How a WWII bombing misjudgement likely cost thousands of Allied lives - Leuna Oil Works Attacks скачать в хорошем качестве

How a WWII bombing misjudgement likely cost thousands of Allied lives - Leuna Oil Works Attacks

Oil was Germany’s Achilles' heel. The USAAF and RAF started a concentrated bombing effort to destroy Germany's synthetic oil facilities in May 1944. The Leuna Hydrogenation plant was Germanys second largest producer of synthetic oil products. The USAAF and RAF sortied some 6,600 bombers over the course of 11 months dropping over 80,000 bombs. Post war evaluation showed the USAAF bombs dropped were too small to inflict critical damage on the plants major components, while the RAF dropped much larger bombs which did inflict critical damage. The plant was one of the most heavily defended targets in Germany. This plus weather, smoke screens and decoy plants reduced bombing accuracy were on around 13% of bombs dropped actually fell withing the plants fence line.