Dresden Firestorm

[T.I.M.]

But did it?

What would have happened had those resources been spent on, say, developing better tanks, as Dowding advocated?   How would the Battle of the Atlantic have played out had Coastal Command not had to wait for Halifaxes and other obsolescent Bomber Command hand-me-downs?

As to just how many resources Bomber Command consumed, about a third of the British war budget paid for Bomber command.  Of the over 4 million Britons who served in WWII, almost a million served in Bomber Command (though the exact number is hard to calculate, and does not include thousands more allied and Commonwealth members) - with Bomber Command having a strength of about 250,000 at any one time in the later war years.   Over 150,000 aircrew served over the course of the war and of these 77,000 became casualties and 55,000 were killed - a higher casualty rate than any other military branch.

Remember that towards the end of WWII Britain faced a serious manpower shortage that forced serious limits on the operations of its army commanders, and that the Bomber Command personnel were uniformly highly skilled officers, NCOs and technicians and reflected a huge outlay of training resources.

Large portions of the British industry and research establishment were dedicated to the development and production of heavy bombers and bombing methods.  Tank development directly suffered as a result, and Coastal Command, which had a desperate need for long range aircraft had to play second fiddle to Bomber Command's needs, with serious results for the early years of the U-Boat war.

So for all its effects on Germany we have to remember the effect the strategic bombing campaign had on the British war effort as well.  It was manifestly not a free ride, and Britian paid for every drop in German factory output with the toil of its own industries.  It's a complex and interwoven affair, and historians will probably continue to argue whether the campaign was cost effective for generations, but my position is that - in the case of Britain at least (the US is a slightly different story) - it was not.

Not materially anyway.  The necessity for the British people to feel they were striking back and the effect the campaign had on British morale and political will is another matter entirely.


*Edited for spelling 'cause I'm a sloppy typer  *

 

[TCBF]

Good points. 

Not as much of a sure thing as I thought it was.

So, I will modify my "Yes" to a "Perhaps."

 

[capt j]

The bottom line is we were going at it toe to toe with the "Hun". Was it Bomber Commands and the Mighty Eigth's job to kill Germans? Of course it was let there be no mistake about it. Was it wrong............... no it wasn't. I take issue with those that enjoy the freedom that was paid for in blood and then question the very manner in the way it has been provided. As far as I am concerned there are some 100,000 Canadians still serving in Europe they are all dead. Please do not lower ourselves to a level that slags the dead and the very few alive for the job they did. Now I know there are those that will say it wasn't the airmen it was their political masters. You know those political masters didn't do such a bad job at the time..................................

 

[time expired]

Just a couple of points on the Dresden discussion--
-1 the war was by no means over in Feb. 45 in the west the germans were still fighting hard and the
allies were not yet across the rhine,thefore the idea that the war was almost over is only true in retrospect
-2 Dresden was a legitimate target because it was the main supply rail junction for the germans facing
Marshal Konevs army who were falling behind the the russian armies to the north,because of stiffening
german resistance.
-3 The chances of a german being killed by an allied bomb was approx. .5% the chance of allied aircrew
being killed was close to 50%.Hardly the odds that mindless terror fliegerwould accept.
-4On a more cynical note ,the allies must have hit the right people as in Jun. 45 there were no more
nazis left in germany just anyone who was there.
            time expire, incidentaly born in Coventry.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

I mean, sure, you can choose to believe that the US government is participating in a vast conspiracy of silence on the issue, but I find it more likely that the lack of evidence indicates that there is nothing to find rather than that it was all methodically covered up.

"Occam's Razor"

Hmmm... a thread bumped from 8 months ago.  Oh well, still interesting to me....

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Whenever the Germans talk about missed opportunities due to the delay in or lack of critical resources being at the right place at the right time, they always blame the bombing.

