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With the benefit of hindsight, what were the "best", or what should have been the primary targets?
The problem here is "1944". That's far too late. RAF Bomber Command should be doing something useful NLT 1940. Otherwise they are a waste of British tax money.
The problem here is "1944". That's far too late. RAF Bomber Command should be doing something useful NLT 1940. Otherwise they are a waste of British tax money.
British bomber barons promised they could make a significant contribution in any future war. Parliament took them at their word and provided generous funding (by 1930s standards). Britain declared on on Germany during September 1939. Now it's time for RAF Bomber Command to do what the promised. If RAF Bomber Command cannot do what they promised then perhaps funding should be cut off. It makes no sense to throw additional military spending down a rat hole.
Long lead time critical assets. While transportation targets/network centers are imposrtant short term (pre-Normandy, Battle of Bulge) they are far easier and cheaper to fix. labor, but not long lead critical parts.
Cripple Aircraft Industry? Pre-decentralization, hit the plants and airframe assembly, engine manufacturers - and at lowest common denominator Ball bearings. Post Decentralization, engine manufacturing, and final assembly locations.
Cripple Industry? major Power supply centers, Electric Utilities and Distribution near industril locations
Cripple military capability? major Chemical and Fuel plants, all major engine manufacturing and assembly plants, Locomotive assy and repair facilites (all long lead time tooling/capital equipment and centralized locations
Germany systematically de-centralized airframe manufacturing of discrete parts and Ball bearings. Not so the rest of the capital assets - only long term solution to Synthetic fuel/chemical was to bury them and somehow protect power and supply links. can't kill road tankers (at the expense of mechanized mobility at front) for fuel, but rail traffic is doable.
If you choose One and focus all of airpower on It - Then Fuel/Chemical plants are the natural choice. destroys fuel, gunpowder/explosives, chemicals and fertilizer. RAF could have begun in 1942. USAAF in February 1944 (with higher losses). Had 8th AF NOT attacked Schweinfurt in Aug/October 1943 and waited until April/May 1944 it could have absolutely crippled Germany in paralle with Oil - with no breathing room to de-centralize. Speer only initiated the movement after the scary August 17, 1943 results but 8th was too weak to repeat until 60 days later, and then not again until spring 1944.
After that, the Power Grid major source points.
And from p160:"The disruption of rail operations in the Ruhr, and the difficulty in returning empty cars to the region for loading, led to a dramatic reduction in the coal supplies available to the German economy. Manufacturing plants and utilities gradually consumed their stocks of coal beginning in September. By the end of 1944, supplies had been exhausted and production shrank due to a lack of energy. The decline in car placings also prevented the Reichsbahn from transporting semifinished and finished goods. Products, including badly needed munitions, accumulated at factories, forcing many to suspend operations in December of 1944 and in the first months of 1945."
All bolded emphasis is mine; this is the resultant effect when marshaling is interdicted, as per my proposal."The disintegration of the Reichsbahn can be traced by examining a few indicies of its operational performance. During the second quarter of 1944, overall freight car placings fell by 7.75 percent compared with placings for the same period in 1943. This was due to disruption of operations in the occupied west, the effects of which reverberated eastward to the (railway: clarity) divisions along Germany's western border. During the Summer of 1944, car placings recovered somewhat but remained slightly below the performance of the preceding year. Significantly, the divisions in western Germany, which were most affected by bombing,and the divisions that served as intermediaries between the west and east, such as Halle(S) and Berlin, suffered significant declines."<snip> "The collapse of traffic and, in turn the disintegration of the German war economy began in earnest during October of 1944 and accelerated during the subsequent three months. By the end of the Ardennes offensive in January 1945, overall freight car placings were 43.2 percent lower than during the same period the year before. Coal car placings in January 1945 were 55.8 percent lower than in January 1944. By March 1945, freight car placings were 89.2 percent lower than a year earlier.
The disintegration of marshaling and the disruption in the flow of traffic can be seen in the staggering increase in the number of trains stuck in the backlog. <snip> By mid-December, the backlog had risen to 2000 trains, and after a brief improvement at the end of the month due to poor weather that hampered the Allied bombers, then rose to about 2800 trains at the end of February 1945."
The problem here is "1944". That's far too late. RAF Bomber Command should be doing something useful NLT 1940. Otherwise they are a waste of British tax money.
Ron - with all due respect I will stick to my ground.
Labor is cheap and low lead time. Machine tooling, jigs, fixtures, power generation turbines, catalytic crackers, hydrogenation units are much more difficult to replace.
Of the above machine tools such as lathes, screw machines, milling machines, etc are slightly easier to replace but stamping equipment for such parts as contoured cowls, etc are Not.
Regards,
Labour is also the easiest to damage.
Skilled labour isn't that easy to replace, as it takes time to train, usually measured in years.
Machine tools a quite solidly built and can withstand quite a lot. Damaging them requires close hits, damaging beyond repair/detroying them can require almost a perfect hit.
Stamping machines are big heavy things. Would need a lot to destroy.