparently ended up going to the U.S. Army,:eek::confused: while RCN got obsolete junk.:eek::eek::confused::confused:)
...why did the Germans have to resort to building aircraft and missiles underground in old Salt Mines?
Because Hitler was a maniac for bunkers?:rolleyes:
Plus Albert Speer made plane that Strategic Bombing very nearly did cause the Reich to collapse.
"Nearly". The above proposal for transportation attacks would have, at drastically lower cost in blood & treasure. Also, Speer was probably telling his interrogators what they wanted to hear.:rolleyes:
At the very least the UK should have stopped building Stirlings and Halifaxes much earlier. Building obsolescent aircraft like the Stirling in '43 or the Halifax from '43 onwards would seem a huge waste of resources
:eek::eek: If only Coastal Command had had a tiny fraction of the total number built! They could've cut losses to U-boats down to nearly nothing. More to the point, BC seemed to despise them as insufficient for missions over Germany, yet adamantly refused to let CC have them.:eek::confused::confused::confused:
Nothing wrong with keeping on building the Stirling as long as it goes to Coastal Command.
Thank you.:):)
Without long range bombing, the Cavity Magnetron 10cm and 3cm sets wouldn't have fallen into German hands (downed aircraft). How would Germany do without mobile radar and microwave technology?
For a start, U-boats would've been defeated much sooner.:rolleyes:
 
I agree that it would take ASBs to make this happen, but also agree in principal that the net result for the war effort is very positive, between the improved performance in the Atlantic and more focus on meaningful German targets.

That said, I question how practicable more and smaller aircraft really would have been. Didn't the RAF have pilot shortages for much of the war? The training resources were definitely strained by what we had, and any increase in numbers of aircraft is going to have an equivelent increase in the demand for trained flightcrews.
 
Between the British and American strategic bomber forces, the figure is over 100,000 aircrew losses. Bad enough.
I keep adding a zero.:eek::eek::eek:
That said, I question how practicable more and smaller aircraft really would have been. Didn't the RAF have pilot shortages for much of the war? The training resources were definitely strained by what we had, and any increase in numbers of aircraft is going to have an equivelent increase in the demand for trained flightcrews.
You're absolutely right. The training program could not cope with a dramatic increase in numbers of Mossies or equivalents. The difference is, in attacks on transport as proposed, losses would drop to near zero. Moreover, as experience increased, so would effectiveness. (To the point fatigue started causing losses, of course.)
 
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Not at all. If BC changed emphasis from city bombing, which was demonstrably ineffectualy, to attacks on canals & railyards, & mining rivers, canals, & sea approaches, the impact on German electricity production would be enormous & immediate: hamper deliveries of coal, you cripple power stations, which mainly use coal, plus interfere with rail movement. This dramatically impacts industrial production of all kinds, so weapons don't get built, or completed (missing, say, ball bearings mean tanks don't get finished...). It also means completed weapons, & supplies, don't get delivered where they're needed.... (Have a look for the USSBS summary report online.)

From ‘Target: Hitler’s Oil’ by Ronald C Cooke and Roy Conners Nesbit.

Whilst the Fifteenth continued its massive attacks, the squadrons of the RAF’s 205 Group concentrated on attacking the transportation system. There were only two ways in which Romanian oil could reach the Reich, by rail or river. Of these, the Danube was by far the more important, for a barge of around 2,000 tons could carry a load equivalent to 100 railway wagons. In April 1944, the heavy Halifaxes and Liberators and the medium Wellingtons of the Group began a well-conceived campaign to disrupt this traffic. It was a resuscitation of one of the aims of the ill-fated Despard expedition led by Commander Gibson almost exactly four years before, namely the sowing of fluvial mines in the Danube. The main weapon was the electro-magnetic mine, which rested on the bottom of the river and was activated by the metal of a vessel passing over it, creating a tremendous upward blast. These mines had proved most effective around the coasts of occupied Europe and were difficult to detect and sweep up. The best way for the Germans to dispose of them was through the use of ‘Mausiflugzeuge’ aircraft, such as Heinkel 111’s or Junkers 52’s fitted with giant mine-exploding rings, but such aircraft were in very short supply.

It is recorded that about 1,400 mines were dropped in the Danube by 205 Group during the next five months. In one month alone, 39 vessels were sunk and others damaged. Traffic along the Danube was reduced by some two-thirds, whilst the Germans were forced to divert large numbers of flak guns, balloons and minesweepers to the Danube from other areas along with their trained crews. The undramatic work of aerial minelaying was not potentially difficult or dangerous for the RAF crews, who operated at night, but it threw a heavy burden on the enemy.

Night-fighter Beaufighters of the Mediterranean Coastal Air Force took a hand in these events by attacking vessels on the Danube and rolling stock on the railways. They could see their quarry on moonlit nights and wreaked havoc with their armament of four 20mm canon apiece. The Danube, which had previously enjoyed reasonable tranquillity while the war raged elsewhere, suddenly became a most dangerous waterway for the Romanian crews of barges; many of them deserted and had to be pressed back into service.


