Solution for the 4 engine discussion

[JohnDillworth]

How could something so important be overlooked in the game? The B29 program was the largest expenditure by the U.S. in the entire war. I was really looking forward to this part of the game.

Forget it. Take a look at the Tinian base size Size 7 max. In 1945 Tinian was the largest airfield in the world in 1945. To quote the website of one of the 112th seabee unit that built the place "Approximately 450 B-29's could now be efficiently launched on a mission from Tinian in 70-80 minutes." That can not be reproduced in the game ever, it can never happen. In AE you could not have 450 B-29's take off in a week. Someone will tell you if you put the headquarters there you can take advantage of over stacking. That is true but you will never be able to launch more than 100 bombers and with the operational losses you can probably only do that once a month.

"They built six huge B-29 bomber strips, each a mile and one half long and a block wide, along with miles of taxi ways with "hardstands" sufficient to park 400+ aircraft. The SeaBees dug and moved eleven million cubic yards of earth and coral on Tinian . Piled on flat ground, this would form a cube 6700+ feet in height."

Yup, that is a level 7 airfield!

http://www.112thseabees.com/history/tin_hist.htm

[Grit]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

How could something so important be overlooked in the game? The B29 program was the largest expenditure by the U.S. in the entire war. I was really looking forward to this part of the game.

Forget it. Take a look at the Tinian base size Size 7 max. In 1945 Tinian was the largest airfield in the world in 1945. To quote the website of one of the 112th seabee unit that built the place "Approximately 450 B-29's could now be efficiently launched on a mission from Tinian in 70-80 minutes." That can not be reproduced in the game ever, it can never happen. In AE you could not have 450 B-29's take off in a week. Someone will tell you if you put the headquarters there you can take advantage of over stacking. That is true but you will never be able to launch more than 100 bombers and with the operational losses you can probably only do that once a month.

"They built six huge B-29 bomber strips, each a mile and one half long and a block wide, along with miles of taxi ways with "hardstands" sufficient to park 400+ aircraft. The SeaBees dug and moved eleven million cubic yards of earth and coral on Tinian . Piled on flat ground, this would form a cube 6700+ feet in height."

Yup, that is a level 7 airfield!

http://www.112thseabees.com/history/tin_hist.htm

I hate to make a big deal out of this as I am really enjoying learning and playing WITP-AE. But it is a little disheartening that you put that much effort into playing all the way to 1945 and you don't get to launch one of the largest campaigns of the war. This changed the war, many men died so we could put airfields close enough for B29's.

I think I even read in the manual that if you use the Atomic Bomb you get penalized.

[JohnDillworth]

I hate to make a big deal out of this as I am really enjoying learning and playing WITP-AE. But it is a little disheartening that you put that much effort into playing all the way to 1945 and you don't get to launch one of the largest campaigns of the war. This changed the war, many men died so we could put airfields close enough for B29's.

With Guam, Tinian and Saipan I think the most bombers I ever got in a single raid was 170. And it took my almost a month to repair the bombers from that raid. One would be hard pressed to get 3 100 bomber raids a month and the historical number of aircraft will make that hard to sustain. The best way to get points with B-29's is to damage and then destroy industry. The only way to destroy industry is with A-Bombs or by firestorm. The only way to create firestorms is to conduct many consecutive low level air attacks against population. There is no way to conduct these kinds of continuous attacks with the B-29 and Marinans airfield model. Once I got some of China and Okinawa I could bring in B-24's and B-25's I managed to pull it off but I have not been able to pull it off with just B-29's.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

I hate to make a big deal out of this as I am really enjoying learning and playing WITP-AE. But it is a little disheartening that you put that much effort into playing all the way to 1945 and you don't get to launch one of the largest campaigns of the war. This changed the war, many men died so we could put airfields close enough for B29's.

With Guam, Tinian and Saipan I think the most bombers I ever got in a single raid was 170. And it took my almost a month to repair the bombers from that raid. One would be hard pressed to get 3 100 bomber raids a month and the historical number of aircraft will make that hard to sustain. The best way to get points with B-29's is to damage and then destroy industry. The only way to destroy industry is with A-Bombs or by firestorm. The only way to create firestorms is to conduct many consecutive low level air attacks against population. There is no way to conduct these kinds of continuous attacks with the B-29 and Marinans airfield model. Once I got some of China and Okinawa I could bring in B-24's and B-25's I managed to pull it off but I have not been able to pull it off with just B-29's.

