Talk:Strategic bombing

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[edit] Page one

From the article:

For instance, the Stratgic bombing survey? conducted by the United States after World War II determined that German industrial production had risen every year of the war despite strategic bombing. Although designed to "break the enemy's will", the opposite often happens.

I'd really like to see some backup of this claim. -- ansible

see Richard Parker's biography of John Kenneth Galbraith.
see James Carroll's "House of War" DEddy 19:44, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
I wrote this short piece while working on Dr. Strangelove. Of course, it is considerably more complicated than that. It appears that German production went up every year of the war until late 1944-45 despite strategic bombing. In part, this was because the Germans did not seriously ramp up production until 1942, or so. That is, they were well under capacity until after the invasion of Russia. Still, production in most sectors continued to rise. There was a great deal of difference from industry to industry. The collapse in 1945 was so total that it is difficult to know what portion to attribute to the bombing and what to other factors. I will edit the piece a little to reflect this further research, and also link the survey itself.
The stuff about morale holds up pretty well.
Even when I beef up the article a little, this will still be only a stub, which is all I intended to provide. Others are welcome to continue. Ortolan88 19:22 Aug 6, 2002 (PDT)
Of course, I've got to wonder what would have happened to German production figures if there had been no strategic bombing at all during WWII. Would it have gone up even higher? The Allies won the war by vastly out-producing the Axis countries. Consider tank warfare in the European theater.
The German Tiger was quite superior to the American Sherman and the USSR T-34 tanks. I've seen 5 to 1 kill ratios vs. the Sherman quoted a couple times. The thing was that the the Allies were producing 10x as many tanks by 1944. If the Germans had something close to parity in numbers, they would have pushed the Allies back out of continental Europe.
These are not exact figures, BTW, don't quote me on it.
At any rate, this article is going to need to address such points, namely that there isn't as much scientific evidence as we'd like.
I happen to agree with you on the morale bit, however.
Just wanted to give y'all something to chew on. - 2002/9/11, Ansible
I think the more important question is not whether strategic bombing is more effective than doing nothing, but whether it is more effective in hastening the end of a given war or reducing loss of life than if the same resources (pilots, bombs, planes, etc.) had been applied to more tactical ends. But apart from that there probably is some morale boost to your population if you bomb the enemy strategically in retaliation for the same kind of attack on you- even if you know it isn't strictly as good as doing something else, the average member of the public may not know or care. Wsacul 02:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The low rate of German production up to 1942 is probably more meaningful than any growth after 1942. How weird is it that they really didn't seem to take the war seriously, even after their dopey invasion of the Soviet Union?

Adding these links here for convenience of me and Ansible and anyone else interested:

Obviously plenty remains to be done. Ortolan88 16:11 Sep 12, 2002 (UTC)

"I think the more important question is not whether strategic bombing is more effective than doing nothing" It's not as if "nothing" was the only other choice, tho opponents to strategic bombing often (usually) imply so (if not saying it outright, & probably believe it). It's nothing like so simple. (Is it ever?) To begin with, there was the option of attacks on rail transport, or on canals. Or on fuel/oil refining. Or a switch to mining (viz canal attack), which, in RAF experience over Europe, was nearly zero casualties & (relatively) hi effectiveness (cf Terraine, The Right of the Line). (Extremely hi, measured against #KIA.) Attacking canals & mining rivers might conceivably inhibit, or stop, delivery of coal (Germany's main powerplant fuel), & thus stop industrial production without bombing plants or devestating cities (which, note, would have to be rebuilt postwar, tho there were some who'd have been happy to see Germany turned back to pasture entire). Then there's politics: could Winston stop Harris without risking a political backlash, from Parliament, or public opinion, or Stalin? And there are moral issues. Was it moral to continue to send airmen against targets known to be heavily defended, where the enemy knows they will return (cities certainly weren't going anywhere), and where defences will be increasingly strong? (If we lambaste Haig for doing much the same, we should lambaste Harris for it.) "Strategic bombing or nothing"? Not really. Trekphiler 08:41, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

The following period is grammatically difficult: "Because of the controversial nature of deliberating [deliberately?] bombing civilian targets, the United States military has in more recent wars attempted to minimize the negative publicity associate [associated?] with such bombing campaigns."
S.

