[Thermodyne]

Originally posted by Unknown_Enemy:
Thermodyne, I am afraid I have to strongly refute almost all of your points.

quote:

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civilians are legitimate targets

Sort of.
Allied command started by bombing all known civilian infrastructures, but due to lack of results, switched to transportation and industry. The case of Dresden has no military justification. For an explanation of it, you should look for political reasons.
Source : Liddell Hart's History of World War 2

1000 plane raids over Europe .. were also the end result of pure economics.

False.
The goal of the air war was first to break the German into submission. Problem was that the bomber's precision was really bad until 1944. Due to navigation difficulty, they used to release their bombs in a 5 miles area from their targets ! In 1944, bombers started to use a new organisation and new navigation systems which reduced the area to 400 meters. So before 44, you would need hundred of bombers to destroy a single sheltered factory. That is why large towns were easier targets, but from 44, it really became a possibility to crush the German industry from the sky. And contrary to the popular belief, it was done by bombing the facilities not the towns
Sources : Liddell Hart's History of World War 2, Perret's Air War.

The allies knew that the Germans were on the verge of a fission bomb.

Wrong.
German Nuclear research was deprived of resources because scientists could not assure the Nazi power that their work would lead to a weapon in a short time frame. Instead, resources were transferred to rocket and plane development.

V5 (4?) was a few technical problems away from flying to the eastern seaboard of the US

On a military point of view, the achievement of all V weapons is null. It was a terror weapon which failed in its objective to submit UK into peace. Even if hypothetical V3 were send on the US coast, it would not have changed anything, and would have also failed to break the will to fight of the US population. Rather the contrary. Did Pearl Harbor or 09/11 broke the will of US population ?
Sources : Liddell Hart's History of World War 2, Gilbert Martin's History of the Twentieth Century

The Allies were in no position to not press their advantage once they had gained it.
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The allies had to be wondering just how beaten Germany was at that point.

This is the worst part of your post.
First, Market Garden : primary goal of it was to open the way to the Ruhr and break the German army on the western front. It failed. However, it achieved to generate huge attritions both in men and AFV to the Wermacht, while the allied had plenty of both. After Market Garden and Bulge offensive, Hitler was convinced the western allied were spend, and would be unable to mount another offensive for the year to come. A few weeks later Patton broke through the Siegfried Line in the south and Montgomery made a breakthought in the north, opening the way to the Ruhr. Supply has been a temporary problem. Never a critical one. In fact, supply has been the strongest strength of US army for the whole war.
About UK now :
UK suffered around 715 000 dead from WW1, and around 450 000 dead in WW2(including civilians). Compare this to the 1 800 000 dead Germans in WW1, then to the 5 500 000 dead of WW2 and you can start laughing at your “gutted manpower” statement.
For the “very tired of war”, the intended peace agreement was made public at Yalta : German capitulation without negotiations. And the UK population massively supported it. No one in UK was thinking of ending the war without Hitler's head on a pike. Even less when at Last, victory was in sight since the success of allied landing in Europe, surrender of Italy and the victory in Africa. We are not speaking about 1941 here, but about middle/end 1944.
Sources : For UK moral situation : any UK newspaper archive you like. Take your pick.
For casualties : Boris Urlanis' War and Populations.
Strategic situation : Liddell Hart's History of World War 2, Guderian's Achtung Panzer, Liddell Hart's The other side of the hill and Manstein's Lost Victories.

As a conclusion, you are completely off mark. End of 1944, the writing was on the wall, as all German generals knew. Germany never went near achieving a nuclear bomb. It is an Hollywood picture, not History. UK population never arrived near breaking point. It is a lie.
I recommend you to read Liddell's Hart books. He is probably the most respected WW2 historian. You may know that Blitzkrieg is the translation of “Lightning War”, expression created by Liddell Hart when he was advocating new strategies for AFV in the 30s. As a side note, he was not listened in UK, even less in France but Guderian had his strategy papers translated and applied to the German army.

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No time for a detailed argument right now, I’m at work. But to start with, let’s suggest that you find a modern historian. Hart died in 70 (?) I think. And while he was an innovator of early armored tactics, he was not privy to the intelligence gathered on the German nuclear research program. Much of this has only come to light because of forced declassification here in the states. His work is also tainted by his dissatisfaction with the fame that those who cam later gathered by using his ideas. Also, he was never more than a lukewarm supporter of strategic bombing. Most armored theorists feel that the role of airpower should be focused on ground support. If you search Kings Collage for every record that Hart ever had access to, you will find no mention of German weapons grade Uranium production levels for 1944-45. But the US archives have been found to hold quit a lot of information now that the story of the Uranium’s capture has gone public.

Your comment on the bombers only supports my position. The early missions could not put the needed number of planes over the target to overwhelm the defenses. Strategic bombing in Europe was still evolving at the end of the war. The B29’s over Japan proved the theory further. Then the Bomb changed the game before the theory was ever fully mature. But the targets remained the same. Be it a fleet of B29s or a single SS18, the target is a major city. Sure today some weapons will be targeted on their counter parts in a first strike profile, but the majority of the weapons will fly to major cities.

On you use of the popular press as a source for measuring the moral of the British people, I would remind you that the press was on a very tight leash during the war, and I would suggest that you read the personal correspondence between Churchill and FDR. These letters paint a much different picture.

And Market Garden was pure stupidity. Map table maneuver at its worst. And a waste of fuel that would have been better used elsewhere. Illusions of North African Grandeur.

[ February 18, 2004, 18:49: Message edited by: Thermodyne ]