You're joking, right? I know your smarter than this, I've seen your other posts.
You're equating a floating balloon bomb that has no directional guidance, with "strategic bombing".
Shameful comments on your part. Many brave young men died trying to ensure accuracy of bombing targets.
And the day you chose to make this comment.. even worse.
I am 100% not joking. And I make it in full recognition of my grandfather's service piloting B-24s over Southern Europe. He flew 50 missions and never lost a crewmember when he was flying. He earned a DFC for bringing his plane home on three engines, which wasn't supposed to be possible. He kept the piece of flak that they dug out of the dead engine's oil cooler that evening as a key fob for the rest of his life.
Grandpa commented several times that the factories and refineries that they bombed were up and running a few days after they were hit. They bombed the same sites (and lost planes and men) several times. He wondered if it was really worth the cost in blood, though he was proud to have served. Feel free to discount his experience and his story if you want. I won't. Particularly today.
Back to balloon bombs and strategic bombing. The balloon bombs were the only way that Japan could bomb the US directly. The bombs were intended to cause fires in cities and forests were they landed. I'm not disputing that they were indiscriminate, but most strategic bombing in WWII was more or less indiscriminate. Everyone in an enemy country was a target, whether they were in the military or critical industry or not. And that's not surprising, since the entire economies of the nations at war were converted to war footing--everyone was supporting the war effort.
The US "precision bombing" was probably the best, because they were bombing in daylight and were actually targeting military and industrial facilities. Their CEP (50% of bombs land in the CEP radius from the target) was ~1200'. So even the *best* targeting had 50% of the bombs landing more than a quarter mile from the target. That was considered pretty good, even though it certainly killed plenty of civilians.
I spoke of the British bombing campaign deliberately, because it's stated (though not publicly) goal was to destroy civilian housing. Churchill said "as the war went on, we hoped to shatter almost every dwelling in almost every German city." They were bombing at night to reduce losses of their bombers, and they simply didn't have the sights needed to accurately bomb at night. They got over a city and released. In a way, it was worse than the balloon bombs because they knew they were bombing population centers. The general in charge of Bomber Command specifically opposed bombing targets like factories and refineries. [
Air Force Magazine article on this very subject]
Oh, and the bat bombs I mentioned? They had a "CEP" of 20-40 *miles* and were intended to start fires to destroy homes. They were only cancelled because they wouldn't be ready in time to materially affect the war effort.
Yes, the balloon bombs had no guidance, and probably had a CEP of hundreds of miles at best. That made them a waste of resources more than anything else--they were unlikely to actually hit anything worthwhile. But let's not pretend that the Allies' hands were clean of attacking civilian infrastructure, homes, and people. War is a dirty business, and we can remember that today and every day.
