Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: Lumpy on April 04, 2008, 02:21:29 AM
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Its pretty obvious that you have little understanding of the history of the luftwaffe or the real issues that shaped the BoB.
The seeds for the luftwaffe were planted by Gen Hans Von Seekt in the early 1920's. He selected and nurture the original cadre of officers who would later create the luftwaffe. In 1933 the appointment of Erhard Milch began the transition of the "civil" air industry into the true luftwaffe. The chief advocate and pioneer of what would be considered the modern airforce in europe during the post WW1 era was Giulio Douhet. Hitler, Milch and the "senior brain trust" of the luftwaffe were all proponents of this new "air power". Max Wever was selected as the original Chief of the Air staff and a very forward looking strategic role for the luftwaffe was laid (the Luftkriegfuhrung). The 1st and most pressing need the new mandate required was A bomber that could fly around Britain from its base in Germany (direct quote from Milch).
General Wever was a strong proponent of a true strategic airforce and immediately began to lay the frame work needed to bring Douhet's vision to life.
The following is a summery of his speech at the 1935 opening of the air war academy taken from an other source...
He stated that "the realms of the air are not restricted to the fronts of the Army; they are above and behind the army, over the coasts and seas, over the whole nation and over the whole of the enemy's territory." Wever went on to advocate the doctrine of attack, stressing the offensive. He asserted that "the bomber is the decisive factor in aerial warfare." He warned that it was not sufficient to establish defense with only defensive weapons, instead the initiative must be taken and this meant that "the enemy bomber formations should be attacked at their most vulnerable moment; when they are on the ground taking on fresh fuel and ammunition and reservicing." In terms of established air policy, emphasis was first on the surprise attack of enemy air forces followed by attacks upon other vital enemy centers of gravity. "An initial assault by the Luftwaffe was to be directed against the enemy air force, including its supporting aircraft and aero-engine factories and ground installations, in order to gain air superiority from the outset."
General Wever was killed in a flying accident the following year and the army began to exercise a greater influence over the supposedly independent luftwaffe. From the army's perspective the role of the luftwaffe was "the role of airpower was simply to allow the maneuvers of the ground forces as much freedom as possible.". This eventually led to a focus on dive bombing vs level bombing and an operational doctrine focused on pinpoint vs area bombing and operational level bombing at lower altitudes. It led to cancelation of the JU-86 and delayed the Ju-88 development significantly and eliminated any true strategic bomber.
So when the JU-881A arrived it had a max speed of 258 mph a range of 550 miles and a 2000 bomb load. When loaded to maximum capacity it had a range of only 250 miles and a top speed of 190 mph....but with a top flight crew it could deliver 50% its bombs in a 50M radius in a dive bombing attack.
Alot of factors from the lack of quality engines to limited and lower octane fuel supplies also played a part, but the real issue here was that the army simply overrode the luftwaffe's goal to develope a true heavy bomber (4 of which were in development in 1936).
This led to operational doctrines and planes tailored to low altitude level bombing and/or dive bombing and operational combat at altitudes that favored the british. This led to very high bomber attrition (so bad that only 1 experienced officer per plane was allowed) and tied german fighters to an ineffective close escort role which maximized there own casualties and minimized there effectiveness vs there british counterparts...
So in 1940 the Germans had the 109/110/He-111/Ju-88...basically the same airforce they finished the war with.
If we look across the ocean to the US...the B-17 was already in production and the XP-38 had set a speed record in 1939. So the US had both the fighter and the bomber that would 1st reach Berlin "on the books" in the 1930's. Whats funny is that the US and germans drew such different conclusions from the spanish civil war where the germans saw validation of there tactics and the americans saw all the shortfalls in both the german bombers and the 109 itself.
So while the german loss of the BoB can be argued as a command failure with a high measure of success the real underlying issue was the failure to implement the Luftkriegfuhrung as originally conceived, which led to obvious shortcomings in equipment not suited to a strategic campaign and relagated the luftwaffe to much more marginalized role then originally hoped for. In the end Germany lost the airwar in 1944 because of choices it made in 1937...
You just tried to deflect my points with cut-and-paste irrelevancies. You didn’t answer to the facts that all of Britain was within range of German bombers already. You didn’t answer to the fact that the B-17 was not combat worthy by the time of the BoB, or indeed even a year after the BoB. You did not answer to the fact that Germany’s bomber force would only be a fifth of its size with B-17’s due to the costs involved. You didn’t answer to the fact that the strategic bombing of Britain failed, and would have failed no matter what aircraft was available to the Germans simply due to the nature of British war production.
You don’t seem to realise that strategic air warfare with conventional munitions proved a failure in WWII. Just like the British “cottage-industry”, German industry proved an elusive target. The first blow to the strategic air war doctrine was the fact that German industrial output actually went up after the “Big Week” operations. If we put aside the ethical and moral issues, the only strategic air war that proved somewhat effective during WWII was the destruction of German and Japanese cities by night-time firebombing. The shroud of darkness protects a Heinkel just as much as it does a Lancaster and even as late as January 1944 the Luftwaffe managed to mass more than 500 bombers to attack Britain at night. British cities and towns were subject to nightly bombing by the Luftwaffe right up to D-Day. The final blow to the strategic air warfare doctrine was the Vietnam War where the USAF dropped more bombs in a week than during all of WWII. Yet they failed to defeat a third-world nation or even appreciably disrupt the North-Vietnamese war effort.
Vietnam was the last time the USAF tried strategic air warfare; in Gulf War I and Gulf War II air power was used the way it’s supposed to be used: Defeat the enemy armed forces, and to do so in combination with the other services; 1. Achieve air superiority by destroying the opposing air force. 2. Support ground forces through direct action against enemy frontline forces and attack supply, communication and command infrastructure in the enemy’s rear areas. Only in the event of stalemate and the expectation of a long, drawn-out war should air power be used against enemy vital centres. Gulf War I & II was fought following the general instruction for the Luftwaffe, the “Conduct of Air Warfare,” first drawn up in 1935 and revised down to 1940. Even Generalleutnant Walther Wever whom you seem fond of Humble, the Luftwaffe Chief of Staff who died in 1936 and who is generally regarded as the chief German proponent of strategic air warfare, argued that “in the war of the future, the destruction of the armed forces will be of primary importance.” Strategic air warfare is today just a minor part of military thinking, with aircraft like the B-52 and B-2 originally designed for strategic use being adapted and used for tactical warfare with precision munitions.
The B-17 was a failure as well. It was designed around the misguided concept of the “self-defending bomber” – the notion that if you just put enough guns on a bomber it would be able to fend off attacks by enemy fighters. The Germans quite rudely proved that concept a fallacy in 1943 when they shot down unescorted B-17’s in droves and the USAAF had to withdraw from the battlefield to rebuild and rethink their strategy. In the end the “self-defending bomber” had to be defended by fighters (much like the German Zerstörer concept). And since the bombs they dropped on Germany did little damage to German war production the B-17 and her companion the B-24 ended up as little more than bait to lure the Luftwaffe into a war of attrition. That’s the only success of the USAAF’s strategic bombing campaign in Europe. The war itself was won in the suburbs of Moscow and the steppes of Russia using ground forces and close air support, often using planes like the P-39 and P-63 which was found undesirable by the strategic minded USAAF.
The first bomber to be designed around a truly modern and realistic concept was the de Havilland Mosquito. A bomber that only used passive defence to survive: Speed and stealth. And unlike the B-17 the Mosquito proved its concept by being the most survivable bomber of the war. After WWII bombers would carry less and less defensive armaments, until they were eliminated completely in favour of only passive defence. Modern bombers like the B-1, B-2, and Tu 160 rely completely on speed and/or stealth for protection. In the other thread I selected the B-24 as my level/strategic bomber only because it is the best level bomber in the game and per the rules cost was not an issue. If the bomber Mosquito was modelled in Aces High I would have chosen it instead.
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I recommend reading Tami Davis Biddle’s book: “Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914–1945.” http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7286.html It’s a very good read.
(http://press.princeton.edu/images/j7286.gif)
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I recomend reading "Masters of the Air" by Donald L. Miller. Im not jumping in one way or the other on this post, but if you love the history of Strategic bombing as much as I do, you will love this book. One of the best reads ive ever enjoyed. Lots of great facts, stories, pictures, and you learn quite a bit! May sway one of you to the other side even.
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51WHrsLkcOL._AA240_.jpg)
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I'll add it to my reading list, though it seems to focus on the airmen's war experiences rather than the strategies and thought processes behind them. :)
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You don’t seem to realise that strategic air warfare with conventional munitions proved a failure in WWII. Just like the British “cottage-industry”, German industry proved an elusive target. The first blow to the strategic air war doctrine was the fact that German industrial output actually went up after the “Big Week” operations.
So you are saying there was in increase in the production of all manufactured good of every German industry after Big Week? I've read that fighter aircraft production increased, I didn't know that all industry surged ahead. If you have some numbers I'd be interested in seeing them.
Seems to me that if Speer had to reorganize industry, then strategic bombing was having a salutatory effect (for the allies anyway) for at least some period of time prior to and during the Nazi reorganization. It does take money, manpower and time to reorganize anything, and when you're in the midst of a war....
If we put aside the ethical and moral issues, the only strategic air war that proved somewhat effective during WWII was the destruction of German and Japanese cities by night-time firebombing...
I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that the crippling of Ploesti had a dramatic effect on the Third Reich's capacity to wage war.
Strategic bombing may not have been as successful as proponents had hoped, but I have a LOT of doubt that WWII would have ended in 1945 if the "strategic" raids had never occurred, which is the implication of calling them a failure.
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The million men could have been put to better use on the front lines than in defending the Reich, repairing the damage and fighting the fires started by the bombings. Never mind the high number of 88s that could have been put to better use defending the Third Reich. A/c used to defending against the bombers would have come in handy on the EF.
A high ranking Nazi official said the bombing cost ~30% of its production.
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If the LW would have continued to bomb the english airfields instead of the general population the outcome may have been different I belive it was the decisions not the machines that were the issue.
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The million men could have been put to better use on the front lines than in defending the Reich, repairing the damage and fighting the fires started by the bombings. Never mind the high number of 88s that could have been put to better use defending the Third Reich. A/c used to defending against the bombers would have come in handy on the EF.
A high ranking Nazi official said the bombing cost ~30% of its production.
Absolutely correct.
Moreover, the simple observation that Germany put such tremendous resources into defending against strategic bombing is a clear indication of the value of it. By 1944, nearly 40% of the nation's manpower and manufacturing resources were spent defending against Allied strategic air power. Maybe Lumpy can explain how something could be deemed a failure that accomplished such a stunning reduction of German offensive capability. Perhaps he may want to reconsider his argument?
My regards,
Widewing
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So you are saying there was in increase in the production of all manufactured good of every German industry after Big Week? I've read that fighter aircraft production increased, I didn't know that all industry surged ahead. If you have some numbers I'd be interested in seeing them.
Big Week only targeted the German aircraft industry so that’s what you have to look at, but German war production in general steadily increased during the war until Germany itself was overrun by allied ground forces. German armament production peaked in July-August 1944 and by February 1945 it had fallen to 1943 levels, but was still twice that of 1941.
I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that the crippling of Ploesti had a dramatic effect on the Third Reich's capacity to wage war.
That the strategic bombing campaign of the USAAF was a failure does not mean that some vital targets were successfully destroyed. Besides Ploesti (Operation Tidal Wave) I can mention the dam-busters raid made by the RAF for instance. Neither of those raids were part of a greater, long-term strategic campaign, but one time strikes. And both raids were executed by a relatively small bomber force flying at treetop levels at great risk to the crews involved, not at 30,000 feet with a thousand-bomber stream. Both raids involved extensive preparation and training and staggering losses to the attacking force … and were as I said one time events (though Ploesti was “revisited” a year later).
The Ploesti raid in 1943 destroyed 50% of the Romanian refinery capacity. However this did not affect the Luftwaffe in any way, nor did it appreciably affect the German war effort. Most of Germany’s oil production was synthetic (from coal), in fact all of the aviation fuel used was synthetic, and production was increased to compensate for the Ploesti losses. Despite popular belief there was no shortage of fuel in the German national reserves until late in 1944 when production and storage sites were being overrun by ground forces. The reason so many tanks were destroyed by their crews after running out of fuel in France was because tactical air power interdicted the supply of fuel from Germany to the front lines. I.e. roving P-47’s and Typhoons shot up the fuel trucks and trains behind the German frontlines. The production of fuel was not a problem.
Strategic bombing may not have been as successful as proponents had hoped, but I have a LOT of doubt that WWII would have ended in 1945 if the "strategic" raids had never occurred, which is the implication of calling them a failure.
It is my belief (we are talking hypothetically here) that the war would have ended in 1945 with a Soviet victory no matter what. The Germans irreversibly lost the war at the battle for Moscow in 1941 (long before any bombing by the USAAF); the USAAF strategic bombing campaign may have shortened the war by a few months, but nothing more. Once the Red Army steamroller started rolling nothing the Germans did could stop it.
I find that many people have the mistaken belief that the Luftwaffe vs. USAAF was the big air war in Europe; however the fact is that the Luftwaffe never fielded more than one third of its strength in the west. The greatest air war the world has seen was fought over the Russian front. The battle of Kursk alone saw almost five thousand aircraft fight for supremacy in the air, 2,109 German and 2,792 Soviet.
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By 1944, nearly 40% of the nation's manpower and manufacturing resources were spent defending against Allied strategic air power.
I doubt that very much. Can you document that number?
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Lumpy,
The problem is that you are making a false claim. That Germany's production went up despite the bombing must mean Germany was unaffected by the bombing. That does not follow at all. Yes, Germany's production went up despite the bombing, but how much would it have gone up without the bombing? That is the unknowable that we have to compare what really happened too.
Also, German quality suffered from it too, not as badly as Japan as Germany didn't make some of the boneheaded decisions the Japanese made, but it did suffer.
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The million men could have been put to better use on the front lines than in defending the Reich, repairing the damage and fighting the fires started by the bombings.
Like I said in my first post, the firebombing of German cities was measurably effective in disrupting German war production. You are just confirming that, so why mention it at all?
Never mind the high number of 88s that could have been put to better use defending the Third Reich. A/c used to defending against the bombers would have come in handy on the EF.
All those allied aircraft used in the strategic bombing campaign could also have been put to much ... MUCH better use on the Russian front. Just like all those P-39's and P-63's and Spitfires etc.
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Lumpy,
The problem is that you are making a false claim. That Germany's production went up despite the bombing must mean Germany was unaffected by the bombing. That does not follow at all. Yes, Germany's production went up despite the bombing, but how much would it have gone up without the bombing? That is the unknowable that we have to compare what really happened too.
Also, German quality suffered from it too, not as badly as Japan as Germany didn't make some of the boneheaded decisions the Japanese made, but it did suffer.
Of course, but not by so much as to make the strategic bombing campaign worthwhile. That's what determined if the campaign was a success or failure. The Allied recourses and manpower spent on the campaign could have been put to much better use elsewhere.
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If the USAF had used the vast amount of resources spent on building its strategic air force to instead build a tactical air force the invasion of France could have been made a lot earlier. With the huge production capacity of the United States thousands of fighter-bombers and strike aircraft (like the Mosquito) could have been operational in 1943. Achieving local air dominance over Normandy and destroying the Luftwaffe in France would not have been a problem. Disrupting and destroying German ground forces would also have been much easier with such a force. The USAAF backed the wrong horse with regard to air warfare doctrines, and suffered for it in WWII. They had to fight with what they had instead of what they should have had.
Edit: Make that both the USAAF and the RAF. Just consider the might of their combined tactical air forces had the resources and manpower spent on all those Lancs and B-17/24 been used on Mosquitoes, Typhoons, P-47's etc. It would have been unstoppable by the Luftwaffe ... in 1943. IMHO of course (hypotheticals again).
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Lumpy:
I would suggest reading the following book:
Why the Allies Won by Richard Overy
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Allies-Won-Richard-Overy/dp/039331619X
(http://thetongsweb.net/images/overy.jpg)
Dr. Overy is professor of Modern History at King's College, London and has published extensively on WW2 history. He has a direct rebuttal to the doubt of the strategic worth of the bombing campaigns.
To add to some of the points already posted by others here are some things to consider as well:
- By the end of 1943 there were 55,000 anti-aircraft guns to fight the air offensive in the west for Germany. 75% of the feared 88's that were used so effectively in the east as anti-tank guns were diverted to defending against the bombing campaign in the west.
- The Luftwaffe was a critical part of the German combined arms successes. The bombing campaign in the west critically drained Germany the much needed air strength which weakened German resistance against the Soviet Union and the Mediterranean.
- Albert Speer and his ministry found that 1944 production schedules had produced 35% fewer tanks than planned, 31% fewer aircraft than planned, 42% fewer lorries as a result of the bombing. This eased the way for the allied armies in defeating Germany.
- In the Fall of 1944 the German army lost most of it's mobility because of lack of fuel which was a direct impact from the strategic bombing. By Dec of 1944 oil production fell to only 33% of the January level and stocks were nearly exhausted.
Beyond the destruction of the Luftwaffe (which was no small feat) these were some of the contributions from the bombing offensive and as evident critically eroded Germany's capacity to fight.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
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Dtango, I have read that book, and I disagree with Overy's conclusions. I have outlined why I disagree with him in my previous posts.
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If the USAF had used the vast amount of resources spent on building its strategic air force to instead build a tactical air force the invasion of France could have been made a lot earlier. With the huge production capacity of the United States thousands of fighter-bombers and strike aircraft (like the Mosquito) could have been operational in 1943. Achieving local air dominance over Normandy and destroying the Luftwaffe in France would not have been a problem. Disrupting and destroying German ground forces would also have been much easier with such a force. The USAAF backed the wrong horse with regard to air warfare doctrines, and suffered for it in WWII. They had to fight with what they had instead of what they should have had.
Edit: Make that both the USAAF and the RAF. Just consider the might of their combined tactical air forces had the resources and manpower spent on all those Lancs and B-17/24 been used on Mosquitoes, Typhoons, P-47's etc. It would have been unstoppable by the Luftwaffe ... in 1943. IMHO of course (hypotheticals again).
I disagree. The tactical air forces were only successful because air superiority had been established by the strategic air forces. The strategic air forces imposed their will on the Luftwaffe and forced them into a war of attrition that they could not win. The only way to do this was putting aircraft constantly over the LW the further back they moved their air forces which meant long range fighters and bombers to do this. Without clearing the skies the tactical air forces would not have enjoyed the effectiveness they had.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
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Trying to determine the actual effects of the air war on germany are actually pretty difficult, and not really related to the specific of the BoB...
What most people dont realize is that Germany wasnt ever really on a wartime production footing until 1942, it actually produced less war material then England did in 1940/1941. German industrial infrastructure was decentralized and underutilized before the war. Further almost all german production was single shift thru out the war and few women were in the workforce. Many factories had excess tooling and some entire production lines were not in use even in 1943. The German war industry was actually less efficient then any other so it absorbed alot of "losses" without an adverse effect on productivity. However there still were tremendous impacts on the conduct of the war. As an example in March of 1944 the german aircraft production facility at Manzel was destroyed, which prevented production of the Do-335 from starting in May of 1944.
One other way of looking at the impact of the bombing is by looking at its distributed effect. The primary goal of the airwar was its impact on german aircraft production...with the goal of impacting the effectiveness of the luftwaffe. At the time of the invasion the luftwaffe only had ~80 combat worthy frontline fighters to oppose the D-day invasion. whats more intriqueing however is that this number did not rise during the critical post invasion period. Even though German aircraft production was rising (reaching a peak of 3,375 in sept 1944) almost none of these planes ever reached the front lines.
The bombing impact on oil supplies was even more pronounced and effectively crippled the german military by late 1944. The germans did not have the petrol to sustain the offense in the late 44 bulge attack and in the east 1200 german tanks were overrun and destroyed when they ran out of fuel at the Baranoff bridgehead on the Vistula. I'm always amazed at folks touting 3rd party analysis as gospel. While many books provide an even handed and outstanding overview...many dont. given the wealth of raw material available why not look to te source material these books are based on...here's onehttp://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar//AAF/USSBS/ETO-Summary.html#page1" (http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar//AAF/USSBS/ETO-Summary.html#page1") for consideration.
The B-17 was perfectly "combat worthy" 1939. The real issue was precision bombing itself which was significantly harder then it is represented in AH. As I tried to explain german doctrine changed to a complete emphisis on dive bombing. The luftwaffe actually initiated high altitude formation bombing on Aug 15, 1940 during the BoB but didnt have the training, optics or functional payload to have any real effect. The reality is that in 1940 the concept of a fast bomber wasnt entirely wrong. The B-17 was faster then the hurricane at alt and had a combat ceiling well above it. The spitfire would have been hard pressed to catch and successfully intercept the B-17 as well. More importantly the german fighters had superiority at higher altitudes and would have been much more successful.
If the germans had enabled the luftwaffe to evolve in accordance with its initial mandate the entire nature of the air war over England would have been different and much more difficult for the British.
