Talk:Firebombing

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Let's not forget that London was firebombed during the battle of britain, as well as Coventry and other locations in the British isles. Weather conditions save the city from even more damage, but the number of deaths was still something remarkable, not to mention the loss to historical parts of London. Just putting it out there, let's not be too pro-axis.

Question: I was just reading the newly released transcripts from the 9/11 attacks a male caller called the Jersey Fire Department and said that it's a fire bomb. The transcript can be read at: Transcript #5 Path - Ch. 12 - Jersey City Fire Dept. 7 pages, 286K at http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/pa-transcripts/ is it possible that is true?

Question: Can the Blitz be regarded as an example of firebombing? What about other bombing with incendiaries without a specific plan to create a firestorm, eg Japanese fire-balloons, Edinburgh Zeppelins and other ineffectual attacks? -- 213.253.40.158 11:50, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Wasn't Coventry also firebombed? Dresden was firebombed partly in revenge and also to demonstrate to the Russians what the US & UK bombers could do.

Deaths at Coventry = 380.

Deaths at Dresden = 200,000+

That's some kind of revenge.

Coventry was also a munitions centre, a military target. Dresden made cups and saucers!!! Were the British afraid of German cups of tea?

The deaths at Dresden were around 50,000. Even your patron saint Irving no longer claims the absurdly high numbers. Jayjg 17:55, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Death Toll at Dresden is a matter of contention, and will never be exactly established. The low estimate, using only officially recorded deaths, is 25,000. Other respectable sources, taking into account the large number of refugees and other factors, arrive at 40,000-50,000. The figure most often used by historians is 35,000, as far as I can tell.

More to the point: The reference to Wielun, and possibly others, should be removed. While they are examples of bombings of civilian targets, they are not [i]firebombing[/i] attacks.

Tobias R 13:26, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Warsaw, Wielun and Frampol were conventional bombings (with explosivs), but no firebombings. Firebombing is a special technique of bombing initially developt by the british indicianary panel in 1942, after large studies of fire disasters like the london-fire or the great san francisco fire. So this technique could not be used before 1942.

[edit] Dubious claim

this technique was as effective as the atomic bombs
I highly doubt any military historian or commander has ever claimed this. If it were true, what purpose would the atomic bomb have served? --NEMT 03:13, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

The technique was clearly as effective, as measured by number of deaths, injuries, area damaged or buildings destroyed. The firebomb attacks on Tokyo, for instance, were far more destructive in any of these measures than the nukes dropped later. This is a well known historical fact that appears in most any history of WWII, see this for instance. So why the nuke? One bomber vs. hundreds. Maury 16:03, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Efficiency is considered part of a military weapon or strategy's effectiveness. --NEMT 18:08, 8 September 2006 (UTC)