Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Eagle Day to Bombing of the Reich is a improved and enhanced edition of Talonsoft's older Battle of Britain and Bombing the Reich. This updated version represents the best simulation of the air war over Britain and the strategic bombing campaign over Europe that has ever been made.

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RyanCrierie
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Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by RyanCrierie »

Has anyone actually calculated the total loss to the German Economy from Strategic Bombardment by both sides (USAAF/RAF) in terms of things sucked out of the economy, such as:

1.) the uber million searchlight force, and manning them

2.) the uber million flak belt and manning them

3.) The uber trillion shell stockpile needed for the flak belt, plus transporting said trillion shells to firing points.

4.) the uber million day fighter swarm (the night fighter force was mainly made up of aircraft that were useless really by then, like Me-110s and Ju-88s in any other role); but what about the day fighters? That's a lot of fighters being pulled from other fronts like the Eastern Front.

5.) The costs of replacing dead day fighter pilots killed by the USAAF in terms of training and fuel, plus the bombers that would have been shot down by more trained pilots, not the low grade replacements that replaced the more experienced (and dead) people.

6.) the uber million man swarm employed in fighting inciendary attacks and cleaning up afterwards; thats a lot of manhours which could be spent stamping out MG-42s for Johann on the Ostfront, or Panzer IVs for Fritz in the panzerdivisions.

7.) the uber million manhours and costs spent in rehousing bombed out people. I know the glib answer is "they all went to work at the factories", but I find that to be not credible, as one of the major fears of the Nazi leadership was of another 1918; that's why the German economy kept on producing useless luxury goods like Grand Pianos until '42, the leadership did not want to annoy the population. To this end, there must have been some credible amount spent in rehousing, to at least keep the population at some level of niceness.

8.) The morale problems from sustained bombardment. The population did not break and run into the hills like a lot of the pre-war predictions said they would, but surviving successive RAF Main Force Raids hiding for night after night on end in your basements isn't exactly conductive to high morale.

A lot of people are discounting the effect of Strategic bombardment because it didn't effect a complete nazi surrender as Harris claimed:

Harris to Churchill in November 1943:

We can wreck Berlin from end to end if the U.S.A.A.F. will come in on it. It will cost between us 400 and 500 aircraft. It will cost Germany the war.

Harris to Portal in December 1943:

It appears that the Lancaster force alone should be sufficient, but only just sufficient, to produce in Germany by April 1st 1944, a state of devastation in which surrender is inevitable.

and this blinds them to all the other side effects of Strategic bombardment.

I wouldn't be surprised if about 25-30% of germany's total wartime output was essentially removed through various means by strategic bombardment, or possibly even more...
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Howard Mitchell
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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by Howard Mitchell »

[font=arial]
Try War and Economy in the Third Reich by Richard Overy for a detailed assessment. Here's a quote from it:

"In January 1945 German officials from the Ministry of Armaments assessed what might have been produced in 1944 without the bombing. They estimated that German industry turned out 35% fewer tanks, 31% fewer aircraft, and 42% fewer lorries than would have otherwise been possible... After the war the major department heads of the Ministry were interviewed by Allied intelligence teams to help them assess the effect of bombing. All the officials interviewed stated that bombing was the factor responsible for the declining gains from rationalisation and for the eventual collapse of the economic structure after January 1945'.

From that book but mostly from his Bomber Command 1939-45, a few figures:

Points 1, 2 & 3 – By 1944, 889,000 people worked in the air defence organisations and 1/3 of artillery produced was Flak. Most of these weapons could have been manufactured as AT guns, field artillery, etc. if it had not been for the strategic air war.

Point 4 – In January 1944 68% of the German fighter force was based in the west facing the bombers, and only 17% facing the increasingly effective Soviet armies on the eastern front. I would dispute that the night fighters were otherwise useless; without the need to build twin-engined night fighters Germany could and would have built twin-engined bombers. The resources which went into building Bf 110s would instead have been used for aircraft suited for a daylight role.

