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Old 10th Sep 2010, 15:26
  #53 (permalink)  
TorqueOfTheDevil
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Do you honestly maintain that the Red Army could have successfully invaded from the East had Bomber Command and the 8th Army Air Force not laid waste to the German industrial war machine, and equally importantly neutralised the Luftwaffe by early 1945?
Yes I do. The bombing may have made the Soviet advance quicker, but it would still have happened. I also disagree that the bombing neutralised the Luftwaffe (unless you mean neutralised in the sense of the USAAF bombing oil production).

Presumably you would say that the RAF Night Bombing Campaign was wrong from beginning to end
Not at all - it was worth a try (though I suggest it was no more likely to bring down Germany than the Blitz was to cause our capitulation in 1940-1). But I believe (and I may be wrong) that by mid-1944, with appalling losses to Bomber Command and no tangible result, it should have been apparent that the campaign needed to change direction either to reduce losses or achieve more worthwhile results. We knew that bombing oil was crippling the German war effort, yet brave RAF men and their fine machines were still squandered on bombing cities (to say nothing of the killing of German civilians - not all of them had relocated to factories in the countryside!). I don't think this was the best use of a potent force.
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