Excessive casualty figures?

... Russian casualty numbers

ITYM _Soviet_. 1/3 to 1/2 of Soviet WW II
casualties were non-Russians. (Ukrainians,
Belarussians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians,
Georgians, etc.) There is some wiggle room, as
how does one classify Bashkirs, Kalmucks, Volga
Tatars, and other ethnic non-Russians who were
Russian subjects long before the Revolution,
and are Russian citizens now?

are some astronomical
number of millions and sometimes cited as proof of the other allies hardly
contributing anything in comparison. But I think any review of the Russian
tactics show they wasted maybe half or two thirds of casualties needlessly or
to just for a tiny savings of time. Therefore I don't give them credit for the
entire number and chalk up a fair amount to brutality by Stalin.

Or incompetence by Stalin. His 1941 folly cost about 3M KIA
(or captured and murdered) just in that year; the follow-on
effects cost additional millions of combat losses.

Plus Stalin's folly allowed the Axis to overrun
a much larger area of the USSR, with proportionately
greater civilian deaths.

Add the effects of the Great Purge. It's been noted
that _some_ of the purged officers were superannuated
and replacing them was probably an improvement; but
the sheer number of purged officers certainly cut
into the muscle of the Red Army.

Then there were Stalin's bungled interventions
in strategy. His insistence on continuing the
Izyum offensive in spring 1942 led to a defeat
with hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Also the several hundred thousand Soviets who were
so alienated from the Soviet regime that they
volunteered as Hiwis and Osttruppen. Huge numbers
of these died (some murdered by Stalin at the end
of the war). Some of them fought on various fronts
and killed Allied soldiers, including some American
and British. (Many of the Wehrmacht soldiers stationed
on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day were Osttruppen.)

And what about the British regrets of huge numbers of civilians falling victim
to their supposedly indiscriminant bombings? I restrict myself to 1940-3 where
Goebbels diaries chalks up the numbers almost every day. He characterizes
British bombings as very accurate against munitions factories and the workers
housing, yet killing very few. In a couple bombings Nov 1943 he heard the
British press say a million were killed, yet Goebbels saying it was a thousand
or two.

The effects of bombings were at times greatly
exaggerated. The bombing of Rotterdam was said
to have killed 30,000 - the actual number was
less than 1,000 IIRC. (It appears that the
Germans didn't mind the exaggeration; it added
to the terror they wanted to spread.)

The bombing of Dresden was another case. David
Irving seems to be the originator of the
estimate of 250,000 dead. This was picked up
by anti-war American and British writers, and
got a huge boost from the popularity of
Vonnegut's novel _Slaughterhouse-Five_.

But more recent investigation has revealed that
German civil defense authorities made a careful
count of the dead at the time - about 25,000,
which is still horrific, but 1/10 the number.

--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.

http://originalvelvetrevolution.com

Alan Meyer

2013-07-21 23:34:37 UTC

... Or incompetence by Stalin....

...

Add the effects of the Great Purge. It's been noted
that _some_ of the purged officers were superannuated
and replacing them was probably an improvement; but
the sheer number of purged officers certainly cut
into the muscle of the Red Army.

...

I'd like to emphasize that point. The purge hurt the Soviet war effort
in many ways leading to enormously higher casualties than should
otherwise have occurred.

One cost was that most of the most capable commanders were "purged"
(i.e., mostly murdered). They were selected in part for their
competence. The more capable and independent minded they were, the more
of a threat they appeared to Stalin and the NKVD.

Another cost was the experience. Officers had to be promoted up through
the ranks to fill the enormous gaps at the top. These officers were
less likely to have WWI and Civil War combat experience and less likely
to understand how to command large units like brigades and divisions.

A third, very important cost, was the terrorizing of the officer corps.
Officers were afraid to suggest courses of action that were less than
maximally aggressive. Officers were also scared to death that if they
didn't follow aggressive orders exactly, no matter how irrelevant or
downright stupid they were, they would be punished, most likely by
shooting. This resulted in huge losses when units followed orders that
they knew would result in their deaths for no purpose, but few men dared
to question the orders and, when they did question them, few of their
superiors dared to support them in the face of Stalin's commands.

German officers also had to carry out irrational commands from Hitler,
but the officer corps was intact and professional and much more able to
exercise intelligence and initiative.

There's no way to quantify these effects but they were obviously real
and important, and they had further side effects. When soldiers learned
that their officers were inexperienced and incompetent, when they
learned that they would be ordered into suicidal attacks for no purpose,
when they learned that the slightest resistance to orders would be
disastrous for them, they had to be severely demoralized. How many of
the men who surrendered, especially in 1941 before they learned more
about what the Germans would do to them after their surrender, did so
because they saw their own people as hopelessly dangerous?

In addition to the destruction of the Red Army on the ground, it's also
instructive to look at the losses in the air force. On paper, the USSR
had the largest air force in the world in 1941. Yes, they had many
obsolete types and inadequately trained pilots. However had that air
force been intelligently handled and preserved I believe it would have
had a major effect in blunting the German offensives and reducing Red
Army casualties, significantly earlier in the war than it actually had.

Alan

c***@gmail.com

2013-07-22 21:58:39 UTC

Post by Alan Meyer
Another cost was the experience. Officers had to be promoted up through
the ranks to fill the enormous gaps at the top. These officers were
less likely to have WWI and Civil War combat experience and less likely
to understand how to command large units like brigades and divisions.

This problem was just as bad for the western allies as the Soviets.
The Soviets had a large peace-time army, so they didn't need to rapidly
expand people way up as happened in both the US and UK armies.

US/UK commanders of Army Group, and what rank they held on Sep 1
1939

Devers (6th): Colonel in Panama Canal Zone
(made Brigadier General May 1940)
Giffard (11th): Not sure, can anyone help here?
Leese (11th): Colonel in India
Bradley (12th): Lt. Colonel diectly under Marshall
(made Brigadier General 2/41- never was O6)
Alexander (15th): Major-General commanding 1st Infantry division
Clark (15th): Major at Fort Lewis

Notice how promotions were very very fast- especially in the US Army.
Mark Clark didn't make O5 until July 1, 1940, and made O10 3/10/45.

I don't have the ability to do a list for the Soviets like this, but
I can't imagine that they were much worse in terms of experience.

Chris Manteuffel

Stephen Graham

2013-07-22 22:27:47 UTC

Post by c***@gmail.com
Giffard (11th): Not sure, can anyone help here?

I believe Giffard was a lieutenant general as Military Secretary.

c***@gmail.com

2013-07-23 14:33:39 UTC

Post by Stephen Graham
I believe Giffard was a lieutenant general as Military Secretary.

Thanks.

So it seems clear from looking over the list (note that I forgot
Monty and Ike- Monty was also a major general from October 1938, and
Ike was a Lieutenant Colonel, made brigadier September 29th, 1941) that
the British army and the US were different in kind here. That makes
perfect sense; the peacetime British army was larger than the peacetime
American army, and the max American Army was about three and a half times
larger than the max British army of WW2, so it would be inevitable that the
US Army would have to expand much more, and promote people much more rapidly.

So, in terms of armies experience in their senior positions, I would strongly
suspect that the US Army had the least. This is not necessarily a bad thing,
much is often made of the way that George Marshall weeded out all the peacetime
officers from the high positions of the US Army, bringing in a new generation
of younger officers like Eisenhower, Patton, etc. to replace the older
officers.

It just seems to me that Marshall is praised for something, and Stalin is
castigated for almost exactly the same thing, which seems wrong[1].

[1]: Stalin's method of weeding out officers used slightly different
selection criteria and tended to be much more permanent than Marshall's.
Being less evil than one of the five worst men in history is a very low bar.

Chris Manteuffel

Rich Rostrom

2013-07-23 06:30:29 UTC

Post by Alan Meyer
One cost was that most of the most capable commanders were "purged"
(i.e., mostly murdered). They were selected in part for their
competence. The more capable and independent minded they were, the more
of a threat they appeared to Stalin and the NKVD.

I think that's an exaggeration. It wasn't competence,
it was the elevation of competence over political
loyalty that was selected for purging. As long as the
officer absolutely deferred to the Party and Stalin,
he was OK. There was no objection to his making
correct decisions on his own.

What was targeted was anyone who thought or seemed
to think that technical ability _ever_ outweighed
political correctness; i.e., anyone who would ever
disobey or even question the orders of the political
leadership on the basis of professional knowledge.

--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.

http://originalvelvetrevolution.com

Mario

2013-07-23 15:56:52 UTC

Post by Alan Meyer
One cost was that most of the most capable commanders were
"purged"
(i.e., mostly murdered). They were selected in part for
their
competence. The more capable and independent minded they
were, the more of a threat they appeared to Stalin and the
NKVD.

I think that's an exaggeration. It wasn't competence,
it was the elevation of competence over political
loyalty that was selected for purging. As long as the
officer absolutely deferred to the Party and Stalin,
he was OK. There was no objection to his making
correct decisions on his own.
What was targeted was anyone who thought or seemed
to think that technical ability _ever_ outweighed
political correctness; i.e., anyone who would ever
disobey or even question the orders of the political
leadership on the basis of professional knowledge.

Zhukov was competent and also independent, but Stalin trusted
him.

--
_____
/ o o \
\o_o_o/

Alan Meyer

2013-07-24 23:31:34 UTC

I think that's an exaggeration. It wasn't competence,
it was the elevation of competence over political
loyalty that was selected for purging. As long as the
officer absolutely deferred to the Party and Stalin,
he was OK. There was no objection to his making
correct decisions on his own.
What was targeted was anyone who thought or seemed
to think that technical ability _ever_ outweighed
political correctness; i.e., anyone who would ever
disobey or even question the orders of the political
leadership on the basis of professional knowledge.

It's an interesting question as to whether it's possible to be both
highly competent and 100% politically correct.

Suppose an order comes down that says, in effect, to throw your division
into a doomed attack that will kill 75% of your men and weaken your
section of the front while achieving nothing, what does the highly
competent but 100% politically correct officer do?

Is the main difference between him and the incompetent officer that he
sends his men to their doom and weakens his front, but first records
this madness in his secret diary?

In this regard I have special respect for Konstantin Rokossovsky. He
was arrested and tortured during the Great Purge. If I remember the
accounts correctly, a lot of his teeth had been knocked out and his
fingernails pulled out. However he was brought back into the Red Army
and was a competent commander. Here's a quote from the Wikipedia about him:

"In a famous incident during the planning in 1944 of Operation
Bagration, Rokossovsky disagreed with Stalin, who demanded in accordance
with Soviet war practice a single break-through of the German frontline.
Rokossovsky held firm in his argument for two points of break-through.
Stalin ordered Rokossovsky to "go and think it over" three times, but
every time he returned and gave the same answer "Two break-throughs,
Comrade Stalin, two break-throughs." After the third time Stalin
remained silent, but walked over to Rokossovsky and put a hand on his
shoulder. A tense moment followed as the whole room waited for Stalin to
rip the epaulette from Rokossovsky's shoulder; instead, Stalin said
"Your confidence speaks for your sound judgement," and ordered the
attack to go forward according to Rokossovsky's plan.[14] The battle was
successful and Rokossovsky's reputation was assured."

Alan

Michael Emrys

2013-07-25 03:42:07 UTC

Post by Alan Meyer
Suppose an order comes down that says, in effect, to throw your
division into a doomed attack that will kill 75% of your men and
weaken your section of the front while achieving nothing, what does
the highly competent but 100% politically correct officer do?

As in your example with Rokossovsky, he states his objections with his
reasons for them, but then obeys the orders he is finally given. This
was a dilemma faced not only by Soviet commanders. The history of
warfare abounds with examples of such dilemmas going all the way back to
classical times.

Michael

Bill

2013-07-25 13:19:58 UTC

Post by Alan Meyer
Suppose an order comes down that says, in effect, to throw your division
into a doomed attack that will kill 75% of your men and weaken your
section of the front while achieving nothing, what does the highly
competent but 100% politically correct officer do?

This is something well known in management theory.

There are successful managers and effective managers.

Effective managers get the job done and are popular with their staff.

Successful managers are popular with their bosses and so get
promoted...

As a general rule successful managers are not effective and effective
managers are not successful...

Rich Rostrom

2013-07-25 14:48:51 UTC

Post by Alan Meyer
Suppose an order comes down that says, in effect, to throw your division
into a doomed attack that will kill 75% of your men and weaken your
section of the front while achieving nothing, what does the highly
competent but 100% politically correct officer do?

He follows orders.

He also knows which politically irresistible orders
are wrong, and how wrong. He drags his feet with
plausible excuses.

Post by Alan Meyer
Is the main difference between him and the incompetent officer that he
sends his men to their doom and weakens his front, but first records
this madness in his secret diary?

The competent officer prepares the attack in the
best possible way, aborts at the first plausible
excuse, has a reserve posted to cope with any
counter-stroke.

The technically competent officer differs from the
incompetent every day. He posts his men on reverse
slopes; he notes covered lines of approach and retreat;
he has his artillery observer on the highest ground.

Being politically aware, he never raises technical
objections to political decisions.

--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.

http://originalvelvetrevolution.com

AlexMilman

2013-08-02 16:19:11 UTC

Post by Alan Meyer

... Or incompetence by Stalin....

...

It looks like an estimate of the scope changed over time:

"At first it was thought 25-50% of Red Army officers were
purged, it is now known to be 3.7-7.7%. Previously, the size
of the Red Army officer corps was underestimated, and it was
overlooked that most of those purged were merely expelled from
the Party. Thirty percent of officers purged in 1937-9 were
allowed to return to service.[30]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge#Purge_of_the_army

The highest ranks had been purged severely but not necessarily
the lower ones.

Post by Alan Meyer
One cost was that most of the most capable commanders were "purged"
(i.e., mostly murdered).
They were selected in part for their
competence. The more capable and independent minded they were, the more
of a threat they appeared to Stalin and the NKVD.

This was not necessarily the case. Out of 3 executed Marshals only 1,
Tukhachevsky, was unquestionably competent and could be suspected in
disloyalty. Yegorov was on very good terms with Stalin since the RCW
and Blucher served as one of the tribunal members at Tukhachevsky trial
but both of them demonstrated noticeable lacking in performance and
competence (of course, in a normal country this would be a reason for
sacking them instead of executing but the point remains that neither
disloyalty nor excessive competence was there). The same can be said
about numerous others, like Komandarm Dybenko (open enemy of
Tukhachevsky and Uborevich and a complete incompetent).

OTOH, practically all future marshals of WWII already had been on the
prominent enough positions (corps commander, commander of a military
district, corps chief of staff, division commander, etc.) and, except
Rokossovsky, were not persecuted so it is probably safe to assume
that competence by itself was not as deadly as you are assuming.

Following this logic, Budenny, Timoshenko, Pavlov, Kulik, etc. had been
practically doomed to be competent WWII commanders because all of them
(a) had RCW (and WWI) experience and (b) were promoted in a reasonably
normal way. :-)

In a real life, experience of the RCW proved to be rather a handicap
because it was almost completely different from the modern war and
there were numerous examples of how these presumably experienced
commanders misinterpreted its lessons.

Post by Alan Meyer
A third, very important cost, was the terrorizing of the officer corps.

There was no 'officer corps' in the Red Army to start with. :-)

'Officer' was solidly associated with the Whites and had been re-introduced
only during WWII.

Post by Alan Meyer
Officers were afraid to suggest courses of action that were less than
maximally aggressive.

Sorry, but this is rather irrelevant comparing to the fundamental problem
which totally escaped your attention.

The Red Army ended the RCW with, on average, badly educated commanding
cadres (overwhelmingly, no regular military education beyond, at best,
WWI crush course to qualify for a junior officer). Thanks to the class
policy, situation was not noticeably improving afterwards because
new commanding cadres used to have a right social background at the
expense of education and, taking into an account background of the
existing commanders, education (beyond political indoctrination and
parade-ground drill) was not made an overall priority.

Plus, of course, due to the shortage of the people with an adequate
educational background, the competent instructors in the military
schools and academies were scarce which obviously resulted in a
relatively low level of the graduates, etc. (of course, there were
exceptions and some of them made impressive careers but the general
problem remained).

BTW, tradition of 'scaring' commanders was there since the RCW when
the families had been made hostages and when execution on the spot
was a commonplace.

Post by Alan Meyer
Officers were also scared to death that if they
didn't follow aggressive orders exactly, no matter how irrelevant or
downright stupid they were, they would be punished, most likely by
shooting.

AFAIK, refuse to carry the orders tends to be a serious crime in most
armies (IIRC, Monty told Bradley that he executes only the orders with
which he personally agrees but I wonder if he allowed the same freedom
of action to _his_ subordinates :-)).

Post by Alan Meyer
This resulted in huge losses when units followed orders that
they knew would result in their deaths for no purpose,

In most cases the unit commanders were not in a good position to
make judgements regarding the 'purpose' because strategic (or even
high-level) plans were not disclosed to them.

Post by Alan Meyer
but few men dared
to question the orders and, when they did question them, few of their
superiors dared to support them in the face of Stalin's commands.

Actually, the huge losses of 1941 were to a great degree related not to
the suicidal orders but to the absence of any orders: on more than one
occasion the high-ranking commanders were simply abandoning their troops
with the instruction to act on their own (Kirponos at Kiev is probably
the best known but definitely not the only example).

OTOH, even in 1941 quite a few commanders had been overseeing defeat and
retreat of their troops, survived and made impressive career in the future
so the danger of disobeying was not probably as deadly as you imagine.

Post by Alan Meyer
German officers also had to carry out irrational commands from Hitler,
but the officer corps was intact and professional and much more able to
exercise intelligence and initiative.

The German officers had, on average, much better military education which
allowed them to act in a more competent way. The same applies to the
German Army in general: training on all levels was much better than in the
Red Army thanks to the existing experienced cadres.

Michael Emrys

2013-07-15 18:02:02 UTC

For example the Russian casualty numbers are some astronomical number
of millions and sometimes cited as proof of the other allies hardly
contributing anything in comparison.

But the true test of the importance of the Soviet contribution would be
better illustrated by how many _Germans_ were killed in the East.
Especially during 1945 those numbers were huge.

Michael

m***@netMAPSONscape.net

2013-07-16 04:58:21 UTC

Post by Michael Emrys

For example the Russian casualty numbers are some astronomical number
of millions and sometimes cited as proof of the other allies hardly
contributing anything in comparison.

But the true test of the importance of the Soviet contribution would be
better illustrated by how many _Germans_ were killed in the East.
Especially during 1945 those numbers were huge.

Or more properly, how many German troops were tied up fighting the
Soviets vs fighting the Western allies.

Under any such measure, though, the contribution of the Western allies' air war
and naval war wouldn't get enough credit.

Mike

Rich

2013-07-16 14:10:54 UTC

Post by m***@netMAPSONscape.net
Or more properly, how many German troops were tied up fighting the
Soviets vs fighting the Western allies.
Under any such measure, though, the contribution of the Western allies' air war
and naval war wouldn't get enough credit.

The problem is that most such "credit" calculations treat the Wehrmacht
as if it consisted solely of the Feldheer's divisions. By that measure,
two-thirds of the German effort remained in the East from 1941 on.
However, if measuring the manpower deployed to a theater the numbers
are probably less clear-cut. Thus, in June 1944, about 900,000 Feldheer, Waffen-SS, and Luftwaffe ground troops were deployed to Ob.West while
about 2.7-million of the same were in the East...but that does not count
the large presence of the Ersatzheer - as many as 200,000 at any one time
- in the West acting as training and occupation troops, which was a
critical component of German ground strength. It also ignores the 400,000
or so deployed in Italy and 200,000 or so deployed in Norway, both to
counter Western threats. Of the 1.6-million odd Luftwaffe personnel,
about 1.2-million were devoted to the West, Italy, Norway, or homeland
defense. And, of course, most of the KM's strength was in the West.

Certainly the Soviet Union consumed the greater fraction of German
strength, but it is unlikely the Soviets could have succeeded without
the Western Allies.

Rich Rostrom

2013-07-16 16:02:13 UTC

Post by Rich
Thus, in June 1944, about 900,000 Feldheer, Waffen-SS, and
Luftwaffe ground troops were deployed to Ob.West while about
2.7-million of the same were in the East...

A balance which changed rapidly after D-Day.

Post by Rich
but that does not count the large presence of
the Ersatzheer - as many as 200,000 at any one time - in the West
acting as training and occupation troops, which was a critical
component of German ground strength. It also ignores the 400,000 or
so deployed in Italy and 200,000 or so deployed in Norway, both to
counter Western threats.

And the troops deployed in Greece for the same reason.

Nor does it count the RSI army in Italy. OTOH
it does not count Romanian and Finnish forces
on the Eastern Front.

Post by Rich
Of the 1.6-million odd Luftwaffe personnel, about 1.2-million were
devoted to the West, Italy, Norway, or homeland defense.

I have seen estimates of 500,000 personnel
assigned to flak batteries in the Reich.
("Personnel", not troops, many were people
who could not have been soldiers. One flak
battery commander supposedly addressed his
crews as "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and
girls, and comrades" (the last referring
to ex-Soviet PoW volunteers).) I have also
seen a claim that a third of all German
ammo production was fired _up_.