Points 5 - Don't forget the carnage inflicted on the Luftwaffe by the 2nd TAF and 9th AF over the Normandy beaches and then into Europe. The battles there were as fierce, and as costly for the Germans, as anything inflicted by 8th AF over Germany.

Points 6, 7 & 8 - At the Ford factories in the Rhur it was estimated that absenteeism increased from 4% in 1940 to 25% in 1944. The average level of absenteeism across German industry in 1944 was 23.5 days, or nearly four full working weeks. Also in 1944 in Berlin alone 9,000 worker were employed daily in repairing bomb damage to the civilian infrastructure – 2.7 million working days during 1944 alone in one city.

Disentangling the results of the area bombing campaign of RAF Bomber Command from that of the 8 AF is difficult, but a German estimate put the formers contribution to industrial damage at 20% of the total.[/font]
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Nikademus
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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by Nikademus »

you might try Flak: German Anti-Aircraft Defenses, 1914-1945 by Edward B. Westermann

A very detailed statistical analysis of the German air defence effort. Includes a good deal of info about the fighter force and economics of both flak and fighters since close cooperation was required. For example the alleged "lost divisions" line in regards to manpower was not as valid as first glances appear since by latewar the Flak forces were largely manned by Aux personel, most not fit for front line combat duty.


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Terminus
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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by Terminus »

Very, very young boys (and girls) for example...
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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by ezzler »

The Raf only contribute 20% of the strategic bombing ?
500 - 1000 planes on a bombing mission wih a heavier payload than than the B-17 or B 24.
And doing major bombing raids from 1942

Was it really only 20% ?
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Terminus
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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by Terminus »

Maybe they measured tonnage that actually hit. Many, many early RAF missions missed the target by many, many miles...
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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by ezzler »

Sure,

and the unexploded bomb rate was very high too..Around 30% failure for HE I think
 but 20% still seems real low.
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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by HMSWarspite »

ORIGINAL: ezz

The Raf only contribute 20% of the strategic bombing ?
500 - 1000 planes on a bombing mission wih a heavier payload than than the B-17 or B 24.
And doing major bombing raids from 1942

Was it really only 20% ?

I think you will find that this is the estimate of RAF tonnage that hit industry as opposed to non-industry. USAAF dropped c971000tons on Germany, with c 40% of that on area, 32% on transport incl France, and the rest (c28%) on industry. RAF dropped 1,315,000 tons (c955000 by BC), c 80% area, 8% transport and 12% industry.

This would seem to give 285000 on ind for USAAF, and 153000 for RAF, but some of that might have been on industial aiming points in cities (i.e. rather similar to area bombing). Also, even area bombing can hit factories, hance the variation in estimates of industry damage for the RAF.
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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by SMK-at-work »

USAAF:  Area bombing of precisions targets
RAF:  Precision bombing of area targets

Neither of them got out of single figure % of bombs actually hitting within a mile of the aiming point!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Bombing_Survey - the Wiki page has links to the US Strategic bombing Survey.
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Howard Mitchell
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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by Howard Mitchell »

The German figure of 20% is an estimate, no more, and (I imagine) would be focused on the direct impact of bombing - i.e. factories hit, rather than lost work due to disruption of the civilian infrastructure. To find out if the bomb which had destroyed a tram route which caused someone to be late for work was dropped by the RAF or USAAF would have been very difficult to do!
 
Thanks for the thumbs-up on the Westermann book Nikademus, I was thinking of picking it up and it sounds like it will be worth it.
 
As an aside, Overy's excellent Why the Allies Won mentions that by 1944 20% of ammunition produced was for flak.
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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by Nikademus »

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

USAAF:  Area bombing of precisions targets
RAF:  Precision bombing of area targets

Neither of them got out of single figure % of bombs actually hitting within a mile of the aiming point!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Bombing_Survey - the Wiki page has links to the US Strategic bombing Survey.

