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To: zook
People can do all the Monday morning quarter backing the want, but there is no way to change history and try some else. The Allied theory at that heavy loss of civilian property would cause the population to turn against their leaders. Unfortunately it didn’t work that way and probably didn’t significantly shorten the war. Continued concentrated pressure on selected industries (ball bearings, petroleum) would probably have achieved more, but war is war. Once you are in it, you need to do what it takes to end it as soon as possible on your terms and with most of the casualties on the other side.

The British bombers did not have any superchargers as did the American planes. Thus they flew in amongst defending German fighters. Heavy losses caused a change in strategy and the Brits became night bombers. The Americans were able to fly higher and in the day time tending to use radar because of the cloudy nature of the continent. Neither practice was very effective in destroying individual small targets such as factories. City busting (fire bombing) was pretty much developed by the British because the cities were easy to find at night. Typically, the bombing was done in waves, one wave mostly incendiaries, another mostly block busters. Dresden was a combination British/American effort. The fires were set at night by two large waves of British planes (by this time there was little or no air defense). The Americans came the next day and bombed the rubble. Don't know about Hamburg.

35 posted on 11/20/2002 7:33:51 PM PST by Western Phil
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To: Western Phil
Don't know about Hamburg.

In some documentary (name not recalled), there was some old archival footage.
IIRC, it was even in color (probably Agfachrome) and showed nothing but a huge firestorm
consuming whole city blocks.

Pretty hideous stuff...almost enough to go a little wobbly on the feeling
that "they had it coming".
36 posted on 11/20/2002 7:40:28 PM PST by VOA
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