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How Effective is Strategic Bombing? by Gian P. Gentile Pdf
In the wake of WWII, President Truman established the US Strategic Bombing Survey to determine how effectively strategic air power had been applied during the war. The final study has been used for decades as an objective primary source and a guiding text. Gentile (history, US Military Academy) re-examines this document to reveal how it reflected the American conceptual approach to strategic bombing. He exposes the survey as largely tautological, throwing into question many of the central tenets of American air power philosophy and strategy. He shows how recent problems with bomb damage assessment in the Balkans reinforce his conclusions. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR
Determination And Effectiveness Of Wwii Strategic Bombing Strategy by Colonel T. Tracey Goetz Pdf
With the collapse of France in 1940, American (US) and British (UK) leadership became keenly aware that the continued security of their nations required the defeat of the Axis powers, particularly Germany. The Allies chose a strategy utilizing a combination of various military actions, most notably a combined bomber offensive (CBO). The CBO would be carried out through a combination of US daylight precision and UK night area bombing. The purpose of this paper is to show why the Allies chose this strategy and evaluate its success. To accomplish this task, the paper will first describe the events that brought about the conflict and the strategy. Crowl’s Questions are used as a framework to analyze the factors that influence strategy development and adoption and will illustrate why Allied leaders chose this path. This is followed by a detailed description of the campaign. The principles of war (mass, objective, offensive, maneuver, surprise, security, simplicity, unity of command, and economy of force) are accepted as proven methods for employing forces in combat and are used to evaluate the CBO’s effectiveness The paper closes with a summary of the findings and doctrinal implications. The paper will show the Allies adopted US daylight precision and UK night area bombing based on leadership’s belief that it could most effectively reduce Germany’s means of war and hasten its earliest possible defeat. The Allies successfully achieved this objective primarily through adherence to the principles of mass, objective, offensive, and maneuver.
Author : Robert A. Pape Publisher : Cornell University Press Page : 547 pages File Size : 55,5 Mb Release : 2014-04-11 Category : Political Science ISBN : 9780801471506
From Iraq to Bosnia to North Korea, the first question in American foreign policy debates is increasingly: Can air power alone do the job? Robert A. Pape provides a systematic answer. Analyzing the results of over thirty air campaigns, including a detailed reconstruction of the Gulf War, he argues that the key to success is attacking the enemy's military strategy, not its economy, people, or leaders. Coercive air power can succeed, but not as cheaply as air enthusiasts would like to believe.Pape examines the air raids on Germany, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq as well as those of Israel versus Egypt, providing details of bombing and governmental decision making. His detailed narratives of the strategic effectiveness of bombing range from the classical cases of World War II to an extraordinary reconstruction of airpower use in the Gulf War, based on recently declassified documents. In this now-classic work of the theory and practice of airpower and its political effects, Robert A. Pape helps military strategists and policy makers judge the purpose of various air strategies, and helps general readers understand the policy debates.
Strategic Bombing by the United States in World War II by Stewart Halsey Ross Pdf
The United States relied heavily on bombing to defeat the Germans and the Japanese in World War II, and air raids were touted as “precision” bombing in American propaganda. But was precision possible over cloud-covered Europe or a darkened Japanese countryside? Could the vaunted Norden optical bombsight in fact “drop bombs into pickle barrels” as advertised? Were the American aircrews well trained and well protected? How good were their airplanes? What were the results of the costly raids? This work sets suppositions against facts surrounding the United States’ use of strategic bombing in World War II. Chapters cover the events leading up to World War II; the start of the war; the seers and the planners; the airplanes, bombs, bombsights, and aircrews; the planes Germany used to defend itself against American planes; the five cities (Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki) that experienced the most destruction; and the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey of the damage done by aerial bombing. The book also probes the government’s myth-building statements that supported America’s view of itself as a uniquely humanitarian nation, and analyzes the role played by interservice rivalry—“battleship admirals” against “bomber generals.”
Strategic Bombing in World War Two by David MacIsaac Pdf
En beskrivelse af Strategic Bombing Survey's formål og organiseringen af dets arbejde. Tillige en kritik analyse af undersøgelsens ledelse og resultater. Forfatteren havde undervist i krigshistorie ved Air Force Academy, Colorado.
