WI: Different Strategic Bombing Targets

kernals12

Banned
Maybe strategic bombing didn't make economic sense:
BRITAIN 1939-1945: THE ECONOMIC COST OF STRATEGIC BOMBING By John Fahey

The findings are that the strategic air offensive cost Britain £2.78 billion, equating to an average cost of £2,911.00 for every operational sortie flown by Bomber Command or £5,914.00 for every Germany civilian killed by aerial bombing.​

https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/664/2/adt-NU20050104.11440202whole.pdf
Is that inflation adjusted? And did only 2 civilians die per sortie? And this study doesn't account for the benefits of strategic bombing which were quite obvious in the implosion of Germany's economy in late 1944.
 
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Is that inflation adjusted? And did only 2 civilians die per sortie? And this study doesn't account for the benefits of strategic bombing which were quite obvious in the implosion of Germany's economy in late 1944.

Author of the paper would've rather have British soldiers spending blood and lives in the trenches of France and elsewhere, instead of UK government and it's people spending money and metal to actually hit Germany. Author also coveniently forgets that Germany was also spending a fortune in air defense, and also forgets that RAF bombers were demolishing war-making and other items of German economy.

But again, noting those mundane things woud've taken out the sensastionalistic steam out of the paper, wouldn't it?
 
I don't think it's been mentioned yet but as a sub-set of POL there's also the synthetic chemical industry supplying ones such as tetraethyl lead (TEL). TEL was combined with another chemical which I forget to create an anti-knocking additive for high-octane aviation fuel, without it Luftwaffe aircraft would lose up to 40% of their performance. From Bomber Command's point of view it would seem to be in their self-interest to hit the small number of plants which produced it if at all possible.
 

kernals12

Banned
It's too bad the use of fighter escorts in daytime raids was delayed for so long. Maybe we could've ended the war by Christmas 1944.
 

kernals12

Banned
I don't think it's been mentioned yet but as a sub-set of POL there's also the synthetic chemical industry supplying ones such as tetraethyl lead (TEL). TEL was combined with another chemical which I forget to create an anti-knocking additive for high-octane aviation fuel, without it Luftwaffe aircraft would lose up to 40% of their performance. From Bomber Command's point of view it would seem to be in their self-interest to hit the small number of plants which produced it if at all possible.
But as we found out in the 70s, it would also increase the IQs of the pilots :)
 
I don't think it's been mentioned yet but as a sub-set of POL there's also the synthetic chemical industry supplying ones such as tetraethyl lead (TEL). TEL was combined with another chemical which I forget to create an anti-knocking additive for high-octane aviation fuel, without it Luftwaffe aircraft would lose up to 40% of their performance. From Bomber Command's point of view it would seem to be in their self-interest to hit the small number of plants which produced it if at all possible.

I don't know where from the 40% loss figure came from. German engines were mostly using 87 oct fuel anyway, and Fw 190 with 87 oct fuel was barely of lower performance than it was on 100 oct.
German C3 fuel, hi-octane synthetic type, used far less of TEl than Allied hi-octane fuels coming from mineral oil.
 
Is that inflation adjusted?
No it's wartime costs.

And did only 2 civilians die per sortie?
IIRC they include training flights in the over all cost.

And this study doesn't account for the benefits of strategic bombing which were quite obvious in the implosion of Germany's economy in late 1944.
Quite costly benefits - that impoverished Britain post-war. It does note statistical analysis carried out during the war that in some cases, only 10% of BC aircraft were dropping their bombs within 5 miles of their targets. This was despite BC crews claiming much higher.
 
Author of the paper would've rather have British soldiers spending blood and lives in the trenches of France and elsewhere, instead of UK government and it's people spending money and metal to actually hit Germany. Author also coveniently forgets that Germany was also spending a fortune in air defense, and also forgets that RAF bombers were demolishing war-making and other items of German economy.

But again, noting those mundane things woud've taken out the sensastionalistic steam out of the paper, wouldn't it?
The thesis is just an economic appraisal of a particular course of action and investment in a particular capability that only GB and the USA actually developed. For what it's worth, in Ferguson's 'War of the World' he notes that it cost the Entente about £5,000 to kill a CP soldier and the CP spent £3,000 to kill an Entente soldier so these BC figures are not much different. Note that BC had a 44% death rate, far higher than any British infantry WW1 or WW2. What battles can you win with Close Air Support of 29,508 single engine aircraft against 7,377 Lancasters?
 
