Tank busters for the air forces?

Don't forget the Steckrübewurf tactic described above for the Fw 190 F was pioneered with Ju 87s, in other words: they also used level attacks on tanks (sometimes).

davebender said:

That probably has a lot do do with poor accuracy.

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The RAF considered a steep dive essential for bombing accuracy for a fighter bomber,which was essentially aiming through a gun sight.

The Luftwaffe had been "lobbing" bombs since the beginning of the war. It was certainly a method used by Bf109 Jabos in 1940. This was referred to in a document I have somewhere about the positioning of airfield defences. It was not done from anything like 30' though.

Cheers
Steve

If that's true then why not take the next step to produce proper dive bombers as Germany did? Dive brakes and a proper dive bomber sight (i.e. not gun sight) work with the steep dive to further improve bombing accuracy.

I've already proposed the A-36/S class combo

What about a couple of late variant 3,000 hp 24 cylinder napier sabre,s! that,d give it some oomph.

Dive bombers come down slowly and are very vulnerable to AA fire plus there were few targets that a dive bomber would be much better at hitting compared to a fighter bomber.

Not necessarily true. Rudel clearly states that dive brakes weren't used when flak was heavy.

Flak isn't always heavy. That's when dive brakes make a difference in weapons accuracy.

Whether dive brakes are used or not, a proper bomb sight always makes a difference in accuracy.

parsifal said:

Sydney's aircraft, in total, killed 1428 troops, destroyed 7 armoured vehicles(my mistake.....I didnt recall correctly, or perhaps the reference to 80 tanks is the claimed casualty number, and 7 is the actual number) ,

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There is no way that a stat like the number of Communist tanks destroyed by UN a/c in a particular area was firmly known in that period of the war. Any number you see in such a source is a UN side estimate, not a count of wrecks by a survey team, nor the result of a communications intercept or humint with that kind of detail. If there are various conflicting numbers I'd assume it was some kind of mistake.

Then you widen the discussion to aerial weapons' effectiveness v targets like small coastal craft, trucks, oxcarts, etc. These were all targets a lot more vulnerable than tanks. Rocket near misses, .50cal/20mm strafing, or medium bombs with CEP's 10's-few 100' could destroy such soft targets. They could not as often destroy tanks (like a T-34-85). That took rocket direct hits, *very* near medium bomb misses, and .50cal/20mm fire could only do it by fluke, though it happened.

Then you further widen the discussion to the overall UN interdiction effort in Korea, much bigger topic. But suffice it to say that just as the specific types of operations and claims you mention for the RAN air units are virtually identical to those of CVE/CVL borne USMC F4U squadrons and FAA air groups which rotated through the same operations, the disbelief of airmen that the enemy could rebuild and keep operating his transportation system under those attacks is common to not only those carrier based operations over southwestern NK, but all UN air interdiction.

But also as you mention in your excerpt, the UN command concluded that Strangle was a failure. Intel and recon they had showed that, whatever the enemy vehicle losses actually were, or bridges the opposing armies and their large civilian manual labor forces had to bypass, rail cuts repair, tunnel entrances clear, the Communist armies got adequate supplies for their needs in semi static warfare. And studies showed that the all-in cost to deliver say a 100# bomb to cut a rail line was a multiple of what it cost the Communist forces to fix it. Attempts to interdict German supplies in the static Italian theater 1943-45 also basically failed. OTOH air could have a much more dramatic affect on the higher and more time sensitive logistics needs of mobile warfare, which were also harder to conceal. The opening campaign in Korea as well as the France campaign of '44 were examples, besides coincidentally being cases with good studies of real a/c results v tanks.

Joe

There is no way that a stat like the number of Communist tanks destroyed by UN a/c in a particular area was firmly known in that period of the war. Any number you see in such a source is a UN side estimate, not a count of wrecks by a survey team, nor the result of a communications intercept or humint with that kind of detail. If there are various conflicting numbers I'd assume it was some kind of mistake.

