WI: No Strategic Bombing in World War II

All the bombings by the allies were a fight between the soviets and the states to show each other whose cock was bigger.

It was totally unessential in regards to the current war, but it was to scare the other person off in the looming cold war.
 
First off, please dont forget that it was the ALLIES who launched these bombing raids and not something that the US alone was doing. The British also had a very large bomber fleet.

Now, while a great many excellent points have been made about why strategic bombing was vital, one of the main points has been somewhat neglected. No doubt because to many people today its a very horrible thought.
Quite simply, one of the main benefits of a widespread bombing campaign was that it spread fear and terror amongst the general population which would have a serious effect on the morale of your troops and government.

If your enemy can (seemingly) fly over your home whenever they want and drop bombs wherever they choose, you are going to think that the war is unwinable. You are going to question why you are bothering to man your posts when it doesnt look like there is anyway for you to win overall. You will start to loose faith with you leaders as they are clearly failing to protect your countrymen.

Now, if you dont use widespread bombing, then the population of your enemy country are going to be largely spared from the true effects of war. They are going to be safe and secure in their homes, sending reassuring letters to their sons who are waging that war, those sons are going to be more happy and confident. They are going to think that they are winning because clearly the enemy can not touch them where they are, not in any meaningful way that is.

Having had a number of my family members experience the London Blits first hand I can say with confidence how distressing and soul crushing it can be. The constant fear of attacks, the horror when you see your own towns and cities being destroyed around you. It sucks the life right out of you. And yes, it can help to stiffen resistance against the attackers (as we often saw during the blitz) but iof the raids go on long enough, seemingly unopposed, then the majority of people will go the other way, despair...

There are positive psychological effects that your own side will see. The campaigns sent the message to the occupied countries that the allies were continuing the fight and that they hadnt been forgotten. Without these bombing raids then there is a real risk that the resistance in occupied Europe would start to loose hope as they would not be seeing their allies taking the fight to their enemy.
And the same message would be seen by your own people. It took years to prepare for D-day, now imagine those years where little actual fighting against the nazis was taking place? What would the population be thinking when they are constantly being asked to give up resources and sons, brothers etc to build weapons on war when nothing seems to be happening at all? They would start to question why they are bothering to make these sacrifices.

I know that today its not considered "humane" to use such tactics, we like to think that we have evolved on from that kind of thinking, but for thousands of years terror has been an effective tool of war when used properly. So even ignoring all the actual physical damage that these raids did (and there was ALOT of it), it would still have been a good strategic idea to launch them.
 
All the bombings by the allies were a fight between the soviets and the states to show each other whose cock was bigger.

It was totally unessential in regards to the current war, but it was to scare the other person off in the looming cold war.

The Soviets did barely any strategic bombing during World War Two.
 

Cook

Banned
All the bombings by the allies were a fight between the soviets and the states to show each other whose cock was bigger.

It was totally unessential in regards to the current war, but it was to scare the other person off in the looming cold war.

What completely baseless rubbish. You would actually have to work hard to come up with anything more profoundly wrong.

The Strategic Bombing of Germany commenced in May 1940; 13 Months before the Soviet Union even entered World War Two. Between 1940 and 1943 Strategic Bombing was the only way of taking the war to Germany and, after June 1941, helping the Soviet Union.
 
Molotov visited Berlin in November 1940, in part to discuss the possible accession of the USSR to the Tripartite Pact.

During his visit Ribbentrop tried to persuade him that Britain was finished, and the USSR should expand Southwards towards India and the Persian Gulf.

A British air-raid took place, and part of the meeting was held in an an air-raid shelter. Molotov of course pointed out that Britain was not finished.

Now imagine if there had been no air-raid. Yes it may have no effect, and the result may have been the same... but on other hand, maybe the meeting would have gone differently, and maybe the USSR might have ended up in the Axis...
 
Now imagine if there had been no air-raid. Yes it may have no effect, and the result may have been the same... but on other hand, maybe the meeting would have gone differently, and maybe the USSR might have ended up in the Axis...

That's going too far; I think that Stalin had been planning to invade Germany from the start. Still, that's an interesting story.
 
But saying "no strategic bombing" is unrealistic
Why? It's perfectly possible to have the desired impact, indeed even more, without targeting cities or factories at all. Bombing of canals & railyards, & mining of canals & rivers with a/c-laid mines, could have stopped movement of material, parts, weapons, &, most important, coal. Production could have been thrown into chaos, even stopped entirely. And the bomber force could have been comparatively much smaller. The losses to such a force would have been trivial.

