In light of the various threads on the Firebombing of Japanese Cities, Bomber Harris and other debates about strategic bombing, I thought it time we gathered all the ideas on how the war could have been conducted in a different manner.
Could Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan have been defeated without the use of strategic bombing? What were the realistic alternatives? And if so would the war have been shorter?
Your thoughts please.
Regards to all,
Digger.
hi mate in new south
i am a new member and also live in … nsw … maybe things could been done a little diffrent with the fire bombing of japan … but at that time i wos not around … wos it any worse then the outo bombs that ended the war with
japan … did they treat our soldiers any better or worse then what wos dished out to them …???
any way do you collect ww1 … ww2 … korean war films … if so do you have a wish list your looking for maybe i can helf as i have quight a fue films
… my e mail … jwi37212@bigpond.com.au … regards mark
Welcome to the forum anzac, good to have another Aussie on board.
As unsavoury as any form of bombing is, what were the alternatives and could they have been carried outh with less cost in human lives and suffering? I doubt it.
I doubt an invasion of France would have succeeded without a strategic bombing campaign, which must be remembered wrote down the Luftwaffe as a fighting force.
While landings may have been possible against the Japanese home islands as their navy was largely destroyed, Japanese preparations to meet an invader were quite extensive. I think the casualties for both sides would have been far greater than the total bombing casualties.
Regards to all,
Digger.
Hi.
Strategic bombing is necessary, no doubt. It´s just a queston of what targets are struck.
Early war strategic bombardments mainly hit infrastructural, industry and military targets. There were terror attacks on urban areas, too, but they were few. Such bombardments could collapse all war efforts, see Battle of Britain.
Total destruction of urban areas in combat areas were often problematic as the enemy can often defend better in debris areas, see Stalingrad, Caen, Monte Cassino, Jülich.
Late war bombardments of enemy towns should lower the enemy´s will to continue fighting. This concept doesn´t work very well.
Most conventional bombardments in 1945 were “we have bought the bombs so let´s use them, we won´t need them after the war” and almost senseless (My hometown was bombed that way in late March 1945. Only “military” target was a hospital taken over by the Wehrmacht. The hospital and also the bridge over the local river weren´t hit, not even near. 90% of the buildings were hit, 5000 civillians died that day.)
The atomic bombs are a different thing. I´m still not sure if they were really necessary. Maybe they saves millons of japanese civillians from starving in an ongoing war with a total blockade of Japan and many thousands (maybe also more than a million) of allied and japanese soldiers lives.
Yours
tom! 
Who did say you , dear Digger , that Lufwaffe was destroed by strategic bombing?
The official US department of studies of the resaults of European bombing reported:
"in the document it is graphically shown that, in spite of the bombardments of allies, Germany was able to restore and to enlarge plants and to increase the release of the defense production to the final crushing defeat of German armies. German industry never lost its enormous capability for restoration ".
“report shows that in 1944 in Germany worried to death by war was produced 3 times more armor combat vehicles, than in 1942 g.”.
“in 1944 the production of bomber- destroyers in Germany into 3 and the more of times exceeded level 1942 g.”
“in 1944 of night fighters it was produced 8 times more than in 1942 g.”.
"in 1944 in Germany defense economy grew not only in comparison with the previous years; on certain I see productions it was noted an increase of the release in the last block of 1944 in comparison with the first quarter of the same year ".
Only for the short time - when alles bombed the petrol plants in 1943 it was the real strategic bombing, but germans soon could stabilized the situation.
Much more problem for the German economy was the lost of single Reich’s source of natural oil - romanian Ploeshti (25% from all oill supplies of germany)
Certainly allies aviation was extremaly effective against germans, but not in case of “strategic bombers” like B-17 and ets.
If you look to the Nothern Africa battles, the allies could very effective fight the fermans without “ctrategic bombers” but gen. Montgomeri had a lot of problems of deficiency the transport means (air and sea).
Instead of production of transport good airplains like C-47 allies spended the billions of dollars on bilding “Strategic bombers”.
I’m not sure for the reasons of it , may be it was the revenge.
But instead of the creation of power sea and air landing troops ( and means of supplies) US and Britain spended the enourmouse the resources for the super-dear “strategic bombers”. The direct resault of it was the strong deficiency of transpor airplains when it was really needed (for instance in France in 1944)
As you all know the allies was forced to use the primitive gliders during the airborne landing. Many of them were crushed and soldiers died on land.
But much more difficult problem was the stopped the allies becouse the fuel supplies was limited during the offensive in France ( even bombers were used as fuel transport ).