Of course they did.  I wouldn't dream of them blaming their hopelessly backwards political structure, based on Führerprinzip and the necessity for Hitler to have his subordinates working at cross purposes.  Or the fact that industry was poorly integrated, and they were wasting enormous amounts of resources on civilian consumer products and pipe dream technology like the Maus or the V rockets, or a half finished aircraft carrier, or strategic bombers to bombard New York with.  Or their lack of a war economy.  Or the fact that huge proportions of their work force were unwilling slave labourers.  Or that racial policies in the east guaranteed that millions of potential allies were simply written off as undesirables until it was too late.  Or that their military was divided into four seperate fiefdoms, with such idiocies as the Luftwaffe Field Divisions allowed to dilute combat power from the Army, whom Hitler (wisely in some cases) mistrusted deeply.  Or the fact that even the Russians were better by 1944 at operational art than the German Army.

I think the Allied bombing campaign achieved far less damage to German industry than the Germans themselves inflicted on their own war effort.  Lucky for us it was such an amateur show.

 

[3rd Herd]

Would they have won?  No.  If they had hung on until 1946, they would have caught a nuke.

TCBF
A sword swings in both directions. Given time the Germans were well on their way to completing nuclear capability. The destruction of the heavy water plant in Norway and the bombing of Peenemunde only slowed the process down.Von Braun was well on his way to perfecting a delivery system after all he jump started the US space program with his modified V 2 rockets. With the German surrender two uboats were discovered to have uranium oxide in between their in and outer hulls upon examination in east coast shipyards. These boats were on their way to Japan supplying this key component to the Japanese nuclear program. A program that until recently was well buried by the Japanese.

Next post war BDA showed much to the surprise of Allied air commanders that the strategic campaign was less effective than thought. Of far greater success was the tactical air effort. Thunderbolts, Tempests and Typhoons are credited with destroying more German AFV's than Allied AFV's along with rolling stock and locomotives. In the Vietnam conflict the same happened, bombing commenced and the Vietnamese went underground.Their final offenses in 1974 exemplifies this as well as the 1972 offense.

Post war memories illuminate an interesting facet of the strategic bombing campaign "the idea of depopulating centers of production in order to reduce the ability to produce war materials" not the destruction of the production facilities themselves.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

A sword swings in both directions. Given time the Germans were well on their way to completing nuclear capability.

Source?  I'm led to believe it wasn't that close.

Thunderbolts, Tempests and Typhoons are credited with destroying more German AFV's than Allied AFV's along with rolling stock and locomotives.

Trains maybe, but the number of German AFV loses to Typhoons in the Normandy has been looked at quite seriously in recent studies - and I don't have the details near to hand but it seems to me that a only fraction of the AFVs claimed by Allied fighterbombers were actually killed.  The conclusion was that while German convoys were rightly scared to move in daylight, the actual number of German tanks destroyed by airpower was low.

Post war memories illuminate an interesting facet of the strategic bombing campaign "the idea of depopulating centers of production in order to reduce the ability to produce war materials" not the destruction of the production facilities themselves.

I believe this is quite correct.

 

[3rd Herd]

Source?  I'm led to believe it wasn't that close.
Physics World New light on Hitler's bomb Forum: June 2005

Controversial new historical evidence suggests that German physicists built and tested a nuclear bomb during the Second World War. Rainer Karlsch and Mark Walker outline the findings and present a previously unpublished diagram of a German nuclear weapon

ATOMIC RIVALS AND THE ALSOS MISSION: US Department of Emergy, Office of Hertige and History
Many German scientists, including Heisenberg, continued to make pleas for greater government funding, but as the war turned against Germany, it increasingly focused its science and industry on more immediate war needs.  German pile work continued to focus until the end on heavy water piles, and this work was hampered by a series of attacks that were made on the Norsk Hydro heavy water plant by American aircraft, British commandos, and the Norwegian resistance.  In the final year of the war, aerial bombing and eventually the advance of Allied ground troops also disrupted their research.  When Germany surrendered in May 1945, its atomic researchers were still struggling to reach critical mass with a pile, a goal Fermi had first achieved at the Met Lab in December 1942.  

but it was not until April 1945, only weeks before the final German surrender, that the bulk of the German uranium was captured and any final fears of a Nazi bomb were alleviated.

