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.

 LordofHats wrote:
WWII was the text book example of total war.

I would also throw Napoleon's march to Russia in there as well.... His little thing showed total war in basically a "pre-industrial" light, and Russia's use of a defensive scorched earth.

WW2 is definitely the textbook example for a modern, industrialized world. We didn't spend so much time going after crops (probably would take too much time and money) but we definitely hit their ability to rearm.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
WWII was the text book example of total war.

I would also throw Napoleon's march to Russia in there as well.... His little thing showed total war in basically a "pre-industrial" light, and Russia's use of a defensive scorched earth.

WW2 is definitely the textbook example for a modern, industrialized world. We didn't spend so much time going after crops (probably would take too much time and money) but we definitely hit their ability to rearm.

While we don't bomb crops, we do bomb supply chains, supply shipping and so on. Starving people is still a goal, but I think it is easier to target supplies which carry food and more than it is to bomb farmland. Plus farmland is huge compared to bombing factories etc.

Maybe another reason is once the food has been processed, sorted, canned/wrapped and then loaded onto trucks and so on it's also a bigger loss when the supplies are destroyed?

Dunno. But it certainly sounds easier to target cities and factories than it does farms, especially when supplies being moved are targeted as well.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
WWII was the text book example of total war.

I would also throw Napoleon's march to Russia in there as well.... His little thing showed total war in basically a "pre-industrial" light, and Russia's use of a defensive scorched earth.

WW2 is definitely the textbook example for a modern, industrialized world. We didn't spend so much time going after crops (probably would take too much time and money) but we definitely hit their ability to rearm.

While we don't bomb crops, we do bomb supply chains, supply shipping and so on. Starving people is still a goal, but I think it is easier to target supplies which carry food and more than it is to bomb farmland. Plus farmland is huge compared to bombing factories etc.

Maybe another reason is once the food has been processed, sorted, canned/wrapped and then loaded onto trucks and so on it's also a bigger loss when the supplies are destroyed?

Dunno. But it certainly sounds easier to target cities and factories than it does farms, especially when supplies being moved are targeted as well.

Bombing crops is quite the waste of resources. You might as well wait for it to be moved and hit them both to double the damage.

Plus, imagine if bombers destroyed a field which was in rest? It's hard to tell from the air what exactly is growing in the ground.

 welshhoppo wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
WWII was the text book example of total war.

I would also throw Napoleon's march to Russia in there as well.... His little thing showed total war in basically a "pre-industrial" light, and Russia's use of a defensive scorched earth.

WW2 is definitely the textbook example for a modern, industrialized world. We didn't spend so much time going after crops (probably would take too much time and money) but we definitely hit their ability to rearm.

While we don't bomb crops, we do bomb supply chains, supply shipping and so on. Starving people is still a goal, but I think it is easier to target supplies which carry food and more than it is to bomb farmland. Plus farmland is huge compared to bombing factories etc.

Maybe another reason is once the food has been processed, sorted, canned/wrapped and then loaded onto trucks and so on it's also a bigger loss when the supplies are destroyed?

Dunno. But it certainly sounds easier to target cities and factories than it does farms, especially when supplies being moved are targeted as well.

Bombing crops is quite the waste of resources. You might as well wait for it to be moved and hit them both to double the damage.

Plus, imagine if bombers destroyed a field which was in rest? It's hard to tell from the air what exactly is growing in the ground.

Yea that was exactly my point. Ultimately warehouses and factories are needed for a lot of food too (which we do bomb) as well as transports etc.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
WWII was the text book example of total war.

I would also throw Napoleon's march to Russia in there as well.... His little thing showed total war in basically a "pre-industrial" light, and Russia's use of a defensive scorched earth.

WW2 is definitely the textbook example for a modern, industrialized world. We didn't spend so much time going after crops (probably would take too much time and money) but we definitely hit their ability to rearm.

