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A notable exception is the B-17, in use before the US entered the war. It’s the symbol of the US strategic bombing effort in pop culture, with a bunch of films

A notable exception is the B-17, in use before the US entered the war. It’s the symbol of the US strategic bombing effort in pop culture, with a bunch of films centering around it. The B-29 only seems to get any notice because of the Enola Gay, and the B-24 Liberator is practically invisible in culture despite its large role. I think it’s because the B-17 raids were so dramatic. Airspace still heavily contested, the Allies still figuring out how to use air power.

Spooky23 2y ago
The B-17 was a big marketing and propaganda coup. It was pretty much obsolete at the beginning of the war. The “Flying Fortress” moniker, the (mostly bullshit) notion that the bomber would always get through and defend itself, the powerful imagery of battered bombers coming home, and the terrible sacrifices made by the crews made it a legendary symbol. The B-24 wasn’t a pretty plane. The B-29 came too late in the war, and was only deployed in the Pacific. Personally, I find the glorification of the daylight bombing campaigns increasingly gross as I get older. Those men paid a very high price and I wonder if that sacrifice was truly justified.
- mschuster91 2y ago
  > Personally, I find the glorification of the daylight bombing campaigns increasingly gross as I get older. Those men paid a very high price and I wonder if that sacrifice was truly justified. German here. Given what they fought against, yes it was. Visit any of the too many concentration camp sites across Europe... it's definitely worth the time.
  - sneed_chucker 2y ago
    > Given what they fought against Mass murder of civilians isn't morally acceptable no matter what the "other side" is doing. Firebombing a kindergarten in the Rheinland doesn't do anything to help someone in an extermination camp in occupied Poland. Post war analysis of allied strategic bombing indicates that it did not have a large impact on the war effort and probably wasn't worth the high rate of loss of the expensive airframes and crews.
    - oneshtein 2y ago
      MAD is accepted strategy of USA and other nuclear countries.
    - hollerith 2y ago
      >Post war analysis of allied strategic bombing indicates that it did not have a large impact on the war effort The bombing didn't cause the German people to overthrow their government like Allied leaders hoped it would, but it did significantly impact the war IMHO by decreasing German production of essential materials like refined oil products, particularly lubricants, ball bearings, airframes and probably other materials. Even if no factories had been hit, just the fact that the Germans underwent the expense and inefficiencies of distributing manufacturing among many small factories, some underground and some in caves (which the Germans did in fact do) would still have significantly decreased German production.
      - vundercind 2y ago
        One of those cold-calculus-of-war things is that if you’re out-producing the enemy by (say) 5x, you can suffer 4:1 costs on an operation and still be “winning” in terms of causing more harm to their war effort than to yours. That is, you can spend four abstract units of war-fighting-capability to destroy one unit of theirs, and that’s still a net-loss for them. If you don’t have more effective ways to spend that (abstract) productivity, it may still be in your best interest to use it that way. It can make evaluating things like this tricky. So a raid that lost dozens of bombers and cost weeks in training time only put some part of their industry out of action for a couple weeks and diverted a week or so of other factory productivity for the rebuild and retooling effort—that looks bad, but could still actually be a deal you should take every time under certain circumstances.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    I think the reference may have been to the efficacy of the effort at ending the war sooner, which is a topic of some debate I believe. You watch something like 12 O’Clock High and wonder whether this “maximum effort” they were seeking to find (beyond which even the most dedicated and capable crewmen break down) was… worth it. The deliberate terror bombings that constituted some part of the effort, especially in the mid and late years, were also and separately awful, though the ethics somewhat muddied by the targeting of civilians having undergone a tit-for-tat ratcheting up early in the war, and yeah, the whole death camps thing. But there too the question of whether those deaths served any useful purpose, as far as ending the war sooner or reducing its scope, makes the whole thing even sadder.
