As I've said before, every 88mm flak gun shooting at B17s is not shooting up T34s. Every FW190 making a pass at B24s is not keeping the Stormoviks off the panzer divisions.
The allied bombing of Germany was largely ineffective for lack of a coherent and coordinated strategy. The bombing offensive was only effective once the allies realized the weak point of the German economy was the coal gasification plants that turned out synthetic oil. They were large and complex, and not easily dispersed. They were highly vulnerable to bomb damage and took a long time to repair. Once the allies began deliberately targeting these facilities, the German war machine was crippled.
LeMay took many of these lessons learned and applied them to the strategic bombing of Japan. Although Japan was not as highly industrialized as Germany, and much of the economic dislocation of Japan's was due to naval action, LeMay's six month bombing offensive was far more effective than what the 8th AF and RAF accomplished in two and a half years. Before LeMay's arrival, the 20th Air Force was pursuing the same strategy as used in Europe, and was just as ineffective. LeMay studied the problem, and realized the incendiary area bombing would be effective. He also deliberately diverted resources to the coastal maritime mining campaign. The next step was the severing of the inland rail links. Given another 30 days, LeMay's tactics would have guaranteed the starvation of millions of Japanese during the coming winter.
Fascinating!
I just got the book on the North Africa campaign from the library, so I’ll be going back in time for a few weeks. It’s a very big book ... I’m glad I didn’t request the Large Print edition.
The first phase of the US European bombing campaign was primarily an attack on U-Boat production and basing. Even the Air Force admits that its contribution to the defeat of the U-Boats was marginal at best.
In a way, you are correct. When the Allies started to target German oil production, that pretty much stopped the Panzers and Luftwaffe fighters. This was also how the Allies stopped Japan’s war machine by choking off its oil supply (Japan didn’t really know how to convert coal into motor fuel like the Germans did).
It's interesting that LeMay's success in Japan suggests the British weren't as off base in Europe with their nighttime incendiary bombing as the US thought at the time.
I think it’s more that the techniolog of war advanced so rapidly..people really couldn’t process it. Everyone talks about the vaunted German blitzkrieg, and the quick destruction of Poland. True. Yet look at the pictures of German troops at the start of hostilities, and a great part of the German artillery and supply train is HORSE DRAWN. Yet 6 years later, we had the atomic bomb. Before the Bulge, when most everyone thought the war was over, Ike positioned several newly arrived, raw divisions, in the Ardennes. In his memoirs, he explains t hat this was to “get them blooded” as the term of art then was..the expectation that they’d seen some small company sized skirmishes...get used to combat..that’s what I meant by not valuing the individual life of each soldier as against the context of the greater goal.