David Irving The Virus House
In the first two areas, the Nazi project was a failure, because although great theoretical progress was achieved, their scientists ran out of time. The lessons that they would have learned by the time of their soourn in Farm Hall, Cambridgeshire, in August 1945 was that in military science you cannot afford to rest on your laurels and be complacent


Trains maybe, but the number of German AFV loses to Typhoons in the Normandy has been looked at quite seriously in recent studies - and I don't have the details near to hand but it seems to me that a only fraction of the AFVs claimed by Allied fighterbombers were actually killed.  The conclusion was that while German convoys were rightly scared to move in daylight, the actual number of German tanks destroyed by airpower was low.

Conclusion in Tank History Channel Jan 1, 2006 discusion of allied (western) vs german tank kills. Bovington Tank Musem

I believe this is quite correct.

 

[pbi]

Of course they did...I think the Allied bombing campaign achieved far less damage to German industry than the Germans themselves inflicted on their own war effort.  Lucky for us it was such an amateur show.

Good post Mike. Not only their national level military-industrial complex, but their military logistics were a horror show, starting from the dangerously low ammo stocks going into the Polish Campaign in 1939. Good thing for the Germans that the western Allies couldn't get their sh*t together during "Case White". The Germans might have run out of bullets. On top of that, it is almost impossible to catalogue the array of different types, makes, nationalities, marks and experimental prototypes that the various German forces put into the field over the course of the war. One is tempted to wonder what the results would have been if they had adopted  "Soviet" -type war production in, say, 1936; a relatively few types, developed in an evolutionary manner, with draconian standardization. Perhaps it's just as well that they didn't...

Cheers

 

[3rd Herd]

I think the Allied bombing campaign achieved far less damage to German industry than the Germans themselves inflicted on their own war effort.  Lucky for us it was such an amateur show.

For example, it is relatively easy to determine the amount of physical damage an air attack causes to a railroad marshaling yard--the number of buildings or railcars destroyed, tracks torn up, and so forth. It is more difficult to measure the effect such damage will have on an entire rail network, given the redundancy of such systems, the availability of repair teams, and the ability to route traffic through other yards. It is more difficult still to judge what effect the shortage of materials not moved by the destroyed trains will have on the economy as a whole. One finds an illustration of this problem and its complexity in the work of one historian who has examined the records of the German railroad bureau in World War II. His analysis revealed that the destruction and disruption of German rail traffic severely curtailed the movement of coal, the primary fuel for most industrial production and power generation, throughout the Reich. Therefore, the shortage of coal caused by the disruption of the rail system had a major effect on the production of steel, resulting in the decreased output of tanks, ships, and heavy artillery
Mierzejewsk Alfred C., The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944­1945: Allied Air Power and the German National Railway (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988)

and Micheal I have emailed Bovington for clarification of tank loss statement. will post response.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Good post Mike. Not only their national level military-industrial complex, but their military logistics were a horror show, starting from the dangerously low ammo stocks going into the Polish Campaign in 1939. Good thing for the Germans that the western Allies couldn't get their sh*t together during "Case White". The Germans might have run out of bullets. On top of that, it is almost impossible to catalogue the array of different types, makes, nationalities, marks and experimental prototypes that the various German forces put into the field over the course of the war. One is tempted to wonder what the results would have been if they had adopted  "Soviet" -type war production in, say, 1936; a relatively few types, developed in an evolutionary manner, with draconian standardization. Perhaps it's just as well that they didn't...