The edit I just did is a little sloppy: I must try to get back to it and replace broad assertions with the exact figures (e.g., the actual proportion of British bombs that fell outside the five mile "on target" limit), and also tighten it up a little, probably cutting the length of the section I added a little. But not tonight.

On the Gulf War, I removed "although in fact civilian casualties were high during the bombing campaign of that war". Before this statement goes back in it needs to say "high" by what standard of comparison. Tannin

Excuse me while I bend the rule about "no debate" a little to respond to some comments in this talk page. Ansible doubts that German industrial production rose despite strategic bombing. This is an abundantly well-established fact: sources are leigon. Second, the suggestion that "the Allies won the war by vastly out-producing the Axis". Well, if you ignore the Soviet Union, perhaps so. It would be equally true (and equally misleading) to say that "The Soviet Union won the war by replacing casualties faster than the Axis", or "The Alies won the war by developing better technology than the Axis" (Radar, the Mustang, the Lancaster, the proximity fuse, and so on) or "Hitler lost the war by failing to organise his scientific and industrial effort effectively". And so on. Single explanations are rarely very useful. And on tanks, the German tanks were indeed superior to the Sherman and the Churchill, but were by no means superior to the rugged, effective, powerful T-34 and the IS1/IS2.

Some military strategists believe that strategic bombing has become more effective and less likely to cause civilian casualties with the advent of precision guided munitions. The effectiveness of strategic bombing is without question -- it was used in Kosovo to force the capitulation of the Serbian army (without using any ground forces). Chadloder 11:57 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, Chadloder. Kosovo seems to me to have signalled an entirely new period in air warfare, and (for the first time in history) strategic bombing has more-or-less entirely lived up to the claims of its proponents. Tannin

I added quite a large expansion/re-write just now. I need to come back and relate it more directly to the topic, and flesh out more stuff, esp the American role in WW2, the Asian campaigns in the mid 20th century (Malaya, Vietnam), other prominent pre-war theorists like Mitchell and Douhet. Lots of work still to do! But I'm going to take a break from it for a few hours. If anyone feels like taking any of this on in the meantime, or just adding links and tidying up my new text, go right ahead! Tannin 00:07 Jan 26, 2003 (UTC)

I like what you've added, although I think the original 1st paragraph was a little bit more concise. "Strategic bombing is a ..." is better than "Strategic bombing aims to ...". I just finished "Waging Modern War" by Gen. Wesley Clark, he talks a lot about the process of waging (and justifying) the Kosovo strategic bombing campaign, including why certain decisions were made and what the results were. I also want to read about the other side of the conflict, I hear that Kosovo: War and Revenge by Tim Judah is a good place to start. Chadloder 01:15 Jan 26, 2003 (UTC)

Tim Judah hardly represents the 'other side', for one he supported the bombing. Maybe you should try "Strategy of Deception" by Paul Virilio. --Igor 3:45, Sep 22, 2003 (UTC)

Yes. I had huge difficulties writing that opening para, and I'm not happy with it either. The original one, however, had its own problems. It said, essentially, "strategic bombing is a strategy of bombing". Not much help. The trouble is, there are two conficting goals here. On the one hand, we are supposed to put "strategic bombing" on the first line of the entry. On the other hand, SB is a difficult concept to understand at the best of times, and it really only makes sense to define it in terms of what it is not - i.e., strategic bombing is bombing that is not tactical bombing, and (arguably) not bombing that is just mindless city destruction either - that last is not so much a strategy as it is an admission that all our strategies have failed and we don't know what else to do. Maybe it's time to try a dictionary definition instead?

On the Kosovo lessons, Chadloder, it sounds as though you are the best equipped among us to write that up. I mostly just try to get my mind around the period 1789 to 1945 and am weak on modern history/current events. I gather that Blimpguy is going to do a little bit on the Zepplin raids in WW1 (the first true strategic bombing). It looks as though this entry is going to get rather too long and will need to be spilt up eventually. Worry about that when the time comes, I guess. Tannin

The article is much improved over my skimpy beginning (which still lurks here and there in the new article), but the paragraphs are way too long but quite easy to break up. I just did so, but got tromped by an edit conflict and retreated. If they remain long as they are, great oceans of type being hard on the reader, I will break them up later. Ortolan88

