re: #172 BeenHereAwhile

Bomber Harris, “you bombed London” we bomb Würzburg (75 percent destroyed), followed by Dessau, Kassel, Mainz, and Hamburg. Over 70 percent of the largest cities had their urban core destroyed. Worst cases: Dresden, Cologne, Essen, Dortmund, Hanover, Nuremberg, & Chemnitz.

Estimates by historians say that towards the end of the war the Germans had a million troops allocated to flak batteries in and around the larger cities to defend them against strategic bombing. They had to divert a lot of munitions manufacturing from offensive weapons to making ammunition for the flak units which could expend as many as 250,000 shells in a single night. Without the strategic bombing effort by the Allies those soldiers and munitions could have been used to fight the troops invading Occupied France and Germany.

As for Dresden, it was a major railway hub like most big German cities and a lot of military personnel and materiel were being routed through the city towards the Eastern Front. Bombing it into rubble blocked that route, the firestorm was an extra bonus.