Most overrated WWII weapon

[BJCard]

Ok, calm down dude- I was talking earlier in the war, not in 1945 when it was lambs to the slaughter.  Of course it is destructive when there is nothing fighting back.  But when there are lots of AA and enemy 109s attacking you (and you have no long range air support)…

You cannot bomb your way to victory in any way (save nuclear bombs); you still need boots on the ground.  I’m not saying they weren’t incredibly useful!

Was just trying to stimulate some conversation… sheesh!

Additionally, the Soviets were what defeated Germany… the Allies only hastened the end, and preserved democracy in some of Europe.

[Derek]

The ultimate aim of an attack on a town area is to break the morale of the population which occupies it. To ensure this, we must achieve two things: first, we must make the town physically uninhabitable and, secondly, we must make the people conscious of constant personal danger. The immediate aim, is therefore, twofold, namely, to produce (i) destruction and (ii) fear of death.“[129]”

“On 30 May 1942, between 0047 and 0225 hours, in Operation Millennium 1,046 bombers dropped over 2,000 tons of high explosive and incendiaries on the medieval town of Cologne, and the resulting fires burned it from end to end. The damage inflicted was extensive. The fires could be seen 600 miles away at an altitude of 20,000 feet. Some 3,300 houses were destroyed, and 10,000 were damaged. 12,000 separate fires raged destroying 36 factories, damaging 270 more, and leaving 45,000 people with nowhere to live or to work. Only 384 civilians and 85 soldiers were killed, but thousands evacuated the city. Bomber Command lost 40 bombers.”

The effects of the massive raids using a combination of blockbuster bombs (to blow off roofs) and incendiaries (to start fires in the exposed buildings) created firestorms in some cities. The most extreme examples of which were caused by Operation Gomorrah, the attack on Hamburg, (45,000 dead), attack on Kassel (10,000 dead), the attack on Darmstadt (12,500 dead), the attack on Pforzheim (21,200 dead), the attack on Swinemuende (23,000 dead) and the attack on Dresden (35,000 dead).

One could go on and on about the awe-inspiring destruction of strategic bombing raids in WWII
But i think you get my point ;)

:evil:

[BJCard]

@Uncrustable:

The ultimate aim of an attack on a town area is to break the morale of the population which occupies it. To ensure this, we must achieve two things: first, we must make the town physically uninhabitable and, secondly, we must make the people conscious of constant personal danger. The immediate aim, is therefore, twofold, namely, to produce (i) destruction and (ii) fear of death.“[129]”

“On 30 May 1942, between 0047 and 0225 hours, in Operation Millennium 1,046 bombers dropped over 2,000 tons of high explosive and incendiaries on the medieval town of Cologne, and the resulting fires burned it from end to end. The damage inflicted was extensive. The fires could be seen 600 miles away at an altitude of 20,000 feet. Some 3,300 houses were destroyed, and 10,000 were damaged. 12,000 separate fires raged destroying 36 factories, damaging 270 more, and leaving 45,000 people with nowhere to live or to work. Only 384 civilians and 85 soldiers were killed, but thousands evacuated the city. Bomber Command lost 40 bombers.”

The effects of the massive raids using a combination of blockbuster bombs (to blow off roofs) and incendiaries (to start fires in the exposed buildings) created firestorms in some cities. The most extreme examples of which were caused by Operation Gomorrah, the attack on Hamburg, (45,000 dead), attack on Kassel (10,000 dead), the attack on Darmstadt (12,500 dead), the attack on Pforzheim (21,200 dead), the attack on Swinemuende (23,000 dead) and the attack on Dresden (35,000 dead).

One could go on and on about the awe-inspiring destruction of strategic bombing raids in WWII
But i think you get my point ;)

:evil:

Dude I backed down when the atomic bomb was mentioned.

[Derek]

This is an interesting tidbit on strategicbombing in ww2

On 14 February 1942, the Area bombing directive was issued to Bomber Command. Bombing was to be “focused on the morale of the enemy civil population and in particular of the industrial workers.” Though it was never explicitly declared, this was the nearest that the British got to a declaration of unrestricted aerial bombing � Directive 22 said “You are accordingly authorised to use your forces without restriction”, and then listing a series of primary targets which included Essen, Duisburg, D�sseldorf, and Cologne. Secondary targets included Braunschweig, L�beck, Rostock, Bremen, Kiel, Hanover, Frankfurt, Mannheim, Stuttgart, and Schweinfurt. The directive stated that “operations should now be focused on the morale of the enemy civilian population, and in particular, the industrial workers”. Lest there be any confusion, Sir Charles Portal wrote to Air Chief Marshal Norman Bottomley on 15 February "…I suppose it is clear that the aiming points will be the built-up areas, and not, for instance, the dockyards or aircraft factories". Factories were no longer targets.

[221B Baker Street]

Agree completely with the German V-2.  I read somewhere that the effort for this was nearly that as for the atomic bomb, but the results of the V-2 was virtually negligible.  In fact, the British were glad for the V-2 because they knew the money spent on each missile was money not spent on the things that really had an effect.

[ABWorsham4]

The bombing of cities, Britain, Germany or Japan did not break the spirit of the people. Hardships bring out the toughness in people, a willingness to see things through to the end.

[gamerman01]

@ABWorsham:

Hardships bring out the toughness in people

In many, and maybe even most, but not all.  Many are demoralized, depressed, and defeated.  I know the Londoners were mighty happy when it finally stopped.

Hardships bring out the toughness in the ones that weren’t killed (or badly maimed), of course.

The old saying is “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”

Well those bombs killed a LOT of people

[gamerman01]

But nobody can tell me that B-29 superfortresses are overrated

They’re about as overrated as aircraft carriers, IMO  :-)

[gamerman01]

Just look at it…

[ABWorsham4]

@Gamerman01:

Just look at it…

For the amount of money spent producing the B-29, it should be an awesome bomber. I’ve read that it was one of the more expensive planes to produce in history.