Cheers

Thanks.  It is a bit sad to see the old myths perpetuated by popular history but perhaps things are continuing to change in the right direction.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

For example, it is relatively easy to determine the amount of physical damage an air attack causes to a railroad marshaling yard--the number of buildings or railcars destroyed, tracks torn up, and so forth. It is more difficult to measure the effect such damage will have on an entire rail network, given the redundancy of such systems, the availability of repair teams, and the ability to route traffic through other yards. It is more difficult still to judge what effect the shortage of materials not moved by the destroyed trains will have on the economy as a whole. One finds an illustration of this problem and its complexity in the work of one historian who has examined the records of the German railroad bureau in World War II. His analysis revealed that the destruction and disruption of German rail traffic severely curtailed the movement of coal, the primary fuel for most industrial production and power generation, throughout the Reich. Therefore, the shortage of coal caused by the disruption of the rail system had a major effect on the production of steel, resulting in the decreased output of tanks, ships, and heavy artillery
Mierzejewsk Alfred C., The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944­1945: Allied Air Power and the German National Railway (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988)

and Micheal I have emailed Bovington for clarification of tank loss statement. will post response.

I'm rereading THE BUNKER by O'Donnell.  Just came across the part where IIRC factories in the Ruhr were working at 91 percent of capacity in April 1945... It's certainly an interesting debate.  Given the heroic sacrifices made by the men of Bomber Command and the USAAF heavy bomber crews, its tough to admit that perhaps they really didn't accomplish all that much.  I think you are correct when you suggest much about the results are open to interpretation.

 

[enfield]

Interesting debate - and well worth resurrecting the thread.

Given the heroic sacrifices made by the men of Bomber Command and the USAAF heavy bomber crews, its tough to admit that perhaps they really didn't accomplish all that much.  I think you are correct when you suggest much about the results are open to interpretation.

True, German factories were operating at high effiency in 1945 (as an aside, one theory/anecdote I've read is that effiency increased as bombing disrupted ties to central HQs, allowing individual factories to get on with business and ignore higher authority.).
Several authors have pointed out, however, that there were strains placed on key products and that this is where bombing had its effect; the best example being oil and petroleum products. While the Germans were always able to rebuild quickly, the constant pressure on refineries, synthetic plants, distribution systems and storage facilities lead to massive fuel shortages - so the factories may turn out 100 Tigers, but they can't go anywhere.
Another point is that the Allied bombings forced Germany to undertake massive home defence measures, such as fighters, flak batteries, etc. The resources poured into fighter and air defence production represented a large diversion from other industries - an aerial battle of attrition. Unfortunately, I don't have any numbers handy for this.

Much is made of the increases in German production in 44/45, but I think the question to ask is: How much could Speer have accomplished without the problems of bombing? He managed those gains in 1944-5 by ironing out some of the incredible contradictions and inefficiencies in the Nazi system, which made for immediate gains. Perhaps the problems of production within the Third Reich were so huge that those gains were relatively easy once the red tape was cut away. Without thousands of tons of bombs disrupting his work, he may have been able to accomplish more. Are their any numbers available on Real Productions vs. Potential Capacity? I don't believe the Third Reich ever came close to their potential capacity, or the rates of productions (per capita) established by the Allied economies.

In the end, I think the answer is somewhere in the middle - bombing helped, but only to a degree. Certainly (as was mentioned above) the Nazi's ruined more of their own production capacity through their own policies than the Allies ever could by bombing.
There was no 'secret' to victory in WW2 (whether bombing, code breaking, 'blitzkrieg') it was a myriad of factors, most of which were as old as war itself. If anything, the key factor was millions of Russian peasant soldiers slowly grinding their way west.

 

[3rd Herd]

Enfield
I disagree that there was a single desive KEY factor but the culimation of several factors both a the strategic level and at the tactical level.