While we don't bomb crops, we do bomb supply chains, supply shipping and so on. Starving people is still a goal, but I think it is easier to target supplies which carry food and more than it is to bomb farmland. Plus farmland is huge compared to bombing factories etc.

Maybe another reason is once the food has been processed, sorted, canned/wrapped and then loaded onto trucks and so on it's also a bigger loss when the supplies are destroyed?

Dunno. But it certainly sounds easier to target cities and factories than it does farms, especially when supplies being moved are targeted as well.

Bombing crops is quite the waste of resources. You might as well wait for it to be moved and hit them both to double the damage.

Plus, imagine if bombers destroyed a field which was in rest? It's hard to tell from the air what exactly is growing in the ground.

Yea that was exactly my point. Ultimately warehouses and factories are needed for a lot of food too (which we do bomb) as well as transports etc.

I know, I was agreeing.

Plus cities are easier to hit. Look at Dresden. We caused such a big fire that the bombers didn't even need guiding to reach the city. It lit up the sky.

Besides the "Logistical" hub that one would hit, bomb, nuke, destroy, naval gunfire, C4, weiner legion etc etc etc

You hit main highway intersections, bridges, rail heads, power grid points, etc etc
Fuel points another
Anything that would impede Distro

Let's not forget the logistical support sites to repair those areas

 Jihadin wrote:
Besides the "Logistical" hub that one would hit, bomb, nuke, destroy, naval gunfire, C4, weiner legion etc etc etc

You hit main highway intersections, bridges, rail heads, power grid points, etc etc
Fuel points another
Anything that would impede Distro

Let's not forget the logistical support sites to repair those areas

In modern war sure, you can hit intersections and bridges easy, in WW2 it was a bit harder. High level bombing was super inaccurate. In the west you could run CAS missions from Britain, and later from captured air fields in france but it wasn't so easy in Japan, being being of miles from anything.

In the early war the most accurate you could get was "We hit the correct city, sometimes", by late war it was "We can hit that factory, probably". For accurate destruction you need typhoons and thunderbolts buzzing around messing up bridges, trains, railheads and truck convoys.

 EmilCrane wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Besides the "Logistical" hub that one would hit, bomb, nuke, destroy, naval gunfire, C4, weiner legion etc etc etc

You hit main highway intersections, bridges, rail heads, power grid points, etc etc
Fuel points another
Anything that would impede Distro

Let's not forget the logistical support sites to repair those areas

In modern war sure, you can hit intersections and bridges easy, in WW2 it was a bit harder. High level bombing was super inaccurate. In the west you could run CAS missions from Britain, and later from captured air fields in france but it wasn't so easy in Japan, being being of miles from anything.

In the early war the most accurate you could get was "We hit the correct city, sometimes", by late war it was "We can hit that factory, probably". For accurate destruction you need typhoons and thunderbolts buzzing around messing up bridges, trains, railheads and truck convoys.

I was certain they could target certain sections of city. Of course at night your goal is deprive sleep and disrupt the community etc, but at day if they read the maps right I was sure they could target sections.

I also saw a video once of an American bomber crew who flew their old plane from ww2 (wasn;t their plane but the same type) and they dropped a dummy bomb and hit their target. But that was a long time ago...

 Swastakowey wrote:

I was certain they could target certain sections of city. Of course at night your goal is deprive sleep and disrupt the community etc, but at day if they read the maps right I was sure they could target sections.

Yeah, I've seen pretty similar stuff around. It's why in places not named Dresden that were in Germany, largely still had churches that were intact. The bombardier used the church as his main focal point, and made calculations for the bombs based on that.

Yeah as I said late war they could target sections of a city, but its not not accurate enough to hit specific bridges or intersections.

 EmilCrane wrote:
Yeah as I said late war they could target sections of a city, but its not not accurate enough to hit specific bridges or intersections.

I am fairly sure during the Spanish civil war they targeted areas of city. How come planes bombers could hit airfields? I know some where huge but still.

