area bombing
- noun
- NSFW
:
bombardeo de área
- " Aron, a critic of area bombing, pointed out that the secondary damage to German cities that did not appear to have a military purpose, "tended to exasperate rather than discourage" the German population.
Examples
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Certainly, Allied leaders went through a painful decision-making process; Long's assertion is oblivious to this in deciding ultimately to use area bombing.
Academic text (1991) -
Nevertheless, despite the failure of area bombing to break the will of the German nation to wage war or to destroy the industrial capability of Germany to sustain warfare, Aron acknowledged that the Allied bombing raids "obliged the enemy to devote important resources to active or passive defense, clearing the ruins, maintaining public services."
Academic text (1991) -
This decision marked the transition to a policy of area bombing.
Academic text (1991) -
This meant the adoption of what the British chose to call area bombing and what the Germans called terror bombing.
Academic text (2005) -
Thus, although Britain's intent was precision bombing, in practice it became area bombing.
Academic text (1993) -
Area bombing could be done at night or in bad weather using radar and thus with less risk to the attackers, but it certainly crumpled the ideal of not targeting the population.
Academic text (1993) -
The Blitzkrieg tactics of the Nazis, the area bombing strategy of the Allies, and the territorial aspirations of an industrialized Japan meant that this was going to be total war, as never seen before, and on a truly global scale.
Blog text (20) -
Laser-guided bombs, laser-guided missiles, and infrared-guided missiles were dramatically more effective and caused far fewer civilian casualties than the area bombing that characterized previous wars.
Academic text (1991) -
The military strategy focused on area bombing to maximize destruction across the enemy's territory.
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During World War II, area bombing was used extensively to target entire cities rather than specific military sites.
Synonyms
942
3.4
An attack using bombs to damage or scare people
47
7.0
A long, heavy attack with bombs or large guns on a place
2
8.0
A military attack that drops many bombs over a wide area without aiming at specific targets
1
8.2
To drop many bombs over a large area to destroy it
How Extensive
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'an extensive bombing campaign targeting a large region' is directly derivable from combining 'area' (a region) and 'bombing' (an attack with bombs). This is a literal noun + noun composition that follows normal English patterns, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Area bombing comes from wartime bombing where planes dropped many bombs to destroy whole areas rather than aiming at one building. So the image of covering an entire area with bombs explains why it means attacking a large target zone instead of a specific place.