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In Desperate Battle: Normandy 1944


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Particularly before the war, but also during it, everyone who had anything to do with strategic bombing greatly exaggerated its efficacy. Although it did have an impact on civilian morale, there was never the kind of mass panic that had been predicted. Rather, the effects were more subtle than that. Apathy and disaffection were more likely than panic. But also there could be a hardening of the determination to prosecute the war, a determination to make the enemy pay for what one was currently having to endure.

Michael

I remember reading a couple of serious opinions that were published prior to WWII that felt that mass bombing would make future wars a matter of weeks.

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That is a totally unfair comparison and not comparable in scale to the question of the Bomber Command. The Russians were clearly successfully as they the were on the winning side of the war and were responsible for the vast majority of the German army casualties. But they still had there share of disasters and a big list of things they could have done better.

Only because you say so. How does this scan:

That is a totally unfair comparison and not comparable in scale to the question of the Russian Campaign. Bomber Command were clearly successfully as they were on the winning side of the war and were responsible for the vast majority of the German economic and industrial casualties. But they still had their share of disasters and a big list of things they could have done better.

Yep. Makes sense.

Dropping more or more accurately on oil targets is something that definitely would have turned the Bombing campaign into a success rather than something that is so much harder to quantify.

Yeah, that would be why, at the end of the war, the Germans were sitting on a stockpile of millions and millions of tonnes of POL.

What's that, you say? They didn't have a stockpile? Oh, right. That's probably because the attacks on oil were a overwhelming success!

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Only because you say so. How does this scan:

That is a totally unfair comparison and not comparable in scale to the question of the Russian Campaign. Bomber Command were clearly successfully as they were on the winning side of the war and were responsible for the vast majority of the German economic and industrial casualties. But they still had their share of disasters and a big list of things they could have done better.

Yep. Makes sense.

Yeah, that would be why, at the end of the war, the Germans were sitting on a stockpile of millions and millions of tonnes of POL.

What's that, you say? They didn't have a stockpile? Oh, right. That's probably because the attacks on oil were a overwhelming success!

It doesn't scan at all. Comparing the Russian Campaign in it's entirety to the Bomber Command effort was something you introduced which I think is incorrect. The Russian Campaign as a whole was a success. Clearly.

The Bomber Command effort wasn't clearly successful. There are many debates regarding it's effectiveness and post-war studies to quantify how it effected Germany. Typically the focus of those critical is the moral aspect and the impact on the war economy when the war was in the balance compared to the extraordinary casualty rates.

Oil was a problem for Germany from day one. They were an importer and with all the territory they conquered in the east they never were able to address this is. It unfortunately took 5 years to bite. Bomber Command did hurt the synthetic oil supply from September 1944 onwards but I have never read anywhere that it was decisive enough to make the Bomber Command effort a success.

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It doesn't scan at all.

Of course it does. Everything in that paragraph is provably correct.

Bomber Command were clearly successfully? Check.

they were on the winning side of the war? Check.

[they] were responsible for the vast majority of the German economic and industrial casualties? Check.

they still had their share of disasters? Check.

[they had] a big list of things they could have done better? Check.

The Russian Campaign as a whole was a success. Clearly.

And so was the CBO. Clearly.

Oil was a problem for Germany from day one. They were an importer and with all the territory they conquered in the east they never were able to address this is. It unfortunately took 5 years to bite.

It was biting a LOT earlier than that. You only need to look at, for example, the collapsing number of hours GAF pilots received in training, or the aggressive programs to de-motorise the German army.

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Can you maybe throw in a fact that expands this slightly.