I get buildings were targets for smaller planes or fighters with rockets, much like those planes that targeted tanks and so on. But I think the heavy duty bombers targeted areas for practical reasons. I don't know about all nations, but what the Japanese did with their various bombers was use a bracket bombing method. 3 planes would drop their bombs on a target, middle on directly on top, left one to the left and right one to the right. This was done so that it increased the chance of hitting a target from greater heights without relying on a single payload to do the job. This is how they dropped the bombs at Pearl Harbour (not torpedoes) and it was apparently effective.

They could also hit rail roads with larger bombers, but it was deemed a waste of time because rail roads could easily be repaired. I think targets like that however are not worth trying for when you are doing massed bombing runs with large formations of planes, because the whole formation would have to try co ordinate the bombing and it would be a mess.

I don't think they were as inaccurate as they seem. I think it has more to do with the method of bombing. When those bombers are flying in large wings being pelted by air defenses of various kinds it makes navigating and attempting to hit specific targets pretty dangerous. Makes sense they instead target areas.

 EmilCrane wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Besides the "Logistical" hub that one would hit, bomb, nuke, destroy, naval gunfire, C4, weiner legion etc etc etc

You hit main highway intersections, bridges, rail heads, power grid points, etc etc
Fuel points another
Anything that would impede Distro

Let's not forget the logistical support sites to repair those areas

In modern war sure, you can hit intersections and bridges easy, in WW2 it was a bit harder. High level bombing was super inaccurate. In the west you could run CAS missions from Britain, and later from captured air fields in france but it wasn't so easy in Japan, being being of miles from anything.

In the early war the most accurate you could get was "We hit the correct city, sometimes", by late war it was "We can hit that factory, probably". For accurate destruction you need typhoons and thunderbolts buzzing around messing up bridges, trains, railheads and truck convoys.

Even by late war, American bombers still had trouble even hitting the correct country at times. Switzerland was bombed several times. So often in fact, that the Swiss airforce started shooting down American bombers on sight.
Not sure the British were much more accurate in general, but I do know they were pretty effective at hitting dams, viaducts etc. with their bouncing bombs and grand slams. I think the inaccuracy of Allied bombers was as much because of unwillingness to limit collateral damage as due to technological limitations.

Also something I'd like to say: The concept of total war by no means justifies the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent people with (incendiary) bombardments. The Allied powers were by no means the good guys of the war, they were all pretty fond of slaughtering German civilians. Sure, destroying military infrastructure is important, but that by no means is an excuse for the many atrocities committed by the UK, US and USSR, especially not in 1945, when Germany was already virtually defeated. There exist no excuse for the mass murder of civilians commited in places like Dresden and Königsberg. It is a shame that the p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ creatures responsible for that were never persecuted. And this is also true of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and every other instance of terror bombing.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Even by late war, American bombers still had trouble even hitting the correct country at times. Switzerland was bombed several times. So often in fact, that the Swiss airforce started shooting down American bombers on sight.

Can you provide a source for that?? It sounds, well... out there, but would be a good bit of info to hang onto for later

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Even by late war, American bombers still had trouble even hitting the correct country at times. Switzerland was bombed several times. So often in fact, that the Swiss airforce started shooting down American bombers on sight.

Can you provide a source for that?? It sounds, well... out there, but would be a good bit of info to hang onto for later

Wow he isn't wrong...

But it is not due to inaccurate bombs but navigation mistakes I will point out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombings_of_Switzerland_in_World_War_II

 Swastakowey wrote:

 EmilCrane wrote:
Yeah as I said late war they could target sections of a city, but its not not accurate enough to hit specific bridges or intersections.

I am fairly sure during the Spanish civil war they targeted areas of city. How come planes bombers could hit airfields? I know some where huge but still.

I get buildings were targets for smaller planes or fighters with rockets, much like those planes that targeted tanks and so on. But I think the heavy duty bombers targeted areas for practical reasons. I don't know about all nations, but what the Japanese did with their various bombers was use a bracket bombing method. 3 planes would drop their bombs on a target, middle on directly on top, left one to the left and right one to the right. This was done so that it increased the chance of hitting a target from greater heights without relying on a single payload to do the job. This is how they dropped the bombs at Pearl Harbour (not torpedoes) and it was apparently effective.

