WI: Different Strategic Bombing Targets

They wouldn't need to due to disrupted rail keeping POL output stuck in the factories waiting for transport.
Presumably that assumes there were attacks on the rail infrastructure ?

Look I agree that POL was a key target but I don't agree that simply focusing all (or even the vast majority) of the allied air campaign just on POL would have been the best strategy.
 

kernals12

Banned
Presumably that assumes there were attacks on the rail infrastructure ?

Look I agree that POL was a key target but I don't agree that simply focusing all (or even the vast majority) of the allied air campaign just on POL would have been the best strategy.
Who said it was?
 
Yes I would go for POL, Electricity, Rail and Canal hubs in that order

POL is obvious

Electricity - Germany's problem was the inability to load balance (I think thats the term) electricity across the entire grid if the local powerstation or infrastructure was knocked out in a given area - ie it was difficult to take power from elsewhere in the country to make up shortfalls

Without it factories cannot operate, no refrigeration, no lighting etc, city and town tram systems crippled

Rail and Canal hubs - difficult to repair quickly (and I am talking viaducts and tunnels here as well as lock networks and major rail depots) and necessary for the movement of the majority of the nations coal - also the German Army was largely reliant on railheads for movement and logistics

Specific armament and Munition factories would still be on the list but at a lower priority than OTL
Yep.. That seems reasonable. I'm also thinking that a lot of effort would have needed to be put into post attack reconnisance and intelligence gathering to figure out which targets were really destroyed and which ones needed to be hit again. Maybe put more emphasis on putting people on the ground to actually inspect the targets. (It would probably be a very dangerous mission but might be worth the risks.)
 

Deleted member 1487

I seem to recall reading of lots of non POL targets being hit IOTL.
POL targets being hit during the Summer focus on it, then transition to other targets with some follow up on oil. They went as hard as possible on oil and use the remaining bombers to do whatever else they could think of.
 
POL targets being hit during the Summer focus on it, then transition to other targets with some follow up on oil. They went as hard as possible on oil and use the remaining bombers to do whatever else they could think of.
In so far as the Luftwaffe was still able to fly several thousand combat sorties during the lead up to the battle of Berlin the allied efforts to suppress POL supply, storage and distribution seem to have hit some practical limits :)

Edit to add:
IMHO the German economy was robust enough to make shutting it down by disrupting a single key input very difficult if not impossible.

If I had been in charge of the allied strategic bombing effort I would have focused most of the efforts on Electrical Power, POL and transport. (I'm not sure about the priority of each of those three.)

Perhaps then the Germans wouldn't have been able to continue to fight with a reasonable degree of effectiveness (although I realize it dropped in 1945) until the bulk of their country was overrun.
They seemed to be able to manufacture, stock pile and distribute enough basic weapons and munitions to equip the bulk of their available military aged male population and arguably many who wouldn't have been considered to be of "military age" by most nations.

I do acknowledge that the historic allied bombing campaign did inflict a signicant amount of damage, caused many casulities (both military and civilians) and caused various shortages and issues for the Germans.
 
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So what if the allies had chosen to go after Germany's fuel supplies at an earlier date and attacked the electricity grid instead of ball bearing factories?

Depends on if they make it a concentrated campaign as they ultimately did in 1944 or if they approach it with the same (relative) may-fly attention span they did in 1943.
 

kernals12

Banned
Why not ? Presumably lab scale and pilot scale production could been scaled up and replicated if there was no alternative ?

Presumably there would be underground factory space made avalaible for this as well ?

Edit to add I can probably accept that there may have been critical bottle necks in high octane aviation gasoline but I'm thinking other fuel production would have been easier.
Also, with Barnes Wallis' earthquake bombs, putting the plants underground wouldn't necessarily make them bombproof.
 
Also, with Barnes Wallis' earthquake bombs, putting the plants underground wouldn't necessarily make them bombproof.
It would probably depend on a myraid of details :)

Also I seem to recall reading that the UK had fundamental production constraints that limited the number of earth quake bombs that they could produce.
 
... I'm also thinking that a lot of effort would have needed to be put into post attack reconnisance and intelligence gathering. ... Maybe put more emphasis on putting people on the ground to actually inspect the targets. (It would probably be a very dangerous mission but might be worth the risks.)

That would be Germans on the ground, inspecting the damage. ULTRA repots were not just of submarine locations. High level internal administrative traffic was also sent by radio, in Enigma encryption. Usually urgent summaries & critical sections of interest to Hitler & others like Speers staff. Bletchley park sifted the radio traffic for intelligence on bomb damage. There also seems to have been one or more Swedish petroleum engineers or other industrial specialist who was involved in contracts for repairing the German petroleum industry, and who were passing observations to the British embassy staff in Stockholm. The Soviet intelligence services also had their agents operating out of Switzerland & possibly Bulgaria. Possibly some of the information filtered back to the Brits or US Army.
 
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If I had been in charge of the allied strategic bombing effort I would have focused most of the efforts on Electrical Power, POL and transport. (I'm not sure about the priority of each of those three.)