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I disagree. The tactical air forces were only successful because air superiority had been established by the strategic air forces. The strategic air forces imposed their will on the Luftwaffe and forced them into a war of attrition that they could not win. The only way to do this was putting aircraft constantly over the LW the further back they moved their air forces which meant long range fighters and bombers to do this. Without clearing the skies the tactical air forces would not have enjoyed the effectiveness they had.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
You are welcome to disagree, we are talking about hypothetical situations after all. The tactical air force would have cleared the skies over France in 1943, just like the German tactical air force cleared the skies over France and Russia earlier in the war. And just as the VVS achieved air superiority over the Eastern front later in the war.
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Dtango, I have read that book, and I disagree with Overy's conclusions. I have outlined why I disagree with him in my previous posts.
I'll look for your outline. I haven't been following the topic which seems to span several threads :). Looking at the various arguments on the topic for years I obviously agree with Overy's and others conclusions about the strategic value of the bombing campaign. I would certainly agree that strategic bombing didn't live up to what was proclaimed by those who designed it. However to totally dismiss it's value is short-sighted in my humble opinion because it did indeed have a great impact in ways broader and different than those who designed it had imagined.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
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You are welcome to disagree, we are talking about hypothetical situations after all. The tactical air force would have cleared the skies over France in 1943, just like the German tactical air force cleared the skies over France and Russia earlier in the war. And just as the VVS achieved air superiority over the Eastern front later in the war.
I believe one of the major reasons that the VVS achieved air superiority over the eastern front was exactly because of the diversion of German air power from the east to defend against the strategic bombing campaign in the west.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
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Humble, I agree with much of what you are saying, I just see it from a different angle (i.e. without the USAAF beer goggles I was talking about ;)):
What most people dont realize is that Germany wasnt ever really on a wartime production footing until 1942, it actually produced less war material then England did in 1940/1941. German industrial infrastructure was decentralized and underutilized before the war. Further almost all german production was single shift thru out the war and few women were in the workforce. Many factories had excess tooling and some entire production lines were not in use even in 1943. The German war industry was actually less efficient then any other so it absorbed alot of "losses" without an adverse effect on productivity.
I.e. due to the nature of German (and British) war production strategic bombing proved a failure in WWII (like I’ve said earlier).
One other way of looking at the impact of the bombing is by looking at its distributed effect. The primary goal of the airwar was its impact on german aircraft production...with the goal of impacting the effectiveness of the luftwaffe. At the time of the invasion the luftwaffe only had ~80 combat worthy frontline fighters to oppose the D-day invasion. whats more intriqueing however is that this number did not rise during the critical post invasion period. Even though German aircraft production was rising (reaching a peak of 3,375 in sept 1944) almost none of these planes ever reached the front lines.
I.e. the only real success of the strategic bombing campaign was to lure the Luftwaffe into a war of attrition (like I’ve said earlier). The allies had resources to squander, the Germans did not.
The bombing impact on oil supplies was even more pronounced and effectively crippled the german military by late 1944. The germans did not have the petrol to sustain the offense in the late 44 bulge attack and in the east 1200 german tanks were overrun and destroyed when they ran out of fuel at the Baranoff bridgehead on the Vistula.
I.e. the Germans did not suffer fuel shortages until late in 1944, despite the 1943 raid on Ploesti and the strategic bombing campaign (like I’ve said earlier). By late 1944 the Germans would not have been able to stretch the war into 1946 no matter how much fuel had been available to them.
The B-17 was perfectly "combat worthy" 1939. The real issue was precision bombing itself which was significantly harder then it is represented in AH.
A high altitude bomber that is unable to hit anything is not a combat worthy weapon. In the summer of 1941 the RAF operated a small force of B-17C’s. After only three months they were withdrawn from frontline service having taken 40% losses to enemy action and operational accidents. None of their missions were successful in hitting their targets. The B-17 was not ready by far (like I’ve said earlier).
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Lumpy,
Your "facts" are so far off its not really possbile to sort your "beliefs" from reality in any cohesive manner. German synthetic fuel production was significantly impaired by June 1944..
The Germans viewed the attacks as catastrophic. In a series of letters to Hitler, among documents seized by the Survey, the developing crisis is outlined month by month in detail. On June 30, Speer wrote: "The enemy has succeeded in increasing our losses of aviation gasoline up to 90 percent by June 22d. Only through speedy recovery of damaged plants has it been possible to regain partly some of the terrible losses."
As for aircraft production, while no clear root cause is identifyable the documented reality is that almost none of the 3000+ planes per month being built actually reached combat units...
German fighter production continued to increase during the summer of 1944, and acceptances reached a peak of 3,375 in September. Although it has studied the problem with considerable care, the Survey has no clear answer as to what happened to these planes; the differences of opinion between German air generals, it might be added, are at least as great as between those who have searched for the explanation. Certainly only a minority of the planes appeared in combat. Possibly the remainder were lost in transit from factory to combat bases, destroyed on the fields, or grounded because of a shortage of gasoline or pilots. Conceivably some are part of an inflation of German production figures. The answer is not clear.
The effects on production effected the war effort in may ways...
Germany, like other industrial countries, relied on synthesis for its supply of nitrogen and the synthetic oil plants were by far the largest producers. Sixty percent of the nitrogen production and 40 percent of the methanol production came from two synthetic plants. Monthly output of synthetic nitrogen in early 1944, before the synthetic plants were attacked, was about 75,000 tons. It had been reduced by the end of the year to about 20,000 tons.
Nitrogen, besides being indispensable for explosives, is heavily used in German agriculture. Allocation for the 1943-44 crop year was 54 percent of the total supply; allocation for 1944-45 was first planned at 25 percent and later eliminated altogether. Nitrogen for munitions was maintained by reducing the allocation to agriculture, but by the end of 1944 this cushion had been substantially exhausted. The supply of explosives then declined with the reduction in supply of nitrogen. It became necessary to fill shells with a mixture of explosives and non-explosive rock salt extender
These are a few of the conclusions reached by the US strategic bombing survey (which I consider to be a very even handed overview)
The German experience suggests that even a first class military power -- rugged and resilient as Germany was -- cannot live long under full-scale and free exploitation of air weapons over the heart of its territory. By the beginning of 1945, before the invasion of the homeland itself, Germany was reaching a state of helplessness. Her armament production was falling irretrievably, orderliness in effort was disappearing, and total disruption and disintegration were well along. Her armies were still in the field. But with the impending collapse of the supporting economy, the indications are convincing that they would have had to cease fighting -- any effective fighting -- within a few months. Germany was mortally wounded.
As the air offensive gained in tempo, the Germans were unable to prevent the decline and eventual collapse of their economy. Nevertheless, the recuperative and defensive powers of Germany were immense; the speed and ingenuity with which they rebuilt and maintained essential war industries in operation clearly surpassed Allied expectations. Germany resorted to almost every means an ingenious people could devise to avoid the attacks upon her economy and to minimize their effects. Camouflage, smoke screens, shadow plants, dispersal, underground factories, were all employed. In some measure all were helpful, but without control of the air, none was really effective. Dispersal brought a measure of immediate relief, but eventually served only to add to the many problems caused by the attacks on the transportation system. Underground installations prevented direct damage, but they, too, were often victims of disrupted transportation and other services. In any case, Germany never succeeded in placing any substantial portion of her war production underground--the effort was largely limited to certain types of aircraft, their components, and the V weapons. The practicability of going underground as the escape from full and free exploitation of the air is highly questionable; it was so considered by the Germans themselves. Such passive defenses may be worth while and important, but it may be doubted if there is any escape from air domination by an enemy.
The importance of careful selection of targets for air attack is emphasized by the German experience. The Germans were far more concerned over attacks on one or more of their basic industries and services -- their oil, chemical, or steel industries or their power or transportation networks -- than they were over attacks on their armament industry or the city areas. The most serious attacks were those which destroyed the industry or service which most indispensably served other industries. The Germans found it clearly more important to devise measures for the protection of basic industries and services than for the protection of factories turning out finished products.
The link above will provide anyone access to what is a good overview of the effects of the strategic airwar. It's pretty clear and even handed and demonstrates the ability the germans had to absorb and adapt, it also makes it clear that well before germany proper was invaded the bombing campaign had a tremendous impact on the germans overall ability to maintain minimal production in key area's and its ability to support distribution and supply of what it did produce...
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I believe one of the major reasons that the VVS achieved air superiority over the eastern front was exactly because of the diversion of German air power from the east to defend against the strategic bombing campaign in the west.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
This is what I find curious: Why do some people believe that if the strategic bombing campaign didn't happen then all the resources and planes used on it would simply "disappear" from the war? If the resources and manpower spent on the strategic bombing campaign had been used bolstering the Soviet air force with more planes and also spent on a tactical air force in Britain, the Luftwaffe would have been completely swamped and quickly destroyed.
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Its not worth going in circles here. The germans had planes that were faster, had better high alt performance and were armed with cannons in 1940. British experience with the B-17 is not relevent to the issue at hand. The british hurricane I and spitfire I would not have been able to inflict significant losses. No question that the actual effectiveness of high alt bombing was marginal and that the effects would have been somewhat marginal...however repeated attacks on airfields, manufacturing and population centers would have forced the british to engage at higher alts with less effect and greater attrition. The BoB at its heart was a battle of attrition as much as anything. While real damage to Englands infrastucture would have been marginal the effect on its airforce would have been lethal.
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This is what I find curious: Why do some people believe that if the strategic bombing campaign didn't happen then all the resources and planes used on it would simply "disappear" from the war? If the resources and manpower spent on the strategic bombing campaign had been used bolstering the Soviet air force with more planes and also spent on a tactical air force in Britain, the Luftwaffe would have been completely swamped and quickly destroyed.
Without the strategic air campaign in the west or the war in the MTO Germany could have concentrated it's air forces in the east. Just a simple look at the numbers, the USSR produced 125,000 planes in WW2. Germany produced 100,000 between 41-45. Russia could concentrate most of these aircraft on one front while germany had to divy it out with most of the forces going to defense of the west against the bombing campaign. Without the bomber campaign the bulk of the LW aircraft and it's pilots would have been pitted against the VVS which would have at least challenged the VVS ability to achieve local air superiority.
So the resources of the bomber campaign did in effect cause Germany to be swamped. 2ndly I don't see how it would have been practically achievable for US and the UK to somehow shift their resources from the western air campaign to bolster that of the USSR directly.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
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The Russians didn't want British and American crewed a/c on Russian soil.
The million men could have been put to better use on the front lines than in defending the Reich, repairing the damage and fighting the fires started by the bombings.
Like I said in my first post, the firebombing of German cities was measurably effective in disrupting German war production. You are just confirming that, so why mention it at all?
Went over your head gSholtz. It is not about German war production but about the manpower and weapons that could have been better used elsewhere.
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The Germans viewed the attacks as catastrophic. In a series of letters to Hitler, among documents seized by the Survey, the developing crisis is outlined month by month in detail. On June 30, Speer wrote: "The enemy has succeeded in increasing our losses of aviation gasoline up to 90 percent by June 22d. Only through speedy recovery of damaged plants has it been possible to regain partly some of the terrible losses."
Yet as you yourself have noted the Germans did not run out of fuel until late in 1944, when the Russians were encroaching on German soil and no fortune of war could hope to save Germany.
As for aircraft production, while no clear root cause is identifyable the documented reality is that almost none of the 3000+ planes per month being built actually reached combat units...
German fighter production continued to increase during the summer of 1944, and acceptances reached a peak of 3,375 in September. Although it has studied the problem with considerable care, the Survey has no clear answer as to what happened to these planes; the differences of opinion between German air generals, it might be added, are at least as great as between those who have searched for the explanation. Certainly only a minority of the planes appeared in combat. Possibly the remainder were lost in transit from factory to combat bases, destroyed on the fields, or grounded because of a shortage of gasoline or pilots. Conceivably some are part of an inflation of German production figures. The answer is not clear.
I.e. the planes were produced but were destroyed in transit to the frontline units. IMHO most likely by interdicting tactical air power; shot down on ferry runs or strafed on trains/assembly yards.
Its not worth going in circles here. The germans had planes that were faster, had better high alt performance and were armed with cannons in 1940. British experience with the B-17 is not relevent to the issue at hand. The british hurricane I and spitfire I would not have been able to inflict significant losses. No question that the actual effectiveness of high alt bombing was marginal and that the effects would have been somewhat marginal...however repeated attacks on airfields, manufacturing and population centers would have forced the british to engage at higher alts with less effect and greater attrition. The BoB at its heart was a battle of attrition as much as anything. While real damage to Englands infrastucture would have been marginal the effect on its airforce would have been lethal.
So what you are saying is that even with B-17’s the effect of strategic bombing would be minimal and the B-17’s would only serve as bait to lure the RAF into a war of attrition. Sounds right to me. :)
I agree that it’s not worth going in circles here and this thread should die shortly, but I must address some of your points:
The Germans did not have faster planes than the RAF. The Spitfire was faster than both the 109 and 110 in 1940. Late in the BoB the Spitfires were being armed with 20 mm Hispano cannons. No.19 Squadron was first to operate cannon armed spitfires during the BoB.
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Without the strategic air campaign in the west or the war in the MTO Germany could have concentrated it's air forces in the east. Just a simple look at the numbers, the USSR produced 125,000 planes in WW2. Germany produced 100,000 between 41-45. Russia could concentrate most of these aircraft on one front while germany had to divy it out with most of the forces going to defense of the west against the bombing campaign. Without the bomber campaign the bulk of the LW aircraft and it's pilots would have been pitted against the VVS which would have at least challenged the VVS ability to achieve local air superiority.
So the resources of the bomber campaign did in effect cause Germany to be swamped. 2ndly I don't see how it would have been practically achievable for US and the UK to somehow shift their resources from the western air campaign to bolster that of the USSR directly.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
No, wrong, only a third of the Luftwaffe’s strength was ever deployed in the west. The resources and manpower spent on the strategic air war would not simply disappear if the campaign never happened. Thousands of aircraft were delivered to the Soviets (along with a lot of other war material, even railway locomotives). Transporting a few thousand aircraft more would not pose a very difficult task. The bombers could just fly there at night for instance. Same with P-51’s and other long ranged aircraft.
The Russians didn't want British and American crewed a/c on Russian soil.
No, but they DID want more aircraft.
Went over your head gSholtz. It is not about German war production but about the manpower and weapons that could have been better used elsewhere.
I’m afraid it went over your head. My argument is that the allied efforts could have been better used elsewhere and as a tactical air force instead of a marginally effective strategic force.
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You dont ever really address or answer anything do you? You blindly make statements with no support or documentation or grasp of reality in complete disregard of documented facts.
1) the 109 was superior to the hurricane and spitfire at higher altitudes...statement of fact end of story. The 110 was superior to the hurricane at higher alts and more competative at higher alts with the spitfire.
2) The B-17 was faster then the hurricane and had a higher service ceiling...period. The spitifre had .303s during the critical period but even if it was uparmored it still had minimal capability to intercept at alt and deal with the german fighters.
Had the germans actually had a more evolved doctrine and tactics along the original vision lines the BoB would have unfolded completely differently.
As for germany, its economic capability to wage war was greatly compromised well before an enemy soldier set foot on the fatherland. Production of steel, oil, petrolium byproducts, explosives and other essentials were collapsing. Transportation and power grids were degraded and even food production greatly diminished...entirely without either ground or tac air involvment. In effect the bombing campaign created the hollow egg that robbed the german armed forces of supplies, replacement weapons and properly trained troops and degraded its overall ability to wage war before the actual invasion of France and even more severely degraded its ability to fight a two front war afterward.
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I'm afraid that you're simply mistaken. The Bf 109E was not superior to the Spitfire I at any altitude:
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spit1vrs109e.html
The rest of your post is a rehash of what you have stated earlier, and I have presented my counter-arguments earlier too. I thought we agreed that it is not worth going in circles, so I will not comment on it further.
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The final blow to the strategic air warfare doctrine was the Vietnam War where the USAF dropped more bombs in a week than during all of WWII. Yet they failed to defeat a third-world nation or even appreciably disrupt the North-Vietnamese war effort.
The B-17 was a failure as well. It was designed around the misguided concept of the “self-defending bomber”
The first bomber to be designed around a truly modern and realistic concept was the de Havilland Mosquito. A bomber that only used passive defence to survive: Speed and stealth.
Modern bombers like the B-1, B-2, and Tu 160 rely completely on speed and/or stealth for protection.
Sorry to join this late, but:
Add another book to your reading list--"Limits of Airpower" by a guy named Clodfelter. Reviews the use, failures, and successes of airpower in Vietnam and is considered a definitive text. Strategic bombing (Linebacker I and II) at the end of the Vietnam war was what brought North Vietnam to the negotiating tables, and ultimately forced them to sign the agreement. Rolling Thunder, as you alluded to, was a failure, but it had a tactical focus, and was not a strategic bombing campaign, but rather, an interdiction campaign.
The idea of a "self-defending bomber" was a theory postulated by Douhet and was adopted by every air force that built a bomber. Otherwise, they wouldn't have put guns on any of them. Matter of fact, its one of the reasons why most countries only built medium bombers, and not the heavies like the U.S. and Britain.
The Mosquito did not benefit from stealth. That's a test proven statement there--I think Karnak can tell us exactly what the resource documentation was. Speed, yes; but it was as detectable as any other plane during WWII.
Last, since we haven't seen the B-1 or B-2 deployed in a high-threat environment, I think its premature to say that they rely purely on stealth/speed to defend themselves. During Kosovo, F-117 missions were flying with escorts after the first one got shot down. Also, aside from nuclear delivery profiles, U.S. Air Force doctrine is one of establishing, then maintaining, and operating in an Air Supremacy environment only. If it wasn't, it would have no use for the B-52, which is scheduled to remain in service until 2040 or beyond.
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Stoney, you should add your post after the quote tags. Makes it more readable. :)
I might add that book to my reading list. Vietnam isn't really my cup of tea, but...
The Soviets and Chinese also put heavy political pressure on North-Vietnam to reach a settled peace with the south. They were worried that the conflict might escalate and draw them into direct involvement and possibly WWIII. There were many contributing factors to the US loss in Vietnam, perhaps chiefly among them was political interference. However lets not turn this thread into a Vietnam War hijack.
Air forces were putting guns on bombers long before Giulio Douhet wrote "The Command of the Air" in 1921, so I'm afraid you argument is flawed.
With regard to the Mosquito I didn't mean stealth as in radar avoiding technology. I meant stealth as in avoiding enemy detection by flying at night, flying low, using cloud cover etc. Low level hit-and-run raids in France were the trademark of Mosquito FB.VI's, and flying high and fast at night (being virtually impossible to intercept) was the trademark of Mosquito B marks.
Yes just as you say strategic warfare (deep penetration of enemy airspace to attack production infrastructure and population centers) is just a minor part of modern military thinking. As I've said earlier. Edit: I think I missed your point there. When I said that the B-1 and B-2 only use passive defense (including speed and stealth) I simply meant that they do not use any form of active defense ... guns, air-to-air missiles etc. If the enemy detects them (stealth) and manages to intercept them (speed) they are defenceless.
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I doubt that very much. Can you document that number?
I absolutely can document it, but the question begs; should I waste my valuable time? It seems that you have decided that you are the all-wise and facts that could undermine that self-image are summarily dismissed.
My regards,
Widewing
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I have no control over how you spend your time so I think you must answer that question yourself.
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I think you missed the point. Why should Widewing post data showing your incorrect when you'll just dismiss it because it doesn't support your flawed argument? You've done it with every other reply in this thread, why would Widewing expect you to be any different with him?
ack-ack
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I don't think I've dismissed any facts posted by other people here. The problem with these hypothetical "what if" debates is that a lot of "facts" are extrapolated and open to interpretation. Widewing posted a very high number that I have problems believing without documentation (I'm not calling him a liar though).
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No, wrong, only a third of the Luftwaffe’s strength was ever deployed in the west. The resources and manpower spent on the strategic air war would not simply disappear if the campaign never happened.
Hmm, not sure where you get those stats. The chief instrument for the establishment of air superiority was the fighter. Here's a chart showing the overall german fighter aircraft strength.
By June of 1943 out of a total strength of roughly 1700 fighters only 600 were deployed against in the eastern front while about 600 were deployed in the West. At this point, yes 30% was deployed in the West:
(http://thetongsweb.net/images/fighters.jpg)
But it soon drastically changed because of the strategic bombing campaign. From Jul 43 onward units were siphoned from the Eastern front to counter the growing menace in the west so that by Oct 43 there were already at 1000 fighters in the west constituting about 2/3 of the total LW fighters alone. I don't have stats handy beyond then but Allied estimated that the LW fighter strength would be around 1700 fighters by the Mid 44 timeframe.
And this is just fighter strength alone. We've already mentioned other resources diverted to fighting the bomber campaign from key arms, munitions, and men.
There's much more we could go on about but I don't have the time to research and write a lengthy discourse.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
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I'll keep it short and sweet...