They could also hit rail roads with larger bombers, but it was deemed a waste of time because rail roads could easily be repaired. I think targets like that however are not worth trying for when you are doing massed bombing runs with large formations of planes, because the whole formation would have to try co ordinate the bombing and it would be a mess.

I don't think they were as inaccurate as they seem. I think it has more to do with the method of bombing. When those bombers are flying in large wings being pelted by air defenses of various kinds it makes navigating and attempting to hit specific targets pretty dangerous. Makes sense they instead target areas.

When people talk about the inaccuracy of bombing they are talking about high level bombing. At pearl harbour the japanese could fly as low as they wanted because there was no reason not to. When bombing cities you have to deal with flak, interceptors and even barrage balloons (those blimp things you see in ww2 pictures, they're for keeping low flying planes away). When you can fly low you can hit whatever you want, the bombing wasn't that inaccurate. But at the altitudes strategic bombers flew at hitting things was a bit harder.

In the spanish civil war the Nationalists had pretty much complete air superiority once they got access to the bf 109, but flying over germany in 1943 was another matter.

 Bromsy wrote:
Well, if we are talking casualties in total; then yeah ... millions would be fairly easy. Military casualties solely on the allied side - probably not. Invading a nation and ripping up it's infrastructure - especially considering it's a net food importer means that a whole lot of civilians are going to be starving to death and/or dying of disease, and in a nation of 70 odd million people 'millions dying' is not that unlikely.

Maybe, if resistance was effectively attempted. The point being, of course, we have no idea if such a resistance would have occurred.

 Swastakowey wrote:

Wow he isn't wrong...

But it is not due to inaccurate bombs but navigation mistakes I will point out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombings_of_Switzerland_in_World_War_II

You really do learn something new everyday, lol

Ironically, I'm reminded a bit of John McClane in Live Free or Die Hard, when he's in the hacker kid's apartment and breaks the figurine, was all "oops... I'm totally (not) sorry I broke your doll thing"

The Swiss never to my knowledge retaliated for the bombings that took place over the course of the war. They lodged complaints with Allied command, and there was a single court martial for incompetence in once instance.

It is a shame that the p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ creatures responsible for that were never persecuted.

Probably for the same reason that Donitz got a free pass on unrestricted submarine warfare; everyone was doing it and punishing anyone in particular for the act was hypocritical and pointless.

 EmilCrane wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

 EmilCrane wrote:
Yeah as I said late war they could target sections of a city, but its not not accurate enough to hit specific bridges or intersections.

I am fairly sure during the Spanish civil war they targeted areas of city. How come planes bombers could hit airfields? I know some where huge but still.

I get buildings were targets for smaller planes or fighters with rockets, much like those planes that targeted tanks and so on. But I think the heavy duty bombers targeted areas for practical reasons. I don't know about all nations, but what the Japanese did with their various bombers was use a bracket bombing method. 3 planes would drop their bombs on a target, middle on directly on top, left one to the left and right one to the right. This was done so that it increased the chance of hitting a target from greater heights without relying on a single payload to do the job. This is how they dropped the bombs at Pearl Harbour (not torpedoes) and it was apparently effective.

They could also hit rail roads with larger bombers, but it was deemed a waste of time because rail roads could easily be repaired. I think targets like that however are not worth trying for when you are doing massed bombing runs with large formations of planes, because the whole formation would have to try co ordinate the bombing and it would be a mess.

I don't think they were as inaccurate as they seem. I think it has more to do with the method of bombing. When those bombers are flying in large wings being pelted by air defenses of various kinds it makes navigating and attempting to hit specific targets pretty dangerous. Makes sense they instead target areas.