B-29s and the Marianas are on my list for the editor pre Game-2. I don't know yet what I can do to the bases, but the B-29 is going to--somehow--be able to fly more than two days a month. I just don't know which boxes to change yet. It's going to be fun to tweak all the things that drove me crazy in Game-1 (like 50 PPs a day), and then play one of the harder scenarios, with variable reenforcements.

[JohnDillworth]

B-29s and the Marianas are on my list for the editor pre Game-2. I don't know yet what I can do to the bases, but the B-29 is going to--somehow--be able to fly more than two days a month. I just don't know which boxes to change yet. It's going to be fun to tweak all the things that drove me crazy in Game-1 (like 50 PPs a day), and then play one of the harder scenarios, with variable reenforcements.

Andy Mac has had more success and thinks the level 7 is OK. I disagree but he outranks me as I am just a humble user. The point has been made elsewhere that after 1944 the allies could pretty make any place they wanted a level 10 base so any modifications would seem fair. I think you have to bump all of the Mariana's. The largest B-29 raids of the war were in July 45 and they had about 750 bombers. And I think there were only 2 of those should that should be the absolute max.

[LoBaron]

Thanks for all the comments. Good discussion.

Sad, I think the general opinion is correct and its not such a good idea.

ORIGINAL: Alfred

(4) An unintended byproduct of your proposal would be the value of flak. Why should damage from flak not be treated similarly to that from A2A?

Now if I might be allowed to try to be constructive rather than negative, I would much prefer, within the context of the existing game engine, to tweak the consumption of supply to address the problem. Currently strike missions by level bombers consume supply on the basis of their assigned load carrying capacity. Why not increase supply consumption for all strike missions (both Allied and Japanese) to be the current supply cost x number of engines. Thus, to give a theoretical example, a 4E plane rated at 4000 lb bomb load would consume double the supplies as a 2E plane with the same bomb load, and four times as much as a single engine plane with the same bomb load.

Alfred

Alfred thanks for your detailed response. I agree with the points you raised against my proposal.
I thought about flak too, you are correct that this alone would make this at least difficult to implement if not impossible.

Was also thinking about increasing supply consumption in proportion to capacity. The drawback of this is that supply
is too abstracted. Since you need time to build up bases to 4eng levels anyway you should have enough time to prepare enough
supplies at the forward bases. Also, considering the current way overland logistics are handled, this would reduce the impact of
the change to zero in theatres like India or Australia.

My original idea was to increase the impact of damaged bombers to force the use of escorts.
The problem is not that its not realistic. The real drawback is that unescorted raids agaisnt high CAP have no drawbacks
for the attacker except that maintenance levels force you to implement high numbers.
The result is that they don´t need an escort.

Neither higher maintenance levels nor higher supply cost would force the Allied player to escort heavies to target. The drawback
of losing fighters and fighter pilots is simply greater than the advantage of less damaged bombers.

Increasing maintainence levels would be a solution in theory but isn´t it that you would have to increase that to a-historcal levels
to have an impact?


Still thinking of another way around this problem... [&:]

How about: Increasing the negative impact on bombing accuracy for bombers under attack as is already the case a bit like
CarnageINC said?


Everybody who likes to contribute please note the following:

I am not dissatisfied with 4eng bombers strenght! Its very close to historical and I don´t like to have something implemented that
weakens them as a whole.

What I want to achieve is to force the Allied player to use escorts over contested airspace.

Current situation: Unescorted 4eng has advantages (escept for some really rare occasions) over escorted raids.
Desired situation: Escorted 4eng raid has advantages over unescorted raids.

This is the only detail that I percieve as a bit weird in the current model.

[morganbj]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

you don't need many bombers to wipe out industries in the game. You don't even need 4E's. (except when range is a factor)

I have to disagree. An effective, hsitorical, strategic bombing campaign is not possible in the game. By July 1945 the USAAF B-29's had run out of targets and were rarley challanged in daylight by fighters. Has anybody ever been able to reproduce this situation in AE?

No, in fact, I called off my strat bombing campaign as it was very ineffective. Thos B29's were just not getting it done. With a service rating of 3,245 (well it seems so), they spent only about one day every two weeks in the air anyway. I'll use them for pinpricks on various ports, naval search and recon, and the like. What a waste.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

They do, but the general AE rules make it hard to stage the really huge strategic bombing raids as seen over Japan and Germany. They tend to get broken up, which makes it easier for CAP's to do their work. Its hard to make a wargame cover every situation. General rules don't always cover every situation. These are the complaints as I understand them, but as i pointed out, this is balanced in more than large part by how easy it is to damage industries and resources in the game. I also havn't seen any feedback on large scale night time raids. I've done these using 2E's and had massive success but not B-29's (yet)

Yes, but wasn't one of the major complaints from WITP Vanilla the fact that the 4Es were too effective and actually made it too easy for the allies to obliterate the Japanese players economy? Both sides complained about this IIRC...

