Re: The Effects of a Global Thermonuclear War in 1988 (Re: NuclearWar, 1980's)

"M. J. Powell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, zolota
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> >
> >"Dave J" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >>
> >> Robert J. Kolker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Yang Li wrote:
> >> >
> >> > >
> >> > > Do you launch anther strike at Soviet cities and population at this
> >> > > time? Is it morally acceptable to kill innocent civilians and
destroy
> >> > > their society because your own has been condemned?  Justify.
> >> >
> >> > Because Revenge is Sweet. Didn't you know that. Don't get mad. Get
even.
> >> > The Main Thing is never to be the sucker or boob that is left holding
> >> > the bag. Better everyone should die, than that.
> >> >
> >>
> >> or you can say it in one of those well-modulated professional soldier
> >voices
> >> like in the Clancy movies "we need to eliminate their centers of
> >production,
> >> and their ability to continue to make war". We already proved we'd do
it
> >at
> >> Dresden and Tokyo.
> >
> >Dresden had nothing to do with war production and given that the war
ended a
> >few weeks later it's destruction had little effect on "ability to
continue".
> >It was either an experiment or a warning to the red army, that's all.
> >Unnecessary killings of civilians are war crimes, that raid was just the
> >most obvious.
>
> See:
>
> Letter to the Sunday Telegraph. I forgot to note the date.
>
> As a correspondent pointed out, Dresden was bombed because it was a
> military target. (Letters Feb 20). The city's destiny was sealed at the
> Yalta conference (on Feb 4 1945) and, as Winston Churchill's
> interpreter, I heard and watched Stalin with his deputy Chief of Staff,
> General Antonov, urgently ask us to bomb roads and railways to stop
> Hitler tranferring divisions from the West. Antonov stressed the
> importance of Dresden as a vital rail junction, saying there was a "uzel
> svyazi" - literally, "communications knot".
>
> Churchill and Roosevelt had to agree as they were indebted to Stalin for
> relieving pressure on our front during the German Ardennes winter
> counter-offensive.
>
> The RAF and US strategic air force succeeded in their military objective
> but tragically and unintentionally they inflicted enormous loss of
> civilian life.
>
> Whether these facts might change Jorg Haider's opinion of Churchill (or
> Stalin?) remains to be seen.
>
> Hugh Lunghi
> Fleet, Hampshire
>
> Another letter:
>
> John Batho says that Churchill's greatest crime was bombing Dresden.
> (Letters Feb 20). As someone who's grandparents died from German
> bombers, who's aunt had her house destroyed around her, who's mother
> became seriously ill through the strain, and someone who spent his young
> nights cowering in air-raid shelters, I later bombed Dresden with no
> compunction whatsoever.
> G. Abrahams
> Birchington, Kent
>
> Also see:
>
> The study is a very lengthy document, but here are its conclusions:
>
> III. CONCLUSION
>
> The foregoing historical analysis establishes the following definitive
> answers to the
> recurring questions concerning the February 1945 bombings of Dresden by
> Allied
> strategic air forces:
> a. Dresden was a legitimate military target
> b. Strategic objectives, of mutual importance to the Allies and the
> Russians, underlay
> the bombings of Dresden.
> c. The Russians requested that the Dresden area be bombed by Allied air
> forces.
> d. The Supreme Allied Commander, his Deputy Supreme Commander, and the
> key
> British and American operational air authorities recommended and ordered
> the
> bombing of Dresden.
> e. The Russians were officially informed by the Allies concerning the
> intended date of
> and the forces to be committed to the bombing of Dresden.
> f. The RAF Bomber Command employed 772 heavy bombers, 1477.7 tons of
> high
> explosive and 1181.6 tons of incendiary bombs, and American Eighth Air
> Force
> employed a total of 527 heavy bombers, 953.3 tons of high explosive and
> 294.3 tons of
> incendiary bombs, in the 14-15 February bombings of Dresden.
> g. The specific target objectives in the Dresden bombings were, for the
> RAF Bomber
> Command, the Dresden city area, including industrial plants,
> communications, military
> installations, and for the American Eighth Air Force, the Dresden
> Marshalling Yards
> and railway facilities.
> h. The immediate and actual consequences of the Dresden bombings were
> destruction
> or severe damage to at least 23 per cent of the city's industrial
> buildings; severe
> damage to at least 56 per cent of the city's non-industrial buildings
> (exclusive of
> dwellings); destruction or severe damage to at least 50 percent of the
> residential units
> in the city's non-industrial buildings (exclusive of dwellings);
> destruction or severe
> damage to at least 50 percent of the residential units in the city, and
> at least some
> damage to 80 per cent of the city's dwellings; the total disruption of
> the city as a major
> communications center, in consequence of destruction and damage
> inflicted on its
> railway facilities; and death to probably 25,000 persons and serious
> injury to probably
> 30,000 others, virtually all of these casualties being the result of the
> RAF area raid.
> i. The Dresden bombings were in no way a deviation from established
> bombing policies
> set forth in official bombing directives.
> j. The specific forces and means employed in the Dresden bombings were
> in keeping
> with the forces and means employed by the Allies in other aerial attacks
> on
> comparable targets in Germany.
> k. The Dresden bombings achieved the strategic objectives that underlay
> the attack
> and were of mutual importance to the Allies and the Russians.
>
> The entire study can be found at:
>
> http://www.earth-lights.net/dresden/Dresden_Bombing_Document.htm
>

Could you kindly explain how fire bombs are the optimum weapon to destroy a
rail yard.

Thanks,

Z