London lucky to survive The Blitz.

Piliger wrote: »

That's what you get when you gas millions of people and start two wars.

That's somewhat tit-for-tat considering what we're comparing here.

London was seen as a legitimate target by the German military. Dunkirk had just happened. France had surrendered. Germany was cresting a wave of complete and easy victories around a blitzkrieg offensive. Their entire army, strategy and all their resources were concentrated on blitzkrieg offensive.

Their wave of bombings on major cities as well as military targets would all have been viewed by the allies as legitimate military targets because the allies held similar views on what legitimate targets were. And in both cases those on the attack were motivated by ending the war very quickly.

London was seen as a hugely important military city by the Nazis. Dresden was similarly viewed by the allies. The intense campaign around London was maintained to force the hand of the British to sign an armistice to end the bombings. The Germans thought they were hitting targets which as well as destroying British morale would also destroy the British war industry and force Britain to surrender.

The intense campaign around Dresden was launched to strike a blow at the heart of the German war industry. It was viewed by British intelligence as one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich.

Now you can look at it in the larger scale and look how the terms of "legitimate target" was redefined by the allies during the Pacific endgame. But you still have to frame it around a situation where the war needed to be over and the Japanese would not surrender. Hitler would never surrender.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II#Military_and_industrial_profile

Seeking to establish a definitive casualty figure—in part to address propagandisation of the bombing by far-right groups—an independent investigation conducted in 2010 on behalf of the Dresden city council stated that a maximum of 25,000 people were killed, of which 20,100 are known by name.

The bombing of Dresden is seen as a huge question mark. Were the allies right to do it.
However you have to look at what was known at the time. Dresden was an industrial city in German territory and troops on the ground were dying daily gaining ground on east and west fronts on a war that was essentially already won yet casualties were still high. Hitler was never going to surrender.

Lapin wrote: »

Yes.

But I don't see how any of that is relavant to my post. The fact is, London was bombed regardless of when it occured and the fact remains that the bombings were indiscriminate.

The bombings were made at night. They were made at night to protect the luftwaffe from being in full view of the RAF.

The missiles were essentially unguided and hugely inaccurate.

When the allies were bombing strategic french targets to prepare for d-day less than 10% of the bombs dropped were in any way accurate in terms of their intended targets. If the huge campaign of pre D-day bombings on France was more accurate it would have hugely helped the ground offensive. The pilots were hampered by having to estimate targets with minimal information to hand.

But the pilots had targets.