(spin off) About Germany needing more planes early on

[tomo pauk]

Following a remark from our member (Timmpa) about thread disolving in many not-so-related issues, I'll continue the discussion with our member, riacrato, here. My last remarks are in bold.

Never said 'annihilate factories'

To really make relocation of tools (and personnel) impossible, that's what you'd need to do.

Now why didn't you include the both sentences while you were quoting me?
Since German ground forces are making a fast conquest, all what is needed is to keep Soviet traffic in dissaray, so their factories remain in original place. But, there is no enough planes to wreck the traffic system on the 1st place...

The bomber raids on railway junctions bridges would've made relocation difficult. But, if your bombers are acting as artillery (since the guns you have are mostly horse-drawn), you already have small density per square mile of enemy terrain (that of interest), guess such raids were not possible.

I don't disagree, but you kind of prove my point here eh?

Glad we agree, but I was proving my point (not enough planes...)

They did not have the extra space for relocation in 1944 - whenever relocated, it would've been within reach of bombers, plus the production loss in the crucial time would've been huge.

exactly where i was getting at: if germany had the space (possibility) to relocate the hardware and personnel somewhere out of reach of the USAAF they could've done so. Annihilation of factories was not possible in a short timeframe with the arms available. The whole European air war during 1943 easily proves that. Hence any factory could be evacuated if reasonable.

Soviet were evacuating their factories away from Luftwaffe, but also away from Wehrmacht - the main threat for both loosing factories 'giving' them to the attacker.
When Germans factories were to be attacked by W. Allied ground forces ( = 1945), they have had run out of space time.

Not really, you might want to check out what USAAF RAF were doing with their assets, as early as 1942.

Apples and oranges. Neither of those two air forces was supporting a ground war in eastern europe and russia.
They were fighting a strategic war for the most part. The comparison you make here is invalid.

???
A-ha, so US UK have not waged ground war, where their ground forces were in need for air support? Something new every day

And Luftwaffe was all about that from the day one - use the planes to break up enemy assets, so those will not be able to fire back on ground forces.

And that's what they did during barbarossa.

Sure, therefore leaving Russkies to evecuate their factories behind Ural.

 

[riacrato]

We agree to disagree then. I'm not going to turn this into a battle of wills so I'll just say that a) in my opinion there was no way a 1940s airforce could provide the means to realistically destroy a relocation effort of such a scale in such a vast area. It'd basically mean around the clock observation of thousands of miles of road and having the possibility to strike with very good accuracy at any time and under any condition. That is something that'd be hard to do even today. And b) whether or not more planes could've been supported with pilots and logistics is another matter waiting to be answered. Unless something convinces me I'm wrong on both accounts, I'll leave it at that.