Cannon Fodder?

Koopernic said:

Indeed its a good analogy, as one can't imagine Vietnamese pilots developing a 'top gun' school in their 3rd world country. The German training problem has different origins of course.

Surface to air missiles was a missed opportunity for the Luftwaffe. They had some superb engineers and pioneers in the field with highly progressive companies.

There was Max Kramer and Ruhrstahl, known for the Fritz-X and X-4 developed the "Fuerlille" SAM; Herbert Wagner at Herschel, known for the Hs 293 developed the Hs 117 Schmeterling, there was von Brauns Army Team at Penemunde the "Wasserfall" supersonic SAM as well as the Taifun unguided SAM. (It used storable hypergolics, significant because the highly consistent thrust of liquid rockets allows them to have the same dispersion as artillery; At Messerschmitt Dr Wurster developed the Enzian missile.

All these missiles were proposed in 1941 such as Kramers and Wagners missiles but rejected till 1943 which meant development started 2 year too late to have an effect on the air war when it was needed 1943 to 1944. All were good but only the Hs 117 schmeterling was allowed to continue into 1945 as it was closest to deployment along with the Wasserfall.

These missiles were to have rather sophisticated guidance systems, the claim that they were to have simple manual command line of sight (MCLOS) is completely wrong. The Kehl-Strassberg system used from the HS 293/Fritz-X was for testing only. Operational missiles would have received the Kogge-Bigge system which used directional impulse modulated microwaves (24cm) so that the missile received only commands from the rear.

All of these missile underwent multiple test flights, not just paper projects.

Tracking of target was by standard FLAK radar or a optical tracker similar to that used in FLAK predictors. A separate team tracked the missile either optically or by a radar/transponder and a basic computer called a parallax converter commanded the missile. There was also an number of terminal guidance systems under development active radar, passive homer for H2S, H2X), infrared as well as beam riding.

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Where did you get this info? I'd like to learn more.

Somehow it took Britain and the US until the early early 50s to get working anti-aircraft missiles, even with some German scientists and technicians working for them. First big US AA missile was first deployed about 4-5 years after first Russian A bomb test
so there was at least some urgency to the program.
having ideas is one thing, getting them to work in the field is another thing and a lot different than even one or two successes on an test range.

Granted the US Nike had higher performance than a WW II missile would need but many of the stumbling blocks were common and involved the guidance systems.

1950s US Navy systems, for instance were limited by the number of radars a ship could carry as each missile in flight required it's own dedicated radar set/antenna. This affected the rate of engagement much more than the launchers ability to reload.

yes, cannon fodder, ie easy kill vs used/misused as cannon fodder...quite a bit of difference!

grudge racing "run whatcha brung" and the LW was not able to properly train replacements. Would fewer better-trained replacements have been more meaningful?



FLYBOY, true, Osprey is NOT the cat's meow! In general they are fillers until I can get better titles or something interesting comes about. Noted the EDWARDS RANCH vid the other day, the Buchons for sale. Edwards himself, an experienced pilot who flew most of the warbirds said the Mustang is no match for a 109. But a handful of great pilots, may good pilots, and swarms of neophytes will not do well against the meat grinder of ever increasing number of very good planes with well-trained pilots. All this because you have to deal with the fighters to get to the bombers. Lots and lots of bombers!

cool vid with Edwards stating what I said above,
TALL TALE [ that’s true ] - AOPA

I still think that the term "cannon fodder" is more misleading in this case than what actually happened. The experienced Luftwaffe pilots did what they could to protect the "green" pilots, much like the Allied pilots tried to keep the "green" pilots of their flights out of harm's way.

A much better depiction of "cannon fodder" would be the infantry elements in Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, Lord Cardigan's Light Cavalry charge at the battle of Balaclava or any call for "up and over!" into no man's land during WWI.

kettbo said:

yes, cannon fodder, ie easy kill vs used/misused as cannon fodder...quite a bit of difference!

grudge racing "run whatcha brung" and the LW was not able to properly train replacements. Would fewer better-trained replacements have been more meaningful?



