Absolutely, Borys.

There were two phases, the first was justifiable, the second less so. During the first phase (1940-43), bombing was the only way the British had to hit back at Germany, and they developed precision bombing techniques like Gee and Oboe to assist them. This period - including the burning of Hamburg and the destruction of the Ruhr - was utterly justified.

The second period retained too much of the general area bombing/dehousing approach of the earlier, non-precision-bombing era instead of focussing on specific parts of the German war economy.

The problem was very far from simple. There was a false political and economic assessment of Germany involved. 'Everyone knew' that the darstardly Tuetonic were robot-like efficiency fanatics, therefore 'everyone knew' that the entire German economy had been completely mobilised for total war just like it had been by 1915, therefore general bombing would cause such an economy to reduce war production as you damaged it.

Trouble was, the National Socialists did NOT mobilise the economy for total war until 1943. Their assessment of the 1918 collapse was that the 'guns or butter' total war economy had so undermined German civil morale that they collapsed. So they had a 'Guns AND butter' economy, which also explains the unprecedented looting the the countries they captured.

Classic example, after Hamburg, they stripped Dutch civilians of household furniture and consumer goods, shipped them to Hamburg, and gave them to their civilians as they re-housed them!

Now, in APOD, Bomber Command has been halved, and the Stirling force all sent to BCME. And there's a 'Bomber Command Far East' as well, although it's really quite small (RAAF Manchesters, Wellingtons and Whitleys, RAF Wellingtons and Whitleys, a few Halifaxes, RIAF Wellingtons) and does not do any area bombing at all. In fact, it does not bomb cities at night at all - they are full of Imperial subjects.

There is a pretty sold assessment of the costs in John Fahey's thesis (available Here: http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/664/1/adt-NU20050104.11440201front.pdf) BRITAIN 1939 – 1945:THE ECONOMIC COST OF STRATEGIC BOMBING.

it caused some controversy, as he assesses that the 2.78 billion pounds was not well expended.

In APOD, that figure probably gets trimmed by about a billion or so. That's a hell of a lot of money!

Cheers: Mark