This would be enormously beneficial to Coastal Command: fewer losses in Bomber Command means more a/c could be made available for A/S patrol. That may be ASB itself;:eek: I'm presuming the change in approach means the AOCinC Bomber Command isn't Harris & so this can be achieved.
The German Wehrmacht would be able to maintain their AAA 75mm & 88mm AT batteries with their Divisional forces in the Eastern Front to assist in hunting down Soviet Tanks instead of counter battery firing at USAF B-17s & B-24s and RAF Lancasters ....
Perhaps, presuming they oculd actually be produced, & presuming they could be delivered to the front once produced.:rolleyes: Neither is certain.
No Strategic bombing of the German hinterland of its infrastructure means no disruptions of the flow of completed and finished material and equipment
Wrong, as noted.
And that also means that German Factories, Oil Refineries and cities are relatively intact and continue to produce needed military goods to allow the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine to keep their forces at good military level of readiness and capabilities...
Weapons not delivered are no use, & are actually more harmful to the German economy than ones not produced, since the material & energy, & more important the time, consumed cannot be gotten back.
Strategic Bombing ...prevented Germany from deploying Air-to-Air missiles and other advanced equipment, because key factories were getting destroyed, or Rail lines wrecked, or rail cars and engines destroyed.
Really?:cool: I hadn't heard that before.
The Germans were forced to waste enormous amounts of steel reinforced concrete to protect naval bases their subs operated from.
That had more to do with Hitler being a bunker-mad lunatic. (Or just a lunatic.:rolleyes::p)
No other Bombers could carry the massive Barnes Wallis's special bombs which were needed to take out said hardened structures and other sites associated with Hitler's V programs.
Attacks on the sub pens were an enormous waste of manpower & a/c, all of which would've been more productively spent hunting U-boats in the Atlantic. The number of a/c lost bombing just one set of pens, at Lorient, if operated out of Gander & Iceland, could have cut convoy losses very substantially in '42, & materially shortened the war. (It's hard to say how much, 'cause they didn't arrive til after U-boats were more/less defeated.:eek::rolleyes::mad:)
And if we had concentrated on POL and electrical targets sooner, might have been even more so.
Agreed, tho as noted, I think there were easier & more productive options than POL. Hitting the powerplants wasn't an option til very late; they were too small. Cutting off coal supplies would have the same effect...;)
Actually bombers were escorted from the start of the Bombing Campaign
No, they weren't. Prewar doctrine in AAF, & early war practise, was to send the bombers in alone, on the belief their own MG could defend them. (The bomber boxes, remember?) Needless to say, as German & British experience should have proved,:rolleyes: it didn't work...:eek:
The best strategy in my opinion would be to build fewer four-engined bombers, use more bombers for maritime reconnaissance, focus on destroying industrial targets and weapons development facilities rather than mass-bombing of civilians, and build more smaller aircraft.
That sounds good. More A/S patrol would have had enormous benefit. So would less bombing of civilians. The problem with more twins is in the training program. The idea of swapping to B-26s or Mossies sounds good, but the crew training couldn't keep up. Plus, the number of a/c needed to lift the same load goes up a lot. IMO you achieve much better results by changing the targeting & using the heavies smarter, reducing losses. That frees the material for production of other types without overstressing the trainng program.

There will no disruption of Germany's RailLines
Clearly not, as noted.
I really can't imagine a an ATL "no strategic bombing" as being in any way better off than our "possibly too much strategic bombing" timeline.
Why is there a presumption "no strategic bombing" means "no attacks on any strategic targets"?:confused::confused: Or am I mistaking everybody's intent? I take that to mean "no city bombing" as OTL, not "no other strategic attacks", which would allow for railyard & canal bombing, if not minelaying (which might be pushing ASB a trifle;)).
Without Strategic Bombing the British have no way of hurting Germany from July 1940 through until 1943.
No argument. The issue IMO is how the bombers are used, not that they are.
Meanwhile the demands of distance in the Pacific make four engine long range bomber development by the US almost inevitable.
I'm afraid I don't see the connection. It's not like anybody's saying the long-range patrol types wouldn't happen.

locking hundred of thousands potential soldiers in jobs related to anti-bombing (firefighters, rescue workers, railroad repair etc), demanding a lot of all 88 mm guns and wearing down Luftwaffe
Good, valid points. I'd say a lot of the workers would still be needed for repairs, given rail & canal attacks, plus there'd be more demand for minesweeping... Weapons & equipment could, perhaps, be produced (tho I doubt it:rolleyes:), but not delivered, so that, & the additional numbers of potential troops, is a non-issue IMO.
how would the US get Japan to surrender?

