WI: Different Strategic Bombing Targets

Re tactical air support. First you have to have troops on the ground to support so this is not an option bar North Africa and Italy so the Wallied air forces need to do something for four years until NW Europe is invaded and that has to be strategic bombing. This is a partial explanation for the Soviet tactical strength. They had troops to support on the ground from mid 1941. In late 1944/1945 a limit on tactical operations in NW Europe was logistics. A shortage of bad weather airfields, avoiding a drain on the already stretched supply line that could not service all ground forces at the same time and the time limits over the target of operation from England.

A limit on the ability of wallied strategic bombers to cary out these more specific attacks is simple accuracy. Railway viaducts and tunnels were pretty well invulnerable to more than moderate damage until the earthquake bombs came into use and these are the key nodes for bulk transport. It needed until late 1944 before daylight low level bombing by heavy bombers were feasible with the weakness of the Luftwaffe. You are needing accuracies in the low tens of metres or less to knock out the key parts of systems. Factory machines and major installations can function even when the containing building is damaged. In cities the heat of mass building fires does more damage to the key items. It is also worth remembering that until 1944 much of occupied Europe was out of range of any daylight bombing even from Mosquitos.

Thus the wallied situation until late 1944 was that they could not bomb small targets accurately as they could not operate at low level in daylight. They had a duty to prosecute the war so they chose to use a method within their abilities. Before mid 1943 they were lucky to find the right county or city never mind one particular building, at night or from 20,000 feet.

To operate a successful specific key industry you need to find a POD which allows you to have the ability to bomb accurately to with low figures of metres in daylight over the majority of occupied Europe and have a bomber force that can drop earthquake bombs on viaducts and tunnels. Not to mention mining canals as well as OTL sea waterways (mining is not cool in AH but is effective and canals and rivers show up well at night).

With 20/20 hindsight we can see where they could have better deployed the period resources but a true sea change needs a POD as above.

BTW, for the P51 fanboys. They could not escort over all occupied Europe and they could not do anything about low level flak over the targets even if they descended to seek out flak sites, which are often well hidden and well able to defend themselves.
 
A simple POD is to embrace the DeHaviland Mosquito over the Heavy Bomber:

The points in favor of this alternative were also clearly presented by Group Commander Bennett, as a comparison between the Mosquito and the Lancaster, which was the best British heavy bomber:
  • Mosquito carries to Berlin half the bomb load carried by a Lancaster, but...
  • Mosquito loss rate is just 1/10 of Lancasters' loss rate
  • Mosquito costs a third of the cost of a Lancaster
  • Mosquito has a crew of two, compared to a Lancaster's crew of seven
  • Mosquito was a proven precision day bomber and the Lancaster was not.
Bennett added that any way you do the math with those data, "It's quite clear that the value of the Mosquito to the war effort is significantly greater than that of any other aircraft in the history of aviation". In the German side, Erhard Milch, the deputy head of the Luftwaffe, said about the Mosquito "I fear that one day the British will start attacking with masses of this aircraft".
 
The German's relied heavily on Rhine River barges to transport raw materials and finished supplies. The late war mining operations severely hampered their movements. Would earlier mining show improved results?
 
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.

Lots of claims were made by all sides during WW2 - lots of them were wrong

Most of the Luftwaffe superstars would die to the attritional maths of being kept on ops - the Allies could not wait for the eventual and somewhat 'retrospective' tactic of grinding down the Luftwaffe with the eventual maturing of the P51

If your argument is that extra 4 engine bombers should have been made available to the BotA you will get zero argument from me - the reluctant release of just 50 LR Liberators in March 1943 to Coastal command (admittedly along with a tipping point of extra Escorts and Escort carriers) totally changed the Battle of the Atlantic - I can only hazard a guess at the impact 50 plus such aircraft might have made if available in 1941 and 42 beyond the single RAF coastal command squadron (120 Sqn) that was stood up in late 41 and starved of spares and replacements.

But that was not what you wrote - you wrote that effectively building 4 CAS aircraft for each Lancaster would have been better!

£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. ...​


Germany was late going to total war production - and its production was due to hit its maximum level in late 44/ early 45 - however due to the cruel attentions of the Wallied air forces it did not. It was at least a 3rd lower than expected before fully collapsing. And that was with the somewhat flawed campaign of OTL

Thats 1000s of tanks not built that the Russians and Wallies had to face, Millions of bullets not fired at them, Hundreds of thousands of Artillery shells that would never be fired at them - and in addition of what the Germans did have 1/3 of its artillery was used as AAA to defend Germany along with half the artillery ammo they did make

That's a awful lot of kit, equipment, personnel, logistics etc etc not fighting the Russians and Wallies


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.

