[thunderbird120]

Precision bombing during WW2 was not possible at the required scale. To put a bomb precisely on target back then you needed something like a dive bomber, a tactic which is incompatible with strategic-scale bombing. Even "precise" methods using advanced analog computers like the Norden bombsight could only do so much.

>Under combat conditions the Norden did not achieve its expected precision, yielding an average CEP in 1943 of 1,200 feet (370 m)[1]

This means that 50% of bombs fell within 1,200 feet of the target, which is an absolutely awful accuracy if you're trying to hit anything specific.

This was further compounded during the campaign against Japan by the heavy reliance of Japanese wartime industry on cottage industries which were dispersed almost randomly within Japanese population centers, rather than being located within specialized industrial districts. From a purely strategic standpoint which is only concerned with destroying the enemy's ability to make war, the most effect way to disrupt these kinds of industry with 1945 technology was essentially to burn every building in the city to the ground. Other options were simply ineffective.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norden_bombsight