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Almost all the bombing done by Bomber Command was area bombing because the couldn't get accurate enough to hit specific targets
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45% of the bombing done by BC was area bombing, 55% attacks on precision targets.
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Interesting fact about Hamburg was the firestorm only resulted in 45 days of lost production
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Bear in mind that Hamburg was the largest armaments centre in Germany, and that the city suffered an equivalent to
total loss of production for a significant period. As Middlebrook puts it:
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The general conclusion was that the Battle of Hamburg caused a loss of war production equivalent to the normal output of the entire city for 1.8 months of full production. Output returned to 80 per cent of normal within five months but full recovery was never achieved.
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He gives as an example U boat production, with estimates that lost production accounted for 23 - 27 boats.
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I don't think it's that ridiculous Njaco, the reason being that it's true. Why else bomb the major cities when it was well known that the factories weren't located there ?
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Factories were located in the cities. The German police report on the damage at Hamburg, for example, lists the following destruction:
Industrial and war-industry firms 580
Warehouses 7
Office buildings 379
Commercial premises (mostly shops etc.) 2,632
Banks, insurance offices etc. 88
Public utility premises 13
Transport premises 13
Public offices 145
Nazi Party offices 112
Military premises 80
Police, fire and civil-defence premises 197
Bridges 12
But the theory behind area bombing is that even the factories that aren't hit directly still lose production, because of disruption to water, gas and electricity supplies, blocked roads, scattered workers etc.
Middlebrook gives the example of Blohm und Voss shipyards in Hamburg, which suffered very little direct damage.
Before the raids on Hamburg, Blohm und Voss had 9,000 workers show up each day.
The day after the heaviest raid, 300 turned up for work.
A couple of days later 1,500 were back at work.
On the 1st September, more than a month after the raids, 5000 were showing up each day.
1st October, 2 months later, it was 7000.
1st November, 3 months after the raids, 7500.
In Hamburg war industries as a whole, on 1st October, 2 months after the raids, the percentage reduction in workers:
German men - 37.7%
German women - 55.4%
Foreign men - 60.2%
Foreign women - 66.7%
Total - 47.7%
And the reduction wasn't because the workers had been killed. The total death toll at Hamburg was about 45,000 out of a population of about 1.5 million. That's about 3%.
Not only was the percentage decline in industrial workers much larger than the overall percentage killed, but it was much larger in absolute numbers. At the start of October, 2 months after the bombing, attendance at Hamburg's war industries was down from 634,000 to 331,300. Over 300,000 workers had disappeared.
The difference between bombing (on all sides) and the holocaust is that bombing was intended to win the war by attacking the enemy. The holocaust was intended to eradicate those
designated as enemies, even though they were doing nothing to help the enemy war effort.
..I to am American and support my country ..And even the war in Iraq.. Just think the bomb was not as precision as history makes it out to be ..And my statements were not against the US in ww2 at all.. Its just with the tec at the time it was hard to get bombs that close..And "I" feel the the Germans and Japanese started it and they got what was coming to them to stop what they started...I to will and have on this forum stood up for what MY country did ...No shame here.. 
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