Be careful what you ask for...

[Rob Brennan UK]

hi all , interesting discussion.

I'll add my experience using the 4E bombers in my PBEM (guadlcanal scen)

There beasts seem to gobble up supply like ever hungry vacuum cleaners, given the limited supply in this scenario using the 4E is a compromise vs saving up supply for invasions. so the player is forced into making sacrifices to use them regularly.

Damage to 4E bombers seems to fall into 2 categories (this is just a gut feeling by the way) wear and tear damage seemt to repair pretty fast, 1-3 days on average. however if some are damaged by flak or CAP then down time can be upto 20 days in the repair shop. so while CAP may seem to be pretty ineffective in actually killing them, for the allied player they rapidly become depleted with a lot of hanger queens.

Continuous operations can be sustained if you have the planes to completely fill up a squadron i.e 12 plane unit with 16 a/c and max pilots will run at about 1/2- 2/3ds strength on a daily basis and do not accumulate much fatigue . teens max and usually 10 ish. Flying at extended range adds to the wear and tear so you'll have more planes under maintainance (look in the air unts button labelled planes for a breakdown on times etc.).

Effectiveness - Bombing japanes troops behind goos forts levels i.e tassaforonga will rarely do any damage to the units even at 6k feet and good crews, i'm hopeing that they add disruption/fatige but only my opponenent can answer that one. this is with max recom too 10/10 on DL. I used them for a couple of months early game on naval search and didnt hit a thing. I dont use them often for naval attack as they cant hit the broadside of a barn , even my trained up (3 months on naval attack training) 2E bombers can't hit much that floats either but my opponent can been careful covering his shipping.

any extra supply requirements would cripple the allis in this scenario , as supply is barely adequate anyway. Personally i feel they are working out ok but do not have any late war experience to add.

so do they need tweaking ? not as far as i can tell, more data is needed as the opinions seem rather split which usually suggests that things are working out ok. time will eventually tell though.

TTFN

[Grit]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

They do, but the general AE rules make it hard to stage the really huge strategic bombing raids as seen over Japan and Germany. They tend to get broken up, which makes it easier for CAP's to do their work. Its hard to make a wargame cover every situation. General rules don't always cover every situation. These are the complaints as I understand them, but as i pointed out, this is balanced in more than large part by how easy it is to damage industries and resources in the game. I also havn't seen any feedback on large scale night time raids. I've done these using 2E's and had massive success but not B-29's (yet)

Yes, but wasn't one of the major complaints from WITP Vanilla the fact that the 4Es were too effective and actually made it too easy for the allies to obliterate the Japanese players economy? Both sides complained about this IIRC...

Be careful what you ask for...

So many games fall into this problem. Do we make the game for single player or player vs player? Obviously the Allies have been neutered so the Japanese player can have a chance when playing a human.

What probably should have been done especially since the game is sold as being very historical. Make it a toggle, Historical B29's and Airfields On/Off, Historical Allied Carrier Planes On/Off, and Historical Japanese Plane Production ON/Off. That way if players wanted to play historically they could and if they wanted to have a really good fight right to the end, they could.

I can see a lot of people wanting to play the game historically and try mimic the Admirals on both sides. Right now that's impossible. As other people said who are much more familiar with the game than me. (Paraphrasing) "What is the sense of taking Islands close to Japan other than points?" Think about it, that was the entire thrust of the U.S. campaign, get airfields close to Japan.

[sfbaytf]

The B-29 is definitely a hangar queen. One mission and at least half the squadron is usually down for a week- this is not counting any losses to flak or fighters. B-24s are a little better so long as the range isn't extended. Any opposition and flak will cut down the number of available bombers.

The original post thesis was about fighter escorts and bombing missions. That touches on the oher problem of reliably getting your fighters to escort your bombers. Most of he time strikes are uncordinated anyway.

[Zeta16]

ORIGINAL: Rob Brennan UK

hi all , interesting discussion.

I'll add my experience using the 4E bombers in my PBEM (guadlcanal scen)

There beasts seem to gobble up supply like ever hungry vacuum cleaners, given the limited supply in this scenario using the 4E is a compromise vs saving up supply for invasions. so the player is forced into making sacrifices to use them regularly.

