Germany's Doomed Plan: Operation Bodenplatte and the Battle of Y-29. Thoughts?

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The German fighters also had to face some of their own AAA, along with the AAA defending the bases.
 
tbfighterpilot said:
The German fighters also had to face some of their own AAA, along with the AAA defending the bases.
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Indeed; a need to hold the assault in secret fired back vs. Luftwaffe, since many of their AAA crews were not informed that single engined planes coming from west could be LW's own ones.
 
Most RAF Spitfires were the Mk V model right up to 1944. The U.S. was still using thousands of P-40s plus early model P-47s and P-51s. These are aircraft the Me-109F4, Me-109G6 and Fw-190A can deal with.

1944 Germany didn't have enough fuel to train pilots for the surprisingly large number of Me-109s, Fw-190s and Ju-88Gs that Albert Speer was producing. I think building additional hydrogenation plants for production of aviation gasoline would do more good then earlier introduction of any specific aircraft type.
 
tomo pauk said:
Indeed; a need to hold the assault in secret fired back vs. Luftwaffe, since many of their AAA crews were not informed that single engined planes coming from west could be LW's own ones.
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Supposedly 25% of the Boddenplatte strike was lost in some way through own FLAK. Was it REALLY that effective?
 
Hi, Dave,

LW is in war with 3 major air forces. The numbers are clearly against them, whether we talk about planes, pilots or fuel. So if they need a plane with pilot and fuel, they better produce planes with clear edge capability-wise. IOW, if the adversaries are fielding 400-430-mph fighters, a production of a plane that can hardly make 410 is not a good bet. The 450 mph plane is a must, but there is nothing that can achieve such a performance leap, short of a jet. At least not before 1945, and even then in token numbers.

As for what types were used vs. LW on West:
Even in 1st half of 1944 the wast majority of P-47s was of -D sub series, with water-injection paddle blade prop. The vast majority of P-51s was of B C sub types. P-40s were present only in Italy, for USAAC. The major RAF fighters in 1944 in ETO are Spit IX, XII, Typhoon, with Spit XIV and Tempest being introduced. Spit V is in good numbers present in MTO, not ETO. So the LW battles in ETO vs. types that are either equal, or better performers.

I do agree that Germany was in need of more hydrogenation plants, it's better to have Bf-109G-6 in the air, then Bf-109G-10 the airport
 
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German ground defenses were not told of the approaching LW led by Lohste pathfinder crews which in essence got lost themselves, the combination of Allied and German AA on the LW was horrific and a person can understand the depression that was already setting in with the doom of the mission before any Allied A/C parked on fields were taken on.

as per the second part of the question on Y-29 and the 352nd fg bluenosers, I have interviewed a couple chaps flying with the Mustang group on this very mission and certainly the two squads left on the ground watching the op unfold were curious why the attacking 109's Fw's of JG 11 seem to be so focused on Allied ground targets that the US 487th fg even on taking off were shooting the LW out of the skies. almost as if all raw recruits as JG 11 it appeared did not watn to mix it up with the Mustangs or the P-47's on the far side of the field operated by the 9th AF. for JG 11's attack it became a slaughter of German youth.
 
Germany's Doomed Plan: Operation Bodenplatte and the Battle of Y-29. Thoughts?
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A tragic loss of young lives (on all sides) as the Luftwaffe leadership attempted to pi$$ up a rope.
In short a tragic utterly futile badly planned waste which could and would make no difference at all to the coming total defeat.

Speer might well have organised things extremely well gathered some very impressive production results.....but it was basically (if what I have read is true) the total 'hollowing out' of German productive capacity and supply; in other words they pretty much used up all the resources they had available to accomplish this and after mid 1945 there was very little left in the cupboard, from strategic metals to oils to avgas it had all either been used up or destroyed - or stranded in places where it was of no use whatsoever - within a transport network that was on the verge of being utterly and totally destroyed.
Primarily - and most disastrously - this means no rail network or canal network......and God help anything trying to move in daylight on the roads.

I just don't see it, there is no imminent German 'wonder weapon' that can reverse the tide from east west.......with the exception, as everyone probably knows I'm bound to say at this point, of the A-bomb, which was not imminent for Germany (despite some bizzarre claims about tests in the east).
But then, thankfully, the German leadership were crazy enough not only to throw out large numbers of the world's best atomic scientists but they were also nuts enough to let them leave and go over to the allied nations.

Whether it's more underground fuel facilities or slightly better aircraft or more jets or whatever all I can see happening is the inevitable gets delayed, until the bomb is deployed in Europe or the Soviet armies occupy most, if not all, of western Europe......or just as happened with Japan the bomb is deployed at least in part to stop the Soviets occupying most, if not all, of western Europe.
Thank God that one never happened.
 
