The momentous cost of Bomber Command.

[tcolvin]

Allan, I'm inclined to make this my last post on this thread as yours is evidence of mounting bafflement about motives, and shows there is no environment here for a cool exchange of views. I accept the blame for that.

Recall the thread was triggered by Fahey's publication of the first ever analysis of the momentous cost of BC. This raised the question whether and how our opinions about BC should now be revised.

For me Fahey confirmed one element of a complex answer to a simple question that first arose in 1947, and which I finally answered to my own satisfaction only in 1995.

In 1947 as an 8-year-old living in Germany, I was taken by my father to a battlefield where his unit, 2 Lincolns in 3rd British Infantry Division had succeeded at great loss in breaking through the German defences on March 2, 1945. We placed flowers on the graves of 24 soldiers who had died that day and whose remains were soon moved to the Reichswald War Cemetery - the CWGC's largest.

The question that arose then was later verbalised into this: why did the Allies, with control of the air and unlimited resources, lose so many men, and find it so difficult, to advance against the remnants of a beaten German Army within six weeks of the end of the war?

In the 1980s I spoke to Allied infantrymen, gunners, tank crews and Typhoon pilots, and to German paratroops, who had been on or over the battlefield to establish what had happened during the three battles fought over four days that led to the breakthrough by 2 Lincolns.

The answer to the question took a long time to produce, and is still subject to revision as more and more information gets published, such as Fahey's analysis of BC's costs.

That's all there is to it.

Tony

[glider1]

Juha
Thanks for the information, I didn't realise that the Russian Infantry Units had so little gun support. 24 x 76mm + 12 x 122mm vs 72 x 25pd is no contest let alone with the more flexible fire control.

[tcolvin]

Thanks, Juha.

The Anglo-Canadian infantry divisions that landed on D-Day were supplied with the M7, which they called the Priest 105-mm SP Gun. These were highly regarded, and the decision to replace them with towed 25-pdrs was resented because of poorer mobility and reduced weight of shell.
The gunners called the 25-pdrs 'crap' in comparison with the M7.

Tony

[Kutscha]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

Kutscha, you keep changing the subject.

1) BC went to Wilhelmshaven following instructions to destroy Type VIIC U-boats that were building in the Bauhafen. AFAIK the markers were dropped over the U-Boats on the stocks.

The bombs, however, dropped 4kms away on an arsenal full of sea mines and ammunition for ships like Graf Spee that were at the bottom of the ocean or like Hipper that were decommissioned.

And with a gale blowing from the NE!!!! That is a wind speed of 40 -55mph. Guess where the gale will blow the sky markers.

So these mines could not be carried by other ships? So the 200mm ammo could not have been used by Battery Karola on the Ile de Re (4./Marine Artillerie Abteilung 282) and Battery Seydlitz on the Ile de Croix (5./Marine Artillerie Abteilung 264). And that is just the 200mm ammo.

It is but another example of BC's being unable to hit the target, which is one of the main reasons why its costs were momentous.

The bombs were dropped on the sky markers. Hardly an indication of BC's inability to hit targets.


Your confidence in the photo interpreters is touching, but you have a problem; either they misunderstood what they were looking at, or they were lying. You say they knew what was what, which means you think they were lying - perhaps to make Butcher Harris's Blue Book look good?

It means you think they were lying.

2) The total for Soviet KIA/MIAs was not the answer to the question we were discussing, which was infantry losses. Your point, I thought, was that the Soviet method of waging war was more costly in terms of human life than it was for the Western Allies. The point I am making is that the Anglo-Canadian method of waging war after D-Day was equally and probably more costly because the Anglo-Canadians were less well-equipped than the Soviets. I asked you for figures for losses in Soviet infantry divisions as this interests me.
The astronomical total Soviet and German losses was the inevitable result of Hitler's attempt to seize Lebensraum from the Russian 'Untermenschen', and is tragically uninteresting. It is the basis of the valid Russian claim that they and not the West were instrumental in destroying the Wehrmacht.

Tony

I would say with a ~20:1 difference in KIA/MIA it should be obvious to everyone that the Soviets method of waging war was very much more costly.

[glider1]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

Thanks, Juha.

The Anglo-Canadian infantry divisions that landed on D-Day were supplied with the M7, which they called the Priest 105-mm SP Gun. These were highly regarded, and the decision to replace them with towed 25-pdrs was resented because of poorer mobility and reduced weight of shell.
The gunners called the 25-pdrs 'crap' in comparison with the M7.

Tony

You can support this statement? I say this as I can understand them being resentful of swapping the SP Gun for a towed gun where life is harder. But they would have been more ticked off if they had to use the M101 which weighed quite a lot more.

[SimonE]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

Thanks, Juha.

