Are bombing campaigns actually an effective strategy, or does the relative safety (with air superiority) prejudice commanders into using them?
I know the conventional wisdom is that it softens up the target before a ground invasion, if not just completely breaking the will to fight. But how effectively do they do this? And when civilians get caught up in the mix it often rallies the opposition. It definitely didn't work on the Britons, Germans, or Japanese. Similarly, it didn't work on the Vietnamese, Afghanis, or Iraqis. It doesn't seem to be working on ISIS or Assad, either.
I'm sure it has it's uses, but should aerial bombardment be everyone's first, go-to strategy?
>>388311
NATO has tried before to determine if you can win a war with purely air attacks, the conclusion is "of course not you fucking idiots, now Russia has an F-117 hull to go test it's anti-radar technology on"
The problem is no one actually wants to commit because it would be political suicide but doing nothing is also not going to do anything to help keep those that feel like there needs to be something to happen. It's a political not a military game.
>>388311
Eh... I'd argue they WERE very effective
The British bombings of the Ruhr in WW2 were massively effective, destroying tons of factories.
Bombing airfields is pretty OP too.
>>388311
worked just fine against Libya
>>388311
At least in WW2, the only timeframe I've studied at all in regards to air wars, it worked far better as a supporting strategy than a primary one.
No country in the war was overthrown by air bombardment. Effects on production were significant, but hardly crippling. Furthermore, they were achieved over Germany and Japan at a time when the conventional war was already going badly for them.
Operational level bombing, hitting supply depots and rail-yards and trying to restrict the enemy's movement, had significant effect, but that's useless without ground troops to follow up. It also had significant attritional effect on airforces (especially Germany's), but again, that's a supporting aim, not a primary one.
They are extremely effective in many ways.
The u.s. had air control over the iraqi republican guard with f16's, a10 and super-cobra anti tank choppers in the battle of karbala where 800 iraqis died and 60 tanks where destroyed and only 1 marine died and it was from friendly fire.
>>388311
>if not just completely breaking the will to fight
See, that is the problem with bombing with conventional weapons. Sure, it's quite effective as a preparation for a ground attack, but very often it has the opposite effect on morale. People get angrier and take it more personally. You can drop enough TNT to raze a city to the ground but that is likely to be perceived as a rallying call and proof that enemy leaders were right in portraying you as an enemy.
Unless you use nukes which do have a "fuck you, we're dead serious now" effect but no one in their right mind would ever use them.
>>388311
>It doesn't seem to be working on ISIS or Assad, either.
>Assad
Do you know something we dont?
>>388361
I don't follow it closely, I know the US is in a support role for anti-Assad forces, and I was assuming that they ran the occasional air strike on government forces considering all the sorties in the region, but maybe I'm mistaken?
>>388311
It depends on exactly what kind of campaign you're talking about.
The strategic bombing campaigns of WW2 didn't have the impact we were really hoping for - breaking the enemy's will and shattering their industry - but they diverted precious resources away from the front, which was something the Axis couldn't afford.
A huge proportion of the Luftwaffe was lost in defense of the Reich, but the actual damage to German industry was hard to really determine. Of course factories and refineries getting bombed out and thousands of people dying is going to have its effect, but they never really caused a decisive change in the German industry's output. In fact, German industrial capacity actually increased for most of the strategic bombing campaign.
However, by forcing the Luftwaffe to divert more and more resources back home, it keeps them away from strategically important fronts, allowing Allied air forces to achieve air superiority. Those left on the front are outnumbered and forced to fly increasing numbers of sorties to compensate, exhausting crews. With the Crimea campaign (1944) as an example, the Luftwaffe was only able to commit three squadrons at their peak to the 800 aircraft or so of the VVS because most of their resources were occupied over Germany and Romania.
>cont
>>388463
>In fact, German industrial capacity actually increased for most of the strategic bombing campaign.
