Jane-Doh:
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.
Please Miss, PPRuNe just ate all my Homework! So here goes again:
The best USAAF got was a radius of 2 miles by day. BC started out at 5 miles and got it down to 3 miles by night. I would place 400 yd "CEPs" and 600 yd "areas" in with Danny's Fairies!
The USAAF started out with the pre war concept of long rang bombers (B-17s) sinking enemy naval targets (Japanese warships) with high level precision bombing (Norden bombsight). In reality of course that task was carried out by carrier borne Torpedo and Dive Bombers. The B-17s were sent to Europe for the much easier task of bombing land-locked strategic military targets. The loss rate was so horrific that they withdrew until long range fighters evened the odds. Their success in precision bombing thereafter is quoted above. They may well have:
generally tried to nail factories, railway yards, bridges, stuff like that;
the reality was that, like the RAF, they flattened cities and killed civilians. So on the one hand the Brits flattened cities at night, killed civilians, and are guilty of war crimes. On the other hand the USAAF aspired to bomb precision targets by day, resulting in flattened cities and killing civilians, but are not? Yer 'avin a larf, aintcher? Either that or you must be a lawyer. As Brian 48Nav says, they both saved Western Europe, as well as in all likelihood their own nations, and the freedom of people like you to count the number of Fairies on pin heads!