S8 Ep191: The Failure of Precision Bombing — James M. Scott — Scott explains the systematic failure of Hansell's precision bombing doctrine: Japan's notoriously unpredictable weather patterns and the unexpected discovery of violent jet streams traversing the Pacifi

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🗓️ 14 December 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

The Failure of Precision Bombing — James M. Scott — Scott explains the systematic failure of Hansell's precision bombing doctrine: Japan's notoriously unpredictable weather patterns and the unexpected discovery of violent jet streams traversing the Pacific islands rendered high-altitude precision bombing operationally nearly impossible. Scottdocuments that the B-29, which cost approximately $3.7 billion in development expenditures—exceeding the financial investment in the atomic bomb—suffered chronic mechanical defects including catastrophic engine fires and structural failures compromising operational reliability. Scott details that early raids targeting Japanese aircraft manufacturing facilities failed to destroy critical industrial targets, resulting in the grim nickname "Flack Alley" for the densely defended airspace above Nagoya and Tokyo. Scott notes that General Arnold, demonstrating impatience with mounting losses and facing escalating political pressure to produce quantifiable military results, replaces the intellectual Hansell with the pragmatic Curtis LeMay after merely 44 days of failed operations.
1930 TOKYO

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm John Dascher with James Scott, the author of the new book, Black Snow, Curtis LeMay, the firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb.
0:09.8	Haywood Hansel is in place. The 20th Air Force consists of two bomber commands, the 20th and the 21st.
0:16.8	They're launching Thanksgiving, 1944, and early December to Christmas, 1944, are the early launching of the B-29, Strategic Bombing, 25,000 feet, pressurized cabin.
0:32.6	James, the puzzle here is that you introduce that it doesn't work for a very simple thing weather how so james
0:40.8	with japan is a uh you know as an island nation out of the pacific it has notoriously cloudy
0:47.6	rainy weather and so some months and then of course if you're doing daylight precision bombing you need to see in order to be able to put your bombs on target.
0:58.1	And then Japan in some months has as little as three days of clear weather.
1:02.7	And the ability to predict those days is a near impossibility.
1:06.8	And so you've got this terrible weather for bombing.
1:10.3	And then on top of that, they discover that high up in the heavens ever Japan are these crazy violent jet streams where winds blow as much as 230 miles per hour.
1:19.6	I mean, those are like the winds that batter Mount Everest.
1:22.6	And of course, the bad weather and the jet streams just combined to completely wreck bomber accuracy.
1:29.3	And so those are two of the problems that Hansel faces.
1:32.3	Another one that he has is the B-29 is a brand new plane.
1:36.3	And as you noted earlier, it's an incredibly expensive gamble that Arnold has taken.
1:41.3	It costs $3.7 billion to develop this plane. That's actually more than the atomic bomb.
1:48.0	And unlike the B-17, which is sort of the dominant workhorse in the European theater,
1:54.0	where America actually had benefited from fact that the B-17 had been around for several years before the war began.
2:01.7	So we had time to work out all the kinks of the B-17s that by the time the war begins, we've got a
2:06.0	reliable platform. The B-29 rolls out of the first factories in 1944 and goes straight into
2:12.3	combat. And so, of course, with any new technology, particularly something as sophisticated as the B-29,
2:18.3	it's got lots of glitches.
	...

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