"Operation Cobra for everyone" Topic

I'm specifically referring to the US army air force strategic bombers being used for tactical bombing in order to help break out of Normandy. It worked (of course with much help from the Brits and Canadians keeping the best of the German forces busy too).

Imagine if the decision had been made a year earlier to leave all of the strategic bombing to the Royal air force and convert the US eight air force into a strictly tactical role. To that end switching production to build fewer heavy bombers and more light bombers and ground attack aircraft. Also diverting a substantial amount of men and material that would have gone into strategic bombing into air to air fighters in order to achieve air superiority.

I suspect that had this been done it would have cost Russian lives and saved American and British lives. The strategic air war over Germany forced the Germans to divert tremendous resources in AA guns and fighter planes to homeland defense that otherwise would have been against the Russians. Not to mention the disruption of their war economy. In other words, bombing Germany before the Normandy invasion was the second front. Helping enormously to take pressure off of the Russians.

However, American losses in that second front were horrendous. Imagine all of those men and machines employed instead mauling every German formation before it engages enemy ground forces in something resembling Operation Cobra. Each Allied advance proceeded with that intense a carpet bombing.

Would this have meant a quicker more painless victory for US and Brit forces?

You are of course ignoring the fact that the 8th and 15th Air Forces went a long way to damaging the Luftwaffe's Fighter Strength, something that the RAF bombing at night wasn't going to be able to do, both in total losses and in forcing the Germans to pull back fighters to protect the Reich from the daylight raids. You might want to read up on Operation Point Blank. I also think that you are severely overestimating the "Mauling" that was done in the pre-Cobra bombings. You might also look into the almost complete failure of the use of Strategic Bombers to hit tactical targets on D-Day itself. BTW, Eisenhower decried the cost of carpet bombing ground targets to open the advance and frankly, once Cobra tore open the German Front, why pause each time to allow for an aerial bombardment? Instead of having a dynamic and quick advance you reduce your offensive to a series of set piece battles.

I don't know about hits on D Day itself, but my dad's 1st operation was a raid on Mailly le Camp, a German tank depot south east of Paris by 1 and 5 Groups RAF Bomber Command – over 300 Lancaster – on 3/4 May 1944. The only bombs that landed outside the target area were on a flak suppression attack on a nearby village. Tactical bombers could be effective at night with accurate target marking. The biggest problem seems to have been a lack of communication between ground and air forces resulting in many of the blue on blue errors.

However, American losses in that second front were horrendous.

No they weren't.

America was never exposed to the concept of "horrendous" losses during WW2.

I can't think of a single occasion during the war where the U.S. lost 10,000 men in a day. Can you?

The U.S. lost about 6,600 men on D-Day. That was one of the biggest one-day losses of the war for the U.S. (I'm open to any information on bigger single-day losses…).

Some comparisons …

The Axis had 6x more troops in Stalingrad than in Normandie. The Russians lost 3x more troops at Stalingrad than the U.S. lost in the ENTIRE WAR. And that was just one compaign. A campaign that the Russians won.

U.S. bombing in Normandy killed 2x as many French civilians as German soldiers.

For every 1 serviceman the U.S. lost in battle against the European Axis (including navy, but not merchant marine), the Soviets lost about 50. If we add civilian casualties (including Merchant Marine and Civilian Air Patrol) that number drops down to 49-to-1 compared to Russian soldiers, but then Russian civilian losses add another 50 to 100 losses for every U.S. military and civilian loss (depending on whether we count only those killed by direct military action vs. being massacred by non-military means, and on who's numbers you believe).

We can certainly discuss the contribution made by strategic bombing, and whether those resources could or could not have been applied more effectively elsewhere. But let's not mislead ourselves through ill-attention to the language we apply.

"Horrendous losses", as might be meaningful within a WW2 context, was something the U.S. never experienced. Some tough days, yes. Terrible personal experiences? Certainly. But horrendous losses? Oh please. We fought it through, smartly enough, using our industrial edge to very good effect, and never even scored a blip on the horrendous losses scale.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)