... What battles can you win with Close Air Support of 29,508 single engine aircraft against 7,377 Lancasters?

It may be a mythical canard, or maybe a gross distortion, but I remember a story about a still secret USAF study showing tactical air power when closely coordinated with ground forces paid off far better strategic bombing. The analysis combined data rom WWII Korea, and Vietnam. I've tried to do some rough calculations on this but wish I had the time to do a bit more than that.
 
...

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.

Thats the real key, accuracy. In 1944-45 the US 9th AF & RAF 2d Tactical AF were able to drop bridges in better that 2/3 of their attacks. One of the key items in this was getting the attack altitude below 15,000 feet. For a variety of reasons the 8th AF attacked from 20,000+ feet altitude & as the 9th AF observed accuracy suffered badly when they tried high altitude attacks.
 
It may be a mythical canard, or maybe a gross distortion, but I remember a story about a still secret USAF study showing tactical air power when closely coordinated with ground forces paid off far better strategic bombing. The analysis combined data rom WWII Korea, and Vietnam. I've tried to do some rough calculations on this but wish I had the time to do a bit more than that.
Part of the RAF's corporate memory from WW1 was 'don't do CAS', hence why Strategic Bombing had such appeal. My point is that the decision to go full-monkey on BC and expand the effort of area bombing and 'dehousing' was based on doubtful data. It's a bit like the pre-war RAF claims that it could buy 1,000 bombers for one Battleship and the RN eventually got them to make a realistic claim backed up by data and it came to 27 bombers...
 
The thesis is just an economic appraisal of a particular course of action and investment in a particular capability that only GB and the USA actually developed. For what it's worth, in Ferguson's 'War of the World' he notes that it cost the Entente about £5,000 to kill a CP soldier and the CP spent £3,000 to kill an Entente soldier so these BC figures are not much different. Note that BC had a 44% death rate, far higher than any British infantry WW1 or WW2. What battles can you win with Close Air Support of 29,508 single engine aircraft against 7,377 Lancasters?

Thats diengenuous in that in order to use those 29,508 CAS Aircraft you have to have a 3 million strong continental army in contact with said enemy to use them - Strategic Bombing was the only way for several years for Western Allies to directly attack Germany other than the some what 'Fringe' wars in North Africa and Later Italy.

BC (and the 8th USAAF) forced the Germans to deploy 1/3 of its artillery 1/2 its artillery ammo and half of its fighters to defend the 'home land' for several years with all the attendent cost in resources manpower and expended treasure - and that is not taking into account the cost of damage inflicted without a single boot on the ground! The bombing also forced German industry to adapt and while production improved during the bomber campaign - output was at least a 3rd below what had been planned.

In terms of lives it was cheap for the Allies 160,000 casaulties from 1939-1945 - they replaced blood for the most part with Steel, Doller and Pound.
 
The thesis is just an economic appraisal of a particular course of action and investment in a particular capability that only GB and the USA actually developed. For what it's worth, in Ferguson's 'War of the World' he notes that it cost the Entente about £5,000 to kill a CP soldier and the CP spent £3,000 to kill an Entente soldier so these BC figures are not much different. Note that BC had a 44% death rate, far higher than any British infantry WW1 or WW2. What battles can you win with Close Air Support of 29,508 single engine aircraft against 7,377 Lancasters?

Cryhavoc101 covered it above.
 

kernals12

Banned
The book Fire and Fury (different one) says that Albert Speer was terrified about what would happen if the allies had followed up on their raids on Schweinfurt's Ball Bearing factories. The first raids blew off factory rooftops leaving machinery exposed to permanent damage.
 
Thats diengenuous in that in order to use those 29,508 CAS Aircraft you have to have a 3 million strong continental army in contact with said enemy to use them - Strategic Bombing was the only way for several years for Western Allies to directly attack Germany other than the some what 'Fringe' wars in North Africa and Later Italy.

