Now, crew and casualties are weak proxies for actual expenditure, which I couldn’t find, but it does seem certain that even when caught in the middle of an actual war, the UK put a gargantuan effort into bombing as compared to anti-bombing.
But one of the reasons why the “bomber doesn’t always get through” is that offensive air missions (over enemy territory and antiaircraft guns) are much more dangerous than defensive ones (over friendly territory).
Did the British military ever really believe this? When did they start to build air defenses and how much money did they put into these defenses?
Grrr.… very hard to find figures. But it seems that bomber command lost 55,573 killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Bomber_Command#Casualties
Whereas fighter command lost 507 out of 2945 during the battle of Britain. http://www.oocities.org/mchirnside/fcac.htm Let’s multiply this by 6 to cover the entire war.
Now, crew and casualties are weak proxies for actual expenditure, which I couldn’t find, but it does seem certain that even when caught in the middle of an actual war, the UK put a gargantuan effort into bombing as compared to anti-bombing.
This is a bit low, as the Battle of Britain was a relatively easy fight for the RAF. The full losses were 3,690 killed, 1,215 wounded and 601 POW.
Thanks! where did you find those figures?
Still confirms the main point, though.
Wikipedia
It cites: Bowyer, Chaz. RAF Fighter Command, 1936-1968. BCA/J.M. Dent, 1980. ISBN 0-460-04388-9.
Duh, thanks! I read that article, but missed the useful summary...
But one of the reasons why the “bomber doesn’t always get through” is that offensive air missions (over enemy territory and antiaircraft guns) are much more dangerous than defensive ones (over friendly territory).
Indeed. But the total servicemen also points to the same conclusion.
Do bombers require comparatively greater crew numbers or anything along those lines?
Yes; fighters are generally 1-2 crewmember planes, bombers in WWII had up to 11. Their prices were similarly higher, though, so his point stands.