Post by Rich
And, of course, most of the KM's strength was in the West.

ISTM that naval personnel should be counted
double or triple toward measures of effort,
due to the much greater "capital" employed.

Post by Rich
Certainly the Soviet Union consumed the greater fraction of German
strength, but it is unlikely the Soviets could have succeeded without
the Western Allies.

--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.

http://originalvelvetrevolution.com

Rich

2013-07-16 16:49:46 UTC

Post by Rich
Thus, in June 1944, about 900,000 Feldheer, Waffen-SS, and
Luftwaffe ground troops were deployed to Ob.West while about
2.7-million of the same were in the East...

A balance which changed rapidly after D-Day.

Not really, the ground forces deployed against the Western Allied
invasions were, with few exceptions, already part of Ob. West. In
fact, one division 19. Feld-Division (LW) ***left*** Ob. West for
Ob.Suedwest (Italy) during the initial period of the Normandy
Campaign. OTOH, II. SS-Panzerkorps with 9. and 10. SS-Panzerdivision
***did return*** to Ob. West in June, but they had only been "lent"
to the Ostheer. :)

Nor were replacement personnel a major factor...at least until after
September, which I don't think counts as "rapidly after D-Day". :)

Post by Rich Rostrom
And the troops deployed in Greece for the same reason.

Yep.

Post by Rich Rostrom
Nor does it count the RSI army in Italy. OTOH
it does not count Romanian and Finnish forces
on the Eastern Front.

I was not aware that the RSI, Romanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian,
Croatian, Slovakian, or Finnish forces were part of the Wehrmacht.
:)

Post by Rich Rostrom
I have seen estimates of 500,000 personnel
assigned to flak batteries in the Reich.
("Personnel", not troops, many were people

Quite, the 120-odd LW and KM Flak battalions in the zone of Ob.West
probably numbered well over 100,000 troops. However, about 10-20%
were either wholly or partly manned by Reichs-Arbeitsdienst
personnel. RAD also proved a lot of personnel in the Reich, as did
LW-Hilfer and Hilferin. Overall however, about 500,000-600,000 LW
and KM personnel manned Flak units throughout German territory.

Post by Rich Rostrom
ISTM that naval personnel should be counted
double or triple toward measures of effort,
due to the much greater "capital" employed.

Sorry, you slip into very fuzzy - and subjective - analysis when
you do that, which is as poblematic as the view tha the Western
Allies contributed minimally to the war effort against Germany.

Rich Rostrom

2013-07-17 15:24:38 UTC

Post by Rich

Post by Rich Rostrom
Nor does it count the RSI army in Italy. OTOH
it does not count Romanian and Finnish forces
on the Eastern Front.

I was not aware that the RSI, Romanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian,
Croatian, Slovakian, or Finnish forces were part of the Wehrmacht.
:)

If the underlying goal is to compare the
"effort" of the USSR vs the Western Allies,
by the strength of the opposition they faced,
then non-German Axis forces must be included.

The Axis allied forces on the Eastern Front
were a substantial burden on the Soviets, until
their collapse in summer 1944; the Western
Allies had a similar burden with Italy until
its surrender.

--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.

http://originalvelvetrevolution.com

Rich

2013-07-17 18:19:55 UTC

Post by Rich Rostrom
If the underlying goal is to compare the
"effort" of the USSR vs the Western Allies,
by the strength of the opposition they faced,
then non-German Axis forces must be included.

But that is not what the "goal" was stated as. Mike asked "how many
German troops were tied up fighting the Soviets vs fighting the Western allies". Not "how many German and non-German Axis forces were tied up
fighting the Soviets vs fighting the Western allies".

It was his goalpost I was working from, not the one you moved. :)

Bill Shatzer

2013-07-18 04:21:25 UTC

Rich Rostrom wrote:

- snips -

Post by Rich Rostrom
The Axis allied forces on the Eastern Front
were a substantial burden on the Soviets, until
their collapse in summer 1944; the Western
Allies had a similar burden with Italy until
its surrender.

Actually, substantial units of the RSI Army (ENR) actively opposed the
Western Allies right up until the final surrender of Axis forces in
Italy in April, 1945. True, the ENR divisions and smaller units tended
to be assigned to less active sectors of the front but those sectors
needed to be manned and the RSI troops released Wehrmacht troops from
those duties and allowed them to reinforce more critical active sectors.

Somewhat off-setting the RSI troops were the nearly equal numbers of
Italian Co-belligerent Army allied with the Allies - which similarly
were assigned to less active sectors or to rear echelon duties.

Haydn

2013-07-18 18:58:49 UTC

Post by Bill Shatzer
Actually, substantial units of the RSI Army (ENR) actively opposed the
Western Allies right up until the final surrender of Axis forces in
Italy in April, 1945. True, the ENR divisions and smaller units tended
to be assigned to less active sectors of the front...

Some smaller units saw action - and were substantially destroyed in
combat - on the hottest sectors of the front. Anzio, or the 8th Army
front south of Po River. Of course too few and too small to have any
serious impact.

The navy (almost entirely represented by the seaworthy elements of X
MAS) along with what was left of the Kriegsmarine in the Mediterranean
also carried on a desperate naval guerrilla against overwhelming odds.
Conditionally successful, as recently proved by new studies in the
subject, in that it tied up enormously larger and superior Allied naval
forces to protect their shipping.

Post by Bill Shatzer
Somewhat off-setting the RSI troops were the nearly equal numbers of
Italian Co-belligerent Army allied with the Allies - which similarly
were assigned to less active sectors or to rear echelon duties.

Active units fought their share of sharp battles, almost completely
overlooked (as a rule) in Allied histories.

In the final Allied offensive of spring 1945, Italian combat groups
(politically correct denomination for divisions) made up a sizeable
portion of 8th Army.

Haydn

Don P

2013-07-16 22:17:25 UTC

Post by dumbstruck
what about the British regrets of huge numbers of civilians falling

victim

Post by dumbstruck
to their supposedly indiscriminant bombings? I restrict myself to 1940-3 where
Goebbels diaries chalks up the numbers almost every day. He characterizes
British bombings as very accurate against munitions factories and the workers
housing, yet killing very few. In a couple bombings Nov 1943 he heard the
British press say a million were killed, yet Goebbels saying it was a thousand
or two. Usually it's just a hundred or so fire wardens anyway

The OP's sources may have misled him. German HQ had no reliable
way of estimating bombing casualties in Britain and did not use
high casualty figures in propaganda. British policy was never
to enumerate civilian casualties, high or low, so we need to know
Goebbels' source for writing "British press say a million were killed. .
." (We agree G's public speeches sometimes misrepresented the
enemy press but such misrepresentation in a diary would be odd.)

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa Canada)

dumbstruck

2013-07-17 21:22:57 UTC

Post by Don P
The OP's sources may have misled him. German HQ had no reliable
way of estimating bombing casualties in Britain and did not use
high casualty figures in propaganda. British policy was never
to enumerate civilian casualties, high or low, so we need to know
Goebbels' source for writing "British press say a million were killed. .

No, I am talking about the British overestimating the victim count from
their bombs. In the 1942-3 diary compilation by Lochner (although edited
7000 pages down to 550) G. for example on 43/11/28 ridicules "London reports"
of a million casualties in the last 3 bombings of Berlin. He admits 25%
of Berlin was destroyed, including skillful targeting of huge plant making
80% of their field guns... but only 3 or 4000 were killed. Up till then
only a few hundred fell to even large attacks that felled many more buildings
than people due to meticulous air raid evacuations. He begged Hitler to let
workers not evacuate for minor raids because sleep loss was their main
productivity problem, but mostly in vain.

Goebbels may have misinterpreted loose UK newspaper talk as official word
from Churchill... he couldn't quite imagine freedom of press. But he is
in charge of publishing denials based on detailed chalking up of war
progress and setbacks every morning. He most often has to hold his tongue
because he likes to have the enemy overestimate their progress and hates
to give false hopes to his own side which may reverse later. Also he says
some of the targets were fake disguises that he didn't want to reveal.

I think we Anglos remember our bombing as very barbaric and indiscriminant
and may still overestimate the killing. The new-age bias is to focus primarily
on the victimology, such as German's hammered at home or Russians being mowed
down in (reckless) charges. This is taken as intuitive truth. But the facts
as Goebbels writes down seem less hard on the civilian front, and he is an
info focal point, in charge of filtering military and civilian news even
for the generals (to prevent defeatist attitudes). He had the morning
progress briefing from high command put directly into his diary, and domestic
spy info from the SD, and foreign newspapers as well. He once tapped into a
Churchill phone call in Egypt.

He did seem to overestimate the accuracy of the bombing which he often raged
at as being precise. I suppose he didn't take notice of the high proportion
of craters in potato fields. Over and over he wails about small Mosquito
raids keeping everyone awake.

Bill

2013-07-18 14:37:55 UTC

Post by dumbstruck
I think we Anglos remember our bombing as very barbaric and indiscriminant
and may still overestimate the killing.

You should speak to some of the people who were there.

I know of no-one who lived through the German bombing of the UK who
considered our retaliation completely proportionate.

Everyone bombed everyone else to the limit of their capacity.

Rich Rostrom

2013-07-19 02:41:37 UTC

Post by Bill
I know of no-one who lived through the German bombing of the UK who
considered our retaliation completely proportionate.

????

DYM "who _did_ _not_ _consider_ our retaliation completely proportionate"?

You may have never met one personally, but
I have read of Britons who questioned the
morality of Bomber Command's operation.

One was a CoE Bishop, who raised his points
in the House of Lords.

As to "lived through the German bombing";
some Britons were in London during the Blitz.

Other lived in remote areas that saw little
or no air attack, even during the Blitz.

Others were in London during all or part of
the V-barrage.

Some lived in southern England in 1940, but
were sent overseas before the Blitz started,
and returned only at the end of the war.

Who counts as having "lived through the German
bombing of the UK"?

--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.

http://originalvelvetrevolution.com

Bill

2013-07-19 13:18:31 UTC

On Thu, 18 Jul 2013 22:41:37 -0400, Rich Rostrom

Post by Bill
I know of no-one who lived through the German bombing of the UK who
considered our retaliation completely proportionate.

Very few and mainly politicians with an eye on posterity and religious
figures who didn't understand the concept of 'total war'.

Post by Rich Rostrom
One was a CoE Bishop, who raised his points
in the House of Lords.

Well yes...

You make my point for me.

Post by Rich Rostrom
As to "lived through the German bombing";
some Britons were in London during the Blitz.
Other lived in remote areas that saw little
or no air attack, even during the Blitz.
Others were in London during all or part of
the V-barrage.
Some lived in southern England in 1940, but
were sent overseas before the Blitz started,
and returned only at the end of the war.
Who counts as having "lived through the German
bombing of the UK"?

People who lived within one mile of a German bomb exploding.

Rich Rostrom

2013-07-19 15:38:55 UTC

Post by Bill
On Thu, 18 Jul 2013 22:41:37 -0400, Rich Rostrom

Post by Bill
I know of no-one who lived through the German bombing of the UK who
considered our retaliation completely proportionate.

????
DYM "who _did_ _not_ _consider_ our retaliation completely proportionate"?

No response, so I guess I am right - you
mis-stated your claim as the opposite of
what you really mentl,

Post by Rich Rostrom
You may have never met one personally, but
I have read of Britons who questioned the
morality of Bomber Command's operation.

Very few...

"Very few" != "no-one"

Post by Bill
and mainly politicians with an eye on posterity and religious
figures who didn't understand the concept of 'total war'.

Post by Rich Rostrom
One was a CoE Bishop, who raised his points
in the House of Lords.

Well yes...
You make my point for me.

No, you just accepted _my_ point and dropped
your own.

Britons, even those who "lived through the
German bombing", did _not_ unanimously approve
of Bomber Command's operations against Germany.

I will agree that there was general approval,
and that the critics were a minority. But that
isn't what you wrote.

Incidentally, I would also suggest that there were
Britons at the time who were strongly opposed to
bomber attacks on Germany as "retaliation" - because
"retaliation" had no place in modern warfare, and that
military operations should be strictly confined to
actions with useful military objects. These objects
could include disruption of the enemy nation's
economy, and demoralization of the enemy population,
for which indiscriminate attacks on enemy cities could
be highly effective. But mere "retaliation" would be
wasted effort.

Note that one of the most wasteful military efforts of
the war was the German _Vergeltungswaffen_: literally
"vengeance weapons".

--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.

http://originalvelvetrevolution.com

The Horny Goat

2013-07-24 02:54:51 UTC

Post by Rich Rostrom
Who counts as having "lived through the German
bombing of the UK"?

People who lived within one mile of a German bomb exploding.

Would you include people like my brother's inlaws who were from
Coventry and evacuated before the main bombings? Or my aunt (born in
1940) who was evacuated from Hull as an infant and didn't meet up with
her family again until early 1947?

Bill

2013-07-24 13:21:23 UTC

Post by The Horny Goat

Post by Rich Rostrom
Who counts as having "lived through the German
bombing of the UK"?

People who lived within one mile of a German bomb exploding.

Evacuees tended to be children.

Child evacuees from Hull usually didn't go very far.

My mother was evacuated at the beginning of the war to Swanland (a
village only a few miles from Hull) but returned to the city within
six months, in time for the Hull Blitz...

Andrew Chaplin

2013-07-24 13:22:29 UTC

Post by The Horny Goat

Post by Rich Rostrom
Who counts as having "lived through the German
bombing of the UK"?

People who lived within one mile of a German bomb exploding.

Sixteen in 1940, my aunt was rather older; she was sent to stay with
relatives in Canada because the family lived near and her father worked in
laboratories that supported aircraft research at Farnborough. They thought,
not unreasonably, that they were a target. She did not see her parents again
until 1945.

--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)

Don Phillipson

2013-07-18 14:38:25 UTC

We seem still to "need to know Goebbels' source for writing "British press
say a million were killed,"" because the British press published no specific
news of RAF raids on Germany, viz. was not allowed to identify target
cities or estimate casualties or material damage.

Post by dumbstruck
I think we Anglos remember our bombing as very barbaric and indiscriminant
and may still overestimate the killing. The new-age bias is to focus primarily
on the victimology , , , This is taken as intuitive truth.

Much factual information has been published 1980-2010 about RAF
boming, RAF casualties, and the effectiveness of bombing (acres destroyed,
casualties etc.) This is not "intuitive." Whether "barbaric" or not, we
have
no reason to call bombing "indiscriminate" (before 1945, at least.) "Area
bombing" was a redefined strategy, derived from the audit of failures
1940-41,
approved by the War Cabinet, of destroying Germany's 60 largest cities.
The bomber force was from time to time redirected to other targets
(e.g. the Oil Plan and Transportation Plan of 1944) but "area bombing"
governed most air raids most of the time 1942-45. "Killing" was never a
primary
aim, because the planners judged that disorganization of infrastructure
and "dehousing" of workers harmed Third Reich industrial capacity more
than merely killing civilians. (I don't know that this can be accurately
measured, but we know this was how the planners judged the case in 1942.)

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

dumbstruck

2013-07-20 14:29:31 UTC

Post by Don Phillipson
We seem still to "need to know Goebbels' source for writing "British press
say a million were killed,"" because the British press published no specific
news of RAF raids on Germany, viz. was not allowed to identify target
cities or estimate casualties or material damage.

Well like I said, that book condensed every 14 pages of diary into 1 page. I am
now reading a less condensed entire book on just 6 weeks of 1945 diary (just
hit his iron curtain declaration... has nobody else read these?). Goebbels does
reference specific UK newspapers at times. For that quote, a million is such a
round number that I suspect he got it from some offhand supposition in a
background piece. Unless he is going by some briefing in a tapped line (naval
or Italian diplomatic?) He references telegrams about the air campaign between
Harris and Eisenhower, but these could have been meant for public consumption
and weren't about casualties.

Post by Don Phillipson
(e.g. the Oil Plan and Transportation Plan of 1944) but "area bombing"
governed most air raids most of the time 1942-45. "Killing" was never a
primary
aim, because the planners judged that disorganization of infrastructure
and "dehousing" of workers harmed Third Reich industrial capacity more
than merely killing civilians. (I don't know that this can be accurately
Carlsbad Springs

Wow, that hit the nail on the head because while Speer brags about his
factories not suffering much capacity, Goebbels just agonizes about the success
of worker dehousing. They live, but cannot produce with no plumbing, roof, or
sleep. I almost wonder if the British derived bombing tactics from decoded
German reports. Goebbels for instance talks about the coincidental bombing of
Berlin the very day when much of their fire fighting equipment was sent to
other repeatedly bombed areas like Hamburg. Also he judges (against today's
popular misconception) that bombing crushes their morale over the long term.
Besides some initial raising of morale, it eventually explains to him the white
flag syndrome in the west (where he organizes some assassins to hit
collaborating mayors).

The overestimation of killings is a common intuitive approach today by non-
specialist intellectuals of the type that make WW2 documentaries. Zoom cameras
in on the RAF pilot that weeps for what he bombed, in spite of it typically
jiggling the bomb shelters of war criminals. Recently there was a program
claiming 90% of all infantry intentionally misses their target out of
humanitarian reasons, and that the military believes such scientific studies.
The best description on how half of the population (blind to anything except
unconditional compassion rather than tough love) is The Righteous Mind book by
a social psychologist: "moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut
feelings". Thank you for ably countering that in respect to bombing.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/righteous-mind-jonathan-haidt/1102305565

Post by Don Phillipson
(Ottawa, Canada)

I couldn't rediscover Goebbels further claims about allies overestimating
German bombing casualties by just flipping thru what I had read. I just ran
into an amusing Canadian reference 3/3/43 that I thought you'd enjoy: "It
drives one mad to think that any old Canadian boor, who probably can't find
Europe on the globe, flies to Europe from his super-rich country which his
people don't know how to exploit, and here bombards a continent with a
overcrowded population."

I have a slight point of agreement, in the sense that Canadian forests should
have been stripped for more Mosquito production. I knew that light bomber was
an irritant, but it just looms terrifically in the diaries how the Berlin
leadership can hardly get a single night of sleep from their raids (although
still feeling safe). I downloaded a Mosquito pilot manual, and it looked like
their crew had to constantly sweat the engines cutting out from vapor lock in
the numerous fuel tanks. So their famous immunity to enemy fire didn't mean
they could feel safe from just crash landing in the Reich.

Mario

2013-07-18 20:58:28 UTC

Post by dumbstruck
Goebbels may have misinterpreted loose UK newspaper talk as
official word from Churchill... he couldn't quite imagine
freedom of press. But he is in charge of publishing denials
based on detailed chalking up of war progress and setbacks
every morning. He most often has to hold his tongue because he
likes to have the enemy overestimate their progress and hates
to give false hopes to his own side which may reverse later.
Also he says some of the targets were fake disguises that he
didn't want to reveal.
I think we Anglos remember our bombing as very barbaric and
indiscriminant and may still overestimate the killing. The
new-age bias is to focus primarily on the victimology, such as
German's hammered at home or Russians being mowed down in
(reckless) charges. This is taken as intuitive truth. But the
facts as Goebbels writes down seem less hard on the civilian
front, and he is an info focal point, in charge of filtering
military and civilian news even for the generals (to prevent
defeatist attitudes). He had the morning progress briefing
from high command put directly into his diary, and domestic
spy info from the SD, and foreign newspapers as well. He once
tapped into a Churchill phone call in Egypt.
He did seem to overestimate the accuracy of the bombing which
he often raged at as being precise. I suppose he didn't take
notice of the high proportion
of craters in potato fields. Over and over he wails about
small Mosquito raids keeping everyone awake.

"The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing
hits, but not when it misses."
-- Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

--
_____
/ o o \
\o_o_o/

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-07-21 16:01:10 UTC

Post by dumbstruck
I am talking about the British overestimating the victim count from
their bombs. In the 1942-3 diary compilation by Lochner (although edited
7000 pages down to 550) G. for example on 43/11/28 ridicules
"London reports" of a million casualties in the last 3 bombings of
Berlin.

The fundamental problem with this is London was not issuing claims
about killing or wounding large numbers of civilians, and think of the
reaction if a figure of a million casualties in 3 raids had been
announced at the time, and how it would feature in the histories of
the bombing campaign. Even if it was a "made homeless" claim.

Also Berlin was known to have a population of around 4.25 million
people pre war. So the claim would be a quarter of the population.

Post by dumbstruck
He admits 25%
of Berlin was destroyed, including skillful targeting of huge plant making
80% of their field guns... but only 3 or 4000 were killed.

That may be the Alkett works, the StuG III production.

At the end of the war Harris claimed 33% of Berlin had been destroyed,
of which he credited the USAAF with slightly under 4%. So it does look
like claims about the amount of property destruction is being turned into
human casualties.

Post by dumbstruck
Up till then
only a few hundred fell to even large attacks that felled many more
buildings than people due to meticulous air raid evacuations.

Yes, it took around 2 tons of bombs to kill 1 person in Germany
in WWII, and more on average when you take out the firestom raids.

Post by dumbstruck
He begged Hitler to let
workers not evacuate for minor raids because sleep loss was their main
productivity problem, but mostly in vain.