(http://home.att.net/~c.c.jordan/StrategicBombingResults.jpg)
<Edited to add the following link>: http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/Publications/fulltext/case_studies_strategic_bombardment.pdf
My regards,
Widewing
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Hmm, not sure where you get those stats. The chief instrument for the establishment of air superiority was the fighter. Here's a chart showing the overall german fighter aircraft strength.
By June of 1943 out of a total strength of roughly 1700 fighters only 600 were deployed against in the eastern front while about 600 were deployed in the West. At this point, yes 30% was deployed in the West:
(http://thetongsweb.net/images/fighters.jpg)
But it soon drastically changed because of the strategic bombing campaign. From Jul 43 onward units were siphoned from the Eastern front to counter the growing menace in the west so that by Oct 43 there were already at 1000 fighters in the west constituting about 2/3 of the total LW fighters alone. I don't have stats handy beyond then but Allied estimated that the LW fighter strength would be around 1700 fighters by the Mid 44 timeframe.
And this is just fighter strength alone. We've already mentioned other resources diverted to fighting the bomber campaign from key arms, munitions, and men.
There's much more we could go on about but I don't have the time to research and write a lengthy discourse.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
Another table showing available German fighters:
(http://home.att.net/~c.c.jordan/AvailableAircraft.jpg)
My regards,
Widewing
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Just installed Jing, so now I can share some of the documentation I base my arguments on:
In no particular order...
(http://content.screencast.com/media/12fe1a5d-32bc-4c7f-825d-bb80f040cfaa_0832dde7-2cf2-4139-ab83-fa16132bb135_static_0_0_2008-04-04_2156.png)
(http://content.screencast.com/media/94cabbbe-6a56-439e-ac8c-cf74d8f32771_0832dde7-2cf2-4139-ab83-fa16132bb135_static_0_0_2008-04-04_2202.png)
(http://content.screencast.com/media/980fa1aa-1a7d-4420-80ea-c39057f8cb37_0832dde7-2cf2-4139-ab83-fa16132bb135_static_0_0_2008-04-04_2208.png)
(http://content.screencast.com/media/508a8915-1dea-469a-9b9e-550802b69cb4_0832dde7-2cf2-4139-ab83-fa16132bb135_static_0_0_2008-04-04_2212.png)
(http://content.screencast.com/media/d1d6824e-b898-4f0e-b694-7ebd783d9a8b_0832dde7-2cf2-4139-ab83-fa16132bb135_static_0_0_2008-04-04_2215.png)
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I'll keep it short and sweet...
(http://home.att.net/~c.c.jordan/StrategicBombingResults.jpg)
<Edited to add the following link>: http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/Publications/fulltext/case_studies_strategic_bombardment.pdf
My regards,
Widewing
Thank you for posting that ... though I'm not sure I believe it still. It goes against everything I've read.
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Hmm, not sure where you get those stats. The chief instrument for the establishment of air superiority was the fighter. Here's a chart showing the overall german fighter aircraft strength.
By June of 1943 out of a total strength of roughly 1700 fighters only 600 were deployed against in the eastern front while about 600 were deployed in the West. At this point, yes 30% was deployed in the West:
(http://thetongsweb.net/images/fighters.jpg)
But it soon drastically changed because of the strategic bombing campaign. From Jul 43 onward units were siphoned from the Eastern front to counter the growing menace in the west so that by Oct 43 there were already at 1000 fighters in the west constituting about 2/3 of the total LW fighters alone. I don't have stats handy beyond then but Allied estimated that the LW fighter strength would be around 1700 fighters by the Mid 44 timeframe.
And this is just fighter strength alone. We've already mentioned other resources diverted to fighting the bomber campaign from key arms, munitions, and men.
There's much more we could go on about but I don't have the time to research and write a lengthy discourse.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
On 1 January 1943 the total strength of the Jagdgruppen in the west was 635 109s and 190s, stationed at airfields that stretched from Banak in Northern Norway to Brest-Guipavas on the Atlantic coast in Brittany.
In late-December 1943 all units operating in the defence of Germany were put under a new command called Luftflotte Reich, led by Generaloberst Hans-Jürgen Stumpff. On 20 February 1944 the total strength of Luftflotte Reich was 863 day-fighters including Zerstörers. This is less than half of the 1,675 109s and 190s in service at that time.
In 1944 two thirds of the LW was in Luftflotte 4, 5, and 6 all on the Russian front. In June 1944 2,085 combat aircraft were on the East Front while only 850 aircraft were deployed in defence of the Reich, and of these only 135 were stationed in France and Belgium. I can even break it down to individual JG's and Staffeln (but I'd rather not since I'd have to type it all from a book ;).
Sortie rates in 1944:
West (including Reichsverteidigung): 182,004 sorties flown.
East: 342,483 sorties flown.
In the few war months of 1941 the Soviet air force lost 17,900 airplanes. In 1942 the Soviets lost 12,100 airplanes. In 1943 the Soviets lost 22,500 airplanes. In 1944 they lost 24,800 airplanes. And even in 1945 they lost 11,000 airplanes.
In scale the Allied air offensive in the west was merely a sideshow to the war in the east. In fact every other military conflict in recorded history pales in comparison.
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Btw I recommend Jing, this thing is fabulous!
http://www.jingproject.com/
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Without reading all the posts lemme guess.
Gscholz/viking/lumpy/shade de jure = Germans 1337!!!111!!!!1
;)
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Nah ... more like USAAF not so 1337!!!!111!!!!!1 as some people want to believe. ;)
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Ahh my bad please continue . :aok
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Thank you Sir. :lol
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I'm always fasinated by the relative claims regarding the spitfire and the 109.
If we compare the british tests...
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spitfire-I.html (http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spitfire-I.html)
and the german tests
http://kurfurst.allaboutwarfare.com/Tactical_trials/109E_vergleich110SpitHurCurtiss/109E_vergleichsflg_Aug1940.html (http://kurfurst.allaboutwarfare.com/Tactical_trials/109E_vergleich110SpitHurCurtiss/109E_vergleichsflg_Aug1940.html)
You'd assume they are flying totally different airplanes...
The realities are that at moderate altitudes the overall handling and speed of the spitfire gave it an edge. However at higher altitudes the combination of the 109's better vertical performance, superior rudder authority and variable pitch prop gave it the advantage. This is a truism that held across the history of the conflict. While I've always felt the sptfire got better and the 109 got worse after the 109F4 Mark Hanna felt that the 109 was clearly dominant to the spitfire. THe actual reality is that the lftwaffe tied the 109's to close escort duty at unfavorable altitudes and severly limited the 109s ability to favorably engage. This same reality played out on the eastern front where the terms of engagement favored the russians for much the same reasons.
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Stoney, you should add your post after the quote tags. Makes it more readable. :)
However lets not turn this thread into a Vietnam War hijack.
Air forces were putting guns on bombers long before Giulio Douhet wrote "The Command of the Air" in 1921, so I'm afraid you argument is flawed.
When I said that the B-1 and B-2 only use passive defense (including speed and stealth) I simply meant that they do not use any form of active defense.
1. Sorry, saw that I did that after I posted but was running off to lunch so I didn't fix it :)
2. You started the Vietnam stuff--I countered :). I suppose we could debate the political pressure vs. Linebacker effectiveness some other time :aok.
3. I didn't say that Douhet's theory was the catalyst for arming bombers with guns. But, his theory of bombers that could defend themselves without escort fighters drove the strategic air force thought of almost every Air Force in the world during the inter-war development period.
4. You're correct. But, they took the tail gun off the Buff too, and its about as stealthy as an outhouse. Of course, it looks like the ground is the best way to deal with the B-1 and B-2 at this point :)
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I'm always fasinated by the relative claims regarding the spitfire and the 109.
If we compare the british tests...
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spitfire-I.html (http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spitfire-I.html)
and the german tests
http://kurfurst.allaboutwarfare.com/Tactical_trials/109E_vergleich110SpitHurCurtiss/109E_vergleichsflg_Aug1940.html (http://kurfurst.allaboutwarfare.com/Tactical_trials/109E_vergleich110SpitHurCurtiss/109E_vergleichsflg_Aug1940.html)
You'd assume they are flying totally different airplanes...
The realities are that at moderate altitudes the overall handling and speed of the spitfire gave it an edge. However at higher altitudes the combination of the 109's better vertical performance, superior rudder authority and variable pitch prop gave it the advantage. This is a truism that held across the history of the conflict. While I've always felt the sptfire got better and the 109 got worse after the 109F4 Mark Hanna felt that the 109 was clearly dominant to the spitfire. THe actual reality is that the lftwaffe tied the 109's to close escort duty at unfavorable altitudes and severly limited the 109s ability to favorably engage. This same reality played out on the eastern front where the terms of engagement favored the russians for much the same reasons.
Humble note this in the German test: "The Spitfire and partly the Hurricane have two-pitch propellers." This indicates that the Spitfire tested was captured during the battle for France. Just in time for the BoB the British fighters were equipped with Rotol constant speed propellers. I would venture that this explains the under-performing Spitfire in the German test compared to the British test.
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The problem with the debates around WW2 Strategic Bombing, is that it is quite impossible to really know the effect on the war had the offensive NOT taken place between 1942-45.
Can folks make debating points and educated guesses? of course...but nobody will ever really know, because thats not what happened.
Its like asking a question like "what if the Soviet Union had not beed invaded by Germany", it unravels the entire timeline, and thread of history, and anything after that, is just educated speculation, at best.
I wont jump into the pro or con part, maybe another day, I just thought I would make that point.
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1. Sorry, saw that I did that after I posted but was running off to lunch so I didn't fix it :)
2. You started the Vietnam stuff--I countered :). I suppose we could debate the political pressure vs. Linebacker effectiveness some other time :aok.
3. I didn't say that Douhet's theory was the catalyst for arming bombers with guns. But, his theory of bombers that could defend themselves without escort fighters drove the strategic air force thought of almost every Air Force in the world during the inter-war development period.
4. You're correct. But, they took the tail gun off the Buff too, and its about as stealthy as an outhouse. Of course, it looks like the ground is the best way to deal with the B-1 and B-2 at this point :)
1. np :)
2. Sure we could do that in a different thread, but as I said: Vietnam is not my cup of tea, so I won't be of much use in that debate. :)
3. Yes, but you also said "otherwise, they wouldn't have put guns on any of them" which I honestly doubt. Even if Douhet never existed I think they would have continued to put defensive armament on bombers.
4. Sure, but the Buff is still pretty fast. Dashing towards friendlies it's a difficult plane to intercept before reaching cover. In a modern environment it is a bit outdated though.
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The problem with the debates around WW2 Strategic Bombing, is that it is quite impossible to really know the effect on the war had the offensive NOT taken place between 1942-45.
Can folks make debating points and educated guesses? of course...but nobody will ever really know, because thats not what happened.
Its like asking a question like "what if the Soviet Union had not beed invaded by Germany", it unravels the entire timeline, and thread of history, and anything after that, is just educated speculation, at best.
Unquestionably.
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Humble, I find it somewhat ironic and refreshing to see you argue on behalf of the 109 for a change (and me for the Spitfire no less!). :D
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Humble, I find it somewhat ironic and refreshing to see you argue on behalf of the 109 for a change (and me for the Spitfire no less!). :D
I'm not arguing for or against per se, simply trying to look at the objective realities. From my perspective the limited range of the 109 was an achillies heel (sp?) even in 1940. Tying the 109's to close escort, especially given the tactical doctrine of the luftwaffe was semi-suicidal. My main point is that your strategic/tactical view effects your weapons choice, asset distribution and shapes your linear thinking. The changes to the luftwaffe almost predetermined their failure in WW2. They simply were an army air arm and not a true airforce,so they never thought or acted like one. A true higher altitude percision bombing capability would have drastically altered the course of the BoB in the germans favor. The only reason the british didnt withdraw planes inland was the defesne of London, accordingly they would have had to defend the attacks on London and the radar & airfields vs the higher attacks which would have only helped the Germans. Of course the real difference is that the germans would have chosen the He-100 and the entire course of the war would have been different IMO...this is the same reciprical logic for the Germans...they defended against the bombing because they had to.
Had the Germans had an offensive capability in 1940-43 capable of striking England with daylight percision bombing from germany I bet we'd have seen not only the 262 a year+ earlier but a true german long range day fighter and a better german ground attack plane. Since the "vision" of the luftwaffe was really the vision of the wermacht instead to much was attempted with too few plane types IMO.
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Going in circles Humble, but your characteristic lack of humor has not changed at least.
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They simply were an army air arm and not a true airforce,so they never thought or acted like one.
While in most of what you've posted in this thread I agree 100% with you, Humble, I'm in disagreement with this statement.
The Luftwaffe was a 100% independent air force. Göring wouldn't have had it any other way. Starting from that point we can debate that the focus of the Luftwaffe as a fighting force was to cooperate with the Wehrmacht, and that it's bassic nature was that of a tactical air force.
And there I would agree with you to some extent, but again I would have to point out that while the Luftwaffe's focus was cooperating with the army, they still had serious inter-service problems (mostly started from the top of the power estaments, Göring itself) to the point that there was no good system for a german ground unit to directly calling CAS from the lufwaffe in place under later in the war, and by then it was too late to have any real application because the LW was on the defensive. And the system itself wasn't without problems anyway.
There were many instances of stukas dropping ordinance over german forces between 1939-41 and that was because there was no forward observer calling for air support at the tactical level. The CAS missions were ordered and directed from the operative level, and it was not rare for the stuka crews to arrive their intended attack position when the german forces had already overran it. The result was the avobe-mentioned cases of friendly fire.
The true Forward observer calling CAS on spot system was created by the british during 1942 and later adapted by the americans. As far as I know the germans never had such a well-working system on the field. And that not such a system was put in place even pre-war (should have, given that the accepted luftwaffe role was to support the Wehrmacht's operations) was in part because of inter-service misunderstandings and rivalry.
Summing it up, the Luftwaffe was a completely independent service branch from the Wehrmatch, at all levels; and that while I agree it's focus was to support the army, and that it did it quite succesfully, they were never in really good terms with it.
In all the rest you wrote about, I'm 100% in agreement.
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I doubt that very much. Can you document that number?
I didn't need to read past this post. Anyone challenging Widewing to produce documentation to back up a post where he stated something as fact without any wiggle room, is clueless and reading their posts would be a waste of my time.
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Oh my, Widewing must be God!
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I didnt realize the germans never had any form of forward observer for controlling air strikes at the wars beginning....very interesting. I've always been a bit perplexed about some of the choices the "luftwaffe" made (109 over he-100 for example) as well as any true evolution in airframe design from 1938-42. Basically after the 190 everything is in "vapor lock" till its to late. From what i've read I always conclude that the decisions are being made "above" the luftwaffe. If we parallel german tank development with aviation development we get some interesting non parallels...
In 1940 the germans had 3 seperate generations of tanks, all integrated into a very functional whole. THe PzII actually played a strong scout role and the PzIII was the anti armor "tank on Tank" element and the PZIV was an infantry support system. The PzII was quickly phased out and reengineered into a useful antitank platform (the marder), artillery playform (Wespe) and assualt gun (Bison). The PzIII upgraded to its design limits and then converted to the Stug III and StuH 42. By 1942 the PzIV had morphed into the main "tank on tank" element and by 1944 more then 1/2 the PzIV chassis were being used in a variety of other AFV's. THe PZV was in production in 1943 with over 1800 being built (almost 2/3's of the 3000 PZIVF2's built). In addition almost 700 Tigers were built.
So if we look at the entire picture we have a very well thought progression with new weapons sytems being phased in and older systems modified to fit a more appropriate role.
When you look at aircraft design you dont see any of the expected "quantum leap" in 1942, that is mirrored not only in German AFV design but also US, British, Japanese & Russian aviation design (and armored design to some degree). That is what led me to believe that the "good enough" theory of procurement was at work. A good anology would be US Naval procurement for the Marine Corps...very often things were judged to be "good enough".
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What year did the Fieschler Storch arrive?
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I've always been a bit perplexed about some of the choices the "luftwaffe" made (109 over he-100 for example)
I guess this has already been discussed elsewhere in this boards. But the main reason was that Germany couldn't build both the 109 and the He100. And stopping the 109 production run was out of the question.
The Bf109 won the official RLM competition for the single-engined fighter for the luftwaffe in 1936. Discussions about wether the He112 was or not better still run up to this day but I think the RLM chose the right model between the two. The Heinkel was much expensive to build both in economic and manwork hours and by the time the competition was held, it was so full of problems it simply couldn't compete with the bf109 in equal terms.
Later the 112 proved to be a potentially capable fighter, but the 109 had already won the competition.
The Heinkel 100 was a private venture by Heinkel, who was dissapointed and annoyed his He112 had lost the RLM competition. The plane itself was brilliant for it's time and the performances on paper look great. However, for the time the He100D was flown (the previous prototypes weren't adaptable for combat usage) the 109 series were already being built, and factory lines were devoted to it. Changing the factory toolings from the 109 series to the He100s was out of the question, as the Bf109s were being already built in too low numbers (even by September 1939 there were too few Emils in service, that quite a good deal of Doras were still in front line Geschwaders...) there was no chance the production had to be stopped to bring yet another completely new model into service.
One has to understand the point of view by then. The 109 was seen (Righly so) as an excellent fighter on it's own. Sure, the He100 had better performance (on paper) but that extra performance won't justify stopping the whole production run, retooling the factories and lose several months worth of fighter production. Seen on perspective the RLM did the right thing, IMHO, turning the Heinkel down.
There was no question at all of having both models in service. Logistics would've been much more complicated that way (having two models of a plane to do the same role is an unneeded complication). And besides, there never was enough DB601 engine production for both the Bf110 and Bf109 series, only to have yet another fighter using the same engine.
All in all this is the same story as with the Fw falke. The plane was simply brilliant and much better (again, on paper) than the Bf110s then entering service in the Luftwaffe. But the Bf110 was already in service and in mass production. And was good enough not to warrant yet another model to cover exactly the same role, and the 110s were also being turned out in too low numbers to allow for a complete stop of the production run, time and resources for retooling, and then putting the new model on the line.
as well as any true evolution in airframe design from 1938-42. Basically after the 190 everything is in "vapor lock" till its to late. From what i've read I always conclude that the decisions are being made "above" the luftwaffe.
There were quite a deal of projects, humble. They simply delivered nothing, or even worse, delivered nightmares.
The Heinkel177 is one of those examples, a plane designed to be a fast and excellent heavy bomber that turned out to be a flying gas can. The Me210 comes also to mind; the plane designed to take the Bf110's spot wasn't even safe to fly until late 1942 (by then it was quite a nice machine, but with a year and a half delay. The 210 number was so associated with disaster that the definitive model entering service with the LW was called Me410, even while the 210 gave sterling service with the hungarian air force).
The Me209 and Me309 projects also are there. The RLM was actively looking for a fighter to replace the 109 in the JagdGeschwaders. It turned out to be that the 109 had almost the same performance as the prototipes of both "replacements", so none of both entered production and the 109 soldiered on until the end of the war.
The whole "Bomber B" projects were a massive waste of an immense ammount of resources, times, and money, involving no less than four of the major plane builders within germany, that came to nothing because the intended powerplant those bombers should've used from 1942 wasn't still reliable by 1944. And so the bombers which were to replace the Heinkel 111 or the Ju-88 never existed, and the german bomber units, exception made of those equipped with the very good Do217, had to make do with the He111 and the Ju88 variants up till the end of the war.
There were many other instances like these, of course, but I'll stop here.
It's not there were no projects or no intentions to develop a "second generation" of planes since 1941, Humble. Those projects existed even before the war started. They simply came to nothing because so many reasons they are hard to list; but sharing one common denominator: industrial efficience under the Nazis was down to stupid levels.
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What year did the Fieschler Storch arrive?
June 1937, I believe.
My regards,
Widewing
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I recomend reading "Masters of the Air" by Donald L. Miller. Im not jumping in one way or the other on this post, but if you love the history of Strategic bombing as much as I do, you will love this book. One of the best reads ive ever enjoyed. Lots of great facts, stories, pictures, and you learn quite a bit! May sway one of you to the other side even.
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51WHrsLkcOL._AA240_.jpg)
Just finished that one a couple weeks ago...great read!
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The Luftwaffe used airborne forward observers to control ground attackaircraft near the front lines. They also controlled long range artillery. The Fi 156 was used for this purpose, but also in 1940 the Fw 189 Uhu entered service as tactical reconnaissance and army cooperation aircraft.
(http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/images/fw189-1.jpg)
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RAM,
I know there were alot of "projects", whats always confused me is that the Germans were really the world leaders in Aviation design in alot of ways in the 33-36 era. Personally I feel the decision to relagate heinkle to the "bomber" design role took all pressure off Messerschmitt. From my perspective the Americans, Japanese, Russians and even Italians totally dominated the germans in "2nd generation" airframes. The 109 was saddled with all its major shortcomings thruout the war. While the 190 was clearly a better plane in many ways it never really was a dominant air to air weapon with most expertain favoring the 109 by a wide margin. The 262 certainly was the true 3rd generation airframe and was well ahead of its counterparts...at the same time the lack of better plane was a serious issue by the end of 1942. The gravity of the problem is clearly illustrated by the luftwaffe's attempts to "force" the G.55 into german production (which I feel would have significantly altered the course of the airwar and more then likely significantly impacted US daylight bombing)...