Damage to 4E bombers seems to fall into 2 categories (this is just a gut feeling by the way) wear and tear damage seemt to repair pretty fast, 1-3 days on average. however if some are damaged by flak or CAP then down time can be upto 20 days in the repair shop. so while CAP may seem to be pretty ineffective in actually killing them, for the allied player they rapidly become depleted with a lot of hanger queens.

Continuous operations can be sustained if you have the planes to completely fill up a squadron i.e 12 plane unit with 16 a/c and max pilots will run at about 1/2- 2/3ds strength on a daily basis and do not accumulate much fatigue . teens max and usually 10 ish. Flying at extended range adds to the wear and tear so you'll have more planes under maintainance (look in the air unts button labelled planes for a breakdown on times etc.).

Effectiveness - Bombing japanes troops behind goos forts levels i.e tassaforonga will rarely do any damage to the units even at 6k feet and good crews, i'm hopeing that they add disruption/fatige but only my opponenent can answer that one. this is with max recom too 10/10 on DL. I used them for a couple of months early game on naval search and didnt hit a thing. I dont use them often for naval attack as they cant hit the broadside of a barn , even my trained up (3 months on naval attack training) 2E bombers can't hit much that floats either but my opponent can been careful covering his shipping.

any extra supply requirements would cripple the allis in this scenario , as supply is barely adequate anyway. Personally i feel they are working out ok but do not have any late war experience to add.

so do they need tweaking ? not as far as i can tell, more data is needed as the opinions seem rather split which usually suggests that things are working out ok. time will eventually tell though.

TTFN

I just don't have this problem keeping my Allied bombers in the air. At the moment I have bombers at PM, 3 groups of B24D1's and 2 B-17F's. I fly two one day, then three the next. In doing this all but maybe 1 a group are ready to go on there day of flying. I think the key is AV support. I have more than 250 there, on say Tarawa I have a few Heavy groups that are not fly much b/c of lack of enough AV support.

Now later in the War often a week did they fly the huge raids with the B29's. If there was one or two big raids a week I think I could keep them in the air, but I would never try to fly them day after day.

[JohnDillworth]

Yes, but wasn't one of the major complaints from WITP Vanilla the fact that the 4Es were too effective and actually made it too easy for the allies to obliterate the Japanese players economy? Both sides complained about this IIRC...

Be careful what you ask for...

I'd at least like to have the discussion. When AE came out the team was most responsive to super PT boats, attacks on escorts and a hot of other things. just part of the process of a new game. Great discussion on these forums and a great, measured response to the feedback. The developers really pay alot of attention to us. But most of those frequent early fixes addressed generic or obvious early game things there were clearly not palying out historically. Now that many of use have played the game through, or at lest in to the later years, results that are clearly not historical are more pronounced (Japanese aircraft production, allied historical aircraft numbers, Japanese nuclear subs, B-29's being ineffective, porous CAP). I just think some of these later game "oddities" should be given the same consideration for change that the the PT boats sinking have of the Philippines invasion force was. My pet peeve is not being able to play out the historical strategic bombing campaign.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth
I'd at least like to have the discussion. When AE came out the team was most responsive to super PT boats, attacks on escorts and a hot of other things. just part of the process of a new game. Great discussion on these forums and a great, measured response to the feedback. The developers really pay alot of attention to us. But most of those frequent early fixes addressed generic or obvious early game things there were clearly not palying out historically. Now that many of use have played the game through, or at lest in to the later years, results that are clearly not historical are more pronounced (Japanese aircraft production, allied historical aircraft numbers, Japanese nuclear subs, B-29's being ineffective, porous CAP). I just think some of these later game "oddities" should be given the same consideration for change that the the PT boats sinking have of the Philippines invasion force was. My pet peeve is not being able to play out the historical strategic bombing campaign.

I really like that statement. If it spurts discussion its something interesting. [:)]

Re nuclear subs my impression is that japanese nuclear subs are depending on the opponent. I´m not sure how my opponent would rate my sub strategy but he sad that I gave him a bit of headache at least.
And he found great ways to counter the threat that put my subs close to extinction if I hadn´t pulled back.

Allied ASW is strong as long as you know how to use it.