So i think the strategic aviation was just the “wearpon of retribution” nothing more. And a billion dollars which were spended on it were “dropped on wind” (more correctly to the head of german and japan civilians). And instead of effective and quick victory in Western front allies command practically slow down the fight with Germany.
As you know while allies “effectively” bombed the german cities , Read army crushed the german armies in East and as the resault Stalin took the Eastern Europe for himself. It was the bigest political mistake of Britain.
It was the resault of passion of Britain ( powerfull sea state) for wrong the “strategic bombers” theory.
This is absolutly proved the britain historian J.Fuller.
p.s.
Just don’t understand me wrong gentlemens.
I’m not simpatize the germans, and i a litle thankfull for allies - they forced the germans to feel the horror ( just extremaly little payback for the mass atrosities in East and violence above soviet POW).
But honestly tolking , i think if the instead of bombing the germany Allies landing in Normandy at least one year early - it could be saved the Eastern Europe from “liberation” and about 1.5 million soviet soldier come back to the home by alive.
Cheers.
Yes and Yes. The problem is that the decisions which locked the Western Allies into a strong strategic bombing campaign were taken in the late 1920s, when the available military experience was primarily of the Western Front.
It is worth noting that the strategic bombing experienced to date at that point was far more effective per tonne of bombs than anything in WW2 - at least an order of magnitude better. The two led to the mistaken belief that strategic bombing was both highly effective and more humane than conventional warfare.
Once these decisions had been taken and the industrial base to support them built, that was it. The rebuilding of the industrial base to say build heavy armour instead would have taken several years (even with the resources of the US) and in the meantime you would not be producing any weapons at all. Hence that just isn’t an option - by the time you’ve retooled and are producing the more effective weapon types, you’ve lost. The only option is to try to come up with more effective versions of what you’ve already got built using the same industrial base. That’s what the Western Allies did in WW2, moving from the Whitley/B-17A to the Lancaster and B-29 which were capable of laying waste whole cities overnight. It wasn’t pretty, economical or even very morally attractive, but it worked. The alternative wasn’t doing something else, but doing nothing at all.
Moving on to what would have been a better set of decisions, this assumes that a different set of lessons were learnt from WW1, and that sufficient funding to implement them was available during the great depression. These are critically important factors, and weren’t true historically. One of the reasons strategic bombing became popular was that the political classes percieved it as cheap in both blood and treasure compared to standing armies. For colonial “policing” (i.e. bomb the villages of anyone who makes trouble) this may even have been true, but for industrial war it was not.
I’ll stick to the British case here, as that’s the one I know best. Incidentally, Tony Williams’ The Foresight War goes over this in some detail.
The first lesson that should have been drawn was that combined arms warfare as practiced by the UK in 1918 worked, and would improve significantly with technology. The armed services seem to have picked up on this (the BEF was the only fully motorised army in the world in 1939) but funding was not applied to it. Had it been, I would have hoped to have seen:
With perfect hindsight, strategic bombing wasn’t practical and cost effective until the invention of nuclear weapons increased a bomber’s firepower beyond previous comprehension. The problem is that this decision requires knowledge that didn’t exist in the late 1920s to make.
Chevan, I don’t think you’re an apologist for the Nazis by any means, so don’t worry what people may think.
I disagree with some of your points, but I understand your reasoning I hope the feeling is reciprocal as everyone is being very constructive on this thread, the main thrust of which-what were the alternatives to strategic bombing? How could Germany be defeated without the use of strategic bombing?
We have the luxury of debating this over sixty years after the event and my main arguement is that during the war the leadership did not have this luxury or the benefit of hindsight.
The one thing strategic bombing was instrumental in doing was the defeat of the Luftwaffe. The bombing of German cities forced the Jagdwaffe in particular to fight a war it was ill suited to fight. The continual almost daily battles over Germany in 1944 ground down the German fighter force, thus forcing the Luftwaffe ever deeper into the cycle of stripping units from the various battlefronts.
Through the sheer bravery of the German pilots they hung on and were still able on occasion to inflict serious losses on the bomber formations, but at a heavy cost.
Without directly attacking German cities I doubt the Allied air forces could have effectively bought the Jagdwaffe to battle and defeated it. For the defeat of Germany required air supremacy, without attaining air supremacy an attempted invasion of France would have been near suicidal.
Regards to all,
Digger.
maybe have the navy to do their thing and bombard the coastline? That is the only alternatives i can think of.
or maybe use the underground resistance force better?
I think the German minefields which were quite extensive may have prevented an effective bombardment of coastal targets. As it was some areas took many months to clear of mines after the war, so it would have been difficult to operate battleships that close to Germany. Especially if the Luftwaffe had air superiority and as I said the strategic bombing campaign wrote down the Luftwaffe.