OK, I'm going to get tromped on this one, so I won't put up a fight, but just for the record, I firmly believe that paragraphs should contain meaning - "one thought, one paragraph".
Yes, it is acceptable to break really long paras up to provide the eye with some rest, but this modern madness for ultra-short paras makes it very difficult to follow any but the simplest of discussions. Paragraph breaks provide text with structure. Having too many is just as bad as not having any - either way, the reader is left with no typographical hints to help her organise the message in her mind.
A much better way to make text readable (which doesn't work on paper but works great here) is to sprinkle links here and there through it. Provided they are not so overdone as to be distracting, the visual anchor points of coloured links help the reader keep her place or flick back to double-check on a previous point - which is also easier to find, both because the links help make each paragraph look distinctive, and because without all those space-hogging paragraph breaks there is a good deal more text on the screen and she doesn't have to go scrolling around looking for things.
But that's just for the record. I'm fully aware that in this semi-illiterate TV network age, few of the people who can still read agree with me. (I don't call being able to decipher a tabloid headline "reading", by the way.) Just hand me my walking frame and my slippers, officer, and I'll come quietly. Tannin

Why not wait until I ruin it to complain? All I did, and will do again, is read along in a paragraph until I found a second topic sentence and inserted two cr/lfs. Nothing more. Books can have long paragraphs. Newspaper articles should have very short ones. Online encyclopedias fall somewhere in between, but it is a matter of eye fatigue, visual span, support of page scanning, etc., and not the simplemindedness of the reader or the wickedness of the age. Another thing that helps in this regard is regular crossheads. Ortolan88

Fair enough. Tannin


"Although designed to "break the enemy's will", the opposite often happens. The British did not crumble under the German Blitz and other air raids early in the war. German workers continued to work throughout the war and food and other basic supplies were available throughout."

Shouldn't that be "British workers continued..." ? Omegatron 06:43, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

It should probably be made more clear, but it is probably referring instead to German workers during the Allied day-and-night bombing campaign of Germany throughout the war.--Raguleader 15:16, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, it was never about the workers, any more than in the American Civil War. The public at large didn't (& don't) decide war policy (as Larry Niven perceptively noted). What was at issue was, could bombing bring the German public to revolution, as it nearly had (or seemed to have) in Britain, or as war & blockaded seemed to have in Germany, in WW1. Trekphiler (talk) 12:33, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Can you cite a few instances where or when this revolution or near-revolution occurred you seem to be referring to in Britain? At what stage did the British resolve crumble or seem to crumble leave alone lead to revolution? Surely not during the Blitz? That would be news to quite a few Brits. Dieter Simon (talk) 23:21, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
"in WW1". I was thinking of the panicky response to Zep bombing, which was nothing like as effective as the reaction would lead you to think. Longmate suggests Brit morale nearly broke under V-2 attack late in '44, with no way to defend or hit back. Trekphiler (talk) 00:48, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I must say, I wasn't aware of that. This is Norman Longmate? Dieter Simon (talk) 22:47, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Yep, Hitler's Rockets IIRC. I may be stretching his point slightly (I don't have it in front of me), but he says it was a big deal, especially the inability to do anything. (Typical Brits, tho, they started joking about "another gas main" going up, the cover story for V-2 hits.) Trekphiler (talk) 23:21, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tactical and Strategic Bombing

There seems to be some amount of confusion in this article between tactical and strategic bombing. If someone else wants to go through it, they're welcome to, but the article needs to be cleaned up and better definied. Stargoat 12:12, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't think the tactical bombing references belong here. All we need is a line that says that tactical bombing came before strategic bombing, and the first strategic bombing was carried out using tactical aircraft. Leave the tactical stuff in the tactical page. DavidBofinger 05:47, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image:TrangBang.jpg

I don't think we can make a case for fair use for the Pulitzer Prize winning photo by Nick Ut with AP of Kim Phuc running from bombs. Ut's life was on the line and AP paid to have him there. They are entitled to whatever royalties they can get unless they have released the photo to the public domain. Further, [1] says VNAF did the bombing, not the U.S. -- ke4roh 17:44, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)