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Many older Experten preferred the 109 because it was the plane they trained on and few for up to several years in combat. They knew the 109 intimately and trusted it to perform as they expected it to. The 190 was new and unpredictable to them, and in war one mistake is all it takes to be a late Experten. After the 190 had been in service for some time there were plenty of 190 Experten that would never willingly set foot in a 109 for the same reasons.
Edit: Also in the west the 190A didn't have the performance at altitude to be an effective fighter, only bomber destroyer. In the east the 190 proved an outstanding fighter at lower altitudes. The G.55 wasn't producible enough for the Germans. By that time they were so dedicated to 109 production that any major change would catastrophically disrupt production. Many of the questionable decisions made by the USAAF was also a result of production concerns.
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It's this dedication to the 109 I've always questioned. If we look at the quantom leap from the Italian 202=>205 (which was an incremental gain)=> the Re.2005 (which was again an improvement on the 205)=> the G.55 which was again a significant improvement on the Re.2005.
By late 1942 the germans should have had 3 or 4 totally new airframes equivelent to the R.2005 or G.55 to choose from. A 5 x 20mm G.55 series II melded to the DB 603 engine would have been a rude suprise to the allied bomber streams in mid 1943...
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It's a result of the byzantine state of affairs in the German leadership. In 1940-41 they fully expected to win the war with what they got. Future technological development and production was left to the private initiatives of men like Tank, Heinkel and Messerschmitt while Hitler had his eyes on the creation of Germania. When it became obvious that the war would not be won anytime soon Hitler and the Nazi leadership put their fate in jet technology and new versions of the 109 and 190 were seen as nothing more than stopgap measures. In many ways this was the correct call, but lack of prewar and early-war funding and constant meddling and change in the Reich's industrial leadership delayed the development of jet fighters and bomber until it was too late. Well, it would probably have been too late in any case, but could have lengthened the war considerably.
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It was a dreadful high cost the allies paid in bomber crews. 10 men were put in a life or death situation each time a heavy bomber began to go down. Any sort of G-forces on the bomber prevented the men from bailing out.
So who really won? It costs the Germans 1 fighter for every 3 bombers shot down.
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The Allies had resources to squander, the Germans did not.
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Back to strategic bombing...
If the daylight campaign was dubious in its effectiveness, what then explains the fact that fuel was in short supply in late '44 as German fighter production was peaking? I've read that they had more planes than they had fuel to fly them...
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Germany actually never had enough fuel, they simply didnt have the reserves or the resources within their borders. Thats really why the Russian campaign was launched, they needed the oil. That was one of the issues (along with the inability to produce a capable engine) that swung the tide against the original plan for a force of 500 hvy bombers toward the twin engine "fast bomber". While Ploesti is better known the raids against Leuna and other synthetic fuel plants were more telling since so many manufactured byproducts were synthetic. Production of synthetid fuel/byproducts fell by 90%+ between April & July of 1944 and never really recovered.
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It was a dreadful high cost the allies paid in bomber crews. 10 men were put in a life or death situation each time a heavy bomber began to go down. Any sort of G-forces on the bomber prevented the men from bailing out.
So who really won? It costs the Germans 1 fighter for every 3 bombers shot down.
Thats an overly simplistic view. War is/was always a meatgrinder. German U-boat crews suffered greater attrition and so did US sherman crews. Almost 100% of the original cadre of field grade officers in tanks at the start of D-day were killed or wounded in action by the end of the war. Losses were so high that many shermans were operated by 3 man crews during July/Aug/Sept of 1944. In one instance 17 shermans (operated by 3 man crews) were repaired and sent directly into a fluid battle with 15 of them being back out of action by 3PM that day. While the Sherman was actually not a bad tank, it was initially so undergunned that it was forced to point plank range to engage.
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Back to strategic bombing...
If the daylight campaign was dubious in its effectiveness, what then explains the fact that fuel was in short supply in late '44 as German fighter production was peaking? I've read that they had more planes than they had fuel to fly them...
German oil reserves never ran dry in 1944, the problem was getting the fuel to the units that needed it with allied fighter-bombers roaming freely over Germany strafing anything that moved. Oil production was also never significantly impaired until production facilities in the east were overrun by the Soviets in the last few months of 1944. Production facilities were damaged by allied air attacks, but were quickly repaired. It's difficult to estimate exactly how much damage the bombing did, but as Gunther Rall said (paraphrase) "there was always fuel available". September 1944 was in fact the best month of 1944 for aviation fuel production in Germany, and not until November was this production significantly impaired by advancing Soviet forces.
From a post-war British study on the German oil industry:
(http://content.screencast.com/media/23977e77-79b3-435b-bf10-9c5393a49d40_0832dde7-2cf2-4139-ab83-fa16132bb135_static_0_0_2008-04-05_2153.png)
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(http://content.screencast.com/media/a82a2c30-192d-4cc6-be85-84674deb9958_0832dde7-2cf2-4139-ab83-fa16132bb135_static_0_0_2008-04-05_2216.png)
As this table shows the actual production of crude oil increased from 1943 to 1944 and the difference between the planned production of finished products and the actual production in 1944 is less than 5%.
Edit: I assume the reduction in total production of finished products from 1943 to 1944 is the effect of the 1943 raid on the Ploesti refineries.
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Pretty sharp drop in lubricants starting in June '44. Interesting that almost all other types of fuel stayed relatively normal except aviation fuel and fuel oil in Nov-Dec. I guess all the AvGas refineries were out east? Perhaps that also accounts for the increase in fuel oil (wasn't refined into AvGas)?
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Not all of them obviously since there still was some production. Russia invaded Germany in October. The 30% drop in total production you see in the summer coincides with the Soviet invasion of Romania and the new strikes on Ploesti.
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In any case, it is pretty clear that any fuel problems the Germans had in 1944 was the result of distribution difficulties probably due to interdiction by tactical aviation, since production held pace to the very last months and stocks lasted well into 1945.
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Another point I forgot: The "million men" sited that were occupied by the defense of the Reich were mostly unfit for front line service. The gun batteries were often led by wounded, partially disabled artillery officers and the guns were crewed by children and the elderly. Like Pope Benedict who was drafted in 1943 at the age of 16 and trained with the infantry, but due to illness was assigned to anti-aircraft duty.
(http://www.tylersmilitarysite.com/images/flakhelmetsds.JPG)
Children training on an optical range finder/gun director.
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I've been following this thread as time permits, and I have but one question.
Is there a point to this debate?
My regards,
Widewing
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I've been following this thread as time permits, and I have but one question.
Is there a point to this debate?
My regards,
Widewing
At this point probably not, my original point was that after the death of Wever the entire "vision" of the luftwaffe changed and as a result they didnt have the planes, training, tactics, intelligence or neccessary operational understanding to effectively prosecute a true "airwar" vs England in 1940. Further the initial choices for production planes limited future flexibility and were suprisingly "static" leaving them ill prepared for the airwar of 1944 as well.
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Lumpy I have no clue where your pulling those numbers or who initially compiled them but they are completely at odds with both the Germans own records, correspondance from his ministers to Hitler and results of post war interviews, interrogation and compiled documentation. For just one example your chart shows just under 250 tons/m of aviation spirits mid 1944 German synthetic fuel plants were producing roughly 175 T/M in april of 1944. This number fell to 30 Tons by Sept and 5 tons/m by year end Total german production of aviation fuel in June 1944 was reduced by 92% (this is Speers own written report to Hitler)...as a genral rule much of what your producing is inconsistant with records generally beliefed as factually correct.
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USSBS
Virtually complete records of the German oil industry were taken by the Survey. In addition, major plants that were subject to attack and their records were studied in detail.
The German oil supply was tight throughout the war, and was a controlling factor in military operations. The chief source of supply, and the only source for aviation gasoline, was 13 synthetic plants together with a small production from three additional ones that started operations in 1944. The major sources of products refined from crude oil were the Ploesti oil fields in Rumania and the Hungarian fields which together accounted for about a quarter of the total supply of liquid fuels in 1943. In addition, there was a small but significant Austrian and domestic production. The refineries at Ploesti were attacked, beginning with a daring and costly low-level attack in August 1943. These had only limited effects; deliveries increased until April 1944 when the attacks were resumed. The 1944 attacks, together with mining of the Danube, materially reduced Rumanian deliveries. In August 1944, Russian occupation eliminated this source of supply and dependence on the synthetic plants became even greater than before.
Production from the synthetic plants declined steadily and by July 1944 every major plant had been hit. These plants were producing an average of 316,000 tons per month when the attacks began. Their production fell to 107,000 tons in June and 17,000 tons in September. Output of aviation gasoline from synthetic plants dropped from 175,000 tons in April to 30,000 tons in July and 5,000 tons in September. Production recovered somewhat in November and December, but for the rest of the war was but a fraction of pre-attack output.
The Germans viewed the attacks as catastrophic. In a series of letters to Hitler, among documents seized by the Survey, the developing crisis is outlined month by month in detail. On June 30, Speer wrote: "The enemy has succeeded in increasing our losses of aviation gasoline up to 90 percent by June 22d. Only through speedy recovery of damaged plants has it been possible to regain partly some of the terrible losses." The tone of the letters that followed was similar.
As in the case of ball-bearings and aircraft, the Germans took the most energetic steps to repair and reconstruct the oil plants. Another czar was appointed, this time Edmund Geilenberg, and again an overriding priority on men and materials was issued. Geilenberg used as many as 350,000 men for the repair, rebuilding, and dispersal of the bombed plants and for new underground construction. The synthetic oil plants were vast complex structures and could not be easily broken up and dispersed. The programs of dispersal and underground construction that were undertaken were incomplete when the war ended.
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It's from a 1947 135 page report made by the British Ministry of Fuel and Power detailing German oil production in WWII. It's complete with maps of all the production sites. I can even tell you how deep they drilled.
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USSBS
Further Dividends From the Oil Attack
The attack on the synthetic oil plants was also found to have cost Germany its synthetic nitrogen and methanol supply and a considerable part of its rubber supply.
Germany, like other industrial countries, relied on synthesis for its supply of nitrogen and the synthetic oil plants were by far the largest producers. Sixty percent of the nitrogen production and 40 percent of the methanol production came from two synthetic plants. Monthly output of synthetic nitrogen in early 1944, before the synthetic plants were attacked, was about 75,000 tons. It had been reduced by the end of the year to about 20,000 tons.
Nitrogen, besides being indispensable for explosives, is heavily used in German agriculture. Allocation for the 1943-44 crop year was 54 percent of the total supply; allocation for 1944-45 was first planned at 25 percent and later eliminated altogether. Nitrogen for munitions was maintained by reducing the allocation to agriculture, but by the end of 1944 this cushion had been substantially exhausted. The supply of explosives then declined with the reduction in supply of nitrogen. It became necessary to fill shells with a
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mixture of explosives and non-explosive rock salt extender. There was a general shortage of ammunition on all fronts at the end of the war. There was an equally serious shortage of flak ammunition; units manning flak guns were instructed not to fire on planes unless they were attacking the installations which the guns were specifically designated to protect and unless "they were sure of hitting the planes!"
It is of some interest that a few weeks before the close of hostilities the Germans reallocated nitrogen to agriculture at the expense of ammunition. This was the result, according to Production Minister Speer, of an independent decision of his own that the war was lost and the next year's crop should be protected.
Methanol production, necessary among other things for TNT, hexogen and other high explosives, was as severely affected as nitrogen production. Allocations to the principal consumers was heavily cut, and eventually the production of hexogen was abandoned. The loss of methanol coupled with the reduction in nitrogen was followed by a precipitate decline in production of explosives.
The synthetic rubber industry also suffered from the attack on oil. Official German records on raw material supplies show that stockpiles of rubber were small at the beginning of the war -- at the most sufficient for only two or three months' consumption. Imports through the blockade were unimportant. The supply came from four synthetic plants, one of which was a small pilot plant; and two additional plants were under construction during the war. One of the major plants, located at Huels, was attacked as a primary target by the Eighth Air Force in June 1943 and closed for a month; it required three months to get back to 72 percent of capacity and seven months to get back to full production. However, it operated on gas from synthetic oil plants in the Ruhr; when these were knocked out in the summer of 1944, production was again reduced substantially. Production at Schkopau, the largest of the synthetic rubber plants, was lost because it was dependent on hydrogen from Leuna. Investigation of the two remaining plants revealed that production was largely eliminated because of attacks on oil plants of which they were a part. By the end of 1944 over-all statistics for the industry show that production of synthetic rubber had been reduced to 2,000 tons a month or about one-sixth the wartime peak. Had the war continued, Germany's rubber position would have become critical. No indication was found, however, that the rubber shortage had become a limiting factor on German war production or the movement of the German army before the war ended.
Except for oil and associated nitrogen, methanol, and rubber production, no parts of the German chemical industry were a priority target of the Combined Bomber Offensive.
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The synthetic oil plants were vast complex structures and could not be easily broken up and dispersed. The programs of dispersal and underground construction that were undertaken were incomplete when the war ended.
Actually the underground refineries were operational in October of 1944 and operated until March 1945.
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All of them gSholtz?
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It was a continuous effort which was never "completed", new refineries being started on when others were completed.
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USSBS
Further Dividends From the Oil Attack
The attack on the synthetic oil plants was also found to have cost Germany its synthetic nitrogen and methanol supply and a considerable part of its rubber supply.
Germany, like other industrial countries, relied on synthesis for its supply of nitrogen and the synthetic oil plants were by far the largest producers. Sixty percent of the nitrogen production and 40 percent of the methanol production came from two synthetic plants. Monthly output of synthetic nitrogen in early 1944, before the synthetic plants were attacked, was about 75,000 tons. It had been reduced by the end of the year to about 20,000 tons.
Nitrogen, besides being indispensable for explosives, is heavily used in German agriculture. Allocation for the 1943-44 crop year was 54 percent of the total supply; allocation for 1944-45 was first planned at 25 percent and later eliminated altogether. Nitrogen for munitions was maintained by reducing the allocation to agriculture, but by the end of 1944 this cushion had been substantially exhausted. The supply of explosives then declined with the reduction in supply of nitrogen. It became necessary to fill shells with a
Page 10
mixture of explosives and non-explosive rock salt extender. There was a general shortage of ammunition on all fronts at the end of the war. There was an equally serious shortage of flak ammunition; units manning flak guns were instructed not to fire on planes unless they were attacking the installations which the guns were specifically designated to protect and unless "they were sure of hitting the planes!"
It is of some interest that a few weeks before the close of hostilities the Germans reallocated nitrogen to agriculture at the expense of ammunition. This was the result, according to Production Minister Speer, of an independent decision of his own that the war was lost and the next year's crop should be protected.
Methanol production, necessary among other things for TNT, hexogen and other high explosives, was as severely affected as nitrogen production. Allocations to the principal consumers was heavily cut, and eventually the production of hexogen was abandoned. The loss of methanol coupled with the reduction in nitrogen was followed by a precipitate decline in production of explosives.
The synthetic rubber industry also suffered from the attack on oil. Official German records on raw material supplies show that stockpiles of rubber were small at the beginning of the war -- at the most sufficient for only two or three months' consumption. Imports through the blockade were unimportant. The supply came from four synthetic plants, one of which was a small pilot plant; and two additional plants were under construction during the war. One of the major plants, located at Huels, was attacked as a primary target by the Eighth Air Force in June 1943 and closed for a month; it required three months to get back to 72 percent of capacity and seven months to get back to full production. However, it operated on gas from synthetic oil plants in the Ruhr; when these were knocked out in the summer of 1944, production was again reduced substantially. Production at Schkopau, the largest of the synthetic rubber plants, was lost because it was dependent on hydrogen from Leuna. Investigation of the two remaining plants revealed that production was largely eliminated because of attacks on oil plants of which they were a part. By the end of 1944 over-all statistics for the industry show that production of synthetic rubber had been reduced to 2,000 tons a month or about one-sixth the wartime peak. Had the war continued, Germany's rubber position would have become critical. No indication was found, however, that the rubber shortage had become a limiting factor on German war production or the movement of the German army before the war ended.
Except for oil and associated nitrogen, methanol, and rubber production, no parts of the German chemical industry were a priority target of the Combined Bomber Offensive.
As I have maintained all along at the end of 1944 the Germans were running out of essential supplies, including oil. By that time no miracle of technology or fortune of war could hope to save Germany.
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So it is only some of the underground refineries that were completed.
The programs of dispersal and underground construction was not completed.
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No everything was not completed by war's end.
(http://content.screencast.com/media/aed388e6-04cf-41c7-bcfc-88cfdb1f6469_0832dde7-2cf2-4139-ab83-fa16132bb135_static_0_0_2008-04-06_0154.png)
They were at 30% of planned output in October.
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Actually the underground refineries were operational in October of 1944 and operated until March 1945.
So you gave a false statement that they were all completed when you left out the word 'some'.
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I never said that they all were operational. I am not responsible for you reading too much into things.
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When was the 8th Army Airforce operational in England? Where all its squadrons operational then? Get real Milo.
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Wow! This is funny!
OK first of when the Russians took over Rumania in August 1944 it wasn't very crippling. By that time the Germans had enough synthetic fuel factories and oil in Hungary it had no effect. Also if the Luftwaffe would have made better choices then they did in the actual BoB they would have easily won air superiority. Now if they actually invaded is something completely different. I think there are 3 periods in 1940 in which the Gernabs could have one. First of all they had the British nearly beat in late August but to counter the British bombing of Berlin the Germans changed to attacking London. Second of all they let the British get away at Dunkirk so Hitler could try to negotiate a treary. Thirdly they started attaking the British radar which was taking its toll. Also German production increasing in 1944 does not mean allied bombing was not working. It is actually because the Germans switched to a war time economy and were trying to reach their full production capacity. Also one has to look at the prediction that the allies made of the length of the war. They predicted the Pacific war to last until 1949 and the European one all the way until 1954. Also if you look at the Russian attack on Rumania the Germans had close to 700 planes in Rumania. Only 60 of those are fighters which shows that a lot planes were used to stop allied bombing. Ultimately I believe if Hitler didn't make so many stupid decisions the axis would have won the war.
just my 2 cents
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From my perspective the Americans, Japanese, Russians and even Italians totally dominated the germans in "2nd generation" airframes.
Not really in agreement here. Fw190D9, Me262 and Ta152 prototypes flew during 1942. The Me262 was not ready for service until 1944 because the engines simply could not be developed much earlier than that, but the Dora and Ta series were ready for a "go ahead" since early 1943. That they were not given a green light had more to do with german fixation into turbocharged engines and the particular dislike of Tank of the Ju213 powerplant for the 190 evolutions.
Germans spent all late '42 and all 1943 looking for a turbocharged 190 and fighting to make the me209 and me309 worthy fighters, yet the D9 and Ta could've been flying since mid-43 at the latest. I'd say both were excellent airframes.
The 109 was saddled with all its major shortcomings thruout the war. While the 190 was clearly a better plane in many ways it never really was a dominant air to air weapon with most expertain favoring the 109 by a wide margin.
This is a higly subjective question. Most of the former 109 experten who flew the 190 preferred the latter. Some (a small number) liked the 109 over the 190. Depends on who you ask, and the context the pilots where flying at. If I were a german pilot flying Reich Defence during 1944, I'd rather like the 109 much more because of the altitudes the fights were being fought at were well over the ones the 190A was effective, but where the 109s still performed well.
If you ask the pilots in the 1942-43 channel air battles, or those in the russian front who flew both the 109 and the 190 there's almost general consensus (there are some notable exceptions but most jagdflieger loved it) the 190 was a better fighter than the 109.
It's hardly accurate to say that "most experten" favored the 109 over the 190 when probably the most respected of them all, Adolf Galland, who did 90% of his air to air kills aboard Bf109s, asked for all the Bf109 production to be brought to a halt, and for the Fw190 to be the standard propeller engined fighter of the Luftwaffe.
The 262 certainly was the true 3rd generation airframe and was well ahead of its counterparts...at the same time the lack of better plane was a serious issue by the end of 1942. The gravity of the problem is clearly illustrated by the luftwaffe's attempts to "force" the G.55 into german production (which I feel would have significantly altered the course of the airwar and more then likely significantly impacted US daylight bombing)...
I honestly don't see where the G.55 could've played such a decisive role. It was a good fighter, I agree, but the place where the LW was being slowly but steadily attrited were the air to air fights against the bomber raids on the Reich. At 25-30000 feet I can't see how the G.55 would do a better job than the Bf109s then in place. In fact I think neither the germans or the italians had a plane with better enough performance over the Bf109 to justify the latter's replacement.
