The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945

by Richard Overy

Both the accuracy and power of British bombing and its capacity to inflict decisive material and psychological damage on Germany were presented in terms quite incompatible with the reality of Bomber Command’s strength, range, and capability. The detailed study on the Ruhr bombing suggested that somewhere between 1,000 and 4,000 sorties were all that were required to knock it out. Calculations suggested that eight bomb hits would eradicate a power plant, sixty-four hits destroy a coking plant, and twelve hits destroy an aqueduct; average bombing error was given as seventy-five yards (sixty-nine meters) from low level and 300 yards (276 meters) from high altitude, figures that had never been verified under combat conditions (and proved entirely unattainable in practice).