This photograph is obviously fair use. It's all over the Internet, hosted by multiple news agencies and universities. Furthermore, if you were to read the article, you would see if doesn't say that the US did the bombing. The photograph alone was enough the point. Stargoat 21:29, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Please see follow-up at Image_talk:TrangBang.jpg.
Or rather Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Image:TrangBang.jpg -Joseph 20:01, 2004 Aug 7 (UTC)
I've taken the liberty to delete the image as it doesn't really belong in the article. The image itself is the aftermath of a close air support mission and not strategic bombing. Htra0497 15:15, 6 November 2006 (AEST)
I've put it back but added the context about it being close air support as it was one of the iconic images that probably did more than most to solidify opposition to the bombing campaign, even as you point out it wasn't actually the result of strategic bombing.--ElvisThePrince 14:31, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Israeli strategic bombing during six day war and yom kippur war

Neither this article nor any of the referenced articles seem to contain information on this. Can somebody please add a reference of some sort. I would be interested in learning more about this. --Jsolinsky 20:37, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cruise missiles and Scud missiles

"Cruise missiles and Scud missiles have replaced strategic bombers to an extent." Can you give us some idea to what extent this has happened, as it is slightly nebulous. Don't forget, the same applies to more tactical ordnance, such as artillery. Though it stands to reason that it must have happened, it would be nice to have sources cited to put the extent as to how much strategic bomber commands the world over have cut back on their numbers of bombers, for example. (;-) Dieter Simon 22:34, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tactical bombing

Also includes road and railway bridges and railway marshaling yards. Trekphiler 18:35, 18 September 2005

[edit] I think this article is mistaken about when the first aerial bombardment in history took place

In the section of this article entitled "History and Origins" it claims "The first ever aerial bombardment was on October 16, 1912 by a Bulgarian military airplane during the Balkan Wars, 1912-13." I find this odd because other sources claim that the first time one nation bombed another was during the "Italo-Turkish War." I will give two sources considering this matter, both from Wikipedia articles. The first one is from Wikipedia's Article on "Aerial Warfare(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_power)." In the section of the Article called "Before World War I" it says the following: "The first use of aeroplanes in an actual war was in the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-12, when the Italians carried out a few reconnaissance and bombing missions." The next example is from Wikipedia's Article on "Italo-Turkish War(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo-Turkish_War)." A sentence in the 5th paragraph states "On October 23, 1911, an Italian pilot flew over Turkish lines on a reconnaissance mission, and on November 1, the first ever bomb dropped from the air landed on Turkish troops in Libya." I hope this will be enough to convince you to edit the article, or if not, i'd like to know why it wouldn't be. Thank's for listening to my case. --ColonelWright 08:00, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Effectiveness of carpet bombing

Sorry, but carpet bombing wasn't just terrible to view, it would have been quite deadly. If you were a witness to an actual attack you would have almost certainly been a victim as well, with very little chance of determining the later decision making, as to whether it would have been effective or not. People who were at the receiving end of carpet bombing , even if they survived, would not have been consulted in whether it was effective or not but swallowed up in the propaganda machinery and hailed as heroic sufferers of "terror" attacks, whatever the local definition.

Any result at all, that might have influenced later decision making, mainly came about from witnesses to the aftermath of such attacks, people who visited the places bombed, war photographers and reporters, rescuers, sometimes independent such as the Red Cross, who might have carried the message to the world outside. After all, even after the attacks on Hamburg and Dresden, to say that they shortened the war is even now hard to assess. And the Blitz on London made the rest of the country more determined than ever to carry on. Dieter Simon 23:29, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ordnance v. ordinance

The correct usage for cannon or any other type of artillery is ordnance, as well as other weapons and military supplies, although it is sometimes spelled ordinance. However, rather than seeking out the unusual, we in Wikipedia should perhaps apply the usage and spelling met with in the far greater number of official publications which is ordnance. Dieter Simon 00:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Soviet strategic raids in WWII?

There is a common agreement among historians that the Soviet Air Forces were more inclined to massive tactical aerial support of their troops rather than to bombing campaings over German industrial centers. However, there were some pinpointed raids, some of them very heavy, conducted against Germany and its allies (Finland, Romania, Hungary) and the occupied countries, such as Poland and Estonia. Even the neutral Sweden (by mistake), and the Danish island of Bornholm, in the last days of war, suffered air attacks from the USSR. I think that stuff must be included in this article. DagosNavy 17:26, 22 september 2006 (UTC)

Then you should do it, DagosNavy. If you can cite the sources of these facts, yes, add the full details in the article. If it is part of "strategic bombing", it should go in. As a Wikipedian you can do it yourself. Dieter Simon 22:23, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Air Raid redirect?

