Talk:Firebombing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
Additional information and associated task forces: This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status: Referencing and citation: not checked Coverage and accuracy: not checked Structure: not checked Grammar: not checked Supporting materials: not checked To fill out this checklist, please add the following to the template call: <!-- B-Class-1. It is suitably referenced, and all major points have appropriate inline citations. --> |B-Class-1=yes/no <!-- B-Class-2. It reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies. --> |B-Class-2=yes/no <!-- B-Class-3. It has a defined structure, including a lead section and one or more sections of content. --> |B-Class-3=yes/no <!-- B-Class-4. It is free from major grammatical errors. --> |B-Class-4=yes/no <!-- B-Class-5. It contains appropriate supporting materials, such as an infobox, images, or diagrams. --> |B-Class-5=yes/no Associated task forces (general topics): Military aviation task force Military science task force

Contents 1 London Blitz 2 Dubious claim 3 Fair use rationale for Image:StPaulsCathedral.jpg 4 Example farm

[edit] London Blitz

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)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:StPaulsCathedral.jpg

Image:StPaulsCathedral.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

— Save_Us_229 22:09, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Example farm

I have just completed a large re-write of the examples section. The examples section was an example of an {{examplefarm}} and {{expand-section}}. The category and to a lesser extent the {{WWII city bombing}} template cover the list issue. The trouble with listing cities hit by man made a firestorm is that there is disagreement over whether particular raids started a firestorm or just very bad fires. Although with some, such as Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo there is no doubt, there are a lot of marginal ones where some historians describe them as firestorms and others do not. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:52, 19 March 2008 (UTC)