[tcolvin]

Juha,

I can accept that the P-51 was more cost-effective than the Mosquito.

Unfortunately there were many/most situations in the infantry attack when artillery directed by aerial spotters could not substitute for aircraft, even though, as you say, the army had plenty of artillery. The Germans were masters of camouflage, and nearly every attack was into a German ambush. For the attack to succeed the German heavy weapons had to be taken out as soon as they revealed themselves by firing, but 2TAF failed nine times out of ten to achieve this, even when they were present doing cab-rank, which was not always, and probably not even half the time.

It was a tragedy. Brooke believed he had got Churchill's agreement to the establishment of an army airforce after Alamein, but Montgomery went public, and without reference to Brooke, saying he and Tedder could do it together and a separate army airforce was not needed. Tedder and Montgomery then fixed the communication level at Group to Army instead of Group to Corps, which was the minimum acceptable. An independent army airforce, of course, would have cooperated at the Squadron-Battalion level, but that was too WWI for the RAF who categorically refused to consider any tie-up below army level.
The RAF therefore were permitted to continue to believe and to say that aircraft were not army weapons, and the army should learn to use its own weapons and stop calling on airforce weapons, whose strategic mission was to destroy German cities.
The RAF was ordered to set up a tactical airforce (or the army would have been allowed to do so), and the rest is known, but not always fully understood.

I would say your characterisation of the RAF as seriously studying all options won't wash. The Transportation and the Oil Plans were given to Harris as direct orders in writing, and his views on them as panaceas were well-known.

I don't think the spectacular raids on the Dams and the Dortmund-Ems Canal can be cited as evidence of an open mind by BC. Harris believed and said that he would crack morale in Germany by bombing cities and so end the war. Unbelievably BC did not interfere with German rebuilding of the dams, because that would have been a diversion from the main mission. The RAF was always interested in PR. Even in the dark days they had time to assist with that hilarious misrepresentation, "Target For Tonight".

Tony