Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: ILCK

This is a lot of latter day morality as well. At the time you had the following realities:

1. A total war environment. Everyone was helping fight the war. They were either shooting at you, making the bullets to shoot at you or growing the food to feed the people shooting at you or making the bullets to shoot at you. Draw the line between civilian and combatant. Is it better to wipe out a Panzer factory that makes 100 tanks a month or shoot 100 tanks on the battlefield?
2. There were no non-military targets since even (the two biggest crying points) Dresden was a major rail transport city that the Russians badly wanted bombed and Hiroshima had thousands of Japanese solidiers and other facilities. That is as good as it has ever gotten for the revisionists.
3. Non-precision weapons. Even the vaunted Norden did not allow you to precisely drop on "military" targets. There was just no way to "only" attack military targets.
4. Distributed manufacturing. The Japanese farmed out large chunks of their manufacturing ensuring that "civilian" areas were necessary targets but the Germans began to do so as well. If you could not hit a factory complex there's no way to target a single house.

The simple fact is that, in WWII, everyone bombed and targeted "civilian" areas  - good guys and bad guys. It was, as Lucien Febvre, would say about atheism in the 16th century, almost impossible to conceive of not bombing in this way and not using the weapons at your disposal.

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Now that's a first! Correction a second!

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Who is we in the "You know how we feel"? Ask people on my street corner about what? Feel about what?

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Wirraway_Ace- I not sure I agree with your use of "the numbers" in this way. I am an economist by training, and all this really tells you is that Germany was able to increase production of key weapon systems in spite of the bombing. It doesn't tell you what their potential production was if their industries had been left alone.

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ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace

While not unjustified or unreasonable in the context of WWII, it appears to me the Strategic Bombing Campaign included a wide streak of "punishment" in its unstated rationale that reminds me to question its morality from time to time. As an American, I think this is healthy. My wife and one of my parents are foreign born, and I am constantly reminded as I interact with extended family living outside the U.S., that the world views us very differently than we view ourselves.

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Ike,

I will take a look into this further and see if there is some more complete measure of industrial output over time.

As a working hypothesis, how would you argue that having most of your major industry centers bombed to rubble did not affect industrial output?

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ORIGINAL: ILCK

... so Strategic bombing was not going to be able, using conventional means, to achive it's aim anymore than an embargo of Iraq was ever gonna get rid of Saddam.

Stratford, Connecticut, U.S.A.

"The Angel of Okinawa"

Home of the Chance-Vought Corsair, F4U
The best fighter-bomber of World War II

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ORIGINAL: Ike99

...Germany, total aircraft produced by year.

1942-12,822
1943-20,599
1944-35,076

... So as far as aircraft production is concerned I
would think the strategic bombing campaign had
at most a very minor effect if any at all. Germany
was able to expand it´s aircraft production by
actually a larger percentage than the USA who was
not being bombed at all.

Stratford, Connecticut, U.S.A.

"The Angel of Okinawa"

Home of the Chance-Vought Corsair, F4U
The best fighter-bomber of World War II

quote:

ORIGINAL: ILCK

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ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace

While not unjustified or unreasonable in the context of WWII, it appears to me the Strategic Bombing Campaign included a wide streak of "punishment" in its unstated rationale that reminds me to question its morality from time to time. As an American, I think this is healthy. My wife and one of my parents are foreign born, and I am constantly reminded as I interact with extended family living outside the U.S., that the world views us very differently than we view ourselves.

Right but, we'll dig up Clausewitz here, the goal of war is to break the will of an opponent to resist. The theory of strategic bombing wasn't about killing people, per se, but about collapsing the will of the civilian population to support a war. The strategic bombers were trying to recreate the German collapse in WWI on the homefront during the war. the problem is that the Germans and Japanese government were not that fragile because unlike the Kaiser's authoritarian regime they'd gone full on totalitarian.

The strategic bombing campaign in WWII shares the same flawed assumptions that make such popular use of embargoes today (Cuba, Iraq) - that in a totalitarian state :
1. The people have a voice to change policy if they become angry enough
2. The government can be moved by suffering to change policy.
Neither is true and so Strategic bombing was not going to be able, using conventional means, to achive it's aim anymore than an embargo of Iraq was ever gonna get rid of Saddam.

