strategic bombing?

[unmerged(11819)]

but what noone knew at the time, or later, or what any player could know, is what will my strat bombing *prevent*? everyone knows how the german economy grew under allied strat bombing. how would it have grown if there wasnt any bombing? where would the fighters have been if they werent over germany? where would the MP, guns and industrial production be that wasnt tied to AA?

its more of a what does this prevent, not what does it do. arguably, the strat bombing campaign kept more resources, MP and weapons in germany than at the front than it cost the allies in resources, MP and weapons to tie up.

 

[Garuda]

In the interview it says:

Well, perhaps someone has removed the ability to quote within a quote. But JJE posted a quote from an interview that states that you may issue a 'logistical strike' order. Is this bombing a port / affecting supplies or something?

btw Its been stated before I know but just to add my tuppence: Please have an option to stategically bomb manufacturing targets.

 

[unmerged(32053)]

the allies couldn't really tell if their bombing of a certain target was effective in any way

Im shocked with the fact that ppl here not able to read and understand graphical and textual statistical information...

As it turns out the Allies didn't think it was working, so they stopped.

Allies thought that losses was too high so they stopped all large scale long range daylight penetration after last Schweinfurt raid (oct. 43) till availability of the long-range escort fighters (jan. 44).

 

[Chaplain]

There was a gigantic raid and someone in high command said something along the lines of 'two more raids like that and we'll be done for'. Sorry its vauge & not direct quotes, but its definitely something along those lines - i.e. that if the Allies had continued with this course of action, it would have *really* hurt the German war effort so much that their armies would be crippled.

You're referring to the Regensburg/Scwheinfurt raids of late 1943, I believe. No matter how successful they were in terms of industry damage, the USAAF could not have sustained the casualty rates on that raid for more than a couple months (60 bombers lost out of less than 300 - 20% casualties. It was horrendous. Without the long-range P-51 and P-38 escorts in abundance, daylight bombing could not bring down the Reich.

 

[unmerged(32294)]

The big bomber raid was at Ploesti, Rumania

Actually, the raid on the oil fields was the raid on Ploestie, Rumania. It was one of the most costly raids of the war, but was effective, and greatly impaired the supply of oil, and thus the efficiency of the german army. If the allies had been aware of the affect on Germany, it would have been worth the bomber loss. We may not hav been able to sustain it for long (ploesti was long recognized by the germans as critical, and had the best AA defenses of any location in WWII)
The major problem with sustaining the raids on Ploesti was not american industry In paul Kennedy's book, "rise and fall of the great powers" he mentioned that american industry was greater than all other major combatants in WWII combined. Pretty incredible, and hard to believe, which is why I cited my source.
That book is an excellent read, by the way, and even though I like WWII history far and above any other era, i read it cover to cover (it is an analysis of why countries from babylon to USSR rose and fell. I highly recommend it.

 

[unmerged(25476)]

Really good discussion here. good arguements on both sides.

I think I follow the school that the allied strategic bombing campaign wasn't nearly as effective or damaging to the german production capacity as some would like to think. Yes is likely slowed it down and the game needs to reflect that but I would be against permanent damage or overcomplicating the algorithim by targeting specific industries or factories. I'd suggest that the game follow a model of targets that have been bombed suffer a efficiency degridation of the factories. that repairs itself using an exponental decay for a period of time..

i.e. algorithm follows somthing like this...

1. Stategic bombing raid targets a province.
2. potential damage to factories and RGO's based on forumula somthing like
"Inital damage to Industry efficiency" = ( Strength of Raid * (Strength of raid - planes destroyed by defenses) * tech level bonus* other bonues* random factor between .2 and .9 for accuracy of bombs)
3. damage to RGO and Factory production starts at some kind of % degridation of output maxed at 80% penalty and min at 20% penatly
4. the penatly disappears with time using an exponential decay... i.e. say your factory has 80% penatly.. well the next week the penalty reduces to 50%, the next to 30%, the next to 20%, the next to 10%, the next to 5% and so on for a period of a month or 2 when it dissapears entierly.

that way startgic bombing does have some kind of effectiveness but is not crippiling someone permanetley.

just one other comment.

I'd say that the strategic bombing campaign was vital to the allied succes in the war i think the allies would have lost the war without it. Without the bombing campaign the germans might have been able to make tigers and me 262 in sufficent numbers to blow at leaswt the western allies away consider the fact that the german tanks destroyed 3 times as many tanks as they lost in russia and 5 times as many in the west so if the numbers would have increased somewhat and with the me262 to ensure air superiority the germans would have won..

I have to agree with the bolded statement but for a different reason. I don't think the bombing campain was significant enough on the production side of things... the Tiger tank was already being ouclassed by the Russian models by the end of the war already the Allies were developing countermeasures such as bazookas and anti-tank guns that would have nullified the Tigers. and the bigger problem with the 262 was that it was configured as a light bomber and not a fighter. But in either case the problem the germans had wasn't with damage to production capacity.. it was that they had no hope in hell of ever matching the production capacities of the Soviets or Americans.. Germany had been in wartime production since 1936. and their industrial capacity had peaked by 1941. yes the allies lost tanks at a ratio or 3:1 and 5:1 but truth is when your being outproduced by like 150:1 it doens't matter. The Russian production didn't really get rolling till late 1942 and it was all the Germans could do to slow the Russian advance after Stalingrad. And the USA economy never did reach full its full potential in the war. Basicly Hitler miscalculated... his only chance to win the war was to have several blitzkerig style campaigns to quickly knock out and conquer europe. he lost the war in 1942 at the gates of Stalingrad.

However the importance of the strategic bombing campaigns has less to do with actual damage than the effects they had on strategy.

the early strategic raids by Britain on Germany enraged Hitler and resulted in the policy shift of the Luftwaff atting RAF airfields and Radar to the Blitz Bombing of London.. that allowed the RAF a breathing space then desparately needed and allowed for the British victory of the Battle of Britain. that delayed the invasion of Britain, Forcing him to attack the Soviets, (again he needed to attack the Soviets before their Industry started to kick in to ahve a hope of defeating them), while still having a western front open causing a distraction. Has Britain been out of the war in 1942 the USA having no allies in europe likely would have concentrated solely on Japan allowing Hitler to finish the Soviets.