Increased use of the Resistance may have been successful, but I doubt it could ever be as effective as the damage wrought to the French railways by bombing. The other problem could have been ever increasing reprisals by the German occupiers.
Does anyone have any other ideas on how Japan could have been defeated without strategic bombing?
Regards to all,
Digger.
You’re off by at least two orders of magnitude. There are a large number of second world war minefields that have NEVER been cleared. Whenver NATO does a minesweeping exercise, the last bit is nearly always a live sweep of an area for second world war mines. In some areas of the Baltic there are Czarist Russian, First and Second world war and Soviet minefields all laid on top of one another, with no proper records. The majority of mines will have corroded into inaction/sunk and been buried in the mud by now, but some are still out there and nobody knows where.
You’re correct of course pdf27, and I should have clarified my point. It took months to clear the main waterways, ports and approaches after the war. As with the millions of landmines sown throughout Europe they are still turning up today.
Part of the problem is many of the German plans for the minefields were lost or destroyed in the end of war confusion.
Regards to all,
Digger.
Hi pdf.
I think you’re not correct here. You mean the British General war plan of war of 1920s. I not think the Strategic bombing compain was the resault of 1920s. For instance the USSR since 1920s has changed it at least 4 times (2 till the WW2 and 2 times during WW2). Germany at least 3 times since 1920s.
It is worth noting that the strategic bombing experienced to date at that point was far more effective per tonne of bombs than anything in WW2 - at least an order of magnitude better. The two led to the mistaken belief that strategic bombing was both highly effective and more humane than conventional warfare.
I agree.
Once these decisions had been taken and the industrial base to support them built, that was it. The rebuilding of the industrial base to say build heavy armour instead would have taken several years (even with the resources of the US) and in the meantime you would not be producing any weapons at all. Hence that just isn’t an option - by the time you’ve retooled and are producing the more effective weapon types, you’ve lost. The only option is to try to come up with more effective versions of what you’ve already got built using the same industrial base. That’s what the Western Allies did in WW2, moving from the Whitley/B-17A to the Lancaster and B-29 which were capable of laying waste whole cities overnight. It wasn’t pretty, economical or even very morally attractive, but it worked. The alternative wasn’t doing something else, but doing nothing at all.
I can’t agree.
What “rebuilding of the industrial base” do you mean?
The production of transport C-47 not needed the rebilding the line for the production of Lancaster or B-17. furthermore instead of 1 B-17 it could be prodused the 2 or 3 of C-47, becouse this is much cheap .
And what rebilding was needed for the production the simple ( but effective and quick) the sea transport instead one cruiser-ship or the battleship.
This sea landing transport could be extremaly needed during D-day (as much as C-47 also)
It’s obviouse it was needed just to re-distribute the recources from the sensless and extremaly dear strategic bombers production to the production of real war-necessary things.
It was need just politic will and right military plans.
And britain ( using US recources) could easy accumulate the enough war power to land in France while 70% of Germans troops were in East.
By the way after the german capitulation in Nothern Africa in may 1943 and the Kurs batle in summer 1943 it was absolutly clear that germans could won this war. Allies hight command considered the decision about landing in Europe. It was the 2 main direction :South France and Italy (or Balcan). I read early that Churchil get on Italy. He hoped to force 45 turkish infantry division took fight agains germans on Balcans and thus save the british influence on the Balcans (and saved it from Stalin). But as we know today Stalit took Balcans for himself ans hence the Italy landing was the mistake of Curchill.
So Churchill strategy was mistaken (if he had any real strategy) and as concequence Britain lost its political and war world’s influence (in difference with US and USSR which practicaly devided world in 2 part after the WW2).
After the WW2 Britain became just folower of US.
So what’s the point. I think there are no any reasons why Britain with US couldn’t open the second front in 1943 and why it was neded to send lend-lise ( which enought to arm at least 15 infantry, tanks and air armies of britans). Why they prefered to send the enourmouse means form the nothern sea way to Murmansk (alt least 30% of which was sended to bottom by germans submarines in 1942-1943) instead of ,for instance to arm the polish voluntaries who such fanaticaly fight against germans.
And why was needed to produse the 3000 strategic bombers instead of at least 10 000 fighters and tactical bombers (which so effectively hited the german armored vechicles) and get the ABSOLUTE air-suppression already in 1943?
Cheers.
The undeground resistance will has not any chances while germany occuped country. Look at the Warsaw uprising - if such “specialist” as Bach-Zelewski could cruely suppressed the poles, then absolutly clear : no any France or some other resistence couln’t changed the situation.