That is down to the Germans mobilizing their industry which still had untapped reserves like three or four years into the war however, not an indication of the bombing successes or failures.
>>388463
>In fact, German industrial capacity actually increased for most of the strategic bombing campaign.
I've heard this addressed before and they basically said that the Germans went from building bombers to attack Britain to producing fighters to defend themselves. But you can put out 4 fighters for every 1 bomber, so that already inflates the raw aviation production numbers by 4x
>>388311
pic is very much related
Wasn't it found that bombing runs in Vietnam actually raised morale because the peasants and the Vietcong had a common enemy to blame the shittiness of their lives on? I mean, they mostly bombed farms and shit.
>>388463
>cont
The more recent "failures" of bombing campaigns don't exactly prove anything other than the fact that there's diminishing returns of the campaigns. Nowadays, with air supremacy, you can effectively prevent any opponent from fighting conventionally. With effective air support, you're pretty much guaranteed to win a pitched battle. Best case, you'll see something like the Gulf War - ground forces getting absolutely wrecked by aircraft sitting high and safe, killing anything they want with impunity.
However, as we saw in Vietnam, air campaigns get diminishing returns over time if your enemy operates unconventionally. There were also political aspects to the failure of Rolling Thunder - major strategic targets were off-limits for fears of escalating the conflict. Ultimately, strategic bombing still did work over Vietnam in Linebacker and Linebacker II. Just a couple weeks of sustained bombing shattered the NVAF, drained their supplies of SAMs, and forced the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table.
In effect, an effective bombing campaign forces your opponent to operate unconventionally. While unconventional wars are harder to fight for both sides, you have to realize that it's tremendously destructive to the guerrilla side of things in these conflicts. A bombing campaign may not be able to win a war on its own, but it keeps friendly casualties low while forcing the enemy to adopt incredibly draining tactics.
Sorry if parts of that don't make sense - I'm sick so everything's kind of hazy.
>>388472
>>388478
I'm not denying that there wasn't some strategic impact of the raids, just that they weren't absolutely shattering German industry like we had hoped. I'd have to dig around for some numbers to really see how much truth there is to your statements, but regardless, it's hard to deny the strategic impact of having a factory blown up or oilfield set ablaze.
>>388529
The failure of the campaigns in Vietnam was thanks to their incredibly limited rules of engagement. There were a bunch of strategic targets that we weren't allowed to touch during Rolling Thunder, and we counterintuitively used tactical bombers for the cross-border strategic raids while the strategic bombers were kept south for CAS. Because of that, there were actually quite a few "safe" areas.
Once Nixon took the gloves off and Linebacker I and II happened, though, the North's morale was shattered. Yes, the early bombing efforts probably were capitalized on to motivate the population, but when your population centers are taking more bombs than all of Germany got in WW2, propaganda stops mattering because people are more concerned with making it out alive.
>>388311
No.
>The Rand Corp concluded in their 1949 study that "bombing campaigns only stiffen the hearts and resolve of the enemy to resist."
>>388478
>>388472
>>388553
If you guys want to know more about the strategic bombing campaign of WW2, I would suggest Bomber Command by Max Hastings.
Unfortunately, he doesn't give simple answers, the whole factor of the war was extremely complicated; which is hampered by the relative "overproduction" of German industry for a lot of the war. (Measured in terms of industrial capacity to use raw materials vs the raw materials actually received)
>>388361
>there haven't been any "accedents"
>>388735
Angriffshöhe 4000 by Cajus Bekker also has a few nice chapters on the other side of things. Explains a lot and manages to stay away from the "glorious nazis" trope
>>388311
>relative safety (with air superiority
Bomber crews had a worse attrition rate than infantry. It was a horrible experience being a bombardier during WWII, especially over the skies of Germany.
>>388800
While true, that doesn't really reflect modern aerial campaigns ,which are usually very casualty light.
>>388311
>should aerial bombardment be everyone's first, go-to strategy?
