WWII (From US Thread)

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pierre,

I will not debate the value of French intervention in the American Revolution. No doubt, it ensured our victory and recognition afterwards.

I will disagree that the French revolution was entirely unrelated to the American one, however. Yes different interests were involved. But the fact that a successful revolt for the concept of "liberty" had been waged already (with french aid) did not do anything but embolden the wills of those committed to that "cause" in France.

Also, the French monarchy unwittingly helped his adversaries by bankrolling the endeavor to the point of near bankruptcy of the French. He lacked the financial wherewithal to stave off the revolt when it came to his shores.

As for US involvement in WWII, you grossly understimated it. "A lot longer."??? Please. Churchill himself said that we was never sure the war would be won until after the US entered. And after the US entered, he was always sure eventually they would win.

Also, you forget that the US fought Germans in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy before the Normandy invasion. "a few months"? We fought front line German troops longer than some other Allied nations who started the war did.

Part of the reason the Nazi war machine was broken in Europe was that Hitler had to divert divisions and resources away from the Eastern front to face the allies in the West. The British army alone could NEVER have mounted the kind of threat to warrant Hitler's attention in the West. If the full fury of the German war machine had been able to be turned on Russia from 1941 on, the results could very well have been different.

More to the point, it was Roosevelt, not Churchill, whose guarentees of eventual involvement in a mjor European second front assuaged Stalin. Without the US, Stalin very well might have been willing to make a Brest-Livotsk style seperate peace. It was not outside Communist thinking to do that.

 

[unmerged(2254)]

Originally posted by pierre

I still think Russia alone could have defeated Germany.
And, mostly, the full fury of the german army turned on Russia in 1941.

Plain wrong.
Hitler greatly underestimated the russians.
He even had some reasons for this, because he saw how they had fared in Finland. So he sent old equipment, some of it remnants from WW1, to the eastern front, he thought the barbarians would not be able to counter his offensive anyway.
And even with that weak equipment, the Nazis were able to strike deeply into russian soil.
Stalin had made too little war preparations.
However, Hitler should have known better: Some russian general had made a visit to a german barracks back in the time when they were allies, and there the germans proudly presented their war equipment. When the german armors had passed by, the russian general said something like: "Fine, but where are the big ones?".
The russians had some excellent tanks when the war started, and they proved their ability to produce even better ones.

However, would the US not have joined the war, it wouldn't have been so easy for the UK to get complete air superiority.
The german industry would have been able to produce a lot more war equipment (due to a lot less bombardments), and most of it would have been sent to russia, because any invasion of england would have been highly improbable.
The late german tanks were far superior to many russian tanks, and they were at least equal to the best. Only they were able to produce too few of them.
I still think russia would have been a formidable opponent, but I guess it would have been possible for the nazis to stop them from getting to Berlin.
Speaking in EU terms, I guess the nazis may have gotten a white peace, if they were lucky.

 

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The success of allied bombing is quite controversial. While it is sure that operation Barbarossa wasn't made with the absolute best of what nazi Germany could afford, I don't think that this matters really a lot. As for the 1940 offensive in France, Germans won because of a better strategy, better training, better planning and better chain of command, that ended in an enormous margin in every single confrontation, far beyond any real technological difference. The offense grinded to a halt because of three main factors: the distances, which stretched supply lines and exposed them to partisan activity; the attrition of 6 months of a full-scale war, that depleted enormous manpower and equipment resources, and finally the difficulty of managing the mass of prisoners and the conquered lands, especially because of the foolish and criminal nazi policy, that enforced a brutally racist government, failing to exploit the possibility of collaborators.
In the following two years, Nazi Germany put everything on the Eastern Front, but didn't manage to gain enough momentum to ultimately win the war. Allied supply payed a very significant role in Soviet resistance, but it is purely speculative to tell how much had they been decisive. As for the final outcome of the war, in 1945 Germany was clearly won. The battle of Berlin had been the necessary outcome of the war, as Nazi regime wouldn't accept any other result; but we can say, although on a pure speculation basis, that maybe in a less bombed Germany, with a less exacerbated population (that in many regions never liked very much the nazis), the regime could have been overthrown. But who knows?

 

[joak]

Originally posted by Cadorna

So he [Hitler] sent old equipment . . . And even with that weak equipment, the Nazis were able to strike deeply into russian soil.

OK, this is something I haven't heard before. I know much of the German equipment was old, of necessity, but are you saying Hitler had better forces elsewhere he chose not to commit? What where they doing instead?