The problem is gentlemen, is one of air superiority, which the Allies had not acheived by the end of 1943. Until they gained air supremacy they could not invade France. As it was in the month after the D-Day landings German ground forces were able to inflict heavy casualties and tactical defeats on the invading forces.
This was in an enviroment of Allied air supremacy.
To attempt an invasion without air superiority would have been a disaster. As I have said before the Allied bomber offensive forced the Jagdwaffe to fight a war it was not equipped to fight and incapable of defeating the bomber armadas. This is where the increased German fighter of production of 1944 disappeared-replacing the horrendous losses in the giant air battles over Germany.
Regards to all,
Digger.
Air supremacy , dear Digger, get the air fighters not the strategical bombers.And if allies shoot down the German air-forces - just becouse allies excellent ( and much more quantity) fighters forces crushed down the german fighters.
The influence of the strategic bombing of 1943-44 on the german air production was practicaly zero ( in the end of 1944 Germany was able to produse the record number of aircrafts 37 000(!)) Look the US report.
It’s absolutly clear that the reason of crashing the Germany air forces in 1945 was the allies and USSR fighters.
Lets to count some figures.
The price of production of one B-17 was about $600 000 - this is price at least 4-5 good fighters ( like P-51 or Spitfire) and about 15 tanks like Sherman.
Certainly if Britain refused the “stretegic bombing company” it coulb be able to produse much more fighters ( instead of 2000-3000 strategic bombers --10 000 or 15 000 fighters) and get absolutly air supremancy in 1943 Plus Lend lise fighters from USSR ( about 10 000 for 1943-45).
Cheers.
Hi Chevan, Dear Friend,
I agree with all your mathematic. But as all your country leaders in the past, (and in present), you’re missing one point… People…
It is possible to increase production of fighter planes, but increasing “production of fighter pilots”, was limited.
It is much easier to train bomber pilot, than able fighter pilot. I mean not turkey after 16 hours on Spitfire or Jak-9, but a real killer.
Production of the “real fighter pilots”, was either in USA and USSR strictly limited.
USSR gave up any strategic bombing, passing it to US an British allies. They concentrated on ground attack and fighter planes. Much more on ground attack. Il-2 Sturmoviks were the best.
It was my humble opinion… Look at more than propaganda books. People are sometimes important…
Cheers,
Lancer44
Hi Lancer-mate 
Very glad to meet you again.
I am agree in priniple, but don’t forgot the best (and single) “the plant for prodaction of fighter pilot” of extra-class was the front air battles. Even if you flied 3000 hours on the sky without the enemy you could be easy shooted down in real air battle. So if Allies could prodused more realy battled fighters then the limit of pilots will automatically increased.
And aslo don’t forget that crew of strategic bomber is not one man but 8-12 nembers of crews. And i strongly doubt the you could esay to drive the strategic bombers - if you can it you must be extra-pilot already.
Becouse the masterpiese of its time - 4 engine strategic bombers needed very accurate professional driving.
And i not sure , mate, that the preparation of hight quality crew for strategic bombers is the more easy then the preperation of 10 fighters pilots.
By the way, what “propoganda books” do you mean?
Cheers
Excerpt from a letter received by Oberst Hannes Trautloft from Major Hans Phillipp Kommodore JG 1 in October 1943…“probably Oberst, you can’t get the picture of what we have here. This time we are comfortably installed, the girls are numerous and we have all that we need. The bad point is that the aerial fighting is extremely hard. Hard, not only because the enemy are superior in numbers and the Boeing better armed, but also because we just left the comfortable chairs of the operation room and the music impregnated atmosphere of the living area. To fight against twenty Russians or some Spitfire is fun and you forget that you are not certain you will survive. But to go over a group of seventy Flying Fortresses makes you see your whole life in front of you. And once you have made up your mind and go in, it is even more difficult to force each pilot of the squadron, right down to the youngest ‘green’ to do the same…”
Hans Phillipp one of Germany’s most successful, experienced and popular fighter pilots was killed in combat soon after, when attacking American bomber formations over Munster.
Between January and May 1944, 1,850 German fighter pilots were lost in combat over the Reich, including many of the finest Geschwader, Gruppen and Staffel leaders. These men were irreplacable and all were killed attempting to defeat the air armadas attacking German cities and installations.
So serious was the situation German pilots were ordered to evade combat with the fighter escort and go after the bombers.
The bombing raids on German were responsible for the defeat of the Luftwaffe, despite what post war studies concluded. Surviving German fighter pilots testify to this.
Source from the above quotes-Defenders Of The Reich- Jagdgeschwader 1 volumes two and three by Eric Mombeek.
Regards to all,
Digger.