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No its not a UN side estimate, its based on multiple sources according to langs article, including the findings of the US army's Leopard Intellibence teams and this organzation called "CBAL" (which i am not exactly it is), post war analysis amd aerial recon undertaken by 21 CAG and the photo recon unit attached to 91 Composite Wing (RAAF) . Lang is at pains to show that the figures come from multiple sources, he points out the weakness and strengths of those sources and at the end of the day consistently adopts the most conservative figures that can reasonably be deduced from the available figures. Your comment suggests they are based on a snapshot taken at the time, but this is clearly not the case.

Then you widen the discussion to aerial weapons' effectiveness v targets like small coastal craft, trucks, oxcarts, etc. These were all targets a lot more vulnerable than tanks. Rocket near misses, .50cal/20mm strafing, or medium bombs with CEP's 10's-few 100' could destroy such soft targets.

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Agreed, I have looked at the total effect....but these are force multipliers that in the end affect the ability of the armour to function. I was more concerned in the finish to try and address the over accuracy of FB operations, as it was clear that you were right and direct effects on armour by RP was quite limited. I dont see anything wrong or sinister or innappropriate approaching the issue that way.

Your method of research, based on our earlier discussions about other subjects is basically a ground up approach...."look at the trees, and from that you should be able to determine the size of the forest" so to speak. That is a valid approach, and produces good results, generally, but another methodology can be used, and to use the same metaphor is basically "look at the forest, and you can determine the effects of individual trees". basically a top down approach. Both methods have their validities and weaknesses. This assessment is more a "top down" assessment, so i expect you are not going to approve of it.

The amount of ordinance is known....802 bombs dropped 1600 sorties flown, 240-600 rounds of 20mm ammunition carried per sortie, 1500 offensive sorties out of a total of 2500 and 240000 rounds expended in total (estimate that 150000 rounds expended on offensive missions). How many rounds of 20mm ammunition are needed to knock out 1 man or a sampan or an oxcart. No way of knowing, but if you guesstimate 30 seconds of firing time per target, and ther are 4 x 20mm firing @ 500 rpm, then a plausible figure is 1000 rounds per target. A reasonable allowance for the number of targets destroyed by cannon fire would be in the vicinity of 150-300 of those 1400 targets destroyed (and still i have not attempted to make allowance in the ordinance expenditure for the persdonnel casualties). But then, if we are going to do that then we have to also estimate how many of those 401 bombing runs actually hit. at the moment, i have assumed all 401 hit and destroyed their targets. thats a strike rate of 100%. lets be optimistic but a little more realistic and assign a hit rate of 20% for the free fall bombs, and also be optimistic and allow 300 targets destroyed by the cannon fire. Calculating that out, you get the following targets destroyed by the following ordinance types

Cannon.....approx 300
Bombs......approx 80-160...say 160 to be as optimistic as we can be (and as hard on the RPs as possible and still be in the realm of rationality)

that leaves 900-1000 targets still unaaccounted. since no other type of ordinance exists, other than the RPs , we have to conclude that the RPs destroyed that 1000 targets and thats a hit rate of 14-15.8%

This analyis obviously challenges the asserions that rockets only hit 5% or less of the targets. So be it. Those figures (5%) are no more reliable than my figure (15%). Its a matter of what you want to believe i guess. The data is the data. if that blows the preconceptions out of the water, so be it....it called operational research

They could not as often destroy tanks (like a T-34-85). That took rocket direct hits, *very* near medium bomb misses, and .50cal/20mm fire could only do it by fluke, though it happened.

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no argument there. The report states only 7 AFVs destroyed, which is entirely consistent with what you are saying.....the RAAF report I mentioned (which i believe now may be based on the UN claims you are running down) do say 80 AFVs destroyed.....but the RAN only claims 7, yet the RAN contributed 3 sqns to the battle, for 5.5 months, whilst the RAAF committed one wing of just one squadron for 3 years (I think...havent checked)

Then you further widen the discussion to the overall UN interdiction effort in Korea, much bigger topic. But suffice it to say that just as the specific types of operations and claims you mention for the RAN air units are virtually identical to those of CVE/CVL borne USMC F4U squadrons and FAA air groups which rotated through the same operations, the disbelief of airmen that the enemy could rebuild and keep operating his transportation system under those attacks is common to not only those carrier based operations over southwestern NK, but all UN air interdiction.