Cheap by comparison - How much did Overlord cost? How much did the Entire Western campaign cost? How much more would it have cost if the Germans had a 3rd more of everything and actually had aircraft to throw at the invasion

And of course the absolute earliest this almighty CAS armada can be deployed is mid 1943 assuming an earlier victory in the BotA and therefore an earlier D-Day placing a modern Wallied continental army in France to face off against the German Army

And in the cruel maths that is war a Lancaster with a crew of 7 might contain upto 3 officers but more usually it would be just the Pilot the other 6 would be SNCOs and it was not uncommon for all to be SNCOs

All non officer aircrew were Sgts or better from 27 June 1940 - this was for several reasons

POW status - SNCOs would be treated better as POWs than ORs
In service Status - they got better status as SNCO on the ground and this was thought to build team work etc

Wing commanders also tried to get as many specialist and pilots to Commissioned rank for the simple fact that their widows would be better treated.

So in other services these SNCOs would likely be lower ranks and have to work their way up like everyone else.

So it was not 160,000 Officers or equivalent lost over those years.

Given what was achieved opening up a second front 2 years before a land army could be involved - it was remarkably cheap.
 
A simple POD is to embrace the DeHaviland Mosquito over the Heavy Bomber:

The points in favor of this alternative were also clearly presented by Group Commander Bennett, as a comparison between the Mosquito and the Lancaster, which was the best British heavy bomber:
  • Mosquito carries to Berlin half the bomb load carried by a Lancaster, but...
  • Mosquito loss rate is just 1/10 of Lancasters' loss rate
  • Mosquito costs a third of the cost of a Lancaster
  • Mosquito has a crew of two, compared to a Lancaster's crew of seven
  • Mosquito was a proven precision day bomber and the Lancaster was not.

More Mosquitoes is a good thing for the Allied war effort, but: item 1 is a blatant lie - in 19432-43, the Lancaster was carrying 12000+ lbs of bombs in (overload was 1400 lbs), while Mosquito was carrying 2000 lbs (4x500 lbs). That is 6:1, not 2:1 ratio. BTW - Lancaster was a precission night bomber.
 
Only the later marks of Lancaster could carry 12,000 lb's of ordinance, early Marks were limited to 4,000lb and that was then increased to 8,000 and then again to 12,000. The Mosquito B.Mk IX and B.Mk XVI could carry a 4,000lb cookie to Berlin and do it twice in one winters night! That is 8,000 lb of precision bombing using 4 crew in two raids. Or to put it another way 3 Mosquitos could carry the same bomb load as 2 Lancaster's risking 8 crew instead of 14.
 
The balanced RAF would have Mosquitos as the majority fast medium bomber and The Lancaster in small numbers as the earthquake bomb lifter. However, IOTL this is all 1944/45 in quantity. Vickers Valentias were doing bombing over Africa until 1941. The POD has to be well before WW2. What the Mosquito loses in bomb load vis a vis the heavies is effectively compensated by both it's superior accuracy and survivability, which latter saves making so many replacements

In other threads the question of increased Mosquito production has been addressed. Essentially there is a limited supply of balsa wood and of woodworkers. Ideally it would be complemented by a metal equivalent for the existing aero industry and labour.
 
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.

Agreed, but I wonder if from the invasion of Italy, or at least D-day onwards the strategic bombers could have been used more efficiently in a tactical / operational support and logistics role? The Allies could have advanced far faster if they had fuel delivered by strategic bombers (maybe by gliders towed by them, or even barrels flown to airstrips). Also, if the sorties flown after June 1944, or one might say, after September 1943, had been used to demolish rail network the forces facing Allied armies would not have been supplied.

One might also wonder, what kind of airborne / airportable operations could have been made if resources of 8th AF and Bomber Command were fully used to support airborne manouver. Strategic bombers could also tow gliders, and even without modification could be used for transport after capture of an airfield. Could we see Army scale landings?
 
Only the later marks of Lancaster could carry 12,000 lb's of ordinance, early Marks were limited to 4,000lb and that was then increased to 8,000 and then again to 12,000. The Mosquito B.Mk IX and B.Mk XVI could carry a 4,000lb cookie to Berlin and do it twice in one winters night! That is 8,000 lb of precision bombing using 4 crew in two raids. Or to put it another way 3 Mosquitos could carry the same bomb load as 2 Lancaster's risking 8 crew instead of 14.

The Lancasters were rated for 12750 lb bombl load (6 x 2000 lb + 3 x 250 lb bombs) at least by December of 1942. See pg. 52 here.
Total weight of fuel+oil+bombs+carriers = 24017 lbs. Later bomb load was upped to 14000 lbs. Blokes at UK Air Ministry did their share of mistakes, but nobody was trying to spend, in 1942, four engines to lug around 4000 lb worth of bombload. Even the Whitley V carried 8000 lbs on Merlins, the problematic Manchester more than 10000 lbs.
Mosquito B.IX and better (the ones with bulged bomb bay, capable to carry a cookie) were trickling towards service units by late 1943, before that it was 4x500 lbs.
 
Re tactical air support. First you have to have troops on the ground to support so this is not an option bar North Africa and Italy so the Wallied air forces need to do something for four years until NW Europe is invaded and that has to be strategic bombing.

It appears your are saying the air battle in the Mediterranean during 1943 had no significant effect on the Axis or German air forces? Correct?
 