So Goebbels had decided a bad night's sleep was a higher loss
than the extra deaths?

Post by dumbstruck
Goebbels may have misinterpreted loose UK newspaper talk as
official word from Churchill...

There is some sort of misinterpretation going on.

Post by dumbstruck
he couldn't quite imagine freedom of press. But he is
in charge of publishing denials based on detailed chalking up of war
progress and setbacks every morning. He most often has to hold his tongue
because he likes to have the enemy overestimate their progress and hates
to give false hopes to his own side which may reverse later. Also he says
some of the targets were fake disguises that he didn't want to reveal.

It is known dummy sites were deployed and were successful.

Post by dumbstruck
I think we Anglos remember our bombing as very barbaric and
indiscriminant and may still overestimate the killing.

There are the strands of opinion that range from the bombing was
barbaric/wrong/cost ineffective to where the bombing was decisive
and the best option.

Post by dumbstruck
The new-age bias is to focus primarily on the victimology, such
as German's hammered at home or Russians being mowed
down in (reckless) charges. This is taken as intuitive truth.

If you study any subject deeply you will automatically find the gap
between the general public's short hand version of the subject
and the real complexities.

Post by dumbstruck
But the facts
as Goebbels writes down seem less hard on the civilian front, and he is
an info focal point, in charge of filtering military and civilian news
even
for the generals (to prevent defeatist attitudes).

Look at how many raids were done on Germany during the war, then
divide that by the reported total of around 600,000 deaths. Or the
fact there was around 5 years, or around 1,800 possible days of raids.
It becomes clear what number of deaths the average raid caused, unless
there was a firestorm or people failed to take shelter.

Post by dumbstruck
He had the morning
progress briefing from high command put directly into his diary, and
domestic spy info from the SD, and foreign newspapers as well. He
once tapped into a Churchill phone call in Egypt.

Is this tied up with reports of intecepting trans Atlantic radio phone
conversations?

Post by dumbstruck
He did seem to overestimate the accuracy of the bombing which he
often raged at as being precise.

There is at least one raid where the bombs destroyed an important
Luftwaffe depot and the Germans went hunting for the agents who
had guided the bombers, while the RAF noted the concentration of
the bombs in that raid had been well away from the official aiming
point.

Simply it is human to try and find meaning from randomness or
selectively remember events.

Post by dumbstruck
I suppose he didn't take notice of the high proportion
of craters in potato fields.

Not by end 1943, those days were largely over, though a city
like Berlin with so much open space was a part exception.

Post by dumbstruck
Over and over he wails about small Mosquito
raids keeping everyone awake.

There seems plenty of evidence the German Command became
something like obsessed with Mosquitoes.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

dumbstruck

2013-07-23 04:07:55 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
The fundamental problem with this is London was not issuing claims
about killing or wounding large numbers of civilians, and think of the
reaction if a figure of a million casualties in 3 raids had been
announced at the time, and how it would feature in the histories of
the bombing campaign. Even if it was a "made homeless" claim.

Reading the more complete 1945 book, I see Goebbels referring to
reliable informants in England. I wonder if it could be the double
agents trying to bait Goebbels into refuting with corrected death #s.
The 1943 book language could be taken as million in 3 or all raids.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
At the end of the war Harris claimed 33% of Berlin had been destroyed,
of which he credited the USAAF with slightly under 4%. So it does look

Probably later raids got little credit for re-clobbering areas being
rebuilt, or blocking the streets by reshuffling rubble. Also Berlin
seems more suited to Lancasters due to more range and payload. B-17s
can stop short around Rhineland and B-24s hit Bavaria/Austria.

I will note the 1300 B-17 raid he describes as devastating in 45/3/18.
Brought transport to standstill for days... no electricity. Hit lesser
touched neighborhoods in N, NE around noon with little opposition.
6000 HE bombs with many more firebombs. 65k workers made homeless.
Only 227 killed, although 849 wounded and 450 missing. Previous big US
raid 19 days ago on Berlin; RAF closer to daily.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
So Goebbels had decided a bad night's sleep was a higher loss
than the extra deaths?

Makes sense to me, and he did report getting permission for this later
in Berlin only. Sometimes they didn't know if a small raid aims
for Berlin or nearby. Sometimes a lost German pilot was picked up
as a possible Mosquito attack. Goebbels probably found people more
expendable... even Hitler was shocked at his request that one
firewatcher would man each roof in Berlin (falling by the thousands).

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
There are the strands of opinion that range from the bombing was
barbaric/wrong/cost ineffective to where the bombing was decisive
and the best option.

OK, I thought I detected a bad trend, but will treat it as a cycle.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
There is at least one raid where the bombs destroyed an important
Luftwaffe depot and the Germans went hunting for the agents who
had guided the bombers, while the RAF noted the concentration of
the bombs in that raid had been well away from the official aiming

I believe Goebbels did say enemy spies probably guided in the 1943 raid
hitting gun factory, and it was not his first mention of this suspicion.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
There seems plenty of evidence the German Command became
something like obsessed with Mosquitoes.

I had heard Goring's famous quote on it, and Kurt Tanks tribulations
(including jail) in trying to replicate them. But to hear the moaning
on almost every day of diary entries! A single Mosquito bomb flattened
Goebbels entire ministry building around 45/3. They came in relentlessly
in pairs up to hundreds... with increasing payload and accuracy on the
transport system.

I don't know why the high command couldn't just hole up in a comfy
shelter in anticipation. But it was apparently a disruptive transfer
process, maybe sneaking their mistress out of sight and socializing
in humid shelters without more than 2 hours of sleep per typical day.

Anyway, maybe I have been an unworthy reporter in giving a fractured
summary of this diary. I hope others read it! It can be numbing with
speculation about every minor political event in the world, but when
you hit the inside view of familiar ww2 events it can seem to throw
new light on stuff. His war diaries sound frank and raw vs his 1930's
ones sometimes meant for public reading.

Rich Rostrom

2013-07-23 06:17:50 UTC

Also Berlin seems more suited to Lancasters due to
more range and payload. B-17s can stop short around
Rhineland and B-24s hit Bavaria/Austria.

B-17s hit Berlin. My father (who passed away a few
days ago) was lead bombardier for his B-17 squadron
on two Berlin raids.

--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.

http://originalvelvetrevolution.com

Mario

2013-07-23 15:39:47 UTC

Also Berlin seems more suited to Lancasters due to
more range and payload. B-17s can stop short around
Rhineland and B-24s hit Bavaria/Austria.

B-17s hit Berlin. My father (who passed away a few
days ago) was lead bombardier for his B-17 squadron
on two Berlin raids.

I am sorry for your loss.

R.I.P.

--
_____
/ o o \
\o_o_o/

Rich Rostrom

2013-07-23 06:22:20 UTC

Post by dumbstruck
I don't know why the high command couldn't just hole up in a comfy
shelter in anticipation.

If nothing else, the humiliation.

In spring 1941, Molotov visited Berlin. Von
Ribbentrop insisted to him that the British
were effectively defeated. Then Molotov asked
him "Whose bombers are overhead?" (They were
in an air-raid shelter at the time.)

--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.

http://originalvelvetrevolution.com

Bill

2013-07-23 13:19:19 UTC

As far as we know the Germans had no reliable informants in England by
that stage.

All information reaching the German government was being manipulated.

Well, I say all'. There's a story that there was a SD cell in the UK
somewhere, mainly because they never caught any SD men but we know
that the SD had spies of British origin available to them.

However it's quite possibly yet another story from the ' Douglas
Berneville-Claye school of tall tales'...

Bill

2013-07-23 13:19:50 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
There seems plenty of evidence the German Command became
something like obsessed with Mosquitoes.

I had heard Goring's famous quote on it, and Kurt Tanks tribulations
(including jail) in trying to replicate them. But to hear the moaning
on almost every day of diary entries!

The point about the Mosquito raids on Berlin isn't their size or
accuracy, it was that they came EVERY night and so everyone had to
spend every night sleeping in a bomb shelter...

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-07-23 15:32:33 UTC

Whatever his source it was not radio broadcasts and it may be
confusing urban destruction with deaths.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
At the end of the war Harris claimed 33% of Berlin had been destroyed,
of which he credited the USAAF with slightly under 4%. So it does look

Probably later raids got little credit for re-clobbering areas being
rebuilt, or blocking the streets by reshuffling rubble.

Bomber Command Main Force stopped bombing Berlin in March
1944, after the USAAF had begun attacks. Night attacks after
that used Mosquitoes.

While there is a law of diminishing returns it is also the case Berlin
was a very large place.

Post by dumbstruck
Also Berlin
seems more suited to Lancasters due to more range and payload. B-17s
can stop short around Rhineland and B-24s hit Bavaria/Austria.

You seem to be thinking of the B-17F before the extra fuel tanks
were fitted, the "Tokyo Tanks". As operated by the 8th AF the
early B-17s were limited to western Germany, the later ones
could attack all of Germany.

Post by dumbstruck
I will note the 1300 B-17 raid he describes as devastating in 45/3/18.
Brought transport to standstill for days... no electricity. Hit lesser
touched neighborhoods in N, NE around noon with little opposition.
6000 HE bombs with many more firebombs. 65k workers made homeless.
Only 227 killed, although 849 wounded and 450 missing.

The USAAF reports 3,079.2 short tons of bombs dropped of which
1,534.7 tons was incendiary. Only 296.4 tons dropped visually,
the rest used H2X. 14 bombers lost, 15 written off out of 1,329
despatched, 6 fighters lost 1 written off.

Officially attacking 2 rail stations and 2 AFV factories.

Post by dumbstruck
Previous big US
raid 19 days ago on Berlin;

26 February, officially after 3 rail stations, all bombs dropped using
H2X, 2,778 short tons including 1,213.3 tons of incendiaries.

Post by dumbstruck
RAF closer to daily.

The Light Night Striking Force, Mosquitoes.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
So Goebbels had decided a bad night's sleep was a higher loss
than the extra deaths?

Except fire watchers casualty rates were not that high and they
performed a vital task, isolating incendiaries, stopping the fires,
that is a real trade off given the threat fires posed to life and
buildings.

Post by dumbstruck
Anyway, maybe I have been an unworthy reporter in giving a fractured
summary of this diary. I hope others read it! It can be numbing with
speculation about every minor political event in the world, but when
you hit the inside view of familiar ww2 events it can seem to throw
new light on stuff. His war diaries sound frank and raw vs his 1930's
ones sometimes meant for public reading.

It would appear the editing and/or translation is causing some
problems.

German raid reports for the 26 February and 18 March 1945 raids.

BERLIN, 28X - 10 - LW. Ops. Staff, 26 FEBRUARY, (USAAF). Some 1190 bombers
with fighter escort carried out a heavy terror raid on the whole city area
with the exception of Spandau, Steglitz and Zehlendorf from 1155 to 1300
hours.

Bombs dropped: 5000 H.E., 300000 incendiary bombs, 3000 oil bombs.

Numerous major fires and heavy damage to house property occurred and a large
number of public buildings were hit. These included: The Party Chancellery
in the Wilhelmstrasse; the Foreign Office in the Kronenstrasse; the Police
Presidency; the Voelkische Beobachter; the Ministry of Posts and Telegraph;
some town halls and hospitals.

The AEG Cable and Metal works in Oberschoeneweide was hit, destroying the
telephone cable shop and reducing production 100% for an indefinite period.
The Treptow works of AEG, manufacturing radio equipment, gyros and
rectifiers, also suffered damage which resulted in 100% drop in production
for some time. A large number of other firms were also affected.

Considerable disruption occurred in both long distance, local and municipal
transport. A large number of stations and railway installations were hit.
Water supplies failed in the centre and was seriously affected in the outer
districts. Electricity failed in the eastern parts of the city and gas
supplies were also considerably interrupted.

Tempelhof airfield was hit by 70 H.E. and 3000 incendiary bombs. 4 hangar
and 7 barrack huts were destroyed and craters appeared on the taxying area.
The airfield was rendered unusable

BERLIN, 28X - 11 - LW. Ops. Staff, 18 MARCH, (USAAF). About 1200 bombers
with fighter escort attacked the city from 1107 to 1227 hours. With the
exception of Steglitz, Wilmersdorf, Spandau and Zehlendorf the whole town
area was affected, particularly the centre and the north and northwest.

Bombs dropped: 6000 H.E. (650 D.A.), 500000 incendiary bombs, 3000 oil
bombs.

Casualties: 227 dead, 349 injured, 650 missing and 65000 homeless.

Among firms damaged were the following: Weserflug A.G.; A.E.G.
Brunnenstrasse; Agfa, Lohmuehlenstrasse; Knorr-Bremse; Rhenania-Ossag;
Borsig Machine Works; B.M.W., Charlottenburg; Telefunken;
Rheinmetall-Borsig; Oxygen Works, Borsigwalde; Alket, Borsigwalde.

Six main and a number of suburban railway lines were put out of action.
Numerous public buildings were hit, including the Ministry of the Interior
and several hospitals. At A.E.G., Hennigsdorf, the radar instrument shop
was destroyed. At the Tempelhof airfield 4 hangars were severely damaged by
fire and 2 FW 200 and several FW 190 were destroyed.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

dumbstruck

2013-07-24 02:52:30 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Whatever his source it was not radio broadcasts and it may be
confusing urban destruction with deaths.

He did specify deaths (or maybe casualties? but that seems a foreign
concept to him that he has to explain to the diary later); he normally
had surprising agreement with UK announcements of German property
destruction. And the only reason I brought it up here was because it
seemed not the first time he ridiculed German casualty estimates from
the allies. He did not say who "London reports" referred to, but maybe
it was the German spies forced into double agents or their UK minders.

Another of my motives were the multiple documentaries who had allied
bomber veterans regretful for "massive" collateral damage to people. If
I do a very gross estimate based on figures in these posts, it appears
that the average bomber hitting one urban target killed less than 1.0
civilian. In all of their 30 or so required missions (not always urban)
their plane might kill less civvies than the number plane crew. If
the plane crew re-enlisted until they were shot down, each may have
caused 2 civilians to die before they themselves died (on average).

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
You seem to be thinking of the B-17F before the extra fuel tanks
were fitted, the "Tokyo Tanks". As operated by the 8th AF the
early B-17s were limited to western Germany, the later ones
could attack all of Germany.

Could doesn't equal should; there is a sliding scale of reduced
bombload if the B-17 has to add fuel. Also it is burdened with a
copilot and more gunners with heavier calibers than Lancasters.
In 1944 Berlin was too dangerous for water cooled Lancs, but in
45/3/18 only 28 (jet!) interceptors were available and many AA
guns were removed to the front or else low on ammo. The B17 50
calibers were probably equally useless against the rare me262
zoomers as the Lanc's cute little popguns.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
26 February, officially after 3 rail stations, all bombs dropped using

I wonder if that raid destroyed a year and a half of Goebbels diaries,
which resume the day after that raid (in microfilm version avail 1983).

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Except fire watchers casualty rates were not that high and they
performed a vital task, isolating incendiaries, stopping the fires,
that is a real trade off given the threat fires posed to life and
buildings.

They still used a large number of fire folks, but one per each zillion
roofs in sprawling Berlin and other cities conflicted with desperate
shortage of people. Goebbels failed to convince Hitler to draft women
into factory work. He set up teams to shanghai soldiers who were
riding trains away rather than to the front, but had to quit this
which disrupts important courier routes. Many families had left Berlin.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
It would appear the editing and/or translation is causing some
problems.

Early 40's book done by Louis Lochner I think, from extremely messed
up paper source, condensing it radically at the point of a gun by his
publisher. He knew and is pictured with Goebbels! The 1945 one is
edited by Oxford's Trevor-Roper. I forget two other diary volumes I
read. My role in relaying this is hampered by the numbing task of
racing through these books before library wants them back, and the
horrendous postage stamp sized google edit environment to reply here.
I did read the preface/intro's/footnotes and translator notes as well.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
German raid reports for the 26 February and 18 March 1945 raids.
BERLIN, 28X - 10 - LW. Ops. Staff, 26 FEBRUARY, (USAAF). Some 1190 bombers
with fighter escort carried out a heavy terror raid on the whole city area

Goebbels diaries effectively have that same report transcribed in the
beginning of each day. March 18-19-20 entries were unusual in the way
Goebbels and the Army Liaison repeatedly updated their estimates. It's
confusing because there is some ambiguity about which is the latest
info... today sometimes meaning yesterday for one but not the other.

Around 45/3/21 Goebbels about gives up quantifying particular raid damage,
and throws out some ambiguous estimate of air raids thru december (?!)
"is reported" as 353,000 deaths and 457,000 wounded, innumerable homeless
and the whole Reich one great heap of ruins. And he wants to fight on,
and it's all Goering's and Ribbentrop's fault that they can't get peace!

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-07-24 14:09:27 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Whatever his source it was not radio broadcasts and it may be
confusing urban destruction with deaths.

He did specify deaths (or maybe casualties? but that seems a foreign
concept to him that he has to explain to the diary later); he normally
had surprising agreement with UK announcements of German property
destruction. And the only reason I brought it up here was because it
seemed not the first time he ridiculed German casualty estimates from
the allies. He did not say who "London reports" referred to, but maybe
it was the German spies forced into double agents or their UK minders.
Another of my motives were the multiple documentaries who had allied
bomber veterans regretful for "massive" collateral damage to people. If
I do a very gross estimate based on figures in these posts, it appears
that the average bomber hitting one urban target killed less than 1.0
civilian. In all of their 30 or so required missions (not always urban)
their plane might kill less civvies than the number plane crew. If
the plane crew re-enlisted until they were shot down, each may have
caused 2 civilians to die before they themselves died (on average).

In short no. Germany reported around 593,000 deaths from air raids.
That works out about 1 death per 2 tons of bombs, which is less than
the average bomb load of an allied heavy bomber.

The death toll has been put at 410,000 German civilians killed, then
add 23,000 police and civilians working in the military, 32,000 foreign
workers and PoWs plus 128,000 displaced persons, total 593,000.
This total is from the post war investigations of the German Statistical
Office.

Generally people in a big city were the best protected, they had a
warning and shelter system. Smaller settlements usually took higher
casualties per bomb dropped.

It is true that until sometime in 1942 or a little later the number of
airmen killed trying to attack Germany was greater than the civilian
deaths.

Could doesn't equal should; there is a sliding scale of reduced
bombload if the B-17 has to add fuel. Also it is burdened with a
copilot and more gunners with heavier calibers than Lancasters.

The B-17 was designed to take a maximum bomb load of 12,800
pounds but only if the load was eight 1,600 pound AP bombs. The
legacy of the pre war anti shipping doctrine. As far as I know the
same applies to the B-24.

It meant the B-17 could carry a maximum of around 6,000 pounds
of HE bombs internally. While the early B-17F had a normal
maximum weight of 56,500 pounds later versions and the G models
raised that to 65,500 pounds. The Tokyo tanks added 1,080 US
gallons of fuel capacity, or around 6,400 pounds of 100 octane.

The average bomb load for an 8th AF bomber was slightly over
5,000 pounds and records show they dropped that sort of load
on Berlin.

The early F models had a maximum radius of around 450 miles as
operated by the 8th AF, the later F and the G 700 miles.

Simply put thanks to the design decision the fuel versus bomb load
trade off was not as obvious for the B-17 as it looked.

Post by dumbstruck
In 1944 Berlin was too dangerous for water cooled Lancs, but in
45/3/18 only 28 (jet!) interceptors were available and many AA
guns were removed to the front or else low on ammo. The B17 50
calibers were probably equally useless against the rare me262
zoomers as the Lanc's cute little popguns.

Water cooling was rarely used in WWII, glycol was available. In early
1944 Berlin became too dangerous for night bombers, that changed
by the final months of the year but Bomber Command left Berlin to
Mosquitoes.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
26 February, officially after 3 rail stations, all bombs dropped using

I wonder if that raid destroyed a year and a half of Goebbels diaries,
which resume the day after that raid (in microfilm version avail 1983).

There was a deliberate evacuation of citizens. The standard system
was factories over a given size were required to have an air raid
precaution system in place, I doubt there was a formal system for
residential buildings.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
It would appear the editing and/or translation is causing some
problems.

It seems the original needs a lot more work and so people need a
lot more time to read it.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

dumbstruck

2013-07-24 21:15:45 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
In short no. Germany reported around 593,000 deaths from air raids.
That works out about 1 death per 2 tons of bombs, which is less than
the average bomb load of an allied heavy bomber.

That is really interesting, and I thought I was saying the same. Anyway
a crew of 10 flies over suburbs and regretfully kills 0.8 civilian. I
had thought if they alternatively hit sub pens, Ploesti oil fields, or
bunkers in the Atlantic wall or Siegfried line... civilian collateral
injuries would drop way down, but lets treat it the same or higher.

So the crew completes 30 missions and they probably killed 25 civilians,
or 2.5 per crew. Less if you include ground crew, etc. Furthermore, if
they continued more missions, they might be statistically dead by the
time each killed a statistical 4 civilians per crew. 4 to 1 ratio!

Bottom line is bomber crews weren't engaged in as highly asymmetrical
killing process as they may have thought or regretted, aside from major
fire or atomic raids. Goebbels says the Japanese were about 2 years
behind their own air raid defense procedures, but our pre-LeMay raids
were so ineffective I read the Japanese were literally laughing at them.

