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quote: you are giving here a picture of aysmmetrical warfare(as per Iraq) - which has some validity for late 1944 and 1945 as far as Bomber Command was concerned, though German nightfighters could still spring the odd suprise.
Well we are talking about 13th/14th Feb 1945 here Cottar. I was answering Sunnyblink's comment on nightfighters. So, what's the problem? |
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quote: Originally posted by Harry Amphlett: quote: In what way was Dresden an'undefended city'?
Sunnyblink, I'm suprised that you have never heard Dresden described as such, an undefended city. It was undefended because most of the anti aircraft guns had been redeployed elsewhere. A single nightfighter did take off at 21.55 when the first wave of the RAF was detected. It took 30 mins to reach attack height. However, the RAF started bombing at 22.13 and finished by 22.21. The single nightfighter arrived after the bombing. If you want to claim that a single night fighter and a few AA guns constitutes a defence, please do so, but I am far from convinced. RAF losses for the two raids were 5 or 6 aircraft. I don't that is the result of heavy AA defence. quote: There were many industrial targets within Dresden
Every city was bombed many times. When we talk about the bombing of Dresden, we are referring to the 13th/14th Feb, not the october raid of 1944 and not the raids conducted in Jan, March or April 1945. The targets for the 13th/14th were the city and the marshalling yards, not the industrial area. The civilian deaths of course were mainly in the city which had been flooded by refugees from the east. Note, the target was the city centre where the population lived and the marshalling yardrs. The industrial sector was not targetted until April 1945. quote: Finally when compared to many other actions in the war the 25,000 deaths at Dresden is minor and many more allied soldiers than that were still to die in the Battle of Berlin.
I rarely comment of figures but 25,000 is the lowest I have ever heard. The commerorative plaque to Dresden in Coventry gives 32,000. In 1995, the BBC in it's lead up to the anniversary of the bombing kept revising its figures nightly, from 45,000, to 55,000, then to 65,000 and finally they settled on 75,000. The Times Atlas gives the figure at 125,000 and british anti bombing campaigners claimed 200,000. It's unwise to compare say, the lowest figure here with, for instance the highest figure or a military battle elsewhere. You need a reference book which compiles all the figures which sing from the same hymnsheet as it were to get a relative comparison. NB. I hope you are not claiming that the allies, ie the british and americans fought in the battle to take berlin city where most of the casualties were.
You originally stated that Dresden was an undefended city, now you are implying that it was 'Poorly' defended, a single night fighter plus a few anti aircraft guns still constitues a defence and as I said in a previuos post there was a dog fight on the next day other Dresden so it was defended then. The bombinig of the city including the industrial section was carried out on the 13/14 th Feb - all my posts plus the link from the US airfoce bombing survey refer to that raid. The figure of 25,000 is generally accepted by reputeable historians as the most likly death toll, some claim it may have been near 35,000 but most that it was nearer 25,000. If you trace back you will find the source of the very high figures you quote is David Irving. As you should be aware Irving deliberatly inflated the casualty figures for Dresden. Below is a link to the Irving court case transscript where the falseification of the casualty numbers for Dresden was exposed. http://www.holocaustdenialontrial.org/evidence/evans005.asp#5.2d |
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quote: Originally posted by Harry Amphlett: quote: In what way was Dresden an'undefended city'?
. NB. I hope you are not claiming that the allies, ie the british and americans fought in the battle to take berlin city where most of the casualties were.
Opps missed this bit, The Allies, in the form of the Soviet Union, did fight to take Berlin city and the 81,000 deaths were all Soviet. One of the prime objectives of the Dresden raid was to aid the Soviets after all. |
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quote: Dresden was "defended" - to suppose otherwise is a lie. There were nearby AA defences.
