Operation Round Up Cancelled, I'm mad about it.

[Martin_Schenkel]

But the use of Strategic bombing forces in tactical support of a landing may have helped alot.

Strategic bombers in a tactical role has been proven by results to have been ineffective.

However , I do believe round-up stood no chance in hell of being "pondered" back then, simply because the idea was a "Non-starter" to Churchill's / Great Britian's "world view" at the time, and we(The USA) had an anglophile president in office at the time.

A 1943 operation was pondered. Eisenhower lists three possibilities, after a full-scale invasion for 1943 was deemed unfeasible: 1. Reinforce the British in Egypt and the mid-east, 2. Seize northwest Africa and pinch out Rommel, or 3. Create a bridgehead in Fance (most likely the Brittany or Cotentin peninsulas) for later operations.

Eisenhower tells Marshall that he favours #3 mostly because it means doing something rather than nothing, but that the operation would be a great risk because:

Later developments have convinced me that those who held the [1943 bridgehead] operation to be unwise at the moment were correct in their evaluation of the problem. Our limited range fighter aircraft of 1942 could not have provided sufficiently effective air cover over the Cotentin or Brittany peninsulas, against the German air strength as it then existed. At least, the operation would have been very costly...Only meagre advantages would have followed capture of Cherbourg...

The British and Americans unanimously agreed that reinforceing the mid-east was unprofitable and uneconomical.

Interestingly, Eisenhower then states:

The British and American Chiefs of staff had therefore to decide, in late July 1942, between the northwest African invasion and the seizing of a bridgehead in northwest France.

I don't quite understand the reasoning for making a decision in July 42, but presumably this was because the Allied high-command had decided that SOMETHING must be untertaken and as these were major strategic operations, planning would have to begin, resources and production allocated, stores and reserves built-up, political factors set-up and ironed out, etc. And don't forget the global situation in July 1942. The Allies were far from being in a positive situation, ready for a risk-all gamble that might very well not work. And what if it fails?

I can definately see that a smaller less risky operation (Torch) was chosen at the time in order to get their foot in the door and their feet wet, before undertaking what was a monumental operation. Hypothetically, had the Allies succeeded in gaining a bridgehead in France in 1943, their strategic strength (number of divisions available and ability to support those divisions in the field) dictated that a breakout operation still would not have been feasible until the summer of 1944 anyways.

[JonS]

Strategic bombers in a tactical role has been proven by results to have been ineffective.

That is incorrect. Heavy bombers in a tactical role produced three effects:
1) obstruction
2) demoralisation
3) destruction

1) depended on the nature of the target and the area - a built up area could be obstructed relatively easily, effectively preventing all movement through it. These blocks could be cleared within a day or two. Even open areas could be obstructed, but it took a lot more effort, and was usually fairly easy to bypass.
2) the vast and sudden weight of firepower that heavy bombers could deliver demoralised/neutralised anyone caught in the carpet. However, the demoralisation wore off reasonably quickly, so any follow up needed to occur within an hour to make use of it.
3) heavy bombers were surprisingly ineffective against troops and guns. They did cause a fairly predictable amount of casualties, but due to the extreme dispersion the Germans tended to practice, and the density of bombing required to get an assured amount of destruction, the practical effect was quite small. They were, however, very effective against softskin vehicles.

Hoping for widespread destruction was forlorn. But obstruction and demoralisation were effects that could certainly be exploited. Doing so did, however, require close integration of plans between the airforce and army.

Source: No.2 ORS, Report No.14

[Delta Tank]

Martin,

What is the name of that flag, it is absolutely beautiful!

Mike

[Sid Guttridge]

Tim, you say "Would even Operation Overlord in June 1944 have been possible without any British participation? Yes...."

I would suggest that it would be almost completely impossible. For a start, without the UK as a base, D-Day would have to have been mounted from the USA, which was completely impracticable.