I think popular history takes fire raids like Dresden or 45/3/9 Tokyo
or of course the a-bomb as more typical asymmetric risk. By the way,
Goebbels has to deal with Labor Minister Ley horrifying Germans by
publicizing what a great thing the Dresden raid was, and now they are
more free to fight with little left to lose. He attributed it to Ley's
chronic drunkenness, and gave me the thought than Ley's suicide in a
Nuremburg cell had more to do with their no-alcohol policy.

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-07-25 14:39:16 UTC

The averages cover an immense variation in bomb lethality.

Ploesti at low level against quite large targets should have been
a precision strike but if some of the bombs hit air raid shelters
or the shelters were inadequate it could mean considerable
deaths on the ground.

However raids away from the big cities with their warning and
shelter systems were much more lethal on average. Hence
why the USSR had about as many killed in air raids as Germany.
If you are living in a small community near something tactically
important what chance you have no real warning or shelter the
day the bombers turn up?

Looking though my notes for Germany over the course of the war
it was around 1 death per 2.2 short ton of bombs dropped on the
country, or about 0.45 deaths per short ton.

In WWI about 300 metric tons of bombs dropped on the UK killed
about 1,400 people, or about 4 deaths per short ton.

In WWII about 70,000 metric tons of conventional bombing killed
51,509 civilians in the UK, about 0.66 deaths per short ton of bombs.

About 3,600 tons of V1s killed 6,184 people, 1.5 deaths per short ton
About 1,100 tons of V2s killed 2,754 people, 2.2 deaths per short ton.

The 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne in May 1942 dropped 1,697.8
short tons of bombs, killing either 469 or 486 people including 52
military personnel, or about 0.3 deaths per ton of bombs. This was
a new high for deaths in a single raid.

The Mosquito only raid on Hamburg on 30 September 1944 dropped
65.5 short tons of bombs, 103 people were killed including some
trampled to death in a panic, 1.6 deaths per ton of bombs.

Two USAAF raids,

The 5th April 1943 strike on Antwerp, 104 B-17s of which 82 were
rated as effective, dropping 245.5 tons of bombs on the industrial
area, as the primary target, 936 civilians killed or around 4 deaths
per ton of bombs.

When the 15th AF attacked rail facilities in Marseilles on 27 May 1944
over 1,500 French civilians were killed, along with 500 houses destroyed.
There had been an attack in December 1943. According to the French
report on the raid the population discounted the chance of further attacks
and did not take good precautions.

Some 72 bombers attacked, dropping 177.5 short tons of HE bombs
versus the French estimate of 130 aircraft attacking, so about 8.5
deaths per ton of bombs.

There are two factors in play here,

1) There is a good chance many civilians presumed the bombers
were going somewhere else and so did not take cover, this would
push the death toll up.

2) The USAAF was under strict instructions to only attack clearly
identified targets in the low countries, which meant attacking in
the best weather. This would push the death toll down.

The raid that caused the Hamburg firestorm dropped 2,707.2 short
tons of bombs, causing somewhere around 15 deaths per ton.

The raid that caused the Dresden firestorm dropped 2,978.4 short
tons of bombs, about 8.4 deaths per ton of bombs.

Post by dumbstruck
So the crew completes 30 missions and they probably killed 25 civilians,
or 2.5 per crew.

Given an average load of 2.5 tons then 30 USAAF missions to
Germany would have killed around 34 people.

Post by dumbstruck
Less if you include ground crew, etc. Furthermore, if
they continued more missions, they might be statistically dead by the
time each killed a statistical 4 civilians per crew. 4 to 1 ratio!

No.

Post by dumbstruck
Bottom line is bomber crews weren't engaged in as highly asymmetrical
killing process as they may have thought or regretted, aside from major
fire or atomic raids.

The German air raid deaths is put at 593,000, the two big firestorms
account for around 70,000 of these. Other firestorm raids, Kassel in
1943 which probably killed over 6,000 people, and Pforzheim in
1945, killing another 17,600, can be removed but that still leaves around
500,000 deaths, or 2.6 tons of bombs per death.

Post by dumbstruck
Goebbels says the Japanese were about 2 years
behind their own air raid defense procedures, but our pre-LeMay raids
were so ineffective I read the Japanese were literally laughing at them.

The early B-29 raids were small and inaccurate, given the bombing
heights, the 13 December 1944 strike on the Mitsubishi engine
works caused considerable damage and accelerated dispersal of
the Japanese aircraft industry, the dispersal was more costly than
he various B-29 strikes.

The official history considers the 19th January 1945 strike on the
Kawasaki plant at Akashi the "first completely successful B-29
attack".

LeMay took over on 20 January.

I am sure some Japanese were laughing, but most understood the
B-29 campaign was still in start up mode.

Post by dumbstruck
I think popular history takes fire raids like Dresden or 45/3/9 Tokyo
or of course the a-bomb as more typical asymmetric risk.

If you assume all the Bomber Command and 8th AF deaths on
operations were suffered on raids on German targets then you
still end up with around 9 deaths on the ground for each airman killed.

If you assume missions against Germany were about twice as
dangerous as raids elsewhere then the 8th AF had about 0.03
men KIA per short ton of bombs dropped on Germany, Bomber
Command around 0.053.

This would mean for the 8th AF 30 missions to Germany would
mean 2.25 airmen killed and 34 dead on the ground, or around
a 15 to 1 ratio. If everything ended up as average.

The 8th AF dropped about three quarters of its bombs on Germany,
Bomber Command about two thirds, however Bomber Command
also did a number of other operations like mining, which accounts
for around 5% of its MIA aircraft, and the above assumes men
were only KIA on bombing operations.

Post by dumbstruck
By the way,
Goebbels has to deal with Labor Minister Ley horrifying Germans by
publicizing what a great thing the Dresden raid was, and now they are
more free to fight with little left to lose. He attributed it to Ley's
chronic drunkenness, and gave me the thought than Ley's suicide in a
Nuremburg cell had more to do with their no-alcohol policy.

Or that he thought he was going to receive the death penalty.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

dumbstruck

2013-07-25 21:17:55 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
This would mean for the 8th AF 30 missions to Germany would
mean 2.25 airmen killed and 34 dead on the ground, or around
a 15 to 1 ratio. If everything ended up as average.

OK, thanks, I think I get the bigger picture. 10 crew collectively
kill about 1 collateral per mission, but that's due to meticulous
bomb shelter procedures in effect mainly in Germany. By 9 or 10
missions, EACH crewman has one civvie on his conscience, but has
sacrificed a collective .75 of a crewmember. More personally, he
has sacrificed 0.075 of himself, eg. 7% less chance for survival.
Out of Germany he would kill more civvies and sacrifice less.

Bottom line is most raids over Germany probably shouldn't have left
8th AF crew conscience stricken if they were reasonably effective.
Other target countries, or very late raids on Germany might give
more pause. Goebbels gives indication of possible bombing over-
achievement in the west in a quote below. It is understandable for
the UK/US to want to ease the way for their troops, but in an ideal
alliance they might clear the east more for the Ruskies which was
less in the area of diminishing returns.

45/3/23: "Many party members, moreover, are now beginning to waver.
All our setbacks are unanimously ascribed to Anglo American air
superiority. We could soon deal with the Soviets if only we could
put things right in the air." At this point it isn't just the big
bombers but the medium ones and fighter bombers which won't let even
a staff car move safely in the west, let alone troops or supply trains.
I gather the Soviets used many fighter bombers in the east, but against
mainly fresh targets not much softened up by larger bombing attacks.

news

2013-07-25 22:24:29 UTC

Post by dumbstruck
OK, thanks, I think I get the bigger picture. 10 crew collectively
kill about 1 collateral per mission, but that's due to meticulous
bomb shelter procedures in effect mainly in Germany. By 9 or 10
missions, EACH crewman has one civvie on his conscience, but has
sacrificed a collective .75 of a crewmember. More personally, he
has sacrificed 0.075 of himself, eg. 7% less chance for survival.
Out of Germany he would kill more civvies and sacrifice less.

It is also partially due to the inaccuracy of bombing at that time.
Bombing accuracy was defined in terms of the percentage of bombs that
landed within 1000 feet of the target, and was overall less than 20%
even by that crude measurement. By that definition of accuracy, it was
possible to have 100% accuracy and still miss the target by more than
500 feet.

There is a lot of footage shown of bombing raids where a substantial
percentage of the bombload lands in the water or in fields outside of
the town or city being bombed. Recon photos of targeted bridges and
rail lines show strings of hits far from the infrastructure that had
been targeted.

dumbstruck

2013-07-26 14:15:48 UTC

Post by news
There is a lot of footage shown of bombing raids where a substantial
percentage of the bombload lands in the water or in fields outside of
the town or city being bombed. Recon photos of targeted bridges and
rail lines show strings of hits far from the infrastructure that had
been targeted.

Earlier in this thread I talked about craters in potato fields, and
was corrected that accuracy became much improved. Why not reply against
that denial and request citations? BTW Goebbels reports 600 US bombers
fatally bulls-eyed Berlin's Daimler-Benz plant around 45/3/28, killing
not 600 but only 80, making not 20,000 homeless but virtually nobody.

Since I am about to return this diary, and the new google newsgroup
software killed my other related post... let me toss in a few odds/ends.

By late March Goebbels and Hitler are fixated on the western front,
not the east. Why is Patton or who-ever slicing thru with so little
resistance? Goebbels says it not just the friendlier treatment expected
from Anglo-Americans, but the way western Germans have been sitting in
air raid shelters both night and day... a nest for defeatist talk.

We have heard that Hitler wished he had purged his generals like Stalin
did, but do you know Goebbels and Hitler decided the night of the long
knives was a mistake? Rohm had the right idea after all, and the SA
should have taken the place of the army whose generals should have
been shot instead. Still shoot Rohm though because he was an anarchist.
Hitler gathered shorthand notes of years of meetings to show Goebbels
how his orders that Generals failed to obey had turned out to be right.

Finally, I think the diary entries on Mussolini's fall, rescue, and fall
again is very illuminating about ideology. After the shock, then euphoria,
there are dark reflections. Detailed post-mortem analysis brings out all
their paranoia about aristocrats, intelligentsia, and cosmopolitan jews
which supposedly undercut Mussolini. At least you get explanations why
those are perceived to have self interests inherently opposed to "blood
and soil" party types.

They next almost purged aristocrats from the German army, which would
have prevented von Stauffenberg's later attack on Hitler (but maybe they
would find someone with enough fingers to rig both the bombs). They took
steps to prevent a paratroop raid on Hitler's bunker in Prussia, etc.

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-07-26 14:56:34 UTC

As noted above assuming everything is average, and early and
mid war raids tended to have higher aircrew casualty rates than
late war raids, day bomber suvivability went up after the German
day fighter force suffered a heavy defeat in the first half of 1944.
Similar for the night bombers in the second half of 1944.

Also night bomber accuracy went up over time, day bomber
accuracy fluctuated more, it came down to how visible the
target was.

Post by dumbstruck
Out of Germany he would kill more civvies and sacrifice less.

Not quite, overall raids against non German speaking areas
took fewer lives per ton of bombs, both in the air and on the
ground, but individual raids could cause high death tolls if,
for example, the population failed to take cover in time.

Attacking smaller communities would normally increase the
death toll per ton of bombs dropped due to less warning and
fewer shelters. Another factor that contributed late in the war
is strikes done by the now highly experienced allied bombers
on places that had effectively not been bombed before, so the
local air raid defences were much weaker compared to the
heavily bombed places. That played a part at Dresden.

The following figures are old and probably need updating.

The RAF did little bombing of Austria, the USAAF dropped some
76,026 short tons of bombs on the country, which is sometimes
considered part of greater Germany for casualty counts. It appears
the Austrian death toll from air raids comes to 104,000 according
to the Oxford Companion to World War II. Note most bombing of
Austria was done by the 15th Air Force, which was rated as more
accurate then the 8th thanks to better training in radar aids, and
also the Mediterranean heavy bombers dropped 7,134 short tons
of incendiaries for the war. If the casualty figures are correct then
HE only bombing could be quite lethal. They do seem high though,
at 1.27 deaths per short ton of bombs and 3 times the rate in
Germany. On the other hand the air raid warning system over
Austria was poor for a while and by the looks of it air raid
precautions were not as good, at least in 1943 and early 1944.

France lost some 60,000 people to air raids, the USAAF dropped
some 339,651 short tons of bombs on French targets, the RAF
figures are not clear cut, Bomber Command dropped 287,647 long
tons of bombs on "enemy held territory", most of which would be on
France. So say 600,000 short tons of bombs on France, or 0.1
death per short ton of bombs dropped. Which does show the greater
care normally taken when bombing non German targets.

The allies tried to strike occupied territory in better weather, aided
by the fact the defences were usually not as strong.

Post by dumbstruck
Bottom line is most raids over Germany probably shouldn't have left
8th AF crew conscience stricken if they were reasonably effective.

That really is an individual judgment.

Post by dumbstruck
Other target countries, or very late raids on Germany might give
more pause.

Not other countries, the response to the idea of late in the war
runs into the problem they did not know when the war was going
to end. What do you thing the rest of the allied forces would have
thought if the heavy bombers stopped activities in say February
1945?

Post by dumbstruck
Goebbels gives indication of possible bombing over-
achievement in the west in a quote below.

The reality is Bomber Command reached the half way point
for bombs dropped on Germany at the end of September 1944,
for the 8th AF it was mid November 1944. It was a very end
weighted campaign.

Post by dumbstruck
It is understandable for
the UK/US to want to ease the way for their troops, but in an ideal
alliance they might clear the east more for the Ruskies which was
less in the area of diminishing returns.

The results from France stated airpower intervention in the front line
needed immediate ground follow up to be effective. When it came
to stopping a supply system fighter bombers and light and medium
bombers did a better job, when it came to stopping an economy
then the heavy bombers were best.

The economy need marshalling yards and ports, the supply system
(once the trains were loaded) needs trains and open tracks.

Post by dumbstruck
45/3/23: "Many party members, moreover, are now beginning to waver.
All our setbacks are unanimously ascribed to Anglo American air
superiority. We could soon deal with the Soviets if only we could
put things right in the air." At this point it isn't just the big
bombers but the medium ones and fighter bombers which won't let even
a staff car move safely in the west, let alone troops or supply trains.

The Remagen Bridge was captured on 7 March, the 3rd Army crossed
the Rhine on 22 March, 21st Army Group on 23 March, so a lot of
wishful thinking is going on. I agree the Nazis who were not near the
front would see air raids as their biggest problem.

Post by dumbstruck
I gather the Soviets used many fighter bombers in the east, but against
mainly fresh targets not much softened up by larger bombing attacks.

The Red Air Force did not use massed bombers, and was mainly
focused on battlefield support.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

news

2013-07-26 18:53:49 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Attacking smaller communities would normally increase the
death toll per ton of bombs dropped due to less warning and
fewer shelters. Another factor that contributed late in the war
is strikes done by the now highly experienced allied bombers
on places that had effectively not been bombed before, so the
local air raid defences were much weaker compared to the
heavily bombed places. That played a part at Dresden.

I have a question on the experience factor...I'm being simplistic, but
for the most part the pilots were truck drivers (I'm not minimizing
their courage, patriotism, etc) with minimal course diversions to the
target and once on the bomb run, they tended to stick to course until
bomb release (coming home I can see the skill part)>

so what skill, besides the navigator and bombardier did they gain?

news

2013-07-26 21:53:54 UTC

Post by news
I have a question on the experience factor...I'm being simplistic, but
for the most part the pilots were truck drivers (I'm not minimizing
their courage, patriotism, etc) with minimal course diversions to the
target and once on the bomb run, they tended to stick to course until
bomb release (coming home I can see the skill part)>
so what skill, besides the navigator and bombardier did they gain?

Valid question. I would have to agree with yo there because my father
said that flying a bomber was like driving a big truck.

As the war went on the bombers got bigger, carried large payloads, flew
higher and had more defensive armament. They also started to use radar.
Someone else objected to my earlier comments about bombing accuracy.
Wikipedia's article on precision bombing gives an example of a raid on a
1944 raid on Japan's Yawata Steel Works. Of 47 planes in the raid,
only one plane actually hit the target, and with only one of it's bombs.
One bomb out of the 367 dropped, less than 1/2 of 1% hit the target.
In another example, 108 planes, 1080 crew members dropping 648 bombs to
guarantee a 96% chance of getting two hits inside a 400x500 ft. German
generating station.

It also says that in the majority of USAAF raids, only about 20% of
bombs struck within 1000 feet of the target.

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-07-28 17:07:44 UTC

"news" <***@fx12.iad.highwinds-media.com> wrote in message news:B2CIt.190862$***@fx12.iad...

Two people with the same online name? Or a self reply?

Post by news
As the war went on the bombers got bigger, carried large payloads, flew
higher and had more defensive armament.

It was a little more complicated than that.

The B-17 and B-24 gained weight, then in late 1944 started to
remove defensive armament as fighter attack was becoming
rarer. Payloads do not seem to have varied much.

The Lancaster gained weight and used it to increase average
bomb load.

Post by news
They also started to use radar.
From 1943 onwards.
Someone else objected to my earlier comments about bombing accuracy.
Wikipedia's article on precision bombing gives an example of a raid on a
1944 raid on Japan's Yawata Steel Works. Of 47 planes in the raid, only
one plane actually hit the target, and with only one of it's bombs. One
bomb out of the 367 dropped, less than 1/2 of 1% hit the target.

It is known there will be raids with bad accuracy.

Post by news
In another example, 108 planes, 1080 crew members dropping 648 bombs to
guarantee a 96% chance of getting two hits inside a 400x500 ft. German
generating station.
It also says that in the majority of USAAF raids, only about 20% of bombs
struck within 1000 feet of the target.

Of what sort of raids?

The 9th Air Force bombers report for May 1944 to April 1945 has
between 56 and 70% of bombs dropped within 1,000 feet of the
target, the figures for 500 feet are 27 to 40% per month. The
fighter bombers were more accurate again.

The 8th AF reports bombs within 1,000 feet of the target for
visual bombing missions were between 12 and 27% per quarter
in 1943, then between 25 and 59% for the rest of the war. Overall
52% of the 8ths bombs were dropped visually. The various
radar and radio aids were less accurate, in the final 4 months of
1944 for the 8th AF using them put between 0.2 and 5% of the
bombs within 1,000 feet of the target.

The 8th AF dropped around 690,000 short tons of bombs, versus
225,000 short tons by the 9th.

So it does seem likely most USAAF raids dropped over 20% of
their bombs within 1,000 feet of the target.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

news

2013-07-28 20:18:09 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Two people with the same online name? Or a self reply?

I be Malcolm, but lately my posts have been renamed by, I assume, the
moderating software

Post by news
As the war went on the bombers got bigger, carried large payloads, flew
higher and had more defensive armament.

It was a little more complicated than that.
The B-17 and B-24 gained weight, then in late 1944 started to
remove defensive armament as fighter attack was becoming
rarer. Payloads do not seem to have varied much.
The Lancaster gained weight and used it to increase average
bomb load.

It is known there will be raids with bad accuracy.

Of what sort of raids?
The 9th Air Force bombers report for May 1944 to April 1945 has
between 56 and 70% of bombs dropped within 1,000 feet of the
target, the figures for 500 feet are 27 to 40% per month. The
fighter bombers were more accurate again.
The 8th AF reports bombs within 1,000 feet of the target for
visual bombing missions were between 12 and 27% per quarter
in 1943, then between 25 and 59% for the rest of the war. Overall
52% of the 8ths bombs were dropped visually. The various
radar and radio aids were less accurate, in the final 4 months of
1944 for the 8th AF using them put between 0.2 and 5% of the
bombs within 1,000 feet of the target.
The 8th AF dropped around 690,000 short tons of bombs, versus
225,000 short tons by the 9th.
So it does seem likely most USAAF raids dropped over 20% of
their bombs within 1,000 feet of the target.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

news

2013-07-29 18:36:15 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Two people with the same online name? Or a self reply?

I be Malcolm, but lately my posts have been renamed by, I assume, the
moderating software

And I am Dave, but posts here have been renamed news and show the sender
as news something aat highwind-media.com...... no idea how that happens.

Stephen Graham

2013-07-29 18:52:38 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Two people with the same online name? Or a self reply?

I be Malcolm, but lately my posts have been renamed by, I assume, the
moderating software

And I am Dave, but posts here have been renamed news and show the sender
as news something aat highwind-media.com...... no idea how that happens.

Whether you knew it or not, your Usenet provider is actually Highwinds
Media Group. Something is wrong on their servers and the From: line is
being rewritten. I recommend signing your posts and double-checking your
local settings to make sure what you appear as.

news

2013-07-29 22:38:26 UTC

Post by Stephen Graham

Post by news
I be Malcolm, but lately my posts have been renamed by, I assume, the
moderating software

And I am Dave, but posts here have been renamed news and show the sender
as news something aat highwind-media.com...... no idea how that happens.

I post in a number of different newsgroups and the always show my user
name and email address. I been posting here for more than two years, and
it is only recently that I started showing up as news and the highwinds
address.