It was half a year of intense strategic bombing followed by the two nukes that got Japan to surrender (and the minelaying in Japanese waters, that could be called "strategic bombing")
That's called "blockade", & the Pacific Fleet sub force had been applying it since December 1941. It didn't start to be really effective until 1944.:eek::rolleyes: for a variety of reasons. By January 1945, Japan's economy was at a virtual standstill, & starvation was an impending reality. It was possible by then to sever Japan into several zones incapable of transporting food & supplies between them, by bombing a series of tunnels & bridges. Add to that an intensive campaign of interdiction of the small coastal craft being used to move fuel & food, you can bring Japan down in a matter of months without any city bombing at all IMO.
instead of demanding a real invasion. And that would have costed far more than the strategic bombing.
The expected number of casualties for the invasion would have been in line with those of the P.I. invasion, not the millions often quoted. That's a postwar fiction to justify using the Bomb.:rolleyes:
The Soviet invasion of Manchuria was IOTL important, but I don't know how a non-bombed Japan would react.
IMO, the Bomb gets way too much credit. It was the Sov declaration of war that did it IMO.
Of course, there were political dimensions as well (as others have pointed out e.g. Stalin).
There certainly were. The need to defend, & be seen to strike back, was established as far back as Shanghai in '37, so Winston had to bomb something or his government would fall.:eek: Stalin had nothing to do with it.:rolleyes:

(BTW, Gridley, I agree with your analysis. I just think it's irrelevant:eek: given the other option.;))
Quite simply, one of the main benefits of a widespread bombing campaign was that it spread fear and terror amongst the general population which would have a serious effect on the morale of your troops and government....So even ignoring all the actual physical damage that these raids did (and there was ALOT of it), it would still have been a good strategic idea to launch them.
That was the theory. The trouble is, the "terror" & the intended impact on morale was aimed at the wrong target.:rolleyes: (Nor was any effort ever made to actually measure the impact.:eek::rolleyes:) As John Kenneth Galbraith pointed out, "A bad government is preferable to a bomber overhead." The target the Allies should have been trying to affect was the German government: that is, trying to undermine its legitimacy by encouraging the plotters against it (incompetent as they tended to be:rolleyes:). Goebbels was reportedly terrified at that prospect, but it never materialized.:rolleyes: City bombing gave the Nazis a lever against the Allies they'd never have gotten otherwise.:eek::rolleyes:

Something else to consider: bombing cities actually stiffend German resistance.:eek: (This was most assuredly not the intended outcome.:rolleyes: It should have occured to the Brits, tho, given The Blitz.:rolleyes::confused:) And bombing factories meant more need to rebuild postwar. Had Germany's economy been revived immediately postwar, could the Berlin Wall have come down sooner...? The example of Germany on the doorstep would have become clear a few years sooner.:cool: Also, I suggest, the war would have ended sooner, with the Sovs still inside their prewar borders...:cool::cool:

Also, destroying German industrial production meant more had to be rebuilt postwar, giving the Sovs an opportunity she wouldn't have had otherwise. It also gave the Germans an economoic advantage, with brand-new factories & tooling.:eek:

There's also the issue of casualties. Those bomber crews lost could have provided better officers & enlisted men for the navies & armies of the Allies, so in effect, the bombing campaign lowered the quality of the other services. (Air forces tended to get the smartest & best-educated ones.)

Think about something else, while you're at it. Was Haig a butcher for sending his troops against strong German defenses in WW1? So why is it OK to send airmen, over & over & over, against targets the enemy knows you're going to attack, & continue to attack, & where defenses are going to get increasingly stronger?:eek::mad: Isn't that immoral?:eek::eek::mad: Didn't Allied commanders have a responsibility to their own men not to waste their lives, when they had a better (or even just another) option?
maybe the USSR might have ended up in the Axis...
Yes, right up to the moment Hitler attacked.:rolleyes: Can we stop with the silly ideas?
That's going too far; I think that Stalin had been planning to invade Germany from the start. Still, that's an interesting story.
See above. This is, I think, a German fiction. AFAIK, no actual evidence has ever materialized to support it, & the word of defectors whose credibility is in question does not qualify as "evidence".:rolleyes:
 
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