Chugalug2
USAAF bombing was more accurate than BC's it is true. Our average error was 5 miles, theirs 2.5 miles.
I'm well aware of the fact that the Norden couldn't put a bomb in a pickle-barrel from 30,000 feet -- in fact
(I think I mentioned this before), it wasn't even particularly useful over 20,000 feet.
Regardless, as I understand it the CEP at the start of the war was around 400 yards, another source said their bombs generally landed within an area of either 600 feet or 600 yards.
Both had aiming points, or targets if you will, and neither was told to simply bomb anywhere within a city.
Yeah, but as I understand it, the USAAF
(at least from 1942-1944) generally tried to nail factories, railway yards, bridges, stuff like that; The RAF from what it appeared, simply hit targets that they thought would set off huge blazes that would burn a whole city down.
All that aside, I take it that you consider the USAAF as guilty of the war crimes that you accuse BC of, or do you perhaps not?
I would say that I believe the USAAF or RAF committed war-crimes when they purposefully targeted civilians
(which did happen on both sides). In some respects, the USAAF might have done something the RAF didn't
(not sure here) -- using low-altitude fighter attacks to strafe civilians.
"Atrocities were committed by both sides. That fall [1944] our fighter group received orders from the Eighth Air Force to stage a maximum effort. Our seventy-five Mustangs were assigned an area of fifty miles by fifty miles inside Germany and ordered to strafe anything that moved. The object was to demoralize the German population. . . It was a miserable, dirty mission, but we all took off on time and did it. . . I remember sitting next to Bochkay at the briefing and whispering to him: "If we're gonna do things like this, we sure as hell better make sure we're on the winning side.""
- Chuck Yeager
You'll note the statement demoralize the German
population was used -- not the German
military -- that means strafing civilians as well as military targets. It's one thing to strafe military targets, and accidentally get a civilian here and there if it's an accident -- when it's deliberate -- it's a war-crime.
MAD kept the peace in my book, for I am content with defining it simply as the absence of war!
So you think it's right to live in constant fear of annihilation?
Pontius Navigator
In the cold war one target set was counter-value - Leningrad for Birmingham. Even where the target was very clearly a city with the DPI in the centre it was always stated that the target was 'the HQ of the Western TVD' or some such military target which we all knew was as good as naming Soboran Barracks in Lincoln as justifciation for bombing Lincoln.
We all knew the military would not be there by the time we bombed the place and it was known that collateral damage was the bonus.
Well, I think it would be more correct to say that collateral damage was the goal, and the military target was a bonus
I guess it was written that way even then as legal justification.
Also, it probably makes the idea of bombing cities off the map and boiling away a couple of million people in a mushroom cloud somehow seem more palatable.
If you look at contemporary film of B17 raids you will see that they were not attempting pinpoint accuracy either. The master bomber might be leading the run but the formation would drop on command with the formation spread spreading the load.
I know after 1944 when Doolittle took command of the 8th AF, they simply switched to area-bombing. Strangely the CEP was about 900 feet at this point.
[b]Tankertrashnav[/b
I was thinking about replying to
Jane - Doh's latest post, but I started losing the will to live about half way through
Perhaps you should continue to read it now that you're in a better mood -- maybe you could learn something useful.
hval
WW II was a Total War.
Yes it was. It really amazes me how no matter how good an argument another person makes somebody always has to throw out the "Total War" trope as if it was some kind of trump-card that always wins the argument and makes any atrocity acceptable?
Fact is, targeting civilians was a war-crime even back then. It was since 1907 with the Hague Conventions. It's one thing when civilians die as a result of collateral damage, it's another when they are actually a target.
It also means that there aren't really any civilians as all are assets are mobilised with the aim of winning the war. All sides at the time understood this.
Sounds like a good argument except for the following facts
- The RAF, and some personalities within the USAAS/USAAC wanted to bomb civilian centers and terror bomb civilian populations into submission long before WW2 even started.
- This was largely due to the combination of ideas from people such as Giulio Douhet (Italy), Hugh Trenchard (UK), and Billy Mitchell (US)
- UK's experiences with Zeppelin bombing and unrestricted submarine warfare in WW1
- As I understand it, Germany didn't impose total war until early 1943, a couple of months after the UK imposed an area-bombing policy.
The desire to wage all out war on noncombatants existed long-before WW2 even started.
R.C.