Flak had alot to do with it too. May be the most underrated asset of WWII because as Westermann pointed out....even the side utilizing the weapon often shortchanged the effectiveness because they were looking for a shield (i.e. knock down all the bombers.....i.e. confirmed losses) vs. looking at it from a deterrant/impact on bomber effectiveness angle.

Coupled with dummy installations, EW countermeasures and technology improvements, the German air defences achieved alot but ultimately sheer numbers and the collapse of the fighter arm doomed the effort.

I'll recheck the book but i believe the FLak arm eat up about 1/3 of the armaments budget (ammo and gun production) however another fact pointed out was that if anything the V-rocket program was a greater drain on resource and personell

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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by kilowatts »

...1/3 of artillery produced was Flak. Most of these weapons could have been manufactured as AT guns, field artillery, etc. if it had not been for the strategic air war. ...

Many of those weapons (the 88s) could have been simply loaded onto rail trucks, driven east and emplaced immediately. Perhaps they could have been given to the Romanian and Hungarian troops guarding the flanks of the Sixth army in November 1942?
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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by Nikademus »

many of the Flak units sent to east were employed in the AT role. Problem there is the same problem as with the Fighter arm.....more and more were needed for Home Defense. The flak units did very well in the ground support role though it should be noted it was as much training and organization as it was powerful weapons.



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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by Howard Mitchell »

For those of you with £80 to spare, the RAF's equivalent of the US Strategic Bombing Survey is now available:



The publisher is Frank Cass, and so I hope it will be available as a more affordable paperback at some time.

The Strategic War Against Germany (Studies in Air Power)
Frank Cass Publishers
336 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0714647227


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While the battles the British fight may differ in the widest possible ways, they invariably have two common characteristics – they are always fought uphill and always at the junction of two or more map sheets.

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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by Nikademus »

ORIGINAL: Nikademus



I'll recheck the book but i believe the FLak arm eat up about 1/3 of the armaments budget (ammo and gun production) however another fact pointed out was that if anything the V-rocket program was a greater drain on resource and personell


Correction to the above. It was about 23-25%. Interestingly enough, During 1944, despite successes in increasing production of both ammo and flak guns, this resource allocation % remained reletively constant.

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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by SMK-at-work »

None of the flak could have been trucked to teh East to save Stalingrad - because it didn't exist at that time!! :)

FYI Flak tube figures can be found at het bottom of http://www.feldgrau.com/weaprod.html - note teh 105mm and 128mm guns - those are the ones that might not have been produced but for hte bombing, hence freeing up resources for other weapon production.
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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by Rainerle »

OTOH - how much did the US invest (in % of armament) to get this result ? And was it worth it ? Could the money have been spent better ?
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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by Nikademus »

the 105 was less important compared to a more modern piece like the model 41 88....but the 128 was a very powerful weapon and was needed.

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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by Nikademus »

ORIGINAL: Rainerle

OTOH - how much did the US invest (in % of armament) to get this result ? And was it worth it ? Could the money have been spent better ?

I think the factor to remember most in this case, is that it wasn't a matter of money or even resources [to a degree] that was the primary chokepoint for Germany. As with the fighter arm, and eventually the army itself...it was personell bottlenecks that doomed Gemany's efforts. By latewar they simply were running out of qualified manpower to fight their war and a domino effect ensued.
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RE: Effects of Strategic Bombardment on Germany

Post by kilowatts »

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

None of the flak could have been trucked to teh East to save Stalingrad - because it didn't exist at that time!! :)

FYI Flak tube figures can be found at het bottom of http://www.feldgrau.com/weaprod.html - note teh 105mm and 128mm guns - those are the ones that might not have been produced but for hte bombing, hence freeing up resources for other weapon production.


Sorry, maybe you misunderstood me? Looking at the production stats on feldgrau (good link btw) I see 6,061 88mm guns produced by the end of 1942. Lets say 50-75% of those guns were in Germany in October 1942 as defense against the RAF campaign. So if the the RAF wasn't bombing Germany then approximately 3,000-4,000 88mm guns can be shipped directly east and used as AT weapons without modification.
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