A Western 'Sturmovik': great asset or waste of resouces?
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- Thread starter
- #43
The range was a bigger issue at the places where RAF USAAC were fighting, than where VVS was using it's Stormoviks or LW their Ju-87s. Along the support for the ground troops (at Sicily, Italian mainland, Normandy and further, Balkans, Asia/Pacific) I'd like to see the 'assaulters' flying vs. radar posts airbases in France Low Countries. Now I know that many times the twin-engined bombers were doing those tasks, but the the bombed-up fighters were there in numbers, too. Those would be the planes to replace in the ground attack role.
With threat of Axis AF's growing small, the light flak was the main menace for day, low-level 'assaulters'. So a plane tailored to to be resilient to that threat should make many pilots return home, even if it could not be called 100% Flak-proof. A pilot was anyway far greater asset than plane, so if we write-off it, that's not a big deal.
davebender
1st Lieutenant
That would be 1939 to 1943 when Germany lost control of airspace over the English Channel, North Africa, Sicily, Italy, the Bay of Biscay, naval base at Brest (France), various parts of the Soviet Union etc. Otherwise Rommel would have kept rolling all the way to the Suez Canal and Allied troop landings in North Africa and Italy would have been impossible.
davebender
1st Lieutenant
Sure we did. American volunteer pilots flying prototype P-51Bs swept the Luftwaffe from the sky at El Alamein, allowing British 8th Army to counter attack. 
Sure we did. American volunteer pilots flying prototype P-51Bs swept the Luftwaffe from the sky at El Alamein, allowing British 8th Army to counter attack.
Leave this to the guys in Hollywood.
You still don't understand my point: The British and Soviets achived great victories, but still they didn't defeated the majority of Germany's fighter force. By 1944, the British and Soviet air forces were improving, but so was the LW. The Americans and their bombing campaign that put an end in the LW plans.
davebender
1st Lieutenant
Britain achieved daytime air superiority when and where it mattered most. If that doesn't count as defeating the Luftwaffe then what does?
Britain was able to prevent Hitler from obtain air supremacy over the country in 1940, but this didn't defeated the LW. In the following year, the Germans went to Russia and captured most of the rich areas of the country. Now tell me: puting the Americans out of the equation, would the Soviet and British air forces prevail against the LW? If you cut the Americans totally, including the Lend-Lease, Britain and the USSR would face an increasingly difficulty situation, were Germany is each time stronger, and capable of outclass and outproduce such two nations in aeronautical design, and well as in practically everything. In fact, it's hard to see how the British economy would hold it's own without the Lend-Lease. It was a world war, you cannot try to minimize the participation of such a major participant nation.
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Field Marschall Franz Halder had scathingly declared that Hitlers refusal to take Moscow in early 1941 was the turning point of the war. Hitler while brilliant and diplomatically transcendant he was a timid military tactician and unable to fight the Blitz-Blitzkrieg his generals were convinced was necessary to win. He seemed overly concerned with securing the materials that had lost Germany WW1 and therefore lost the initiative by living in the past. Hitlers thrust at France via Belgium was about securing the Alsation Iron ore supplies not some brilliant flanking tactic, his invasion of Norway was about securing Iron ore supplies (and probably neccessary, Vikidun Quisling had informed Hitler that the Norweigen cabinet had decided not to fight should Britain invade Norway thereby allowing violation of its neutrality) and his stopping at the gates of Moscow and performance of a bizzare swing down south to attempt to secure oil fields and resources of the Ukrain before settling down for a sieg. Germany might have smashed the Sovet Army instead the swing down south gave it time to consolidate.
After the failure to take Moscow, when the German army was in a position to do so, the rest was perhaps only a matter of time due to the time it gave the Soviets to recover and then bring their greater manpower and material wealth to the fore. However, I suspect that had the Germans succesfully secured their cyphers they may still have won. For instance there would have been no Palm Sunday Massacre of Transports to Nth Africa, no massive causualties of Paratroops over Crete, no warning to Air Marschall Dowding of Adler Tag. This was a close run thing: had the Germans complicated their enigma machines with say an extra wheel or two, a fully rewirable keyboard (instead of the 10 'optimal letters') and had they actually deployed the rewirable reflector UKWD in quantity in early 1943 they would have secured their cyphers. The UK Typex and US Sigba cypher machines were merely elaborated copies of captured German machines.
