Bad ideas in war

[Andy_Ross]

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?

Didn't Saddam start building a version?

 

[HansMustermann]

@ponderingturtle
Granted, but that was still SOME kind of strategic thinking, which gave its name to, you know, strategic bombing. It wasn't just supposed to mean long range bombing. Seriously, there are interwar papers written about that.

But it was... less so of the same thing in other places.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Didn't Saddam start building a version?

Yes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Babylon

 

[HansMustermann]

Not the same scale, but... still... you know... megalomaniac dictator commissions stupid megaproject weapon, news at 11

 

[jimbob]

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

I disagree. It was something that didn't work as well as hoped. And the RAF should have followed up better - but that doesn't make it a bad idea.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I disagree. It was something that didn't work as well as hoped. And the RAF should have followed up better - but that doesn't make it a bad idea.

Well now we are getting into foresight vs hindsight and when it is appropriate to give up on an idea.

 

[theprestige]

Yeah, the hindsight thing really clouds the issue. Here's a couple conundrums for you:

Was Operation Eagle Claw a good idea that looks bad because it was plagued by bad luck?

Was Operation Neptune Spear a bad idea that looks good because they managed to pull it off?

 

[HansMustermann]

Feel free to offer your own insight, really. Nobody will oppose your offering on-topic information in any thread.

 

[theprestige]

Feel free to offer your own insight, really. Nobody will oppose your offering on-topic information in any thread.

The conundrum is my insight.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, that's more than fair enough.

 

[Pope130]

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.

The A-9/A-10 two stage rocket was designed to deliver a 1000kg warhead to the eastern United States. The second stage A-9 was based on the A-4 (V-2) with wings added that gave it a supersonic glide capability.

 

[SpitfireIX]

Yeah, the hindsight thing really clouds the issue. Here's a couple conundrums for you:

Was Operation Eagle Claw a good idea that looks bad because it was plagued by bad luck?

Was Operation Neptune Spear a bad idea that looks good because they managed to pull it off?

Eagle Claw failed due to the lack of dedicated Special Operations air assets, a deficiency that had been corrected by the time of Neptune Spear.

 

[HansMustermann]

Was Operation Eagle Claw a good idea that looks bad because it was plagued by bad luck?

Was Operation Neptune Spear a bad idea that looks good because they managed to pull it off?

Well, to finally actually answer,

1. Eagle Claw was actually a good idea, but the execution was lacking. (They really should have executed someone for that)

2. Neptune Spear... well, I have my doubts about its morality and what international message it sends (i.e., whether it was a good idea,) but you have to admit the execution was definitely not lacking. (I mean, they did execute him, right?)

 

[Aber]

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.

A few things to unpack:

Only daylight bombing gives you the accuracy to hit individual factories or refineries eg Supermarine factory in Southampton. Single raids do not necessarily destroy factories, you need to keep hitting them regularly. The defence has a say, either with active measures like AA or passive measures like smokescreens. Therefore even if you have correctly identified a bottleneck, it will be expensive to destroy.

The alternative is aiming for widespread destruction - taking out power lines, water and gas pipes, roads and railways, and using incendiaries to burn out the area, including housing. Model was set by the raid on Coventry by the Germans, with the British assessment of how damage had been caused used as a template for Bomber Command. This does not necessarily result in huge numbers of civilian casualties, with the exception of firestorms.

 

[Andy_Ross]

As the war went on and new navigation aids, equipment and techniques were developed, night bombing became as accurate as day bombing.
Allied bombing was a constantly developing thing

 

[The Great Zaganza]

It is a fact of war that armies and leaders will always overestimate the impact the newest toys have.

Hitler was convinced that the V-1 and V-2 would bring London, and with it Britain, to its knees - we now know that they did practically nothing of relevance for the outcome of the war.

Similar the bombing of German cities and factories: because of the massive amounts of available slave labor, the setbacks were minor from a logistic point of view - but the Allies were in love with their bombers.

In fact, we now know that bombing in general has a far smaller ability to degrade an enemies capabilities than is generally assume - which should have been obvious by the absolutely ludicrous amounts of bombs dropped in WW2 in Europe or Asia, in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and all the other wars and conflicts of the Middle East.

It is just convenient because you are unlikely to lose a lot of people doing it, and might kill a lot of other people, conflict relevant or not. It makes you think you are doing something when you are really not.

 

[HansMustermann]

I'm not convinced that Hitler actually thought he would make anyone surrender by bombing them, or not that it would be THAT easy.

As I was saying, Germany didn't have any kind of strategy concept at any point, including strategic bombing. Nor, in the early stages, a concept of terror bombing. Even when they ended up devastating a city, it was either supposed to be tactical support (e.g., Rotterdam or earlier Warsaw) or going after the factories (e.g., Coventry).

Initially, the Luftwaffe didn't INTEND the collateral damage, but also didn't really CARE about doing collateral damage. Especially against Slavs and other "subhumans", the doctrine was more like, eh, no problem with doing any amount of collateral damage, nobody gives a flip about those anyway.

The obsession with London came after they accidentally bombed London, then England bombed Berlin. And I think it was clear to everyone in Berlin that Germany ain't gonna surrender because Berlin got hit. Then Göring bragged about how it won't happen again, the Brits promptly did it again.

But something else also happened: the British papers were making a huge fuss about bombing Berlin. And basically Hitler or possibly Goebbels saw the propaganda potential if they do the same big fuss about punishing London, to keep German morale up. As you say, "It makes you think you are doing something when you are really not." Except in this case, more like, it lets you tell your population that you are doing something when you are really not.


And really the same would be seen in the vengeance weapons. Hitler was initially unimpressed with what would become the V-2, and actually said that it was basically just an artillery shell with longer range at the expense of much higher price. The final decision to christen the A4 as vengeance weapon 2 and use it, was really mostly based on needing something for propaganda purposes than anything else.

But really, if there's any doubt, just look at the naming of the two. They weren't called strategic missiles, they were called REVENGE weapons.

 

[Roboramma]

I found this review of the book How the War Was Won by Phillips Payson O’Brien pretty interesting.

By examining where the Axis focused their productive capacities and how the Allies disrupted those capacities, O’Brien challenges virtually every part of that narrative:

- The Battle of Britain was not a close-run thing. The fact that British fighter planes were flying over their own territory meant their attrition rate of pilots and aircraft were far lower than the Germans’.

-American and British bombing mattered far more to the war’s outcome than the battles of the Eastern Front, which consumed a much smaller portion of German expenditures.
American and British airpower made German battlefield victories on the Western Front virtually impossible and dramatically limited the force Germany could bring to bear in the East.

- Japan (really, Japan plus the giant empire it conquered at the beginning of the war) was an industrial behemoth to rival the Soviet Union. However, the destruction of the Japanese merchant fleet by American air and sea forces wrecked Japan’s economy.

- The firebombing of Japanese cities and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had an ambiguous strategic effect. American air power played a much more important role in severing Japan from the natural resources it had conquered in the early part of the war.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

A lesson learned in WW2, and promptly forgotten in many conflicts, is that Air Power alone is never enough.
You need boots on the ground, or you are just slowing down the enemy, but can never beat them.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Similar the bombing of German cities and factories: because of the massive amounts of available slave labor, the setbacks were minor from a logistic point of view - but the Allies were in love with their bombers.

Bollocks

What point of the war are you using as your reference for this?

What do you think the output of slaves working in underground caves was compared to skilled workers in well equipped factories with working transport infrastructure and constant power?