Most overrated WWII weapon

Bombing didn’t reduce industrial production significantly?

“The bombing of Tokyo in World War II cut the city’s industrial productivity in half.”

“Strategic bombing was initially a way of taking the war into Europe while Allied ground forces were no closer to fighting Germans there than North Africa.”

Similarly, how the Germans brought war to London

“Initially, the Luftwaffe raids took place in daylight, then changed to night bombing attacks when losses became unsustainable. The RAF, initially espousing a precision-bombing doctrine, also switched to night bombing, also due to excessive losses.”

One reason for the low percentage of accuracy cited earlier by someone.

What percentage of machine gun bullets miss?  Does that make a machine gun ineffective?

Quotes are from wikipedia article on “strategic bombing”

@MrMalachiCrunch:

Heavy bombers might have been extremely good at killing civilians.  But killing civilians is a very very poor way of bring a war to a close.  The bombing of civilians in cities did nothing but galvanize the civilians against the bombing nation!

See quote about destroying half of Tokyo’s production

Gamerman, why do you think the 9/11 comparison is such a reach?  If the intent of the 9/11 bombers was to scare off the US from middle east activities I think that goal was a spectacular failure.

You’re kidding, right?  Of course that wasn’t the intent.  The intent was to lash out at the free world (multinational target) and kill Americans and inflict terror and death.

As was bombing london a failure to bring the British to their knees as was bombing the Germans a failure to bring their citizens to the point of surrender.

I admit that’s true.  And you guys need to admit the obvious truth that bombing demoralizes a lot of people.  A lot of people were afraid and demoralized after 9/11 (since a few of you think that’s a relevant comparison)

As for differences, which are extremely obvious….

9/11 wasn’t bombs dropped from airplanes.  Most people really didn’t expect the same thing to happen the next day.  And the next.  And the next.
The USA was at peace otherwise, and had ample resources to quickly and decisively deal with many threats, and people knew this.  All aircraft being grounded immediately was one example.  The plane in Pennsylvania never would have made it to Washington - it would have been shot down.
3,000 people or something like that in one terrorist action, compared to constant carpet bombing - death from above?  There really is no comparison.

Why don’t YOU tell me why they’re the SAME?  Other than a big explosion that killed a lot of people, and an attack from a foreign enemy, don’t the similarities end there?

@Uncrustable:

It is very ignorant to call strategic bombers overrated.

I’m just going to agree with this, and if some of you have convinced yourselves that bombing is ineffective for some weird PC reason or something, well, I’m not going to waste my time trying to change that ignorance - it’s frustrating to try and convince somebody you don’t know and don’t care about, when they’re already convinced

Let’s just all pray we’re never the target of strategic bombing ourselves - and that includes you weird Canadians  :wink:  When I say “we” I mean all of us anywhere, not just Americans

There’s a reason there is a tech called “heavy bombers” in A&A, and why each bomber could score THREE hits a piece, and destroy all IPC’s of the enemy

Ask Larry if Strategic bombing is overrated!  :lol:

@rjpeters70:

Bombers weren’t overrated… they were ineffectively utilized till the end of the war is all.

Hmmmm…. bombers were effectively used… at the end of the war…

Possible correlation, causal relationship?

On August 15 the Emperor announced the surrender of Japan, stating:
“Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should We continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization. Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects; or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers.”

No mention of Manchuria there…

Partial list of B-29 missions against Tokyo
24 November 1944: 111 B-29s hit an aircraft factory on the rim of the city.[16][17]
27 November 1944: 81 B-29s[16][18]
29�30 November 1944: two incendiary raids on industrial areas, burning 2,773 structures.[16][18]
19 February 1945: 119 B-29s hit port and urban area
24 February 1945: 229 B-29s plus over 1600 carrier-based planes.[16][19]
25 February 1945: 174 B-29s dropping incendiaries destroy ~28,000 buildings[20]
4 March 1945: 159 B-29s hit urban area[8]
10 March 1945: 334 B-29s dropping incendiaries destroy ~267,000 buildings; ~25% of city[8] (Operation Meetinghouse) killing some 100,000
2 April 1945: >100 B-29s bomb the Nakajima aircraft factory
3 April 1945: 68 B-29s bomb the Koizumi aircraft factory and urban areas in Tokyo
7 April 1945: 101 B-29s bomb the Nakajima aircraft factory.[citation needed]
13 April 1945: 327 B-29s bomb the arsenal area
15 April 1945: 109 B-29s hit urban area[citation needed]
24 May 1945: 520 B-29s bomb urban-industrial area south of the Imperial Palace[citation needed]
26 May 1945: 464 B-29s bomb urban area immediately south of the Imperial Palace[citation needed]
20 July 1945: 1 B-29 drops a Pumpkin bomb (bomb with same ballistics as the Fat Man nuclear bomb) through overcast aiming at but missing the Imperial Palace[21]
8 August 1945: ~60 B-29s bomb the aircraft factory and arsenal
10 August 1945: 70 B-29s bomb the arsenal complex

