Saturday, December 20, 2014
On the Goal of Mad-Bomber Harris's Carpet-Bombing Campaign Being to Demoralize the German People and Bring About an Early Surrender
It was not even remotely achieved. a) The bombing did not demoralize the Germans and instead made them angry. b) It did not reduce German manufacturing production and in fact production went up (at the most it retarded the rate of growth). c) 55,000 British airmen lost their lives during these attacks. d) Nearly 8,000 aircraft were lost. And e) it did not divert German resources and manpower away from the front in that the anti-aircraft guns would not have been tactically suitable for that, the men who fired them were mostly over 40, and the emergency workers had never worked in factories..........................................................................................Look, I'm going to say it again, folks. Terror and mass murder do not win wars. Strategy does. Source - A.C. Grayling's, "Among the Dead Cities".
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2 comments:
Regarding "did not divert German resources and manpower away from the front in that the anti-aircraft guns would not have been tactically suitable for that," we
note that of the 23,310 88mm,
10,704 remained throughout the war on anti-aircraft duty. These
weapons were relatively easily converted to very effective anti-tank weapons. The Wehrmacht constantly asked for that, and
was refused, the political effect of removing thousands of AA guns
from the Reich overriding. Crack
Luftwaffe troops manned the weapons until very late in the war. Such is the more conventional historical thinking.
As far as diverting resources:
"expenditures on anti-aircraft defenses were 39 million reichsmarks, whereas all the remaining weapons and munitions production amounted to 93 million (including 20 million of the navy budget and only nine million of the aircraft-related budget)."
Grayling obviously doesn't agree with you and says that the anti-aircraft weapons were used mainly by those who were under 16 and over 38.......And I'm trying to figure out, are you saying that area bombing of Harris was an effective strategy (as opposed to the American strategy in Europe of targeting energy, communications, etc.), never mind a just one?
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