Pavlov's House (1 Viewer)

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Jenisch

Staff Sergeant
1,080
17
Oct 31, 2011
If this building created so much problems for the Heer, why the Luftwaffe didn't destroyed it with dive bombers?
 
Dive bombers may be accurate, but not THAT accurate. The two forces were fighting so close to each other that the Germans would have had to retreat some distance from the house before it could be bombed. That's ground, and rubble, that the Russians would have immediately reoccupied. Ending with a overall lose of ground for the Germans.

Airpower isn't of much value in house to house fighting.
 
Thanks for the answers guys.

But since it was Nazi Germany, it would not be better to sacrifice some men in coordenation with dive bombers in order to take the building?
 
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Thanks for the answers guys.

But since it was Nazi Germany, it would not be better to sacrifice some men in coordenation with dive bombers in order to take the building?

I don't think the Wehrmacht was that mad Jenisch. The Russians Or Japanese maybe that ruthless...
John
 
It was the 6th Army at Stalingrad. I won't say there were no SS at Stalingrad, but there were no SS units i'm aware of.

You seem to have a pretty simplistic view of infantry tactics, you don't win battles by just throwing men's life away. You give them away too easy early in the fight, you don't have enough left for the later stages of the battle.
 
It was the 6th Army at Stalingrad. I won't say there were no SS at Stalingrad, but there were no SS units i'm aware of.

You seem to have a pretty simplistic view of infantry tactics, you don't win battles by just throwing men's life away. You give them away too easy early in the fight, you don't have enough left for the later stages of the battle.

You don't understand my point. The Germans allegedly were immobilized and suffering so much casualities there, that I don't considerate this would be totally out of mind. I don't know if Hitler was aware of the resistance, but since he disregarded human life like Stalin did (as the order for no surrender in Stalingrad was passed), I do not doubt this was considerated.
 
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I probably don't understand your point, because you have no point.

Airpower, at the state of the art was in WW2, has no pratical use in urban house to house fighting . The Germans would have took as many, or maybe even more loses from what you're proposing than the Russians, and just end up giving them more rubble to hide in.
It's usually not a sound tactical plan to try and fight a numbers game with someone who has greater numbers they can afford to lose than you.
 
I probably don't understand your point, because you have no point.

Airpower, at the state of the art was in WW2, has no pratical use in urban house to house fighting.

I'm not suggesting this, I'm questioning why Pavlov's apartament building, if so letal, was not blown out by the Luftwaffe. Aircraft such as the Stuka were perfectly suited for this task.

Is that information from German Army sources or from Soviet Army press releases?

That's my point. I'm skeptical, because it don't seems to have much sense to me one single building imposed a supposedly so stiff resistance and not be destroyed.
 
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The answer was already given in previous posts so don't know why you keep repeating the question... The WW2 air power simply wasn't accurate enough for use in urban house to house warfare. You are overestimating the capability of the dive bomber. Not even Stukas could destroy one single building without jeopardizing their own ground units in vicinity. Since they weren't suicidal, Germans would have to evacuate the area which means giving hard won ground to the enemy. Even if the building was leveled by aerial bombing or artillery fire it's doubtful if that would bring much benefit to the attackers as the events at Monte Casino had shown. Besides who's to say they weren't trying? If you look at the period pictures it's clear that the building was heavily damaged.
 
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