No, sensible people would try to settle things diplomatically before resorting to bombs.
>>388337
Yeah but that would've meant nothing without all of the other branches of a military working with the campaign.
>>388311
>relative safety
>>388352
I think it's also pretty devastating to morale. I can imagine watching you're planes being shot down above as a mere infantrymen would bring you down a bit. Especially since that could increase bombings and strafing on you.
>>388396
Only the Jews have targeted the SAA with airstrikes so far, and it's been pretty limited. They're also the ones setting up field hospitals for al Qaeda, so no surprise there.
>>388311
Air power is most effective when you don't care about collateral damage.
>>390824
Interesting point, what about surface launched nuclear missles? Can those be air power as well?
No fucking way could a plane/bomber drop an A bomb on a country today without being blown out of the sky.
Captcha was airplanes.
>>390836
>No fucking way could a plane/bomber drop an A bomb on a country today without being blown out of the sky.
Clearly you've never heard of toss-bombing.
>>390836
>No fucking way could a plane/bomber drop an A bomb on a country today without being blown out of the sky.
I don't think you understand just how much more compact and powerful modern nuclear weapons are.
You can deliver a bomb 10 times more powerful than Fat Man from an ordinary fighter plane.
>>390876
Shit. It is almost hard for me to believe we won't blow ourselves up by accident, that's so intense.
>>390708
But that's operational or even tactical bombing.
What OP is talking about (I think) is trying to bring down the enemy with airpower alone, no ground involvement.
And at that, WW2's verdict is pretty clear, to little impact. Chennault's attempts to drive back the Japanese with airpower alone failed miserably, as did every attempt to bomb an enemy into submission without sending ground troops along to secure the place.
>>388311
>Similarly, it didn't work on the Vietnamese, Afghanis, or Iraqis
In case of Iraqi during the 1990-91 Gulf War, air power contributed to the U.S. victory by 1) shutting down the Iraqi logistics networks, meaning that the Iraqi infantry divisions holding the line were deprived of food and replacements, 2) and ensuring the Iraqi Air Force didn't interfere with the ground offensive. That being said, it was the U.S. ground offensive that was the showpiece, not the air campaign.
Air tactics are very misleading when it comes to manipulation of ground objects. To secure an offense you will need ground troops. This will enable social maneuvarability to an extent air raids wont. For the most part air raids cause damage to localized depts. for example weapons stock. This diminishes the strength of the oppositions by eliminating availability of weapons or food cache or any liquidable resource.
Ground soldiers are the better orchestators. Since they are able to hone pure mobility power and lead opponents into seclusion. Most wars are fought by attacking larger concentration and slowly dismantling them into pocketed lower concentrations. Especially guerilla warfare. By this time there are so many legal battles it is not funny. The international human rights offices are full of lawsuits left and right and this is where the media begins being manipuled into subversive psy op tactics. From there on you set up forts and wait and wait and wait. You have to remember the people you are fighting are people none the less. And require food and shelter as specified by universal humane laws even if some of them are subhuman themselves.
>>391329
From there on "terrorists" begin taking tally from person to person. From how many times they were shot at to how many times a missile landed at the same place. They gather debris for proof and it turns into thousands upon thousands of trials. People from all sides getting sued. There are limits you know. Specifically those established by genocide laws.
>>391373
If they lead a strong air defensive that will obliterate a several blocks radius or a whole town. The offensive side gets hit with genocide lawsuits.
>>391382
In any small town with low immigration they can all prove they are all relatives upto 6 degrees of separation from a common ancestor. Justifying the act as genocide.
>>390993
The Highway of Death got a fair amount of attention at the time, and if you're into air power the last hurrah of British Buccaneers and American Phantoms was pretty impressive.
>>391390
From there on they separate civilians and soldiers. The daesh was made official therefore soldiers dont get leeway civilians do. They have recognized soldiers of the Isis state. Daesh is too young to be divided into classes.