BC (and the 8th USAAF) forced the Germans to deploy 1/3 of its artillery 1/2 its artillery ammo and half of its fighters to defend the 'home land' for several years with all the attendent cost in resources manpower and expended treasure - and that is not taking into account the cost of damage inflicted without a single boot on the ground! The bombing also forced German industry to adapt and while production improved during the bomber campaign - output was at least a 3rd below what had been planned.

In terms of lives it was cheap for the Allies 160,000 casaulties from 1939-1945 - they replaced blood for the most part with Steel, Doller and Pound.
Yep... The political aspects of the western allies being able to directly attack the German home land for several years without having to physically invade also shouldn't be underestimated.
 
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
If we are allowed to order it can we add ASW convoy escorts at no 1, does anybody have a paper of the return for investment of ULRMPAs (being used correctly as convoy escorts) v four engined Bombers?
 
If we are allowed to order it can we add ASW convoy escorts at no 1, does anybody have a paper of the return for investment of ULRMPAs (being used correctly as convoy escorts) v four engined Bombers?

Don't have the titles for those papers, but when examining the effect of short & medium range air patrols in the Home Waters in the autumn/winter 1940-41, or the air patrols over Bay of Biscay later, and the small number of VLR aircraft deployed to close the mid Atlantic Air Gap in early 1943 the advantages jump out.
 

Deleted member 1487

Don't have the titles for those papers, but when examining the effect of short & medium range air patrols in the Home Waters in the autumn/winter 1940-41, or the air patrols over Bay of Biscay later, and the small number of VLR aircraft deployed to close the mid Atlantic Air Gap in early 1943 the advantages jump out.
The air patrols over Biscay required other technology to be as effective as they were, including the developed Mosquito among other aircraft, cm wavelength radar, and the Leigh Light.
 
Thats diengenuous in that in order to use those 29,508 CAS Aircraft you have to have a 3 million strong continental army in contact with said enemy to use them - Strategic Bombing was the only way for several years for Western Allies to directly attack Germany other than the some what 'Fringe' wars in North Africa and Later Italy.

The claims of BC was that Strategic Bombing would win the war in 6 months. All it did was open another front, while the most important front - the Battle of the Atlantic was in the balance. It's not disingenuous to ask what other capability Lancaster output could have been put to.

The reality is: lose the Battle of the Atlantic and there is no Bomber Offensive, D-Day or VE-Day. The advent of the long range fighter (P-51) meant that Germany's top scoring pilots could be hacked from the sky in Feb-March 1944. Without air superiority there is no D-Day. Without the Russians grinding away the Germans there is no VE-Day. Notice BC hasn't featured yet. They were busy 'de-housing' and initiating Germany's post-war urban renewal projects. The whole pretext was that German morale would collapse - it didn't.

BC (and the 8th USAAF) forced the Germans to deploy 1/3 of its artillery 1/2 its artillery ammo and half of its fighters to defend the 'home land' for several years with all the attendent cost in resources manpower and expended treasure - and that is not taking into account the cost of damage inflicted without a single boot on the ground! The bombing also forced German industry to adapt and while production improved during the bomber campaign - output was at least a 3rd below what had been planned.

£2.78 billion (not including USA investment) and German production increased...

Professor AV Hill, a Member of Parliament and noted research scientist pointed out that:

The total [British] casualties in air-raids – in killed – since the beginning of the war are only two-thirds of those we lost as prisoners of war at Singapore.... The loss of production in the worst month of the Blitz was about equal to that due to the Easter holidays.... The Air Ministry have been ... too optimistic.... We know most of the bombs we drop hit nothing of importance. ...​

In terms of lives it was cheap for the Allies 160,000 casaulties from 1939-1945 - they replaced blood for the most part with Steel, Doller and Pound.

I'm not sure I'd call the lost aircrews cheap. For all the time invested in recruiting the best and training them you may as well shoot 160,000 junior officers, your lieutenants and captains that would lead your land armies. While the PBI would cheer, it's a terrible loss. The French didn't recover from losing 30% of their Junior Officers in WW1, the 1940 Debacle was the result.

To pick another aspect, the Navy needed the Cavity Magnetron for centimetric radar in detecting U-Boats and Periscopes at sea. They were against BC having it as it would fall into enemy hands but BC eventually overcame this protest and H2S proved to the Germans that centimetric radar was possible so they built detectors and their own AI radars.
 
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