1) the soviets slowly slogging there why to german could not have dome so with out the massive leadlease assitance from the United States, no so much in armaments as in transport. Twice the Soviets had to halt their offences due to lack of supplies. First when reaching the Warsaw line in 1944 and again in early 1945 or the push to Berlin would have been much sooner. Secondly Stalin took the time ti pacify liberated territory requiring both logistics and manpower-Strategic

2) As pbi states "One is tempted to wonder what the results would have been if they had adopted  "Soviet" -type war production in, say, 1936; a relatively few types, developed in an evolutionary manner, with draconian standardization." This could have been implemented even later say 1942 as for every Tiger series built four Panzer 4's could have been produced in numbers sufficient to match both the T-34 and the less capable Shermans.-Strategic

3) As I stated above the loss of coal heavily contributed to the lack of production espically steel. This is exemplified in the design change of German AFV's from turreted to assult platforms. With the assult platforms such as the Hertzer for usage in the tactical sense ie. german offensesive mind set instead of using them for a purley deffensive role was a contributing factor.

4) Stetegic bombing was not successful as we have been led to believe. "Because the German economy through most of the war was substantially undermobilized, it was resilient under air attack. Civilian consumption was high during the early years of the war and inventories both in trade channels and consumers' possession were also high. These helped cushion the people of the German cities from the effects of bombing. Plant and machinery were plentiful and incompletely used. Thus it was comparatively easy to substitute unused or partly used machinery for that which was destroyed. While there was constant pressure throughout for German manpower for the Wehrmacht, the industrial labor supply, as augmented by foreign labor, was sufficient to permit the diversion of large numbers to the repair of bomb damage or the clearance of debris with relatively small sacrifice of essential production. Air power in the European phase of this war reached a stage of full adolescence, a stage marked by rapid development in planes, armament, equipment, tactics and concepts of strategic employment, and by an extraordinary increase in the effort allocated to it by all the major contestants. England devoted 40 to 50 percent of her war production to her air forces, Germany 40 percent, and the United States 35 percent. source: The United States Strategic Bombing Survey  September 30, 1945 Summary Report (European War)pg 1

5) But Bombing did help to imobilize the German army for in In February and March of 1945 the Germans massed 1,200 tanks on the Baranov bridgehead at the Vistula to check the Russians. They were immobilized for lack of gasoline and overrun. In addition to the bombing the failure to capture the Buku oilfields and the inability to hold the Ploetsi oil add to Germany's fuel woes.

6) As Micheal states "...Germans themselves inflicted on their own war effort " Hitler and his meddling most certainly is another factor as exemplified in the Me 262 program when Hitler intervened in 1944 with an ill-timed order to convert the ME-262 to a fighter-bomber. Virtually every manufacturer, production official, and air force general interrogated including Goering himself, claimed to have been appalled by this order. By May 1945, 1,400 jets had been produced. Had these planes been available six months earlier with good quality pilots, though they might not have altered the course of the war, they would have sharply increased the losses of the attacking forces.

7) The German error in not recognizing the value of their "liberation" of soviet territory. In their dealings with captured soviet troops, imagine the change of events if Hitler had overcome his prejudice against Assian troops and agreed to full cossack divisons. When he did 1943 by 1944 there were an additional 250,000 cossacks serving in the german field formations. (Richard Overy, Russia's War, Penguin Group, New York, 1997). In dealing with the civil populace under the "untermenschen" belief Hitler cost the German's a willing work force both agraculturly and industiraly. After all a happy worker is more productive and intially anti soviet feeling were strong.

8) The invasion of the Balkans to bail Mussoleni out in Greace stripped troops already planed for use in Barbarosa and led to a campign of attrition that was of no stategic value. This bail out was to bit in back when italy capitulated forcing him to remove troops from the Eastern front and transfer them to italy. Costly again in logistics such as rail facilities not to mention the troops and equipment themselves.

a few thoughts







.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

2) As pbi states "One is tempted to wonder what the results would have been if they had adopted  "Soviet" -type war production in, say, 1936; a relatively few types, developed in an evolutionary manner, with draconian standardization." This could have been implemented even later say 1942 as for every Tiger series built four Panzer 4's could have been produced in numbers sufficient to match both the T-34 and the less capable Shermans.-Strategic

