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Further attacks on dams were made in October/December when the Kembs and Urft dams were attacked; the Kembs dam was successfully breached.
The Urft Dam was attacked during the offensive I named, indeed I find more detailed German sources telling of RAF Dam Buster unit involvement. This dam was only damaged, but it was later blown up by retreating German units (I found no reports of casualties in either attack).
Kembs is in Alsace/today France, near Basel. It has a hydropower dam on the Rhine, but I find the attack concerned an associated weir closing off the original bed of the Rhine (the middle of which is today's border) near Märkt. The successful attack on 7 October caused a 3.5-metre drop of the water level in Basel's port upriver. Again no reported casualties, nor likely - but I could imagine someone unaccustomed with the geography could fear a major city would be swept.
The list of the applications of the Tallboy bomb mentions one more failed attack, a repeat mission on the Sorpke Dam in 1944 (this was the third dam which they failed to breach in the 1943 raid). *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
Dams, along with other infra-structures, were systematically targeted by the Allies' Air Forces in ground-support operations. So-called 'tactical bombing' of dams ahead of the ground forces was conducted to prevent the release water in the capture basins being used as a defensive option. As this 'tactical bombing' was necessarily directed against targets behind Axis lines the majority of casualties were civilians. These raids were undertaken in late 1944 through spring of '45. Have epistemological model of Complex Information environments. Will Travel.
NB the consensus on the effect of the air war on Germany's war capacity seems to be shifting from not much to quite significant.
Not surprising. The rejection of the "not much" consensus is a necessary step for creating the intellectual climate required for bombing Iran. Have epistemological model of Complex Information environments. Will Travel.
I'm saying the shift has to occur in the Planning Staffs in the Pentagon and among the decision makers in D.C. Have epistemological model of Complex Information environments. Will Travel.
I wasn't discussing air war in general, either, though the shift you mention would be worth a more explicit discussion. (As ATinNM, I suspect that shift has reasons in reverse justificating current military strategies, also see Rumsfeld's short-time resurrection of the myth of the Werewolf insurgency.) *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
As far as Iran goes, it would be trivial for the US to cause a collapse of its economy. It would also be a pointless self inflicted negative for US interests but that wouldn't be much consolation for Iran. There's a difference between a conflict between high tech economic superpowers with the resources of a continent at it's disposal and a medium sized middle income country.
Meanwhile, at a much more specific level, I wonder what you think about another angle of my diary: the present-day public image, worsip and fascination with the Dambusters as shown bny the British media. *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
I can't speak for the efficacy of the bombing raid, obviously, only that in a state of total war, the difference between 'civilian' and 'military' is not always present. Which is all the more reason to avoid war like the plague it is. Member of the Anti-Fabulousness League since 1987.
The British had been taking a pasting, Hitler's march across europe was more or less unopposed, only the channel saved the UK. Although the Battle of N Africa was going well it still hung in the balance, the battle of the Atlantic was still raging and Britain faced starvation. Losses of Bomber Command over Germany were colossal and the luftwaffe were still bombing British cities seemingly at will. Meanwhile on the Eastern Front the Battle of Kursk, which turned the tide against the germans, had yet to be fought.
So morale amongst the allies was as low as it could get. Suddenly there came news of this incredibly complex, technically difficult raid that had been carried out against the odds. Using british technical expertise etc etc.
It even convinced Stalin that the British were beginning to make a fight of things. It also provided Roosevelt with the ability to tell America Britain was fighting back when US public opinion was indifferent to Europe and wondering if the UK was just waiting for US to do their fighting for them.
War is hell and bad things happen. I sometimes wonder if the bad things that are done are there to remind us we shouldn't do such things lightly. But we prefer to sanitize it, sweep the bad things under the carpet. All the better to do it again soon. keep to the Fen Causeway
Precision bombing (well, what was achievable in those days) against mainly oil depots and oil facilities made a world of difference though. I guess the attack against the dams falls under precision bombing. And the civilian casualties were pretty small, after all. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
First of all, this mission was in the long tradition of attacking civilian installations of the enemy as a resource war, with willful disregard of results for the civilian population (practised with even more consistency by the Nazis, but with a real long and unbroken tradition in colonial warfare).
Actually this is understating things. My bookmarks are about 350 km away from me at the moment, so I can't give you links, but it is my understanding that deliberately targeting the civilian population was the general reasoning behind what was euphemistically known as "strategic bombing." The logic was that a factory can be replaced in a month - but replacing a worker takes 15 years.
- Jake Your representatives may not listen to you. But they do read your e-mail.
