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Old 16th Jul 2008, 23:02
  #24 (permalink)  
Climebear
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
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Points taken Climebear, but at least he claimed paternity, and saw the offspring through its infancy. As to being...

Quote:
doctrinally blinkered and tied to the primacy of strategic bombing (the bomber will always get through).... This focus was often at the expense of other elements of air power - in particular fighter development.

Enough of our bombers did get through in the ensuing nastiness to contribute greatly to final victory, though at awful cost to all concerned. Contrast that to being doctrinally blinkered to the primacy of fighters...at the expense of other elements of airpower- in particular AT and RW, as if!
Exactly the point I was making.

As for bombers getting through in the end (of WW2) the point was the aspiration of their Airships in the inter-war period greatly outweighed the actual capability. It took several years of expensive (in terms of very brave aircrew) experimentation before air power could get close to some of its prewar proficies for stratigic bombing - even then the actual effect is the subject of significant debate (apart from the fact that air was the only was the UK took the offensive against the axis powers in the first 3 years of the war).

The point about this, and the wider point about becoming fixated on one element of air power at the expense of others, is very well explore in Tami Davis Biddle's excellent book: Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914-1945.
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