When people talk about the inaccuracy of bombing they are talking about high level bombing. At pearl harbour the japanese could fly as low as they wanted because there was no reason not to. When bombing cities you have to deal with flak, interceptors and even barrage balloons (those blimp things you see in ww2 pictures, they're for keeping low flying planes away). When you can fly low you can hit whatever you want, the bombing wasn't that inaccurate. But at the altitudes strategic bombers flew at hitting things was a bit harder.

In the spanish civil war the Nationalists had pretty much complete air superiority once they got access to the bf 109, but flying over germany in 1943 was another matter.

That was my point though, it's not that they couldn't but the method prevented it. In order to do their work they had to sacrifice specific targets and take on areas. I thought you were trying to say that they could not hit targets etc.

 LordofHats wrote:
The Swiss never to my knowledge retaliated for the bombings that took place over the course of the war. They lodged complaints with Allied command, and there was a single court martial f`or incompetence in once instance.

They did however make it clear that they would begin actively intercepting and shooting down formations of aircraft over their skies in the future, and interning/forcing away single aircraft

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

Wow he isn't wrong...

But it is not due to inaccurate bombs but navigation mistakes I will point out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombings_of_Switzerland_in_World_War_II

You really do learn something new everyday, lol

Ironically, I'm reminded a bit of John McClane in Live Free or Die Hard, when he's in the hacker kid's apartment and breaks the figurine, was all "oops... I'm totally (not) sorry I broke your doll thing"

Yea news to me too. Thought it was one of those random WW2 rumours that people sprout but yea. Among the silly stuff that people say in WW2 it is always the sillier stuff that never gets mentioned that are true haha.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
The Swiss never to my knowledge retaliated for the bombings that took place over the course of the war. They lodged complaints with Allied command, and there was a single court martial f`or incompetence in once instance.

They did however make it clear that they would begin actively intercepting and shooting down formations of aircraft over their skies in the future, and interning/forcing away single aircraft

Well it's easy for the Swiss to say that when the war was ending

The Swiss government seemed to have reluctantly allowed Allied bombers to pass through their air space in the later years of the war, despite pressure from Germany to take a more aggressive stance. Then again, the Swiss and 'aggressive' does seem like an oxymoron

To anyone who's still in this thread thinking that dropping the bomb can be simply assessed as either justified or not, here's two quotes from Churchill;

"We seemed suddenly to have become possessed of a merciful abridgement of the slaughter in the East and of a far happier prospect in Europe. I have no doubt these thoughts were present in the minds of my American friends. At any rate there never was a moment's discussion as to whether the atomic bomb should be used or not. To avert a vast, indefinite butchery, to bring a war to an end, to give peace to the world, to lay healing hands upon its tortured peoples by manifestation of overwhelming power at the cost of a few explosions, seemed after all our toils and perils, a miracle of deliverance."

"It would be a mistake to suppose that the fate of Japan was settled by the atomic bomb. Her defeat was certain before the first bomb fell, and was brought about by overwhelming maritime power. This alone had made it possible to seize ocean bases from which to launch the final attack and force her metropolitan army to capitulate without striking a blow. Her shipping had been destroyed."

Two quotes from Churchill, one that states clearly that the bomb was the means to end the bloodshed, the second conceding that by the time the bomb was used perhaps it wasn't needed. Churchill was never too bothered about using a little historical editing to wipe away contradictions or complications, but here on the bomb even he can't help but show how complex, and perhaps unanswerable the question of the bomb really was.

So to say that it's clear that the bomb must be justified as we knew occupation would be contested until the end is just hopelessly, ridiculously simplistic. And it is just as simple to blindly condemn the use of the bomb as obviously unnecessary. No-one knows, and no-one can no what would have happened if Japan was finally invaded.

 LordofHats wrote:
The Swiss never to my knowledge retaliated for the bombings that took place over the course of the war. They lodged complaints with Allied command, and there was a single court martial for incompetence in once instance.

