Strategic Bombing according to Sir Hugh Trenchard had only two objectives; morale damage, killing of civilians, and material damages, destruction factories. This might sound good in theory, but when strategic bombing was put in place, the measure of success was how many civilians were killed, not how many factories or oil refineries were destroyed. This measure of success is morally wicked and the whole idea of using strategic bombing against the Germans was flawed from the beginning. First, destruction of German factories was flawed. Second, more bombers were killed than civilians were. Third, killing of civilians had little effect on the war effort. .
First, bombing of German factories was flawed from the very beginning. Minister Albert Speer robbed the Allies of their industrial targets by separating manufacturing processes and dispersing the fragment to new small sites all over Germany. This made the allies" job of destroying the plants difficult because even if they bombed one small plant that made the tracks for the tanks. Another small factory was making treads in another location; so many manufacturing processes were not greatly disrupted. .
For example, when the USAAF hit the ball-bearing plants at Schweinfurt the B-17's that bombed the plant suffered a 16 percent attrition rate, three times the rate that was acceptable for a single mission. Germany had alternative sources of ball bearings from another plant at Regensburg and from neutral Sweden, which lay outside the Allied targeting area. As shown in this example, the bombing of the ball-bearing plant at Schweinfurt had little effect on the production of ball bearing since there were two other factories making them. .
Second, more bombers were killed than civilians were on the bombing raids. The exchange ratio in 1941 between British bombers and German civilians were more bombers were dying than civilians were. According to the Butt report's main findings prepared for Churchill stated that of the aircraft attacking their targets during strategic bombing one in three got within five miles, over the French ports two in three and over Germany as a whole one in four.