Should Air Raid necessarily redirect to Strategic Bombing? Some of the more notable air raids in history (Taranto, Pearl Harbor, the RAF Mosquito raids) were arguably tactical in nature rather than strategic (ie: The Japanese Navy was targeting US Army and Navy installations, aircraft, and ships, not the city of Honolulu). Of course, any article about air raids would include reference to strategic bombing and a link to this article, since strategic bombing attacks like the ones at Schweinfurt were also raids.--Raguleader 15:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redundancies

Isn't there a lot of overlap between the articles Strategic bombing and Area bombardment? --Pjacobi 23:34, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

This has been discussed several times before (here is a selection):
It really needs someone to take the articles and come up with a plan to sort them out. It should probably involve the Military aviation task force (and for some parts the World War II task force). I suggested this a year ago (see Military aviation task force: Aerial bombing) but to date no one has taken it on --Philip Baird Shearer 11:31, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Oh crap! I see. So the list of articles to be merged and split alongside better divisions than now also inlcude:
Any more?
Pjacobi 16:07, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Korean war?

Shouldn't it at least be mentioned in an article about strategic bombing?

No. There wasn't any. Trekphiler (talk) 05:56, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What about Beirut?

In 1982, Beirut was BOMBED in order to push the PLO out of it (and surely kill civilians). Robin Hood 1212 15:25, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] article doesn't conform to wikipedia guidelines - cleanup tag explanation

First no references.

Second way too many claims like "x is generally preffered", "x can be likened to" . This article is not written in an encyclopedic style and violates basic wikipedia principles. It probably wouldn't be to hard to clean it up for someone who had sources they could site.

Third - the see also refs should be worked into the article if they are relevant. Things like air raid shelters, etc. are only tangentially relevant. If they appear in the article then the links are fine, but they are out of place in the see also list per wikipedias style guidelines.

I can't speak to the content. For all I know it's 100% accurate, etc. But in it's present format it doesn't conform to guidelines for wikipedia articles. No big deal. Just something to work on as the article develops.

Tbyrnestl 22:05, 24 July 2007 (UTC)tbyrnestl

[edit] Going operational

I deleted:

"Operational bombing uses strategic air assets to support major military ground operations, such as the isolation of Normandy through the bombing of transportation hubs throughout northern France in support of the D-Day invasion, or the carpet bombing of the Axis front lines west of St. Lo in support of COBRA. Finally, tactical bombing is used to attack specific individual targets, such as troop concentrations, command and control facilities, airfields, ammunition dumps, down to attacking individual armored vehicles."

and:

"Tactical and close support types are generally relatively smaller. However, the distinction does not lie in the aircraft type used, or necessarily the assigned target, but in the purpose of the attack. Tactical bombing aims to defeat specific enemy military forces. Operational bombing aims to further the overall success of military operations in defeating enemy forces in the field. "

as irrelevant to the article. Also, where did "operational" bombing come from? I've never heard it. Trekphiler (talk) 20:37, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


Operational bombing is still in this article:

"While the distinction between tactical, operational, and strategic bombing can be blurred, they are distinct methodologies generally used for different purposes. Strategic bombing is a methodology distinct from both tactical bombing and the use of strategic air assets in an operational capacity."

I've never heard of it before... Should operational bombing be deleted? 66.99.96.10 (talk) 16:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Me, neither. Cut it. Trekphiler (talk) 13:54, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Say what?

I deleted:

"and resulted in the Nazi effort resembling terror bombing far more than strategic bombing."

because, AFAIK, German bombing never was truly strategic; it was tactical or terror, and

" perhaps with exception of Darwin in Australia"

because it was a pinprick, not sustained enough to be really considered strategic, either. Trekphiler (talk) 05:59, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Complain, complain

In light of the recent controversy with the Canadian War Museum, see the debate here about a possible "war crimes" page. Trekphiler (talk) 18:43, 15 April 2008 (UTC)