FLYBOY, true, Osprey is NOT the cat's meow! In general they are fillers until I can get better titles or something interesting comes about. Noted the EDWARDS RANCH vid the other day, the Buchons for sale. Edwards himself, an experienced pilot who flew most of the warbirds said the Mustang is no match for a 109. But a handful of great pilots, may good pilots, and swarms of neophytes will not do well against the meat grinder of ever increasing number of very good planes with well-trained pilots. All this because you have to deal with the fighters to get to the bombers. Lots and lots of bombers!

cool vid with Edwards stating what I said above,
TALL TALE [ that’s true ] - AOPA

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It depends on what you are talking about. The Spitfire was a more nimble aircraft than the Bf109 and faster by the end of the war too. The P-51 was faster and that comes at the price of maneuverability, which wasn't necessary for the P-51; in fact speed was more important than turning as most air kills occurred before the victim realized he was being shot at, so being able to use speed to position or even be able to run was most important; turning only matters if you're in a turning battle, the escorting fighters did not have that problem both due to numbers and the nature of their mission. They just needed to disrupt the attacking enemy fighters to let the bomber get through, which their speed gave them the ability to do; they could launch multiple passes and engage on their terms, while the Germans could turn away only so many times before failing their mission to stop the bombers.

and of course Britain could of had the Meteor in the BoB if they really wanted to......... !

how did Germany lose WWII when they had all these great weapon systems just lying around and so much fuel they didnt know what to do with it ?

Germany did not lose because of inferior types. They lost in part because of numbers, but the sad thing for the germans was that the numbers did not have to be quite so one sided as they ended up being. They made choices early in the war that affected the availability of hardware.

Having said that, the Luftwaffe did not really at any part of the later campaigns, suffer a shortage of aircraft. They didnt even suffer a shortage of pilots. The issue was really whether they suffered a lack of experienced pilots, and despite the hype surrounding thie so-called experten, it was in the area of training and expertise that they really fell down. This grinding process of whitling away the German experience base began during the BoB, and continued relentlessly for the next four years. Quite simply, the LW did not, and could not, make adequate arrangements for the training of pilots to replace losses, moreover, on the eastern front at least, overuse and overcommittment of the available forces most certainly did mean the LW was served up as sacrifices to try and stem the inexorable advances of the red army. No thought given to the replacement situation, the likley losses the effect on friendly force structures....just throw them into the fight in the hope they can stem or impede the advance of the enemy. The Japanese, from midway on, were committed to a similar strategy, with similar disastrous results.

To suggest that new pilots in the Luftwaffe were used as cannon fodder would also qualify the RAF during the Battle of Britain with equal guilt. Young pilots were going up against Axis pilots with few actual hours in the aircraft that they had to fly combat with.

The difference is that during the BoB the british command had a purpose for using the resources available to them . During the battles in the east, such co-ordination of effort was very often absent. Army or front commanders would often be happy to serve up the LW as the sacrificial lamb just to try and lessen their own losses. it was not part of a co-ordinated strategy that weighed up what a particular action might cost or what results might be achieved. The Japanese were similar in the way they used their aircrews. they were considered expendable, and were often used in precisely that manner. The allies too could at times use their aircrew as an expendable resource, but I think there is a diffence in the way the two sides viewed this expedient. To the allies, men like Dowding or park or Spruance, losing aircrew was a serious business to be avoided if at all possible. To the Axis leadership, this was a matter of far less importance. Eventually this attitude did bear bitter fruit for them

For the allies moreover, even though they could also be profligate with their airmens lives, they at least took steps to ensure the supply of aircrew were of both a quality and a quantity sufficient to cover wastage. For the allies, they were so successful at this that aircrew standards improved markedly during the war, as demonstrated by the hours per new aircrew. For the Germans, it was the opposite. They made inadequate provision for the long haul, such that both the numbers and the quality of their replacement aircrews, as the war progressed got worse and worse.

parsifal said:

For the allies moreover, even though they could also be profligate with their airmens lives, they at least took steps to ensure the supply of aircrew were of both a quality and a quantity sufficient to cover wastage. For the allies, they were so successful at this that aircrew standards improved markedly during the war, as demonstrated by the hours per new aircrew. For the Germans, it was the opposite. They made inadequate provision for the long haul, such that both the numbers and the quality of their replacement aircrews, as the war progressed got worse and worse.

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This is correct. The minutes of the July 1942 (that's '42 not '44 or '45) conference at Rominten with Keitel show that having bemoaned the lack of aviation fuel for the Luftwaffe Goering explicitly blamed Keitel for using up reserves during the previous winter in operations in the East. He goes on to say that as Luftwaffe training had been 'practically suspended' in 1942 with only certain categories of students allowed to continue their training in limited numbers, then Hitler's orders to increase aircraft production were pointless as there would be no pilots to fly them.
This crisis occurred in mid 1942 and would have catastrophic repercussions for the Luftwaffe eighteen months later as the USAAF began to wrest control occupied Europe's air space from it.

