Industrialisation and the Second World War.

[A.Mookerjee]

The Second World War, was a tragedy on a mass scale. Both The Allies, and The Axis Powers, did not think twice, before bombing each others' civilian population centers. The reason could have been, that the armies were being populated by the civilian population. In other words, civilian's were being drafted into the regular army of their respective nation's. Hence, during the Second World War, we encountered the blitz, and in Germany, Dresden was the target of indiscriminate bombings by Great Britain. Dresden, perhaps, had no value, as a military target. Perhaps, in the future, if governments do not encourage such drafting practices into their armies, then perhaps, the civilian populations will be spared in the warring nations. Neither Dresden, nor Great Britain, could have escaped the carnage. There were perhaps, many factories in the vicinity of London, which were contributing to the war, by manufacturing war material. Hence, to discourage the British, from fighting, Germany decided, perhaps, to bomb them. So, we can assume, that the carnage of the Second World War, took place, because of the unfortunate circumstances the people of the great war found themselves in.

 

[rrrtx]

Large scale war between nations (or blocks of nations) is most effectively waged both against the economic capacity of a country and against it's will to fight. Sadly, civilians are fair game as a result.

Conscription enables the state to fight these wars. It's an instrument used by a coercive state to achieve it's goals. The ultimate form of taxation really (milder than taxes, but coercion in service of the state as well).

Industrialization isn't the problem in and of itself although it creates the wealth and physical means to build a war machine. It's nationalism and statism that cause the really big wars and the resulting destruction.

 

[riksavage]

The bombing of Dresden was a favour to the Russian's. Whilst the city had no high-value manufacturing centres it represented a major intersection of MSR's, which would have been critical to moving troops and equipment forward to support the German defence against the ongoing Russian onslaught. The mission was to cause confusion and carnage, suck in resources and prevent the movement of reinforcements and material East.

Bomber Harris decided once the Germans bombed populated areas of London, Manchester and Coventry the 'gloves were off' and he was determined to sow a terrible whirlwind of distruction. He was apparently stopped once by a police officer on his way home for speeding and told if he didn't slow down he might kill someone, he replied I already have, about ten thousand tonight!

The only reason Germany didn't do the same is because they had 'crap' bombers when compared to the Allies. The German aircraft bomb carrying abilities were pitiful when bench-marked against the Lancaster, B17 & Liberators sent over Germany.

 

[Gremlin29]

London was bombed for years for the sole purpose of trying to create terror in the population. Likewise, Dresden was bombed for the sole purpose of creating terror in the civilian population. The concept of terror bombing as a strategic tool goes back to WW1 and had proponents and opponents in the respective militaries and governments.

For all the bombs dropped during WW2, only 2 actually achieved their strategic goals and they were both dropped on Japan. Otherwise and despite the claims of the US Army Air Force of WW2, strategic bombing did little to nothing to hasten the end of the war in europe.

Not sure if the OP intends to make it sound as if collateral damage was an unfortunate and unintended byproduct of the strategic bombing campaigns of both sides however the facts are, collateral damage was the specific goal when talking about London, Dresden and even Tokyo to name a few.

 

[swerve]

Bombing of transport networks had a great effect on the German ability to prosecute the war, & hastened the final collapse of German resistance. The Germans became unable to transport completed weapons to the troops, sub-assemblies to where they were needed for fitting to weapons, fuel to the tanks, aircraft etc. that needed it, etc. If transport had been a higher priority, it might have had that effect much sooner. Some of the "panacea" targets the USAAF attacked (e.g. ball bearing factories) also had great potential, but unfortunately the attacks weren't carried on long enough, enabling the Germans to survive until they'd built new, dispersed, production facilities. Note that German reaction to the raids: it showed that the Germans thought they were effective & dangerous, & the Allied assessment that the raids were failures was mistaken.

Strategic bombing did work, when it was accurate & targets were selected wisely. Unfortunately, that combination was very rare.

By the way, do you consider the 1944 transport plan, to disable the northern French transport network by bombing in order to prevent German armies in Normandy being reinforced, to be tactical or strategic?

 

[Gremlin29]

I don't mean to imply that the allied bombing campaigns didn't damage the enemy. What I am saying is that strategic bombing during WW2 did not achieve what it claimed as a strategic success. On the contrary, I think it was a huge failure, due to poor target selection and certain assumptions. The Germans produced more tanks and airplanes in the month of December 1944 than they did the entire year of 1941. If strategic bombing had been a success, this would not have been possible. None of the industries targeted, were put out of action.

The Germans lost the ability to continue the war once the Russians captured Romania and more importantly Ploesti which was, the Germans sole source of natural petroleum. With Ploesti gone, the Germans sole source for gasoline etc was the synthetic stuff made from coal. Had the one (it may have been 2) synthetic fuel plants in Germany been destroyed, the Battle of the Bulge would have never happened and the war would have ended in the fall of 1944. The Ploesti raids weren't successful, they only temporarily limited production and the allies gave up on that target before it was totally destroyed. Anyway the Germans had tanks and planes o'plenty, they just didn't have the fuel for them to be anything more than giant paper weights.

Railroad tracks are a tactical target, they are impossible to destroy and were merely put of of service. It has been published many times that railroads tracks were typically put back into service within 24 hours. A target that reappears 24 hours later is not strategic IMHO.

For strategic bombing to have been a success, the bombers would have had to bring critical industry to a halt (it didn't), deny the enemy critical resources (it didn't) and cause the civilian population to give up support for the war effort (it didn't). Yes the bombers did a great job of pasting targets, it's just that they didn't accomplish the strategic goals of the allied air forces as previously mentioned.

I agree with much of what you say swerve especially regarding the panacea targets of the USAAF, the rest is just my humble opinion based on what I've learned and I do not claim to be anything more than a student of WW2.