My understanding was he sent pretty much everything he had at the time.

 

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I agree with Loewefuchs analysis of the Eastern front and WW2. I recently read somewhere that the British dropped more bombs than the US did. I don't know if it is true, but regardless, I don't think the air campaign was as successful as most people think.

We are very OT here, who started this thread... oh yeah me, what was I asking about anyway?

 

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Originally posted by Trooper
I agree with Loewefuchs analysis of the Eastern front and WW2. I recently read somewhere that the British dropped more bombs than the US did. I don't know if it is true

It almost certainly is true ... the Americans only wanted to bomb Germany as a war aim - the British wanted revenge.

 

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Is this a half hour argument or the full hour?

Allied bombing 40-45
USAAF/RAF
1.461,864/1,235,609 tons droped
758,818/687,462 bomber sorties
9949/11,965 bombers lost
8,420/10,045 ftrs lost
79,265/79,281 air personel lost

This is a tricky one to evaluate, but here goes...
The effects of Allied bombing are best compared to actual german production, compared to planned production, but there are other factors to consider. By 44 2 mill( more than in the aircraft industry) were needed in the AA forces. A third of art and a fith of all shells were used by those AA defenses, as was a third of the optical production. The alluminium alone used by the AA could produce 12-15000 ftr air frames.
The planned 80,000 airframes for 44 yielded only 36,000. So on this one example we can say that the effect was considerable.

I have seen nowhere that the Germans had unused superior equipment that was withheld from Barborosa, nor is it sensible to critize their racial policys as foolish, that is what they were, foolish or not, those policy were central to their ideology, its inherently part of the system, and could not be altered. They had already decided which peoples were to be exterminated, germanized, expelled east. Secondly it discounts the extensive use of Hiwis, and SS raised formations from all and sundry late in the war. LL we have done on other threads.

Hannibal

 

[unmerged(598)]

Originally posted by Hannibal Barca
Is this a half hour argument or the full hour?

That was never 5 minute just then

W Murray claims that without losses from bombing, German industry might have equalled USA or Russia.

On average a Flak 36 88mm weapon expended 16,000 shells to bring down one aircraft. In 1943 2132 Flak batteries defended Germany, the primary tank killer in the German army was the 88mm AA. Moving just 50% of these would enable 5,000 88mm and 250,000 men to be transferred to the Russian front in time for Kursk. Add in the Luftwaffe units from Germany, and those Sturmoviks will take as much additional damage as the Russian tanks.

There was no way the Western allies could open a second front in 1943, the air campaign was the equivalent of that second front.

Next, consider the German response to terror bombing; building V1, and V2. It was estimated that the V2 program consumed resources for 24,000 fighters and the equivalent total resources 1/3 of what the US spent on the Manhattan project.

For those who claim that German industry expanded over the course of the war, correct. They added slave labor from the occupied territories, and finally transformed their economy to a wartime economy. However, due to the 8th Air Force, fighter production dropped from a high of 1,263 in July 1943 to 687 in December 1943. Remember, this is when the war was still in the balance, and the Russians facing the brunt of the German war machine.

While the British air campaign is harder to quantify, there are some figures for the American campaign.

In June 1944 Americans knocked out 90% of German aviation fuel production. Even through desperate German efforts to rebuild, after July the output was 2% of normal output.

Gasoline shortages ensured that B of Bulge was a disaster, and surely the Russians could owe some thanks to their advance into Germany as the 1,800 German Panzers in Silesia were all but imobile.

In 1944 a combined US/UK campaign against German transportation. Material carloads dropped from 899k to 547k from August to December. Railyards in December '44 were working at 40%, by Feb '45 20%. In December 1944 between 30% and 50% of all factories were unable to continue production. Further evidence of transportation difficulties lies in the Rhur. Coal stocks rose from 45,000 tons to 217,000 tons during the same period as above.

Not only was Strategic bombing damaging to German industry, and consumptive of German men and material, but in the dim days of 1942, with UBoats rampant in the Atlantic, defeat in Africa and no hope of victory they were a morale boost to the British population.

 

[joak]

Originally posted by Hannibal Barca

Allied bombing 40-45
USAAF/RAF
1.461,864/1,235,609 tons droped
758,818/687,462 bomber sorties
9949/11,965 bombers lost
8,420/10,045 ftrs lost
79,265/79,281 air personel lost

Hannibal, are these figures total or just for the western theater?