The trouble was, when the Butt report revealled how inaccurate BC was

It didn't need the Butt report for that


The Bomber War by Robin Neillands

Page 64

Before a problem can be solved, it must be recognised and accepted as real, rather than seen as an excuse for failure. There is plenty of evidence that the crews and chiefs of Bomber Command, quite early on in the war and long before the Butt Report, were well aware that they were not seriously damaging German industry. Indeed, one of the points raised by Richard Pierse, when he replied to Portal’s Directive of 25 October 1940 – a year before Butt – was that ‘on long range attacks only one out of every five aircraft despatched actually reaches the target’. This figure was revised by a conference of the Bomber Command group navigation officers at High Wycombe, the Bomber Command HQ, three weeks later, when they reached the conclusion that at best only about 35 per cent of bombers actually despatched actually reached their primary targets.



In addition, when he became C-in-C, Bomber Command in 1937 Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt toured his command and produced a report on his findings that discussed the command’s ability to do what it was supposed to do – it was apparently not good reading.

He also wrote in 1939 another report “Readiness For War” which again gave a bleak view of Bomber Command’s capabilities.

He was moved to Inspector General in 1940, don't know if that poistion is/was a non job but he was very right in what he said.
 
That said, I question how practicable more and smaller aircraft really would have been. Didn't the RAF have pilot shortages for much of the war? The training resources were definitely strained by what we had, and any increase in numbers of aircraft is going to have an equivelent increase in the demand for trained flightcrews.


This from Anthony Furze’s ‘Wilfred Freeman, the genius behind allied air survival and air supremacy 1939 to 1945.

Freeman argued that Britain would save money by adopting the heavy bomber instead of older, smaller types and Tedder prepared a memorandum which outlined the minimum requirements in speed, range, bomb load and defensive armament, and the comparative costs of producing enough twin-engined medium bombers and four-engined heavy bombers, together with the necessary aircrews to deliver 4,000 tons of bombs on Germany.

The medium bomber route required 3,584 aircraft, using 7,168 engines, 22,400 aircrew and 42,000 maintenance personnel and cost £79 million.

The heavy bomber route required 896 aircraft, using 3,584 engines, 6,720 aircrew and 14,000 maintenance personnel and cost £47 million.

The medium bomber route also required four times the number of flying school ratio was 1:4 in favour of the heavy bomber


I think the memorandum was prepared 1938 but it was defiantly pre 1939.



I have also seen a reference to a post war study that showed if loss rates were taken into account then it would have been far better if most Lancaster’s and Halifax’s operated by Bomber Command had been Mosquito’s with 4,000lb bombloads but I cant recall where I saw this.

I guess it depends on how you intend to use your aircraft.
 
Target: Hitler’s Oil by Ronald C Cooke and Roy Conyers Nesbit

Bomber Command, from September 1939 onwards and the USAAF, after the latter had entered the European air war in April 1942, could choose form several alternative strategies. On the one hand, they could carry out ‘precision’ bombing. This meant the concentration of attacks on carefully selected individual targets, such as aircraft factories or oil refineries, which were believed to be of special importance to the enemy. On the other hand, they could avoid the difficulties of precision bombing by carrying out what became known as ‘area’ bombing. This was the bombing of whole districts within cities or towns, mostly industrial, without any attempt to single out particular targets. Behind this more or less ‘blanket’ approach lay the belief that at least some vital economic targets would be hit; also, that the casualties suffered by civilians, plus the loss of their living accommodation, would lower the morale of the population.

There was, in reality, a third possible policy in the earlier years of the war. It was to hold down the scale of strategic bombing to a justifiable level until the difficulties impeding it had been overcome. This would have been the level which appeared justified after comparing the results obtained and costs incurred during recent operations. The material and manpower resources saved by this policy could have been used in a more profitable way, perhaps by diverting them to tactical bombing. But this third alternative seems never to have been seriously considered.


The book doesn't say at this point what those alternative targets could be although it does suggest some later on - see my Post 41
 
The topic of this thread relates to Bomber Command's existance, not it's excessive priority, targetting policies, or ineptitude at striking targets. The FW 154, a German Moskito, was cancelled because the proper glue wasn't available. It wasn't available because the factory producing it was destroyed. Only Bomber Command could accomplish this.

The shortcomings of the Command were legion. The Senior Service always emphasized weight of fire over accurate gunnery, and the RAF followed suit with bomb tonnage figures over accurate targetting.

Centimetric radar was invented in Britain and developed in the US. The single scientist responsible for Britain's airborne intercept radar was shot down by friendly fire. When Britain finally developed it's own set, it was too heavy for the Mosquito to carry. EMI could not come close to matching American production numbers, or quality.

One could say that Bomber Command's performance was often criminally inept. One could say that Combined Operations Command was inept at the Dieppe assault. That doesn't mean that they should quit amphibious landings. It would have been nice if more aircrew lived longer to take advantage of their experience.
 
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