Even on D-Day itself the majority of assets committed were British Commonwealth and the commanders of all three services were British. D-Day was essentially planned by the British and they had the lead in its execution on land, sea and air. Take out the Funnies, the Sherman Fireflies, the Mustang's engine, the destroyer escort design, the Mulberries, PLUTO, Enigma decription, weather forecasting - the list of the UK's contribution to the US armoury is large - and you can begin to see the problems accumulating for a US-only assault.

Would Operation Overlord in June 1944 have been possible without any British participation? No, not if it wanted a reasonable prospect of success!

[Martin_Schenkel]

Hoping for widespread destruction was forlorn. But obstruction and demoralisation were effects that could certainly be exploited. Doing so did, however, require close integration of plans between the airforce and army.

Fair enough, Jon. I guess I should have qualified my statement. It goes back to earlier in this thread, when I talked about how the Allies in Italy realised that heavy bombers were inefficient when used to attack various infastructure such as rail lines and bridges.

[Martin_Schenkel]

Martin,

What is the name of that flag, it is absolutely beautiful!

Mike

I'm assuming you mean the red one in my info on the right hand side? It is the red ensign, the old Canadian flag, pre-1965. I don't know how 'beautiful' it is, but it has some history to it.

[Sid Guttridge]

To continue the Canadian connection.....

The Canadians had the same problem as the USA in that, with the unfortunate exception of one day at Dieppe, by 1943 their troops had no combat experience with which to embark on an invasion of Europe.

Therefore, in 1943 two Canadian divisions were sent from the UK to Italy to gain such combat experience and to give a corps HQ some operational command experience. This was despite the fact that it disrupted shipping and logistics in the Mediterranean theatre.

The squabbles about this deployment can be found in the biography of Montgomery's Canadian liaison officer.

[JonS]

Hoping for widespread destruction was forlorn. But obstruction and demoralisation were effects that could certainly be exploited. Doing so did, however, require close integration of plans between the airforce and army.

Fair enough, Jon. I guess I should have qualified my statement. It goes back to earlier in this thread, when I talked about how the Allies in Italy realised that heavy bombers were inefficient when used to attack various infastructure such as rail lines and bridges.

I should have qualified mine too; the effects I wrote about above only became apparent towards the end of the campaign in Normandy. They didn't have the knowledge to apply them on D-Day.

BTW, I thought the lessons they got from Italy about attacking infrastructure directly led to the highly successful pre-D-Day Transport Plan? Cassino could have, but didn't, teach them that using heavy bombers on a town the day before you intend to attack it wasn't a great idea, but that's separate to STRANGLE and whatever-the-thing-south-of-the-Gustav-Line-was-called.

[Carl Schwamberger]

BTW, I thought the lessons they got from Italy about attacking infrastructure directly led to the highly successful pre-D-Day Transport Plan? Cassino could have, but didn't, teach them that using heavy bombers on a town the day before you intend to attack it wasn't a great idea, but that's separate to STRANGLE and whatever-the-thing-south-of-the-Gustav-Line-was-called.

I'd have thought so, but my father who was directly involved in this as a ordinance officer in the 9th AF told me they never saw any techincal information from the Med. He also pointed out the interdiction campaign in Italy ran concurrent to the campaign preparing for Overlord. ...and their efforts were not what they hoped when the focus was on attacking support structure of the railroads. Attacking marshalling yards and repair facilities did not have the results expected. He remembered a rather heated dialoge over the change to a focus on bridges in the late spring.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Therefore, in 1943 two Canadian divisions were sent from the UK to Italy to gain such combat experience and to give a corps HQ some operational command experience. This was despite the fact that it disrupted shipping and logistics in the Mediterranean theatre.

The squabbles about this deployment can be found in the biography of Montgomery's Canadian liaison officer.

That was part of a larger 'problem' of balancing delivery requirements from the US to the Med vs to UK, & switching material between the two. Some ugly claims have been made of the inefficencies in shipping created by stratigic decisions made for the Med from late 1942 through early 1944.

[Sid Guttridge]

I bet - but however much shipping was tied up there, it surely can't have been as bad as the additional 1,000,000 tons permanently tied up on the Cape route when the Mediterranean was closed in 1941-42?

