Lancaster article

[Sunray]

"...The B-24 came later..." Than what? The 24 first flew in 1939 and was in service in 1941. It also carried 8 1,000 lb. bombs. The 17 first flew in 1935 and was in service in 1938. The Lanc first flew in 1941 and was in service in 1942. What the 24 did was close the Atlantic Gap.
"...extraneous to the war effort..." More like the entire bombing campaign, except for the oil plant raids, was extraneous to the war effort. The Germans were turning out more stuff at the end of the war than any time before. Bomber Harris was just killing civilians. 8th Air Force didn't do much to slow or stop industrial out put. 9th Air Force did a lot more to reduce German ability to carry on the war at Ploesti.

[Griff Murphey]

It is true that German aircraft production rose under the late war bombing. The Germans swapped a bunch of 109s with the Swiss for something they wanted - cannot remember what the motive was, but they received some very late production 109s. The planes were virtually unusable because of defects. Also the Germans were running out of effective air crew. Such tactics as ramming and flying risky crazy planes such as the Bachem Natter, ME-163, and Fi-106 Reichenurg Manned V-1 were futilely proposed and sometimes tried to no effect. Pilots were often perfunctorily trained youths. To dismiss strategic bombing ignores the reality of the collapsing 3rd Reich of 1945.

After the bombings of Rotterdam, the Blitz of London and Coventry and many other cities, the Brits were eager for payback.