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I agree, but your point is....in actual fact it is not true that "all UN air interdiction suffered friom this problem. The RAN was critical of the losses and the results of Strangle from the very beginning. i believe the Brits were of a similar opinion. The problem lies in the US command and the friction that existed between the 5th AF and the USN. It depends on who you read as to whether the results of Strangle (in US military) eyes was a success or a failure. The CW always believed it to be a strategic failure, but a tactical success....the Communists were having a hard time with their logistics, but they overcame those difficulties, and the cost of maintining the blockade became very high. it was the cost, not the ability to hit or miss that cause d the campaign to be discontinued.

But also as you mention in your excerpt, the UN command concluded that Strangle was a failure. Intel and recon they had showed that, whatever the enemy vehicle losses actually were, or bridges the opposing armies and their large civilian manual labor forces had to bypass, rail cuts repair, tunnel entrances clear, the Communist armies got adequate supplies for their needs in semi static warfare. And studies showed that the all-in cost to deliver say a 100# bomb to cut a rail line was a multiple of what it cost the Communist forces to fix it. Attempts to interdict German supplies in the static Italian theater 1943-45 also basically failed. OTOH air could have a much more dramatic affect on the higher and more time sensitive logistics needs of mobile warfare, which were also harder to conceal. The opening campaign in Korea as well as the France campaign of '44 were examples, besides coincidentally being cases with good studies of real a/c results v tanks.

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The "UN" command in this statement should be substituted by the "US" command. "Strangle" was not judged a (military) failure as such by anyone except the 5th AF, and they had a political reason for saying that. Other non-US commands believed the strategy to be a qualified but expensive success. only the air force, with the USN firmly in its sights judged the airstrikes themselves to be a failure, according to Lang. its very illuminating to see that after Strangle was cancelled it was replaced by a different initiative, that emphasised massive strategic strikes against the frontline, run by , you guessed it, the AF. This was judged a failure (or at least no more successful) by all except the USAF. A great deal of care needs to be excercised when relying on reports from the US military at this time....there was alsmost as much fighting going on between the navy and the air force as there was between the UN and Communists. Lang notes that as well

davebender said:

If that's true then why not take the next step to produce proper dive bombers as Germany did? Dive brakes and a proper dive bomber sight (i.e. not gun sight) work with the steep dive to further improve bombing accuracy.

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It's a matter of doctrine. The RAF,a newly independent service,rejected the whole concept of close air support during the inter-war period.The air support that the RAF was trained and equipped to provide in 1939 was "Army Cooperation" and this emphasised reconnaissance. Fighter cover and bomber support for the BEF in France was provided by the few squadrons sent to France which formed the "Air Component" of fighter and reconnaissance squadrons attached to the BEF and an independent "Advanced Air Striking Force" (AASF) of light bomber squadrons. Both remained under RAF control under "British Air Forces in France Command" (BAFF) under Air Marshall Sir Arthur Barrat.
There was a lengthy and convoluted command structure which proved useless in the face of the highly mobile warfare of 1940.

During WW2 senior airmen were determined to avoid a commitment to support the Army.They felt that the such a comittment could lead to the loss of the RAF's relatively new found independent status and that it was a misuse of air power. It wasn't until May 1941,having seen the way the Luftwaffe supported the German Army that the War Office demanded that the RAF be equipped and prepared to provide similar support to the British Army. This was strongly resisted by the Air Ministry and the Director of Plans (Air Vice-Marshall Slessor) who condemned the Army's tendency to ask the RAF to do what it should be doing itself,saying that it was the job of the Army's anti-tank weapons to destroy enemy tanks on the battlefield (he was right). The role of the RAF was,he said,to prevent enemy forces operating due to shortages of fuel,food and ammunition (he was at least partly right again).

