Facing The Arithmetic

[Taxcutter]

Abe Lincoln was not a professional soldier, and did not know the lingo. But by mid-1862 he realized the Confederacy was politically robust and would not fold up like the Mexico did in 1848. He grasped the fact he as in a war of attrition, but he did not know the term (Was it in use in the 1860s?) so he called it "facing the arithmetic." In US Grant, he found a general who did not think of himself as a Napoleon. Once in command and being sympatico with the C-in-C, Grant initiated policies that ground the Confederate force down to isolated bandits within a year.

What does that have to do with BTR? Air war is - by its nature - a war of attrition. Tooey Spaatz and Jimmy Doolittle recognized this. After Eaker was kicked to the curb, these two (with blessing of Ike and Marshall) initiated an all-out war of attrition. In essence, the bomber crews became bait. The RAF had figured out that the Luftwaffe would not come up to play with fighter-heavy/bomber light tactics dubbed "Rhubarb" and "Roundup." The Luftwaffe figured up the RAF (with its shirt-range defensively designed Spitfires was as helpless on German-held side of the Channel as the was in the fall of 1940. Spitfires and Bf-109s has the same problem - pitifully short range. As the B-17 and B-24, proved there was no such thing as a truly self-defending long-range bomber. So long-range fighters had to be developed in numbers. By early 1944, capable long-range fighters (like P-51s, P-38s, and P-47s) were coming on.

I am playing a training game against the AI and have reached early February 1944 and am ramping up for my own version of Big Week come Feb 20 or so. I've figured out Doolittle was right. The Luftwaffe cannot ignore thousand bomber raids even if they bring with 1,500 fighters. So I am now achieving a 2.5:1 kill rate, so I don't feel too bad about triple digit daily losses if I can put worse on the AI as it it is exacting on me.

But still, losing 217 planes in a single day is tough for my 2024 sensibilities even if I imposed 275 shot down of Goering.