Stephen Graham

2013-07-29 22:50:16 UTC

Post by news
I post in a number of different newsgroups and the always show my user
name and email address. I been posting here for more than two years, and
it is only recently that I started showing up as news and the highwinds
address.

And do you post to any other moderated groups? I suspect that you do not
and that Highwinds has screwed up their news agents' handling of
moderated groups. When I look at the original messages, it's pretty
obvious from the headers.

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-07-28 17:06:20 UTC

I have a question on the experience factor...I'm being simplistic, but
for the most part the pilots were truck drivers (I'm not minimizing
their courage, patriotism, etc) with minimal course diversions to the
target and once on the bomb run, they tended to stick to course until
bomb release (coming home I can see the skill part)>
so what skill, besides the navigator and bombardier did they gain?

The USN found the first combat mission to be the most dangerous.
People in combat are under great stress, so it is not surprising
inexperienced people make poor decisions or fail to use their
equipment properly.

The higher the casualty rate the lower the overall experience is
amongst the crews, add the USAAF increased the tour length
when casualties went down. More experienced crews usually
did better. This is clearly seen in things like the results using the
radio and radar aids. Plus the more accurate aids were available
over a wider number of targets from around October 1944 on.

For the 8th AF until May 1944 generally it lost 1 aircraft for every
50 tons of bombs dropped, for the remainder of the war it was 100
to 250 tons per lost aircraft in the monthly figures, a wartime
average of 117.32 tons.

Firestorms require the right weather conditions and a concentration
of bombing, the more concentrated the less the weather needs to
be "right".

RAF night bombers dropped on markers, which generally remained
more visible than targets did by day, thanks to smoke and dust
kicked up by the initial strikes. If the markers were laid accurately
and the bombers dropped on them you ended up with concentration.

It seems Dresden did not have anything like the air raid wardens of
other bombed German cities, who tried to neutralise incendiaries
before they started fires for example.

In many ways it is like a new combat unit facing an experienced
one.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

Don P

2013-07-30 03:40:08 UTC

RAF bomber aircrew believed that experience improved prospects of
survival, as they co-ordinated defence or evasion of fighters etc.
(and at least some RAF bomber crews subordinated rank to crew
hierarchy, e.g. an NCO pilot was captain even if some of his crew
were officers.) But some statisticians believe this faith that
experience increased chances for survival was a useful fiction (i.e.
actual casualty data never found experience correlated with survival.)

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa Canada)

Mario

2013-07-30 16:46:11 UTC

Post by Don P

Post by news
I have a question on the experience factor...I'm being
simplistic, but
for the most part the pilots were truck drivers (I'm not
minimizing their courage, patriotism, etc) with minimal
course diversions to the target and once on the bomb run,
they tended to stick to course until bomb release (coming
home I can see the skill part)> so what skill, besides the
navigator and bombardier did they gain?

RAF bomber aircrew believed that experience improved prospects
of survival, as they co-ordinated defence or evasion of
fighters etc. (and at least some RAF bomber crews subordinated
rank to crew hierarchy, e.g. an NCO pilot was captain even if
some of his crew
were officers.) But some statisticians believe this faith
that experience increased chances for survival was a useful
fiction (i.e. actual casualty data never found experience
correlated with survival.)

Sometimes experience implies overconfidence on one own's skills.

--
_____
/ o o \
\o_o_o/

dumbstruck

2013-07-26 21:37:31 UTC

"dumbstruck" wrote long lines in message

They assumed the western front could have held if not for the vicious
bombing there. It is surprising how Goebbels seems resigned to their
failure to stand up to ground assault from the west. He says the civvies
are exhausted and army/supply movements are paralyzed by bombing. He
expected the civvies to recover and become partisans, except that the
fast retreat kept disrupting their setup of the werewolf program.

Goebbels does visit the eastern front, but Speer tells him to forget
the western areas due to strafing threats. It seems quite easy for him
to find safe areas to drive near the eastern lines to give pep rallies
and other inspirational ideas. For one, he works with a general to have
"straggler" troops he sees in the rear punished for avoiding the front
lines. About 15,000 are hung (where they are found?) with a sign around
their neck about failing to defend German women and children.

The missed opportunity they see was getting Me262s to hold back the air
war and western front advance enough to score a few victories on the
eastern front,,, and then negotiate with "pragmatic" Stalin. The best
thing is these jets almost run on "dirty water", that is low grade
fuel which is all they can easily get. Another good thing is the high
fuel consumption, which means allies can't use jets themselves. Then
they might use new long-submersible uboats to help Stalin kick the US/UK.

If anglo/american bombing became so effective, I wonder if there was a
way to relieve more army ground casualties. After the success in Africa
and Stalingrad, maybe the US only invades Sardinia to make it into a
huge b-24 and p-38 air base (latter maybe works better in that warmth).
Maybe leave the rest of Italy alone, but blockade Turkey which Speer
said had a vital (chromium?) mine they couldn't last 3 weeks without.

BTW, Goebbels diaries must have been well guarded at the time. You can tell
almost a year ahead of time that Russia looks more in the cross hairs
than an invasion of England. The latter seemed not a permanent solution,
because they expected the UK gov't to evacuate to Canada and team up with
US in a long term war.

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-07-28 17:07:14 UTC

"dumbstruck" wrote long lines in message

They assumed the western front could have held if not for the vicious
bombing there.

This rather ignores the build up of US ground forces.

Post by dumbstruck
It is surprising how Goebbels seems resigned to their
failure to stand up to ground assault from the west. He says the civvies
are exhausted and army/supply movements are paralyzed by bombing. He
expected the civvies to recover and become partisans, except that the
fast retreat kept disrupting their setup of the werewolf program.
Goebbels does visit the eastern front, but Speer tells him to forget
the western areas due to strafing threats. It seems quite easy for him
to find safe areas to drive near the eastern lines to give pep rallies
and other inspirational ideas. For one, he works with a general to have
"straggler" troops he sees in the rear punished for avoiding the front
lines. About 15,000 are hung (where they are found?) with a sign around
their neck about failing to defend German women and children.

Not sure there was a mass hanging like that but many men were
killed using such excuses.

Post by dumbstruck
The missed opportunity they see was getting Me262s to hold back the air
war and western front advance enough to score a few victories on the
eastern front,,, and then negotiate with "pragmatic" Stalin.

Except by this stage Stalin can take and keep lots of Eastern Europe,
an offer better than anything the Nazis could give, and any such peace
would need to be in place before the invasion of France to have any
chance of success.

Post by dumbstruck
The best
thing is these jets almost run on "dirty water", that is low grade
fuel which is all they can easily get. Another good thing is the high
fuel consumption, which means allies can't use jets themselves.

Given how much more fuel the allies had the idea they would run
out of fuel before the Geramns needs explaining.

Post by dumbstruck
Then
they might use new long-submersible uboats to help Stalin kick the US/UK.

Except the USSR was not in a position to do much to the western
allies and had much more to gain by attacking Germany. It is
interesting how delusional things had become if the idea is Stalin
will let alone a government that had invaded the USSR and claimed
to be a sworn enemy of communism, then even more delusional that
he would help the Nazis.

Post by dumbstruck
If anglo/american bombing became so effective, I wonder if there was a
way to relieve more army ground casualties.

Not really, the Battle of Berlin was the attempt to force Germany to
surrender before any invasion was mounted. Airpower can help the
army and vice versa but one service cannot replace the other.

The only real equation changer would be the earlier appearance
of the atomic bomb.

Post by dumbstruck
After the success in Africa
and Stalingrad, maybe the US only invades Sardinia to make it into a
huge b-24 and p-38 air base (latter maybe works better in that warmth).

Simply put the bases around Foggia had similar weather, were
closer to the Balkans and had the port capacity to be able to
support large heavy bomber forces.

Note the size of the Sardinian ports and the space available for
airfields.

Taking Sicily and Southern Italy are very justfiable in terms of
making the Mediterranean Sea routes safer, knocking Italy
out of the war and provided air bases to hit parts of Europe
out of range of forces in Britain.

After that the campaign becomes hostage to the size of the
allied amphibious assault fleet. Lots of invasion shipping
and you can keep going round any German line.

Post by dumbstruck
Maybe leave the rest of Italy alone, but blockade Turkey which Speer
said had a vital (chromium?) mine they couldn't last 3 weeks without.

According to the British History, "The Economic Blockade" Turkey
exported 114,558 tons of chrome ore to Germany in 1939, then
25,489 tons in 1943, then 21,182 tons January to July 1944.

In 1943 Germany was producing around 2,278 tons of chrome a
month on average and occupied Europe another 357, so round
31,600 tons of the metal a year.

The Germans began evacuating the Greek islands in September
1944 and had effectively left Greece by end October.

So the idea the Chrome was that vital seems an overstatement.
It joins a long list of ideas about key targets that the bombers
could destroy and therefore end the war quickly.

Look at the cost of the oil campaign, it never totally shut down
German fuel production, as plants were rarely destroyed, they
usually could be repaired.

Post by dumbstruck
BTW, Goebbels diaries must have been well guarded at the time. You can tell
almost a year ahead of time that Russia looks more in the cross hairs
than an invasion of England. The latter seemed not a permanent solution,
because they expected the UK gov't to evacuate to Canada and team up with
US in a long term war.

That may in part explain the Nazi plan to move all males from around
age 15 to near retirement age to the continent if they captured Britain.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

Bill

2013-07-28 22:15:03 UTC

On Sun, 28 Jul 2013 13:07:14 -0400, "Geoffrey Sinclair"

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
That may in part explain the Nazi plan to move all males from around
age 15 to near retirement age to the continent if they captured Britain.

With an active resistance organisation (and the British set one up
well in advance of any possible invasion) and a lack of suitable
shipping could they have managed that?

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-07-29 14:31:36 UTC

Post by Bill
On Sun, 28 Jul 2013 13:07:14 -0400, "Geoffrey Sinclair"

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
That may in part explain the Nazi plan to move all males from around
age 15 to near retirement age to the continent if they captured Britain.

With an active resistance organisation (and the British set one up
well in advance of any possible invasion) and a lack of suitable
shipping could they have managed that?

The reality is such a deportation order would spur resistance, like
it did throughout Europe. In turn that would push the Germans to
move more men.

It then becomes a time issue, given it is all males the targets are
rather obvious, the bigger requirement is where are the men
going to be housed?

The shipping requirement is small given a cross channel voyage.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

The Horny Goat

2013-07-29 22:43:52 UTC

On Mon, 29 Jul 2013 10:31:36 -0400, "Geoffrey Sinclair"

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
That may in part explain the Nazi plan to move all males from around
age 15 to near retirement age to the continent if they captured Britain.

With an active resistance organisation (and the British set one up
well in advance of any possible invasion) and a lack of suitable
shipping could they have managed that?

The reality is such a deportation order would spur resistance, like
it did throughout Europe. In turn that would push the Germans to
move more men.
It then becomes a time issue, given it is all males the targets are
rather obvious, the bigger requirement is where are the men
going to be housed?
The shipping requirement is small given a cross channel voyage.

Given what the Germans did to Slavic POWs generally and to Jewish
detainees who were considered fit to work, presumably a lower
percentage of the latter two groups would have been found to work or
the caloric intake of these "guest workers" been even lower.

While we do get clues based on the German occupation of the Channel
islands 1940-45, expanding that to the entire UK might be a bit of a
stretch.

One suspects that in such a case the pressure would not be quite as
much on as on these other groups since the war would effectively be
over on German terms but I have no doubt that 'working to destruction'
would still be the name of the day.

Now one thing you DO need to take into account is that half the time
the British population was considered at least as Aryan as the German
population (insomuch as the UK had fewer Jews than Germany and the
English, Scots, Irish and Welsh were considered just as Aryan as the
Dutch and Scandanavians) yet plans such as the one you speak of
definitely shows a strong element of revenge on a nation that had led
the resistance to the Reich's Final Victory.

Roman W

2013-07-29 03:12:37 UTC

On Sun, 28 Jul 2013 13:07:14 -0400, "Geoffrey Sinclair"

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
That may in part explain the Nazi plan to move all males from around
age 15 to near retirement age to the continent if they captured Britain.

Was the idea to take hostages? Then taking children below the age of
15 would be much more effective.

RW

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-07-29 14:31:18 UTC

Post by Bill
On Sun, 28 Jul 2013 13:07:14 -0400, "Geoffrey Sinclair"

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
That may in part explain the Nazi plan to move all males from around
age 15 to near retirement age to the continent if they captured Britain.

Was the idea to take hostages?

At that scale the plan seems more towards ensuring if anything
went wrong Britain was in no position to recover.

Post by Bill
Then taking children below the age of 15 would be much more effective.

Since Britain had proved so hard to invade over the centuries
the plan seems a combination of revenge and a complete
removal of Britain as a threat.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

The Horny Goat

2013-07-29 22:38:55 UTC

On Mon, 29 Jul 2013 10:31:18 -0400, "Geoffrey Sinclair"

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Since Britain had proved so hard to invade over the centuries
the plan seems a combination of revenge and a complete
removal of Britain as a threat.

You mean like the "plans" for making Moscow a giant lake and Leningrad
a new Grand Canal? (And I don't just mean the Neva)

The Greeks had a word for it and all of these plans were Hubris with a
capital H!

Haydn

2013-07-31 18:11:55 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Since Britain had proved so hard to invade over the centuries

The 1688 Dutch invasion was possibly the easiest invasion in Western
history.

So easy that eventually it was turned, in history books, into a
"revolution"...

Haydn

Roman W

2013-08-01 04:27:24 UTC

Post by Haydn
The 1688 Dutch invasion was possibly the easiest invasion in

Western

Post by Haydn
history.

It's much easier to invade if you're coming to take a side in a civil
war.

RW

Bill Shatzer

2013-07-29 20:05:11 UTC

-snips-

Given how much more fuel the allies had the idea they would run
out of fuel before the Geramns needs explaining.

I think he's referring to the notoriously "thirsty" nature of the first
generation jet engines which seriously hampered aircraft range and
endurance. Because of the more distant location of Allied air bases,
Allied jets would have been limited while German air bases were located
closer to the "action" and the front lines and German target cities were
all in reach of German jet aircraft operating from German bases.

High jet fuel consumption also made standing jet patrols impractical
which made the allies vulnerable to "tip and run raids" by German jets -
German jets could penetrate allied air space and run back to base before
allied jets could be scrambled to intercept them. Of course, P-51s and
Spitfire XIVs were not exactly impotent against the German jets and they
could maintain standing patrols (the Spitfires less so) but getting
allied jets up to challenge German jet intrusions would have been a
sometime thing and more a matter of luck than anything else.

Michael Emrys

2013-07-30 03:40:40 UTC

Post by Bill Shatzer
I think he's referring to the notoriously "thirsty" nature of the first
generation jet engines which seriously hampered aircraft range and
endurance. Because of the more distant location of Allied air bases,
Allied jets would have been limited while German air bases were located
closer to the "action" and the front lines and German target cities were
all in reach of German jet aircraft operating from German bases.

That depends on the time period. By the autumn of 1944 the Allies had
bases in northern France and Belgium which would have put them fairly
close to the action too. Which doesn't mean that they could reach Berlin
or the more lucrative targets in the eastern Reich, but they could have
covered the front line well enough and made penetrations into the Ruhr
readily enough.

Post by Bill Shatzer
High jet fuel consumption also made standing jet patrols impractical
which made the allies vulnerable to "tip and run raids" by German jets -
German jets could penetrate allied air space and run back to base before
allied jets could be scrambled to intercept them. Of course, P-51s and
Spitfire XIVs were not exactly impotent against the German jets and they
could maintain standing patrols (the Spitfires less so) but getting
allied jets up to challenge German jet intrusions would have been a
sometime thing and more a matter of luck than anything else.

Sort of true, but then given the overall strategic situation, it might
have been the Germans who were faced with that problem much if not most
of the time.

Michael

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-07-30 14:39:52 UTC

Post by Bill Shatzer
-snips-

Given how much more fuel the allies had the idea they would run
out of fuel before the Geramns needs explaining.

I think he's referring to the notoriously "thirsty" nature of the first
generation jet engines which seriously hampered aircraft range and
endurance.

That could be the explanation.

And he would not have known the early allied jet engines had
better fuel consumption than the German ones, but still much
higher than the piston engines.

And as usual the US was building more range into its fighters
than the Europeans, the F-80A with 425 US gallons of fuel
had a range of about 780 miles (another source says normal
range was 520 miles), with 885 US gallons that went to 1,440
miles. The P-51D maximum fuel was 489 US gallons but gave
a maximum range of over 50% more.

Post by Bill Shatzer
Because of the more distant location of Allied air bases, Allied jets
would have been limited while German air bases were located closer to the
"action" and the front lines and German target cities were all in reach of
German jet aircraft operating from German bases.

The idea is certainly sound up to the end of September 1944,
after that allied airbases on the continent are available.

The inherent downside is tip and run rarely does much to the enemy
war making ability, provoking standing patrols is probably the biggest
drain.

Post by Bill Shatzer
Of course, P-51s and Spitfire XIVs were not exactly impotent against the
German jets and they could maintain standing patrols (the Spitfires less
so) but getting allied jets up to challenge German jet intrusions would
have been a sometime thing and more a matter of luck than anything else.

Yes and no. German jets were tracked by allied radars, as they moved
so much quicker than piston engined types. A counter tactic was to
have a couple of fast fighters at cockpit readiness to try and intercept.

The XIX TAC history notes from around September 1944 on it normally
had working coverage of around 200 miles from its cherished main radar.

Also the tactical air forces had evolved a system of being able to
redirect airborne aircraft and we know the number of German airfields
able to handle jets was limited.

Certainly given the speeds involved a slice if luck was needed to make
an interception and both sides would learn if such operations became
common but the allies were already evolving a counter jet system that
worked to some extent in terms of defending allied airspace. As
Goebbels dreams of, it was much harder to keep the German jets away
from allied bombers over Germany. The short term solution would be
to have 9th AF and 2nd TAF fly more escort missions, which would
reduce allied air support of the ground forces.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

The Horny Goat

2013-07-30 23:54:52 UTC

On Tue, 30 Jul 2013 10:39:52 -0400, "Geoffrey Sinclair"

Another common tactic was to track the German jets on radar and attack
them on takeoff or landing when their speeds were much reduced. After
all, after the first few sorties the Allies knew which airfields
hosted the 262s and gave them special 'attention'.

Michael Emrys

2013-07-30 15:39:53 UTC

The most consistently successful counter to the German jets was to
maintain standing patrols over or near the jet airfields to intercept
them during takeoff or landing when their speed would be low. The
Germans countered this by flying CAP using mainly Fw-190s, which were in
turn subject to the bounce, and also liberally placing AAA along
departure and approach routes. Still, all in all that remained the most
effective tactic for the Allies.

Michael

Mario

2013-07-27 16:34:22 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
France lost some 60,000 people to air raids, the USAAF dropped
some 339,651 short tons of bombs on French targets, the RAF
figures are not clear cut, Bomber Command dropped 287,647 long
tons of bombs on "enemy held territory", most of which would
be on France. So say 600,000 short tons of bombs on France,
or 0.1 death per short ton of bombs dropped. Which does show
the greater care normally taken when bombing non German
targets.
The allies tried to strike occupied territory in better
weather, aided by the fact the defences were usually not as
strong.

I suppose partisan contribute could be useful too.

--
_____
/ o o \
\o_o_o/

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-07-28 17:06:47 UTC

Post by Mario

I suppose partisan contribute could be useful too.

Partisans did not direct air raids.

In a place like France the cost of taking direct action like sabotage
against the Germans was very high, given policies of hostage
taking and shooting.

Accounts written by or about British and American personnel
serving with the resistance personnel need to take into account
such personnel were high value and so highly protected. For the
average French resistance unit doing an act of sabotage usually
meant heavy reprisals. as well as significant risk to themselves.

The resistance was most cost effective in letting the allies know
what the Germans were doing and helping downed airmen.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

Rich Rostrom

2013-07-29 14:51:59 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Partisans did not direct air raids.

The OSS had a project for enabling
partisans to plant bombs that would
be set off during/by an air raid,
nailing the target while deflecting
German suspicions.

They never got it to work, though.

--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.

http://originalvelvetrevolution.com

Rich Rostrom

2013-07-26 22:02:29 UTC

... the USSR had about as many killed in air raids as Germany.

That seems very remarkable, since the German
strategic bombing effort against the USSR was
_very_ limited AFAIK.

The point is raised that German airstrikes were
more lethal because they were mostly tactical
airstrikes outside metro areas.

One question it invites is: Soviet strategic
bombing of Germany was trivial, but Soviet use
of tactical airstrikes was very extensive.

If German tactical airstrikes caused so many Soviet
civilian deaths, that suggests that there would be
many German civilian deaths from Soviet tactical
airstrikes during the fighting in Prussia, Silesia,
Pomerania, and Brandenburg.

Is there any breakdown of German air raid
casualties that would show this?

(Location and date would seem to be sufficient.)

What about similar effects in the west?

Was any count actually made of such German
casualties? Most of them would have happened
when Germany was falling to pieces, many in
areas which ceased to be German. They might
have been lumped in with deaths from artillery
and stray bullets.

