"America’s Over-Hyped Strategic Bombing Experiment" Topic

I thought you might be interested in seeing some pictures of Sarissa's 28mm Wild West/ACW MDF train and rolling stock which I am in the mindst of building.

abcwargamers.blogspot.co.uk

"In the years after World War I, the brain trust of the U.S. Army evolved two conflicting opinions on how best to apply air power in the next war.

The Army Air Corps' emerging bomber faction believed directly attacking the vital centers of a country, instead of bombing combat troops, was the best solution. This theory held that destroying an enemy's war-making capabilities, its will to wage war, would lead to victory without the need to risk soldiers or even spend money on them.

These beliefs were incorporated into the phrase "strategic bombing," pioneered by Giulio Douhet, an Italian military theorist who in the 1920s argued — horrifyingly — for the widespread use of chemical and biological weapons. Douhet later served as chief of aviation under Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini…"
More here
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Amicalement
Armand

Every nation that builds an airforce will have it's air leaders eventually say they can win the war with air power alone. The problem is that in order to "win" the war all of the war effort must go into producing strategic bombers. If they fail then the country that has gone into 100% airpower will lose the war.

As I watched "Victory through Airpower" as we stopped the allied Island Hopping Campaign and sunk everything into airpower as it proposed I wondered what the Japanese would do. If I was Japanese command I would look at creating thousands of cheap aircraft equipped with multiple dumb rockets and after firing the aircraft could ram a bomber. Any damage on the bomber meens that the heavy bomber will not be able to fly thousands of miles back to base. IF 10,000 cheap aircraft takes out 5,000 heavy bombers then the war will not be able to be won.

I suspect if you lived in Germany or Japan, during or immediately after WWII, "over-hyped" isn't the word you would probably choose to describe America's strategic bombing campaign.

The Wild west train looks very very good. The only thing I would have perhaps done differently and deviate from the instructions would be for the carriage to loose its buffers. Buffers was a British and perhaps European thing and not a practise often used in the states as far as I am aware. Yes I know in the film The Good The Bad and the Ugly the train had buffers but this was a spaghetti Western with the use of disguised European train!:)

The American practice was to use the buckeye coupling which negated the need for buffers. But don't let that spoil your enjoyment of your model because it looks really good and captures the image really well.

hi Mysteron
Thanks for the information about the buffers. It would be easy to leave them out/ remove them.