From an earlier post:

Also, the CBO from early 1944 through to the end of the war was very effective. It was arguably effective much earlier. The RAF clearly won the Battle of the Ruhr in 1943, and Op GOMORRAH - also in 1943 - scared the pants off Speer and others.
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Why do some posters expect me to feel some sympathy for the 'poor' citizens of Nazi Germany for the rough handling they received at the hands of those nasty, horriible Allies? It's not going to happen, ever. I choose to wring my hands and mourn the deliberate extermination of 6 million Jews in Death Camps, the deliberate starvation of more than 3 million Russian POW (this particularly breaks my heart - no Geneva Convention on the Eastern front) and for the extermination and enslavement of the 'racially inferior' populations of the Nazi-occupied eastern territories, be they Poles, Slavs, Russians, or what.

The Germans had lost the war at the end of 1944, never mind February 1945. But they still continued to fight on. With the allied soldiers already on their territories and the Russians poised to capture Berlin, blows like the bombing of Dresden should have forced any sane people to give up the fight. But it didn't. Instead, at least 100,000 Russian soldiers had to die in order to capture Berlin. Why should you expect the Americans, Canadians and Brits, etc, to sacrifice the lives of their citizens in uniform to save them? If they put on a uniform and go to fight tyranny, they should expect to pay the ultimate price and devastate the lives of their families, parents, wives, children, in order that you guys can sleep at night? If we'd developed a nuclear bomb in time, I'd have supported nuking Germany as well until they stopped.

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the deliberate starvation of more than 3 million Russian POW (this particularly breaks my heart - no Geneva Convention on the Eastern front)

That's a common mis-conception, but I not sure it's true.

Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 27 July 1929.

Recognizing that, in the extreme event of a war, it will be the duty of every Power, to mitigate as far as possible, the inevitable rigours thereof and to alleviate the condition of prisoners of war;

Being desirous of developing the principles which have inspired the international conventions of The Hague, in particular the Convention concerning the Laws and Customs of War and the Regulations thereunto annexed,

Have resolved to conclude a Convention for that

purpose and have appointed as their Plenipotentiaries:

(Here follow the names of Plenipotentiaries)

Who, having communicated their full powers, found in good and due form, have agreed is follows.

PART I

GENERAL PROVISIONS

Article 1. The present Convention shall apply without prejudice to the stipulations of Part VII {which relates to civilians working with the Armed Forces}:

(1) To all persons referred to in Articles 1, 2 and 3 of the Regulations annexed to the Hague Convention (IV) of 18 October 1907 {see below}, concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, who are captured by the enemy.

(2) ...

Art. 2. ...

Art. 3. ...

Art. 4. The detaining Power is required to provide for the maintenance of prisoners of war in its charge.

Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land. The Hague, 18 October 1907.

ANNEX TO THE CONVENTION : Regulations respecting the laws and customs of war on land #Section I : On belligerents #Chapter I : The qualifications of belligerents

Article 1. The laws, rights, and duties of war apply not only to armies, but also to militia and volunteer corps fulfilling the following conditions:

1. To be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

2. To have a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance;

3. To carry arms openly; and

4. To conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

In countries where militia or volunteer corps constitute the army, or form part of it, they are included under the denomination "army."

Art. 2. The inhabitants of a territory which has not been occupied, who, on the approach of the enemy, spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading troops without having had time to organize themselves in accordance with Article 1, shall be regarded as belligerents if they carry arms openly and if they respect the laws and customs of war.

Art. 3. The armed forces of the belligerent parties may consist of combatants and non-combatants. In the case of capture by the enemy, both have a right to be treated as prisoners of war.

It seems to me that since Germany was a signatory to both those convetions, then they - at least - were bound to apply them, even if the Russians weren't.

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Jon, I suspect he meant it wasn't observed much in practice by either side, which nobody would seriously argue.

Moral misgivings about the bombing weren't entirely hindsight, although they came at a point where survival was no longer at stake for the Allies. The Dresden raids, whose devastation was eagerly publicized by Goebbels, did draw a certain amount of "is this really necessary at this point?" type criticism from neutral states and some of the American public. And did result, I believe, in the stand-down of further such raids..... on the Reich. Not on Japan of course.

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I am not sure what you are referring to PaperTiger but saying the Bomber Command air war wasn't a success isn't feeling sorry for the Germans.

