First, pardon the thread hijack.
Second, thanks for reading my post for its content and not as a flame.
Third, brace for a wall of text.
Not wrong at all. Freeman is one of the many authors who make this point (in "The Mighty Eighth" in Freeman's instance).
I’m not familiar with Freeman’s work. I should be embarrassed as I was actually in the 8th AF.
You only need to study the number of missions from mid-1944 on to see that the bombers were frequently sent out over very marginal weather coverage, often having to bomb alternate targets or through the clouds, to appreciate that the goal wasn't to obliterate ground targets, but instead to draw up the Luftwaffe and kill its pilots.
Launching into potentially bad weather is nothing more than being in the “go” mode. The culture in the Air Force, and all branches probably, discouraged canceling missions.
I do believe that the destruction of the German Air Force was a primary mission of all Allied Air Forces. It still makes sense today. Air forces and air defenses are first day targets, assigned to the best, stealthiest assets.
My reaction was to the thought that the bombers were auxiliaries in the background of the glamorous fighter pilots. Bombers were more expensive to build, support and man than fighters. If strategic planners were to make strictly economic decisions, heavy bombers would not be produced. How did that work out for Germany?
After the disastrous March, 1944 raid on Nuremberg the RAF stopped sending its bombers on deep penetration raids into Germany until quite near the end of the war.
March 1944 seems late.
The question of why bomb at night is to refute the bombers as bait premise. If the RAF wanted to bait German pilots into the air, they would have continued daylight raids.
Actually in the 1st quarter of 1944 to the end of the war, the AAF was tasked with destroying the luftwaffe and the objective was to eliminate it as a cohesive fighting force.
All the Best...
Jay
Fits into the air supremacy for the D-Day landings.
So, once the German Air Force was rendered impotent, what were the Allies to do? Put on air shows?
I am going from memory, but the Allies had something like 30:1 sorties compared the Germans on June 6, 1944. I’ll bet Goering complained about hordes.
I'm tired of doing the old BBS battle.
Snailman out.
![salute :salute](http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/salute.gif)
Snailman a.k.a. Lusche
Bummer. Your posts are usually reasoned and civil. Your graphs are legendary.