Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

When frittered hither and yon, the heavy bomber force was less effective. Particularly questionable was the notion of breaking the enemy will to fight. History will show that was largely rubbish.

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ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen

quote:

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

When frittered hither and yon, the heavy bomber force was less effective. Particularly questionable was the notion of breaking the enemy will to fight. History will show that was largely rubbish.

So Japan didn't throw the towel becouse it lost will to fight by (nuclear) bombings of the Superfortresses?

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Mostly my critique was regarding the strategic bombing campaign in Europe. The vindictive nature of much of the city firebombing campaign relied heavily on an assumption that burning out major population centers would decrease the resolve of the civilians and military forces on the German side. While it was an interesting theory, it has been put to bed.

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ORIGINAL: Poopyhead

The air war against the Islamic State is politically effective. The President has stated publicly at least twice that he doesn't have a plan to defeat the IS, with air power or otherwise. This Administration will continue to report launching hundreds of air strikes and skip the part where most do not even engage the enemy due to possible civilian casualties. The strategy so far is that the IS takes a city, loots the banks, butchers non-Sunnis, enslaves the women and destroys historical and religious shrines. We bomb the city until the Iraqi forces with the help of the Administration's new friend Iran (the #1 state sponsor of terror) can retake it. Then the IS takes another city and the strategy continues.

We are supposed to be saving the people of Syria and Iraq from about 30k IS combatants. If this force occupied Hawaii, no one would advocate sending in 100 B-52s to bomb the state flat. This is really not an option. Short of that, surgical air strikes to slowly wear down the IS are severely hampered. If we blow up oil wells that provide the enemy with black market petro-dollars, then we create an environmental disaster. Our own intel people have reported that when we bomb one IS commander, then he is rapidly replaced with another thug who is even more brutal in order to justify his promotion. These air strikes to prune IS leaders are simply using Darwinism to evolve the most brutal IS leadership and otherwise have little effect. Indescriminately bombing populated areas with the reasoning that some IS fighters would be killed along with the civilians would recruit more fanatics than we would remove. Remember that the citizens of Aleppo are rebels as far as Assad is concerned. That's why the Russian bombing strategy makes no distinction about the civilians. This is an autocracy making an example to coerce other rebel cities to submit. The Assad regime is essentially a death cult, survive or die, with no concern for long term consequences.

Overall, if IS combatants are using mortars to win a battle and tactical airpower can take out the mortars, then airpower is immediately effective...as long as friendly ground troops win said battle. I told my soldiers a quarter century ago that Iraq would eventually become Little Iran, Sunniland and Kurdistan. This is essentially the case now. Shiite forces aren't going to die to liberate Sunnis. The Kurds our bombers are helping fight IS terror are also being bombed by our NATO ally Turkey because they are a base for Kurdish terrorists in that country. Sunnis are most likely not going to get much help from us, because the Administration's new friend Iran wouldn't want that. Thus airpower cannot be militarily effective without a combined arms strategy for victory. Syria and Iraq are failed states where IS bases can train recruits that have already spread cells to many other countries in the region. These cells will exploit the continuing chaos of the "Arab Spring" to gain new bases and more recruits. Bombing Syria and Iraq won't affect that.

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ORIGINAL: HanBarca

Strategic Bombing, not to be confused with Close Air Support, is not particularly effective in asymmetric conflicts and COIN operations.

During Vietnam war, it was decently effective against NVA but totally useless against Vietcongs. Same in Afghanistan, where Soviets planes bombed the Mujahideen for 10 years without any result.

In a symmetric conflict, it was and would still be lethal. Good examples are Desert Storm 1 & 2.