[Carl Schwamberger]

I bet - but however much shipping was tied up there, it surely can't have been as bad as the additional 1,000,000 tons permanently tied up on the Cape route when the Mediterranean was closed in 1941-42?

Mid 1943 strictly speaking. I've made a casual search for data on what ships went where & when. Nothing readily acessable came up. Did find some conflicting claims, which were not backed up with actual numbers. The actual ammount of material may have been less than popularly suposed, but the claim was not backed up with evidence.

Its not hard to use hindsight to find inefficency from bad choices. In the case of opening the Med to transport ships failing to secure Tunis & Bizerte early on in Operation Torch led to the Scillian strait remaining closed for additional months. Taking that further, postponing Operation Gymnast may have delayed victory in the Med even more.

Elsewhere: Not starting a program to provide long range ASW aircraft for the Atlantic early in the war; USN being unprepared for convoy operations in the Western Atlantic & Caribeian in early 1942 (re: Operation Drumbeat); Allocation of ships to support MacAurthurs South Pacific offensive in 1943; A Persian Lend Lease Route vs a Scadinavian campaign to secure the much shorter Northern 'Mumansk' route.

Its tough to judge the arguments for each of these without a clear understanding of the 'shipping days per ton' actually used to various destinations. Anyone know of a good source for that sort of data?

[JonS]

BTW, I thought the lessons they got from Italy about attacking infrastructure directly led to the highly successful pre-D-Day Transport Plan? Cassino could have, but didn't, teach them that using heavy bombers on a town the day before you intend to attack it wasn't a great idea, but that's separate to STRANGLE and whatever-the-thing-south-of-the-Gustav-Line-was-called.

I'd have thought so, but my father who was directly involved in this as a ordinance officer in the 9th AF told me they never saw any techincal information from the Med.

Not to be rude, but why would he? Was he at Sqn level, or at A/F level? If the later I'd expect him to have seen something, but if the former, surely he'd just be getting targeting information, not being involved in the discussion?

He also pointed out the interdiction campaign in Italy ran concurrent to the campaign preparing for Overlord.

ood point - STRANGLE was concurrent, or only just prior. But the campaign in Southern Italy and Sicily was almost a year earlier, so Zuckerman had time to absorb the lessons from there and take them back to the UK.

...and their efforts were not what they hoped when the focus was on attacking support structure of the railroads. Attacking marshalling yards and repair facilities did not have the results expected. He remembered a rather heated dialoge over the change to a focus on bridges in the late spring.

Yeah - they (Zuckerman et al) didn't think that bridges could feasibly be attacked, because they weren't too clear on different systems' capabilities. I think one of the useful things he did bring back was an understanding of the need to keep re-hitting targets - there seems to have been a weird blind spot amongst the Heavy guys (certainly Harris) who assumed that once a target had been hit that it would stay hit. They didn't seem to consider that the enemy would actively react and repair.

[Carl Schwamberger]

BTW, I thought the lessons they got from Italy about attacking infrastructure directly led to the highly successful pre-D-Day Transport Plan? Cassino could have, but didn't, teach them that using heavy bombers on a town the day before you intend to attack it wasn't a great idea, but that's separate to STRANGLE and whatever-the-thing-south-of-the-Gustav-Line-was-called.

I'd have thought so, but my father who was directly involved in this as a ordinance officer in the 9th AF told me they never saw any techincal information from the Med.

Not to be rude, but why would he? Was he at Sqn level, or at A/F level? If the later I'd expect him to have seen something, but if the former, surely he'd just be getting targeting information, not being involved in the discussion?

Not rude at all its a legit question. Unfortunatly I was not taking notes back in 1986 - 96. What I recall is the air crew & up through wing commander became upset because they were seeing the rapid repair of the marshalling yards, ect... and experincing improved German anti air defenses as they made second and even third attacks on the same locomotive repair shop, or rail yard. When his group started operations in 1943 the controversy was apparently already in place, with the USAAF leaders divided over the target selection. Lt Schwamberger was quite aware of the discussion, more so after someone at a very high level accused the ordinance crews of not fuzing the bombs.

