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Bad ideas in war

How does the strategic bombing of civilians fall under bad ideas? It tends to strengthen resolve to fight instead of weakening it, you can certainly claim that strategic bombing in Europe was a massive waste of resources and lives all round.

Though Japan is a bit different as there were just not many cities that were even worth using a nuke on in august 45 because so many got destroyed by firebombing. The one raid on Tokyo killing more than both atomic bombs.

I guess the relative lack of risk in Japan also played a role as the US started dropping leaflets staying that in 3 days the city would be destroyed and many fled.
 
Why was it a waste of lives and resources?

What would the output of German industry have been without it?

What extra resources would have been available to the front line troops without it?
 
Andy_Ross said:
Why was it a waste of lives and resources?
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It killed a lot of people both airmen and civilians for at best marginal gains.
What would the output of German industry have been without it?
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Most raids really failed to do significant damage to their targets the bombs were just to inaccurate to hit a factory.
What extra resources would have been available to the front line troops without it?
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ANd what kind of air support would have been available to them if they didn't waste it on strategic bombing.
 
You seem to be repeating the same old fashionable myths.

Why were the results marginal?

I suppose they did such insignificant damage that the didn't really need to disperse the factories to remote forests and underground tunnels?

They didn't have to waste masses of ammunition, artillery and manpower on AA regiments.
They didn't have to tie down the main part of their fighter force defending against attacking bombers.
They didn't have to waste all those resources, aircraft and aircrew on night fighters.
They didn't have to build and operate complex radar networks.
They didn't have their railway network bomber to a standstill when all the marshalling yards and main junctions were destroyed night after night.
Pounding and disrupting workers night and day didn't effect their output, or that of the factories damaged and rebuilt time after time rather than actually producing stuff.
 
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ponderingturtle said:
It killed a lot of people both airmen and civilians for at best marginal gains.
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The gains weren't marginal.

Firstly there was some disruption to German industry. It really would be foolish to suggest otherwise.

Secondly it diverted resources away from the fighting fronts. There were thousands of flak units guarding German cities. Do you think they wouldn't have been of use on the Eastern Front?

Thirdly, the main goal of the strategic bombing in the first half of 1944 at least was to reduce the Luftwaffe to impotence as a prelude to the invasion of Normandy. The strategic bombing was unbelievably successful at that.
 
jimbob said:
What about non nuclear strategic bombing after 1945?

It was generally not a good idea before then, but after 1945, its ineffectiveness was known
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ponderingturtle said:
How does the strategic bombing of civilians fall under bad ideas? It tends to strengthen resolve to fight instead of weakening it, you can certainly claim that strategic bombing in Europe was a massive waste of resources and lives all round.

Though Japan is a bit different as there were just not many cities that were even worth using a nuke on in august 45 because so many got destroyed by firebombing. The one raid on Tokyo killing more than both atomic bombs.

I guess the relative lack of risk in Japan also played a role as the US started dropping leaflets staying that in 3 days the city would be destroyed and many fled.
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jeremyp said:
The gains weren't marginal.

Firstly there was some disruption to German industry. It really would be foolish to suggest otherwise.

Secondly it diverted resources away from the fighting fronts. There were thousands of flak units guarding German cities. Do you think they wouldn't have been of use on the Eastern Front?

Thirdly, the main goal of the strategic bombing in the first half of 1944 at least was to reduce the Luftwaffe to impotence as a prelude to the invasion of Normandy. The strategic bombing was unbelievably successful at that.
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It was a bizarre war of attrition where the USAAF survey itself found that every ton of bombs dropped cost the Allies more than the Germans, but where the Western Allies were better able to afford it.

However after 1945, especially during the Vietnam War, it was clearly going to be counterproductive.

And the Russian use of missiles against Ukrainian civilians far from the front lines must really be a bad idea.
 
Putting a lot of your most productive farmers in concentration camps at the start of a war, see japanese internment.
 
Pope130 said:
They even tried firing V-2s at the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen. Not surprisingly failed. A hit would have been the purest of pure luck.
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Well, I didn't necessarily mean they HAD to use them in that role. The failure is really not considering any strategic goals at any point, including at the stage of deciding whether to build them in the first place.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
Well, I woudn't quite say no attempt. More V2s were launched against the vital port of Antwerp than were fired at London. They just didn't have the accuracy to have the hoped-for effect.

Definitely.
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There were plans for a larger rocket (A4?) that could reach the US, but they did not have the resources and time to test and implement.
 
Sorry, I haven't scrolled back to find if it was previously mentioned, but the Dambusters Raid.