The main problem the germans had since 1943 had more to do with where the battles were being fought, than with the planes themselves. At the eastern front the fights were almost always under 6000m. Over the Reich the fights happened between 7 and 9km of altitude. In the East the Luftwaffe had to fight at low altitudes. In the West they had to give battle at very high altitudes.
The germans had to make do with two different fighters which could fight at any altitude from down low up to 10km of altitudes, and that was something really difficult to achieve, even more if we take in account than in the East they were fighting hordes of planes specialized at low altitude fighting, while in the west they had to stop the tide of a high-altitude specialized fighter force. Building fighters able to fight in both scenarios was something the germans were forced to do...but the fighters themselfs couldn't excell at every altitude they had to fight at.
When the Ta152H entered service the LW finally had a high altitude dedicated fighter which was still able to provide sterling service at low altitudes aswell . But that was already way too late. Had the Ta152H entered service by mid-late 1943 (and there was no real reason why this could not happen other than Tank's dislike of the engine, and the RLM insistence on turbos over mechanical superchargers) things could've ,this time yes, been very different from what they were, for it was a much better fighter for the altitudes we're talking about than the standard 190s, the Bf109s and the G.55s you mentioned. The 190D9 could've given the Fw190 family a better shot at the altitudes usual in the west (even though it was not an specialized high altitude fighter). It could also have been built by mid 1943 but it didn't enter service until late'44. The reasons?...ask the RLM...wrong decissions.
All in all I don't think the germans had a problem with airframes, nor engines. The airframes were there. The powerplants, too (The Jumo213E was already around by early 1943. The DB603 series ,too, tho this had problems with low production and the Reich's completely misguided police of using them in bombers before using them on day fighters). What was lacking was a good guidance from the higher levels where decisions were made, a guidance which took all the incorrect decisions possible in the 1941-1944 time frame.
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The G.55 was considered comparable by the germans to the frontline 109 at the time of the test in Feb 1943. This was with a bigger more robust airframe and the 3 x 20mm configuration. So the G.55 had the equivelent punch to a 109 with gondolas but with none of the performance loss. The germans also noted that the G.55 could easily accomodate the DB-603 engine as is, which the 109 could not. So the G.55 would have immediatley provided a 3x20mm plane with performance comparable to 109 and the ability to field a 5 x 20mm option with performance that would exceed the late war DB-605 109K's. So you would have had a DB-603 engined fighter (which was never actually produced outside of the last 152's & D0-335's) with tremendoud potential to damage the buffs but none of the drag from the gondolas that effected ability to function in the true fighter role.
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Yes, humble. The problem was that not many G.55s would've received the DB603 (turning it into a G.56), because of the same reason why tank had to push until 1945 to get RLM clearance for a production TA152 with that engine. Productions run were too low and until mid-late '44 they were mostly used in bombers and night fighters...
I don't think the RLM would've allowed the use of that engine on an italian design if they didn't allow Tank to put it into the 190s he was developing.
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The G.55 was considered comparable by the germans to the frontline 109 at the time of the test in Feb 1943. This was with a bigger more robust airframe and the 3 x 20mm configuration. So the G.55 had the equivelent punch to a 109 with gondolas but with none of the performance loss. The germans also noted that the G.55 could easily accomodate the DB-603 engine as is, which the 109 could not. So the G.55 would have immediatley provided a 3x20mm plane with performance comparable to 109 and the ability to field a 5 x 20mm option with performance that would exceed the late war DB-605 109K's. So you would have had a DB-603 engined fighter (which was never actually produced outside of the last 152's & D0-335's) with tremendoud potential to damage the buffs but none of the drag from the gondolas that effected ability to function in the true fighter role.
Humble, the G.55 wasn't quite the superplane you make it out to be.
http://kurfurst.allaboutwarfare.com/Tactical_trials/109G-4_Guidonia/109G-4_vergl_Estelle-Guidonia_de.html
The test of the G.55 concludes:
Torque forces are high. The rudder effectiveness could have been better. Roll rate is somewhat poorer than 109G. Turns very good. Unstable gun platform. It could not be determined if the plane tended to stall to a particular side. Stall characteristics similar to Spitfire. Good visibility to the sides and rear. Not suited to carry external ordnance due to position of radiator and undercarriage.
Combat test 109G-4 vs. Fiat G55:
Under 2000m the G.55 climbed slightly better on climb-power, the 109G-4 then overtook the G.55. Above 5000m the G.55 was again slightly better in climb on climb-power. 109G-4 is somewhat faster in level flight. G.55 turns somewhat better than 109G-4. Both planes were considered equally fast in a dive.
Now... note that this was an early G.55 with only one cannon and four machineguns. And it performed like a 109G with gondola waffen. I'm sure it would have performed better with the bigger DB 603 engine, but in the end the G.55 did not merit the added cost in production and the disruption of the 109 production line.
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See Rules #4, #5
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No I don't suppose you understand Milo. Believe what you will, but I will not be provoked into a flame war with you, so just give up.
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It's from a 1947 135 page report made by the British Ministry of Fuel and Power detailing German oil production in WWII. It's complete with maps of all the production sites. I can even tell you how deep they drilled.
I see where your problem is Lumpy. You are thinking that what is produced at the fields is what gets sent out. This is wrong. What comes out of the ground is CRUDE OIL, a mixture of all the various components that get SEPARATED at a REFINERY. I could have enough wells to produce 50,000mT of crude, but if I don't have the refineries to crack it down into avgas, fuel oil, motor oil, ect... ect... it doesn't mean squat. The refineries were the choke point for the German oil industry, not the production fields. The refineries never ran out of product to crack(according to that report), they just never could produce enough finished products because they were being bombed to oblivion.
Strategic air, put a crimp in the fuel hose of the German war machine. Your blanket statement, that it was indecisive at best and a waste of resources at worst, doesn't hold up.
I'm sorry that I blew your house of cards down...Wait...no I'm not. :D
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If you actually read the documentation I've posted you will notice it says finished products. Nice try though. ;)
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I dont care what "it says", you cant finish what you never started and garbage in is garbage out. The numbers I quoted are the actual production numbers as verified both by actual docmentation, interview and interrogation immediately at wars end. The numbers you posted are somebodies pipe dream.
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Heh, if you don't care why continue to post? ;)
I'm afraid the British study is far more thorough than you'd like to believe.
(http://content.screencast.com/media/b47b9d5b-5282-4ac3-ab49-6e97e1ed9099_0832dde7-2cf2-4139-ab83-fa16132bb135_static_0_0_2008-04-06_0826.png)
(http://content.screencast.com/media/5924dc55-7d9f-432f-8773-d67caf89dc1d_0832dde7-2cf2-4139-ab83-fa16132bb135_static_0_0_2008-04-06_0829.png)
(http://content.screencast.com/media/0035ad7e-c84f-4d0a-bbe5-c81ab1c0d02b_0832dde7-2cf2-4139-ab83-fa16132bb135_static_0_0_2008-04-06_0831.png)
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The numbers you post show an increase in overall production of aviation fuel in June 1944, the same month that numerous sources clearly identify as the worst month for the production of aviation fuel. Speer himself says in writing aviation fuel production is down 92%. I dont care who the source is or when/how its compiled since we can clearly show that its off by so much at a critical time that its overall validity is most certainly very questionable. There is no way that production of aviation fuel is up in June of 1944.
Production from the synthetic plants declined steadily and by July 1944 every major plant had been hit. These plants were producing an average of 316,000 tons per month when the attacks began. Their production fell to 107,000 tons in June and 17,000 tons in September. Output of aviation gasoline from synthetic plants dropped from 175,000 tons in April to 30,000 tons in July and 5,000 tons in September. Production recovered somewhat in November and December, but for the rest of the war was but a fraction of pre-attack output.
The story of Leuna is illustrative. Leuna was the largest of the synthetic plants and protected by a highly effective smoke screen and the heaviest flak concentration in Europe. Air crews viewed a mission to Leuna as the most dangerous and difficult assignment of the air war. Leuna was hit on May 12 and put out of production. However, investigation of plant records and interrogation of Leuna's officials established that a force of several thousand men had it in partial operation in about 10 days. It was again hit on May 28 but resumed partial production on June 3 and reached 75 percent of capacity in early July. It was hit again on July 7 and again shut down but production started 2 days later and reached 53 percent of capacity on July 19. An attack on July 20 shut the plant down again but only for three days; by July 27 production was back to 35 percent of capacity. Attacks on July 28 and 29 closed the plant and further attacks on August 24, September 11, September 13, September 28 and October 7 kept it closed down. However, Leuna got started again on October 14 and although production was interrupted by a small raid on November 2, it reached 28 percent of capacity by November 20. Although there were 6 more heavy attacks in November and December (largely ineffective because of adverse weather), production was brought up to 15 percent of capacity in January and was maintained at that level until nearly the end of the war. From the first attack to the end, production at Leuna averaged 9 percent of capacity. There were 22 attacks on Leuna, 20 by the Eighth Air Force and 2 by the RAF. Due to the urgency of keeping this plant out of production, many of these missions mere dispatched in difficult bombing weather. Consequently, the order of bombing accuracy on Leuna was not high as compared with other targets. To win the battle with Leuna a total of 6,552 bomber sorties were flown against the plant, 18,328 tons of bombs were dropped and an entire year was required.
The Germans viewed the attacks as catastrophic. In a series of letters to Hitler, among documents seized by the Survey, the developing crisis is outlined month by month in detail. On June 30, Speer wrote: "The enemy has succeeded in increasing our losses of aviation gasoline up to 90 percent by June 22d. Only through speedy recovery of damaged plants has it been possible to regain partly some of the terrible losses." The tone of the letters that followed was similar.
Given these documented realities there is no way that production of aviation fuel increased during june and in the month of september, the month before the underground refineries even went on line and when synthetic production is documented at its lowest levels increased by over 300% to a level close to double the highest production prior to the attacks on both synthetic oil or the 1944 attacks on Ploesti. How do you explain that in the month that you had the lowest synthetic production and after the russians had cut off all romanian production and before the underground refineries had produced a single Barrel of oil production of aviation spirits went from 292 tons (which is already ludicrous) to a figure of 836 Tons???
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Hah "documented realities", you haven't documented anything. What was that you said about taking "3rd party analysis as gospel"? :lol
I can understand it is difficult to handle that the findings of an independent civilian comity that had nothing to prove or justify differs from the findings of those who did have something to prove and justify (why they sent all those men to die over Germany for instance, surely they did not die in vain? To say nothing of the cost involved and the future of the USAF). [sarcasm] Nah ... that can't be it! [/sarcasm]
Believe what you want Humble. :)
Edit Btw. the numbers I have posted (from the report) are the total production figures, not only that from the synthetic oil industry, but from all production.
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Another thing to ponder: The Luftwaffe flew more sorties in 1944 than they did in 1943. The Luftwaffe lost more planes in the air in June - October 1944 than they did in January - May 1944. The Luftwaffe shot down 24,800 Soviet aircraft in 1944, that's 2,300 more than they shot down in 1943. Even in the few war months of 1945 the Luftwaffe shot down 11,000 Soviet aircraft.
What were these Luftwaffe planes flying on if there was no fuel? Schnapps? (Pilots probably, but not their aircraft ;))
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...
Consequently, the order of bombing accuracy on Leuna was not high as compared with other targets. To win the battle with Leuna a total of 6,552 bomber sorties were flown against the plant, 18,328 tons of bombs were dropped and an entire year was required. [/i]
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I think many of you miss a good point that Lumpy is making. It is not a question of whether the strategic bombing campaign made a dent in the German war machine. It obviously did. The more interesting questions are: "was it worth it?" - in terms of were the required resources could be better spent elsewhere and "was this the right way to do it" - in terms of high alt heavy bomber stream and carpet bombing.
The quote above demonstrates this very well. German production was hit, but was it worth the 6,552 sorties, a year time and god knows how many dead crewmen to do it? If they used mosquito instead of B17s, could they achieve this at a lower cost?
Similar questions can be asked regarding the German decisions (regarding the original post). What if instead of bombing Britain for two years, they had put all this effort into building a navy, or other means to challenge the British navy and allow an invasion?
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Lumpy, I can put some impressive numbers on a piece of paper, if I don't want the Gestapo to come take me away and shoot me.
"look at my books, I've produced XX amount even after we were bombed!" "I have crews working night and day to repair the damage and increase our production."
"Where is it, it never arrived."
"How should I know that. We sent it out, if it didn't arrive it must be the trains got bombed."
ECT...ECT...
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Lumpy, I can put some impressive numbers on a piece of paper, if I don't want the Gestapo to come take me away and shoot me.
Yes of course you could. That may have been how things were done in Soviet Russia, but not in Germany. Failing to meet production quotas may have gotten you replaced, but not shot. The Germans as a people are far too fiddly for detail and bookkeeping, and other areas of German record keeping (like awarding kills to pilots) shows an almost unequaled attention to detail and verification.
Also, just ask yourself: If the fuel production was that impaired how could the Luftwaffe continue to operate, flying hundreds of thousands of sorties in 1944, in fact more sorties than they flew the year before?
Also some people claim the German jet fighters and bombers were grounded much of the time due to lack of fuel thanks to the USAAF efforts against the synthetic plants. How do they arrive at this obviously erroneous conclusion? (I think because they have something to prove.) The Jumo 004 jet engine burned diesel oil, not aviation gas. The 262 would be the last aircraft in the Luftwaffe inventory to run out of fuel.
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The quote above demonstrates this very well. German production was hit, but was it worth the 6,552 sorties, a year time and god knows how many dead crewmen to do it? If they used mosquito instead of B17s, could they achieve this at a lower cost?
Yup, that is the crux of my argument.
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Nice graph on German avgas.
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-12/1114844/Germanfuel-1.jpg)
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What's the source of that graph Milo? Even if that graph is correct it shows that avgas stocks lasted well into 1945, like I've said.
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Doesn't matter how much stock you have on hand if you can't get that stock to the end user. The transportation system was a mess.
Source, maybe Crumpp.
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So your defending the 800+ tons of avgas figure in sept of 1944 as accurate?
As for a few of the other comments...
While operational sorties were up, training became almost nonexistant and many other elements like engine breakin etc were curtailed severly.
The strategic airwar was costly and its overall effectiveness when analysed in any single aspect can certainly be called into question. I think the real measure of impact was summed up very well in the quote I posted a few pages back. The overall effect on Germany was devestating and seperate from all other factors had brought the economy/infrastucture to a point of collapse by the end of 1944.
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So your defending the 800+ tons of avgas figure in sept of 1944 as accurate?
Trouble reading the graph gSholtz? At the begining of Sept 44 there was ~300t of avgas in stock and by the end of Sept 44 there was ~200t in stock.
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These documents may be of interest:
(http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/german-fuel-production.jpg)
Production of Aviation Fuels and Components by Hydrogentation Plants (http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/german-fuel-production.jpg)
Aircraft Fuel Consumption of the G.A.F. (http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/German_Fuel_Consumption.pdf)
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I think many of you miss a good point that Lumpy is making. It is not a question of whether the strategic bombing campaign made a dent in the German war machine. It obviously did. The more interesting questions are: "was it worth it?" - in terms of were the required resources could be better spent elsewhere and "was this the right way to do it" - in terms of high alt heavy bomber stream and carpet bombing.
Its a fair argument, as long as you also include the resources committed by the Germans to defend against it, as Widewing alluded to earlier. I suppose ultimately, you'd have to be able to quantify both the total Allied effort to make the attacks, and the German effort to defend against them, in order to truly approach a value with which to attribute the true cost effectiveness. But, since apparently the documentation with which to create these comparisons is in question, its going to be tough to get either side of the argument to agree.
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Doesn't matter how much stock you have on hand if you can't get that stock to the end user. The transportation system was a mess.
That I can agree with completely.
So your defending the 800+ tons of avgas figure in sept of 1944 as accurate?
I'm not "defending" anything, just posting the figures of the report. I have no personal knowledge pertaining to this situation as I wasn't even born back then. However the only documentation I have seen (which I have posted) suggests a different reality than the one you subscribe to ... with the exception of the graph Milo posted which is an unknown quantity as far as source is concerned.
As for a few of the other comments...
While operational sorties were up, training became almost nonexistant and many other elements like engine breakin etc were curtailed severly.
The strategic airwar was costly and its overall effectiveness when analysed in any single aspect can certainly be called into question. I think the real measure of impact was summed up very well in the quote I posted a few pages back. The overall effect on Germany was devestating and seperate from all other factors had brought the economy/infrastucture to a point of collapse by the end of 1944.
That is certainly a valid point of view, but as I've said earlier the RAF strategic campaign of eradicating German cities and USAAF campaign of eradicating Japanese cities en masse was effective (but morally questionable). What I'm calling into question is the effectiveness of the USAAF daylight, so called "precision" bombing campaign in Europe and the rationale of spending so much resources and lives on it. You'd have to separate the effect of the RAF night bombing on the German economy, which is an insurmountable task I think.
Trouble reading the graph gSholtz? At the begining of Sept 44 there was ~300t of avgas in stock and by the end of Sept 44 there was ~200t in stock.
No trouble at all Milo, but you seem to have some trouble since you obviously believe the graph shows tons when it actually shows thousands of tons (read the fine print in the lower left corner). ~300 thousand tons of avgas is more than they had in stock for most of 1942 and parts of 1943. ~200 thousand tons of avgas is the same amount in stock as in August-September 1942. The same rapid drop in avgas stocks is seen in the summer of 1941 indicating increased consumption as a result of the invasion of the Soviet Union. Changes in stock is determined by differences in production and consumption. Likewise the very high levels of avgas stock in the summer of 1944 would seem to be the result of low sortie rates, and thus low consumption rates for the Luftwaffe after their heavy losses in that period and the routing of the Luftwaffe in the west. Stock levels haven't been that high since early 1941. At the beginning of October 1944 the stocks were at approx. the same level as in August of 1942.
Its a fair argument, as long as you also include the resources committed by the Germans to defend against it, as Widewing alluded to earlier. I suppose ultimately, you'd have to be able to quantify both the total Allied effort to make the attacks, and the German effort to defend against them, in order to truly approach a value with which to attribute the true cost effectiveness. But, since apparently the documentation with which to create these comparisons is in question, its going to be tough to get either side of the argument to agree.
Yup, I agree with that as well.
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I suspect you may be underestimating both the magnitude of Speer's accomplishments in industrial rationalization, and consequently the magnitude of effects from the strategic bombing effort itself.
However, like Widewing, I also suspect that all words spent taking a view different than yours are wasted.
First, you shrug off the manpower diversion effects by claiming the Germans so employed were not fit for front line service. I suppose that also means they weren't fit to work in factories or otherwise contribute to the total war effort; in fact, if it weren't for the air assault on Germany those men would likely have been completely dependent on government handouts for their sustenence. Logically, then, the strategic bombing campaign actually helped Germany's economic production by maximizing efficiency in an otherwise useless manpower pool!
Obviously ridiculous, but it's the corollary of your assertion that the manpower diversion had trivial effects. Since the implications of your claim are unsustainable, then logically the statement on which they were based must be incorrect. Even if we accept your unsubstantiated claim that those men weren't fit for the front lines, the diversion of so many from production of necesssity must be considered an indirect economic consequence of the bombing.
Second - the line of reasoning that claims redistribution of production to dispersed, often underground factories negated the effects ofbombing. Again, consider the corrolary...can we say that dispersion and underground manufacturing improved efficiencies? If so, wouldn't underground dispersed manufacturing be tha norm in other countries during the 1940s, and even today? On the contrary we see the exact opposite movements throughout the next half century: economic efficiency applies incredible pressure AWAY from small dispersed operations and toward centralization and economies of scale. Only with the globalization shifts made possible by technologic advances and reduced trade barriers do we see dispersion, and even then economies of scale reign. How many underground factories operate in your neighborhood?
Third come some very complex and in depth economic studies developed by post war economic historians. These go far beyond the graphs you've posted, because neither you, nor I, nor most post war data compilers have the background in economics to place simple output graphs in their appropriate context -- the entire econoic system of a country. I need to interrupt this for work duties, but I'll come back to review issues raised in a book I recently struggled through.
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I suspect you may be underestimating both the magnitude of Speer's accomplishments in industrial rationalization, and consequently the magnitude of effects from the strategic bombing effort itself.
As Humble put it :
“German industrial infrastructure was decentralized and underutilized before the war. Further almost all german production was single shift thru out the war and few women were in the workforce. Many factories had excess tooling and some entire production lines were not in use even in 1943. The German war industry was actually less efficient then any other so it absorbed alot of "losses" without an adverse effect on productivity.”
This perfectly illustrates one of the greatest pre-war misconceptions held about the effects of strategic bombing on industrialized societies. While it can be argued that the USAAF daylight bombing did reduce the German maximum industrial potential, actual production was much more limited by the inefficiencies inherent to all civilian, non-planned economies and thus flexible and adaptable to the effects of bombing. You could say that the USAAF forced the Germans to be more efficient in spite of themselves, though I doubt that will seem like an acceptable reason to those that lost loved ones over Germany.
However, like Widewing, I also suspect that all words spent taking a view different than yours are wasted.
