What if?

[Nath-BDP]

Galland's planned late-1944 Der Grosse Schlag (The Great Blow) had taken place?

2000 Luftwaffe aircraft attacking American bomber formations and destroying 200-300 of the latter and LW losing some 500 aircraft and 200 pilots. Do you think this could have bought time for the Germans and allowed them to build up there jet fighter force? And most importantly, do you beleive that the 8th and 9th USAAF would have halted their bombing offensive after such tremendous losses?

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Nath_____
9./JG 54 "Grünherz"
 

"It felt as if an angel was pushing..."
-Reponse of Gen. Adolf Galland after flying the fourth prototype Me 262 in May 1943.

[This message has been edited by Nath-BDP (edited 12-14-2000).]

[RDRedwing]

hmm I never heard anything about this plan and all I'm going to say is pure speculation, but if the operation had taken place the way you described it I think it might have bought Germany a few months.

I highly doubt that it would have been enough to build up a jet fighter force though.

First in 1944 fuel was rare, so even if they had the time and the resources to build the jet fighters they still wouldn't have had the fuel to actually fly them. I know that they were researching ways to artificially produce fuel, but I'm not sure if it would have been enough.

Second loosing 200 pilots sounds like a LOT to me, wouldn't that have been a waste of the last remaining experienced pilots? And what's a jet fighter force flown by totally inexperienced pilots?

Third I don't know if the german war industry was still able to build anything in larger numbers in late 1944... and a few months for sure wouldn't have been enough to repair the destroyed factories AND build the fighters.

As I said, its all pure speculation and I might be absolutely wrong  

[Yeager]

Yeager has said that the USAAF could have had two full wings of P80s in combat from England by January of 1945 but the emphasis was left with the 47s and 51s to take care of the bombers.  Apparently, US intelligence accurately had Germany pegged and didnt want to take the chance introducing new technology unless it was a critial situation.

It wasnt.

Yeager

[Westy]

 Galland tried to form it. But when he finally was able to put it togther it was too late. Between high aircraft and experienced pilot losses on the Western front combined with a late release of aircraft from the Eastern front for this, all they could do was the the last gasp and dismal Operation Bodenplatte on Jan 1, 1945.

 If Galland could have had the cooperation of the High Staff and gotten together a strike, Der Grosse Schlag, at the bombers but in early-mid 1944, it would have seriously effected the ability for the 8th AF to perform operations due to the losses they would have incurred. Late 44. Too late. Too many escorts.

 -Westy

[Nath-BDP]

Well, he was already planning this strike with Heinz Bär and JG 7 by late 44 but all the resources he needed for Great Blow to work was wasted in Baseplate.

It was planned that a large group of Me 262 from various jet JG and KG would go in first and break up the escorts and cause havok then the conventional fighters would come in and do the job.

[Sunchaser]

Lucky for us that Gallands boss was an idiot.

That operation would have caused massive damage to the US day forces and possibly extended the war awhile.

The Allies were indeed fortunate that the Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht were not left in control of their movements.

That is a lesson we forgot too, never let politicians run the war, we relearned it in SE Asia.



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When did they put this thing in here and WTF is it for?

[Yeager]

Okay, back to my orginal point.

Yeager was asked what the Allies would have done if the gerrys had put the jets up against the bombers en'masse in summer 44.

Yeagers reply was that they would have rushed the P80s in and the krauts would have died and killed for an additional 6 months.

Yeager

[Nath-BDP]

Speaking of yourself from third person is a sign of insanity ya know, Yeager.  

Anyway, if The Great Blow happened it would have been late 44, not summer. Btw Me 262s were in operational test units starting in July 44. Namely EK 262.

[RAM]

P80s hadn't the range to escort the Bombers over Germany.

[Nath-BDP]

Not from England but they had the range to escort from France or some of the low countries.

[This message has been edited by Nath-BDP (edited 12-14-2000).]

[Nath-BDP]

Some of you may or may not have heard of Schulungslehergang(Training unit) Elbetheres a very good book on this last ditch unit, The Last Flight of the Luftwaffe: The Fate of Schulungslehergang Elbe 7 April 1945 by Adrian Weir (ISBN 1 85409 300 2).  I highly suggest getting this book, its a great story with lots of info.

Anyway, its about a purely volunteer manned ramming unit, a last ditch effort.  It was created by Hans-Joachim 'Hajo' Hermann, who urged Goering to give him the material to organize and execute this operation.
Hermann was originally promised 1000 Bf 109 aircraft but eventually ended up being only 200, the interesting thing is that these 109s were all stripped down, their skin surfaces were smoothened, most armor was removed and armament was reduced to one MG 131 with 60 rounds. This was obviously done to save weight and to increase performance so that these 109s could blow past the fighter screen and ram the bombers.

The operation launched on April 7 1945 with 200 aircraft from bases all along the Elbe river (which explains the Elbe in Schulungslehergang). 70 of the 200 aircraft were taking off from bases in Czechoslovakia but were forced to turn back because of a course change by the US 2nd and 3rd Air Divisions which put them out of range of the Czech based 109s. The Schulungslehergang combatants had some success but lost appox. 53 of their own number and destroyed 13 USAAF bombers.

As a side note, Me 262s took part and assisted the Schulungslehergang Elbe jagdflieger in basically the same way as they would in Gallands plan, they went in first and disrupted the escorts and caused confusion while the conventional fighters came in.

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Nath_____
9./JG 54 "Grünherz"
 

"It felt as if an angel was pushing..."
-Reponse of Gen. Adolf Galland after flying the fourth prototype Me 262 in May 1943.

[This message has been edited by Nath-BDP (edited 12-14-2000).]

[Westy]

 Well. Not wasted on Bodenplatte because the  Ardennes offensive was going bust and it required a refocus of all available German resources on the Western front. Germany REALLY needed Bodenplatte to work. To stall the Allied recovery which owed so much to the fighter-bombers and bombers tearing the German columns new a-holes by laying waste to the Allied aircraft on the ground. They failed miserably.
 The time for the Germans to have hit the bomber formations had been well before D-Day back in June. If they had hit the USAAF day bombers really hard back in late 43 and early 44, when the escorts weren't as numerous as they would be by the fall of 1944, they could have set back D-Day quite some time and they may have saved much of thier industry from the bombs that disrupted it.

  -Westy

 

[Nath-BDP]

Actually Baseplate was supposed to take place when the Ardennes offensive started, however, due to bad weather a major air operation wasn't practicle.

Dunno if you know or not but by January 1st when Baseplate took place, the Germans were already being beaten back and Allied air operations against them had started back up on December 26 when the weather cleared. So basically, Bodenplatte was too little too late, it was pointless to launch an operation like that after the Ardennes offensive was realized to be a failure.

[Westy]

"it was pointless to launch an operation like that after the Ardennes offensive was realized to be a failure."

 That's assuming that Hitler was playing with a full deck.
 
 -Westy

[funked]

If Galland had his way there would have been many more 8th AF casualties for sure.  But it just would have delayed the inevitable.  Allies would have upped the ante over Germany with Meteors, Shooting Stars, P-51H, P-47M/N, B-29, etc.  And Berlin probably would have been nuked.