Originally posted by plank
I remember seeing something on the military channel recently about an allied bombing of a ball-bearing factory that nearly crippled the lufftwaffe. I can't recall the date that this occured but I do remember them stating that if there had been a follow-up raid, it would have been catostrophic.
The Schweinfurt raids on 17 August and 14 October 1943.
Schweinfurt contained five ball bearing factories essential to German fighter production and it was believed that their destruction would cause a bottleneck in the process.
Out of the 376 bombers (8th USAAF) sent on the first raid (230 to Schweinfurt, 146 to nearby Regensburg), the largest number yet dispatched by the USAAF, 147 were lost. On the second raid 60 were destroyed out of 291, and 142 were damaged, a loss rate of 19%.
The raids prompted the Germans to move some of their ball-bearing production elsewhere. Damaged factories were quickly rebuilt, double shifts were introduced, and production returned to normal.
The Big Week campaign (Feb 1944) of bombing the ball-bearing factories didn't succeed much better, little long-term damage was done with a high loss rate.