The Chief of Bomber Command genuinely believed that Germany could be beaten by bombing alone. This was attempted and while it didn't ramp up to the levels Harris felt he needed to accomplish it until late 1943 with the Berlin campaign the result sought never happened. Bomber Command used significant resources attempting this and was not successful.

At different times they had successes that did curtail production and twice created devastating firestorms that were disasters in lives lost and cities destroyed for the Germans. But Bomber Command only achieved these firestorms twice. Hamburg in 1943 and then in Dresden 1945. All the big raids attempted to recreate the firestorm that occurred in Hamburg. Repeating this in city after city would surely have seen the end of the Nazis. But this didn't happen.

The strategic bombing never crippled the synthetic oil production which from my understanding is the only industry that strategic bombing had a realistic chance of crippling. This did not occur due to a combination of not quite realising how precarious the German position was, inaccuracy in bombing and a focus on city destruction. And even then this only is an opportunity missed in late 1944.

That is why I can't see the Bomber Command effort as a success.

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Jon, I suspect he meant it wasn't observed much in practice by either side, which nobody would seriously argue.

Oh, well, yeah. That's true :( But I have seen it asserted that the conventions didn't even apply on the Russian Front (or to Russian PW), and I don't think that's correct.

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The strategic bombing never crippled the synthetic oil production

fig15.gif

fuelpro.jpg

fig108.gif

And while doing that, the bombers also managed this

fig52.gif

and this

fig49.gif

Bunch of slackers? Yeah, I don't think so.

That is why I can't see the Bomber Command effort as a success.

Given that your beliefs are wildly at variance with reality, it's probably no surprise your conclusions are too.

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I am not sure what you are referring to PaperTiger but saying the Bomber Command air war wasn't a success isn't feeling sorry for the Germans.

The Chief of Bomber Command genuinely believed that Germany could be beaten by bombing alone. This was attempted and while it didn't ramp up to the levels Harris felt he needed to accomplish it until late 1943 with the Berlin campaign the result sought never happened. Bomber Command used significant resources attempting this and was not successful.

At different times they had successes that did curtail production and twice created devastating firestorms that were disasters in lives lost and cities destroyed for the Germans. But Bomber Command only achieved these firestorms twice. Hamburg in 1943 and then in Dresden 1945. All the big raids attempted to recreate the firestorm that occurred in Hamburg. Repeating this in city after city would surely have seen the end of the Nazis. But this didn't happen.

The strategic bombing never crippled the synthetic oil production which from my understanding is the only industry that strategic bombing had a realistic chance of crippling. This did not occur due to a combination of not quite realising how precarious the German position was, inaccuracy in bombing and a focus on city destruction. And even then this only is an opportunity missed in late 1944.

That is why I can't see the Bomber Command effort as a success.

My apologies to you Peregrine. I wouldn't lump you in with the couple of self-styled moral crusaders who have been posting in this thread. I'd say that Bomber Command's strategy was one that should have produced results and ended the war but failed to do so. It wasn't unreasonable of BC to think that it would either and so my support for their attempt. With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that it wouldn't work. In spite of defeat staring them plainly in the face at the start of 1945, the Germans just refused to surrender and this utter pig-headedness and crass stupidity meant that hundreds of thousands of Allied civilians in uniform, willingly or otherwise, had to sacrifice their lives to put an end to this insanity.

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Jons you have repeatedly seem to attempt to put words in my mouth that are not my opinion at all. I never said they were baby killers or the because they weren't successful they shouldn't have bothered or that they were slackers.

They tried very hard for a long time to knock Germany out of the war without using land forces. This was the strategy of the leader and the reason for their initial concept behind their formation. But they did not do this. Based on casualties sustained by aircrews it was almost suicidal at different times to attempt to complete a tour in Bomber Command. The crews knew this (maybe not before they joined though).

There is no argument that can be made that can be said that the bombing campaign successfully ended the war from the air.