[

He also pointed out the interdiction campaign in Italy ran concurrent to the campaign preparing for Overlord.

ood point - STRANGLE was concurrent, or only just prior. But the campaign in Southern Italy and Sicily was almost a year earlier, so Zuckerman had time to absorb the lessons from there and take them back to the UK.

What Zuckerman did or did not do I dont know. My fathers 555th squadron assembled in the UK in mid 1943 and soon started operations over France & the low countries, including attacks on transportation targets. In general the medium bomber squadrons had half of 1943 to accumulate experince, first under the 8th AF & then in the 9th AF.

...and their efforts were not what they hoped when the focus was on attacking support structure of the railroads. Attacking marshalling yards and repair facilities did not have the results expected. He remembered a rather heated dialoge over the change to a focus on bridges in the late spring.

Yeah - they (Zuckerman et al) didn't think that bridges could feasibly be attacked, because they weren't too clear on different systems' capabilities. I think one of the useful things he did bring back was an understanding of the need to keep re-hitting targets - there seems to have been a weird blind spot amongst the Heavy guys (certainly Harris) who assumed that once a target had been hit that it would stay hit. They didn't seem to consider that the enemy would actively react and repair.

Another point for which I wish there were notes concerned the bridge attacks. My memory is he said they came to overseas with the assumption that a squadron attack of eight to twelve bombers would be sufficent to knock down a bridge. The poor results from this assumption may have had something to do with the USAAF leaders originally accepting the 'marshalling yard' school of target selection. My father did make it clear they had to tighten up training for precision for the bombardiers & pilots, increase the attack size to a Group of 24 to 30+ bombers, and drop heavier bombs. 110 kg or 250 lb bombs would not do the trick against bridges despite what tests in the US indicated. Exactly when they proved bridge attacks were viable is not clear to me. Possibly as early as Dec 1943, but nothing certain. The nice thing about bridges was it took weeks to put a temporary railroad bridge back into operation, and months to restore a high speed high capacity span. None of this BS like seeing a freight yard back in operation 48 hours later.

[JonS]

What Zuckerman did or did not do I dont know.

If you have access to JSTOR or the like there are quite a few articles about him and the Transport Plan, including a rather polemical, and IMO worthless, one by an ex-9th A/F guy. There are also a couple of substantial thesis-like papers on aerial interdiction. Eduard Mark wrote one called (from memory) "Aerial interdiction in three US wars," or something similar (the wars are WWII, Korea, and Vietnam). If you can find that one (it should be fiarly easy, on the US CGSC site, I think or maybe the Air University) you should find another similar one nearby.

Exactly when they proved bridge attacks were viable is not clear to me.

I recall reading ... somewhere (Eduard Mark, maybe?) that it wasn't till about May 1944 that the P-47s were let loose on bridges, and after a bit of fiddling about with tactics they quickly showed they could drop a Seine bridge with just 8 a/c using dive bombing.

None of this BS like seeing a freight yard back in operation 48 hours later.

I doubt the freight yards were back in operation that fast, surely? Through-routes could be rapaired fairly quickly, but that isn't the same as the yard being operational. The point behind Zuckerman's targetting of the yards and the sheds and repair shops, etc, was that it introduced friction across the entire system. If there is no yard, where and how do you marshall trains? If there are no repair facilities, how do you conduct maintenance and major or minor repairs? Knocking down a bridge stops movement across that point. Knocking out the infrastructure retards movement everywhere. IIRC there were some flaws in Z's reasoning (including the scale and density of the rail network in NWE compared to the sparse net in southern Italy, which made transplanting results a bit tricky), but that was the basic thinking.

Jon

EDIT: ISTR that Jon G and I had a fairly involved thread about this 2, maybe 3, years ago here at AHF, which included loads of references.

Edit: Link to Mark's study:
http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/Pu ... aerint.htm