decrypted, There are many references to Dresden being an undefended city. The question is, are those views correct? Are we talking 'undefended' in a legal sense or are we talking 'undefended' in a practical sense? Neither the 1923 Hague Rules of Air Warfare nor the 1938 Amsterdam Convention were ever ratified. In this sense, there was no law at all on the matter. The Nuremburg Trials took the view that beligerents were bound by the 1907 Hague Convention irrespective of whether they had signed it or not. The only article in the 1907 Convention which deals with it is: Article 25. The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended is prohibited. However, 'undefended' is not legally defined. You touched on this earlier when you stated that anywhere with an AA emplacement was a legitimate target. A hospital which houses an AA emplacement is, even today, regarded as a legitimate target. If one aims at the hospital but hits a school 500 yds away, it is still not 'illegal' where intent can be shown that the target was the hospital. If one aims at the school, it is regarded as illegal. I've only read a cursory amount about the laws on this, which are evoloutionary anyway, but it is unclear if it is illegal to bomb the whole area, thereby eliminating both the school and the hosptal. So, if there was no strict legal definition during WW2, was it defended in a practical sense. Virtually no airforce existed and most of the guns had been removed. I don't have the numbers. But if you do have any figures I'd be grateful if you could post the details. |
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quote: To man these weapons the flak regiments in Germany required some 900,000 fit men,
Cottar, But where does the figure of 900,000 come from? How is it calculated? What period of the war are we talking about? How many of those 900,000 would have been available for active service in Normandy? How many were aged between 12 and 17? How many were aged over 50? How many had other jobs as well? Surely your sources have something to say on the matter? |
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quote: You haven't suggested how the Augsburg raid could have been done better tactically
Cottar, I'm not even going to suggest anything. I don't pretend to know. You're the one who has been writing about how the collapse of the german army on the eastern front could have been halted and the situation turned around leading to victory. I'm no armchair general. My question remains the same. Do you really think it was beyond the capabilities of the british to successfully devise new tactics and techniques? quote: If it doesn't matter whether it was low level then why have you been suggesting flying under radar?
I'm not in all circumstances. The Tirpitz is a good example of ability to target accurately from a great height. My main point however is that perhaps in many cases, the targetting could have been different and with better techniques and tactics and had the RAF been given greater time to practice them, they may have been more successful in other spheres. As I wrote, we never tried so we will never know. |
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quote: You should read Hasting's book, harry. In 1917 Churchill wrote a highly perceptive paper rejecting arguments that bombing civilian areas would break their morale and will to continue the war.
Churchill changed his mind on a lot of things, as Arthur Harris found out. Without seeing what Hastings has written, you surely cannot expect me to comment. |
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quote: Perhaps you have evidence from strategic bombing campaigns waged only a decade or so after WW2 to prove how easily it was to increase precision?
This pre-supposes that there was a desire to switch from area to precision bombing which, given the then focus on emerging nuclear warfare is unlikely. |
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quote: You originally stated that Dresden was an undefended city, now you are implying that it was 'Poorly' defended, a single night fighter plus a few anti aircraft guns still constitues a defence
Sunnyblink, If you doubt Dresden is seen by many as an undefended city, just read more widely. You may disagree, but it is a view. Try Patrick Buchanan 'Where Right Went Wrong'. If you don't want to read a book, try a news paper article: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&r...3BA35750C0A967948260If you want a personal account, the BBC have one about a british POW at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/77/a4415177.shtmlThey all claim Dresden was undefended. If you claim it was defended, please tell us how many AA guns in your opinion constitutes a defence. quote: and as I said in a previuos post there was a dog fight on the next day other Dresden so it was defended then.
What sources state this? How many fighters were involved. Please, let us know so we can read more about it. |
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quote: The Allies, in the form of the Soviet Union, did fight to take Berlin city and the 81,000 deaths were all Soviet.
Sunnyblink, OK, the russians. Allies is normally used for the anglo saxon powers. quote: One of the prime objectives of the Dresden raid was to aid the Soviets after all.
Yes that was a stated reason, but did it help them in reality? Also, at this point in the war we have to consider how the allies and the russians were going to deal with each other after the war. churchill was distrustful. The americans he thought were naive. There may be a friendly warning, look at what we can do. |
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quote:
This pre-supposes that there was a desire to switch from area to precision bombing which, given the then focus on emerging nuclear warfare is unlikely.