They did shoot down several Allied planes though, even though they did not dare to attack the large formations. Several Swiss aircraft were shot down as well according to this Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland_during_the_World_Wars#World_War_II
I once borrowed a book which went into a lot of detail about the negotiations between the Allies and Swiss. I believe it was A History of Europe in the 20th Century by Eric Dorn Brose, but I am not sure.

 LordofHats wrote:

It is a shame that the p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ creatures responsible for that were never persecuted.

Probably for the same reason that Donitz got a free pass on unrestricted submarine warfare; everyone was doing it and punishing anyone in particular for the act was hypocritical and pointless.

''But everyone else did it too'' is not a valid excuse. Dönitz should not have been given a free pass, neither should have other Nazi criminals and neither should have war criminals on the Allied side. I understand the politics behind it, but that does not change the fact that it is just plain wrong.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I understand the politics behind it, but that does not change the fact that it is just plain wrong.

War is wrong (full stop). Setting that state aside, acts of war covered by the concept of military necessity become accepted practice. It's just the way things are.

Granted there were a lot of war crimes committed by the Allies that came with no or little punishment. The desecration of bodies by US Marines was ordered to be punished but punishment not netted out generally. Execution of POWs on numerous occasions by the US and USSR that tended to get brushed away. Hundreds of German POWs were executed under orders from command officers in response to the liberation of Dauchau. After the Malmedy Massacre orders were actually issued that US troops shoot SS on sight, even if they were surrendering. Frequent unprosecuted rapes in occupied and allied territories. The USSR was the only Allied nation to execute systematic mass rape, but the US and Britain were not completely innocent (As many as 2000 English women were raped by US GI's in WWII with allied command holding less than 200 courts-martial for the offences). Britain launched several attacks on neutral parties (the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kébir) violated numerous international treaties. The USSR not only mass executed POWs, they held Germany and Japanese POWs for years after the war ended and then executed them rather than repatriate them.

The Allies won, and they swept a lot of nastiness under the rug, or simply ignored it while parading German and Japanese war criminals through trial. If we want to talk about that, we totally can, but the strategic bombing campaign simply isn't in that realm. Unrestricted submarine warfare, strategic bombing, and yes, even terror bombing, were an accepted wartime practice by all parties. The natural state of war is that things that are normally unacceptable and even unthinkable start sliding down the hill into something we just do. There's a blurry line between the military doing horrible things with the intention of ending a war and people at war doing horrible things because they can but the line exists. The morality and ethics can be debated, but there's just nothing in there to apologize about, or for anyone to feel any particular guilt over. That which is is.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
The Swiss never to my knowledge retaliated for the bombings that took place over the course of the war. They lodged complaints with Allied command, and there was a single court martial for incompetence in once instance.

They did shoot down several Allied planes though, even though they did not dare to attack the large formations. Several Swiss aircraft were shot down as well according to this Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland_during_the_World_Wars#World_War_II
I once borrowed a book which went into a lot of detail about the negotiations between the Allies and Swiss. I believe it was A History of Europe in the 20th Century by Eric Dorn Brose, but I am not sure.

 LordofHats wrote:

It is a shame that the p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ creatures responsible for that were never persecuted.

Probably for the same reason that Donitz got a free pass on unrestricted submarine warfare; everyone was doing it and punishing anyone in particular for the act was hypocritical and pointless.

''But everyone else did it too'' is not a valid excuse. Dönitz should not have been given a free pass, neither should have other Nazi criminals and neither should have war criminals on the Allied side. I understand the politics behind it, but that does not change the fact that it is just plain wrong.

Donitz had his charges dropped on the submarine count because they were charging him with what had become accepted standard use of submarines during war. Germany, Japan, US, UK, and USSR submarines all engaged in the same sort of unrestricted submarine warfare, and nobody, not the US, not the USSR, and not the UK, was going to put their own guys on trial for it.

