Talk:Industrial web theory

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American bombing leaders maintained that precision attacks were being carried out, but in early 1944 poor weather over Europe prevented visual sighting, and bombs were dropped indiscriminately by inaccurate radar methods through cloud cover, resulting in general population destruction.[1] By September 1944, all pretense to precision was abandoned when General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the area bombing of Berlin.[1] By that time, bombing was not so much strategic as it was tactical, to soften Germany for invasion by ground troops.[6] Thousand-bomber raids were not able to diminish industrial production of war materiel in time to prevent invasion.[12] When arms production in Germany finally faltered in the third quarter of 1944, only 30% of the total of eventual bomb tonnage had been dropped on the country—this after the French-German border had been reached and the war on the ground had seen its decisive breakthrough.[6] Germany was conquered by invasion, not by surrendering as a result of bombing.[6] The morale of the enemy was not significantly affected—no population that was bombed in World War II lost their will to resist.[1]

This section is debatable. Many people have many opinions about the results and effects of bombing, but that debate is not mentioned here; we have instead something which is stated as what happened.

For example, poor weather prevented precision bombing; but this was often the case throughout the war. Radar was used because if you're going to fly all the way over there, better to drop your bombs as best you can than just bring them back.

"Thousand-bomber raids were not able to diminish industrial production of war materiel in time to prevent invasion." There were only a few of these raids. Bomber Harris said that the bombing programme got into its stride in early 1944, ran for about six months and then was superceeded by the invasion - the bombing effort was then not strategic, but in support of the invasion. Six months was never thought long enough to by any proponents of strategic bombing.

"When arms production in Germany finally faltered in the third quarter of 1944, only 30% of the total of eventual bomb tonnage had been dropped on the country—this after the French-German border had been reached and the war on the ground had seen its decisive breakthrough."

This is probably the worst offender. First, the 30% is of "total *EVENTUAL* bomb tonnage*. Tonnage dropped 1939 to the start of 1944 was a very small fraction of what was dropped afterwards; the bombing effort in the early years of the war was tiny.

Second, I don't know if the 30% figure is true or not, but the strategic bombing of oil had an enourmous effect on German military capability - it fairly well proved a great deal of the idea of knocking out a particular sector. Speer reckoned that *in general*, roughly that about 30% of military production was lost due to bombing (the German economy never really went onto a full war footing and the efforts Speer made to get closer to a war footing did a great deal to increase producion, occuring during the time the Allied bombing effort was starting to increase) but that the loss of oil was catastrophic.

"Germany was conquered by invasion, not by surrendering as a result of bombing."

That's because there *was* an invasion. If there had not been, and the focus had been on bombing, perhaps Germany would have surrended to bombing.

"The morale of the enemy was not significantly affected—no population that was bombed in World War II lost their will to resist."

True, but misleading. Moral was utterly destroyed by bombing. But *CONDUCT* did not change. People still went to work and did as they were told. The Germans, in their post war interviews, fundamentally differentiated between moral and conduct.

Toby Douglass (talk) 13:48, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * "Conduct" was what American bomb theorists were referring to when they said "morale." They didn't give a hoot about emotions or feeling which didn't have a bearing on conduct—they only cared about these things when conduct was measurably affected.
 * Your arguments are with the references #1, #6 and #12. It's not me making up this stuff. To your point, however, there are other references which can be selectively added to the article to provide the alternate viewpoint: that the air offensive did some great damage to the oil industry. Got any in mind? Binksternet (talk) 00:46, 13 November 2009 (UTC)