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tomo pauk said:
The major RAF fighters in 1944 in ETO are Spit IX, XII, Typhoon, with Spit XIV and Tempest being introduced. Spit V is in good numbers present in MTO, not ETO.
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the 1st january '44 the RAF had in ETO 24 squadrons with Spitfire V, 20 with Spit IX, 2 with Spit XII (so it's not a major), 19 with Typhoon, (5 edit 3, i had write 5 before to add Spit XII, with other fighters); was reported that V squadrons were in more safe area. the 1st july there were 33 Spitfire IX squadrons (+2 with IX&XVI), 19 with Typhoon , 8 with Mustang III, 6 with Spit V and 6 with Spit V&IX, (and 19 with other or mixed fighters (1 with Spit XIV and 3 with Tempest V + 1 in transition to Tempest V, 1 with Spitfire XII).
 
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It has to be remembered, as Albert Speer states in his memories, that the Third Reich has chromium reserves for his armament factories just until the end of 1945.
And without chromium, no heat resistant steel...
And without heat resistant steel , no armaments.....
Bodenplatte was just a pinprick for the Allied.....
 
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Hi, Vicenzo,
That makes 46 non-Spit V squadrons (more than 700 fighters - quite s number for Germans to compete) vs. 24 Spit V squadrons, for 1.1.1944.
 
tomo pauk said:
Hi, Vicenzo,
That makes 46 non-Spit V squadrons (more than 700 fighters - quite s number for Germans to compete) vs. 24 Spit V squadrons, for 1.1.1944.
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i edited there was 44 not Spit V squadrons, and so? Spit V remain a major type sure more of Spit XII

sure the fighter line of FC changed look in winter/spring 44 (they take out also the old original Spit IX was the most common in 1/1/44)
 
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A number of German engines were to receive turbine blades of mild carbon steel to overcome the looming chromium shortage. There was the BMW P.3307 (a 1900kg thrust engine ordered as a backup to the HeS 011), the HeS 011 itself and (from memmory) the disposable Porsche 005 for the V1.

About 2 hours service life was expected. This is not as silly as it sounds as it is sufficient for 1 or 2 missions. The turbine on the BMW 003 could be swapped out in less than two hours while the engine remained on the wing and better engineering could surely cut that down to much less, perhaps 10 minutes. Such a turbine would be cheap to produce (hollow and stamped) and so it would be affordable, the metal would be recycled. Proably less costly than the ammunition the aircraft would fire and the fuel it would burn.

Other solutions included water cooling (some blades were built) and ceramics. The ceramics would likely have only been used on the inlet nozzle vanes as they tended to fracture as blades
 
Siegfried said:
... The turbine on the BMW 003 could be swapped out in less than two hours while the engine remained on the wing and better engineering could surely cut that down to much less, perhaps 10 minutes...
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IMHO probably not, Germans found out that the theoretical engine change time for Jumo 004B was clearly optimistic because of poor fitment, the price of dispersed production and the use of semi-skilled workers, and the conditions on airfields because of numerous air attacks.

Juha
 

Probably yes. The BMW 003 was a different design and the anular combustion chamber had a life of 200 hours; this meant that only the turbine needed service and that could be done on the wing: 2 hours maintenance per hour 20 hours of flight time is a good ratio. The Jumo did require more work: more because the combustion chamber cans (which were of mild steel) needed replacement every 25 hours: this required the engine to be dropped from the airframe to get access, furthermore more disassembly was required to access the turbine. In practice engines were swapped out (an relatively easy task) and maintained offline. Anthony Kay gives 8 manhours for the total opperation. It was quite achievable, though not on first attempt. People learn.
 
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Only at high altitude where American heavy bombers operated.

Most air combat (and all CAS) took place below 6,000 meters. The Me-109G6 was as good or better then the P-47 and P-51 below 6,000 meters.
 
Hello Dave
whether or not 109G was better than worse than Allied fighters near deck, during Bodenplatte Allied fighters won the air combats appr. 66 vs 15 kills, ie exchange rate was over 4:1 to Allied advance.

Juha
 
Germany deployed about 1,000 aircraft for the operation. 66 kills = 6.6% loss rate. IMO that's not a terribly impressive performance by Allied fighter aircraft who had the benefit of ground control radar.
 
Well fundamentally there remains the not so small issue of how you transport anything that still can be manufactured in a country with an utterly devastated transportation system incapable of moving large or heavy objects in safety and which needs to import aluminium ores, amongst numerous other materials.

.....or where the trained pilots are going to come from in a country swarming with huge numbers of allied aircraft night and day to fly whatever can still be made.
 
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