Never forget that the defeat of the Nazis was mostly done by the Red Army and Allied bombers.

The Red Army, sure. Allied bombing? No. The US Air Force was created by splitting it off from the Army based almost entirely on the premise that strategic bombing in WW2 is what brought the Germans to their knees, and as such demanded a wholly separate armed service so as not to get "distracted" by the messy tedium of responding to the tactical needs of ground forces. One of the key points of this belief--- one which was hammered into every Air Force Academy cadet--- is the notion that precision strategic bombing of the German ball bearing factories was the single greatest crippling blow against German industry. Years after the war, a former AF officer who'd heard the ball bearing story met Albert Speer, the former German Minister of Armaments and War Production, and asked him about the ball bearing factories. Speer's reply was (paraphrased), "ball bearings weren't an issue until after the war was basically already lost."

The guy then got an earful from the man who probably knew more about the subject than anyone else on the planet. His view was that the Germans knew from day 1 of WW2 back in '39 that they would have most imports cut of and that they'd have maybe 3-4 years worth of petroleum with which to conduct a full scale war. Victory depended entirely upon seizing Soviet oil fields in a timely manner. Failure at Stalingrad in winter '42 was the beginning of the end, and even the Red Army only deserves half credit for defeat on the eastern front--- the other half belongs to bureaucratic bungling in the German high command. By the spring of '43 the petroleum shortage was looming. Given that allied strategic bombing was still emphasizing aircraft and armaments facilities, and by the end of the war the Germans lacked pilots and fuel and had plenty of planes to fly, I think it's pretty clear that the effectiveness of strategic bombing is highly exaggerated.