The Soviet Army was very focused on tanks.
The best antitank weapon the Nazis had was the 88 flak cannon.
Somehow, these cannons had to be removed from the Eastern Front.
The Americans began daylight bombing of Nazi targets.
The Nazis had to pull 88 flak cannons from the Eastern Front to use to defend against American bombers.
The losses to American crews was astounding.
The bombing wasn’t really all that effective. Something like 25% of the bombs landed within 15 miles of their targets.
The real success of the American bombing campaign was to reduce the power of the Nazis on the Eastern Front. This allowed the Soviets to survive and counterattack the Nazis.
A lot of good young American men died in the skies over Europe to save the Soviets.
And saving the Soviets won the war.
I wish that I was the one who first realized this, but it was actually Victor Davis Hanson.
Hmmm...to my knowledge, the daylight bombing only started after the P-51s entered the fray because they could cover the higher flyers. The Brits did their thing at night because they were better versed on the terrain and the US had issues navigating at night from a foreign land!
> The bombing wasn’t really all that effective. <
Hitler’s Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer, once said that the Allies made a mistake by bombing a little bit of this, and a little bit of that. Instead they should have concentrated on Germany’s ball-bearing plants.
A little known fact: 8th Air Force, our heavy bomber command based in the UK, lost more aircrew KIA over Europe than the Marine Corps lost in battle during the entire Pacific war.
And RAF Bomber Command suffered even heavier casualties; 55,000 dead (out of 120,000 aircrew), an overall fatality rate of 46%. All were volunteers, and they never wavered. Read somewhere that the “average” American bomber crew finished six missions before they were killed, wounded, or captured. Survival rates about the same for their RAF counterparts.