In a doctoral thesis, Ikle suggested that the proponents of airpower had overestimated the relationship between the intensity of aerial bombing and the density of a city’s surviving population.

“Before the Second World War, British planners had assumed that for every metric ton of high-explosive bombs dropped on a city, about seventy-two people would be killed or injured. The actual rate turned out to be only fifteen to twenty casualties per ton.“ (Schlosser, 2013, p.119-120).

References

Fred Charles Ikle, a graduate of the University of Chicago and expert on bomb destruction, who wrote ‘The Social Impact of Bomb Destruction,’ published in 1958.

Schlosser, E. (2013) Command and Control: The Story of Nuclear Weapons and the Illusion of Safety. London: Penguin Book s Ltd.