Dude, you do know that the reason we were daylight bombing, despite its higher casualty rate, was using the Norden we were precision bombing (at least that day's version of it). The Eighth Air Force paid in blood to do all possible to minimize unnecessary civilian casualties. What more could we have done in that revisionist version of history you're selling - not prosecute the war on Germany at all?
Assassination of leadership is the most fair and civilized way of settling disputes.
Dropping a bomb on a leader is different than having someone plant a bomb or shoot them with a rifle.But we outlawed assassination because it is uncivilized.
We just need to outlaw war and disarm completely. That will solve everything.
They would usually cruise on three engines, and the jets were only for takeoff and speed over target.
It's not revisionist to acknowledge the Area bombing directive to the RAF and the deliberate targeting of civilians? Not selling anything.
[Your quote referenced 'the west' not just the RAF, hence my response. You are correct Harris was using area bombardment but even he was targeting military targets, just that night bombing had predictably large CAP, and remember that Harris was responding to indiscriminate bombing of population centers by the Luftwaffe]
I understand the reasoning of why it happened, I'm just saying it's been whitewashed.
[STRIKE]Assassination of[/STRIKE][single combat, preferrably with edged weapons, by] leadership is the most fair and civilized way of settling disputes.
Hopefully you've seen Saving Private Ryan. Do you remember how visceral that first 20 minutes was? People who were there said it was the best attempt at showing what it was like, but wasn't nearly horrible enough. I think all we know of warthat isn't firsthand experience is whitewashed
Killing the leadership is one theory on warfighting. And one many like, because it's less "messy".
But one of the theories on the beginning of WWII was that the general population felt that Germany was NOT defeated at WWI. WWI, the Germans surrendered before it had been invaded. They lost little infrastructure. They felt betrayed by "leadership". So, new "leaders" came into power. The nation thought the war was okay.
So, during WWII, one of the allies worries was that Hitler would surrender "too early", or that German leadership would remove Hitler and then surrender too early. They wanted to pound Germany so bad, that NO one could deny that they were defeated.
This was not to end WWII... this was to prevent WWIII.
I think the German population was done in WWI, though. There were all kinds of home front issues and that led to a lot of Generals' memoirs espousing the "Stabbed in the Back" theory.
But I didn't know that about the fear that Hitler would surrender too soon.