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Originally Posted by horseback
Bombing over France had a limited effect on the German war effort; in fact it could be argued that the Germans did a poor job of integrating the industries and economies of their conquered territories and folding them into their own.
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That might have been more due to bad targeting decisions by the USAAF. Especially during early 1943, the U.S. was under a lot of pressure by the Brits to do something about the u-boats which were a mortal threat to Great Britain's existence. So, the U.S. wasted a lot of effort on bomb-proof u-boat pens at Brest and Lorient. Later, they took a lot of casualties for not a whole lot of effect bombing u-boat production centers at Kiel. It wasn't until the middle of 1944, when the USAAF figured out that POL assets were the perfect target, that the U.S. bombing offensive had any real strategic impact other than just destroying a lot of buildings.
As to the ability of the Nazis to integrate conquered economies into their own, blame it on very short time frame (just a couple of years), deliberate sabotage and heel-dragging by the conquered peoples, and, of course, the savage Nazi ideology which justified slave labor and genocide. The latter element was a particularly big factor in Poland and the Ukraine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by horseback
The tempo of operations slowed markedly after Second Schweinfurt in early October '43, due to weather, bringing new fighter and bomber units up to speed and the changes in command at 8th AF, and didn't pick back up until Big Week, which began in mid February of 1944.
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This was the period I was thinking of in my previous post.
Quote:
Originally Posted by horseback
Another note on an earlier post; the B-24 was a lot harder to keep in close formation than the B-17, and Liberator groups suffered accordingly.
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Additionally, it's ceiling wasn't as good and the B-24 didn't have quite the same reputation for ruggedness that the B-17 did. Luftwaffe pilots knew these things and choose their targets accordingly. B-17 crews sardonically remarked that the best escort they could have was a squadron of B-24s as low squadron. (Low and rear squadrons in group formations suffered disproportionately in any case.)