Half of the aircrew were lost in the raid.
They did cause severe damage to two targets and significant to a third.
But the Nazis were able to complete repairs on quite an heroic scale so that, in long term, the strategic effects were minimal.

But:

It was a MASSIVE morale boost in the UK (big enough to cause an iconic movie to be made)
Cemented the name of 617 squadron in RAF history
Caused significant damage downstream that did hit the Nazi production plans. I have seen the markings at the plant that was 23 Base Workshops during the Cold War. They had 13ft (4m) of water through the workshop floor
 
There were all sorts of plans for pretty much everything imaginable, including a space-plane that would bounce around the edge of atmosphere to bomb New York with radioactive sand. (Which, really is as far as Nazi nuclear research went.) But IIRC the latest Revenge Weapon (Vergeltungswaffe) that actually started being built was the V-3 cannon, a fixed cannon built in a fixed shaft in a mountain, using booster charges every X metres, to reach 1500m/s and hit London. Literally it was fixed to hit London and allow for no traverse or elevation adjustments.

That might seem somewhat less than top notch compared to modern APFSDS projectiles nowadays, but at the time it was a pretty revolutionary way to overcome the speed of sound limitations. (Basically the acceleration your projectile gets drops as you approach the speed of sound in that hot gas. Basically less gas molecules catch up to your projectile to bounce on its ass and thus exert an accelerating force on it.)

Of course, it would have been even more flippin' useless than the V-1 and V-2, but... eh... I mean that's redundant. We're talking Nazi "revenge weapons", amirite? :p
 
Mikemcc said:
Sorry, I haven't scrolled back to find if it was previously mentioned, but the Dambusters Raid.

Half of the aircrew were lost in the raid.
They did cause severe damage to two targets and significant to a third.
But the Nazis were able to complete repairs on quite an heroic scale so that, in long term, the strategic effects were minimal.
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Bah that is about basic for strategic bombing and there are so many people here willing to go to bat for that why should that be any different.
 
@ponderingturtle
Not really, no. Operation Chastise (aka, the dambusters raid) fit the old pre-war strategic bombing thinking that you'd find a strategic bottleneck in the enemy's industrial and logistics chain, and you could cause a cascade strategic effect by taking it out. Kind of the same as Britain at the beginning of the war patting themselves on the shoulder about attacking the German refineries... before discovering that they hadn't hit anything at all.

It wasn't perfect, mind you, but at least it had SOME kind of actual strategic objective in mind... as opposed to the Germans who still had no idea WTH a strategic objective even is.

Or as opposed to the Bomber Harris approach of, basically, eh, we'll just bomb their cities to show them who's boss.
 
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HansMustermann said:
@ponderingturtle
Not really, no. Operation Chastise (aka, the dambusters raid) fit the old pre-war strategic bombing thinking that you'd find a strategic bottleneck in the enemy's industrial and logistics chain, and you could cause a cascade strategic effect by taking it out. Kind of the same as Britain at the beginning of the war patting themselves on the shoulder about attacking the German refineries... before discovering that they hadn't hit anything at all.

It wasn't perfect, mind you, but at least it had SOME kind of actual strategic objective in mind... as opposed to the Germans who still had no idea WTH a strategic objective even is.

Or as opposed to the Bomber Harris approach of, basically, eh, we'll just bomb their cities to show the who's boss.
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I think there is a somewhat blurry distinction between strategic bombing in WWII and terror bombing. But strategic bombing like the big raid to diminish ball bearing production did not achieve meaningful results and got a lot of aircraft and their crews killed.

I think the only time Germany tried real strategic bombing was at the beginning of the battle of Britain when they were going after airfields and other aircraft related targets before they thought they could be bombed into submission.
 
There is actually a very clear distinction, even if both sides crossed that line. The pre-war UK and USA idea of strategic bombing was exactly that: strategic. You were supposed to do what I said: find a strategic bottleneck in the enemy's industry or logistics, and strategically cripple their ability to pursue the war by taking it out. The switching to terror bombing was clearly giving up on that for the UK. Like, eh, we can't do that (again, they had actually tried and failed earlier), so let's terrorize the civillians instead.

I'd also include Germany there, except as I was saying, nobody in their military even had any idea of what a strategic objective even is in the first place, so no change there. Their Luftwaffe came the closest, but in all reality, they too fell into the same "we'll win this OPERATION and that somehow wins the war" mentality trap.
 
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HansMustermann said:
There is actually a very clear distinction, even if both sides crossed that line.
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I think there are cases that are easily a bit of both. Take Japan for instance the decentralized nature of much of their manufacturing meant that you really couldn't target manufacturing without targeting civilians too.
 
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