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Were the allied ground attack planes decisive or not? Were they good at their role ? Did they pay off the investment made in them? Were they more survivable than slow Stuka when faced with german AA?
There was no ''Western doctrine '' for ground support.There was however a battle to the death between RAF and USAAF vs their other services for money and influence.They won and they had their own private ''Strategic''TM war.Of course that meant no specialized aircraft for army support.
In relation to the first point, german accounts appear to think so. There wer after action reports that know of, and have seen in relation to allied air operations in North Africa and Normandy. Both were pretty unequivocal about the decisive effect of allied airpower on both occasions. Airpower in Italy was generally less effective, it being generally acknowledged that the terrain lessened its effects considerably.
As to cost effectiveness, I am not sure. The allies seemed to think so. If they had not spent their money on ground attack aircraft what would they spend it on. For Normandy, for example, I think ther were about 4000 aircraft amployed on Ground support operations (thats a guess really, so it might be more, it might be less), Each aircraft needed about 50 men to keep it in the air, that would release about 200000 men for duties elsewhere. So were these men as well employed in the ground support efforts??? My opinion is yes. At staff college we were trained to 5
view air support as a force multiplier. The air power was only responsible for about 5% of enemy casualtiesm, but the application of airpower could lift the effects of an attacking force by as much 50%. If the FPF factor of an Infanfantry battalion was assessed as say 6 without airpower, with airpower it rose to about 9.
The main effect of the airpower, wasnt that it killed so much, more that it acted to interdict the enemy. Suprresive fire, that kind of thing. Ihibit manouvre in particular. Moreover the text that we were given had predecesors that extended all the way back to WWII. In the earlier part of WWII, you have a point about doctrine, but from about 1942 the allies began to develop their doctrine. in this regard your assertion isnt correct. They did have a doctrne. i know this because I was trained using a derived version of that doctrine.
I dont agree that there was no specialized aircraft for support. Certainly the Allied air forces wer more versatile and wide ranging in capability compared to the germans, and certainly they used aircraft that were adapte from other roles...aircraft like the A-20, the Hurricane, Typhoon and mosquito. But these aircraft once selected for ground support were modified in different ways to undertake that mission. Some were more successful than other.
Saying there was a battle to the death between the allied armed services is an overstatement. The allied command structure was always one where there were disagreements, but decisions were always reached about courses of action. By comparison, the divisions between the armed services in the German army were monumental, and never fully resolved. A classic example of that has to be the employment of the Luftwaffe Field Divisions. They were deployed over protests of the Army, and were decimeted as predicted. Even greater divisions existed between the SS and the Army, and the navy, well the navy.....
Yep that's why Bomber Command wasted aircraft over Germany while Coastal Command begged for a few long range planes.
Can you explain to me how that relates to your 1st post? Apart from the obvious that the RAF was wedded to the strategic bombing offensive I guess. You did mention that, but from my perspective your point seemed to be that the allies had no effective ground support arm, and no doctrine. how does not giving aircraft to Coastal Command relate to those issues.
And just to clarify, Bomber Command did eventually give aircraft to CC, after about a three month delay in 1942. this was the VLF debate, it was eventually worked out, though i admit not without loss. But as an example of poor interservice/command co-operation it pales against the Luftwaffes treatment of OKM in its quest to establish a separate naval air arm, dont you think? Relations were so bad there that the navy abandoned construction of its carrier, in large part because they couldnt get aircraft for them on anything like sensible terms.
You will always find command rivalries, thats not a uniquiely allied issue. But that wasnt your main point either, it was more about ground support and doctrine in myopinion
Yep that's why Bomber Command wasted aircraft over Germany while Coastal Command begged for a few long range planes.
Right ladies, I've pretty much seen enough. So un-twist your knickers and put the handbags away before I bring my hammer to the party.
People have differing opinions and some are obviously going to be different to yours and some of course will be so absurd as to be unbelievable and the full range have been shown in this thread and varying points. So I don't feel the need to express mine.
Either you share the sandpit like nice young children or the sandpit is taking away, rather simple isn't it...
The objection to providing long range planes to coastal command was that on average it took 7000 flying hours to destroy one submarine and also involved losses which were hard to justify. Without centimetric radar a submarine is a pin in a haystack.
You said ''The allied command structure was always one where there were disagreements, but decisions were always reached about courses of action.'' .This little disagreement needlessly cost them high losses in the most important theater (for Britain ) .As for ground attack both RAF and USAAF had to improvise during the war.
I dont think any command structure in history has never made a huge foul up, the allied command certainly made a few but not as many as the opposition in my opinion.
How does that connect to your previous post? .