Whilst provision for training new pilots had not been overlooked by the Air Ministry and RAF in the immediate pre-war years the scale and number of replacements that would be required was badly under estimated. This did lead to a shortage of combat ready pilots in the latter stages of the BoB. The matter was rectified and of course the RAF enjoyed the luxury of training its crews in Canada, the USA, South Africa and other places where neither the enemy nor fuel supplies were a problem.

Cheers

Steve

Two other factors feed into this. The training pilots were often called upon to fly tactical transports in times of emergency. Severe losses of transport pilots and therefore also training pilots occurred during these occasions.

Pilot loses caused by the Airborne invasion of Holland, Mosier claims this likely saved Britain.

Airborne invasion of Crete (Student got blamed for this but caused by enigma decrypts, AAA was placed over and near the drop zones)

1942 was particularly costly:

Aerial Supply of Denyask pocket, although successful it was costly.

Aerial Supply of 6th Army in Stalingrad, failure.

Aerial Supply of Rommel in Africa concurrent with the Stalingrad airlift. The heavy losses of transports and aircrew was caused by enigma decrypts as allies knew the flight routes and schedules thus allowing them to both intercept as well as overwhelm any escorts the Luftwaffe provided, e.g. Palm Sunday massacre.

It didn't help that the Ju 52 was relatively small, fuel inefficient and that its payload x range characteristic limited it. The highly capable Ju 252, able to carry 2.5 times the load, 4 times the distance, with much less fuel per ton of payload and with the same numbers of aircrew was cancelled after maybe a dozen aircraft on account of Jumo 211 engine shortages. Ironically the Jumo 211 was in excess supply by 1942 but too weak in power by then too produce a competitive combat aircraft; Ju 88 were moving to the BMW 801.

German Army fuel consumption during the latter phases of Barbarossa were nearly 6 fold of estimated requirements. Rail was the only effective form of transport due to quagmire on the unsealed roads. As a result the Heer had to use half tracks to transport goods or half tracks to tow the semi trailers up hill or through mud.

The graphs Stona provides show a gradual trending up of fuel production that however does not keep pace with demands. The oil campaign then leads to a massive collapse around d-day. The German oil industry made both massive technical strides and investments that in 1943/44 would have lead to higher fuel quantity and quality. Noteworthy were alkylation plants which could efficiently produce high octane aviation fuel relieving the synthetic iso-octane plants for n-butene production for use in s-buna and n-buna synthetic rubber.

Not all were "inexperienced" per se. Koopernic touched on it. Many of these pilots were former bomber and transport pilots who were transferred to fighter duties after their Kampfgeschwaders and Transportgeschwaders were disbanded. Many were tossed into the Me 262 and Ar 234 programs with the thinking that those with multiple engine experience would be better. The problem was tactics - these pilots only knew formation flying and not fighter tactics and so many were shot down. This was in addition to the raw recruit.....

wiking85 said:

Where did you get this info? I'd like to learn more.

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I use a book or rather Several books published by AEG By Fritz Trenkle. He has a whole book on German radar, another on Jamming, another purely on German guidance systems in WW2. He was a radar and guidance engineer in ww2; some have him has a "bordfunker" on German night fighters, he shows up on Alfred Prices "instruments of darkness" as connected with Fritz-X development. Unfortunately his books or only German language. Most fascinating are the extensive citations. A few photographs taken by the Tonne Seedorf TV guidance are fascinating.

You can download as a PDF from lulu.com the following. Unlike Trenkle, who had an electronics background. Reuter was a mechanical engineer but he covers the guidance fairly well.

The V 2 The A4 (V2)
and the German, Soviet and American Rocket Program
By Claus Reuter

Koopernic said:

I use a book or rather Several books published by AEG By Fritz Trenkle. He has a whole book on German radar, another on Jamming, another purely on German guidance systems in WW2. He was a radar and guidance engineer in ww2; some have him has a "bordfunker" on German night fighters, he shows up on Alfred Prices "instruments of darkness" as connected with Fritz-X development. Unfortunately his books or only German language. Most fascinating are the extensive citations. A few photographs taken by the Tonne Seedorf TV guidance are fascinating.

You can download as a PDF from lulu.com the following. Unlike Trenkle, who had an electronics background. Reuter was a mechanical engineer but he covers the guidance fairly well.

The V 2 The A4 (V2)
and the German, Soviet and American Rocket Program
By Claus Reuter

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Thanks; any further sourcing about the history of the German synthetic oil program?