Actually there were a number of "conventional" conflicts after WW2 - possibly the Korean war would be worth looking into. |
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harry "But where does the figure of 900,000 come from? How is it calculated? What period of the war are we talking about? How many of those 900,000 would have been available for active service in Normandy? How many were aged between 12 and 17? How many were aged over 50? How many had other jobs as well? Surely your sources have something to say on the matter?" Robin Neillands put it at 900000, Dennis Richards at about 1000000. There is also this very interesting article below which reviews an authoratative study. From this it is very clear that German flak was an integrated defence system involving thousands of heavy guns, light guns and searchlights. By August 1940 alone 528000 men were required to man these defences; "By August, the continued expansion of the flak arm required the services of 528,000 men to operate the broad range of ground-based air defense weapons and equipment." However as the scale of the British offensive increased it became a drain on manpower resources "In February 1942 "Bomber" Harris replaced Richard Peirse as Commander-in-Chief of the RAF's Bomber Command. Under his stern guidance, the night bombers began intensifying their attacks and making massed raids over important targets. In May 1942 Harris launched the first thousand-bomber raid. Given such intensification of the Allied bombing campaign, the Luftwaffe had to scramble to respond effectively. Dummy/decoy sites were increased and smoke generators used to conceal targets. And as always, the number of AA guns increased. Despite the manifold increase in the size of the Luftwaffe's ground-based defense forces, neither the German economy nor its manpower base could support the necessary expansion to protect every important target within Germany and the occupied territories." As the article goes on to say the Germans were forced to use schoolboys, older men, women as well - but it can hardly be claimed that Bomber Command was not a serious drain on both manpower and resources generally - as the figures I have cited show. In addition more manpower was required to clear up and repair the damage of the vast destruction caused by the attacks http://www.sonic.net/~bstone/archives/011118.shtmlThis comment is also particularly noteworthy "Combat on the ground in Russia and Africa in 1941 proved again and again that the Luftwaffe's precious AA guns were invaluable against enemy tanks, often performing the decisive role in tactical engagements. From this point the Luftwaffe had to fend off increasing demands from the Army for more and more flak weapons. In April Hitler ruled against creation of an Army flak arm, but demands remained insatiable." So obviously the fact that 8876 88mm guns were deployed in defence of the Reich in Sept 1943 is extremely significant. |
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quote: Originally posted by Harry Amphlett: quote: you are giving here a picture of aysmmetrical warfare(as per Iraq) - which has some validity for late 1944 and 1945 as far as Bomber Command was concerned, though German nightfighters could still spring the odd suprise.
It's a problem because of the lck of context Well we are talking about 13th/14th Feb 1945 here Cottar. I was answering Sunnyblink's comment on nightfighters. So, what's the problem?
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quote: Actually there were a number of "conventional" conflicts after WW2 - possibly the Korean war would be worth looking into.
decrypted, I'd be interested in what you have to say about bombing in these conflicts. MaCArthur proposed dozens of nuclear attacks on China during the Korean conflict but I know little about conventional bombing until what I remember in Vietnam and Cambodia. |
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quote: However as the scale of the British offensive increased it became a drain on manpower resources
Cottar, But where do these figures come from? 900,000, 1,000,000, 528,000 are just figures. How were they calculated? Are they all men otherwise fit for active service? Don't the authors explain how these figures were derived? |
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quote: So obviously the fact that 8876 88mm guns were deployed in defence of the Reich in Sept 1943 is extremely significant.
Cottar, I'm not denying that. I only question the significance of figures such as 900,000 when the suggestion is that they would otherwise have been available for active service. How many young boys, old men and women of all ages were employed? I'm just suprised that the authors you cite don't go into more detail. |
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quote: It's a problem because of the lck of context
Cottar, Perhaps I have misunderstood your original post then. You didn't put any quotes in and I thought you were referring to the question of Dresden's defeces. If this not the case, what were you referring to? |
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"I'm no armchair general."
Well you need to make some practical suggestions because it is clear that you do not understand what was, and was not possible at the time. How can you comment without an appreciation of the potentialities and limitations of the aircraft and their weapons?
"My question remains the same. Do you really think it was beyond the capabilities of the british to successfully devise new tactics and techniques?"
The RAF did make vast progress over the course of the war - by the end Hastings called it the most technologically advanced arm of the allied forces - but it was not possible to do this in 5 minutes.
Also by the end of the war Bomber Command was operating in an different environment - it could fly by day with escort - the Luftwaffe day fighter arm had been shot to pieces and was critically short of fuel, by night the German defences were also greatly weakened
None of this was the case earlier - as I have said the capabilities of the heavy bombers themselves must be taken into account. They were extremely vulnerable, and this vulnerability dictated the way they could be used.
You said, harry, that these planes should have flown low below the radar - I tell you, and give examples, of where they were shot to pieces by German light flak, an integral and deadly part of the in-depth German defence system which soaked up substantial resources.
Now you are apparently saying that they should not have flown low "in all circumstances" - just as well really given the percentage loss rates - but bombed accurately at great height, again citing the Tirpitz as an example - and blithely ignoring my comment that the Tirpitz was on the coast, not deep in Germany.
The Tirpitz was destroyed by day - but it was not possible to fly RAF heavy bombers by day over Germany. This was because they were simply too vulnerble - designed to carry massive bomb loads they simply were not survivable. They were not well armoured and their 0.303 machine guns were essentially pea-shooters, far outranged by the cannon of Luftwaffe fighters.