List of bombing against Tokyo only
Seriously, look up “Strategic bombing” in Wikipedia and do some reading.
There is absolutely no comparison between the relatively minor terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the absolutely massive amounts of continuous bombing in WWII.

Hundreds and hundreds of B-29’s raining hell on the enemy day after day after incessant day…. (thinking of London - it wasn’t daily on Tokyo as you can see above)

You’re reading ME wrong.  I was quoting you to further my argument with people who think that bombing is ineffective and strengthens the enemy that you are destroying

There’s another major difference.  The cowardly terrorist attacks on 9/11 had absolutely no chance of stopping or crippling the USA.  Quite different for WWII bombing

@MrMalachiCrunch:

The people of England were FAR FAR from the point of wanting to surrender.�

That’s not what I meant by “ripe for invasion”.

The bombing of London’s purpose was to make the English give up, how did that work for the Nazis?

Really?  That was THE reason?  I really think you’re underestimating Nazi Germany, and this sounds like something from some TV show or opinion piece.�

How did the bombing of Dresdon work as far as making the Germans was to surrender?

I never said strategic bombing will make your enemy want to surrender.

Another thing I was reading about strategic bombing mentioned that it greatly RAISED the morale of the people in the countries SENDING the bombers!  That’s significant too, since we’re talking about the effectiveness of strategic bombing.

334 B-29s took off to raid on the night of 9�10 March (“Operation Meetinghouse”), Fourteen B-29s were lost. Approximately 16 square miles (41 km2) of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died, more immediate deaths than either of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Tokyo Fire Department estimated: 97,000 killed and 125,000 wounded. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department established a figure of 124,711 casualties including both killed and wounded and 286,358 buildings and homes destroyed. Richard Rhodes, historian, put deaths at over 100,000, injuries at a million and homeless residents at a million. These casualty and damage figures could be low
The figure of roughly 100,000 deaths, provided by Japanese and American authorities, both of whom may have had reasons of their own for minimizing the death toll, seems to me arguably low in light of population density, wind conditions, and survivors’ accounts. With an average of 103,000 inhabitants per square mile (396 people per hectare) and peak levels as high as 135,000 per square mile (521 people per hectare), the highest density of any industrial city in the world, and with firefighting measures ludicrously inadequate to the task, 15.8 square miles (41 km2) of Tokyo were destroyed on a night when fierce winds whipped the flames and walls of fire blocked tens of thousands fleeing for their lives. An estimated 1.5 million people lived in the burned out areas.
The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9/10 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II; greater than Dresden, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki as single events.

So 334 Strategic bombers bomb Tokyo and kill A HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE, displace over A MILLION destroying SIXTEEN SQUARE MILES of city in TWO DAYS,
AND ONLY 14 BOMBERS WENT DOWN, out of THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FOUR.

Thats a 96% survivor rate on the bombers.
300 deaths and 3 THOUSAND displaced PER bomber.

On 14 February 1942, the Area bombing directive was issued to Bomber Command. Bombing was to be “focused on the morale of the enemy civil population and in particular of the industrial workers.” Though it was never explicitly declared, this was the nearest that the British got to a declaration of unrestricted aerial bombing � Directive 22 said “You are accordingly authorised to use your forces without restriction”, and then listing a series of primary targets which included Essen, Duisburg, D�sseldorf, and Cologne. Secondary targets included Braunschweig, L�beck, Rostock, Bremen, Kiel, Hanover, Frankfurt, Mannheim, Stuttgart, and Schweinfurt. The directive stated that “operations should now be focused on the morale of the enemy civilian population, and in particular, the industrial workers”. Lest there be any confusion, Sir Charles Portal wrote to Air Chief Marshal Norman Bottomley on 15 February "…I suppose it is clear that the aiming points will be the built-up areas, and not, for instance, the dockyards or aircraft factories". Factories were no longer targets.