Department of Defense,U. S. Military,U. S. Air Force,Air University Press
Author : Department of Defense,U. S. Military,U. S. Air Force,Air University Press Publisher : Unknown Page : 92 pages File Size : 42,7 Mb Release : 2017-09-17 Category : Electronic ISBN : 1549770721
The United States Strategic Bombing Surveys - Report on European War and Pacific War in World War II, Conventional Bombing and the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Department of Defense,U. S. Military,U. S. Air Force,Air University Press Pdf
This volume contains the Summary Reports (Europe and the Pacific) of the strategic bombing surveys conducted as World War II was coming to a close. Although originally published over four decades ago, and now reprinted by the Air University, they contain valuable lessons for modern airmen and are well worth another look. The "Blue Ribbon" Strategic Bombing Survey Team was tasked to enter those areas struck by our strategic bombers as soon as possible after the bombing to assess the effectiveness of the bombing effort and its contribution to the Allied victory. The result of each survey was a detailed, multivolume report that examines every aspect of the bombing campaigns. The summary report states: The new relation of air power to strategy presents one of the distinguishing contrasts between this war and the last. Air power in the last war was in its infancy. The new role of three-dimensional warfare was even then foreseen by a few farsighted men, but planes were insufficient in quality and quantity to permit much more than occasional brilliant assistance to the ground forces. Air power in the European phase of this war reached a stage of full adolescence, a stage marked by rapid development in planes, armament, equipment, tactics and concepts of strategic employment, and by an extraordinary increase in the effort allocated to it by all the major contestants. England devoted 40 to 50 percent of her war production to her air forces, Germany 40 percent, and the United States 35 percent. Nevertheless, at the end of hostilities in Europe, weapons, tactics and strategy were still in a state of rapid development. Air power had not yet reached maturity and all conclusions drawn from experience in the European theatre must be considered subject to change. No one should assume that because certain things were effective or not effective, the same would be true under other circumstances and other conditions. In the European war, Allied air power was called upon to play many roles-partner with the Navy over the sea lanes; partner with the Army in ground battle; partner with both on the invasion beaches; reconnaissance photographer for all; mover of troops and critical supplies; and attacker of the enemy's vital strength far behind the battle line. In the attack by Allied air power, almost 2,700,000 tons of bombs were dropped, more than 1,440,000 bomber sorties and 2,680,000 fighter sorties were flown. The number of combat planes reached a peak of some 28,000 at the maximum 1,300,000 men were in combat commands. The number of men lost in air action was 79,265 Americans and 79,281 British. More than 18,000 American and 22,000 British planes were lost or damaged beyond repair. As a bonus, this reproduction includes the complete 2012 Army Leadership manual (FM 6-22), which describes the Army's view of leadership, outlines the levels of leadership (direct, organizational, and strategic), and describes the attributes and core leader competencies across all levels.
Examines the U.S.Air Force strategic bombing campaign of Iraq & Iraqi armed forces occupying Kuwait from January 17th through February 28th, 1991 . Describes the aircraft & weapons, changes in technology & the reexamination & reapplication of traditional strategic bombing theory by USAF planning officers. Provides a chronological review of the campaign with an analysis of the results. Photos, maps, graphs & tables. Includes suggested readings.
Herman Knell was nineteen and living in Würtzburg in March of 1945 when hundreds of Allied planes arrived overhead, unleashing a torrent of bombs on the city. Würtzburg's tightly packed medieval housing exploded in a firestorm, killing six thousand people in one night and destroying 92 percent of the city's structures. Despite the fact that Würtzburg had no strategic value, the city emerged from World War II second only to Dresden in material destruction inflicted from the air. The experience led Knell to years of research on the history, development, and effects of the strategy of area bombing.To Destroy a City is the result of the author's long and unrelenting investigation. His analysis of this form of warfare, which reached its zenith during World War II, covers the history and the development of wide-area bombing since 1914, examines its wartime effectiveness and the consequences. But the extra dimension that Knell's book offers is his firsthand experience of the tension, fear, tentative defiance, and, finally, utter catastrophe of being on the receiving end of overwhelming air power. For Americans, who fortunately did not experience bombing during the war, this is essential reading.