The point of debate is not to change people’s minds, but to share information and points of view and broaden all our perspectives. If your intensions are to change my mind then you very well might fail (or perhaps not?), but your words are not wasted. Not to me at least.
First, you shrug off the manpower diversion effects by claiming the Germans so employed were not fit for front line service. I suppose that also means they weren't fit to work in factories or otherwise contribute to the total war effort; in fact, if it weren't for the air assault on Germany those men would likely have been completely dependent on government handouts for their sustenence. Logically, then, the strategic bombing campaign actually helped Germany's economic production by maximizing efficiency in an otherwise useless manpower pool!
Obviously ridiculous, but it's the corollary of your assertion that the manpower diversion had trivial effects. Since the implications of your claim are unsustainable, then logically the statement on which they were based must be incorrect. Even if we accept your unsubstantiated claim that those men weren't fit for the front lines, the diversion of so many from production of necesssity must be considered an indirect economic consequence of the bombing.
First of all you add false factors to my original statement and extrapolate an absurd argument from it … which you then attribute to me. As argumentative fallacies go that one is a Doozy.
Secondly, shortfalls in the labour force due to the manpower demands of the war was compensated by compulsory workers from the occupied western territories and slave labour from the east. This was one of Speer’s greatest achievements … and crimes. There was no lack of industrial manpower in the Reich, and unlike the Japanese the Germans didn’t send its skilled workers to the warfront.
Also I have never said there was no economic effect of the USAAF bombing campaign, just that the effect was "little" and not worth the effort.
Second - the line of reasoning that claims redistribution of production to dispersed, often underground factories negated the effects ofbombing. Again, consider the corrolary...can we say that dispersion and underground manufacturing improved efficiencies? If so, wouldn't underground dispersed manufacturing be tha norm in other countries during the 1940s, and even today? On the contrary we see the exact opposite movements throughout the next half century: economic efficiency applies incredible pressure AWAY from small dispersed operations and toward centralization and economies of scale. Only with the globalization shifts made possible by technologic advances and reduced trade barriers do we see dispersion, and even then economies of scale reign. How many underground factories operate in your neighborhood?
German production was already dispersed before the war (though not underground). And your assertion that production was not dispersed in post war economies is wrong. Even if ownership of assets were increasingly centralized in large conglomerates the actual production assets were still geographically dispersed in any given country. Also smaller factories with suitable tooling were subcontracted to increase production further increasing dispersing and reducing vulnerability to bombing.
(http://content.screencast.com/media/99a1f8f1-958c-4515-8ea6-6e67c36385c1_0832dde7-2cf2-4139-ab83-fa16132bb135_static_0_0_2008-04-07_1847.png)
As you can see even in 1939 the production and assembly of Ju 88 airframes was well distributed through subcontracting.
In my neighbourhood there are several underground production and storage facilities. Most are part of the power and oil industry. Also being a neighbour to Russia has been an incentive to better protect out national assets.
Third come some very complex and in depth economic studies developed by post war economic historians. These go far beyond the graphs you've posted, because neither you, nor I, nor most post war data compilers have the background in economics to place simple output graphs in their appropriate context -- the entire econoic system of a country. I need to interrupt this for work duties, but I'll come back to review issues raised in a book I recently struggled through.
I’ll wait with anticipation.
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I do not post the following as proof of any kind because I do not have the link to it anymore, and I haven't subsequently found a source for it. I did collect it while surfing through what I thought were reliable sources, but who knows...
In an interview in 1976 Speer highlighted the great numbers of resources dedicated to combating the Allied air offensive. During the interview he stated “…without this great drain on our manpower, logistics, and weapons, we might well have knocked Russia out of the war before your invasion of France.”
Perhaps someone has access to the 1976 interview? I do not.
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I think Speer includes the RAF bombing in his comment. When the USA entered the war the Battle for Moscow was already lost. The Germans were well on their long retreat to Berlin before any USAAF bomb landed on Germany. In fact the first USAAF raid on Germany didn't happen until wednesday, January 27, 1943 ... three years after the RAF started its night-bombing campaign of German cities.
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... and only 6 days before the German defeat at Stalingrad, and 6 months before the German defeat at Kursk.
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Lumpy, The Eastern front was a whole different kettle of fish. The Germans had made a titanic and classic blunder. They failed to take in to account the shear scale of the amount of territory they had to cross/conquer, stretching supply lines to near snapping. That coupled with the notorious Russian winter, that the German generals didn't prepare for because they were so confident of a "quick" victory, spelled doom for the German army in the East. The Russian plan of moving entire armaments factories East of the Ural mountains, out of range of the Luftwaffe paid huge dividens in the start of 43, as those factories were outproducing German factories in planes, tanks, and other material.
The Russians found a quality in quantity, whereas the German designers were looking for quality over quantity. By February 43 the superior numbers of the Russian army made the war in the East a forgone conclusion, despite the Germans having superior equipment. Sure the Panther and Tiger tanks could engage Russian T-34/76's beyond 2000m, but how many could it take out before the rest flanked it and killed it?
BAH!!! Back on topic!
It is my considered opinion that the relentless pressure of both daylight and night bombing by the American and British allies on the German infrastructure was costly, but required to bring about the colapse of the Germans ability to fight on all fronts. The tactical use of airpower could only contribute to the particular area/region that it operated in. if nothing happened to interdict the quick re-equipment of damaged units(That is Strategic air) Tac air could only help achieve local victories, not win a war.
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Why did you even go off topic in the first place? Don't you see that the Germans had lost the war before the USAAF even started bombing Germany? And six months later, after the battle of Kursk even the most pro-German historian would tell you there was no hope for Germany to win the war, and that was well before the USAAF bombing had any impact. The battle of Kursk was over even before the first misshappened raids on Schweinfurt-Regensburg. How and why the Germans lost on the eastern front is immaterial to this discussion; if you wish to discuss it further please start a separate thread.
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Well you brought up the Eastern front. The Eastern front was a forgone conclusion Because of the Strategic campaign by the Americans and British. Otherwise The Germans would have been able to stalemate the Russians by replacing damaged/destroyed equipment at the rate they were loosing it, and then when back at full production gone on to maybe win the East.(not likely) Germany would still likely loose due to the fact that they didn't have the manpower to win that kind of war of attrition.
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Tell me Iron Cross, did you even read this thread?
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Don't you see that the Germans had lost the war before the USAAF even started bombing Germany?
As a corollary, you can argue the same point about the Japanese by stating "the Japanese had lost the war before they even attacked Pearl Harbor". Sorry for the incoherence, but I don't think this is an statement you want to make. The war still had to be fought if only to convince the antagonists of the truth of that very statement.
One of the best statements I've read regarding this thought is from Eisenhower who stated (I believe in the book Ambrose wrote about him) was that the Allied high command believed the issue very much in doubt, even into early 1944. I can't remember if that's the correct source or not. Regardless, perhaps the Allied perception at the time should be a more important consideration than what we can now acknowledge, through the use of hindsight.
One last thought...before criticizing the U.S. belief in daylight precision bombing, it is important to realize the distinction that most U.S. crews in Europe thought about themselves versus their British counterparts and their tactics. With FDR making a most opportune use of the Japanese "terror" bombing of China in the late 30's, and that propaganda still fresh in the minds of both the U.S. populace and USAAF, I think its important to consider their doctrine with that in mind.
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As a corollary, you can argue the same point about the Japanese by stating "the Japanese had lost the war before they even attacked Pearl Harbor". Sorry for the incoherence, but I don't think this is an statement you want to make. The war still had to be fought if only to convince the antagonists of the truth of that very statement.
Actually the Japanese lost the war when they attacked Pearl Harbor. Admiral Yamamoto even knew this before the attack and argued against it with several Japanese Cabinet members before the war, where he used the famous words: "In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success."
However, I digress ... The purpose of my comments on the Soviets having already won the war before the USAAF entered the equation are twofold: 1. Support my argument that the USAAF bombing campaign was ineffective and at best only shortened the war by a few months. 2. Disprove inane claims like those posed by Iron Cross above that the USAAF bombing campaign actually won the war in Europe. To anyone without USAAF/"America! F*** Yeah!" beer goggles on it's clear that it didn't. And compared to the results the whole campaign was a wasteful use of lives and resources. Thousands of men flying extremely expensive machines as Luftwaffe bait.
But let me just add that I have the benefit of hindsight and that the USAAF at the time believed they were doing the right thing. When they realized things were not going as planned they were so committed to the campaign that they had little choice but to try and make the best of it. I am in no way criticizing the 8th AAF or their men... I am criticizing the people who propagate the myth that the 8th AAF was a decisive factor in winning the war in Europe, and those who think strategic bombing with conventional munitions was effective (I do not consider firebombing conventional).
One last thought...before criticizing the U.S. belief in daylight precision bombing, it is important to realize the distinction that most U.S. crews in Europe thought about themselves versus their British counterparts and their tactics. With FDR making a most opportune use of the Japanese "terror" bombing of China in the late 30's, and that propaganda still fresh in the minds of both the U.S. populace and USAAF, I think its important to consider their doctrine with that in mind.
Oh I agree that the 8th AAF's actions were far less morally questionable than what RAF Bomber Command was doing. However, the credit and respect the 8th AAF deserve for their show of restraint does not rub off on the USAAF as a whole considering what their brothers in arms were doing to Japanese cities. When it comes to killing innocent people in WWII only the SS did worse than the USAAF and RAF.
But again we digress.
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...the results the whole campaign was a wasteful use of lives and resources. Thousands of men flying extremely expensive machines as Luftwaffe bait.
Again, I'd state that to those at the time, it would be impossible for SHAEF's air staff to come to the same conclusion. To separate the decision making from the context with which they were made is not fair, not even in hindsight. Those folks that designed, equipped, planned, and executed the 8th AF campaign were believers in the effacy of strategic bombing. And, there were a lot of other folks in other air forces on both sides of the war that believed in it as well. To say it was a 'wasteful' use of lives and resources is debatable and forever will be. Interestingly enough, the Allies would not have owned the skies over Western Europe had the 8th AF campaign never been conducted, and that's regardless of any perceived or actual damage done to German industry. Not because they interrupted fuel or aircraft, but because the Allies destroyed the Luftwaffe in the air and on the ground.
I am criticizing the people who propagate the myth that the 8th AAF was a decisive factor in winning the war in Europe, and those who think strategic bombing with conventional munitions was effective (I do not consider firebombing conventional).
Decisive, no, at least not from a strictly military sense. Personally, I am a skeptic of strategic bombing and forever have been (at least since I've been militarily aware). I can only think of two instances where the use of airpower has been decisive--August 1945 and the aforementioned Linebacker campaigns. But, the 8th AF campaign certainly was important, even crucial to the overall Allied strategy in Western Europe. It affected so many facets of the war in ETO that I believe you must separate its actual results against industry and consider it more broadly in order to properly frame its importance.
Oh I agree that the 8th AAF's actions were far less morally questionable than what RAF Bomber Command was doing. However, the credit and respect the 8th AAF deserve for their show of restraint does not rub off on the USAAF as a whole considering what their brothers in arms were doing to Japanese cities. When it comes to killing innocent people in WWII only the SS did worse than the USAAF and RAF.
In making the comparison, I was not making an argument for the morality of precision bombing. I was making the argument that much of the "precision" bombing thought was considered the 'proper' application versus the random destruction of their British counterparts--there's a doctrinal difference there that was driven by the political considerations (with respect to 8th AF only). The comparison between the SS, USAAF, and RAF is not helpful--not at all.
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Again, I'd state that to those at the time, it would be impossible for SHAEF's air staff to come to the same conclusion. To separate the decision making from the context with which they were made is not fair, not even in hindsight. Those folks that designed, equipped, planned, and executed the 8th AF campaign were believers in the effacy of strategic bombing. And, there were a lot of other folks in other air forces on both sides of the war that believed in it as well.
It is annoying that I have to repeat myself:
“I am in no way criticizing the 8th AAF or their men... I am criticizing the people who propagate the myth that the 8th AAF was a decisive factor in winning the war in Europe, and those who think strategic bombing with conventional munitions was effective (I do not consider firebombing conventional).”
Interestingly enough, the Allies would not have owned the skies over Western Europe had the 8th AF campaign never been conducted, and that's regardless of any perceived or actual damage done to German industry. Not because they interrupted fuel or aircraft, but because the Allies destroyed the Luftwaffe in the air and on the ground.
The 8th Army Air Force wouldn’t just have disappeared from the war if the Campaign had not taken place. Again I annoyingly have to repeat myself:
“This is what I find curious: Why do some people believe that if the strategic bombing campaign didn't happen then all the resources and planes used on it would simply "disappear" from the war? If the resources and manpower spent on the strategic bombing campaign had been used bolstering the Soviet air force with more planes and also spent on a tactical air force in Britain, the Luftwaffe would have been completely swamped and quickly destroyed.”
“If the USAF had used the vast amount of resources spent on building its strategic air force to instead build a tactical air force the invasion of France could have been made a lot earlier. With the huge production capacity of the United States thousands of fighter-bombers and strike aircraft (like the Mosquito) could have been operational in 1943. Achieving local air dominance over Normandy and destroying the Luftwaffe in France would not have been a problem. Disrupting and destroying German ground forces would also have been much easier with such a force. The USAAF backed the wrong horse with regard to air warfare doctrines, and suffered for it in WWII. They had to fight with what they had instead of what they should have had.
Edit: Make that both the USAAF and the RAF. Just consider the might of their combined tactical air forces had the resources and manpower spent on all those Lancs and B-17/24 been used on Mosquitoes, Typhoons, P-47's etc. It would have been unstoppable by the Luftwaffe ... in 1943. IMHO of course (hypotheticals again).”
In making the comparison, I was not making an argument for the morality of precision bombing. I was making the argument that much of the "precision" bombing thought was considered the 'proper' application versus the random destruction of their British counterparts--there's a doctrinal difference there that was driven by the political considerations (with respect to 8th AF only). The comparison between the SS, USAAF, and RAF is not helpful--not at all.
Yes there was doctrinal differences and the USAAF backed the wrong doctrine. When the RAF tested the concept in 1941 with a small force of B-17s they correctly concluded that it didn’t work properly and abandoned daylight, long-range bombing. The USAAF failed to learn from the British experience and suffered for it. As for the comparison, helpful or not it is still accurate.
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Tell me Iron Cross, did you even read this thread?
Yes, did you?
We agree that the outcome was not going to be different, but we disagree as to the "cost".
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What a big and chunky thread. How the hell did I miss that one ;)
Anyway, being too lazy to look for it, did anyone mention the efforts that the German reich had to undergo for AA defences? Those were absolutely stunning.
Did it get mentioned how much of the Nazi war effort was vented into weapons of revenge because of the bomber campaign? Same thing there, - stunning.
And did it get mentioned how close Nazi Germany was to the buckle after the burning raid on Hamburg?
Did anyone mention that there were already riots in British cities in the late BoB, and that many a foreign emissary uttered doubt that the nation would endure it?
My point is, that getting bombed is rather bad, and lots of efforts are taken to avoid it.
And, IMHO, bombing is more effective to populations with "higher" cultures and more urbanism.
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Threads like this crack me up. Very bright people with doctoral degrees have argued this topic until THEY were blue in the face, and here are a bunch of homegrown, armchair generals with all the answers. I'm going to grab some popcorn, do continue.....
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What a big and chunky thread. How the hell did I miss that one ;)
Anyway, being too lazy to look for it, did anyone mention the efforts that the German reich had to undergo for AA defences? Those were absolutely stunning.
Did it get mentioned how much of the Nazi war effort was vented into weapons of revenge because of the bomber campaign? Same thing there, - stunning.
And did it get mentioned how close Nazi Germany was to the buckle after the burning raid on Hamburg?
Did anyone mention that there were already riots in British cities in the late BoB, and that many a foreign emissary uttered doubt that the nation would endure it?
My point is, that getting bombed is rather bad, and lots of efforts are taken to avoid it.
And, IMHO, bombing is more effective to populations with "higher" cultures and more urbanism.
Hi Angus and welcome to my thread. Yes the German efforts to defend against the bombing has been mentioned. Revenge weapons haven't come up, nor the British riots. While I do greatly respect your opinion and value your input, I would prefer that you actually read the thread before commenting... or at least my starting post. If you had you'd know that this discussion is limited to the USAAF daylight bombing campaign that started in January 1943 six days before the fall of Stalingrad and the destruction of the German 6th Army. The RAF terror-bombing that started three years earlier is not part of this debate. The AA defenses mentioned were already built and deployed to counter the RAF bombing, and the V-weapons were already under development, also in response to the RAF terror-bombing. My position is that the USAAF bombing campaign started too late in the war, and did too little damage to the German war effort to have a significant impact on the war beyond perhaps shortening the war by a few months, at best. I also contend that the USAAF's choice to create a strategic bomber force in Europe was conceptually misguided and that it would have been more useful to create a tactical air force with emphasis on fighters, fighter-bombers and attack planes like the Mosquito to counter the Luftwaffe by daylight.
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Threads like this crack me up. Very bright people with doctoral degrees have argued this topic until THEY were blue in the face, and here are a bunch of homegrown, armchair generals with all the answers. I'm going to grab some popcorn, do continue.....
Welcome to the show. Grab some beer while you're at it.
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...It is annoying that I have to repeat myself:
...The 8th Army Air Force wouldn’t just have disappeared from the war if the Campaign had not taken place. Again I annoyingly have to repeat myself:
...As for the comparison, helpful or not it is still accurate.
You missed my point on the first two.
And don't be so difficult. I've been in this thread since the beginning and I've read every post.
My second point was not a hypothetical. I stated that regardless of the effects of the bombing on the ground, the 8th Campaign provided the USAAF an opportunity to destroy the Luftwaffe in the air and ground--i.e. escorts shooting down Luftwaffe planes and pilots.
Using a thread that's supposed to be about the effectiveness of strategic bombing to make a comparison between the SS, the USAAF, and the RAF (i.e. war criminals) does nothing to support your original theory and will only inflame folks reading/posting this.
I'm out...
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My second point was not a hypothetical. I stated that regardless of the effects of the bombing on the ground, the 8th Campaign provided the USAAF an opportunity to destroy the Luftwaffe in the air and ground--i.e. escorts shooting down Luftwaffe planes and pilots.
I.e. the B-17's were reduced to being mere bait to lure the Luftwaffe into a war of attrition, as I said IN THE FIRST POST IN THIS THREAD!
"In the end the “self-defending bomber” had to be defended by fighters (much like the German Zerstörer concept). And since the bombs they dropped on Germany did little damage to German war production the B-17 and her companion the B-24 ended up as little more than bait to lure the Luftwaffe into a war of attrition. That’s the only success of the USAAF’s strategic bombing campaign in Europe."
I'm out...
Goodbye.
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Hello Lumpy, and nice to meet you.
I didn't read the whole thread, but thank you for getting me into the focus.
I want to comment on this text of yours:
"My position is that the USAAF bombing campaign started too late in the war, and did too little damage to the German war effort to have a significant impact on the war beyond perhaps shortening the war by a few months, at best. I also contend that the USAAF's choice to create a strategic bomber force in Europe was conceptually misguided and that it would have been more useful to create a tactical air force with emphasis on fighters, fighter-bombers and attack planes like the Mosquito to counter the Luftwaffe by daylight."
Now....loking backwards, I'd say you are mostly right. But when you go on to the Strategic force as a misguided thing, well, back then could yopu have known at all? The Douhet theory was still running, and everybody followed it. It had worked, - sometimes, and it did work...later in the war. Sometimes the horrible shock of bombing will buckle a (already bent perhaps) nation into surrender.
Now the daylight bombing campaign did one big thing. It forced the LW to come up in daylight and fight.
The campaign came with bumps though, - well we know, - the bombers needed escorts, - their defensive armament was not enough alone. BUT, with bombers in daylight as well as escorts, the USAAF could bomb anything they could see (and daylight makes a bit), so the Germans HAD to counter them.
Now, none of those decisions or conclusions happened in a day. It is much easier for us to look backwards and try to judge. And production lines don't start in a day, - there is a long way between a theory+plan+material+production+execution etc. We must understand that. A long line.
And BTW, when you refer to RAF terror bombing, they started somewhat late, - the whole opening of their bombing was completely strategic, but with little accuracy. (Although they hit Göbbels garden already in 1940, - at night).
The openers and promoters of the whole deal were the LW, which started to execute this well before WW2 (if Guernica counts) as well as absolutely from the beginning days of the Polish campaign.
The theories were there, they sometimes worked, and entire long-lasting plans were built from them.
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the reason why was because the norten bombsight couldnt put a bomb into a picle barel at 10,000 unless it was perfect coditions thus we couldnt even put bombs within 1000 feet of a target most of the time especialy at night
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Hello Lumpy, and nice to meet you.
I didn't read the whole thread, but thank you for getting me into the focus.