Was Bomber Command doing anything differently in mid 1944 onwards. Not really. The situation changed totally as the allied armies started to move through France. Remember that Bomber Command set out to do it alone. These successes started occurring the same time the allied armies moved into France because this impacted the Germans ability to defend themselves.

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They tried very hard for a long time to knock Germany out of the war without using land forces.

That's it? That's your whole argument, and your sole definition of success? Because they weren't 100% successful in achieving an impossible goal, they failed completely?

*pfft*

Why didn't you say you were wasting my time?

Based on casualties sustained by aircrews it was almost suicidal at different times to attempt to complete a tour in Bomber Command. The crews knew this (maybe not before they joined though).

"Before they joined"? Have you heard of conscription? And even the volunteers had little control over their destiny once they'd joined up. Many a young lad who volunteered with visions of dancing in the clouds piloting a Spitfire found himself instead flying endless hours over the Atlantic in a Sunderland, or flying through tropical monsoon in command of a Dakota. Or navigating a Lancaster over central Europe.

There were also plenty of other jobs that were 'almost suicidal' available to a young man in the mid years of the 1940s.

There is no argument that can be made that can be said that the bombing campaign successfully ended the war from the air.

Yes, quite. Who are you, Worzel Gummidge?

Was Bomber Command doing anything differently in mid 1944 onwards. Not really. The situation changed totally as the allied armies started to move through France.

Look, I know you mean well, but you really do seem to be out of your depth here. I mean - you can't even read a graph! (Hint: D-Day was in June. The breakout occurred in mid-late August, and the borders of Germany reached in mid-late September. The production of synthetic oil fell of the cliff in March. March is before September. And before June.)

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Jons,

Great charts and it does show pretty convincingly the impact of the bombing on the German economy.

I think part of the problem in determining the role it played is the fact that the CBO only really started rolling and achieving results in 44-45 when it was already pretty obvious that Germany had lost the war.

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But that was mainly due to poor prioritization of strategic target value. If they had been able to identify the best targets (ie oil, etc) earlier, they would have had a greater effect sooner.

To some degree that's true, and it's a good example of strategy being the art of the possible. Until 1944 what you're talking about wasn't really possible, even if they'd had the best plan driven by the best intelligence. The P-51 only started to arrive in England in November 1943, and it would be some months before useful numbers were available to escort deep raids. A raid on December 13 had just 41 of them in support, but by mid Feb 1944 there were 329 P-51s with 8th Airforce. Without large numbers of long-range fighters available, deep raids always ended up too costly to sustain, as the Schweinfurt/Regensburg raids in 1943 showed.* And the key target sets were all deep in Germany.

The number of bombers available was undergoing the same kind of growth. The number of fully operational heavy bombers with crews assigned to tactical units in the 8th Airforce doubled between Sep and Dec 43, then doubled again (to over 1,800) by Jun 44. US fighter a/c went through the same doubling and re-doubling in the same period, and the RAF experienced the same kind of rapid growth, although theirs peaked a bit earlier.

With so many bomber a/c and long range fighters suddenly available the strategic bombing campaign could contemplate approaches (like Shuttle Bombing!) in 1944 that were frankly impossible even just 6 months earlier.

(Data from Murray "Strategy for Defeat", available in full PDF here.)

* to loop back to an earlier point, it's perhaps worth noting that there was a considerable movement at that point to switch the US bomber force from day to night operations. They didn't do that, but instead abandoned the concept unescorted raids over Germany. So much for "better US aircraft" - they proved just as vulnerable as the British day bombers had been over Wilhelmshaven in 1939.

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I think part of the problem in determining the role it played is the fact that the CBO only really started rolling and achieving results in 44-45 when it was already pretty obvious that Germany had lost the war.

