Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Russian tactics consisted of,

1) Shoot lots of big guns(>9000) at a target till its dead.

2) Send in wave after wave of tanks, the first couple waves wrecks will provide cover to the following waves.

3) As #2 but with infantry.

4) combine all of the above at the same time

As you point out, the major impact of each was the damage inflicted on the Luftwaffe. But much of that damage was done not with by the bombs dropped, but in the drain of fighters as German fighter losses mounted in countering the constant bomber raids.

I don't know, I'm just an armchair general, but it just seems to me that there would have to be a better way to draw down the power of the Luftwaffe.

There is also the serious drain on manpower that it caused the germans. Something in the range of 1-2 million soldiers were kept from the front lines to man air defenses and other such anti-bombing shenanigans.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Russian tactics consisted of,

1) Shoot lots of big guns(>9000) at a target till its dead.

2) Send in wave after wave of tanks, the first couple waves wrecks will provide cover to the following waves.

3) As #2 but with infantry.

4) combine all of the above at the same time

Not really, no. Russian operational doctrine was exceptional, their deception operations and unit co-ordination at the strategic level is basically what everyone since has looked to emulate. You don't achieve Uranus with what you describe above.

It's only once you get down to the tactical level that you notice the lack of properly trained junior officers and Russian units starting to act more like blunt force objects.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ratbarf wrote:
There is also the serious drain on manpower that it caused the germans. Something in the range of 1-2 million soldiers were kept from the front lines to man air defenses and other such anti-bombing shenanigans.

Somewhere around 2 million soldiers were kept away from the Russian front, but that's because they were operating in North Africa, Italy, France and Finland - guarding those positions from allied landings.

In terms of draining away resources due to the bombing campaign you see fighter planes drawn away from the Eastern Front, and you see the construction of those vast flak towers, but only the former is really material in the scheme of the war.

My problem really, is that when the debate is on whether bombing campaign made any difference at all, it becomes clear that whatever difference it made it certainly wasn't enough of a difference to be worthwhile, when you consider the resources and men it cost.

I like to think about the Strategic air campaign like a lot of very expensive, resource intensive things in the war. It was a theoretical model that didn't bear up under actual war time conditions. Strategic bombing of cities doesn't crush an enemy nation's will to fight. It does not sufficiently destroy the manufacturing capacity.

I would say that bombing rail heads, bridges, and other transportation hubs was probably the greatest contribution of the air campaign. By the end of the war, it was easier for replacement parts and men to be shipped 4000 miles from America than it was for the Germans to get people to the Sigfried line.

I would chalk strategic bombing up along with mass airborne drops, air mobile/air assault operations, and thing like drones and UAS centric warfare as situationally useful in limited conflicts, but not realistic in actual total war scenarios.

 AustonT wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
Wait, wut?

Oh, this Nazi thing of yours again...

That's not quite what I took away from this. He appears to think that revisionist history will make it so Oceania will have always been at war with Eastasia.

And it has always been allies with Eurasia.

Also, they invented the helicopter.

But chocolate rations have increased.

 d-usa wrote:
But chocolate rations have increased.

But we are low on razorblades.

Share your blades comrades!

I thought it was the airplane?

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:
I like to think about the Strategic air campaign like a lot of very expensive, resource intensive things in the war. It was a theoretical model that didn't bear up under actual war time conditions. Strategic bombing of cities doesn't crush an enemy nation's will to fight. It does not sufficiently destroy the manufacturing capacity.

I would say that bombing rail heads, bridges, and other transportation hubs was probably the greatest contribution of the air campaign. By the end of the war, it was easier for replacement parts and men to be shipped 4000 miles from America than it was for the Germans to get people to the Sigfried line.

I would chalk strategic bombing up along with mass airborne drops, air mobile/air assault operations, and thing like drones and UAS centric warfare as situationally useful in limited conflicts, but not realistic in actual total war scenarios.

That's a really good summary.