70 years after the Dresden raids

[Jericho941]

It depends. IIRC, when the Germans switched from tactical bombing to strategic bombing in Britain, they had the RAF down to something like a week left before they effectively ceased to exist. Shifting their attacks to cities instead of bases gave the RAF enough of a breather to rebound while the Luftwaffe lost aircraft and crew to useless revenge strikes.

That said, strategic bombing was accepted, but still controversial at the time. The firebombing of Dresden was something of little value, but Tokyo dealt a serious blow to Japan's industry. The idea wasn't simply to kill backyard manufacturing, it was to kill production, period. The statement used was something like "18 months to build a factory, 18 years to build a factory worker." Every dead civilian is one who won't be paying taxes, growing food, running power plants, collecting garbage, putting things together, delivering mail, shipping products, turning wrenches or enlisting. Refugees, crime, starvation, disease and destroyed infrastructure put a huge strain on a nation that directly impacts its ability to fight a war.

In theory, anyway. In practice, bombing cities was almost never as effective as anticipated, and dropping warning leaflets on the cities ahead of a raid reflected that not everyone was on board with the "civilians are a valid target" idea.

[Yogimus]

If civilians aren't the target, his military will never meet you in the field

[toad]

It was argued that when the Japanese manufacturing plants started getting bombed they started "distributing" the manufacturing over a wide area, some single small part for example would be made at one workers house. This made for slower production but it supposedly let them keep a steadier production since they did not loose the whole thing in one swell foop.
The attacks on the transportation infra structure were the real killer. Hunger, followed by lower resistance to disease, then the disease. With coastal ports mined, rail roads destroyed the farmers couldn''t get what they needed and the city folks starved.

[MarkD]

Regarding Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Berlin, Yokohama, and any other place the Allies leveled during World War II, I reminded of the sage advice: "Don't start nothing, won't BE nothing."

Or as my Dad used to warn me, if you tease the bull, you get the horns.

[MiddleAgedKen]

It depends. IIRC, when the Germans switched from tactical bombing to strategic bombing in Britain, they had the RAF down to something like a week left before they effectively ceased to exist. Shifting their attacks to cities instead of bases gave the RAF enough of a breather to rebound while the Luftwaffe lost aircraft and crew to useless revenge strikes.

Approximately true as I understand it, but Jerry was at the end of his rope as well, hence the switch to night bombing of the cities. The fighter arm was effectively broken.

[Vonz90]

It depends. IIRC, when the Germans switched from tactical bombing to strategic bombing in Britain, they had the RAF down to something like a week left before they effectively ceased to exist. Shifting their attacks to cities instead of bases gave the RAF enough of a breather to rebound while the Luftwaffe lost aircraft and crew to useless revenge strikes.

Approximately true as I understand it, but Jerry was at the end of his rope as well, hence the switch to night bombing of the cities. The fighter arm was effectively broken.

Two different events. They were winning (just did not realize it) when they switched from attacking airfields to city attacks on September 7th. Their losses relative to the Brits went way up after that and they switched to (mostly) night attacks in October and by the end of November almost only at night.

I don't actually think the evidence suggests the Luftwaffe could have completely gained air superiority. Most of the RAF losses were due to airfield attacks so they could have pulled back to airfields further north/west and had an opportunity to preserve their force (although with less capability to the east/south). Of course, the RAF fighter command was getting a lot of pressure for not being aggressive enough, so it is possible that they would have not taken that course of action.

[slowpoke]

It depends. IIRC, when the Germans switched from tactical bombing to strategic bombing in Britain, they had the RAF down to something like a week left before they effectively ceased to exist. Shifting their attacks to cities instead of bases gave the RAF enough of a breather to rebound while the Luftwaffe lost aircraft and crew to useless revenge strikes.

Approximately true as I understand it, but Jerry was at the end of his rope as well, hence the switch to night bombing of the cities. The fighter arm was effectively broken.

Two different events. They were winning (just did not realize it) when they switched from attacking airfields to city attacks on September 7th. Their losses relative to the Brits went way up after that and they switched to (mostly) night attacks in October and by the end of November almost only at night.

I don't actually think the evidence suggests the Luftwaffe could have completely gained air superiority. Most of the RAF losses were due to airfield attacks so they could have pulled back to airfields further north/west and had an opportunity to preserve their force (although with less capability to the east/south). Of course, the RAF fighter command was getting a lot of pressure for not being aggressive enough, so it is possible that they would have not taken that course of action.

They had plans drawn up for that, but it isnt clear they would politically be able to go through with them. They were starting to catch up fighter production even early on, but the loss of pilots was what was untenable. They even had a double amutee flying for them, although he was an extraordinary case.

[Johnnyreb]

The Japanese need to seriously stop lying to themselves about atrocities their troops did during the war and acting like none of it was their fault. But at the same time, I think they remember better than we do that after they surrendered we tried and executed over 6,000 or their officers, while the Allies killed I think around 400 assorted Germans. Many other Germans were sentenced to death, then commuted to long terms of prison, and then many were just let go after 10 years or so. Most of the Germans were involved with evil stuff that were caught were not executed or even locked up for life, while damn few Japanese convicted of much the same were allowed to live.

I've seen history channel stuff about the prison were the worst Nazis were kept in Berlin and so forth. I don't think I've ever seen a documentary about Japanese officers who were locked up and how that went for them, possibly because not enough of them did get locked up as opposed to shot or hung to fill a prison.

[BDK]

I think some of that disparity may be because the NAZI atrocities were being kept secret. TMK, not much of the regular German army knew of them.

The Rape of Nanking, abuse of POWs, etc were acts by their regular military.

And, frankly, Pearl Harbor, was an attack on us. The NAZIs preyed on, mostly, nations which could deal with it themselves. (I would see why a decision could be made to let France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, etc decide how to handle prosecutions etc on their own.)

In Japan, TMK, we attempted a great deal more political restructuring... Though I suppose we still occupy Germany and Japan in a fashion.

[Jericho941]

I think some of that disparity may be because the NAZI atrocities were being kept secret. TMK, not much of the regular German army knew of them.

Well, Germans in general adopted an "I know nothink!" stance on everything by the end of the war, and it's not hard to see why. The Nazis gave the average Germans just enough sand to bury their heads under. They knew something was up, but it could be safely ignored as someone else's problem. So we'll probably never know really how widespread knowledge was in the Heer or the citizenry.

Come to think of it... anyone heard anything more about the CIA torture scandal since December?