New A & A game, what would you make it like?

I agree with Moses and Horton too.

If you ask the question, did Allied strategic bombing by itself bring Germany to its knees, then the answer is, no. But you’d be asking for too much.

In the '20s and 30s there were airpower advocates (like Billy Mitchell in the U.S.)who predicted that future wars would be won by bombers alone. These people were proved wrong in WWII, but this lack of total success should not cause one to go the opposite extreme and say the effort did no good.

Allied bombing was one of the major reasons for the defeat of Germany. Although it did not stop Axis production, it hindered it greatly, and as Moses points out so well it destroyed the Luftwaffe by drawing it out to fight against unfavorable odds. By June 6, 1944, the Luftwaffe just wasn’t around anymore in France. And that total control of the air is what enabled the Allies to take Normandy and then the rest of France.

… Ploesti production stood stable after the raid, but it would double in two months!!!

“I guess world domination is a guy thing…” -Yanny
“The only enemy more powerful than an invisible enemy is an invincible enemy”- me
According to some, I’m in the CIA or the Mossad, because I support Israel on Indymedia

[ This Message was edited by: HortenFlyingWing on 2002-04-19 14:22 ]

I did some researching and this was what my sources had to say,

“On May 12, 1944, attacks were begun on German oil-production facilities and synthetic oil-production centers. These attacks caused a sudden and catastrophic drop in German fuel and lubricant supplies. In only two months of attacks, German oil production was cut in half. Especially successful were the attacks on the stubborn oil production facility of Ploesti in Rumania, which had been so resistant to previous attacks. By the time that Ploesti was taken by the Russians, 90 percent of this Rumanian oil production facility had been destroyed. Destruction of the synthetic oil centers had the additional beneficial side effect of cutting the supplies of nitrogen and methanol, which essential in the manufacture of explosives. The postwar Strategic Bombing Survey judged that the oil offensive was the most effective of all the strategic bombing attacks in helping to shorten the war.”

Indeed. I think the strategic raids on the petrolium industry was the only campaign that really worked. All attempts at stratigic bombing before 1944 were basicly doomed to insignificcant results and heavy losses.

The oil bombing campaign was only one of the successes of US and Britain’s strategic air campaign over Europe. I wish TG were here so he could explain it better, but I will try my best. In my argument I site the US Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), authorized by President Franklin Roosevelt, which employed over a thousand analysts who began their work in November 1944. This produced 208 volumes of charts, tables, and analysis. Another lesser document was the British Bombing Survey Unit (BBSU) employed only a few dozen individuals, and did begin collecting data until after the war ended. Overall, these reports paint a detailed and favorable assessment of the bombing campaign.

Repeated with dozens of graphs and tables, it documents the collapse of the German economy under the weight of the bombing offensive. Germany’s transportation network of rail junctions, convoys, and marshalling yards were also hard hit by air attacks, prevent Germans from staging successful counterattacks and bleeding away German reinforcements. Absenteeism among factory workers due to the bombing exceeded 25 percent in some areas, and oil, steel, chemicals, explosives, rubber, and fertilizer production plummeted once the bombing campaign began in earnest in the summer of 1944. Due to the slow buildup of Allied air forces and their use in operations in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and the Battle of the Atlantic as well as preparations for Overlord, the actual tonnage dropped on Germany was relatively slight for much of the war: 72 percent of all bombs dropped on Germany fell after D day.

By the third quarter of l944, coping with the aftermath of the Allied air strikes tied down an estimated four and one-half million workers, about 20 percent of the non-farm labor force, in cleaning and rebuilding operations. Bombing had annihilated half of the sum total of all petroleum products by December 1944. In turn, reserves of aviation gasoline had plummeted by 90 percent of their availability from May 1944 when the Allied air campaign against aviation gasoline had formally begun. The assault on German rail transportation that had commenced in September 1944 had in the course of five months lessened the volume of railroad car loads by 75 percent.

The report also notes that Allied armies overrunning Germany and occupying factory districts did not cause these production drops. The Allies did not enter Germany until late February 1945, and by then the economy had already been destroyed from the air. The bombing campaign utilized only 7 percent of the total British war effort to achieve these gains, whereas the British army absorbed eight times the resources while also incurring heavier casualties.

Obliteration of a nation’s war making capacity was only part of the equation for the proponents of Allied bombing. The annihilation of the enemy’s will to make war and resist attackers of its air space and territory was of equal significance. The postwar United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) showed how a besieged population fared under relentless American and British bombing:

The Survey further supports the findings in Germany that no nation can long survive the free exploitation of air weapons over its home-land…… It is important to fully grasp the fact that enemy planes enjoying control of the sky over one’s head can be as disastrous to one’s country as its occupation by physical invasion. Herman Goering latter admitted that the war was over when American P-51s freely reigned over the skies of Berlin unopposed and undaunted.

“Axis and Allies stands not only as one of the most stupendous works of man, but also as one of the most beautiful of human creations. Indeed, it is at once so great and so simple that it seems to be almost a work of nature.”

[ This Message was edited by: TM Moses VII on 2002-04-19 18:09 ]

good read TM.

Thank you Sir Horten. I’m sorry for the incredibly long post, it’s just that whenever the valor and sacrifice of my brave American airmen is looked upon as vain, I have to defend them. The bombing campaign is almost as misunderstood as the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now. Never have the consequences of their misunderstanding been so tragic.

What is misunderstood about the Vietnam war?

P.S. I think he was refering to the first raid on Ploesti.

“After the massive raid on Plotesti…”

That just about says it all. In the August 1, 1943 raid on Ploesti, 163 B24 Liberator bombers left American airfields in Libya heading for axis oil fields near Ploesti, Romania. This was an rather small number, considering the size of later air raids even before August 1, 1943. 50 bombers were lost, although 40% of the petroleum facilities at Ploesti were temporarily disrupted. A navigational error dispersed the bomber force and cost the element of surprise and the attack became a whirling confusion of aircraft crossing in all directions and altitudes. However, it was the gallant courage, brilliant leadership, and superior flying skill of Col. Johnson that led his formation to destroy the important refining plants and installations that prevented the raid from achieving success from disaster. While it was true that the destruction of the oil refineries were repaired within a few months times, subsequent air raids prevented Ploesti from ever reaching full production capability.

It was not until the spring and summer of 1944, US Fifteenth Air Force hammered Ploesti in earnest. A raid on June 23, 1944, sent 761 bombers (this number being a “massive raid”) against Rumanian oil targets. 60,000 airmen eventually flew against Ploesti, dropping 13,000 tons of bombs, eventually knocking out the oil fields and accelerating Germany’s defeat.

Vietnam? There are so many misconceptions about Vietnam I don’t know where to start. As the a quote by the Vietnam veterans goes, “Will they turn their heads in shame? Will they even remember? Or will they turn their heads away and forget the thing ever happened.”

Nixon forced peace treaties through massive bombing. we should of never fought a land war there.

The use of massive bombing actually strengthened the will to fight for the Viet Cong. It was through the combination of land and air power that finally brought North Vietnam to the bargaining table.

"The use of massive bombing actually strengthened the will to fight for the Viet Cong. "

Maybe during the Johnson administration. When Nixon was in there, the bombings were in actual civilized areas…After Nixon disgraced america, the North Vietemese knew that Ford wouldn’t intervene with force, so they just walked in.

we never should of been in nam. Diem was a jack-ass, and the country didn’t want to fight.

At least we were successful protecting south korea.