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ORIGINAL: Scrappy1

Worked for me; last time in 'gay Paris' ....ah, je suis Canadien......then I walked into La Legion Etrangere (I know, what the heck was I thinking...lol). Well, at least I got to see Mylene Farmer in concert!! Then on to Aubagne (outside that filthy, nasty city of Marseilles) for the Legion Etrangere selection center.....ah, La Mafia Anglaise!!!

So, I see everyone is still agreeing to disagree.....sorry, gotta put my two cents in after watching these forums spiral into quite the negative.....guys, I know debate can be healthy, but some of these threads are really bringing me down....I came on here to find some players and have a little fun....what happened? Almost 70 years later and some of these threads are quite hostile.......it's over, what's done is done......why spoil it for the rest of us, especially some of us new guys, who just want to play this game?

Yeah, I had quite a few relatives serve in the 'big one'; one in the 1st Mardiv from Guad till the end (one of those lucky ones) and also one in the 8th Air Force (I have his in-flight flask..damn alcoholic...lol). Did they ever talk about it? Not once, and I tried, being the young historical type; never said a word. One was on the Arizona before Pearl and got transferred right before the attack....I have his silk neckerchief with the Arizona in the middle (kind of an early silk screen....ish)!

Anyway, I guess I just want these threads to get back into the normal, friendly ones that they were before the A-Bomb or strategic discussions.....I hate seeing games end or heated, personal issues from something that happened over 60 years ago.....let's get back to UV guys

Btw, here's a view from just outside of Brest, France back in 1988......no, those 16's weren't aimed at Les Phoques; oops, sorry, I mean the French !!
I burned through a few rolls to get this shot!!! Notice the VW being launched out of the rear turret...oops, I mean projectile....lol!

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ORIGINAL: Scrappy1

... Anyway, I guess I just want these threads to get back into the normal, friendly ones that they were before the A-Bomb or strategic discussions.....I hate seeing games end or heated, personal issues from something that happened over 60 years ago.....let's get back to UV guys

Stratford, Connecticut, U.S.A.

"The Angel of Okinawa"

Home of the Chance-Vought Corsair, F4U
The best fighter-bomber of World War II

quote:

ORIGINAL: Scrappy1

So, I see everyone is still agreeing to disagree.....sorry, gotta put my two cents in after watching these forums spiral into quite the negative.....guys, I know debate can be healthy, but some of these threads are really bringing me down....I came on here to find some players and have a little fun....what happened? Almost 70 years later and some of these threads are quite hostile.......it's over, what's done is done......why spoil it for the rest of us, especially some of us new guys, who just want to play this game?

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What starts as a friendly discussion degenerates to debate and then slides into the depths around here all to often lately.

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Tell It to the Marines, A PROPOSAL TO RENAME GUADALCANAL’S AIRPORT DOESN’T FLY.

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If it offended the Japanese that the Enola Gay would be displayed that's just too bad...

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ORIGINAL: Ike99

Tell It to the Marines, A PROPOSAL TO RENAME GUADALCANAL’S AIRPORT DOESN’T FLY.

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To start with, this got started by you posting a thread that has nothing to do with Uncommon Valor. You were simply wishing to express a controversial political opinion, your own.

Second, other country´s are free to name their airports, cities and towns, etc., whatever they choose. They are under no obligation to consult the US Marines or you and probably don´t really care what you or they think anyways. Sorry, but it´s like this.

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ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace

However, it still brings me back to the question: do the attrocities of your opponent morally justify a bombing campaign that you know is causing significant deaths to a civilian population?

Bigger boys stole my sig

(in reply to Wirraway_Ace)

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ORIGINAL: Ike99

anarchyintheuk- . . who was charged under that specific phrase for aerial bombardment?

To repeat, no individuals or countries were ever tried for aerial bombardment of civilians/cities/etc.

Your using a lot of thread.

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No one was charged with any specific word, phrase, sentence or paragraph nor or they ever charged with any one specific word, phrase, sentence or paragraph from a law.

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You charge, try and convict by Articles. In this case, Article 6. You can´t go through and strike words, sentences and paragraphs out of a law because you don´t like them.

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A lot of war criminals at Nuremberg would have looooved to have been able to do that.

Article 6 is Article 6. You take it all or reject it all.