The ultimate aim of an attack on a town area is to break the morale of the population which occupies it. To ensure this, we must achieve two things: first, we must make the town physically uninhabitable and, secondly, we must make the people conscious of constant personal danger. The immediate aim, is therefore, twofold, namely, to produce (i) destruction and (ii) fear of death.“[129]”

Id say mission accomplished

And you call them overrated. WOW yeah thats overrated.

Here’s something interesting and telling:

In 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzō apologized in print, acknowledging Japan’s bombing of Chinese cities beginning in 1938, killing civilians. He wrote that the Japanese government should have surrendered as soon as losing the war was inevitable, an action that would have prevented Tokyo from being firebombed in March 1945, as well as subsequent bombings of other cities. Thereafter, survivors banded together and unsuccessfully sued the Japanese government for compensation; however, efforts continue.

Uncrustable, our detractors would say that the bombing you cited did nothing to stop the Japanese army, navy, or air force, or something similar - that it just “strengthened their resolve”

Just look at 9/11!

NO COMPARISON

@rjpeters70:

Well, while I’m a fan of bombers, and think that they can be used to devastating effect either in strategic contexts or in modern uses of close air support, the firebombing of Tokyo was a bit of an outlier in its destructiveness.  Weather conditions were perfect (dry, some wind) and the city was largely made out of paper houses… not brick and mortar, stone, or even wood.  It was a tinderbox.

So what your saying is the people died because the houses were made out of wood, not because of the bombers,

What a stupid thing to say. So are you also going to say that ships sink because they are in water?

Even if an outlier, it still happened and the bombers still had that effect.
It’s not like there aren’t numerous other examples of tremendous bomber effectiveness in WWII

I thought the discussion here wasn’t about the least effective weapon, but the most overrated?  Obviously the weapons not used were the least effective, else they would have used them.

I went into this thinking which weapons yielded the least ‘effectiveness/cost.’  The Germans were still a very capable fighting force when the allies landed in Italy and later France.  This after a couple years of strategic bombing.  Hard to say how much more effective they would have been otherwise.

Strategic bombing in the last year of the war was more effective than the early years because there were less air defenses, particularly enemy aircraft.

@BJCard:

Strategic bombing in the last year of the war was more effective than the early years because there were less air defenses, particularly enemy aircraft.

That’s one reason, but there were MANY more.  One is - the B-29’s could fly at 30,000 feet and had major armor plating.

Talking about what is overrated is not much different than talking about what was ineffective.  If it was considered nasty/effective but was actually ineffective, then it’s overrated.

@Gamerman01:

@Uncrustable:

gamerman you are an fn moron to compare 9/11 to strategic bombing in late ww2
that is all i have to say to that

and the japanese surrendered BECAUSE of loss of civilian life from strategic bombing,

you are just trolling at this point

Dude, you are the moron.

You misread both rjpeters and me

We are both agreeing with you.

Dude, I have been the one taking issue with people comparing 9/11 to strategic bombing THE WHOLE FREAKING TIME
How could you misinterpret me so badly?

My comment had been removed

My apologies to you gamerman

@Uncrustable:

On topic I’d say the most overrated weapons system in the war was the battleship.
WWII marked the end of an era on the high seas and the beginning of the new age of aircraft carriers.
Some of the largest and most expensive BBs (Bismarck, Yamamoto) were ineffective and sunk relatively easily by aircraft.

Thanks - I can remove mine too then

I would have made it clear I was being sarcastic, but thought it was obvious with the line of reasoning I had been continuing

Also, I think rjpeters was only conceding that the wind conditions and combustible materials greatly magnified the effectiveness of the bombers.

In many of the crucial battles of the Pacific, for instance Coral Sea and Midway, battleships were either absent or overshadowed as carriers launched wave after wave of planes into the attack at a range of hundreds of miles. The primary tasks for battleships in the Pacific became shore bombardment and anti-aircraft defense for the carriers. Even the largest battleships ever constructed, Japan’s Yamato class, which carried a main battery of nine 18.1-inch (460 millimetre) guns and were designed to be a principal strategic weapon, were seldom given a chance to fulfill their potential. They were hampered by technical deficiencies (slow battleships were incapable of operating with fast carriers), faulty military doctrine (the Japanese waited for a “decisive battle”, which never came), and defective dispositions (as at Midway).

lotta name calling in this thread.