The Soviet state survived and lost no territory,
so would be able to compile a more accurate count.

--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.

http://originalvelvetrevolution.com

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-07-28 17:08:03 UTC

... the USSR had about as many killed in air raids as Germany.

That seems very remarkable, since the German
strategic bombing effort against the USSR was
_very_ limited AFAIK.

Very limited but the defences were also limited.

The series of air raids mounted on Stalingrad as the Germans
approached in 1942 are reported to have created a death toll
comparable to or even greater than the Hamburg firestorm, as
the city had large numbers of people moving through it trying to
escape the Germans.

Post by Rich Rostrom
The point is raised that German airstrikes were
more lethal because they were mostly tactical
airstrikes outside metro areas.

Most settlements tend to have things of military value, starting
with buildings for shelter, a number of raids were simply meant
to destroy all the buildings in a village. Add things like settlements
tend to be near or have things like river crossings, cross roads,
rail ines, rail sidings, even simply be on high ground. Where
people choose to live tends to accumulate reasons for air strikes.

Post by Rich Rostrom
One question it invites is: Soviet strategic
bombing of Germany was trivial, but Soviet use
of tactical airstrikes was very extensive.

Yes but they concentrated on battlefield strikes, not going much
beyond the front line, hence why the Germans retained their
mobility in the east.

Post by Rich Rostrom
If German tactical airstrikes caused so many Soviet
civilian deaths, that suggests that there would be
many German civilian deaths from Soviet tactical
airstrikes during the fighting in Prussia, Silesia,
Pomerania, and Brandenburg.
From what I can tell the air raid casualties there are small compared

to the deaths from the ground fighting. As noted the Red Air Force
was staying close to the front line.

Post by Rich Rostrom
Is there any breakdown of German air raid
casualties that would show this?

Not that I have seen.

Post by Rich Rostrom
(Location and date would seem to be sufficient.)
What about similar effects in the west?

Yes, given the number of tactical missions run and the policy of
interdiction, cutting roads and rail lines, and bombing stations,
should have similar effects at first, balanced against the weight
of attack being so great it became common, therefore defences
were worthwhile and alerts were maintained.

Given the greater density of buildings and less harsh a climate
there seems to have been few strikes designed to simply destroy
buildings in western Europe.

Post by Rich Rostrom
Was any count actually made of such German
casualties? Most of them would have happened
when Germany was falling to pieces, many in
areas which ceased to be German. They might
have been lumped in with deaths from artillery
and stray bullets.

The air raid casualties must remain estimates for those reasons,
the system worked quite well in the west given the sudden
collapse and as noted the Red Air Force did not usually go much
beyond the battlefield.

Post by Rich Rostrom
The Soviet state survived and lost no territory,
so would be able to compile a more accurate count.

Yes and no, it depends on the record keeping.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

AlexMilman

2013-08-01 16:16:36 UTC

... the USSR had about as many killed in air raids as Germany.

That seems very remarkable, since the German
strategic bombing effort against the USSR was
_very_ limited AFAIK.

Very limited but the defences were also limited.

It depends on time and place. In 1941 Moscow Air
Defense District had 585 fighters (including
170 MiG-3s, 95 Yak-1s, 75 LaGG-3s, 200 I-16s
and 45 I-153s) and 1,044 anti-aircraft guns and after
few initial (and rather unsuccessful) attempts
of the mass bombings (115 bombers on July 22 and 100
on July 23) the whole idea had been dropped with no
damage to the important objects.

Air defenses of Leningrad were less formidable but, AFAIK,
the main effect of the aerial bombing was destruction of
the big food stores in November 1941 (views on how this
impacted a death toll from starvation are varying).

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
The series of air raids mounted on Stalingrad as the Germans
approached in 1942 are reported to have created a death toll
comparable to or even greater than the Hamburg firestorm, as
the city had large numbers of people moving through it trying to
escape the Germans.

This is an interesting issue. The Soviet estimate was less than
1,000 killed (which is a far cry from 45K at Hamburg). 40K civilian
losses is another quoted number but I saw a clarification that this
applies to ALL civilian losses during the Battle of Stalingrad.

Personally, I suspect that the Soviet estimates are approximately
as unreliable as post-Soviet speculations: most probably nobody
collected statistics in 1942.

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-08-01 17:26:48 UTC

... the USSR had about as many killed in air raids as Germany.

That seems very remarkable, since the German
strategic bombing effort against the USSR was
_very_ limited AFAIK.

Very limited but the defences were also limited.

Is this the strength for July 1941? And is PVO, the defence units,
not the frontal aviation? Do you know what area the Moscow
Air Defence district covered? Given the Germans were in
Smolensk in mid July.

Post by AlexMilman
Air defenses of Leningrad were less formidable but, AFAIK,
the main effect of the aerial bombing was destruction of
the big food stores in November 1941 (views on how this
impacted a death toll from starvation are varying).

It would appear Moscow and Stalingrad had radar coverage
but nothing like the fighter control system used in the west.

I know Moscow had the best air defences in terms of guns
and fighters but nothing like enough air raid shelters or
any program for people to have their own.

Amusingly my pre war atlas has 2 entries for Stalingrad, at the
same location, one with 1,407,000 people living in it and one
with 388,000 people. Web sites also give various population
figures.

As far as I know there was no mass evacuation of the city, indeed
Stalin ordered the people to stay, and some children ended up
surviving despite being behind German lines until the Germans
surrendered.

So 40,000 deaths from the entire conflict which effectively
levelled the city seems low.

The first big Luftwaffe attack was late on 23 August 1942, the
population is reported to have ignored the air raid sirens,
due to previous false alarms but in any case they sounded
minutes before around 200 bombers arrived.

All up 1,600 Luftwaffe sorties dropping 1,000 tons of bombs,
fires burnt many residential districts to the ground, lasting
over night in the many wooden buildings.

One dead civilian per ton of bombs when many people were
caught out in the open seems low, while 40 deaths per ton of
bombs looks too high, but it is clear the raid was devastating.

There were a lot more raids in the following weeks but it seems
Stalingrad was being described as ruins by 1 September.

The Hamburg firestorm raid dropped about 2,400 tons of bombs.

http://www.stalingrad-info.com/stalingrad1942.htm

Has some more detailed population figures.

Post by AlexMilman
Personally, I suspect that the Soviet estimates are approximately
as unreliable as post-Soviet speculations: most probably nobody
collected statistics in 1942.

There seems to have been an accounting post war, but the figures
remained hidden as Stalin decided to under report losses to make
the USSR look stronger.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

AlexMilman

2013-08-02 04:09:49 UTC

Post by AlexMilman
It depends on time and place. In 1941 Moscow Air
Defense District had 585 fighters (including
170 MiG-3s, 95 Yak-1s, 75 LaGG-3s, 200 I-16s
and 45 I-153s) and 1,044 anti-aircraft guns and after
few initial (and rather unsuccessful) attempts
of the mass bombings (115 bombers on July 22 and 100
on July 23) the whole idea had been dropped with no
damage to the important objects.

Is this the strength for July 1941?

Yes.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
And is PVO, the defence units,
not the frontal aviation?

I thought that I was quite clear on this subject:
conversation was about PVO.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Do you know what area the Moscow
Air Defence district covered?

Moscow and vicinity.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Given the Germans were in
Smolensk in mid July.

I did not get how exactly this fact is related to the
air defense of Moscow.

[]

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
It would appear Moscow and Stalingrad had radar coverage
but nothing like the fighter control system used in the west.

Maybe but this is irrelevant, taking into an account that there
were only 2 raids on Moscow and even they were on a relatively
small scale.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
I know Moscow had the best air defences in terms of guns
and fighters but nothing like enough air raid shelters or
any program for people to have their own.

I have no idea about the source of your information and about
your idea regarding what would constitute an adequate number
of shelters.

The most common and reliable type of shelter were metro stations
(quite a few in the center of Moscow) and, AFAIK, there were also
shelters elsewhere. An idea about the personal shelters is an
interesting one taking into an account that predominant majority
of the people in Moscow lived in multi-apartment buildings.

But, back to the subject, all of the above is rather irrelevant
because, as I said, there were only 2 raids of a noticeable
size after which the whole issue scaled down to a plain nuisance.

Amusingly my pre war atlas has 2 entries for Stalingrad, at the
same location, one with 1,407,000 people living in it and one
with 388,000 people. Web sites also give various population
figures.

1,4M looks too high: city was not THAT large.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
As far as I know there was no mass evacuation of the city, indeed
Stalin ordered the people to stay, and some children ended up
surviving despite being behind German lines until the Germans
surrendered.

On August 15, local authorities (following instructions of the
Evacuation Committee of the Soviet Union) issues an order "Regarding
partial evacuation of Stalingrad". On the next day there was another
order "regarding evacuation of the civilians from the areas of military
activities". On August 18, based on the new instructions from Moscow,
there was an order regarding evacuation of the orphanages.

During July and the 1st 20 days of August 100,000 people had been
evacuated from the city (only 30 - 40K had been locals). Big numbers of
civilians still had been deployed on construction of the city defenses
and in the military plants.

Decision regarding evacuation of women, children and wounded had been
made on August 24th.

Evacuation of the plants (equipment and people) started in the end of
August.

http://www.callofduty.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=2983

By the time when defense of the city started, there still were 400,000
civilians in the city. Evacuation had been carried by the civilian and
military craft with, presumably, over 300,000 people transported
(estimated numbers vary between 250K and not quite realistic 400K).

Taking into an account that the orders for evacuation had been coming
from the "center" and discounting a very low probability that the local
authorities decided to disobey Stalin, it seems that the 'order' you are
quoting is, more or less, an urban legend (big scale evacuations had been
happening from the numerous places including Moscow so why Stalingrad
would be an exception?). Also, unlike the orders regarding evacuation
(known dates, text and authorship), specifics of the alleged Stalin's
order are (AFAIK) missing. What CAN be reliably observed from the available
documents is the fact that initially planned (by the local authorities)
evacuation had been too limited and too slow. One of the possible excuses
could be unclear military situation including a hope on successful
counteroffensive which did not materialized in August 1942.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
So 40,000 deaths from the entire conflict which effectively
levelled the city seems low.

Not too low if most of the population had been evacuated.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
The first big Luftwaffe attack was late on 23 August 1942, the
population is reported to have ignored the air raid sirens,
due to previous false alarms but in any case they sounded
minutes before around 200 bombers arrived.
All up 1,600 Luftwaffe sorties dropping 1,000 tons of bombs,
fires burnt many residential districts to the ground, lasting
over night in the many wooden buildings.

"many wooden buildings" implies areas with predominantly individual
houses. In other words, areas with a low density of population.
Plus, it was reasonably easy to escape from such house when it
catches fire.

Judging by what is written, Luftwaffe paid a lot of attention to the
river crossing and industrial districts, none of which had a dense
population.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
One dead civilian per ton of bombs when many people were
caught out in the open seems low, while 40 deaths per ton of
bombs looks too high, but it is clear the raid was devastating.

AFAIK raid on Coventry also was considered "devastating" and so
were numerous others even if they resulted just in the hundreds
of fatalities. In other words, we are in the area of
speculations.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
There were a lot more raids in the following weeks but it seems
Stalingrad was being described as ruins by 1 September.

Massive evacuation had been started well prior to this date.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
The Hamburg firestorm raid dropped about 2,400 tons of bombs.

The Hamburg firestorm was seemingly rather unique due to the set
of specific factors which did not necessarily exist in Stalingrad:
"On the night of 27 July, shortly before midnight, 739 aircraft
attacked Hamburg.[8] The unusually dry and warm weather, the
concentration of the bombing in one area and firefighting
limitations due to Blockbuster bombs used in the early part of
the raid - and the recall of Hannover's firecrews to their own
city - culminated in the so-called "Feuersturm" (firestorm).

The tornadic fire created a huge inferno with winds of up to
240 km/h (150 mph) reaching temperatures of 800 °C (1,500 °F)
and altitudes in excess of 1,000 feet, incinerating more than
eight square miles (21 km²) of the city.
Asphalt streets burst into flame, and fuel oil from damaged and
destroyed ships, barges and storage tanks spilled into the water
of the canals and the harbour, causing them to ignite as well.
The majority of deaths attributed to Operation 'Gomorrah' occurred
on this night. A large number of those killed died seeking safety
in bomb shelters and cellars, the firestorm consuming the oxygen
in the burning city above. The furious winds created by the
firestorm had the power to sweep people up off the streets
like dry leaves."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamburg_in_World_War_II

No Blockbuster bombs, most of the population was not in the
shelters and did not suffocate, not too many asphalt streets to
burst into the flames. While there were big fires, especially
near river bank, they were seemingly nowhere close to Hamburg's
tornado because evacuation kept going through these areas, etc.

Plus, of course, there is a general difference between 3 concentrated
raids and a bombing which continued for many days with a much smaller
total weight of the explosives being dropped.

One more substantial difference is that, while Hamburg is a reasonably
'concentrated' city, Stalingrad was a relatively narrow line stretched
along Volga.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
http://www.stalingrad-info.com/stalingrad1942.htm
Has some more detailed population figures.

Main problem with this link is that it is just a collection of
the individual posts with no references to the documents.

Population of Stalingrad was something around 400K with not quite
clear number of evacuees from other places.

Post by AlexMilman
Personally, I suspect that the Soviet estimates are approximately
as unreliable as post-Soviet speculations: most probably nobody
collected statistics in 1942.

There seems to have been an accounting post war, but the figures
remained hidden as Stalin decided to under report losses to make
the USSR look stronger.

There was more than one 'accounting' post war and the numbers vary
widely depending on the political agenda of their authors. One may
either select whatever suits his/her/its opinion best or to consider
any of them unreliable.

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-08-02 16:34:12 UTC

Is this the strength for July 1941?

Yes.

Thanks for that. So nearly 600 aircraft out of a reported VVS
front line strength of 2,516 in mid July and the 600 would be in
addition to the reported under 400 VVS aircraft in the central
zone.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
And is PVO, the defence units,
not the frontal aviation?

conversation was about PVO.

There was enough uncertainty for me to ask.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Do you know what area the Moscow
Air Defence district covered?

Moscow and vicinity.

Any idea about how far out the border was?

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Given the Germans were in
Smolensk in mid July.

I did not get how exactly this fact is related to the
air defense of Moscow.

As the VVS forces in the west lost airfields they were forced
back into places like Moscow, so increasing the strength
around Moscow. Increasing the chance non PVO units are
counted as defenders of Moscow or counted because they are
in the area.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
It would appear Moscow and Stalingrad had radar coverage
but nothing like the fighter control system used in the west.

Maybe but this is irrelevant, taking into an account that there
were only 2 raids on Moscow and even they were on a relatively
small scale.

Radar is important as it gives warning and that reduces the number
of people caught in the open.

The Moscow raids,

195 Bombers evening of 21 July
115 Bombers night of 22 July
The third raid was around 100 bombers, the fourth was 50,
the remainder were in the order of 15 or so bombers.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
I know Moscow had the best air defences in terms of guns
and fighters but nothing like enough air raid shelters or
any program for people to have their own.

I have no idea about the source of your information and about
your idea regarding what would constitute an adequate number
of shelters.

Enough for most of the normal population.

Post by AlexMilman
The most common and reliable type of shelter were metro stations
(quite a few in the center of Moscow) and, AFAIK, there were also
shelters elsewhere.

It is clear the Metro stations were used but they could only take a
small percentage of the population.

Post by AlexMilman
An idea about the personal shelters is an
interesting one taking into an account that predominant majority
of the people in Moscow lived in multi-apartment buildings.

Or cellars being made stronger.

Post by AlexMilman
But, back to the subject, all of the above is rather irrelevant
because, as I said, there were only 2 raids of a noticeable
size after which the whole issue scaled down to a plain nuisance.

The relevance to me is that greater warnings and more shelters
reduce the number of casualties per ton of bombs dropped. As
per the examples given.

Amusingly my pre war atlas has 2 entries for Stalingrad, at the
same location, one with 1,407,000 people living in it and one
with 388,000 people. Web sites also give various population
figures.

1,4M looks too high: city was not THAT large.

Agreed, but given the problems with the USSR giving reliable
population figures and the variation in other references I thought
it best to include the figures to see if something better was
available.

So essentially the city had not been evacuated as it is likely
civilians displaced by the German offensive were being moved
first.

Post by AlexMilman
Decision regarding evacuation of women, children and wounded had been
made on August 24th.

The first raid was on the 23rd.

Post by AlexMilman
Evacuation of the plants (equipment and people) started in the end of
August.
http://www.callofduty.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=2983

Since I do not read Russian that well the site is of limited use.

Post by AlexMilman
By the time when defense of the city started, there still were 400,000
civilians in the city. Evacuation had been carried by the civilian and
military craft with, presumably, over 300,000 people transported
(estimated numbers vary between 250K and not quite realistic 400K).

So 400,000 remained after 300,000 people were evacuated from the
area around Stalingrad?

Post by AlexMilman
Taking into an account that the orders for evacuation had been coming
from the "center" and discounting a very low probability that the local
authorities decided to disobey Stalin, it seems that the 'order' you are
quoting is, more or less, an urban legend (big scale evacuations had been
happening from the numerous places including Moscow so why Stalingrad
would be an exception?).

Or the reporting of an order made after the siege began.

Post by AlexMilman
so, unlike the orders regarding evacuation
(known dates, text and authorship), specifics of the alleged Stalin's
order are (AFAIK) missing. What CAN be reliably observed from the available
documents is the fact that initially planned (by the local authorities)
evacuation had been too limited and too slow. One of the possible excuses
could be unclear military situation including a hope on successful
counteroffensive which did not materialized in August 1942.

Plus by the sounds of it the system was busy handling people
displaced by the ground fighting in front of Stalingrad.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
So 40,000 deaths from the entire conflict which effectively
levelled the city seems low.

Not too low if most of the population had been evacuated.

And given the idea there were still 400,000 civilians in the city when
the Germans arrived it would seem most of the population was still
there, or at lease a sizeable group of civilians.

"many wooden buildings" implies areas with predominantly individual
houses. In other words, areas with a low density of population.

The fires lasted in the wooden buildings, they tended to go
out sooner in non wooden buildings.

Post by AlexMilman
Plus, it was reasonably easy to escape from such house when it
catches fire.

Not if the area has a number of fires.

Post by AlexMilman
Judging by what is written, Luftwaffe paid a lot of attention to the
river crossing and industrial districts, none of which had a dense
population.

Chuikov thinks thousands were killed in the first raid. And the raids
had multiple objectives, including stopping troop movement through
the city by bringing down buildings, along with obvious military
objectives and also, given Richthofen, an attempt to break morale.

It seems it took the AA guns opening up before many people
realised it was time to take shelter from the first raid.

There were days of raids, with the population largely trapped,
they needed to get across the Volga to escape. Richthofen
decided on 25 August that Stalingrad had been destroyed.

AFAIK raid on Coventry also was considered "devastating" and so
were numerous others even if they resulted just in the hundreds
of fatalities. In other words, we are in the area of speculations.

Concentrated bombing often results in devastation, and the Soviet
Official History notes "scores of thousands", so as noted the death
toll of 1,000 civilians killed looks too low.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
There were a lot more raids in the following weeks but it seems
Stalingrad was being described as ruins by 1 September.

Massive evacuation had been started well prior to this date.

Yet there were still hundreds of thousands of civilians present,
plus any refugees.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
The Hamburg firestorm raid dropped about 2,400 tons of bombs.

The Hamburg firestorm was seemingly rather unique due to the set

Except no one is claiming there was a firestorm in Stalingrad,
rather I was reporting the tonnage dropped that night, about
2.5 times the bombs dropped in the first major raid on
Stalingrad.

For a raid on a smaller town,

On 11/12 September 1944 the RAF raid on Darmstadt dropped
about 875 tons of bombs causing big fires but short of a firestorm,
the minimum death toll is put at 8,433 people, the modern
estimate is 12,300, the pre war population was around 93,000.

Post by AlexMilman
"On the night of 27 July, shortly before midnight, 739 aircraft
attacked Hamburg.[8] The unusually dry and warm weather, the
concentration of the bombing in one area and firefighting
limitations due to Blockbuster bombs used in the early part of
the raid - and the recall of Hannover's firecrews to their own
city - culminated in the so-called "Feuersturm" (firestorm).
The tornadic fire created a huge inferno with winds of up to
240 km/h (150 mph) reaching temperatures of 800 °C (1,500 °F)
and altitudes in excess of 1,000 feet, incinerating more than
eight square miles (21 km²) of the city.
Asphalt streets burst into flame, and fuel oil from damaged and
destroyed ships, barges and storage tanks spilled into the water
of the canals and the harbour, causing them to ignite as well.
The majority of deaths attributed to Operation 'Gomorrah' occurred
on this night. A large number of those killed died seeking safety
in bomb shelters and cellars, the firestorm consuming the oxygen
in the burning city above. The furious winds created by the
firestorm had the power to sweep people up off the streets
like dry leaves."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamburg_in_World_War_II
No Blockbuster bombs, most of the population was not in the
shelters and did not suffocate, not too many asphalt streets to
burst into the flames.

