[tcolvin]

Ses, you've lost me.

The RAF's doctrine, developed in the 1920s, was based on the proposition that the objective of all three Services was the same - to defeat the enemy nation, and not merely its Army, Navy or Air Force.
But, said the RAF, the Army in order to defeat the enemy nation, had first to defeat the enemy's army, while the RAF was different.
The RAF could defeat the enemy nation without defeating its armed forces first. It did so by destroying the enemy's warlike resources and the morale (will to resist) of its citizens.
Trenchard and the others foresaw opposing bomber fleets passing each other in mid-Channel on their way to bomb their opposing factories.
(In the 1920s the supposed enemy of the RAF was France).
The country with the stronger bomber fleet would win the war because its opponent with the weaker bomber fleet would be the first to cry uncle at the destruction of its warlike resources. It would be forced to withdraw its aircraft from attack and place them in defense against enemy bombers.
That's why the RAF built up its bomber fleet and was unhappy at releasing resources to Fighter Command. BC stationed its Fairey Battles in France in an AASF within striking distance of the Ruhr in order to dissuade the LW from attacking Britain's industry.

As for your "targets of strategic importance", consider this;
Britain won against Napoleon by defeating his army in the field and occupying Paris.
Britain won WWI by defeating the German Army in the field. President Wilson's Fourteen Points were supposed to compensate for occupying Berlin.
Russia won WWII by defeating the German Army in the field and occupying Berlin.
The 'target of strategic importance' is therefore the enemy's army in the field.
Hence my assertion that a tactical BC costing 10% of Harris' BC, together with a much larger and better equipped British Army would have given Britain more bang for its buck, and saved us from bankruptcy (together with other decisions).

The RAF stuck to its Trenchard doctrine; "The aim of the RAF is to break down the enemy's means of resistance by attacks on objectives selected as most likely to achieve this end".
The "means of resistance", however, ceased to be factories because BC couldn't hit them.
BC sold Churchill on the proposition that it would break Germany's means of resistance, and so end the war, by bombing/dehousing German civilians through area bombing; BC could hit cities.
Zuckerman had shown that bombing did not destroy the morale of the citizens of Birmingham, Hull and Coventry who continued to manufacture weapons under the bombs. Germans were no different.

The hypothesis has now been framed by Fahey that BC actually did more harm to Britain than it did to Germany.
As evidence compare the postwar Wirtschaftswunder in Germany and Britain's post war stagnation and fate of becoming the 'sick man of Europe'.

Tony