As far as the effectiveness, I can't comment much, but it's worth mentioning that serious, knowledgeable people questioned its worth from the time it started to the present. The industrial costs of mounting it were enormous, and casualties (as the figures above show) were similarly high--I think the Germans lost ~500,000 civilians, compared to 160,000 trained airmen. The only possible military justification is effect on industry, which is hard to quantify.

 

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Originally posted by joak


OK, this is something I haven't heard before. I know much of the German equipment was old, of necessity, but are you saying Hitler had better forces elsewhere he chose not to commit? What where they doing instead?

My understanding was he sent pretty much everything he had at the time.

Not everything! I read a book written in the mid-60s that was about the Nazi's connection with the Occult. According to this book (which is quite believable), the German soldiers were not properly equiped with winter gear because the Nazi leadership (re: Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels) idiotically thought that the Germans were descended from the old Norse Frost Giants and that they would have the advantage in any winter fighting (which they did not anticipate anyhow).

 

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joak.....
European theatre only, and your right it was questioned then and now. Also their is a divergence between the UK and US as to target priority. The effectivness of area bombing is almost impossible to quantify, its effect after all is not primarily to do industrial material damage, but to disrupt the production indirectly. Unfourtunatly for all concerned a theory was put to the test that resulted in about 650,000 german civ deaths, more italian civs than UK civs as a result of area bombing.

end 43-1945 Bombing strategy over germany
Air industry---51.000--5.2%--6024---0.5%
Air bases------46.979--4.8%--4353---0.3%
Sub pens-------17.108--1.8%--16,721-1.3%
Ball bearings--6,513---0.7%--13,522-1.0%
oil Instal-----130,979-13.5%-93.902-7.1%
Chemical Fac---14,615--1.5%--18,212-1.4%
Rubber fact----1032----0.1%--771----0.1%
AFV Fac--------16,992--1.7%--68-----0.01%
Land Transport-307,115-31.6%-107,402-8.1%
Area bombing---378,780-39.1%-1,053,758--80.29%

This is when the effect is felt, prior to this in 40-43 the totals are small fry, US 45,000, the UK 41-31,000,42-45,000,43-157,000, during this period allied bomber production vastly excedded losses, germanys did not. However the axis didnt subscribe to the same theory that the strategic bomber will always get through, AND that it will win the war. Instead they built an AA defense, coupled with ftr, that came close on a number of occasions of causing the defeat of the strategic bombing campaign. However this shows that if pressed the UK had the ability to hit other targets than citys, there is slack in the system if you like, and that the chosen policys were not the only ones avaiable to them.

Lets not forget that by 44 germanys war production was actualy at its peak, despite the bombing, this was helped by 6 million forced slave labour along with germany women(60% of total workforce) taking up war production work. Albert Speer from a modest start base of production in 42 trebled it by 44, in the teeth of the allied strategic onslaught.

German armaments production
Munitions
40--865.000
41--540.000
42--1,270,000
43--2,558,000
44--3,350,000

Hannibal, isbn0-7230-0939-2 for nos.

 

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To evaluate the success of the bombin campaign you also have to think of the resources put into building and maintaining a large bomber force that could only be used for exactly this purpose. How many would this material been in fighters, tac bombers, tanks and other equipment? how much would they have mattered? etc...

 

[grumbler]

Originally posted by SoleSurvivor
To evaluate the success of the bombin campaign you also have to think of the resources put into building and maintaining a large bomber force that could only be used for exactly this purpose. How many would this material been in fighters, tac bombers, tanks and other equipment? how much would they have mattered? etc...

Indeed, how much Allied material lost at sea to the U-Boat campaign would otherwise have been saved had these exact airframes been pressed into service as U-boat hunters instead of being thrown against Germany?

The bombing offensive can at best be called a draw. My own opinion is that it was pursued as part of a political strategy to force the creation of independent air forces, and not for military reasons at all. After all, the armies and navies can win wars, as history has shown. Only an independent ability to win wars will justify the severing of the air forces from their role as auxillaries to the other services.

Can the recent Kossovo/Serbia campaign be part of the same political process? Surely not (unless you are a cynic like me!)