You’re welcome. And btw. I’m your old neighbor from the “old country” *wink wink, nudge nudge* ;)
I want to comment on this text of yours:
"My position is that the USAAF bombing campaign started too late in the war, and did too little damage to the German war effort to have a significant impact on the war beyond perhaps shortening the war by a few months, at best. I also contend that the USAAF's choice to create a strategic bomber force in Europe was conceptually misguided and that it would have been more useful to create a tactical air force with emphasis on fighters, fighter-bombers and attack planes like the Mosquito to counter the Luftwaffe by daylight."
Now....loking backwards, I'd say you are mostly right. But when you go on to the Strategic force as a misguided thing, well, back then could yopu have known at all? The Douhet theory was still running, and everybody followed it. It had worked, - sometimes, and it did work...later in the war. Sometimes the horrible shock of bombing will buckle a (already bent perhaps) nation into surrender.
Now the daylight bombing campaign did one big thing. It forced the LW to come up in daylight and fight.
The campaign came with bumps though, - well we know, - the bombers needed escorts, - their defensive armament was not enough alone. BUT, with bombers in daylight as well as escorts, the USAAF could bomb anything they could see (and daylight makes a bit), so the Germans HAD to counter them.
That is the gist of it yes. The only real success of the USAAF bombing campaign was to lure the Luftwaffe into a war of attrition that they couldn’t win. However, by that time I think you’ll agree with me that the war was already lost for the Germans. You’ve written a paper on the effect of the British on the war in the east and have started at least two threads in the O’ Club on the same subject. The first USAAF raid on Germany was only six days before the German defeat at Stalingrad.
To send thousands of people into harm’s way in extremely expensive machines just as bait for Luftwaffe fighters is not an effective use of lives and resources. You’ll have to agree with that. In the summer of 1943 instead of having ~300 B-17’s and ~100 P47’s facing 400-600 German fighters, the USAAF could have had 1500-2000 P-47’s (just going by production costs). And before commenting on this you should read my next paragraph.
Now, none of those decisions or conclusions happened in a day. It is much easier for us to look backwards and try to judge. And production lines don't start in a day, - there is a long way between a theory+plan+material+production+execution etc. We must understand that. A long line.
I agree completely. That’s why I’ve said: “But let me just add that I have the benefit of hindsight and that the USAAF at the time believed they were doing the right thing. When they realized things were not going as planned they were so committed to the campaign that they had little choice but to try and make the best of it. I am in no way criticizing the 8th AAF or their men... I am criticizing the people who propagate the myth that the 8th AAF was a decisive factor in winning the war in Europe, and those who think strategic bombing with conventional munitions was effective (I do not consider firebombing conventional).”
You see Angus that this whole thread is a result of Humble arguing in another thread (hijacking it, so I started this one) that strategic air warfare in WWII was a success, and that the Germans lost the Battle of Britain because they didn’t have a strategic airforce. He even went so far as to say that if the Luftwaffe had a couple hundred B-17s instead of medium bombers they would have won the BoB. A completely ludicrous argument in my opinion.
This thread is about the people today that still think the USAAF made the right choices before the war and was right in building the USAAF the way they did.
The openers and promoters of the whole deal were the LW, which started to execute this well before WW2 (if Guernica counts) as well as absolutely from the beginning days of the Polish campaign.
Absolutely. But this is nothing more than a diversion from the purpose of this thread. Just like the comments on RAF bombing. This thread is about the daylight strategic bombing in Europe.
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Well, Norseman, - well said.
I guess that we agree on one thing, I'll try to stitch it together somehow. Okay:
"While the aim of the USAAF daylight bombing campaign was to cripple the German industrial output, it's outcome weighted more in what it did to the German Luftwaffe"
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And, btw, I'm digging in my bookpile. I have a couple of really good ones about airpower. Will give you the ISBN's if you like. Really interesting stuff, promise!
As for the paper, I'm still writing, - making the structure, - and you have a sharp eye noticing that I had 2 threads running on the topic. Still have sore eyes because of some work on it last night ;)
Please feel free to comment on those, I'll ping one thread today with a little fact that I found.
Then, on this
" He even went so far as to say that if the Luftwaffe had a couple hundred B-17s instead of medium bombers they would have won the BoB. A completely ludicrous argument in my opinion."
Completely agree. It was not the bomber gear that mattered. And there were the fine Ju88's at the time, as well as the distance not being that great. Distance so small, that beam navigation could be used at night for much of the industrial part of England.
Guess his point was what the USAAF tried to promote later (with bad results), - that the armament of the bomber should be enough for self defence.
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I.e. the B-17's were reduced to being mere bait to lure the Luftwaffe into a war of attrition, as I said IN THE FIRST POST IN THIS THREAD!
"In the end the “self-defending bomber” had to be defended by fighters (much like the German Zerstörer concept). And since the bombs they dropped on Germany did little damage to German war production the B-17 and her companion the B-24 ended up as little more than bait to lure the Luftwaffe into a war of attrition. That’s the only success of the USAAF’s strategic bombing campaign in Europe."
Goodbye.
So they never hit factories and war producing centers? They didn't stress an already stressed fuel production chain? If I remember my history right the Germans had to use coal to synthesize their aviation fuel into the kind of high octane product their high performance airplane had to burn in order to compete. And if I remember right we had success in attacking the few centers of industry available for the production of these chemicals. Anyway there was to much interference from the "tactical crowd" for strategic bombing to really work as planned.
Its been a long time since I researched this and I dont have time to get into it now.
North Vietnam was an agrarian society with very few strategic targets most of which were off limits to Yank air power until later in the war.
Fast forward to 2008 and we now live in a time where we can basically take out any target at anytime. Its interesting to think that as of today when we have the capability to cripple any Industry of an enemy we are hesitant to do so because we dont want to destroy their industrial infrastructure that would be critical to their recovery after the war. If a war like the Gulf war started now, say like with Iran, America has the military capability to deliver a strategic punch entirely made up of precision munitions that could cripple their industrial output in a matter of days.
But what would be the point in doing so? When one bomb hits within 3 meters of its target and cripples a control center for electric output why bother with a hundred such bombs that totally destroys the entire facility?
So strategic bombing now has a place only in history. With the lethality and accuracy of precision munitions there just isn't any reason to annihilate the industrial centers of a enemy nation anymore. Someone mentioned the Gulf War here earlier. Its not that we cant do it anymore its more like there is simply no point in doing so.
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Dive Bombing had more effect on the outcome of wwII than Strategic bombing.In a few months Poland Belgium France Norway were subdued,by obsolescent Stukas.!The Japanese won a Great victory at Pearl harbor using Val dive Bombers with Great accuracy.The USA Won a more decisive victory months Later,using the Dauntless dive bomber,an aircraft at best only slightly better than either the stuka or the Val.
In achieving these victory's they suffered less losses and achieved much higher accuracy,and with a crew of two they were more cost effective both in money and lives,than either a b17 or Lancaster,the former having a crew of ten or 9!and costing substantially more in dollars
Losses for the 8th Air force are and were horrendous,so much so that in the Autumn of 1943 they considered halting their campaign,they suffered an almost 50% loss rate.Bombed factory's were usually up an running again within weeks,if not day's,due to the fact that high explosive bombs destroy sheds and people but not machine tools.A bit of tarpaulin an they were back in business.had both the RAF and the 8th Air force concentrated on Oil,they may well have achieved their goal,but the cost would have still been high
In fact the War against Germany,had turned against the Nazis in February 1943 at Stalingrad,before the 8th Air forces and Raf's campaign 's had got underway.The Red army never used Strategic Bombing.Strategic Bombing only became effective with the advent of Nuclear Weapons. To sum up wwII,proved Douhet's theories incorrect.That is,Stategic Bombing does not win war's.Hiroshima accepted.
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Well, Norseman, - well said.
I guess that we agree on one thing, I'll try to stitch it together somehow. Okay:
"While the aim of the USAAF daylight bombing campaign was to cripple the German industrial output, it's outcome weighted more in what it did to the German Luftwaffe"
?
That I can agree on completely.
And, btw, I'm digging in my bookpile. I have a couple of really good ones about airpower. Will give you the ISBN's if you like. Really interesting stuff, promise!
By all means! :)
As for the paper, I'm still writing, - making the structure, - and you have a sharp eye noticing that I had 2 threads running on the topic. Still have sore eyes because of some work on it last night ;)
Please feel free to comment on those, I'll ping one thread today with a little fact that I found.
Well I did comment in one of the threads. I was the first to mention the battle of Moscow if I remember correctly. The outcome of the war in the east hinges on that battle alone, imho.
Then, on this
" He even went so far as to say that if the Luftwaffe had a couple hundred B-17s instead of medium bombers they would have won the BoB. A completely ludicrous argument in my opinion."
Completely agree. It was not the bomber gear that mattered. And there were the fine Ju88's at the time, as well as the distance not being that great. Distance so small, that beam navigation could be used at night for much of the industrial part of England.
Guess his point was what the USAAF tried to promote later (with bad results), - that the armament of the bomber should be enough for self defence.
I’m not sure exactly how he imagined the B-17 would make such a big difference. You can read his posts yourself if you want. They are in the “It's a real war, and you must pick your planes. What will they be?” thread: http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,232037.0.html
So strategic bombing now has a place only in history. With the lethality and accuracy of precision munitions there just isn't any reason to annihilate the industrial centers of a enemy nation anymore. Someone mentioned the Gulf War here earlier. Its not that we cant do it anymore its more like there is simply no point in doing so.
I don’t think anyone has argued that strategic warfare with conventional munitions couldn’t be done today. This is what I said in the very first post in this thread: “Strategic air warfare is today just a minor part of military thinking, with aircraft like the B-52 and B-2 originally designed for strategic use being adapted and used for tactical warfare with precision munitions.”
There never was a point in “doing so”. WWII proved that strategic bombing was not an effective method to wage war in cost of lives and resources.
As for the rest of your post: Your arguments have already been voiced in this thread… and responded to. If this debate is just going in circles with the same arguments being rehashed over and over again it is time for this thread to die.
Hazzer, I agree with almost everything you said. :)
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Very nice Lumpy ;)
Found one of my books, still digging for the second one (that one is better, although a bit smaller, and recommended to my by a retired LW wingco/colonel :D, hehe was at his place for information excavation and got a good lunch while at it)
Anyway, it's not flawless, but a good read:
"Air Power" by Stephen Budiansky.
ISBN is 0-670-03285-9
Goes from Kitty-Hawk to the Gulf-war II
Will find the other one. Have some really good stuff on the BoB as well, and since that is related with strategic warfare in some sense I'll have some more ISBN's floating around.
BTW, one of the best that I read from in a more WW2 general sense in John Keegan. Absolutely brilliant.
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Dive Bombing had more effect on the outcome of wwII than Strategic bombing.In a few months Poland Belgium France Norway were subdued,by obsolescent Stukas.!The Japanese won a Great victory at Pearl harbor using Val dive Bombers with Great accuracy.The USA Won a more decisive victory months Later,using the Dauntless dive bomber,an aircraft at best only slightly better than either the stuka or the Val.
Thats a real stretch Hazzer. First off Poland, Belgian, and France were not "subdued by dive bombers". They were encircled, cut off, and outmaneuvered by a combined arms offensive of which dive bombers were only a component. Study these battles and you'll see that surprise and audacity played a much bigger part in German victory then a dive bomber that was already only a year or two away from being obsolescent. Strategy and maneuver of German mobile Panzer units are what overwhelmed the European Democracies. Add to that successful and audacious paratroop OPs.
Things is Japan didn't win a great victory at PH they only put off by a few years their eventual defeat. Most of the USN ships bombed that day were up and running again in a fairly short time. They failed to bomb the support facilities at PH, the Submarine docks, the CVs were all out to sea, and whatever airplanes they destroyed were a single grain of sand to eventual Yank Industrial output. In reality the Japs lost the war the same day they started it.
Im not downplaying the importance of the dive bomber and Tactical support aircraft by any means but they do not win a war alone. Not even close. Even the eventual breakout from Normandy of Yank armored units was preceded by attacks by heavy bombers. There is no way you can say dive bombers played a bigger part in winning the war then strategic bombing did. Heavy strategic bombers annihilated entire population centers of the enemy, centers of power, Industrial centers, transportation hubs. The kind of targets where Jugs with 2 1,000lb bombs just aren't going to do much.
Actually when you study the German vehicle losses to Allied Jabos, and being Germans they kept accurate count of everything, you will see that most people overestimate the damage done by Allied Jabos in the Euro Theatre. Yes they impacted troop/GV movements during daylight by their simple presence but the actual losses are a lot less then many of you probably think. Again I haven't researched this in some time and dont have the exact numbers handy but do study the actual German accounts of vehicles lost to Jabos post Normandy D-Day.
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Rich46yo, you over-analyze and read too much into what is said. Hazzer never said or implicated that dive bombers could "win a war alone". No weapon can do that, not even nuclear. His point is perfectly clear and presented in the first sentence of his post:
"Dive Bombing had more effect on the outcome of wwII than Strategic bombing."
The rest of his post is just backing up that statement with examples and anecdotes. Nothing more.
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Well, still you could say that the nuke sort of...flashed out WW2?!
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Rich46yo, you over-analyze and read too much into what is said. Hazzer never said or implicated that dive bombers could "win a war alone". No weapon can do that, not even nuclear. His point is perfectly clear and presented in the first sentence of his post:
"Dive Bombing had more effect on the outcome of wwII than Strategic bombing."
The rest of his post is just backing up that statement with examples and anecdotes. Nothing more.
And Im sure hes gratefull to you for telling me what he said. In the future let him talk for himself.
Dive bombing did not have more effect then strategic bombing. Thats what I said.
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An overly tricky comparison...
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In June 1942 a handful of Douglas Dauntless dive bombers Changed the course of the war in the Pacific In favor of the United States.From that moment the Japanese had lost the war,it was just a matter of time.
They achieved in a few hours what strategic bombing took two years to achieve.A major shift in the direction of the pacific war.B17's had tried earlier.they missed.
In 1940,changing from tactical bombing of British Airfields,to strategic bombing of British cities Lost the Nazis the battle of Britain.Nothing pleased Park more than to see London Docks burning.
Both Arthur Harris for the RAF,and eighth air force high command thought they could win the war through Strategic Bombing.They failed.
Today,if we had 40's technology,it would be dauntless Bombers in Afghanistan,not B17's.
Strategic Bombing Helped win the war,but failed in the belief that it alone could force a nation to the peace table.
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By the way,I don't want to be seen as being disrespectful to the brave crews that flew the strategic Bomber force.
Their heroism is beyond doubt,their survival rate was equal to a wwI infantry soldier.Reading about the terrible losses these crews suffered makes sobering reading
Perhaps it's this Heroism and self sacrifice that still fires are imagination about these brave crews flying straight and level through flak and fighters,to Bomb their objective.
In a way it seems disrespectful to say their achievements were disproportionate to their loss,but their losses were well above what had been deemed exceptable before the campaign,and the results well below.
In the end,we remember the Stuka for it's failure,and the B17 for it's success's,but both were hacked out of the sky in large numbers,the difference was that one had a good chance of hitting it''s target with great effect,if it got through
unfortunately for the pre war douhet theorist's,the bomber most certainly did not always get through.
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What won the war was boots on the ground taking land from "them" and then calling it "ours". Can you imagine WW-ll without the strategic bomber? Just because there is no real accurate gauge to determine the effectiveness of the strategic campaign doesnt mean the strategic campaign was a side show.
But you did say "dive bombers" earlier did you not? Not medium/heavies being switched in their targeting.
The effects of target priorities being changed in the BOB is overplayed. What really lost it for the Germans was flaws in fighter design and tactics. As far as the dive bomber being a factor in the BOB, "not even close". If there as ever an air force made specifically to deliver tactical support to ground units during combined arms operations it was the early war Luftwaffe. Changing doctrine without changing equipment to now become a tool for air supremacy and strategic interdiction is a recipe for disaster. And thats what happened to the Luftwaffe in the BOB. Much of the reason the targeting was changed in the first place was from faulty German Intel that the RAF was damaged far more then it actually was in reality.
But the bottom line is the Luftwaffe in 1940 was ill suited for the role assigned it in the BOB. They would have been far better off loosing their 109s in the "free hunts" and beating the Brits down thru attrition.
I will happily agree with you however in the assertion that the airplane, most of all the dive bomber, changed the face of naval warfare forever. In a few short years fragile airplanes with bombs hanging off them had reduced the role of the mighty Dreadnoughts to being bullet catchers for CVs and fire support ships for landing OPs. Of that there can be no argument.
In a few months Poland Belgium France Norway were subdued by obsolescent Stukas.!
That is what you said. And its a huge exaggeration.
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Rich46yo, I will say whatever I damn please, especially in my own thread. Strategic bombing was just a sideshow compared to tactical aviation in WWII, in lives, resources and results. The dive bomber was a far, far more important weapon than strategic bombers on the Eastern Front and in the Pacific theatre.
However, anyone that can convince himself that the sinking of 5 battleships (one completely destroyed) 3 damaged, 2 destroyers sunk 1 damaged, 6 other ships damaged, 188 aircraft destroyed 155 damaged, and 2,345 military personnel killed for the cost of only 29 aircraft and 5 midget submarines is not a great victory can convince himself of anything.
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Yes we can see what tactical aviation cost on the EF, the Meat Grinder, in lives.
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That's sort of the point of war ... killing the enemy.
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However, anyone that can convince himself that the sinking of 5 battleships (one completely destroyed) 3 damaged, 2 destroyers sunk 1 damaged, 6 other ships damaged, 188 aircraft destroyed 155 damaged, and 2,345 military personnel killed for the cost of only 29 aircraft and 5 midget submarines is not a great victory can convince himself of anything.
I will remind you that while this was a tactical victory. It was a strategic attack, with strategic goals. It did not accomplish its strategic objective; the elimination of the American aircraft carriers. Thus, within the context of Japan's goals, it was a failure. It was a failure that would haunt Japan up through their devastating loss in the Solomon's campaign.
What some are missing is that the great carrier battles of the Pacific war were not just tactical engagements. These were strategic battles with strategic results. The fact that they were accomplished by carrier borne aircraft is immaterial. In another example; clearly the victory by the RN at Toranto was by tactical aircraft, but the goal was purely strategic.
Don't let the line between tactical and strategic get blurred by the instruments employed.
There's no doubt that Strategic Bombing did not accomplish everything its authors had hoped, and sometimes erroneously claimed. However, it did accomplish enough to seriously degrade the ability of both Germany and Japan to conduct their war efforts. Was this the best use of Allied resources? That is certainly open to much debate and has been debated since before the war ended (there was much debate about this in the American Congress during the war).
So gents, don't get bogged down with comparing carrier battles to strategic bombing.
My regards,
Widewing
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That's a pretty good way of putting it Widewing. While the attack on Pearl Harbor was a great tactical victory the strategic goals of Imperial Japan (knock the US out of the Pacific war) were not accomplished. In my opinion those goals were completely unobtainable, but that is a debate for a different thread.
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Pearl was a ...brilliant attempt...and shocked the world as such. (Although the British had already done something similar)
However, failing to sink the U.S. aircraft carriers left following matters up for doubt.
Anyway, was going to respond to this from Hazzer:
"In 1940,changing from tactical bombing of British Airfields,to strategic bombing of British cities Lost the Nazis the battle of Britain.Nothing pleased Park more than to see London Docks burning.
Both Arthur Harris for the RAF,and eighth air force high command thought they could win the war through Strategic Bombing.They failed."
It did indeed turn the BoB into a different fight, - where finally the RAF had the time to respond (LW had a longer leg to London than south coast fields) as well as stretching it to the limit of the LW escorts. (109's had very little time on the London leg).
I doubt that Park was pleased by seeing ANYTHING burning, - let's say that I do not like the way you put it.
While strategic bombing didn't win, it had an effect. But hard to calculate how much, and also bear in mind that the third reich was well cushioned by the occupied nations, who the allied had to be careful about bombing.....
The strategic bombing did not bring the war to an end. However the effect of it is hard to measure on a scale...
And then the area bombing...that is another issue...
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Rich46yo, I will say whatever I damn please, especially in my own thread. Strategic bombing was just a sideshow compared to tactical aviation in WWII, in lives, resources and results. The dive bomber was a far, far more important weapon than strategic bombers on the Eastern Front and in the Pacific theatre.
However, anyone that can convince himself that the sinking of 5 battleships (one completely destroyed) 3 damaged, 2 destroyers sunk 1 damaged, 6 other ships damaged, 188 aircraft destroyed 155 damaged, and 2,345 military personnel killed for the cost of only 29 aircraft and 5 midget submarines is not a great victory can convince himself of anything.
It aint your thread its Aces High thread so lose your attitude. Everyone has an opinion including the guy you seem fit to speak for. He made a statement so let him back it up.
Within a few months of the raid 3 of the BBs were back in service as were 3 of the cruisers and 2 of the DDs. Eventually every BB was back in service except for the Arizona and Oklahoma which were both WW-l, and preWW-l, dreadnoughts so slow they couldnt even accompany and escort carriers.