Unrestricted submarine warfare is also basically necessary for the use of submarines in anything but a fleet-support role. When navies tried to abide by the old "prize" rules, where they had to give notice and let the civilian ship disembark and all that, such ships would often either radio distress signals and position information, or resist, and the use of Q-ships (armed merchantmen with disguised armaments) made it suicide for Submarines to attempt this as they would be immediately fired upon. There was also the issue that Germany ran into in WW1 where, had she avoided targeting ships with neutral foreign nationals aboard, all the opponent would need to do is put one on every ship to make it invulnerable to attack. That said, German submarines would sometimes attempt to provide assistance to surviving crew of ships they'd sunk and attempt to organize rescue in some cases, but they stopped after US planes attacked a U-Boat engaged in such an endeavor (the Laconia incident).


The way they went about doing it was largely probably the best way. Punish those behind the aggressive strategic plans, punish those that engaged in what essentially were non-combat atrocities (such as the death camps, killing of PoW's, use of slave labor), and leave aside the questionable combat methods.

Every major combat commander of the US, USSR, UK, Italy, France, and Japan would have been on trial otherwise. From the firebombing of Tokyo, to the the mass pillaging of Germany, the willfulll killing of many captured Japanese personnel, bomber attacks and massed artillery bombardment of cities like Cologne/Berlin/Budapest/Essen//Konigsberg/Vyborg/etc and a whole lot more.

Notice also nobody wanted to talk about the invasions of 3rd party powers like Finland or Bulgaria, or the British attack on the French Fleet, during such trials.

There was a fair amount of Victor's Justice, and ultimately there's no avoiding that, but at the same time, not charging Donitz regarding the submarines was probably fair.

I disagree. It is quite clear that the Germans deliberately planned and executed the most dreadful crimes against humanity, in pursuit of a strategic plan to aggressively enslave the whole continent.

The western allies, who after all were only defending themselves, had some incidents in which war crimes such as execution of prisoners took place -- these were few in number, small in scale, unplanned, and took place in hot blood retaliation for newly discovered German crimes. With about 10 million men in arms, it would be impossible for every single one of them to be squeaky clean forever.

It is silly and immoral to equate the criminality of the two sides.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I disagree. It is quite clear that the Germans deliberately planned and executed the most dreadful crimes against humanity, in pursuit of a strategic plan to aggressively enslave the whole continent.

The western allies, who after all were only defending themselves, had some incidents in which war crimes such as execution of prisoners took place -- these were few in number, small in scale, unplanned, and took place in hot blood retaliation for newly discovered German crimes. With about 10 million men in arms, it would be impossible for every single one of them to be squeaky clean forever.

It is silly and immoral to equate the criminality of the two sides.

While I would accept that as broadly true, it wasn't quite that clean, and there was a lot more than just isolated instances of bad behavior. For instance, in the Pacific it was almost official written open US policy to not take prisoners, even in the rare cases the Japanese did attempt to surrender, until very late in the war. Then there were the large scale bombing raids were conducted on both Japanese and German cities, with the specific and planned intention, of killing large numbers of civilians and destroying private property and civil infrastructure for its own sake. And of course the joint British-Soviet invasion of neutral Iran, and more.

Another point made on bombing accuracy.


When we sank the Tirpitz, we managed to hit it squarely with tallboys and grand slams, whilst it was hiding in a fjord.

As for Donitz, the American Chief of the Submarine Corps actually defended him during the trial, stating how American Submarine tactics were identical and that they didn't take prisoners.

Under the prewar submarine code of honour. A submarine was supposed to surface and demand a surrender. Then let everyone get off the Submarine before sinking it. In practice however. It was Impossible to do, because it makes the Submarine a giant sitting duck.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Another point made on bombing accuracy.
When we sank the Tirpitz, we managed to hit it squarely with tallboys and grand slams, whilst it was hiding in a fjord.

Three lancaster raids on the tirpitz, all of them involving 20+ bombers, one scored one hit, one scored no hits and the third scored two hits, which sunk her. Impressive considering the mitigating factors, but as a whole high level bombing was not a good way to sink ships