Nor in fact could the Americans fly unescorted by day - despite the fact that they specifically planned to do that on the basis of many 0.5 machine guns in their aircraft and more armour. They simply had no answer to fast cannon armed fighters until they developed a long range fighters themselves. Their formations were also vulnerable to the flak concentrations at which the Germans were so skilled, and having broken up formations the fighters could come in and take a heavy toll.
So that left flying by night for the RAF - essentially this meant that the losses could be kept within just about tolerable levels but that was traded off by the fact that the crews could not see what they were doing.
Because then a city was effectively all that could be found - then the city became, inevitably, the target - rather than plants and installations within it. This was then rationalised by the 14th Feb 1942 directive.
Your conspiracy theory is absurd, harry. You say that navigational aids were not developed because the RAF always wanted to area bomb - but the plain and obvious fact is that they also needed navigational aids to area bomb, because as Hastings pointed out what was happening in 1940 and 1941 was merely what he called a random "litter" of bombs dropped all over the place.
The reason they didn't develop these aids earlier is, as I have said, wishful thinking, stupidity, organisational myopia - not suprising when the completely inarticulate Trenchard was the founder of the RAF.
In any case as I also pointed out the navigational aids which were developed - "Gee" and "H2S" were not accurate for precision bombing purposes. And actually this was a big disappointment to the Air Staff who hoped that "Gee" would be. "Oboe" was more effective here, but technical limitations meant that it was only effective as far as the Ruhr, only a few aircraft could be handled by the oboe stations in the UK and it was prone to set failure. This was the infancy of electronic warfare - it bears no comparison with Iraq 2003.
Eventually the RAF was able to refine tactics and devices so that a major part could be played in the "oil offensive" during latter 1944 - here the landings in europe were very impt, because they meant that oboe stations could be estblished on the continent and the Germans lost some of their early warning chain. Portal, Chief of the Air Staff, was very much in favour of this now that it had become practicable - earlier he and Churchill had devised the area bombing policy because, for all practical purposes, there was no other alternative at the time.
Whilst Harris is invariably cast as a bogeyman he was a group commander when he took over Bomber Command in 1942 - he did not set policy. This was done by Churchill and Portal. Harris was certainly a disciple of area bombing but when criticised later over Dresden he rightly pointed out that "if this sort of thing deserves an answer it will receive none from me, after three years of implementing offical policy". Harris though quite possibly did not put the Command's full weight behind the oil offensive
"My main point however is that perhaps in many cases, the targetting could have been different and with better techniques and tactics and had the RAF been given greater time to practice them, they may have been more successful in other spheres. As I wrote, we never tried so we will never know."
Tell me how, harry
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quote: Originally posted by Harry Amphlett: quote: So obviously the fact that 8876 88mm guns were deployed in defence of the Reich in Sept 1943 is extremely significant.
Cottar, I'm not denying that. I only question the significance of figures such as 900,000 when the suggestion is that they would otherwise have been available for active service. How many young boys, old men and women of all ages were employed? I'm just suprised that the authors you cite don't go into more detail.
harry I have given you all the info I have, including a very detailed link, It is quite obvious that air defence soaked up very important resources - which could have been employed to very considerable effect elsewhere. And that this was a major achievement of Bomber Command. "Combat on the ground in Russia and Africa in 1941 proved again and again that the Luftwaffe's precious AA guns were invaluable against enemy tanks, often performing the decisive role in tactical engagements" |
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quote: Originally posted by Harry Amphlett: quote: It's a problem because of the lck of context
Cottar, Perhaps I have misunderstood your original post then. You didn't put any quotes in and I thought you were referring to the question of Dresden's defeces. If this not the case, what were you referring to?
What I am objecting to here is a lack of context which sees Dresden in isolation when its planning was no different from very many other attacks I referred to this lack of context in an earlier post "you are giving here a picture of aysmmetrical warfare(as per Iraq) - which has some validity for late 1944 and 1945 as far as Bomber Command was concerned, though German nightfighters could still spring the odd suprise. However this is most certainly not the case earlier in 1944 when the German nightfighter force had pretty well shot Bomber Command to a standstill - eg. 72 aircraft lost in Berlin raid of 24/25 March. And a staggering 95 during the Nuremburg raid of 30/31 March. I would not have said that a prerequisite of such operations was having to sustain heavy losses in order to carry them out." |
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