Njaco said:

Not all were "inexperienced" per se. Koopernic touched on it. Many of these pilots were former bomber and transport pilots who were transferred to fighter duties after their Kampfgeschwaders and Transportgeschwaders were disbanded. Many were tossed into the Me 262 and Ar 234 programs with the thinking that those with multiple engine experience would be better. The problem was tactics - these pilots only knew formation flying and not fighter tactics and so many were shot down. This was in addition to the raw recruit.....

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Some of the Me 410 Zerstoerer Gruppen were transferred to Me 262, this makes sense as supposedly 50% of the Me 262 were to be fighter bombers (as per Hitler). Also then Me 210/410 was supposed to be in mass production and have replaced quite a few of the Ju 88 in its dive bomber role.

(wiking85, ie use fischer-tropsh.org which has allied fuel intelligence files for my fuel information, there is a sectioned of scanned microfilms, it is not indexed or OCR, so hard work reading through)

In the memoirs of Norbert Hannig takes up a bomber pilot in a Fw 190 and advises him to not convert to fighters and wagers him that in a 3 minutes he will be unshakably on his tail. He did so and shook up the bomber pilots who thanked him and did not transfer. It seems experienced German fighter pilots din not think much of the bomber pilots skill as fighter pilots. To many techniques and tactics to learn.

There is some interesting information to be gleaned there. I have waded through sections in the past, but even as an ex-organic chemist there are reports that make my eyes glaze over
Cheers
Steve

To return very briefly to the fuel shortage for Luftwaffe training in 194243 a couple of salient points.

The allotment of fuel for training in the five week period beginning in September 1942 was just 3,000 tonnes. In 1941 it had been 27,000 tonnes per month. How anyone can't not see that such a drastic cut represents a serious shortage I do not understand.

In 1943 the Luftwaffe's training programs were completely redesigned with the express intention of reducing the number of flying hours to reduce consumption of fuel(s) and to economise on the use of aircraft and other equipment. This was supposed to happen without jeopardising the quality of training. New, shorter courses were introduced but how these would produce airmen as well trained as their predecessors is unclear. It was also a stated objective to attempt to make up the losses in training incurred in 1942 as a result of the fuel crisis.

Cheers

Steve

Steve

Hayward and others have commented on this as well. Hayward says the LW tried to compensate for the loss of training hours by shifting some of the training out to the front line units. each group was supposed to include at least one "tng" staffel, with only light duties assigned to it...kind of learn on the job training. It seldom worked out that way, and in 1943-4, these "training": elements took a real beating, on all fronts.

This goes back to the chronic organisational problems in Luftwaffe training, particularly for personnel.

Most school commanders were older men who held too high a rank to take up posts as Gruppe commanders and thereby acquire front line experience, almost all of them had none. Eventually a fudge whereby they were assigned to active units temporarily under a system of so-called 'Informationskommandos' or briefing groups was adopted, but was too little too late.

This also applied to instructors of all types. Some front line pilots or specialists were assigned to Training Command but the structure of the Luftwaffe invariably made them perceive this as a demotion and this never inspires a man to enthusiasm for a new job.

This led to the introduction of a scheme whereby certain Gruppen were deemed 'Patengruppen', sponsor groups, and I think this is what is referred to above. At the end of the day this meant that rather than students flying with very experienced pilot instructors as far out of harm's way as was possible the reverse happened. Very inexperienced pilots flew with front line units at a time when the Jagdwaffe was under immense pressure on all fronts. The results were predictable.

The RAF and Dowding had adopted a system whereby experienced men were stripped from squadrons outside 11 Group to reinforce those at the sharp end during the BoB to try and avoid precisely this. It didn't work perfectly, but it did save a lot of very inexperienced pilots from the battle. The shortage of Luftwaffe pilots caused by the fuel crisis of 1942/3 meant that this was a luxury that was not available to the service as it fought its final battles in 1944/5.

In the RAF (and as far as I know the USAAF) it was entirely normal for experienced combat pilots to be rotated into training schools as instructors. It is not difficult to imagine the effect on students of being taught by men who had really 'been there and done that'. I know from the memoirs of some of these pilots that they were sometimes keen to get back into action and didn't always relish their role training their successors but they knew it was important and I've never seen any evidence that anyone considered this some kind of demotion.

Cheers

Steve

in the last few pages of Caldwell, DEFENSE of the REICH, we have the new guys calling themselves 'cannon fodder'
presume they know they have very poor prospects with their skills and conventional planes

BTW, a CLASSIC book, everyone should have several copies