The Anglo-Canadian infantry divisions that landed on D-Day were supplied with the M7, which they called the Priest 105-mm SP Gun. These were highly regarded, and the decision to replace them with towed 25-pdrs was resented because of poorer mobility and reduced weight of shell.
The gunners called the 25-pdrs 'crap' in comparison with the M7.

Tony

Do you have a reference for this?

Enemy assessments of the performance of the 25 pdr was that it was anything but "crap".

The Germans in and around Normandy were amazed by the rate of fire that the 25 pdr could sustain, to the point where it was believed the gun was mechanically rather than manually loaded. German PoWs spoke of the "automatic" 25 pdr. Ref. G Blackburn's, The Guns of Normandy.

While the Anglo Canadian ground and air forces had shortcomings in some areas, but so did the forces of the Germans/Soviets.

To label their equipment, and especially Anglo Canadian leadership, as simply "crap" is overly simplistic and needlessly derogatory.

[John Beaman]

OK, we're getting way off topic here. The topic is the cost of RAF Bomber Command's activities in WW2. Stay on topic or start a new thread.

Frankly, I'm inclined to shut this thread down as it seems exhausted to me. Agreement will never be reached on the ideas in this thread, so why don't you all give it a rest?

[Steve Smith]

Originally Posted by John Beaman

OK, we're getting way off topic here. The topic is the cost of RAF Bomber Command's activities in WW2. Stay on topic or start a new thread.

Frankly, I'm inclined to shut this thread down as it seems exhausted to me. Agreement will never be reached on the ideas in this thread, so why don't you all give it a rest?

John,

Thank you. !!

I have checked over most of Tony's previous posts, the vast majority of posts are there to evoke a debate giving Tony the opportunity to express his own opinion.

The majority are on emotive subjects which divide opinions and will as per Tony's motive instigate a lively and futile debate, giving him the soap box opportunity to vent his opinion to a larger audience, i.e the poor members of this forum.

I was under the impression this was a site for research, not a debating forum. Tony has his own opinions and rightly so, but to use this forum to promote them does not do the forum justice.

I for one joined this forum to expand my acknowledge of the Air War over Europe and when I can help other researchers / historians, I did not join to be brain-washed by some-one with a grudge.

Bomber Commands campaign of 1939-1945 was politically and operationally misguided and Ill-advised at times, but is that not true of any war-time campaign. ? What is not open to criticism or argument is the bravery and sacrifice of those young men who fought and died, that is the true cost and I think a certain individual sadly as forgotten that.

Sorry John and members. !!

[Juha]

John
hopefully You accept one more off topic message from me just for the background info.

Hello Glider1
while the divisional artillery of Soviet Rifle divisions was rather weak, Soviet Army, like the British Army but contrary to German Army, had vast High Command artillery resources, so from mid-43 onwards, when Soviets wanted a breakthrough, they allocated plenty of artillery assets for the attack and as a rule, achieved breakthrough.

Hello Tony
the cold fact is, that it is always costly and difficult to crush an enemy which had a army with good fighting spirit and sound tactical doctrine, was it well equipped as German Army was during WWI and WWII or even rather poorly equipped poor Army as the Finnish Army was during WWII. On British artillery, Germans had high regard on it, IIRC they thought it was the best arm of the British Army.

On 25pdr vs US 105mm, there wasn’t so big difference in the weight of the HE shells (25pdr vs 15kg) but it is true that in the US shell had almost 3 times more explosive (2.2 kg vs 0.82 kg) so fragmentation was different. But IIRC there wasn’t enough 105mm ammo even for the US Army in 1944, thanks for the Congress which had curtained the 105mm ammo production to prevent “overstocking”, so IIRC the British gave some 25pdrs and ammo for them to US Army in ETO during the autumn 44.

Now on BC, heavy bombers could deliver very heavy concentration of HE in a short timeframe either to a tactical or a strategic target, that means flexibility. When they used right kind of ordnance it was very effective as during the opening of Oper Goodwood. It wasn’t BC’s guilt that the British Army had not understood how deep the German defensive system was, as a good army should, Germans had understood the need of depth in a good defensive planning and were good in camouflaging, even if not nearly as good as the Soviets who were masters in that and in deception. So the British attack was stopped south of the BC’s target area.

I agree that the use of BC wasn’t always most effective and that Harris’ obstinacy took off much of the potential flexibility of the BC. In fact I also agreed that BC got a too big portion of British defence spending, with cleverer use of it it could have achieved better results with lesser losses, so there would have been need for smaller production of heavy bombers and for fewer crews. The first part isn’t hindsight, some in the uppermost hierarchy of RAF saw that but thanks for Harris and Portal that was not achieved, the latter is because many who wanted more intelligent use of BC were also heavy bomber men who wanted more powerful BC.

Juha

[Bill Walker]

Just discovered an intersting set of quotes on this subject, from some people who were there.

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/general...re-beaten.html