Area bombardment is the policy of indiscriminate bombing of an enemy's cities, for the purpose of destroying civilian morale.

The coming of area bombardment during the Second World War was an invitable consequnce of the position in Europe at the end of 1942. The British were being defeated on all fronts, and the only effective way they had to strike back at the Axis forces was by air bombardment. However, as Luftwaffe air superiority meant that the RAF's bombers could only operate over Germany at night, precision bombing was impossible for them. Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... The word axis has several meanings: In geometry, it may refer to: An axis of rotation A coordinate axis An axis of symmetry In anatomy, the axis is the second cervical vertebra. ...

As an effective method to strike Germany by air, the RAF adopted carpet bombing of population centres with a massive force that overwhelmed air and ground defences. There was a small amount of oppostion to this policy. The phrases area bombing and carpet bombing refer to the use of very large numbers of unguided gravity bombs to attempt the destruction of a target, either to destroy personnel and materiel or as a means to demoralize the enemy. ...

Though it was never explicitly declared, the nearest the Allies got to a declaration was in an Air Ministry directive issued to Harris on 14th February 1942, which said "You are accordingly authorised to use your forces without restriction", and listing a series of 'Primary targets' which included Essen, Duisberg, Düsseldorf and Cologne. 'Secondary targets' included Lübeck, Rostock, Bremen, Kiel, Hanover, Frankfurt, Mannheim, Stuttgart and Schweinfurt. It stated that "Operations should now be focussed on the morale of the enemy civilian population and in particular, the industrial workers". Lest there be any confusion, Sir Charles Portal wrote to Air Chief Marshall Norman Bottomley on the 15th February "..I suppose it is clear that the aiming points will be the built up areas, and not, for instance, the dockyards or aircraft factories" Schweinfurt is a city in the Unterfranken region of Bavaria in Germany. ... RAF Air Chief Marshal Charles Portal (left) and Polish Commander in Chief Władysław Sikorski (right) visit an airbase of the 300th Polish Bomber Squadron in England. ... Air Chief Marshal Sir Norman Bottomley KCB CIE DSO AFC ( September 18, 1891 - August 13, 1970) was the Yorkshire-born successor to Arthur Bomber Harris as Commander-in-Chief of Royal Air Force Bomber Command in 1945. ...

The first true practical demonstrations were on the 24th March 1942, when 234 aircraft bombed and incendaried the ancient hanseatic port of Lübeck. This target was picked not because it was an important military target, but in fact because it was unimportant, lightly defended and, in Harris' words 'built more like a fire lighter than a city'. The ancient timber structures burned well, and the raid destroyed most of the town centre. A few days later, Rostock suffered the same fate.

However, the most startling, awesome examples of carpet bombing were the 'Thousand Bomber Raids'.

On 30th May 1942, between 00:47 and 0225 hours, 1046 aircraft dropped over 2000 tons of high explosive and incendaries on Cologne, the medieval town, and burned it from end to end. The devastation was total. The fires could be seen 600 miles away at 20,000 feet altitude. 3300 houses destroyed, 10,000 damaged. 12,000 separate fires raged, also destroying 36 factories, damaging 270 more and leaving 45,000 people with nowhere to live or work. Bomber Command lost 40 aircraft, and 384 civilians and 85 soldiers were killed

Two further 1000 raids were executed over Essen and Bremen, but neither so utterly shook both sides as the scale of the destruction at Cologne. See also the firestorms created in some cites by area bombing, and especially the firestorming of Hamburg and Tokyo. This is an article about a specific circumstance of combustion. ...

During the Vietnam War, the Americans, increasing frustrated by there inability to gain the upper hand against a guerilla war conducted by the Vietcong, resorted to area bombing the forests and villages with Napalm and Agent Orange, in order to depirve the Vietcong of their jungle cover, but to no avail. A napalm airstrike during the Vietnam War Napalm is a flammable, gasoline-based weapon invented in 1942. ... Agent Orange is the code name for a powerful herbicide and defoliant used widely by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. ...

Precision bombing had to wait until the second Gulf War in 2004 before it became a practical reality. Precision bombing is the desired skill of being able to bomb single buildings in a built up area, without causing any damage to the surrounding buildings, or the ability to place a bomb by air to within extremely accurate limits. ...