Have you seen or read about the B-29 that was landed on an ice field in the North Pole early in the Cold War and was frozen? There was reserach and recovery team sent to dig the plane out and recover it. Great story, terrible ending.

[BJCard]

@ABWorsham:

@Gamerman01:

Just look at it…

For the amount of money spent producing the B-29, it should be an awesome bomber. I’ve read that it was one of the more expensive planes to produce in history.

Have you seen or read about the B-29 that was landed on an ice field in the North Pole early in the Cold War and was frozen? There was reserach and recovery team sent to dig the plane out and recover it. Great story, terrible ending.

Did not know about that.  Crazy.  Yes, the amount of money spent on the bombers relative to their effectiveness is what I was getting at until I was attacked.

[CWO Marc]

@ABWorsham:

I’ve read that it was one of the more expensive planes to produce in history.

I think each B-29 cost as much to produce as a Navy destroyer.  It was a very sophisticated plane for its time; one of its innovative features was that it was pressurized, and I believe it had a number of gun turrets that could be operated by remote control.

[MrMalachiCrunch]

Yeah there were remote control turrets, it was quite the piece of engineering!

The Kee Bird was a United States Army Air Forces B-29-95-BW Superfortress, 45-21768, of the 46th Reconnaissance Squadron, that became marooned after making an emergency landing in northwest Greenland during a secret Cold War spying mission on 21 February 1947.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kee_Bird

Very interesting!

Carpet bombing of cities never did break the spirit of any enemy I am aware of.  As for bombing industry, I believe the accuracy of bombs dropped was something like on average a 5% chance the bomb would land within a mile of the target.

OK, after a bit of research the accuracy was a bit better but not by much!

In reality, the day bombing was “precision bombing” only in the sense that most bombs fell somewhere near a specific designated target such as a railway yard. Conventionally, the air forces designated as “the target area” a circle having a radius of 1000 feet around the aiming point of attack. While accuracy improved during the war, Survey studies show that, in the over-all, only about 20% of the bombs aimed at precision targets fell within this target area.[148] In the fall of 1944, only seven percent of all bombs dropped by the Eighth Air Force hit within 1,000 feet of their aim point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II

[CWO Marc]

@BJCard:

Perhaps an overrated weapon would be the torpedo- not only did the American ones not work the first couple of years but many submarine kills were with the deck gun.

The American early-war dud torpedoes (I think they had defective detonators, which could be blamed on inadequate testing under realistic conditions) were certainly overrated.  On the other hand, the Japanese oxygen-fuelled Long Lance torpedo could be described as underrated: when the war started, the US had no idea that the Japanese Navy possessed the best torpedo in the world, with about twice the range of more conventional models.

[gamerman01]

@ABWorsham:

For the amount of money spent producing the B-29, it should be an awesome bomber. I’ve read that it was one of the more expensive planes to produce in history.

Cost means little, especially to the USA
My country would spend a boatload of money for the chance of saving 1 American life or the chance to damage the enemy at less risk to Americans.
That’s why we have cruise missiles, drones, and remote controlled stuff (like turrets).  It’s why we researched “Star Wars” in the 80’s.  It’s why we had a lot more armor plating in our fighters in the Pacific than the Japanese zeros.
The way I see it, the price tag has absolutely nothing to do with the effectiveness of a WWII weapon or whether it is overrated.

Overrated means a lot of people think it’s awesome but it’s really…… not so awesome.

[gamerman01]

@Gamerman01:

My country would spend a boatload of money for the chance of saving 1 American life or the chance to damage the enemy at less risk to Americans.

And now that I’m talking a bit about culture of WWII powers….
Who but freedom loving nations like the USA and UK would immediately set out to rebuild their conquered enemies?  Rome filled Carthage with salt.  If the Axis won <shudder>… what would have happened?

Japan is now governed by a constitutional monarchy and made better cars and electronics than America by the 80’s.
Germany is a federal, parliamentary, representative democratic republic.
Italy is a unitary, parliamentary republic.

:-o

People say a lot of crap about my country and a lot of it is at least partially true, but I am proud of the WWII performance of the USA (and Canada and UK), and even more proud of the reconstruction efforts in the aftermath, and the fact that we have been allies of Germany, Italy, and protector of Japan ever since.</shudder>

[CWO Marc]

@Gamerman01:

My country would spend a boatload of money for the chance of saving 1 American life or the chance to damage the enemy at less risk to Americans. […] It’s why we had a lot more armor plating in our fighters in the Pacific than the Japanese zeros.

And on a related point, the US Navy in WWII put lots of effort into rescuing downed pilots, but wasn’t particularly bothered about the loss of aircraft as such.  Damaged or shot-down planes could easily be replaced (especially late in the war, when American industry had reached its full production potential), while aircraft crews by contrast were considered much more valuable than the machines they flew.  Which makes sense both from a humanitarian viewpoint and from the perspective how much of an investment was represented by a trained and experienced pilot.

[BJCard]

And the protector of Germany, Italy, etc.

[ABWorsham4]

@Gamerman01:

@ABWorsham:

For the amount of money spent producing the B-29, it should be an awesome bomber. I’ve read that it was one of the more expensive planes to produce in history.

Cost means little, especially to the USA

The U.S is my country also, sadly you are correct, thats why the U.S has Trillions in debt.

[ABWorsham4]

I would have to say the Me-110. Some good German pilots were sitting behind the controls of a 110 with Spitfire flying circles around them during the Battle of Britain. The plane had some redemption under the cover of darkness shooting down heavies. However when the war was winnable the weapon system failed.