>2026>Military planners still don't understand airpower can only win tactical battles, not achieve strategic objectives
>>65058737Air power can achieve strategic objectives, just not the strategic objective of regime change.If your strategic objective is the destruction of a navy air power will have no issues at all.
>>65058737for me its the Halifax
>>65058737weapon production in the german empire was 6x higher spring '45 than fall '39.thank you bomber harris, good job.
>>65058739Bombing a fleet is a tactical objective. Strategically, denying an enemy a fleet means you have to continuously bomb all new ships and production facilities. So it's not a goal that can be achieved and done with, it's something that must be actively maintained.
>>65058779My point is strategic goals can be achieved with air power they just need to be the kind of goals that can be.Lets say the goal is to blockade a port, if it's a total blockade with no exceptions air power can handle that. If it's a partial blockade with some vessels allowed then you need the navy, boardings and cargo inspections.
>>65058770>country that has switched to a fulltime war economy and ramped up its war industry to 11 has a higher output than it had while it was still warming up
>>65058770>bombing increases productionwow, what an incredible claim
>>65058737The unusual effectiveness with which HW Bush and Clinton employed airpower mindbroke a generation of American strategists
>>65059072>>65059075strategic bombing was/is useless given the effort.you get max.25% of the target area damaged, given there are no sandbag walls etc. between the buildings to shield from the blast/shrapnel and other measures which reduce the damage even further.plus, shit can be moved and rebuild.exept in wooden cities.
>>65058779>Strategically, denying an enemy a fleet means you have to continuously bomb all new ships and production facilities. So it's not a goal that can be achieved and done with, it's something that must be actively maintained.So it's a strategic objective that can be accomplished with air power, I'm glad we all agree.
>>65059088>shit can be moved and rebuild.Japan did that with their home shops and it didnt help their production maintain any numbers close to when they had dedicated factories. But I have to agree bombers can't do it alone because the blockades enforces by the US Navy created a bottle neck of imported resources. Even if production stayed at peak rates they would have used up any useful materials. I suppose the next question is can a modern airforce enforce an import blockade like a Navy could?
>>65058770And none of it mattered because the vehicles had no fuel and nothing could be brought anywhere from the factories because the rail network was fucked.
>>65059087the thing that really broke them was that these operations had extensive ISR and planning ahead of time, and a plan to use the air power to make the objectives on the ground easily achievable. you hear so much about the air campaigns because they were used to make ground operations trivial. that didn't mean ground operations weren't still needed and some of the most vital parts of the plan, just that by comparison the troops on the ground encountered only light resistance, and had easy access to accurate fires to ensure operational tempo.
Germany just chose to stop producing fuel and transporting coal on a whim it seems.
>>65059159>I suppose the next question is can a modern airforce enforce an import blockade like a Navy could?Mines.
>>65058737If the Transport and Oil plans had been the primary focus in 1943, strategic bombing probably would've had a greater impact. Plus, for some reason, the Transport plan completely ignored the use of waterways, particularly the handful of canals which could have easily been kept out of commission.
>>65059919Mines are far too easy to clear if they aren't being actively guarded.
Yeah thats literally the pointNetanyahu only wants to defang IranRegeim change has to much risk, someone competent might come alongSee warsaw uprising
>>65058737>not achieve strategic objectivesThere were a pair of B-29s that ended WWII in the Pacific.
>>65060149Go read about Operation Starvation, shitface. 6-8 months of mines from B-29's sunk more merchant shipping from Japan than submarines did throughout the entire war. Read about how complex the mines were, and how "easy" they were to diffuse when the trigger mechanism. Hint: they weren't, the things could be programmed to go off after a number of ships pass it or to activate only after a certain number of days or to fuse only when a ship of a certain tonnage passed by.I'm probably typing that all in vain, because /k/ doesn't fucking read books, but anywho.
>>65058770They just had to use slave labour and give up air superiority on all the battlefields
>>65061216Yes. Neither of these things were related to strategic bombing though.
>>65058779>Bombing a fleet is a tactical objectiveSmooth brain talk.It takes years to (re)build a Navy.It can takes a few weeks to wipe it out.Some slant eyed bastards tried to do so in a day and did well enough.Once a navy is out, you basically took out the enemy's large-scale long-range projection capacity, along with making naval blockade much more viable against him while making naval raids a minimal threat for you.In effect, you contained the enemy to a few square of the chess Biard, leaving you free to develop.Of course, over a décade, you might have to do new raids against the fleet-in-being. But if a weapon gives you a decade of peace for every week of opération, this at a ridiculously low human cost, it's democracies favorite weapon.
>>65061233Strategic bombing contributed to it
Way to give Eglin and Langley something to talk about during the ceasefire (read: centcom build up for boots on the ground).Good god this thread is painful to read. It's like reading battleship proposals in 1952.
>>65058770But he killed lots of Germans so yes thank you Sir Arthur Harris, good job bombing the shit out of them.
>>65061250Bombing civillian housing etc. was proven a net loss for the allies.The Strategic Bombing Survey tries to paint an extremely positive picture, but the conclusions are clear: Only attacks on petrochemical industry showed a measurable and widespread effect, and that was largely achieved after long-range fighters could directly engage enemy fighters over enemy territory.Hitting shipyards was also shown to be effective at disrupting naval production and repairs, as were strikes against railway targets especially when combined with ground operations.
>>65061313>Bombing civillian housing etc. was proven a net loss for the allies.Oh so more bomber crew members died than germs did? Didn't know that.
>>65061202I read books, do you have any particular ones to recommend on the subject?
>>65059088>strategic bombing was/is useless given the effortit wiped out thousands of fighters on the ground before they were builtBf109 production in 1942 was supposed to be in the 4000s but was held downsimilarly, Fw190 production in 1943 only increased by 300 when it should have been at least a thousand>>65058770>weapon productionyeah? what type of weapons? MP 3008s and Panzerfausts?
>>65061380The bombing started in 1942, your data shows in most categories, massive production increases until the land invasion
>>65061478>massive production increasesbut far from the number which German planners expected, because of strategic bombing destroyed. in 1942, German fighter production was projected to at least double every year (mostly from massive increase in Bf109 production); instead, production targets of 1941 were only reached in 1942net Bf109 production actually fell in 42and these are only the figures we get from comparing planned vs actual production of fighterswe don't have planning figures for other key categories, i.e. tanks and artillery>>65061478>The bombing started in 1942Nuisance raids ended in H1 1941 and general night raids with increasing numbers of bombers began in H2 1941It's true however that the Area Bombing Directive was issued in Feb 42, and Operation Millennium was in May 42, which simply underscores the immediacy of the impact on German production.p.s. the slow growth of Fw190 production from 42 to 43 also stands in stark contrast to the growth in other years
>>65061380Well everybody knows that bombing fighters on the ground magically makes another one spawn
>>65058737wronghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_bombing_of_Rotterdamhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia
>>65061727The Dutch were already negotiating a surrender and Rotterdam was bombed because most aircrews didn't see the red flares used to signal them to turn around.It would be nice if people actually read the articles they link as evidence.The Blitz that followed has conclusively proven that terror bombing doesn't work unless the country is already on the brink of surrender anyway.
>>65061348Are you actually stupid, or just pretending?
>>65062060Are you a whiny wehrapoo faggot? Every German killed is a net positive on Europe, period.