And I also belive Rob when he states that he has a hard time keeping his heavies in the air but I´m struggling to defend against him.
If you use a bit of imagination you can nearly explain every combat result. Thats a message to the number crunchers. [:D]

[TheElf]

see this thread for an education on B-29 Raids and AE. Do some research, and pay particular attention to Andy MAc and wwengr's posts

tm.asp?m=2335277&mpage=2&key=B-29%2Craids

[TheElf]

Some notable figures for those who think B-29 raids are underrepresented. Note the interval between missions. Note the variation in Raid size. If you average these raids the average sortie per raid is 186 B-29s. Raids of 300+ B-29s were an outlier.

* 19 February 1945: 119 B-29s hit port and urban area
* 25 February 1945: 174 B-29s dropping incendiaries destroy ~28,000 buildings
* 4 March 1945: 159 B-29s hit urban area
* 10 March 1945: 334 B-29s dropping incendiaries destroy ~267,000 buildings; ~25% of city (Operation Meetinghouse) killing some 100,000 civilians
* 2 April 1945: >100 B-29s bomb the Nakajima aircraft factory
* 3 April 1945: 68 B-29s bomb the Koizumi aircraft factory and urban areas in Tokyo
* 7 April 1945: 101 B-29s bomb the Nakajima aircraft factory.
* 13 April 1945: 327 B-29s bomb the arsenal area
* 15 April 1945: 109 B-29s hit urban area
* 24 May 1945: 520 B-29s bomb urban-industrial area south of the Imperial Palace
* 26 May 1945: 464 B-29s bomb urban area immediately south of the Imperial Palace
* 20 July 1945: 1 B-29 drops a Pumpkin bomb
Pumpkin bomb
"Pumpkin bombs" were conventional high explosive aerial bombs developed by the Manhattan Project and used by the United States Army Air Forces against Japan during World War II. The name "pumpkin bomb" resulted from the large ellipsoidal shape of the munition and was the actual reference term used...

(bomb with same ballistics as nuclear bomb) through overcast aiming at but missing the Imperial Palace
* 8 August 1945: ~60 B-29s bomb the aircraft factory and arsenal
* 10 August 1945: 70 B-29s bomb the arsenal complex

[Grit]

ORIGINAL: TheElf

Some notable figures for those who think B-29 raids are underrepresented. Note the interval between missions. Note the variation in Raid size. If you average these raids the average sortie per raid is 186 B-29s. Raids of 300+ B-29s were an outlier.

* 19 February 1945: 119 B-29s hit port and urban area
* 25 February 1945: 174 B-29s dropping incendiaries destroy ~28,000 buildings
* 4 March 1945: 159 B-29s hit urban area
* 10 March 1945: 334 B-29s dropping incendiaries destroy ~267,000 buildings; ~25% of city (Operation Meetinghouse) killing some 100,000 civilians
* 2 April 1945: >100 B-29s bomb the Nakajima aircraft factory
* 3 April 1945: 68 B-29s bomb the Koizumi aircraft factory and urban areas in Tokyo
* 7 April 1945: 101 B-29s bomb the Nakajima aircraft factory.
* 13 April 1945: 327 B-29s bomb the arsenal area
* 15 April 1945: 109 B-29s hit urban area
* 24 May 1945: 520 B-29s bomb urban-industrial area south of the Imperial Palace
* 26 May 1945: 464 B-29s bomb urban area immediately south of the Imperial Palace
* 20 July 1945: 1 B-29 drops a Pumpkin bomb
Pumpkin bomb
"Pumpkin bombs" were conventional high explosive aerial bombs developed by the Manhattan Project and used by the United States Army Air Forces against Japan during World War II. The name "pumpkin bomb" resulted from the large ellipsoidal shape of the munition and was the actual reference term used...

(bomb with same ballistics as nuclear bomb) through overcast aiming at but missing the Imperial Palace
* 8 August 1945: ~60 B-29s bomb the aircraft factory and arsenal
* 10 August 1945: 70 B-29s bomb the arsenal complex

Great information, thanks.

Here is some more info that talks about the 10 days in March of incendiaries being dropped on several different cities. Can this be reproduced in AE? From what I've read most guys say they can't do this and their losses are much heavier. Are we doing something wrong? Is it possible to run 10 straight days of very large B-29 raids over Japan?

LeMay decided that Tokyo would be the first target for a massive raid on Japan itself. The raid was planned for the night of March 10th and the B-29’s were to fly at between 5,000 and 8,000 feet. As Japan was not expected to send up night fighters, the guns from the planes were taken off as was anything that was deemed not useful to the raid. By effectively stripping the plane of non-essentials, more bombs could be carried for the raid. Along with Tokyo, Kobe, Osaka and Nagoya were also targeted. As each had flourishing cottage industries that fed the factories of each city, LeMay hoped to starve these factories of required parts. He also hoped that the fires that would be started would also destroy the larger factories as well. As the target for the raid was so large – a city area – the B-29’s did not have to fly in strict formation, especially as little resistance was expected from the Japanese.