The P-51B only performed its first tentative missions in December 1943. I would regard the Germans as having reached full performance parity 10 months latter in October 1944 when the Me 109K4 performed its first missions. A partial closing of the gap occured in March 1944 with the Me 109G6ASM with the slightly improved Me 109G14AS 3 months after that.
Prior to that ie during 1943 and late 1942 there seems to have been a very puzzling policy of emphasising Me 109 cost and production advantages over performance improvement by compromising aerodynamics to allow armament, armour and equipment growth. It is hard to determin how much production would have been lost had they decided to produce more refined upgraded Me 109. To me it seems the main effect would have been simply to delay introduction of more heavily armed and armoured versions of the Me 109 as tooling for the more refined upgrades was distributed although while the tooling for these upgraded models was distributed perhaps the tooling for more ordinary models would be compromised. It would have been worthwhile to blow of some other aircraft program to pull an extra 10mph out of the Me 109.
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Do you think the Germans would be able to stop the Soviet winter counter-offensive? And what about the 600,000 Soviet soldiers they would left in their flank had such course was taked?
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davebender
1st Lieutenant
Britain and the Soviet Union were both critically dependent upon U.S. economic assistance. But they don't need the U.S. Army Air Corps to win the war.
Maybe. Japan would probably be defeated much faster in this scenario, and both Britain and the USSR would quickly have the benefit of move more forces to the Far East defense against Japan to Germany. The US also would continue to help them even with more LL materials.
There you go again Siegfried, channeling Joseph Gobbels, LOL.
Hitler refused to take Moscow??? What's next ? Stalingrad wasn't a German defeat, but more of Hitler's right brain thinking, his plan for the Heer to invade Siberia.
- Thread starter
- #56
People, the topic is about the suitability of the 'Sturmovik-type' airplane for the Western Allies, late war. Please, if you want to discuss the Hitler's refusals, or the contribution of the various AFs to the destruction of Luftwaffe, I'm sure you can find the appropriate topics to share your opinions there.
That's true. But it certainly didn't defeat the Luftwaffe in a terminal way. Leigh-Mallory's cross channel commitment of Fighter Command after the Battle of Britain cost the lives of hundreds of RAF pilots. The Luftwaffe had been defeated but not destroyed by Fighter Command in that battle.
The Luftwaffe was systematically destroyed from mid 1943 until the end of the war and the USAAF takes much of the credit for this.
Cheers
Steve
davebender
1st Lieutenant
1 January 1945.
Operation Bodenplatte employed about 1,000 German aircraft.
It's readily apparent the Luftwaffe wasn't terminally damaged as of this date.
Operation Bodenplatte employed about 1,000 German aircraft.
It's readily apparent the Luftwaffe wasn't terminally damaged as of this date.
michaelmaltby
Colonel
"... Operation Bodenplatte employed about 1,000 German aircraft."
None of which were Sturmoviks, IIRC.
MM
None of which were Sturmoviks, IIRC.
MM
Shortround6
Major General
The Western "fighters" carried much heavier weapons loads than Soviet fighters. Both machine guns and bombs. A MK V Spitfire had the same number of barrels as a Sturmovik even if less ammo and twice as many as some Lagg-3/Yak fighters. American fighter/bombers with six .50 cals could do a pretty good job of strafing also.
The Soviets needed a bigger 1500-1800hp plane because so many of their fighters were 1200hp machines. Once the British finally got rid of the Blenheims and Battles and went with A-20s, Maylands, Baltimores and the like, the need for a specialized ground attack plane also lessened. Please remember that the Russian PE-2 was no great shakes as an attack plane either. Performance it had, armament (and bomb load) it did not. Again with only 1200hp engines little else could be expected. The DB-3/IL-4, for all it's utility as a bomber was also too low powered to carry a heavy gun armament, a bomb load, and have enough performance to act as a close support plane.
The Allies had choices. They may not have been ideal in all conditions but if you want 5,000 western Sturmovik aircraft what 5000 western fighters (with engines bigger than Allisons) are you willing to give up?
The Soviets didn't have a lot of choice. Until the M-82 engine came along the M-35/38 was the only game in town and only a few airframes were available to do the job. It may not have been ideal either and choices were made with it too.
