In World War II, the Ruhr area was one of primary targets of the Allied air forces. This industrial region was the “Armory of the Third Reich” with no question as at the beginning of the 20th century Westphalia region played an important role in the manufactoring of arms. That is why already in World War I Britain and French planned air attacks on individual industrial cities there, like Essen, Duisburg, Oberhausen and Hagen. When in September 1939 World War II broke out, the Rhine-Ruhr-area topped the list of targets for attacks of British plans for the strategic air war against Germany.
During the first two years of the war, the numerous railroad installations and synthetic oil plants in particular were important targets for attacks by the Bomber Command of the Royal Air Force. In the fall of 1941 the opinion gained acceptance in the British target-planning committees that the precision attacks on individual instustrial plants since May 1940 had had no results. Following the German air attacks on British cities in the fall of 1940 and the spring of 1941, which in London alone had caused about 20,000 deaths, the British Air Ministry and the War Cabinet developped plans for area attacks on German industrial cities such as Cologne, Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Essen and Hamburg. By dropping incendiary bombs on a massive scale the residential and business quarters in the cities were to destroyed as well as the war- morale of the civil population to be hit. By a “1000-bomber-raid” on Cologne in the night of May 29/30, 1942, major material damage and a great number of casualties were for the first time caused in a big German city. Running parallel to their air raids, the Allies conducted an exensive psychological warfare.
In addition, since 1942 units of the American 8th USAAF were stationed in Britain. At the conference of Churchill and Roosevelt held in Casablanca in January 1943, a combined bombing offensive by the British and U.S. air forces had been agreed upon. The Americans were to attack important industrial plants and cities in Germany mainly during the day.
Avaliable planes are different for every frame of the this TOD. Here you have them listed:
Axis
Fw 190A-5
Fw 190A-8
Fw 190D-9
Bf 109G-2
Bf 109G-6
Bf 109G-10
Bf 110C-4b
Me 262 (limited)
Ta 152H (limited)
Allies
Lancaster III
B-17G
P-51B
P51D
P-47D-11
P-47D-30
P-38L
Spitfire Mk IX
There will be one NIGHT frame and we are going to fly on two terrains - Eurpoe and Big Week.
Flossy will set up the whole thing :-)
Squad CO's, please pick a side you want to fly for and announce it pretty soon here!
Thank you.