The IJN not only missed the carriers they didn't touch the oil and fuel reserves, the submarines, the dry docks. It was both a tactical and strategic failure. But maybe Im over-analyzing all those submarines left floating, all those fuel containers still full, the dry docks still up, the CVs still operating, and the Industrial might that could produce 343 airplanes in the time it took me to type this post. Or the fact that American strategic bombing turned an entire modern industrial nation into rubble and burning cinder.
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*lol* I must have hit a nerve. Like I said: I will say whatever I damn please. And there is nothing you can do about it. The rest of your post is as deluded as it is irrelevant; you can convince yourself of anything.
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*lol* I must have hit a nerve. Like I said: I will say whatever I damn please. And there is nothing you can do about it. The rest of your post is as deluded as it is irrelevant; you can convince yourself of anything.
:rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rock
Well I for one can ignore it with absolutely no problem, but isnt this the pot calling the kettle black :O :D :rofl :rofl :rofl
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What?! A humorous post by Humble? The world is coming to an end! ;)
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In 1940,changing from tactical bombing of British Airfields,to strategic bombing of British cities Lost the Nazis the battle of Britain.
The Luftwaffe had already lost the battle in August.
On 10th August, a few days before the Luftwaffe launched their all out attack, Fighter Command had 1,396 aircrew. On 13th Aug, the day the Luftwaffe lbegan their offensive in earnest, they had 579 serviceable Spitfires and Hurricanes. On 7th September, the day the Luftwaffe switched to London, FC had 1,381 aircrew and 621 serviceable Spitfires and Hurricanes.
In nearly a month of all out attacks by the Luftwaffe, Fighter Command pilot strength had remained almost exactly the same, and aircraft numbers had gone up.
On the other hand, the Luftwaffe had lost a lot of their strength. From 869 Bf 109 pilots fit for duty on 1st August, they were down to 735 on 1st September. The number of serviceable 109s had fallen from 853 on the 13th August to 658 on the 7th September. Their twin engined fighter force had also been badly depleted, from 189 serviceable on 13th August to 112 on the 7th September.
Look at those figures for serviceable fighters compared with the RAF:
Force - 13 Aug - 7 Sept
RAF - 579 - 621
Luft - 1058 - 770
The RAF was closing the gap with the Luftwaffe rather quickly before the switch to London. By the 7th September the RAF were not far off parity in fighter numbers.
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The number of aircrew and serviceable aircraft available is not a reliable statistic to judge the effectiveness of an air force. At the end of the battle the RAF was seriously depleted of experienced pilots, and those that were still alive were exhausted and showing all the signs of combat fatigue. Most of the RAF pilots were by then greenhorns with very limited training ... just like the Luftwaffe pilots at the end of the war.
Unlike the RAF the Luftwaffe did not replace their losses as quickly (almost not at all), so while the Luftwaffe did lose a third of their strength in the battle the remaining strength was not made up of greenhorns, but veterans. And the Luftwaffe was still a superior force in numbers.
"Contrary to general belief and official reports, the enemy's bombing attacks by day did extensive damage to five of our forward aerodromes and also to six of our seven sector stations. There was a critical period when the damage to sector stations and our ground organization was having a serious effect on the fighting efficiency of the squadrons, who could not be given the same good technical and administrative service as previously.........The absence of many essential telephone lines, the use of scratch equipment in emergency operation rooms, and the general dislocation of ground organization, was seriously felt for about a week in the handling of squadrons by day to meet the enemy's massed attacks, which were continued without the former occasional break of a day."
Report by Air Vice Marshal Keith Park - 6th September 1940.
"I watched as one by one our aircraft returned to base after yet another sortie. Most of the aircraft to our delight had returned unscathed, but then I saw this Hurricane coming in to land. His wings were tipping up, then down, then suddenly he hit the ground rather hard only for him to bounce right up again. Then at the second attempt, he finally kept the aircraft on the ground and taxied a short way and stopped in the centre of the airfield. Casualty procedures were put into action and crash tenders and ambulances rushed towards him only to find that the pilot fast asleep, he did not even have time to switch the engine off."
Squadron Leaders remarks at 111 Squadron Croydon September 1940.
"Towards the end of the Battle I had just taken about as much as I could bear. My nerves were in ribbons and I was scared stiff that one day I would pull out and avoid combat. That frightened me more than the Germans and I pleaded with my C.O. for a rest. He was sympathetic but quite adamant that until he got replacements I would have to carry on. I am glad now that he was unable to let me go. If I had been allowed to leave the squadron, feeling as I did, I am sure that I would never have flown again."
Sgt. J.H (Ginger) Lacey 501 Squadron Fighter Command.
It is my belief that had the Luftwaffe continued its assault on the RAF instead of switching to strategic bombing, they would eventually have broken the RAF and reduced the RAF to a point where it could no longer have offered any meaningful resistance. Much like what happened to the Luftwaffe later on. Of course this is all speculation so I don't think we'll come to an agreement on this, except maybe agree to disagree.
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See Rules #4, #2, #5
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See Rule #2
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It is my belief that had the Luftwaffe continued its assault on the RAF instead of switching to strategic bombing, they would eventually have broken the RAF and reduced the RAF to a point where it could no longer have offered any meaningful resistance. Much like what happened to the Luftwaffe later on. Of course this is all speculation so I don't think we'll come to an agreement on this, except maybe agree to disagree.
In your dreams.
Lumpy you are truly a fool.
Yup.
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What a rational and mature argument Bruv119. :rolleyes:
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I did type out some reasoning but then didnt finish it.
Seems to me that you have come to that conclusion with little thought into how long German fighters could actually escort bombers and engage British fighters. We could have moved production to far flung corners of the UK and still fought outside of 11 group.
The English channel was the biggest part of the defence and your suggesting the Germans could have actually landed somewhere with a big enough force that wouldnt have been blown out of the water by either the RAF or the RN???
What is your AvA in game nick I would like to do battle with you ;)
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Forcing the RAF to move out of southern England was exactly what the Germans were trying to do. I find it quite interesting that your idea of a defence is to do exactly what the Germans wanted; luckily Dowding and Park had different ideas. The RN wisely kept out of range of the Luftwaffe and would not be a part of the battle; the Japanese quite rudely showed the RN what would happen to warships if they sailed within range of land based aircraft. The British Army abandoned its equipment at Dunkirk and didn't even have enough rifles to arm all its reserves. How an invasion of England would have fared for the Germans is almost impossible to say, but I believe the Luftwaffe could have knocked the RAF out of the battle, and that's what's being discussed here. Not a seaborne invasion of the British Isles. If I'm a fool for thinking so, then so be it.
I don't think I would like to do battle with you. I don't very much like rude people.
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Either way the figures don't lie.
More German machines were being lost than British and IMO that is down to fighting over enemy territory a long way from your home field and not being able to stay around and fight it out.
wouldnt have been advisable for 109 drivers looking to stay alive.
Quick few picks then back to france, screw the friendly bombers. The bomber arm of the luftwaffe were having grave doubts over the metal of its fighter command.
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Lumpy, watch out that the LW fought in strength against mainly one of 4 of RAF's groups.
When they switched to London they united the fighter force of their western flotte, so in strength they could muster 1000 aircraft on London.
Then they had to face 2 groups, for 12th group then had the time to get into the fight with their much debated big wings.
2 groups vs LW resulted in the LW cancelling daylight ops due to losses as well as seemingly growing RAF. And IMHO rightly so from the LW's behalf, for their losses were absolutely appalling and their replaces were not keeping up.
Was the RAF filling the ranks with greenhorns at the same time as the LW was filling them with veterans?
Well, if so, only for some very short time, and that certainly applied more to the LW later in the war.
I remember my great uncle's process there, and he followed the same speed as all his group at the time.
He left for the UK in 1940 (April) and was already flying along with his whole batch at the time of the BoB. But his first operational sortie was in September 1941! In that particular one, he, the greenhorn, got jumped alone by 2 109's (actuallu due to greenhorn-ness, loosing his friends on a cloudy day, while weaving over France).
Now that would be trouble, but they never managed to get a bead on him. He eventually got away, but the 109's didn't.
Now compare that to Hartmann when he was a Greenhorn. He had the same trouble, just worse, with loosing his mate and an ID issue.
The German vets, although with incredible scores, did not have any more experience in hours than the allied vets, and the LW was manned as a total with much greener blood than their opponents, - over the war, - I'll stick to that ;)
In the BoB, the LW were dropping in both machines and crew, and you can call me Charlotte if they were replacing their crews with as experienced crews as came all the way from the spanish civil war as well as the Blitzkrieg.
The British gained in ranks, and launched a program of incredible manpower, as well as spitting in their palms for increased production.
LW did the big mistake, - underestimating their opponent, in many ways through appalling intelligence.
Nice thread BTW ;)
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The RN wisely kept out of range of the Luftwaffe and would not be a part of the battle; the Japanese quite rudely showed the RN what would happen to warships if they sailed within range of land based aircraft.
How much air support did those British ships have?
750,000 rifles, 80,000 MGs and 800 artillery pieces that the USA was getting rid of that was agreed in June 1940 and started arriving in July 1940.
Only 2/3 of RAF FC was committed to the battle in se England. There was still bombers that would be attacking the invasion fleet. So you think the LW had enough fighters to escort any LW bombers attacking RN ships and still provide protection over the invasion fleet?
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Bruv, the BoB was not a long way for the Germans, not at all.
However reaching Germany for the RAF was a long way.
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At the end of the battle the RAF was seriously depleted of experienced pilots, and those that were still alive were exhausted and showing all the signs of combat fatigue. Most of the RAF pilots were by then greenhorns with very limited training ... just like the Luftwaffe pilots at the end of the war.
I don't know of any complete study that looks at the number of pilots the RAF had at the start of the battle who were still there at the end, but Stephen Bungay gives the figures for 501 squadron as an example.
501 was the only squadron that fought in the south east from the first day to the last. They had higher casualties than any other Spitfire or Hurricane squadron, with 18 pilots killed during the battle. Of the 18 killed, 3 (or 4, Bungay's maths doesn't add up) were present at the start of the battle, 15 were replacements who arrived after the battle started.
Of the 18 men in the squadron at the beginning, 8 were still flying with the squadron at the end, 2 had been transferred to other squadrons and were still operational. 3 (or 4) had been killed, 5 wounded and invalided out.
As I said, 501 squadron had the highest losses of any of the squadrons at 18, the average for Spitfire and Hurricane squadrons was 8.4
The average squadron had less than half the losses of 501. If you assume they lost the same proportion of original/new pilots, then the average squadron of 18 pilots at the start of the battle lost 4 or 5 to death and serious injury, and kept 13 or 14 of the original pilots operational.
As to exhaustion and combat fatigue, this applies more to the Luftwaffe, that was flying longer missions across the Channel without rotating pilots. Ulrich Steinhilper gives some examples:
What we were seeing, although we didn't realise it at the time, was our first case of KanaIkrankheit (Channel Sickness). A combination of chronic stress and acute fatigue. At first there were isolated cases but, as the battle dragged on, there were to be more and more cases of the evil disease. The symptoms were many and various but usually surfaced as stomach cramps and vomiting, loss of appetite and consequently weight and acute irritability. Typically the patient's consumption of alcohol and cigarettes would increase and he would show more and more signs of exhaustion. There was little leave and, unlike the RAF pilots, wc were not to be circulated to quiet zones for short periods of rest and refitting. There was nothing our doctors could do either. The principal of battle fatigue had not yet been established and it was felt that as soon as anyone was taken out of the line because he was showing signs of stress, there would be a flood. So the doctors resorted to diagnosing appendicitis. This minor operation ensured that at least a pilot would not be flying for about two or three weeks.
Part and parcel of Kanalkrankheit were the symptoms which affected the aircraft. Instruments would fail, motors would run hot or lose oil pressure, just to be remedied by returning to base. Ground crews would spend time chasing a fault through a machine only to find nothing amiss. Following a Werkstattflug the aircraft would be pronounced fully mechanically fit for service. A few hours later it would be back with guns that would not fire in the air, but which let loose a hail of bullets on the ground. The groundcrews were faithful to their pilots, and to their credit tried to cover for them, but when there was no chance of finding a fault the former had to speak up.
We all felt the strain but when, in the middle of August, the command reshuffle took place, there was damned near a mutiny in our Cruppe. Our Commander, Hauptmann von Eschwege was called up to Luftflotte 2
Headquarters and returned with the Iron Cross First Class. It was arranged for the pilots of the three squadrons to be paraded at their separate dispersals whilst von Eschwege made a short speech in which he explained that it was with great regret on his part that he'd been relieved of command of I/JG 52 because of a grumbling appendix. He wished us all "Good Hunting" and many victories and left for his appendix operation and thereafter on to a relatively safe seat at the fighter training centre at Merseburg.
There was almost uproar amongst the pilots, not only because of his Iron Cross, but also because he was effectively being rested whilst we were still having to remain at the sharp end of things. This wasn't the last time that the strings would be pulled for some of the more senior officers and it is significant, I think, that during the Battle of Britain our Gruppe never lost any personnel of the rank of Squadron Leader or higher. Hauptmann Wolfgang Ewald replaced von Eschwege as Gruppe Kommandcur and inherited quite a disconsolate brood of fighter pilots.
In the context of fatigue it's worth repeating that line about 501 squadron again: 501 were the only squadron to remain in the south east from the start of the battle to the end
Unlike the RAF the Luftwaffe did not replace their losses as quickly (almost not at all), so while the Luftwaffe did lose a third of their strength in the battle the remaining strength was not made up of greenhorns, but veterans. And the Luftwaffe was still a superior force in numbers.
Not in terms of fighter pilot numbers. The RAF by early September had about 900 - 1,000 Spitfire and Hurricane pilots fit for duty, the Luftwaffe just over 700.
"Contrary to general belief and official reports, the enemy's bombing attacks by day did extensive damage to five of our forward aerodromes and also to six of our seven sector stations. There was a critical period when the damage to sector stations and our ground organization was having a serious effect on the fighting efficiency of the squadrons, who could not be given the same good technical and administrative service as previously......... The absence of many essential telephone lines, the use of scratch equipment in emergency operation rooms, and the general dislocation of ground organization, was seriously felt for about a week in the handling of squadrons by day to meet the enemy's massed attacks, which were continued without the former occasional break of a day."
Report by Air Vice Marshal Keith Park - 6th September 1940.
To which I'll give you Dowding's reply:
I agree with the Air Officer Commanding 11 Group that the damage done by air attack to aerodromes has been serious, and that it was begining at one time to affect materially the efficiency of our fighter operations. Nevertheless, I must point out:
(i) That 13 aerodromes in the Group underwent a total of over forty attacks in three weeks, but Manston and Lympne were the only two that were unfit for day flying for more than a few hours
(ii) That although the scale of the attack certainly exceeded the capacity of the works orginisation existing at the outset, this was rapidly strengthened, and I do not wish to express any dissatisfaction with the measures taken to effect this improvement
The problem for the Luftwaffe is that in the last week of August they began an all out attack. They threw everything they had in to the battle. That wasn't something they could maintain indefinitely. Indeed whilst they managed 4700 fighter sorties in the last week of August, they only flew 4,000 in the first week of September.
I'd agree with you that if the Luftwaffe had maintained the same level of effort they managed in late August for several weeks, it would have had a serious effect on the RAF. But how can a force with declining strength and no reserves maintain the same, maximum, level of effort for weeks on end?
The Luftwaffe lost 111 109s in the last week of August. They lost another 129 in the first week of September. Continue that level of losses for another 3 weeks, and the Luftwaffe would have lost about 550 in a month, when production was running at about 150 a month and reserves were non existent. This wasn't something the Luftwaffe were capable of doing.
In the same period the RAF was losing about 135 fighters a week, so in a month about 600. But British fighter production was running at 470 a month, and the RAF on 6th September had 127 Spits and Hurris in storage ready for immediate issue, another 42 ready within 4 days, and 80 awaiting issue.
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Bruv119 and Rich46yo, look at the latest posts of MiloMorai, Angus and Nashwan. That's how you pose a proper argument and rebuttal. While I may not agree with all they say their post are mature and well worded, and their arguments are reasonable and supported by logic or facts; their posts add substance to the debate. They do not demean the debate by calling people names or calling me a fool (well perhaps they are, but at least they are being subtle ;)).
As for the (never ending) Battle of Britain debate, it is off-topic and perhaps better suited for a separate thread; this thread is getting pretty long in the tooth in any case. The point that I was trying to make before this BoB distraction was that German strategic bombing of Britain did not work.
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Hat off for that wording ;)
BTW, Nash in particular, - the reduced sorties of the LW in the timeline is also explainable by weather and the day getting shorter....autumn you know! (?-here, didn't page up the weather day by day, but autumn is ...autumn)
There is a nice what-if here....what if the LW would have kept on their daylight raids on London in any good day.
My answer would be LW being butchered in the slug-out. RAF being able to focus more and more on what they already were catching up on, as well as the damage (or tonnage dropped) on London was impressive at night as well, since the distance was little enough for beam navigation as well as no fighter cover being needed.
So, logically, LW pulled back. It was not a fight they would win there.
However, IMHO, they came quite close before they switched to London. Well, close to bending 11th group, and many a historians has put up a question about how things would have ended, had front-field operation of the RAF come to a shutdown.
Manston in particular was giving an example.
And your point Lumpy:
"The point that I was trying to make before this BoB distraction was that German strategic bombing of Britain did not work."
Yumm. Well, just debateable how close it came, but it did not bring what it was supposed to.
p.s. As for the BoB and what fascinates me there, is that it didn't really give all the lessons for the years to come that it should.
Alas..the only thing we learn from history is that we....don't :uhoh
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Oh, a teasing bump :devil
Lumpy:
"They do not demean the debate by calling people names or calling me a fool (well perhaps they are, but at least they are being subtle )."
Dohh, why do you think "WE" left Norway and went snapping the Briton ladies?
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scroll
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Well, so we could debate guys like you from a safe distance?
:devil
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Oh, Btw, here's the book I was looking for:
There will be more...
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/415YX0A681L._SS500_.jpg)
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Oh, and while at it, the Wingco also recomennded Johnnie Johnson's book "Full Circle" which is on air warfare in general and has a whiff of his own experience in it.
His autobiography, "Wing Leader" is also a splendid read, and opens with a somewhat special letter from Douglas Bader to Johnny, - it has comments on the big wing contraversy as well as Johnny's book in general.
And here I am going to promote you with a teaser. The big wings.
Johnnie, being a cavalryman, strongly opposed the big wings. It is connected with cavalry. Why would that be?
:t
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Just a quick reply.It is not an extravagant claim to say stuka's conquered the lowlands and France in 1940.It is completely untrue!
What I didn't say- in my haste- was,that their achievement's in combination with ground forces were remarkable,and as a form of aerial artillery they were more effective than the Strategic bombers.
German Bombing of British cities,only increased the publics Defiance,and increased are will to fight on.Tactical bombing of British airfields was much more effective,but Could they have achieved Air superiority; that is open to speculation.
Hitler lost the BoB and the war by turning his eyes eastward toward Russia in the Autumn of 1940,and attacking The Soviet Union in June 1941;the very thing that Bismarck had said Germany should never do.
Are defeat of the Luftwaffe in 1940 was in no way decisive;we did not fight them to a standstill,and we can only speculate as to what would have happened a year later if Hitler had not made his blunder in the East
But back to strategic Bombing.
An extract from the conclusion of Roger A. Freeman's excellent book:The Mighty Eighth
"The Eighth Air Force was looked upon by USAAF commanders as their prime instrument to test their doctrine of strategic bombardment.The supreme hope was that such a campaign could render massive devastation to the war industry of a highly industrialized Nation,like Germany,so it would be unable to supply and support it's armed forces;in effect, bombing into submission.In the event the combined strength of all Allied strategic forces proved unable to achieve this against germany."
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Eighth's campaign over Europe in WWII,by the way. :aok
Oh,and I wish people could keep the Discussions on these boards civil. :)
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Well, a speculation of a continuing BoB in 1941 would be interesting, but I think that since the LW had to withdraw already in 1940, and as the tables turned, the RAF started poking around the Lowlands and France BEFORE the invasion to Russia, as well as there was also air warfare at the time of Barbarossa all over the med....well, the LW would have lost the "daylight BoB" much worse in 1941 IMHO.
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Oh, a teasing bump :devil
Lumpy:
"They do not demean the debate by calling people names or calling me a fool (well perhaps they are, but at least they are being subtle )."
Dohh, why do you think "WE" left Norway and went snapping the Briton ladies?
.
.
scroll
.
.
.
Well, so we could debate guys like you from a safe distance?
:devil
Hahahaha! :lol
Thanks for the book recommendations, I will add them to my considerable and ever growing reading list (but I'll bump them to the top of the list somewhere ;)). Where to find the time to read everything ...
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BTW, I wonder how the strategic air warfare would have faired if France had ben the mother country of the enemy of the British. Since they were able to muster 1000 heavies on the Cologne raid, what could they have done with a target only 100 km or less away from base?
Sort of is forgotten in the debates that for bombing Germany, the British had to fly quite far, but for bombing Britain, it was a mere "hop" for the LW. All on the map....