Having totally rejected the concept of CAS they were hardly likely to develop an aircraft that specialised in this role. Infact it was in 1941 that the Air Ministry rejected the idea of dive bombers,pointing out that the Army's perceived omnipetence of the Ju87 was illusory and due to local German air superiority.The RAF was well aware of just how vulnerable these aircraft were when unprotected from their experiences in the BoB. This appeared to the Army as yet another example of incalcitrance from the junior service and led to demands for a seperate Army air arm (Alanbrooke was a major proponent of such a scheme).

The result of all this was that in 1943-45 the RAF had no dive bombers and none of the aircraft providing CAS to the Army had been originally developed for that role.

Cheers
Steve

May 1941,having seen the way the Luftwaffe supported the German Army that the War Office demanded that the RAF be equipped and prepared to provide similar support to the British Army. This was strongly resisted by the Air Ministry

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Sounds like the RAF were determined to fight their own war independent of the British Army. And apparently the RAF had enough political clout to get away with it.

The RAF consdered dive bombers to be vulnerable to AA fire and fighters. Fighters by this time were starting to carry similar payloads to divebombers and were almost as effective in a number of roles so the luxury of a single use aircraft was considered to be a luxury.

davebender said:

Sounds like the RAF were determined to fight their own war independent of the British Army. And apparently the RAF had enough political clout to get away with it.

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They were and to a large extent they did get away with it.
By 1943 they were developing better ways of providing CAS to the Army,in particular a more streamlined chain of command and communications system which enabled them to respond quickly to Army requests. It is still far too complicated to explain in an easy post!
It is fair to say that most senior airmen did not consider this a fruitful use of air power,even post invasion and into 1945.
Cheers
Steve

At least Britain has an excuse - air force and army were seperate service branches.

U.S. heavy bomber barons acted much like their British counterparts yet they were still part of the U.S. Army. Not sure how they got away with that.

davebender said:

At least Britain has an excuse - air force and army were seperate service branches.

U.S. heavy bomber barons acted much like their British counterparts yet they were still part of the U.S. Army. Not sure how they got away with that.

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There was a voracious separatist attitude within the AAC, exemplified by men such as Mitchell. Immediately after the war, the USAF was formed, and if anything that inferiority complex about being the junior service got much worse. the USAF went after the USN (the other big operator of fixed wing a/c) with a vengeance. They had in their sights on carrier borne avaition. The rivalry and internecie bickering did not really abate until after Korea.

It seems to me that both the USAAF avoidance of dive bombers and morseo the RAF's avoidance of dive bombers was purely political, they were avoided precisely because they wanted to avoid embroilmen in spending money on providing close air support not because of their at that time theorectical vulnrabillity. No such conflictural or doctrinal problem existed in the Luftwaffe or the Nazi system of division of effort between Army and Luftwaffe.

Dive bombers would certainly have been usefull to the allies and in fact the Navies of both the British and United States had effective models that could have been borrowed. I regard the justification of not developing them because that they were 'too vulnerable' as a case of the tail wagging the dog. Nothing could be more vulnerable than a Fairy Battle or Blenheim.

The key to the succesfull use of dive bombers like the Ju 87 was simple: don't use them for deep penetration missions; only use them for combat air support close to the front lines and do provide them escorts to keep fighters of their back and help supress local AAA defenses if the target is well defended.

The Luftwaffe and Goerings big failure was in lack of support for the Germany navy. The Ju 87 did a reasonable job, as did the Ju 88 as both a dive and torpedo bomber however as a long range figher the Ju 88 didn't cut it nor was the FW 200 survivable.

It seems to me that both the USAAF avoidance of dive bombers and morseo the RAF's avoidance of dive bombers was purely political, they were avoided precisely because they wanted to avoid embroilmen in spending money on providing close air support not because of their at that time theorectical vulnrabillity. No such conflictural or doctrinal problem existed in the Luftwaffe or the Nazi system of division of effort between Army and Luftwaffe.