 

[unmerged(2539)]

Grumbler
Indeed, how much Allied material lost at sea to the U-Boat campaign would otherwise have been saved had these exact airframes been pressed into service as U-boat hunters instead of being thrown against Germany?
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Was this not achieved in 43(may july/Aug) in the Atlantic? with the employment of very long range bomber(18in 42, 49 in 43), now equiped with the 10cm radar(from april)that gave the tech edge back to the allies, in addition to escort carrier. 86 Uboats foolishly tried to fight their way across the bay of biscay for example, 55 were found, 16 sunk by air, 1 by navel action, 6 turned back, resulting in a change of policy bu Doenitz. The VLRB, allowed 12-15 aircraft to be with a convoy for 3 hours a day, every day from may onwards. By 44, the whole YEARS merchant losses were less in tonnage than a average 42 months loss. By this phase of the sea war the uboats main contribution was to tie down diproportional navel assets, rather than shipping losses inflicted.


Can the recent Kossovo/Serbia campaign be part of the same political process? Surely not (unless you are a cynic like me!)
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nothing wrong with being a cynic.

Hannibal

 

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This however was only a short change. Had (yes, always "had") the war dragged on the introduction of "real" u-boats with high submerged speeds may have changed this figure again.

 

[grumbler]

Hannibal,

It is true that the U-boats had been largely defeated by the end of 1943 or early 1944. However, this was TWO YEARS after the US entered the war! Had the resources devoted to the bombing campaign been applied in 1942 to the Battle of the Atlantic (and had the british started earlier with their own efforts) the battle of the Atlantic would have been won much earlier, with very positive effects on the total Allied war effort (moreso than the bombing campaign had), IMNSHO.

 

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Grumbler, one of the selling points of bombing Germany at the time was that it was taking the war to Germany. While long range bombers working the Atlantic might have had some success; without radar, the impact might have been less.

While attacking the UBoats was vital, it did smack of reacting to Germany's attacks. If you devote your war effort to reaction rather than action, then it can be very difficult to regain the initiative.

While it is impossible today to prove the value of strategic bombing over other uses of those resources, at the time it was theorized that bombing might win the war alone. In 1941 Britain had no way of landing on the continent, so their only option was to test the theory. While the major offensive did not start until 1942 it was still at a time, when the invasion of Europe was some years off, and potentially impossible. Summer '42 still had many believing that the Soviet Union could be defeated by Germany. Had that happened then no Normandy invasion would have been possible, and the only route to winning the war would have been in the air.

While we can state that Strat Bombing was not a complete success, we cannot state that it was a failure either. It probably falls somewhere in between, but the damage done to the Luftwaffe, and the movement of destruction to Germany itself was a benefit to the war effort that could not have been done any other way between 1942 and 1944.

 

[unmerged(2539)]

Bomber command drops 45,000 tons in 42, a pittance to what comes later,
when the heavy lift Stirling and Lancasters are available in quantity, combined with trained crews. So i dont credit the 42 as having any great effect, while at sea the existing radar was poor, more being spotted by sight by Hudsons/Catalinas, the VLR Liberators that would be useful coupled with the ocupation of Greenland to extend cover come into service in July 42, that also coinsides with the Ultra decrpts of the german navel codes, only a short period due to procedual change in 43, otherwise in the intel market the odds swing against germany mid 42, in short while more airframes would no doubt have helped, its the access to the azores, brazil, ascension, iceland coupled with better intel and VLR bombers that set the sceen for success in 43, i doubt very much more could have been achieved in 42 by a larger air participation.
Secondry to this as you mention is inter service rivalry, the RN would accept that land based cover was helpfull, but would hold that they were able to get the job done themselves.

But feel free to convince me im wrong.

Hannibal

 

[unmerged(598)]

Originally posted by Hannibal Barca
Bomber command drops 45,000 tons in 42, a pittance to what comes later,

Yes, but a start. If they don't start in '42 then it's harder to start later.

So i dont credit the 42 as having any great effect,

Morale morale and morale.

If Strategic bombing is not carried out, and those assets not transferred to the sub war, then what else could be done? Maybe send those planes to Africa?

 

[grumbler]

Originally posted by sean9898
Morale morale and morale.

If Strategic bombing is not carried out, and those assets not transferred to the sub war, then what else could be done? Maybe send those planes to Africa?

This is a non-inconsiderable benefit to using these aircraft in an inefficient manner. Much as early heavy AA was employed to help the morale of the citizens of the big cities (rather than to shoot down enemy bombers), strategic bombing DID give the British public the false impression that they were "hitting back" when there were almost no other means of doing so.

Given that a heavy bomber required the same resources to build and maintain as 8 fighters or 4 medium bombers, I could see that the same resources used to maintain the heavy bombing campaign would have been very useful in North Africa or Burma (given that you had the shipping to get them to the overseas theatre). Britain was critically short of aircraft in the Far East in late 1941 to mid-1942.