Strategic Bomber Offensive: RAF Briefing
Strategic Bomber Offensive: US Army Air Force (USAAF) Briefing
It is American doctrine to focus its bomber offensive on daylight/pinpoint attacks against German industry and support services (precision targets) in order to “disable Germany’s war economy.” By keeping up a steady rate of attacks day after day, it was believed that Germany’s ability to sustain its armed forces with weapons, ammunition, and fuel would be seriously impeded, thus starving them of the tools they need to continue to fight. In part, the daylight bombing strategy was pursued because the Americans believed that (1) they could build bombers sufficiently well armored and armed, and flying in sufficient numbers and formations, to be well-protected from German fighter attacks, and (2) the only way to achieve the necessary precision to target specific factories and facilities was by daylight attacks. In actuality, the American crews suffered very high casualties until new kinds of fighter aircraft were developed—the legendary P-51 Mustang—with sufficient range and endurance to provide them with sufficient escort to and from the targets.
Your mission is the following. Develop criteria for targeting industries for day attack and the plan of your bombing offensive:
1) What kind of industries do you choose and why?
a. Military industrial production, e.g., tank factories, shipyards
b. Industrial feedstock production, e.g., steel factories, ball bearing plants
c. Power generation, e.g., dams, hydropower plants, power distribution
d. Transportation centers, e.g., railroads and marshalling yards, road nets
e. Oil refineries, pipelines, and fuel storage facilities
f. Food processing and storage facilities, e.g., warehouses, stock yards
g. Telecommunications centers, e.g., telephone switches, radio stations
h. Government offices and command centers, e.g., German Reichstag
i. Any other industry or suitable target you can think of?
2) Rank order your target industries from most to least important, and justify your ranking based on how disruptive a given industry’s destruction would be to the German war effort.
3) Assuming you have only enough planes and crews to attack 1-2 major targets per day, how frequently and with what duration do you return to the same target, and why?
a. Day after day for a week
b. Once a week
c. Once a month
4) What kind of bombs do you use against each type of city and why?
a. High explosive penetrating (penetrate and then explode)
b. High explosive ground burst (explode on impact)
c. High explosive “bunker buster” (penetrate deeply and then explode)
d. Fragmentation (shrapnel, anti-personal)
e. Incendiary (destroys by creating fires)
f. Anti-personal (e.g., time delay bombs)
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