That's true, and I wonder how much of it is deterministic hindsight - the Germans lost because they lost, and they were already losing when they lost. Imagine a parallel universe in which Ops OVERLORD and BAGRATION went ahead without the Germany economy (and airforce) having already been driven off that cliff by the bombers? In this universe General Sir Alan Brooke (CIGS and chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee) was haunted by fears in May and early June '44 that OVERLORD would be bloody fiasco, despite all the intel and info he was privy to. At the time it perhaps wasn't quite as obvious that Germany had lost the war.

Also, the bombing campaign was significantly distorting the overall German economy well before it started outright destroying it. Vast resources were diverted into providing home defence, in terms of AA guns, ammunition, manpower, and a significant fraction of the German fighter force - the Mediterranean basically had no German air prescence from about Salerno onwards, and the Russians had a similar experience. There was also the dispersal of manufacturing which reduced production during the dispersal, and kept it lower (and more expensive) because economies of scale were difficult to achieve across multiple small factories, and additional resources were consumed shuttling parts and assemblies across longer distances. Also, the entire structure of the German airforce changed, with the strike force being all but abandoned and practically all production being directed into producing ever more defensive fighters.

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That's it? That's your whole argument, and your sole definition of success? Because they weren't 100% successful in achieving an impossible goal, they failed completely?

*pfft*

Why didn't you say you were wasting my time?

"Before they joined"? Have you heard of conscription? And even the volunteers had little control over their destiny once they'd joined up. Many a young lad who volunteered with visions of dancing in the clouds piloting a Spitfire found himself instead flying endless hours over the Atlantic in a Sunderland, or flying through tropical monsoon in command of a Dakota. Or navigating a Lancaster over central Europe.

There were also plenty of other jobs that were 'almost suicidal' available to a young man in the mid years of the 1940s.

Yes, quite. Who are you, Worzel Gummidge?

Look, I know you mean well, but you really do seem to be out of your depth here. I mean - you can't even read a graph! (Hint: D-Day was in June. The breakout occurred in mid-late August, and the borders of Germany reached in mid-late September. The production of synthetic oil fell of the cliff in March. March is before September. And before June.)

Never said they failed completely. Never said they didn't contribute.

British aircrews were volunteers, not sure about American. Suggesting that because there were lots of ways to die that running an air campaign with high casualty rates is acceptable as part of a campaign is wrong. These things were dwelt on heavily at the time.

The leader of Bomber Command genuinely felt that they alone could bomb Germany into submission. This is why I can't see it as a success and said so in my second statement. Sorry if you missed that and I wasted your time. Land forces were required and thousands of casualties on the ground still occurred. I am more the prepared to listen to counter arguments but you can't say it was a success by just stating end results. It has to be compared against by what was actually attempted. What in your opinion did bomber command set out to do?

Can you provide a reference for the graphs if they were part of a study that discusses their impacts on the German war effort.

I first brought up the oil issue more as an opportunity missed in FOW and how it was virtually impossible to achieve success but didn't explain properly. It centres around theory that the synthetic oil centres were the most viable target that bomber command could have destroyed that definitely shortened the war. Ultra intelligence in Sept identified severe oil problems from raids earlier in the year. My memory says May but I can't recall accurately. Maybe it was March. It took months to realise that something as definitive as this occurred. Even when bomber command did do things extremely well in a more quantifiable manner than any impacts realised by carpet bombing it was not realised at the time by the people conducting the air operations. The whole of the second campaign in the west still happened after this.

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British aircrews were volunteers

Yes, but they didn't get to volunteer for their particular assignment, which is how boys with a dream of slipping the surly bonds of earth and joining the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds ended up navigating Halifaxes over Hamburg at night.

The leader of Bomber Command genuinely felt that they alone could bomb Germany into submission. This is why I can't see it as a success

And he was wrong. And so was Douhet. And Mitchell. And Wever. And everyone else who thought that Strat Bombing - alone - could win a war. But that doesn't mean that heavy bombers were a failure.

Put this another war; Liddel-Hart had some very woolly and fanciful ideas about what tanks - unsupported tanks - could do. He was wrong. Without a shadow of a doubt, his ideas were out to lunch. Does that mean that tanks weren't successful in WWII?

