Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Devil
Can I just tell you submariners out there of all nationalities that the RAF were quite accurate, it was the USAAF that carpet bombed areas in the HOPE of hitting something, a practice they carried over to Korea and Vietnam. The RAF had a very efficient pathfinder force that illuminated our targets for us with low level incendiaries, not carpet bombs from 40,000 feet!!!
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You can tell us that, but you'll be way off base. First, US carpet bombing was carried out over Japan, but not over Europe, and US carpet bombing of Tokyo was carried out at 7000 feet or less, and at night, and was every bit as "accurate" as RAF night bombing.
US day bombing over Europe was not carpet bombing, but precision bombing of a single target. I'll agree that our "precision" bombing was not very precise, because they defined the target as a single factory and 64 planes dropping at once have a problem hitting anything that precisely. Also the altitude was 25,000 feet. While some fighters could reach 40,000 feet, a fully loaded bomber of that era never could.
On the other hand, RAF night-bombing was carried out at lower altitudes, and the target was defined as "within the city limits", as it had to be when bombing at night. It's hard to miss a whole city.