The crippling of German industry did not occur until several months into 1944. John Ellis 'Brute Force' has a chapter analyzing th relation ship between bomb weight & & production decline. The tipping point in bomb weight did not come until early 1944 & its effect a bit later.
Harris grossly mis estimated where that critical mass of bomb weight was. He told the other Brit leaders it would happen in 1942, & then in 1943. As par of his frantic effort to prove his point he was able to block the provision of sufficient VLR aircraft to Coastal Command & the British fleet for anti submarine warfare. In 1942 Bomber Command under Harrisis leadership failed to cripple German industry, but the German submarine fleet came its closest to winning the Battle of the Atlantic. Provisioning a decent number of VLR aircraft to Coastal Command from the start would have built up a much more effective ASW force for 1941-42. Likely winning the Battle of the Atlantic a year or more earlier.
Your correct in all your criticisms of Harris, but all these decisions about the allocation of resources were approved by the service chiefs, and the top political leadership. It wasn't the responsibility of one man for getting so much wrong. By 1942 the UK was committed to the Bomber Offensive, there was no turning back. About 25% of the British War Economy was geared to the production of 4 engine bombers, and the RAF had a massive training program for flight crews to carryout the campaign. Operation Point Blank has many critics who can argue that the myopic allocation of resources was inefficient, and wasteful of lives, but it proved to be the most effective way of directly striking at Germany before the Allied armies could engage them in the decisive ground war in France.
By early 1943 Point Blank had forced almost all Luftwaffe fighter groups back to Germany for homeland defense, paving the way for tactical air forces to have total supremacy on all fronts. Large numbers of Ju-88's, and their derivatives were used as night fighters, rather then as tactical bombers. The German electronics industry was forced to devote almost all it's resources to the defense of the home front. Huge resources of men, and material were expended to build massive concrete Flak Towers. Thousands of 88mm and larger caliber guns, and millions of rounds of ammo were devoted to home defense, that otherwise would have been used as AT Guns, or general service artillery. 500,000 personnel were engaged in the Home Defense effort.
It's true German War Production continued to rise till late in 1944, but how much higher would it have been without the bombing? The disruption of fuel production, and transportation in 1944 proved decisive. Yes your right that 50 to 100 4 engine bombers would've won the Battle of the Atlantic a year earlier, and their absence from the bombing of Germany wouldn't have been felt, but I'm just saying you can't lay that all on Harris, there was a lot of blame to be spread around for those mistakes.