The incendiary bombs dropped were known as M-69’s. These weighed just 6 lbs each and were dropped in a cluster of 38 within a container. One B-29 usually carried 37 of these containers, which equated to just over 1,400 bombs per plane. The bombs were set free from the container at 5,000 feet by a time fuse and then exploded on contact with the ground. When they did this, they spread a jelly-petrol compound that was highly inflammable.

For the attack on Tokyo, over 300 B-29’s were involved. They took off for a flight that would get them to Tokyo just before dawn, thus giving them the cover of darkness, but with daylight for the return journey to the Marianas. They flew at 7,000 feet. This in itself may have baffled the city’s defenders as they would have been used to the B-29’s flying at 30,000 feet.

The raid had a massive impact on Tokyo. Photo-reconnaissance showed that 16 square miles of the city had been destroyed. Sixteen major factories – ironically scheduled for a future daylight raid – were destroyed along with many cottage industries. In parts of the city, the fires joined up to create a firestorm. The fires burned so fiercely and they consumed so much oxygen, that people in the locality suffocated. It is thought that 100,000 people were killed in the raid and another 100,000 injured. The Americans lost 14 B-29’s; under the 5% rate of loss that was considered to be ‘acceptable’.

On March 12th, a similar raid took place on Nagoya. The raid was less successful as the fires did not join up and just over 1 square mile of the city was destroyed. On March 13th, Osaka was attacked. Eight square miles of the city were destroyed. Nearly 2.5 square miles of Kobe was also destroyed by incendiary raids. In the space of ten days, the Americans had dropped nearly 9,500 tons of incendiaries on Japanese cities and destroyed 29 square miles of what was considered to be important industrial land.

Few men who flew on the raids felt that what they did was immoral. The Japanese treatment of prisoners and civilians in its occupied zones was all too well known to the flight crews and many felt that the Japanese had brought such attacks on themselves. The incendiary raids were carried out at night and the chance of a crew returning from such a raid was high. Only 22 bombers were lost in this ten-day period – an overall loss of 1.4%. If crews needed to land early, they could do so at Iwo Jima and the return flight to the Marianas was covered by ‘Dumbos’ and ‘Superdumbos’ – polite nicknames for the planes that escorted back the B-29’s and provided lifeboats for them if they had to ditch in the sea. These planes, usually Catalina’s and B-17’s, also radioed ahead the position of crews that had ditched in the sea and ships could picked them up with due speed.

LeMay was highly impressed with the destructive results of the raids – as were the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff. For the Japanese government, the raids must have brought huge despair as they had no way of fighting back and it was obvious to all civilians who knew about the raids, that Japan was defenceless against them.

[P.Hausser]

ORIGINAL: Grit



In parts of the city, the fires joined up to create a firestorm. The fires burned so fiercely and they consumed so much oxygen, that people in the locality suffocated. It is thought that 100,000 people were killed in the raid and another 100,000 injured. The Americans lost 14 B-29’s; under the 5% rate of loss that was considered to be ‘acceptable’.

hurray hurray, what a great American hero Major General Curtis LeMay must have been.

[Ikazuchi0585]

He did what it took to get the job done.He minimized US casualties while maximizing enemy losses, not to mention pursuing a controversial tactic which shortened the war.
I think that would make him an hero. He was the commander of a bomber group, what do you expect? Bombers kill people and level cities nothing more, nothing less. It doesnt make a difference if they use bombs or fire to accomplish that goal.

“War is cruelty. There's no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”
-William Tecumseh Sherman

[Grit]

The Japanese leadership had ample time to prepare for air attacks on their country. They simply did not prepare the civilian population.

From the United States Strategic Bombing Survey Summary Report July 1, 1946.

...The experience of both the Pacific and European wars emphasizes the extent to which civilian and other forms of passive defense can reduce a country's vulnerability to air attack. Civilian injuries and fatalities can be reduced, by presently known techniques, to one-twentieth or less of the casualties which would be suffered were these techniques not employed. This does not involve moving everything underground, but does involve a progressive evacuation, dispersal, warning, air-raid shelter, and postraid emergency assistance program, the foundations for which can only be laid in peacetime.