Ground attack Versus Pursuit?

[hardlec]

The US used a lot of air power to attack ground targets, but I can't find a lot of information on the affect of air strikes.

So called Attack planes, like the a20 havoc, seem to have been used as level bombers, while "obsolete" pursuit planes like the P-40 and P-39 (okay, obsolete in Europe...) seem to have done a lot of ground attack.

I also recall having read that when an escort mission ended, the fighters were allowed to attack ground targets "at will" but on the Tuskegee Airmen site the number of ground targets destroyed seemed rather small.

So when GI Joe called for air support, what came to support?

 

[SHAEF1944]

In the ETO, The 9th Air Force provided TACTICAL air support to the troops with fighter-bombers and medium bombers. The 8th Air Force was STRATEGIC, including the fighters assigned to escort the bombers. In the MTO, the 12th Air Force was Tactical, the 15th Air Force strategic. Fighters assigned the prrimary mission of escorting bombers were allowed to go after ground targets after the Luftwaffe was mostly driven from the conflict.

 

[Airframes]

In the ETO, post D-Day, both the 9th USAAF and 2 TAF provided the majority of ground-support. Types included P47 from the 9th AF, and Typhoons from 2 TAF, armed with bombs or RPs.

 

[BombTaxi]

'On-call' CAS was provided by single-engined fighters as SHAEF and Airframes have noted, but later in the war heavy bombers were also used to provide an additional level of pre-assault bombardment, notably in the run-up to the Goodwood and Epsom operations in Normandy, and on the German side, before the Sixth Army assault on Stalingrad. The twin-engined attack bombers (Mitchells, Bostons, Marauders etc) tended to be used against infrastructure targets such as power stations, railways and airfields which were too small to justify raids by heavies.