    - mschuster91 2y ago
      > But there too the question of whether those deaths served any useful purpose, as far as ending the war sooner or reducing its scope, makes the whole thing even sadder. Well, given that an utter majority were supportive of the Nazi regime up until and even after the war ended... I'd say it was necessary, if only to set an example for any future offender just how brutal the crackdown will be. Unfortunately, the world failed to keep the reminder up on "genocide = bad and WILL lead to a brutal response" - the response towards Serbia in the 90s, Russia after 2014 or Syria was way too lackluster IMHO.
  - Spooky23 2y ago
    I can accept that total warfare where the population was the target as a “thing” in that type of conflict. A dirty business, but reality. The daylight raid aspect, however, seems to me to be more grounded in ego and dogma than military utility. I don’t think avoidance of civilian casualties was a deciding factor. Those airmen were sent into a meat-grinder.
    - mschuster91 2y ago
      > The daylight raid aspect, however, seems to me to be more grounded in ego and dogma than military utility. I don’t think avoidance of civilian casualties was a deciding factor. Those airmen were sent into a meat-grinder. They were, but also remember that back in 1945 there was no such thing as GPS or any kind of more precise navigation than a compass, a sextant and star charts. It was very easy to get lost at night or to hit some mountain, particularly as Germans were pretty strict in enforcing Verdunkelung [1]. Flying during daytime was obviously more risky because AA defense can see you, but it was also less risky because navigation was easier - and more precise, because you could actually see where you were. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdunkelung_(Luftschutz) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdunkelung_(Luftschutz)
- bee_rider 2y ago
  Like the concept of strategic bombing at all (which is pretty… questionable… in terms of effectiveness), or the idea of doing it in daylight specifically? I thought the one redeeming feature of daylight runs was that they could at least hit some targets, rather than just… hitting cities and towns in general.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    Especially in the early war, when navigation and targeting tech was worse, yeah, accuracy was a major concern. I think the benefits of night fighting were also more mixed than one might think, due to the increase of air accidents—the accident rate in the war was so high that it was responsible for the overwhelming majority of lost airframes, not enemy fire. If you need more missions to achieve the same effect on a target (because accuracy is worse) and your crash rate goes up because flying at night (enemy activities aside) is riskier than during the day, I could see that making it less of an absolute win even before considering increased collateral damage (which, at least at times, they do seem to have genuinely preferred to minimize)
- bluGill 2y ago
  Lots of people wonder if it was justified. Since then many historians have examined this and concluded that many of those bombing increased enemy support for the war and so were counter productive. Bombing of munitions factories and other military installations is still useful, but bombing cities like was often done in WWII is not considered a good idea.
  - oneshtein 2y ago
    Tell this to Russians.
    - CamperBob2 2y ago
      Well, Hitler could have told them that, certainly. Doesn't matter whether you're talking about the UK or Ukraine... bombing civilians pisses them off and redoubles their commitment to the fight. It's a waste of munitions, because you'll never kill enough civilians to matter.
      - hollerith 2y ago
        >you'll never kill enough civilians to matter. -- unless you use nukes.
        bluGill 2y ago
        Even then I question if you can do so. You can level your enemy perhaps, but if the enemy is the US or Russia they have provisions to end the whole world after you level all their cities and so you don't win. If it is anyone else they might not end the world themselves, but there are good odds many countries that otherwise hate each other will join together to destroy you because they don't going nuclear to be an option for the next country. (basic physics and engineering can build a nuclear bomb - it isn't easy, but several countries have proven it can be done and most suspect more would if it was cost effective - but since you can't use them in war it isn't cost effective so they don't)
- tivert 2y ago
  > It was pretty much obsolete at the beginning of the war. In what way was it obsolete? Can you go into more detail?