HE does not have to come in 4,000 pound bombs to be effective.
And humans have trouble with heat well before it reaches the
temperatures needed to burn asphalt.

Post by AlexMilman
While there were big fires, especially
near river bank, they were seemingly nowhere close to Hamburg's
tornado because evacuation kept going through these areas, etc.

Normally the safest place to be in an air raid is a shelter, fire storms
reverse that. The more shelters there were in Salingrad and the
more warning the population received the lower the casualties, and
it is clear both were inadequate.

And whether the evacuation routes were safe or the least worst
option is open to question.

The reports are of widespread fires.

Post by AlexMilman
Plus, of course, there is a general difference between 3 concentrated
raids and a bombing which continued for many days with a much smaller
total weight of the explosives being dropped.

There were 4 RAF raids on Hamburg in that mini campaign, the first
and third produced around "normal" damage, the second was the
fire storm, the fourth ran into bad weather.

I do not dispute the Luftwaffe dropped a lower bomb tonnage on
Stalingrad, which was smaller than Hamburg. The UK figures of
deaths per ton of conventional bombs, then from V-1s and V-2s
shows the value of warnings. A series of raids means more
chance people are caught out in the open and that seems to have
been happening in Stalingrad during the initial raids. People ended
up in the ravines out of town.

Post by AlexMilman
One more substantial difference is that, while Hamburg is a reasonably
'concentrated' city, Stalingrad was a relatively narrow line stretched
along Volga.

And is the idea people could make it out of the city on foot in the
time it took for an air raid to bomb?

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
http://www.stalingrad-info.com/stalingrad1942.htm
Has some more detailed population figures.

Main problem with this link is that it is just a collection of
the individual posts with no references to the documents.
Population of Stalingrad was something around 400K with not quite
clear number of evacuees from other places.

And this is shortly before the German ground forces arrived.

Post by AlexMilman
Personally, I suspect that the Soviet estimates are approximately
as unreliable as post-Soviet speculations: most probably nobody
collected statistics in 1942.

There seems to have been an accounting post war, but the figures
remained hidden as Stalin decided to under report losses to make
the USSR look stronger.

That is not a lot of help. The Soviet Official Histories reduced the
number of casualties, with the opening of the Soviet archives a
larger figure of mainly more civilian deaths was produced.

What are the estimates you know of and how do you grade them?

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email

AlexMilman

2013-08-02 18:44:52 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Thanks for that. So nearly 600 aircraft out of a reported VVS
front line strength of 2,516 in mid July and the 600 would be in
addition to the reported under 400 VVS aircraft in the central
zone.

I'm not sure that PVO fighters had been ever included into
the front line numbers. Probably they weren't being under
different command.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Do you know what area the Moscow
Air Defence district covered?

Moscow and vicinity.

Any idea about how far out the border was?

I'd assume that only far enough to have city covered but
I can be wrong.

Post by AlexMilman
I did not get how exactly this fact is related to the
air defense of Moscow.

You definitely keep trying. :-)

I repeat: PVO force was a separate command with its own
structure and forces. Term "defenders of Moscow" is
misleading because all troops on the Moscow direction had
been defending it by definition and this had nothing to do
with being a part of PVO.

[]

Post by AlexMilman
Maybe but this is irrelevant, taking into an account that there
were only 2 raids on Moscow and even they were on a relatively
small scale.

Radar is important as it gives warning and that reduces the number
of people caught in the open.

It is important for many other things as well but what is
exact relevance in this case (besides the fact that you
consider PVO of Moscow being inadequate by not quite clear
criteria)?

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
The Moscow raids,
195 Bombers evening of 21 July
115 Bombers night of 22 July
The third raid was around 100 bombers, the fourth was 50,
the remainder were in the order of 15 or so bombers.

Yes, and it shows that Moscow never was in a serious
danger from the air. Or, from the Soviet perspective,
that its PVO was so effective that the Germans gave up.
Whichever option you choose is a matter of taste.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
I know Moscow had the best air defences in terms of guns
and fighters but nothing like enough air raid shelters or
any program for people to have their own.

I have no idea about the source of your information and about
your idea regarding what would constitute an adequate number
of shelters.

Enough for most of the normal population.

Meaningless: "most" of Moscow population lived in the areas
which hardly were ever bombed. Potentially endangered part
was city center.

Post by AlexMilman
The most common and reliable type of shelter were metro stations
(quite a few in the center of Moscow) and, AFAIK, there were also
shelters elsewhere.

It is clear the Metro stations were used but they could only take a
small percentage of the population.

I have no statistics to tell one way or another.

Post by AlexMilman
An idea about the personal shelters is an
interesting one taking into an account that predominant majority
of the people in Moscow lived in multi-apartment buildings.

Or cellars being made stronger.

Suitable cellars had been used but you were talking about
individual shelters which is hardly an option in a
multi-apartment building.

[]

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
The relevance to me is that greater warnings and more shelters
reduce the number of casualties per ton of bombs dropped.

For this to be practical, we need data on the civilian
losses (per ton) in Moscow. I don't have these data and
not going to get into the groundless speculations.

You made statement about inadequacy so its up to you
to produce relevant statistics.

[]

[]

So essentially the city had not been evacuated as it is likely
civilians displaced by the German offensive were being moved
first.

Evacuation started too late but the point is that this
was hardly due to the alleged Stalin's order you are
referenced to (which does not mean that I consider Stalin a
good or caring person but a tendency to blame everything on
him personally absolves everybody else of any guilt).

Post by AlexMilman
Decision regarding evacuation of women, children and wounded had been
made on August 24th.

The first raid was on the 23rd.

Yes, the local authorities had been late to react.

Post by AlexMilman
Evacuation of the plants (equipment and people) started in the end of
August.
http://www.callofduty.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=2983

Since I do not read Russian that well the site is of limited use.

It was just for reference sake: I quoted most of the
relevant material to make your task easier.

So 400,000 remained after 300,000 people were evacuated from the
area around Stalingrad?

No, conversation was about 300K out of 400K. Most of
evacuation had been done under enemy fire and bombing
(with the resulting high losses).

Or the reporting of an order made after the siege began.

As I said, the local authorities had been slow but perhaps
partially so because of the unclear military situation
and expectation of a counteroffensive.

Post by AlexMilman
so, unlike the orders regarding evacuation
(known dates, text and authorship), specifics of the alleged Stalin's
order are (AFAIK) missing. What CAN be reliably observed from the
available
documents is the fact that initially planned (by the local authorities)
evacuation had been too limited and too slow. One of the possible excuses
could be unclear military situation including a hope on successful
counteroffensive which did not materialized in August 1942.

Plus by the sounds of it the system was busy handling people
displaced by the ground fighting in front of Stalingrad.

System was busy with a lot of different things and some of
the displaced people were not from anywhere close to
Stalingrad: people had been evacuated there by the thousands
from the numerous places including Leningrad.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
So 40,000 deaths from the entire conflict which effectively
levelled the city seems low.

Not too low if most of the population had been evacuated.

And given the idea there were still 400,000 civilians in the city when
the Germans arrived it would seem most of the population was still
there, or at lease a sizeable group of civilians.

Relatively 'optimistic' assessments boil down to something
like 100K remaining in the city. Assuming that 40-50%
had been eventually killed is IMO reasonably plausible.

[]

Post by AlexMilman
houses. In other words, areas with a low density of population.

The fires lasted in the wooden buildings, they tended to go
out sooner in non wooden buildings.

Russia had a long story of the wooden construction and
a general rule was to build houses far enough from each
other to minimize destruction of the fires (which also
were a typical disaster).

Post by AlexMilman
Plus, it was reasonably easy to escape from such house when it
catches fire.

Not if the area has a number of fires.

Of course, this makes things more difficult.

Post by AlexMilman
Judging by what is written, Luftwaffe paid a lot of attention to the
river crossing and industrial districts, none of which had a dense
population.

Chuikov thinks thousands were killed in the first raid.

This is quite possible but how many thousands and did he
count?

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Concentrated bombing often results in devastation, and the Soviet
Official History notes "scores of thousands", so as noted the death
toll of 1,000 civilians killed looks too low.

Of course. This was original Soviet BS. But there is a
big gap between 1K and 47K.

[]

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
I do not dispute the Luftwaffe dropped a lower bomb tonnage on
Stalingrad, which was smaller than Hamburg.

And yet you insist on the casualties being even higher.
I fail to see your logic.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
That is not a lot of help.

It is not supposed to be: data available are highly
speculative and unreliable. Partially because this issue,
in general, is highly politicized.

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-08-04 15:22:07 UTC

I'm not sure that PVO fighters had been ever included into
the front line numbers. Probably they weren't being under
different command.

However as you note, it is probably, hence the decision to check.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Do you know what area the Moscow
Air Defence district covered?

Moscow and vicinity.

Any idea about how far out the border was?

I'd assume that only far enough to have city covered but
I can be wrong.

Simply put given WWII aircraft speeds zones needed depth
to be able to intercept, which could mean tens to hundreds
of miles. The alternative is a pre war boundary dictated by
the size of Moscow.

Post by AlexMilman
I did not get how exactly this fact is related to the
air defense of Moscow.

You definitely keep trying. :-)

No, I keep reading histories where things like strength figures
are reported without clarification and at times understanding.

Post by AlexMilman
I repeat: PVO force was a separate command with its own
structure and forces. Term "defenders of Moscow" is
misleading because all troops on the Moscow direction had
been defending it by definition and this had nothing to do
with being a part of PVO.

So if all the "troops on the Moscow direction been defending it
by definition " why is it so strange to check whether the reports
are correctly identifying sub units and not giving grand totals?

Undelete,

"It would appear Moscow and Stalingrad had radar coverage
but nothing like the fighter control system used in the west."

Post by AlexMilman
Maybe but this is irrelevant, taking into an account that there
were only 2 raids on Moscow and even they were on a relatively
small scale.

Radar is important as it gives warning and that reduces the number
of people caught in the open.

It is important for many other things as well but what is
exact relevance in this case (besides the fact that you
consider PVO of Moscow being inadequate by not quite clear
criteria)?

So time to try again. People caught out in the open by air raids
take higher casualties on average than people who have had
time to make it to shelter.

PVO Moscow had plenty of aircraft and guns but not a modern
system to warn the citizens and control interceptions. So fewer
people had the chance to take shelter and more bombers made it.

Or alternatively we can look at the rapidly declining German air
strength in the east and the increasing demands on it as the
Red Army and Air Force recovered and the German Army out
ran its supply system.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
I know Moscow had the best air defences in terms of guns
and fighters but nothing like enough air raid shelters or
any program for people to have their own.

I have no idea about the source of your information and about
your idea regarding what would constitute an adequate number
of shelters.

Enough for most of the normal population.

Meaningless: "most" of Moscow population lived in the areas
which hardly were ever bombed. Potentially endangered part
was city center.

Hardly meaningless if the bomb lands near you when you have
little shelter. Less shelter more casualties per bomb is the
basic rule.

Post by AlexMilman
The most common and reliable type of shelter were metro stations
(quite a few in the center of Moscow) and, AFAIK, there were also
shelters elsewhere.

It is clear the Metro stations were used but they could only take a
small percentage of the population.

I have no statistics to tell one way or another.

Moscow population 3.7 million.

You really believe there was enough space in the underground
system to have hundreds of thousands at the stations?

The physical space of underground systems is limited, rail
systems assume people move through, not stay.

Post by AlexMilman
An idea about the personal shelters is an
interesting one taking into an account that predominant majority
of the people in Moscow lived in multi-apartment buildings.

Or cellars being made stronger.

Suitable cellars had been used but you were talking about
individual shelters which is hardly an option in a
multi-apartment building.

What I wrote,

"I know Moscow had the best air defences in terms of guns
and fighters but nothing like enough air raid shelters or
any program for people to have their own."

Or you chose to interpret personal shelters as for one person,
not a family or inhabitants of a building, as opposed to official
government run shelters.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
The relevance to me is that greater warnings and more shelters
reduce the number of casualties per ton of bombs dropped.

For this to be practical, we need data on the civilian
losses (per ton) in Moscow. I don't have these data and
not going to get into the groundless speculations.

How nice, except we do not need Moscow figures when we have
plenty of accurate statistics from air raids run in the west, which
show the effect of a lack of warning.

Post by AlexMilman
You made statement about inadequacy so its up to you
to produce relevant statistics.

I have been in the other posts.

deleted test relates to,

the claim 1,000 were killed in the first air raid on Stalingrad
and 40,000 the total civilian deaths

So essentially the city had not been evacuated as it is likely
civilians displaced by the German offensive were being moved
first.

So essentially you are completely confident, with the evacuation of
the city essentially not started before the evacuation, that Stalin
never issued any sort of order for the or some civilians to stay,
like the workers at the tank factory.

Post by AlexMilman
Decision regarding evacuation of women, children and wounded
had been made on August 24th.

The first raid was on the 23rd.

Yes, the local authorities had been late to react.

So about the pre war population was still in Stalingrad when the
main air attacks began.

Post by AlexMilman
Evacuation of the plants (equipment and people) started in the end of
August.
http://www.callofduty.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=2983

Since I do not read Russian that well the site is of limited use.

It was just for reference sake: I quoted most of the
relevant material to make your task easier.

Is the task meant to be verfiying the data, or reading the site?

So 400,000 remained after 300,000 people were evacuated from the
area around Stalingrad?

No, conversation was about 300K out of 400K. Most of
evacuation had been done under enemy fire and bombing
(with the resulting high losses).

I presume you originally really meant to say evacuation "was" carried
out, not "had been".

So there were no refugees entering the city moving ahead of the
German advance, the population was essentially intact on 23
August, and large numbers were lost by the time the majority of
the civilians had been evacuated.

Or the reporting of an order made after the siege began.

As I said, the local authorities had been slow but perhaps
partially so because of the unclear military situation
and expectation of a counteroffensive.

And it leaves open the possibility Stalin issued an order for at
least some of the population, given the people were trapped to
stay and help defend. The order has then been exaggerated
as a blanket no evacuations one.

Post by AlexMilman
so, unlike the orders regarding evacuation
(known dates, text and authorship), specifics of the alleged Stalin's
order are (AFAIK) missing. What CAN be reliably observed from the
available documents is the fact that initially planned (by the local
authorities)
evacuation had been too limited and too slow. One of the possible excuses
could be unclear military situation including a hope on successful
counteroffensive which did not materialized in August 1942.

Plus by the sounds of it the system was busy handling people
displaced by the ground fighting in front of Stalingrad.

So is the idea the 23 August 1942 population was larger by
thousands compared to the pre war one? Then add any
people displaced from the local area heading there.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
So 40,000 deaths from the entire conflict which effectively
levelled the city seems low.

Not too low if most of the population had been evacuated.

And given the idea there were still 400,000 civilians in the city when
the Germans arrived it would seem most of the population was still
there, or at lease a sizeable group of civilians.

Relatively 'optimistic' assessments boil down to something
like 100K remaining in the city. Assuming that 40-50%
had been eventually killed is IMO reasonably plausible.

So above we have most of the population still in the city, plus
thousands of refugees, now we are down to 100,000, which
date is the 100,000 referring to?

deleted text,

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
All up 1,600 Luftwaffe sorties dropping 1,000 tons of bombs,
fires burnt many residential districts to the ground, lasting
over night in the many wooden buildings.

"many wooden buildings" implies areas with predominantly individual

------------------- end deleted text.

Post by AlexMilman
houses. In other words, areas with a low density of population.

The fires lasted in the wooden buildings, they tended to go
out sooner in non wooden buildings.

Russia had a long story of the wooden construction and
a general rule was to build houses far enough from each
other to minimize destruction of the fires (which also
were a typical disaster).

And the reports from the city are whole districts were burnt down,
so why the need to announce the design attempts to minimise
fires? Is it to show there must have been extensive fires given
the built in fire resistance?

Post by AlexMilman
Plus, it was reasonably easy to escape from such house when it
catches fire.

Not if the area has a number of fires.

Of course, this makes things more difficult.

Which is what has been reported.

Post by AlexMilman
Judging by what is written, Luftwaffe paid a lot of attention to the
river crossing and industrial districts, none of which had a dense
population.

Chuikov thinks thousands were killed in the first raid.

This is quite possible but how many thousands and did he
count?

He did not say, but it calls into question the claim of one thousand
deaths in the first raid, or first day's raids.

deleted text,

"And the raids
had multiple objectives, including stopping troop movement through
the city by bringing down buildings, along with obvious military
objectives and also, given Richthofen, an attempt to break morale.

It seems it took the AA guns opening up before many people
realised it was time to take shelter from the first raid.

There were days of raids, with the population largely trapped,
they needed to get across the Volga to escape. Richthofen
decided on 25 August that Stalingrad had been destroyed."

Of course. This was original Soviet BS.

Given the minimum of scores of thousands would be 40,000 that
would be the lowest official Soviet death toll.

Post by AlexMilman
But there is a
big gap between 1K and 47K.

Except I was quoting around 40,000 and over the series of raids
launched against the city before the German army arrived, that is
to about 1 September.

deleted text,

">> There were a lot more raids in the following weeks but it seems

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Stalingrad was being described as ruins by 1 September.

Massive evacuation had been started well prior to this date.

Yet there were still hundreds of thousands of civilians present,
plus any refugees."

"For a raid on a smaller town,

On 11/12 September 1944 the RAF raid on Darmstadt dropped
about 875 tons of bombs causing big fires but short of a firestorm,
the minimum death toll is put at 8,433 people, the modern
estimate is 12,300, the pre war population was around 93,000."

-------- end restored text

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
I do not dispute the Luftwaffe dropped a lower bomb tonnage on
Stalingrad, which was smaller than Hamburg.

And yet you insist on the casualties being even higher.
I fail to see your logic.

It rather goes like this, the Hamburg firestorm raid was part of a
series of raids, dropping 9,656.64 short tons of bombs.

Hamburg had been hit so many times it had good air raid
protection, total deaths from the raids are generally put at
50,000 with over 40,000 caused by the firestorm.

Stalingrad, over the first few days of air raids, was hit by a
comparable bomb tonnage as the firestorm raid, reports
large fires in the first raid, the city destroyed within about
a week, that there were few air raid shelters and little
warnings so plenty of people were caught in the open.

As a result it seems the deaths from these raids were
comparable or greater than the firestorm raid on Hamburg,
and that is credible given the results of other air raids.

deleted text,

"The UK figures of
deaths per ton of conventional bombs, then from V-1s and V-2s
shows the value of warnings. A series of raids means more
chance people are caught out in the open and that seems to have
been happening in Stalingrad during the initial raids. People ended
up in the ravines out of town.

Post by AlexMilman
One more substantial difference is that, while Hamburg is a reasonably
'concentrated' city, Stalingrad was a relatively narrow line stretched
along Volga.

And is the idea people could make it out of the city on foot in the
time it took for an air raid to bomb?"

">> > There was more than one 'accounting' post war and the numbers vary

Post by AlexMilman
widely depending on the political agenda of their authors. One may
either select whatever suits his/her/its opinion best or to consider
any of them unreliable."

------------------------ end deleted text.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
That is not a lot of help.

deleted text,

"The Soviet Official Histories reduced the
number of casualties, with the opening of the Soviet archives a
larger figure of mainly more civilian deaths was produced.

What are the estimates you know of and how do you grade them?"

------------------------ end deleted text.

Post by AlexMilman
It is not supposed to be: data available are highly
speculative and unreliable. Partially because this issue,
in general, is highly politicized.

So why bother to post?

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

AlexMilman

2013-08-05 17:24:42 UTC

On Sunday, August 4, 2013 11:22:07 AM UTC-4, Geoffrey Sinclair

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Thanks for that. So nearly 600 aircraft out of a reported

VVS

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
front line strength of 2,516 in mid July and the 600 would

be in

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
addition to the reported under 400 VVS aircraft in the

central

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
zone.

I'm not sure that PVO fighters had been ever included into
the front line numbers. Probably they weren't being under
different command.

However as you note, it is probably, hence the decision to check.

Well, if you are really interested in checking, you can relatively
easily find data regarding PVO structure on the web.

One of the 1st things you'd find is that PVO had been created as a
SEPARATE service independent of Air Force. In July of 1941 Moscow
air defenses had been carried out by the 1st Air Defense Corps and
the 6th Fighter Aviation Corps PVO.

In November of 1941 the whole air defense of the country had been
consolidated by creation of the post of of the Commander of Air
Defense Forces with
the following creation of the Moscow Air defense Front and
Leningrad and Baku Air Defense Armies (further structural changes
had been made in 1943 reflecting changing strategic situation).

Of course, I can't tell which data had been used in the places out
of which you are getting your information (hence 'probably').

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Do you know what area the Moscow
Air Defence district covered?

Moscow and vicinity.

Any idea about how far out the border was?

I'd assume that only far enough to have city covered

but

Post by AlexMilman
I can be wrong.

Simply put given WWII aircraft speeds zones needed depth
to be able to intercept, which could mean tens to

hundreds

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
of miles. The alternative is a pre war boundary

dictated by

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
the size of Moscow.

If you are interested in these details, you can probably find
them on the web.