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Substantially sio, but not purely so. The RAF viewed the vulnerability of types like the Ju87 and determined that divebombers were too vulnerable to flak and fighters. Fighter Bombers offered a far higher level of survivability and were "good enough" when it came to general targets. Not a lot needed to be done to a Fighter to make it a fighter bomber, so there were advantages in terms of production.

On the other hand you are absolutely right that the RAF rejected dedicated ground support as a role until the war was well under way, and that was driven by the political motivations of the RAFs top brass.

The Luftwaffe and Goerings big failure was in lack of support for the Germany navy.

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It was not their only big failing by a long shot, though it was one of the bigger ones. Turning east before the job was complete in the west was a bigger mistake. Over - use and over-elitism in the LW was another. Unfocussed R&D with little direct benefits to the war effort another. Poor integration of the economic assets another......and so on. The Luftwaffes failures were far more than just a failure to develop good co-opperation with the fleet.

The RAF considered support of the Army to be a misuse of air power. This was the fundamental doctrinal problem. The points that Slessor and Embry raised in the correspondence around the memorandum "Use of Bombers in Close Support of The Army" regarding the vulnerability of dive bombers (Embry stated explicitly that the scale an intensity of German anti aircraft fire was such as to make CAS prohibitive with a potential casualty rate amongst aircraft out of all proportion to results achieved) were really just reinforcing that fundamental view. This discussion took place in May 1941 and the huge losses of,for example,Fairey Battles attacking German columns would have been fresh in Embry's mind.

Parsifal is correct about the seperatist attitude within the USAAC/USAAF. I am less familiar with the ins and outs of the political in fighting in,or structure of,the US system but they too rejected dive-bombers for similar reasons.

The installation of bomb racks on pursuit (fighter) aircraft was prohibited between 1936 and 1938 and as late as 1941 the Plans Division of the Air Corps remained opposed to any modification of such aircraft for ground support operations.

US War Department Field Manual 100-20 "Command and Employment of Air Power" (May 1943) prioritises mission types. First was the need to secure air superiority,second attacks on enemy troop concentrations,supplies and communications OUTSIDE the battle area. Third and last was Close Air Support which came with the warning that such missions would be difficult to control,expensive,and least effective,being appropriate only at critical periods. This is just a year before the invasion!
Cheers
Steve

Siegfried said:

Dive bombers would certainly have been usefull to the allies and in fact the Navies of both the British and United States had effective models that could have been borrowed. I regard the justification of not developing them because that they were 'too vulnerable' as a case of the tail wagging the dog. Nothing could be more vulnerable than a Fairy Battle or Blenheim.

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In 1939/40 I do totally agree with you on this. The RAF could have done a lot worse than replace the Battle with the Skua

Glider said:

In 1939/40 I do totally agree with you on this. The RAF could have done a lot worse than replace the Battle with the Skua

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For the reasons I've explained variously above this was never going to happen.

However,as a what if,it would have failed in 1939/40 for various reasons. First and foremost the cumbersome command system meant that the RAF could not respond to an Army request in a useful time frame.

For example a request was made at 8.30 am on 20th May 1940 for the bombing of German armoured columns approaching the Canal du Nord near Bapaume.The RAF appeared at 11.30 am by which time the leading German units were across the canal and advancing on the other side. This three hour time lag is not atypical,it is about average,and useless on the 1940's battlefield.

Secondly how would the RAF protect these dive bombers? They needed protection and the few Hurricane squadrons in France could barely protect themselves. The need to protect dive bombers was regarded as a serious disadvantage militating against there use in the Arakan Campaign in the Far East later in the war.

Most historians (with the noteable exception of Peter Smith who is an unrepentant supporter of the type) agree that the decision not to develop a specialised dive bomber for the RAF in 1941-2 was the correct one.

Cheers
Steve