WW2: The Resource War - IV: Strategic Bombing - Extra History
Added 2016-04-27 06:20:05 +0000 UTCWe wrap up our series on WW2, the Resource War, with a look at the Battle of Britain and the concept of strategic bombing.
P.S. Sorry for the late post on this one, team! I went out today and expected to be home by 2pm but uh... it's 11.
Comments
I'm surprised a series on the economics of war focused on the terror portion of the Blitz without mentioning the Allied firebombing campaigns, at the very least.
Randall Norman Pick
2016-05-02 16:52:15 +0000 UTCOf course bombing played an important role in Germany's defeat, but by itself it wouldn't have led to Germany's defeat, and the 'terror bombing' never broke the enemy's will to fight as it was intended.
Alex Kyriacou
2016-04-29 14:40:08 +0000 UTCBut the strategic bombing campaign (in the sense of attacking industrial facilities that take a long time to build) had a definite effect on weakening the ability of Germany to wage war.
Randall Norman Pick
2016-04-28 18:45:39 +0000 UTCRMS Oceanic after fighting the Germans the Japanese army really was easy mode no AT guns worth worrying about no submachineguns, a handful of tanks but most of them could be destroyed by 7.62mm AP bullets let alone actual anti tank weapons(that the russians had no shortage of its kind of ironic the russians had all the Tank killers in the world but nothing worth shooting them at and the Japanese where "fighting" all the tanks in the world but had nothing that could hurt them). hardly surprising how one sided it was the soviets lost about 12,000 men the Japanese lost as many as 50,000 dead and hundreds of thousands captured or deserted.
paul staber
2016-04-28 12:25:05 +0000 UTCWhile I have made similar points myself, the one undeniable bonus of the Allied Strategic bombing campaign was that it forced the germans to defend against it tying up about a million men (to include the last pope) and many thousands of FLAK guns and fighters and even bombers (used as night fighters looking at you Ju-88) that where desperately needed at the front.
paul staber
2016-04-28 12:10:47 +0000 UTCIt's interesting that the British didn't learn from the Germans' mistakes and strived to break the German will to fight with strategic bombing that caused much more destruction than the Blitz. Once again, this had the opposite effect, and made the Germans more resolved to fight to the bitter end. Some would argue that Japan was broken by strategic bombing, but that's neglecting the role of the American blockade (that threatened Japan with starvation), the Soviet attack on Manchuria, the isolation of Japan's main army in China and of course nuclear weapons were a game changer. This lesson was ignored in Vietnam as well, and is being ignored by certain politicians who want to 'carpet bomb' Syria to crush ISIS . You can't bomb a country or a people into submission.
Alex Kyriacou
2016-04-28 11:20:05 +0000 UTCThere's also the not-often-discussed-in-western-circles Soviet invasion of Manchuria which took place the day before Nagasaki. They took the lessons learned against the Wehrmacht and completely overran Japanese forces. That had to be a strong motivator. By the time they surrendered Russia had taken land area equivalent to most of Europe, including half of Korea, which is how that partition happened.
RMS Oceanic
2016-04-28 06:46:51 +0000 UTCCorrect. I play a lot of D&D so I'm used to the folking things: lizardfolk, catfolk, merfolk, folking hell. Hence Beanfolk.
Robbie the Gnome
2016-04-27 21:14:00 +0000 UTCWe actually do call them bean people! Beanfolk is a synonym for this, I assume. ;)
Extra History
2016-04-27 20:37:54 +0000 UTCYeah, modern history isn't my particular specialty, but I do remember reading an essay or two that described how Japan was already seriously considering their surrender when the nuclear bombs hit and made it a necessity. -Soraya
Extra History
2016-04-27 20:37:30 +0000 UTCBeanfolk? I love it! This should be made the official name.
Jakob
2016-04-27 14:51:35 +0000 UTCThe man was a walking quote machine. one of my favorites was "there is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at and missed" though that was back in the Boer War.
paul staber
2016-04-27 11:39:08 +0000 UTCWars have always been won by breaking the enemy's will to fight but so far n one has ever been able to do it from the air no not even with nukes that killed about 200,000 people combined and that was only because no one bothered to use there bomb shelters (it was only one plane after all) not even the most destructive air strikes of the war or month for that matter. but by then japan had lost maybe as many as 3,500,000 people and while it is not as sexy as BANG war over there was already large scale surrenders and other signs that japan was on the verge of falling apart the nukes as far as I am concerned where just the straw that broke the camels back though they where pretty big straws.
paul staber
2016-04-27 11:36:09 +0000 UTCHe did a top notch job with this series. I also like his EC work as well. Beanfolk are so entertaining.
Robbie the Gnome
2016-04-27 08:18:33 +0000 UTCOur artists take the water we give them and turn it into wine. This series was actually drawn by Scott DeWitt, who usually does Extra Credits for us, and it was fun getting to work on a different sort of project with him!
Extra History
2016-04-27 07:34:55 +0000 UTCHe emphatically denies it, but Dan is becoming a pretty good voice actor.
Extra History
2016-04-27 07:25:00 +0000 UTCThat black and white panel depicting the the German and English clash at the beginning of the episode (around the 1:20 mark) is just stunning, beautiful, and utterly effective. I paused the video for a few minutes just to look at it as I'm knew there was more there than a cursory glance would do justice to. The art style of EC/EH always delights in its simplistic complexity. I enjoyed the rest of the episode thoroughly as well. Churchill is one of the world's greatest orators. It's always a moving to hear his words.
Robbie the Gnome
2016-04-27 07:08:29 +0000 UTCI enjoyed the exert from Winston Churchill's speech. The words are very powerful.
Aaron hutchinson
2016-04-27 06:56:45 +0000 UTC