I'd be inclined for transportation. But, in hindsight I'd not expect the same result earlier in 1943-44 as in 1945 in Germany. Despite claims by the US 8th AF the damage to transport late war, or earlier in Italy and France, was done by the British tactical air forces or the US 9th and 12h or 15th AF with groups of medium & light bombers. Those organizations eschewed high altitude techniques & attacked the targets from medium and low altitudes. ie: fighters on railway strafing missions, or the 9th AF bombing bridges from 15,000 down to 5,000 feet vs the 20,000+ feet of the heavy bombers. Part of the problem of the low damage to German industry 1942-44 was because of the inaccuracy inherent to high altitude bombing, so I'd not expect the same results from B17s & B24s attacking railways in Germany as in 1945 when the short ranged bombers could reach Germany.


They seemed to be able to manufacture, stock pile and distribute enough basic weapons and munitions to equip the bulk of their available military aged male population and arguably many who wouldn't have been considered to be of "military age" by most nations.

Stripping the occupied nations of their weapons had more to do with adequate weapons stocks than manufacturing. Polish and Belgian built Browning Automatic Rifles were common among second, third, & fourth tier German units, so were Czech MG, French and Soviet cannon. In 1940 ten+ recently formed German divisions were armed with former Czech rifles, MG, & artillery. Had the Atlantic Wall been stripped of non German weapons in June 1944 large swaths of it would have been unarmed.

This large scale use of foreign weapons also eased ammunition manufacturing requirements due to the stocks captured.
 
Yep.. That seems reasonable. I'm also thinking that a lot of effort would have needed to be put into post attack reconnisance and intelligence gathering to figure out which targets were really destroyed and which ones needed to be hit again. Maybe put more emphasis on putting people on the ground to actually inspect the targets. (It would probably be a very dangerous mission but might be worth the risks.)
I agree with you about better post strike recon. I think you would need better information on how fast the Germans recover from an air raid and make repairs.
More important is better coordination between RAF Bomber Command and the USAAF. You can make up all the improved target lists you want, but if the two Air Forces really work together that is a game changer.
 
I'd be inclined for transportation. But, in hindsight I'd not expect the same result earlier in 1943-44 as in 1945 in Germany. Despite claims by the US 8th AF the damage to transport late war, or earlier in Italy and France, was done by the British tactical air forces or the US 9th and 12h or 15th AF with groups of medium & light bombers. Those organizations eschewed high altitude techniques & attacked the targets from medium and low altitudes. ie: fighters on railway strafing missions, or the 9th AF bombing bridges from 15,000 down to 5,000 feet vs the 20,000+ feet of the heavy bombers. Part of the problem of the low damage to German industry 1942-44 was because of the inaccuracy inherent to high altitude bombing, so I'd not expect the same results from B17s & B24s attacking railways in Germany as in 1945 when the short ranged bombers could reach Germany.




Stripping the occupied nations of their weapons had more to do with adequate weapons stocks than manufacturing. Polish and Belgian built Browning Automatic Rifles were common among second, third, & fourth tier German units, so were Czech MG, French and Soviet cannon. In 1940 ten+ recently formed German divisions were armed with former Czech rifles, MG, & artillery. Had the Atlantic Wall been stripped of non German weapons in June 1944 large swaths of it would have been unarmed.

This large scale use of foreign weapons also eased ammunition manufacturing requirements due to the stocks captured.
True but they also managed to manufacture and widely issue panzer Fausts and other weapons well into 1945. They also were able to pursue projects such as the V2 so perhaps they made informed choices about using captured but serviceable weapons so they could pursue other projects.

I've also read accounts that indicate that right up to the end the Germans were still able to typically provide front line troops with at least some supplies and ammo. I realize at times they may have been falling back on their own factories and supply depots.
 
Presumably that assumes there were attacks on the rail infrastructure ?

Look I agree that POL was a key target but I don't agree that simply focusing all (or even the vast majority) of the allied air campaign just on POL would have been the best strategy.

Agreed, but given the fact that POL is vital in a modern war and that Germany never had enough keeping after that would have gone a long way to immobilize the German War Machine...

I've also read accounts that indicate that right up to the end the Germans were still able to typically provide front line troops with at least some supplies and ammo. I realize at times they may have been falling back on their own factories and supply depots.

I've can recommend THE LAST YEAR OF THE GERMAN ARMY: MAY 1944-MAY 1945 by James Lucas. It brings up a lot of the manpower and supply problems facing Germany during this time. There are two companion books: THE LAST YEAR OF THE KRIEGSMARINE by Tarrant and THE LAST YEAR OF THE LUFTWAFFE by Price. The three of them really bring home the struggle to keep the war going...
 
In no real order:

Railways
POL production, storage and transmission
U Boat pens/maintenance/construction sites
key industrial targets
Canal networks - especially locks
Armaments/military equipment production
Food storage/Fertilizer & chemical plants

Plus also the odd city - If only to show that we could. Give up or we will destroy everything. Look what we did to X

However I suspect the real issue was being able to target pin point locations accurately enough early enough. For much of the war to hit a key steel works you ended up destroying the whole town simply because you cant guarantee accuracy.
 
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