DC10RM:-
In 1942 Mr Butt, a senior civil servant published a report that said 90% of bombs dropped by RAF Bomber Command on raids in Germany were being dropped in excess of 5 miles from a specific aiming point.
That is the nub of the issue. Bomber Command attacked at night to avoid the suicidal loss rate of when they attacked by day. The only targets that could be predictably hit by night were cities. Each Navigator had to find that city himself, there was little or no sign of the hundreds of other aircraft bent on doing the same thing. Distractions such as cloud cover, winds contrary to expected, flak, night fighters, dummy fires laid in open countryside, and above all inexperience, reduced the chances of even doing that. Air superiority was at the core of the problem, the USAAF achieved it locally with the amazing Mustang. Bomber Command had to wait for the final months of the war to do so in the Reich skies. Harris hit cities because he could, and like any good commander put fire into the bellies of his Old Lags before sending them out night after night. There were indeed other targets such have been mentioned like Peenemunde that could be equally hit, but then the activities carried out in such places were dispersed (underground in that case). The only targets that could be hit systematically, continually, and effectively were cities that contained their own sub targets, railways, factories, and of course workers. The mayhem caused to the Nazi conduct of the war was immense and telling, testimony of which was given by that suave War Criminal, Albert Speer, Hitler's Minister of Armaments and War Production 1942/45.