****... However, if rear tank in use 109K (+115 liter), it still has 256 liters in tank. Enough for 1,21 h / 621 km (386 miles) at 316mph/510 km/h, OR 2 h/ 807 km/501 miles at slower most economic cruise 410 km/h....
Hello Ctrian
of course it was the answer to your comment "It's the most complete study and air attacks are mentioned as a nuisance not decisive.Artillery was decisive in that battle."
We have no argument on that, especially because of the timing of the Ardennes Offensive, extensive period of bad weather on winter time, which in itself means less daytime. And attack area heavily wooded. All these factors lessen the effect of WWII airpower.
As I wrote, even during mid-summer 44, when there is hardly any nighttime here up north, Finns thought that massive Soviet artillery fire (200 guns, biggest were 12" (305mm) coastal artillery guns, per attack kilometer at the beginning of the breakthrough attack, had more effect than those over 1300 Soviet a/c that supported the attack which at the beginning hit 10km sector of Finnish main defensive line. But as I have wrote, much depended on terrain.
Quote:" Were the allied ground attack planes decisive or not?"
Sometimes they were sometimes not, same goes to LW and VVS CAS, much depended on weather and terrain and also the quality of the defensive troops and nature of the defensive system. Much of the effect of the artillery fire or air support was psychological and that effect was smaller against good quality troops than against less motivated troops. But with enough fire superiority one was capable to break through with good probability. At Dompaire P-47s clearly were very effective, all sides agree on that; north of Vire, during Tiger counter-attack (102nd SS sPzAbt IIRC) against the armoured recon battalion (2nd Northamps Yeomanry IIRC) of UK 11th Armoured Div they were not, partly because of hesitation by the FOO, who first weaved between use of Typhoons on cab rank and use of field artillery on call.
Quote:"Were they more survivable than slow Stuka when faced with german AA?"
First of all being faster and after dropping its offensive load being capable to look after itself FB needed less escort resources than Ju 87 or Il-2 in a similar air situation, so at least on that sense it was more effective. Against AA, if we compare losses of Kampfverband Kuhlmey when it operated over Karelian Istmus 16 June – 5 Aug 44, its I./SG 3's total losses were 17 Ju 87Ds, of which 4 in Soviet attack on its base Immola while it flew 1199 sorties and dropped appr. 540tons of bombs, 1./SG's total losses were 8 Fw 190s, of which 2 in Soviet attack on its base Immola, while flying 507 sorties and dropping 232,7 tons of bombs. There was a clear difference in badly dam planes, 11 Ju 87s (3 in Immola) vs 1 Fw 190, which was damaged in Immola. At least almost all air losses were to Soviet AA (all FAF bomber losses over Karelian Isthmus during Summer 44 were to AA)
Who thinks that all AFs had same requirements? At least I don't. But you made a rather silly claim, that LW had no need for longer range fighter than 109F-K. Clearly they had, at least in the East for those strategic attacks on Soviet industry and for those convoy attacks in Med and against Arctic convoys. One can always argued relative merits of different requirements and what would have been optimum solution to them but surely Heer which was overwhelmed by massive artillery and tank attacks supported by swarms of Soviet a/c would not mind if LW strategic bombing against Soviet industry would have been more effective. Of course a longer range LW fighter would have meant fewer 109s and it was common thought that good long range air superiority fighter was impossible but for ex. Zero and P-51 showed that could be achieved.
Allied AFs cordoned Normandy battlefield fairly effectively, slowing the arrival of reinforcements and supply items and so had significant effect on the land war and as happened at Dompaire the Allied FB attacks could be very devastating even against Panthers when the tanks were caught in fairly open terrain. It might well be that Ju 87Gs, Hs 129Bs or Il-2s were not at least much more effective in reality, one must remember that pilots' claims are only claims. Hs 129B was IMHO too specialicied, of course as twin engine plane the big gun could be centrally mounted but on the other hand the protection of its engines was not good enough to made it almost totally invulnerable against rifle calibre fire, IMHO if one went to armoured plane the Il-2 solution was better, it was almost totally invulnerable against rifle calibre fire, giving good moral boost to its pilots and having depressive impact on enemy infantry. Of course Hs 129B had its pros but IMHO it was not very cost-effective answer to CAS problem.
Juha
Hello Ctrian
Quote:"Yep that's why Bomber Command wasted aircraft over Germany while Coastal Command begged for a few long range planes."
And how that differs from KM's demands even a few more long range planes, in fact German naval aviation was even less well equipped than CC most of the war. At the beginning CC was in bad situation because of Beaufort programwas running late because of development problems and both Botha and Lerwick were total failures.
Juha