US Strategic Air Forces and RAF Bomber Command rearranged their target priorities on 23 September. Oil headed the list; second were ordnance, armored fighting vehicle and motor vehicle factories.

The strategic offensive against oil was beginning to show both progress and problems: progress, because the full production flow had slowed greatly; problems, because it hadn't stopped. The Germans had mastered rapid repair, and also had a vast force of slave labor available for the jobs. Between successive raids they were able to produce significant quantities of fuel.

There were also disturbing indications that the Luftwaffe wasn't quite as defeated as had been hoped. German fighters did not harass bomber raids all along their routes as they had done, but they often did attack in force in a single pitched air battle. The USSTAF went back to the German aircraft industry again, specifically targeting those plants where jet fighters were being produced. But it was not to be a successful campaign.

By careful hoarding of gasoline, the Luftwaffe was able to mount some telling offensives. On 2 November, almost 400 fighters blitzed an Eighth bomber strike, and shot down 26 heavies. Once again, USSTAF reacted, bombing Luftwaffe operational bases. It was no more effective than the attacks on the aircraft, ball bearing and armored vehicle industries had been.

The relative ineffectiveness of the campaigns against such strategic targets was a cause for considerable concern. It was, after all, a tenet of faith in the USAAF that strategic bombing was the way to win a war, but strategic bombing was not, apparently, winning that one at that time. USAAF wanted to know why.

Part of the reason was that bombing technology still had not advanced very far. Radar bombing was inaccurate, and nearly one-half of the blind-bombing missions were near-failures. The Eighth had an unenviable score on its radar missions; its average CEP (Circular Error Probable, the radius of a circle within which one-half of the bombs fell) was two miles. The Fifteenth was only half as bad, with a one-mile CEP.

Even daylight drops in clear weather were not always accurate. Further, there was little known about the best combinations of bomb type and fuze setting. A significant percentage of the bombs dropped, on or off target, never detonated.