Spooky23 2y ago

The B-17 was a big marketing and propaganda coup. It was pretty much obsolete at the beginning of the war. The “Flying Fortress” moniker, the (mostly bullshit) notion that the bomber would always get through and defend itself, the powerful imagery of battered bombers coming home, and the terrible sacrifices made by the crews made it a legendary symbol. The B-24 wasn’t a pretty plane. The B-29 came too late in the war, and was only deployed in the Pacific. Personally, I find the glorification of the daylight bombing campaigns increasingly gross as I get older. Those men paid a very high price and I wonder if that sacrifice was truly justified.

mschuster91 2y ago
> Personally, I find the glorification of the daylight bombing campaigns increasingly gross as I get older. Those men paid a very high price and I wonder if that sacrifice was truly justified. German here. Given what they fought against, yes it was. Visit any of the too many concentration camp sites across Europe... it's definitely worth the time.
- sneed_chucker 2y ago
  > Given what they fought against Mass murder of civilians isn't morally acceptable no matter what the "other side" is doing. Firebombing a kindergarten in the Rheinland doesn't do anything to help someone in an extermination camp in occupied Poland. Post war analysis of allied strategic bombing indicates that it did not have a large impact on the war effort and probably wasn't worth the high rate of loss of the expensive airframes and crews.
  - oneshtein 2y ago
    MAD is accepted strategy of USA and other nuclear countries.
  - hollerith 2y ago
    >Post war analysis of allied strategic bombing indicates that it did not have a large impact on the war effort The bombing didn't cause the German people to overthrow their government like Allied leaders hoped it would, but it did significantly impact the war IMHO by decreasing German production of essential materials like refined oil products, particularly lubricants, ball bearings, airframes and probably other materials. Even if no factories had been hit, just the fact that the Germans underwent the expense and inefficiencies of distributing manufacturing among many small factories, some underground and some in caves (which the Germans did in fact do) would still have significantly decreased German production.
    - vundercind 2y ago
      One of those cold-calculus-of-war things is that if you’re out-producing the enemy by (say) 5x, you can suffer 4:1 costs on an operation and still be “winning” in terms of causing more harm to their war effort than to yours. That is, you can spend four abstract units of war-fighting-capability to destroy one unit of theirs, and that’s still a net-loss for them. If you don’t have more effective ways to spend that (abstract) productivity, it may still be in your best interest to use it that way. It can make evaluating things like this tricky. So a raid that lost dozens of bombers and cost weeks in training time only put some part of their industry out of action for a couple weeks and diverted a week or so of other factory productivity for the rebuild and retooling effort—that looks bad, but could still actually be a deal you should take every time under certain circumstances.
- vundercind 2y ago
  I think the reference may have been to the efficacy of the effort at ending the war sooner, which is a topic of some debate I believe. You watch something like 12 O’Clock High and wonder whether this “maximum effort” they were seeking to find (beyond which even the most dedicated and capable crewmen break down) was… worth it. The deliberate terror bombings that constituted some part of the effort, especially in the mid and late years, were also and separately awful, though the ethics somewhat muddied by the targeting of civilians having undergone a tit-for-tat ratcheting up early in the war, and yeah, the whole death camps thing. But there too the question of whether those deaths served any useful purpose, as far as ending the war sooner or reducing its scope, makes the whole thing even sadder.
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    > But there too the question of whether those deaths served any useful purpose, as far as ending the war sooner or reducing its scope, makes the whole thing even sadder. Well, given that an utter majority were supportive of the Nazi regime up until and even after the war ended... I'd say it was necessary, if only to set an example for any future offender just how brutal the crackdown will be. Unfortunately, the world failed to keep the reminder up on "genocide = bad and WILL lead to a brutal response" - the response towards Serbia in the 90s, Russia after 2014 or Syria was way too lackluster IMHO.
- Spooky23 2y ago
  I can accept that total warfare where the population was the target as a “thing” in that type of conflict. A dirty business, but reality. The daylight raid aspect, however, seems to me to be more grounded in ego and dogma than military utility. I don’t think avoidance of civilian casualties was a deciding factor. Those airmen were sent into a meat-grinder.
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    > The daylight raid aspect, however, seems to me to be more grounded in ego and dogma than military utility. I don’t think avoidance of civilian casualties was a deciding factor. Those airmen were sent into a meat-grinder. They were, but also remember that back in 1945 there was no such thing as GPS or any kind of more precise navigation than a compass, a sextant and star charts. It was very easy to get lost at night or to hit some mountain, particularly as Germans were pretty strict in enforcing Verdunkelung [1]. Flying during daytime was obviously more risky because AA defense can see you, but it was also less risky because navigation was easier - and more precise, because you could actually see where you were. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdunkelung_(Luftschutz) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdunkelung_(Luftschutz)
bee_rider 2y ago
Like the concept of strategic bombing at all (which is pretty… questionable… in terms of effectiveness), or the idea of doing it in daylight specifically? I thought the one redeeming feature of daylight runs was that they could at least hit some targets, rather than just… hitting cities and towns in general.
- vundercind 2y ago
  Especially in the early war, when navigation and targeting tech was worse, yeah, accuracy was a major concern. I think the benefits of night fighting were also more mixed than one might think, due to the increase of air accidents—the accident rate in the war was so high that it was responsible for the overwhelming majority of lost airframes, not enemy fire. If you need more missions to achieve the same effect on a target (because accuracy is worse) and your crash rate goes up because flying at night (enemy activities aside) is riskier than during the day, I could see that making it less of an absolute win even before considering increased collateral damage (which, at least at times, they do seem to have genuinely preferred to minimize)
bluGill 2y ago
Lots of people wonder if it was justified. Since then many historians have examined this and concluded that many of those bombing increased enemy support for the war and so were counter productive. Bombing of munitions factories and other military installations is still useful, but bombing cities like was often done in WWII is not considered a good idea.
- oneshtein 2y ago
  Tell this to Russians.
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    Well, Hitler could have told them that, certainly. Doesn't matter whether you're talking about the UK or Ukraine... bombing civilians pisses them off and redoubles their commitment to the fight. It's a waste of munitions, because you'll never kill enough civilians to matter.
    - hollerith 2y ago
      >you'll never kill enough civilians to matter. -- unless you use nukes.
      - bluGill 2y ago
        Even then I question if you can do so. You can level your enemy perhaps, but if the enemy is the US or Russia they have provisions to end the whole world after you level all their cities and so you don't win. If it is anyone else they might not end the world themselves, but there are good odds many countries that otherwise hate each other will join together to destroy you because they don't going nuclear to be an option for the next country. (basic physics and engineering can build a nuclear bomb - it isn't easy, but several countries have proven it can be done and most suspect more would if it was cost effective - but since you can't use them in war it isn't cost effective so they don't)
tivert 2y ago
> It was pretty much obsolete at the beginning of the war. In what way was it obsolete? Can you go into more detail?