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To: colorado tanker
We did daylight bombing because we had a secret precision bombsite that actually worked. Nothing tunnel vision about it. You had to be able to see the target to hit it. The alternative was inefficient carpet bombing a la the British, which could just as well be done at night but by itself did little but kill civilians.
27 posted on 12/01/2016 1:10:25 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: hinckley buzzard
The Norden bombsight was the best in the world at the time, but I would hardly call it "precision." Postwar surveys showed we did not do nearly the damage to German industry as was thought at the time and repairs were done faster than we estimated.

When Curtis LeMay directed the bombing of Japan he ditched the daytime high altitude bombing because of the losses and they weren't hitting very much. He basically adopted the British pattern of lower altitude night bombing with incendiaries, which did a heck of a lot of damage.

37 posted on 12/02/2016 2:58:35 PM PST by colorado tanker
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