Usual practice during the war was that PVO fronts and armies had
been covering ground troops but Moscow case looks different
(at least until the danger of the raids had been gone) because
its air
defenses included numerous defensive baloons (ditto for Leningrad),
which are more suitable for the static defense of the city.

Back to you question regarding radar, there were some land-based
radar units located near Leningrad (one of 2 centers of their
design and production) and Moscow.

Zenit system was installed on the outskirts of Moscow and found
to
be satisfactory for the barrage firing.
There was also an early-warning system RUS-2 with the range of
100 km.

Starting from December 1942, a new system
based on stolen and re-engineered British GL Mk II had been
launched
into the production.

As far as the 'size of Moscow' is involved, it is a tricky and
potentially misleading issue because a big part of 'Moscow' (as
an administrative entity) had been an empty space with some
villages in it. I have serious doubts that there were serious air defenses covering Losino-Ostrovsky Forest or Kaloshino village.

Post by AlexMilman
I did not get how exactly this fact is related to the
air defense of Moscow.

As the VVS forces in the west lost airfields they were

forced

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
back into places like Moscow, so increasing the strength
around Moscow. Increasing the chance non PVO units are
counted as defenders of Moscow or counted because they are
in the area.

You definitely keep trying. :-)

No, I keep reading histories where things like strength

figures

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
are reported without clarification and at times understanding.

Can't help with this outside an obvious advice of not paying
attention to what seems to be crappy. Surely, you can find
something reasonably professional if you are really interested
in the subject.

So if all the "troops on the Moscow direction been defending it
by definition " why is it so strange to check whether the

reports

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
are correctly identifying sub units and not giving grand totals?

Because I told you more than once that PVO was a separate
structure.
Repeating asking if some of the 'histories' that you read counted
it as a part of something else is preposterous: how do I know what
your 'reports' are saying and based on what are they saying it? Or
do you expect me to conduct an extensive study of the sources used
by you and to report on their reliability?

Term "defenders of Moscow" had been used the way I described but
this does not mean that there were no distinctions within this
extremely broad term. With almost the same success one may ask if
the ground forces included civilian air observers?

Undelete,
"It would appear Moscow and Stalingrad had radar coverage
but nothing like the fighter control system used in the west."

I have no clue about Stalingrad.

Moscow definitely had it. As far as the systems installed on the
fighters are involved, production started in the late 1942.

Post by AlexMilman
Maybe but this is irrelevant, taking into an account that

there

Post by AlexMilman
were only 2 raids on Moscow and even they were on a

relatively

Post by AlexMilman
small scale.

Radar is important as it gives warning and that reduces

the number

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
of people caught in the open.

It is important for many other things as well but what is
exact relevance in this case (besides the fact that you
consider PVO of Moscow being inadequate by not quite clear
criteria)?

So time to try again. People caught out in the open by air

raids

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
take higher casualties on average than people who have had
time to make it to shelter.

Yes, it is better to be wealthy and healthy than poor and sick.
Outside this commonplace, it is always a question of how many
people would be in danger in any specific situation.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
PVO Moscow had plenty of aircraft and guns but not a modern
system to warn the citizens and control interceptions. So fewer
people had the chance to take shelter and more bombers made it.

Yes, this is a theory. A practical question is about the real
danger and real losses. If civilian losses had been high, then
the defense
was inefficient. If not, it was adequate. Any numbers showing
inefficiency?

To quote Wiki, "Moscow was now a target of massive air raids,
although these caused only limited damage because of extensive anti-aircraft defenses and effective civilian fire brigades.[45]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Moscow

Or alternatively we can look at the rapidly declining German

air

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
strength in the east

In July of 1941? You can't be serious.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
and the increasing demands on it as the
Red Army and Air Force recovered and the German Army out
ran its supply system.

The same question as above.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
I know Moscow had the best air defences in terms of guns
and fighters but nothing like enough air raid shelters or
any program for people to have their own.

I have no idea about the source of your information and

about

Post by AlexMilman
your idea regarding what would constitute an adequate

number

Post by AlexMilman
of shelters.

Enough for most of the normal population.

Meaningless: "most" of Moscow population lived in the areas
which hardly were ever bombed. Potentially endangered part
was city center.

Hardly meaningless if the bomb lands near you when you have
little shelter. Less shelter more casualties per bomb is the
basic rule.

Another, even better rule, is not to let the bombers to get
to the city, which seems to work reasonably well for Moscow.

Post by AlexMilman
The most common and reliable type of shelter were

metro stations

Post by AlexMilman
(quite a few in the center of Moscow) and, AFAIK,

there were also

Post by AlexMilman
shelters elsewhere.

It is clear the Metro stations were used but they could

only take a

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
small percentage of the population.

I have no statistics to tell one way or another.

Moscow population 3.7 million.
You really believe there was enough space in the underground
system

Russian term is "metro". "Underground" is reserved for the
different purposes.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
to have hundreds of thousands at the stations?

My believes are neither here nor there because I never said
that the metro was the only type of the shelter.

Then, as I keep saying, big chunk of Moscow was a very low
probability target because it was just a set of villages
inside Moscow administrative borders.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
The physical space of underground systems is limited, rail
systems assume people move through, not stay.

AFAIK the tunnels had been used as well.

Post by AlexMilman
An idea about the personal shelters is an
interesting one taking into an account that predominant

majority

Post by AlexMilman
of the people in Moscow lived in multi-apartment

buildings.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
Or cellars being made stronger.

Suitable cellars had been used but you were talking

about

Post by AlexMilman
individual shelters which is hardly an option in a
multi-apartment building.

person,

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
not a family or inhabitants of a building, as opposed to

official

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
government run shelters.

Please do yourself a favor and get an idea about the SU. The
buildings (ALL of them) had been state property and as a
result ALL shelters(cellars, etc.) in these buildings had been
run by a 'government'.

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
The relevance to me is that greater warnings and more

shelters

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
reduce the number of casualties per ton of bombs dropped.

For this to be practical, we need data on the civilian
losses (per ton) in Moscow. I don't have these data and
not going to get into the groundless speculations.

How nice, except we do not need Moscow figures when we

have

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
plenty of accurate statistics from air raids run in the

west, which

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
show the effect of a lack of warning.

In other words, you don't have data on the issue you are
pontificating about. Air raids in the 'west' had its own
specifics which were not necessarily applicable to Moscow.

What is even more important, there were no air raids on Moscow
remotely comparable to the huge raids in the west and there is
plenty of evidence that even structural damage in Moscow was
minimal (IIRC, during the biggest raid Luftwaffe managed to
drop something like 100 tons of explosives on the city proper).

Insisting that the whole population of a huge city should run
to the shelters at the appearance of 15 bombers (which was an
average raid after 4 initial ones) is not even funny.

dumbstruck

2013-10-30 20:05:25 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
How nice, except we do not need Moscow figures when we have
plenty of accurate statistics from air raids run in the west, which
show the effect of a lack of warning.

A new book "The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945" by Richard Overy and reviewed:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9062821/the-bombing-war-by-richard-overy-review/
It claims to have 2 new Soviet bombing archive sources. It also covers the
bombing of France, Italy, and of course Germany.

Apparently it demonizes Churchill and the allied bombing a great deal, a
popular trend that I warned about here to great skepticism. At least the
review seems to confuse the successful dehousing of workers with a supposed targeting of civilian lives. The deadly firebombings seem to be taken as
the norm rather than the exception. Little credit is given to bombs for
shutting down certain key aircraft parts factories for example.

Bill

2013-10-30 20:21:56 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
How nice, except we do not need Moscow figures when we have
plenty of accurate statistics from air raids run in the west, which
show the effect of a lack of warning.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9062821/the-bombing-war-by-richard-overy-review/
It claims to have 2 new Soviet bombing archive sources. It also covers the
bombing of France, Italy, and of course Germany.
Apparently it demonizes Churchill and the allied bombing a great deal, a
popular trend that I warned about here to great skepticism. At least the
review seems to confuse the successful dehousing of workers with a supposed targeting of civilian lives. The deadly firebombings seem to be taken as
the norm rather than the exception. Little credit is given to bombs for
shutting down certain key aircraft parts factories for example.

They turn up every so often, get shot to bits, and disappear.

This one sounds no better.

His idea that the British developed their tactics from the blitz on
London was exploded years ago.

We know they used the German raids on Portsmouth and Hull...

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-10-31 14:42:39 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
How nice, except we do not need Moscow figures when we have
plenty of accurate statistics from air raids run in the west, which
show the effect of a lack of warning.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9062821/the-bombing-war-by-richard-overy-review/
It claims to have 2 new Soviet bombing archive sources.

The sources appear to be captured German documents on Luftwaffe
operations.

Post by dumbstruck
It also covers the
bombing of France, Italy, and of course Germany.

Not surprising, France was heavily bombed.

Post by dumbstruck
Apparently it demonizes Churchill and the allied bombing a great deal, a
popular trend that I warned about here to great skepticism.

The review indicates Overy announces the RAF and Churchill knew from day
1 the night raids were essentially indiscriminate. Given the RAF was busy
thinking it was doing highly accurate night raids in 1941 the claim is
rather
hard to support.

And of course the Ju52s shovelling incendiaries out of the cargo doors to
fall on German troops and Warsaw are apparently not considered, nor
the attack on Rotterdam and in particular the way the Germans used the
result, threatening other cities.

Post by dumbstruck
At least the
review seems to confuse the successful dehousing of workers with a
supposed
targeting of civilian lives.

Or the review is repeating Overy.

Post by dumbstruck
The deadly firebombings seem to be taken as
the norm rather than the exception. Little credit is given to bombs for
shutting down certain key aircraft parts factories for example.

Hard to say, the usual fire raids usually rate high in reviews. I note the
idea
is attacking a specific target in an urban area is an erosion of ethics,
which
presumably applies to the day as well as night strikes and of course the
Luftwaffe strikes as well, yet the review indicates it only matters for one
side.

If you want to target workers you add AP and fragmentation bombs to
hit shelters and injure people in the open. Burning was shown to be
the best way to destroy things, and of course that must mean human
deaths as well.

I do like the way the allies lack technology to develop the long range
heavy bomber until 1943, presumably that's when the Lancaster,
B-17 etc. first flew. I think the reviewer is in trouble on this point
rather than Overy.

As for the bombing war really escalating in 1943 I note the USAAF
was apparently doing very little. Bomber Command dropped around
39,200 short tons on Germany in 1942, 148,800 in 1943, 305,500 in
1944 and 197,400 in 1945.

The USAAF dropped 29,000 short tons on Germany in 1943, 320,688
in 1944 and 291,462 in 1945.

So presumably the increase in bomb tonnage from 39,000 to 178,000
tons 1942 to 1943 is not the escalation, rather the effects on Germany, the
firestorms, not the 8th AF strikes, and the increase from 178,000 tons to
626,000 tons 1943 to 1944 is just more of the same.

I note the claims about the Bulgarian strikes, it presumably relates to the
raids in the first half of 1944. For the period January 1944 onwards the
RAF night bombers attacked Bulgarian targets 9 times,

Sofia \ 10/01/1944 \ C/C \ 73.0 \
Sofia \ 15/03/1944 \ M/Y \ 97.5 \
Sofia \ 16/03/1944 \ M/Y \ 29.0 \
Plovdiv \ 18/03/1944 \ M/Y \ 78.0 \
Misc., Bu \ 18/03/1944 \ T/O \ 3.8 \
Sofia \ 24/03/1944 \ M/Y \ 107.6 \ (17.4 tons incendiary)
Sofia \ 29/03/1944 \ I/A \ 133.0 \
Sofia \ 29/03/1944 \ Leaflets \ - \
Plovdiv \ 17/04/1944 \ M/Y \ 73.3 \
Plovdiv \ 19/04/1944 \ M/Y \ 19.5 \
Sofia \ 3/05/1944 \ Leaflets \ - \
Bulgaria \ 24/05/1944 \ Leaflets \ - \
Plovdiv \ 2/06/1944 \ Leaflets \ - \
Karlova \ 11/06/1944 \ A/F \ 54.5 \
Sofia \ 11/06/1944 \ Leaflets \ - \
Sofia \ 28/06/1944 \ Leaflets \ - \
Sofia \ 17/07/1944 \ Leaflets \ - \
Bulgaria \ 27/08/1944 \ Leaflets \ - \

669.2 short tons of bombs, of which 17.4 tons was incendiary.
C/C communication center, M/Y marshalling yard, A/F airfield, I/A
industrial area, T/O target of opportunity.

Despite the number of entries the 15th AF only mounted 14 operations
on Bulgaria, dropping 2,701.1 short tons of bombs

Sofia \ 24/11/1943 \ M/Y \ 43.3 \ -
Sofia \ 10/12/1943 \ M/Y \ 76.0 \ -
Sofia \ 20/12/1943 \ M/Y \ 92.8 \ -
Dupnitsa \ 4/01/1944 \ M/Y & City \ 81.0 \ -
Sofia \ 10/01/1944 \ City \ 419.5 \ -
Vrattso \ 24/01/1944 \ M/Y \ 117.0 \ -
Dinstservovene \ 24/01/1944 \ M/Y \ 3.0 \ -
Sofia \ 30/03/1944 \ City \ 235.0 \ 93 tons incendiary
Kneju \ 30/03/1944 \ City \ 12.5 \ -
Lozen \ 30/03/1944 \ City \ 2.8 \ -
Sanokov \ 30/03/1944 \ City \ 2.8 \ -
Dragoman \ 30/03/1944 \ City \ 2.5 \ -
Gana Lakatnik \ 30/03/1944 \ City \ 1.2 \ -
Sofia \ 30/03/1944 \ M/Y \ 754.7 \ 185 tons incendiary
Sofia \ 30/03/1944 \ I/A \ 80.0 \ -
Misc., Bu \ 30/03/1944 \ T/O \ 2.5 \ -
Sofia \ 17/04/1944 \ I/A \ 51.5 \ -
Sofia \ 17/04/1944 \ M/Y \ 412.0 \ -
Karlovo \ 28/06/1944 \ A/F \ 281.5 \ 63.5 tons fragmentation
Lom \ 28/07/1944 \ City \ 2.5 \ -
Misc., Bu \ 17/08/1944 \ T/O \ 2.0 \ -
Lom \ 18/08/1944 \ P/A \ 10.0 \ -
Misc., Bu \ 4/09/1944 \ Hy \ 15.0 \ -
Sofia \ 17/09/1944 \ Evac POWs \ - \ -

Presumably Churchill convinced the 15th AF to mount most of the
raids. And since the Government did not fall until the Red Army
arrived in September the bombings are rated as failures.

Apparently because the Germans increased production from 1941 to
1944 the bombing is rated as a failure, no mention of how inefficient
the German economy was in 1941 for example.

The British Bombing Survey unit is an interesting report, given the
leadership of the RAF and the survey at the time was most associated
with the transport plan as the winning strategy.

It also used a method of calculating area attack effectiveness by
using control cities and comparing them to bombed ones, assuming
only the bombing varied. So for example if a very heavy attack pulls
in resources from the control city or shuts down factories in the control
through lack of materials then the attack clearly did little, as both the
control and bombed city increased production by around the same
amount. So the more effective attacks are the lower the method rates them.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

Rich Rostrom

2013-10-31 16:27:06 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
As for the bombing war really escalating in 1943 I note the USAAF
was apparently doing very little. Bomber Command dropped around
39,200 short tons on Germany in 1942, 148,800 in 1943, 305,500 in
1944 and 197,400 in 1945.
The USAAF dropped 29,000 short tons on Germany in 1943, 320,688
in 1944 and 291,462 in 1945.

The 8th AF obviously had a lot to do before it
could match Bomber Command. The first US bomber
raid on Europe was not until mid-1942.

But I think those figures understate 8th AF
activity in 1943. IIRC the 8th AF made a big
(but futile) effort against the U-boat pens
in France. There may have other similar 8th AF
missions. At that stage of the air war, 8th AF
probably did proportionately more short-range
missions.

Of course Bomber Command was also hitting targets
in France, but I suspect the split was more even
than for Germany - say 60,000 tons/40,000 tons.

That would make the overall split 208,000/69,000.

--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.

http://originalvelvetrevolution.com

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-11-01 14:40:37 UTC

The 8th AF obviously had a lot to do before it
could match Bomber Command. The first US bomber
raid on Europe was not until mid-1942.
But I think those figures understate 8th AF
activity in 1943.

I used Germany as the review was talking about those sorts of attacks.

Post by Rich Rostrom
IIRC the 8th AF made a big
(but futile) effort against the U-boat pens
in France. There may have other similar 8th AF
missions. At that stage of the air war, 8th AF
probably did proportionately more short-range
missions.

Yes, essentially they were working up to having a big enough force to
attack Germany while taking acceptable casualties.

Post by Rich Rostrom
Of course Bomber Command was also hitting targets
in France, but I suspect the split was more even
than for Germany - say 60,000 tons/40,000 tons.
That would make the overall split 208,000/69,000.

The USAAF credits is bombers in the ETO with dropping 55,655 short tons of
bombs in 1943, the 8th and 9th Air forces.

Bomber Command is credited with 157,457 long tons or 176,350 short tons
of bombs in 1943, then add around 5,200 short tons from the 2nd Tactical
Air Force and Fighter Command.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

dumbstruck

2013-10-31 22:59:25 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
And of course the Ju52s shovelling incendiaries out of the cargo doors to
fall on GERMAN troops and Warsaw are apparently not considered, nor
the attack on Rotterdam

I think your meaning was diluted by possible typos and strong understatement
that can be difficult for some of us to decode. It would be nice if you could
read the book and review it online somewhere, maybe in an online magazine or
a letter to them.

The review I posted was from the Spectator which is the last place you
would expect a bias against western heritage, but that is what it appears
to be. The book itself was described as the first one solely on the bombing
war, so should be important to refute any digressions into popular fallacies.

Paul F Austin

2013-11-01 04:18:59 UTC

Post by dumbstruck
Apparently it demonizes Churchill and the allied bombing a great deal, a
popular trend that I warned about here to great skepticism.

They did? It isn't? The Butt report of analysis of post-strike recon
photos (August 1941) indicated that during June and July, one third of
all crews that dropped their bombs returned without claiming to have
bombed their primary targets. The other 2/3 claimed to have dropped on
their primary. Of those, only one third (18% 0f total) dropped within
five miles of the target. In the Ruhr, the fraction dropped to one tenth
of the 66% or ....6% of total.

Paul

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-11-01 14:41:17 UTC

Post by Paul F Austin

Post by dumbstruck
Apparently it demonizes Churchill and the allied bombing a great deal, a
popular trend that I warned about here to great skepticism.

They did?

Yes.

Post by Paul F Austin
It isn't?

No.

Post by Paul F Austin
The Butt report of analysis of post-strike recon photos (August 1941)
indicated that during June and July, one third of all crews that dropped
their bombs returned without claiming to have bombed their primary
targets. The other 2/3 claimed to have dropped on their primary. Of those,
only one third (18% 0f total) dropped within five miles of the target. In
the Ruhr, the fraction dropped to one tenth of the 66% or ....6% of total.

Correct, I should have said until mid 1941, or when the Butt report was
published.

The Bomber Command War Diaries make the point in October 1940 a
force of 3 Whitleys with 3.5 tons of bombs was expected to do real damage
to a synthetic oil plant. In 1944 a raid on the plant was 200 heavy bombers
dropping 1,000 tons of bombs.

It was appreciated in 1940 the "small" targets were hard to find, but that
did not stop the belief in the overall accuracy.

The area bombing directive is dated 14 February 1942.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

Rich Rostrom

2013-07-23 06:15:30 UTC

Post by Geoffrey Sinclair
At the end of the war Harris claimed 33% of Berlin had been destroyed,

That seems a modest estimate. I have no formal
information... But I've seen the 1948 film
_A Foreign Affair_, which is set in post-war
Berlin. It stars Jean Arthur as U.S. Representative
Phoebe Frost, who flies into Berlin to investigate
reports of "fraternization" between U.S. soldiers
and the German population (represented by Marlene
Dietrich as a café singer).

The opening sequence is an aerial shot of Berlin -
and it's hard to believe that 33% of the city is
_left standing_.

Though that may be more true of central Berlin
than the outlying neighborhoods.

--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.

http://originalvelvetrevolution.com

Michael Emrys

2013-07-23 14:34:18 UTC

The opening sequence is an aerial shot of Berlin - and it's hard to
believe that 33% of the city is _left standing_.

But don't for get that in the fighting for the city the Soviets pounded
it pretty well too. Artillery over several days could do a lot of
destruction.

Michael

Mario

2013-07-23 16:01:07 UTC

Post by Michael Emrys

The opening sequence is an aerial shot of Berlin - and it's
hard to believe that 33% of the city is _left standing_.

But don't for get that in the fighting for the city the
Soviets pounded it pretty well too. Artillery over several
days could do a lot of destruction.

I suppose that they are different kinds of destruction, but I am
not sure whether one could differentiate them in a aerial
moving picture.

Artillery breaks walls, air bombs burn the inside.

Moreover, aerial destruction is more spread (area,
bidimensional) while artillery probably was used to
open "highways" for troop movement (linear, monodimensional).

--
_____
/ o o \
\o_o_o/

Geoffrey Sinclair

2013-07-23 15:33:05 UTC