Can you provide a reference for the graphs if they were part of a study that discusses their impacts on the German war effort.

US Strategic Bombing Survey (right click on the graphs for properties then back-track the links. You can find other copies of it - or parts of it - at various locations on teh intarwebs.)

I first brought up the oil issue more as an opportunity missed in FOW and how it was virtually impossible to achieve success but didn't explain properly. It centres around theory that the synthetic oil centres were the most viable target that bomber command could have destroyed that definitely shortened the war.

There is no "could have" about it. German synthetic oil production was destroyed, and that did shorten the war. Your refusal to acknowledge that blindingly obvious success is baffling.

... you can't say it was a success by just stating end results.

But ... that's exactly the standard you applied to the Red Army! "The Russians were clearly successfully as they the were on the winning side of the war"

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But that doesn't mean that heavy bombers were a failure.

Put this another war; Liddel-Hart had some very woolly and fanciful ideas about what tanks - unsupported tanks - could do. He was wrong. Without a shadow of a doubt, his ideas were out to lunch. Does that mean that tanks weren't successful in WWII?

There is no "could have" about it. German synthetic oil production was destroyed, and that did shorten the war. Your refusal to acknowledge that blindingly obvious success is baffling.

But ... that's exactly the standard you applied to the Red Army! "The Russians were clearly successfully as they the were on the winning side of the war"

Again never said they were a failure. As per previous post they contributed.

I did acknowledge that oil production was destroyed. I did this also in my previous post. My position is that Bomber Command didn't set out to shorten the war. They set out to win it. They utilised a lot of manpower and production along the way. Again feel free to state what you believe Bomber Command set out to do and why it was a success.

Again with the Russians. Relating the Russian Campaign to Bomber Command was a nonsensical comparison that you introduced with the inflammatory statement the because the Russians were at war for longer than the air campaign they shouldn't have bothered. I should have ignored it.Another example of attempting to plant obnoxious opinions on others that don't exist or are even hinted at.

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Again with the Russians. Relating the Russian Campaign to Bomber Command was a nonsensical comparison

You think it's nonsensical because it makes a nonsense of several of your points.

You - not me, you - said the Russians were successful because they were on the winning side. Well, guess what; so were the Allied heavy bomber forces.

You - not me, you - opinied that the Allied heavy bomber forces were unsuccessful because the campaign 'only got going in 1942 and continued through the rest of the war.' Well, guess what; the Russian campaign took even longer, and I understand that we already established they were successful.

Your only coherent point seems to be the rather trivial observation that Harris was a blow hard who was wrong in his belief that heavy bombers could win strictly on their own. Yeah, thanks. Got it. That's been common knowledge since ... oh, about 1943.

I did acknowledge that oil production was destroyed.

Um ... not really. Not at all. Here's what you said:

Even after ultra intelligence identified the acute shortages in oil production (and this was something the bombing contributed to that Albert Speer would have been concerned about) Bomber Command still didn't either due to different ideas in prosecuting the war or couldn't due to bombing inaccuracy cripple their war effort.

Dropping more or more accurately on oil targets is something that definitely would have turned the Bombing campaign into a success rather than something that is so much harder to quantify.

Bomber Command did hurt the synthetic oil supply from September 1944 onwards but I have never read anywhere that it was decisive enough to make the Bomber Command effort a success.

The strategic bombing never crippled the synthetic oil production which from my understanding is the only industry that strategic bombing had a realistic chance of crippling. This did not occur due to a combination of not quite realising how precarious the German position was, inaccuracy in bombing and a focus on city destruction. And even then this only is an opportunity missed in late 1944.

Production of synthetic oil fell off a cliff, but still it wasn't decisive enough for you and amounted to a missed opportunity?

So, no, you didn't acknowledge that oil production was destroyed ... although you did posit that destroying oil production would count - in your eyes - as "success".

never said they were a failure.

!success = ____?

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