Is carpet bombing a war crime?
If you ask a question to everyone who has heard the term “carpet bombing”, the overwhelming majority will answer that it is a war crime, expressed in the massive bombing of cities and the destruction of civilians in this way.
Almost everything about this answer is wrong. The deliberate destruction of the local population is considered a crime. And it doesn’t really matter in which way. If flamethrowers burned down a village in Vietnam, this is not a reason to consider flamethrowers a genocidal weapon.
But if bombers deliberately dropped bombs on residential areas in order to destroy the people living there, this is a crime. Or, for the purpose of intimidation and intimidation. However, it is extremely difficult with the latter. For example, the Soviet bombing of Berlin in 1941 was carried out in order to show the German population that Red Army planes were also capable of bombing Berlin. What can you call it if not intimidation? Although to call it a crime, somehow the tongue does not turn.
It must be said that although there were enough deliberate bombings of civilians in World War II, in most cases these were purely military operations. That is, they bombed objects of military significance, but at the same time destroyed nearby residential areas. Moreover, the fact that civilians would suffer was clear from the beginning. But… In war, this happens all the time. If the enemy is on the defensive in residential buildings (especially urban ones, and anyone can cite many such examples), then during the assault there may be casualties among the civilian population with a very, very high probability. And who is to blame for their deaths? Those who are storming or those who have taken up defensive positions in residential areas? Alas, these are the realities of war, because they have never fought by the rules, even if there were rules. And more often than not, it is extremely difficult to find the corpus delicti.
The very concept of “carpet bombing”, as surprising as it may sound, is not military at all. This usually means massive bombing of areas. However, there is also no clear definition of where the massive ends. Moreover, there is definitely nothing inherently criminal in this. Let me start with the basics, because as the comments show, many people do not know them either.
There are only two methods of bombing (as applied to the Second World War). The first way is from level flight. Accuracy is not even measured at tram stops. Only a person who is very far from military aviation (and the overwhelming majority of them are) believes that if an airplane flies over a certain object, and drops a bomb precisely over it, then the bomb hits this object. Alas, this is not at all necessary, even if we are talking about a facility with an area of two or three football fields. And if the plane flies at an altitude of seven or eight kilometers (so that the anti-aircraft guns do not reach it), then the bomb can fly very far. Moreover, there are uncontrollable and unforeseen factors, such as wind, that make this flight even more unpredictable. American and British heavy bombers bombed with an accuracy of several kilometers… That’s how it turns out according to their reports. However, the accuracy of the very exit to the target is also taken into account.
To hit a small target, such as a tank, you need to bomb from a very steep dive. And this is a story appropriate for the front line and, therefore, not our case.
Therefore, the only way to hit a target with bombers in World War II, while not falling under fire from air defense systems, was to send enough bombers so that they, covering an entire area of several square kilometers at once, destroyed the objects located in this area.
By the way, it was the same in artillery. If we take heavy artillery, which fired at a range of more than ten kilometers, then it is the same. It was possible to accurately fire at a specific small target with one or more guns, while constantly adjusting the fire. Or you can collect more guns and stock up on a lot of shells for them, and then fire everything at the area where the desired target is. With the hope that the target will definitely be hit, and if you are lucky, then something in the neighborhood will be covered. By the way, when artillery is firing at squares, as well as when bombing squares, the probability of hitting the civilian population is very high if the fire is directed at a settlement.
The most terrible thing about war is that not only soldiers, but also civilians – children, women, the elderly – die in it. And almost no wars can do without it. Of course, in the old days, when armies converged on the battlefield, women and children did not seem to suffer. But in addition to the battles in the fields, there were also sieges of cities and their capture followed by plundering, burning villages, and so on and so forth.
And for some reason, those who unleash it suffer the least in the war. It’s such an injustice…
Dresden, 1946