The Shermans would still have outnumbered the PzKpfw IV - and in actuality, the Sherman was on a par with the Pz IV, particularly later models of the Sherman with 76mm main armament; compare the armour protection of a Sherman Jumbo, for example, with a "Mark 4", or the penetration data of the 17 pdr vs a Pz IV and you start to see what I mean.  Maneuverability etc. are also comparable; the Pz IV had narrower tracks than a Panther or Tiger, for example, and had no real advantages over a Sherman - reliability was certainly less.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Take it for what you will Michael, but it's really nice to see you here where you belong. Following up on history, and keeping the perspective straight, is what you do best. Try and concentrate on this aspect, you do well at it.

 

[3rd Herd]

The Shermans would still have outnumbered the PzKpfw IV - and in actuality, the Sherman was on a par with the Pz IV, particularly later models of the Sherman with 76mm main armament; compare the armour protection of a Sherman Jumbo, for example, with a "Mark 4", or the penetration data of the 17 pdr vs a Pz IV and you start to see what I mean.  Maneuverability etc. are also comparable; the Pz IV had narrower tracks than a Panther or Tiger, for example, and had no real advantages over a Sherman - reliability was certainly less.

well  Micheal correct me if I am wrong but was not the ratio 1 up gunned Sherman to four 76 mm. Shermans. or in an armoured bn. 3 Coy's 76  mm to one coy 17 pdr.Sherman.  As for the" 76mm main gun it was comparable to the German long 75mm.
If you discuss reliability in terms of taking a hit what were Shermans called? Ronson lighters I believe was the term. As for the PzKpfw IV armoured skirting gave more protection although they did not have the sloped armour of the T-34. Shermans main advantage, there were allot of them and from the soviet point of view

"It is suggested to the Red Army to use such German tanks as StuG III and Pz IV due to their relability and availability of spare parts. The new German Panther and Tiger can be used until they broken down without trying to repair them. They have bad engines, transmission and suspension." - Department of Weaponry of the Red Army, late 1944.

"During the Lorraine Campaign General Patton and a few of his armored commanders were called upon to furnish "testimonials" as to the efficacy in action of the M-4 tank. These "testimonials" may have had some value in building public confidence in American armored equipment, but they should not be taken as a critical evaluation of the American medium tank. The M-4, mounting the short-barreled 75, was outgunned by the Panther (Mark V). The M-4 was less adequately protected by armor than was the Panther. The American medium tank, however, had some important points of superiority. It was more mobile than either the Mark IV or the Panther, although less maneuverable than the latter"

 

[TCBF]

I would say the day they lost the war was the day they liberated Kiev and did NOT run the Ukraine flag up the pole and welcome their newly liberated allies to the war effort.

Of course, the same mindset that caused them to consider the Ukrainians inferior was the one which caused them to march east to start with.

As far as inefficient economic decision making in a dictatorship goes, have we not been seeing that in Ottawa?

;D

Me, on FALLEX 1987, in a Lynx on the Autobahn south of Schweinfurt, at zero-dark-buffalo, talking to my driver: "That's the SKF ballbearing plant over there - keep an eye out for B-17s."

Tom

 

[3rd Herd]

I would say the day they lost the war was the day they liberated Kiev and did NOT run the Ukraine flag up the pole and welcome their newly liberated allies to the war effort.

Of course, the same mindset that caused them to consider the Ukrainians inferior was the one which caused them to march east to start with.

As far as inefficient economic decision making in a dictatorship goes, have we not been seeing that in Ottawa?

;D
Me, on FALLEX 1987, in a Lynx on the Autobahn south of Schweinfurt, at zero-dark-buffalo, talking to my driver: "That's the SKF ballbearing plant over there - keep an eye out for B-17s."

Tom

Was it a Thursday by chance Tom?