Agreed, but I wonder if from the invasion of Italy, or at least D-day onwards the strategic bombers could have been used more efficiently in a tactical / operational support and logistics role? ...

When I raise the use of the heavy bombers in the isolation of Tunisia, attacking rail centers, supply depots, some folks get confused or in disagreement over if this were Strategic, Operational, or Tactical scale bombing. Whatever the label that the heavy bombers contributed to cutting off the supply and evacuation of 190,000 Axis soldiers and their equipment in Tunisia suggests the possibilities. Operation STRANGLE in Italy in early 1944, the transportation attacks in France in the spring of 1944 were both well supported by the heavy bombers of the 15th & 8th Air Forces.
 
BTW - Lancaster was a precission night bomber.
Even by 1944, only about 7% of bombs were hitting within 1,000 of their target and it took about 110 bombers and nearly 700 bombs to have a 95% chance of scoring two hits within a 400x500 foot area. Basically, precision bombing didn't exist meaning that many military targets simply were not affected by massive bombing campaigns or, if they were, the damage was minimal and could be repaired quickly.
 
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.

but needed around six tons of coal for 1000 liters of avgas for the hydrogenation process and their synthetic Fischer-Tropsch process was crazy expensive with the cobalt catalysts required.
 
Mosquito has a crew of two, compared to a Lancaster's crew of seven

but you needed well trained crew of two, as they had to do these roles from the Lancaster

Pilot Seated on the left hand side of the cockpit. There was no Co-Pilot
Flight Engineer Seated next to the pilot on a folding seat
Navigator Seated at a table facing to the port (left) of the aircraft and directly behind the pilot and flight engineer
Bombardier Seated when operating the front gun turret, but positioned in a laying position when directing the pilot on to the aiming point prior to releasing the bomb load
Wireless Operator Seated facing forward and directly beside the navigator

and the two lanc gunner wouldn't be needed.
 
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

Pretty much in point by point agreement with Cryhavoc here, might elevate the transport system to #2 while I was really getting a handle on what exactly would be involved in eviscerating the German power grid. Once that was done, move it up on the list. A caution, bombing the rail network must continue if for no other reason than to not give away the invasion details later...isolation of the invasion beaches from rail reinforcement is a must and should be kept easier to conceal by a viable anti-rail campaign on the run up.
 
Well @Cryhavoc101, I guess we can just disagree. I'll assume you're basing your planned armaments argument on this?:

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However there may not be enough data to base that 'Arms Potential' on. This paper (http://www.econ.yale.edu/growth_pdf/cdp905.pdf) suggests that in the aircraft industry, it had already peaked and that the increases had nothing to do with Speer, it had all been set pre-war.

I'll post the conclusion:

It is widely believed that it was the Speer administration which caused the sudden upswing of the German armament production after 1941 by introducing several rationalization measures and, probably most important, by replacing cost-plus contracts with fixed-price contracts. The example of seven firms, which were engaged in the production of the Ju 88 and Ju 87 bombers, and which represented about the half of the German aircraft producers, suggests instead, that in the aircraft industry, which accounts for about 40 percent of German armament production, the crucial political changes occurred not in 1942 but already before World War II started. In spring 1937, the aviation department chose to rely on fixed-priced contracts in order to give the aircraft producers the incentive to reduce costs. In summer 1938, it decided that the aircraft producers had to concentrate on a few different types or components so they could run larger production series. What followed was not a sudden production miracle but a rather continuous development. Moving down the learning curve the managers of the aircraft producers learned how to deploy the workers more efficiently. As a result, in the period before 1942 the growth rate of labor productivity was considerably higher than under Speer’s reign. It came to17.3 % both in 1938 and in 1939, to 9.2 % in 1940, to 6 % in 1941, and only to 3.5 % and 3.7 % in 1942 and 1943 respectively. After 1941, it was primarily the ongoing growth of the capital and labor endowment combined with a higher capacity utilization that enabled aircraft producers to raise their monthly production continually until summer 1944. We will have to analyze other war industries in greater detail before we can prove our hypothesis that this result is not an industry-specific exception but rather true for most of the German armament producers during World War II.​
 
Even by 1944, only about 7% of bombs were hitting within 1,000 of their target and it took about 110 bombers and nearly 700 bombs to have a 95% chance of scoring two hits within a 400x500 foot area. Basically, precision bombing didn't exist meaning that many military targets simply were not affected by massive bombing campaigns or, if they were, the damage was minimal and could be repaired quickly.

Those conclusions apply to the US 8th AF. But check the tactics, techniques, & results of the US 12th, 15th, or more particularly the 9th & RAF Tactical Air Forces. Those did not have their success @ dropping bridges without reaching far higher accuracy.
 
but needed around six tons of coal for 1000 liters of avgas for the hydrogenation process and their synthetic Fischer-Tropsch process was crazy expensive with the cobalt catalysts required.

Oh, I did not meant that synthetic fuel was a great thing - having a reasonably unrestricted the access to the crude oil was a far better asset.
 
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