The USAAF did build an overwhelming force of fighters and fighter bombers along with the heavies.
You miss the point. It could have been 3x as overwhelming and without the losses they sacrificed in bomber crews.
That's why there was barely a Luftwaffe at the end of the war and why the German Army could only launch an offensive like they in in December of 44 depending on bad weather to keep Allied Tactical Air Forces grounded.
Why are you arguing this? You're trying to argue the usefullness of Bomber Command while telling me that the Germans only moved when Tactical air units were grounded by weather. I agree. The German forces were more affected by tactical air power than bombers.
Yes Germany was still producing a large numbers of fighters late in the war but they didnt have the experianced pilots of the past thanks to Allied fighters,
Again, because fighters cleared the sky. Are you having trouble remembering which argument your trying to make?
and they didnt have fuel to persecute the war offensively anymore thanks to the bombing of their oil and rail networks.
The Germans had fuel. Bombers did not change that. and they tried desparately to get it to their forces, but roving fighter bombers prevented any road travel. Downed Rail stations are an inconvenience, but they dont stop trains from moving.
Ask Japan about about the ability of strategic bombing to win a war.
Are you seriously suggesting strategic bombing defeated Japan?
The ability to do precision strikes by any aircraft wasn't achieved until Vietnam and even then it was in its infancy.
And that was because thick headed Army brass wouldnt let go of the heavy bomber. Kinda like what's going on here. And no, Vietnam wasn't the infancy stage of precision strikes, WW2 was. They didnt call it precision because compared to the weapons and aiming avionics of Vietnam, it wasn't considered precise. But Japanese dive bombers at Pearl Harbor were certainly precision strikes just as much as allied fighters shooting train cars with machine guns.
In order to get to the last leg of fuel dispersal, the fuel had to go through all the preceding legs. Those legs were by rail. When Eisenhower ordered the RAF and 8th AF to switch from "strategic" targets to transportation targets, those targets were marshalling yards in France, Germany and elsewhere. The strategic bombing survey has a chart that shows the enormous amount of ordnance which was dropped by the heavies on those targets, crippling the rail transportation system.
Destroying a marshaling yard does not stop a train. The cars were without a doubt stopped just outside the yard and unloaded at some incidental inconvenience. And they very likely turned around on a temporary fix of the system. It's not difficult. The fighters killed locomotives, they conducted "PRECISION" strikes on vital bridges. That was what crippled the rail system.
The fuel wasn't making it to the tank trucks
Fuel was making it to trucks and to the front lines. The Germans never stopped fighting with tanks or planes. No doubt in short supply, but it was short because of fighters.
Had we been able to hit the transportation systems in the Balkans, closer to the oil production facilities, the effect would have been even more pronounced.
1x0=0 Bombers were a waste of money.
Waves of P-35s, P-36s, P-39s and P-40s would not have accomplished what the B-17s and B-24s did.
You're right. It would have been silly to waste good mens lives trying to accomplish half of the useless attacks the bombers made.
If nothing else, they couldn't carry bombs and had comparatively pathetic range. The ability of fighters to carry heavy ordnance loads, and to deliver them with any accuracy at a reasonable distance from their bases, didn't occur until the middle of the war
Again, due to stubborn brass that refused to admit they could be wrong and dictated development and procurement to match their beliefs.
Oddly enough, the notion that strategic bombing in WWII was unsuccessful didn't come up until the Viet Nam war. You can read all of the sources, by all of the participants, written during the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s and you won't find any of them that say "hey, strategic bombing was a failure!" It was only when Rolling Thunder was producing questionable results, and the anti-war movement was gaining strength, that you first started to see people proclaiming that strategic bombing had never worked - as justification for why it should have been discontinued in the 1960s.
Apparently you are unfamiliar with the manner and lengths the military and government will go to protect its reputation.
Do you think if some officer in the US military would have done his own assessment of the results of strategic bombing that you would have seen it before Vietnam?
Do you know what happens when you buck the system in the military? I'll tell you in two words... Billy Mitchell. His story is the epitome of how stubborn and in-adaptable high command was.
Even today, you will not get the US military to admit the failings of strategic bombing. It will not happen for another hundred years.