[familyop]

There is no reasonable doubt that Dresden was a military target. In so saturating Dresden with military hardware and support, the Nazis jeopardized the lives of their own civilians as Islamo-fascists do with human shields. The following is from exhaustive historical research (more reliable than guesses and rhetoric from politicians).

Smaller excerpt from the Air Force Historical Studies Office

9. In addition to its geographical position and topography and its primary importance as a communications center, Dresden was, in February 1945, known to contain at least 110 factories and industrial enterprises that were legitimate military targets, and were reported to have employed 50,000 workers in arms plants alone.8 Among these were dispersed aircraft components factories; a poison gas factory (Chemische Fabric Goye and Company); an anti-aircraft and field gun factory (Lehman); the great Zeiss Ikon A.G., Germany’s most important optical goods manufactory; and, among others, factories engaged in the production of electrical and X-ray apparatus (Koch and Sterzel A.G.), gears and differentials (Saxoniswerke), and electric gauges (Gebruder Bassler).9

10. Specific military installations in Dresden in February 1945 included barracks and hutted camps and at least one munitions storage depot.10

11. Dresden was protected by antiaircraft defenses , antiaircraft guns and searchlights, in anticipation of Allied air raids against the city.11 The Dresden air defenses were under the Combined Dresden (Corps Area IV) and Berlin (Corps Area III) Luftwaffe Administration Commands.12

[ . . . ]

24. As related in paragraphs 5-11 above, Dresden became a military target as (1), and of overriding importance, a primary communications center in the Berlin-Leipzig-Dresden railway complex; (2) as an important industrial and manufacturing center directly associated with the production of aircraft components and other military items, including poison gas, anti-aircraft and field guns, and small guns; and (3) as an area containing specific military installations.

From my own military experience, I can tell you that incendiary devices are for destroying steel equipment (weapons, arms factories, rails, military vehicles,...). And there were no smart bombs during WWII. Bombing was very innacurate then.

[TigersEye]

There is no reasonable doubt that Dresden was a military target.

You have presented overwhelming evidence to that effect. There is no doubt in any rational mind that Dresden was saturated with targets of classical military infrastructure. It is also not arguable that the weapons and technology of the day combined with the conditions of war itself made it impossible to effectively destroy those targets with some sort of surgical precision that didn't even exist as recently as Gulf War I.

Beyond any half-baked argument about military strategies and targets; (I'm not impugning your efforts) ALL of Germany was our enemy. Every citizen was a defacto part of the German state and thusly the German war machine. If it had been determined that deliberately targeting civilians would have brought Germany to heel faster and more effectively than any other method then IMO that would have been the most ethical choice.

Clearly that is not what was decided or what occurred.

Clearly that is how Hitler's Germany operated.