The overlooked importance of designated bomber types in air to air

Man why did Dogfights ever go off the air... I loved that show. It's the only aviation military history that didn't drive me crazy with inaccuracies, and it was so well done.

Schweik said:

the Russians eventually required the recovery of the identity plate from the shot down plane!)

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So some 39000 to 58000 identity plates laying around somewhere in Russia? Unless they've been melted down.

"Dogfights" both seasons available on DVD.

Somewhere in my junk I have the report of the first U.S. fighter aces convention in Cal where they invited other country's flyers to attend. There was a picture of a B-24 tail gunner and a Japanese fighter pilot who thought they had shot each other down. The fighter pilot set fire to the bomber (it went out and they got home) and he claimed it shot down while the gunner set fire to the attacking fighter and last saw it going down on fire. He claimed it shot down. The Japanese pilot dove the fighter through clouds and later put out the fire in the dive and made it home. There was a photo of a large American with his arm around a small Japanese saying" I'm glad I didn't kill such a fine man".

Attached is a scan of the Stan Stokes painting.

Stig1207 said:

So some 39000 to 58000 identity plates laying around somewhere in Russia? Unless they've been melted down.

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Did I suggest such a thing? Did I quote a number? Did I say when (what year) this policy started or where precisely? This was the policy they adopted, if you find it offensive, take it up with them. I'm sure they do have a lot of aircraft identity plates as a result.

Soviet policy also did not count German losses that were claimed over enemy lines, unless the crash site was later recovered by Soviet troops. This didn't make it infallable, as they still overclaimed like everybody else. I think it probably reduced the rate though.

Why the notion of thousands (probably not 58000 but I suspect quite a lot) of identity plates bein in Russia would be shocking I have no idea. I know there is an enormous amount of German war booty, relics and materiel of all kinds still to be found in Russia. They dig up Iron Crosses and Mg 42's in the vicinity of Stalingrad on a routine basis to cite just one example. Hell when I was stationed in Bavaria in the 80's they found two crates of MG 42s packed in cosmoline or some equivalent and still functional. In a lake.

Incredible amount of WWII battlefield relics still being found on the Eastern Front

You can even buy the stuff online, I'm sure you'd love an Iron Cross for your collection

The Stalingrad Front: WW2 Soviet and German militaria

Speaking of overclaiming, I noticed this interesting section on the wiki:

The Luftwaffe's aerial victory confirmation procedure was based on directive 55270/41 named "Confirmation of aerial victories, destructions and sinking of ships" (German: Anerkennung von Abschüssen, Zerstörungen und Schiffsvernichtung) and was issued by the Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe. This directive was first issued in 1939 and was updated several times during World War II.[2] In theory, this approval process for the confirmation of aerial victories was very stringent and required a witness.[3] The final destruction or explosion of an enemy aircraft in the air, or bail-out of the pilot, had to be observed either on gun-camera film or by at least one other human witness. The witness could be the German pilot's wingman, another in the squadron, or an observer on the ground.[3]

In the 1990s, the German archives made available microfilm rolls of wartime records, not seen since January 1945, available to the public.[4] These showed that while in theory the Luftwaffe did not accept a kill without a witness, which was considered only a probable, in practice some units habitually submitted unwitnessed claims and these sometimes made it through the verification process, particularly if they were made by pilots with already established records.[4] In theory the Luftwaffe did not accept shared claims, but it happened. In theory each separate claim should have referred to a particular aircraft, but in practice some victories were awarded to other pilots who had claimed the destruction of the same aircraft.[4] In 1943 the daily OKW communiques of this period habitually overstated American bomber losses by a factor up to two. Defenders of German fighter pilots have always maintained that these were reduced during the confirmation process. But the microfilms prove this not to be the case.[4] 80 to 90 percent of the claims submitted were confirmed or found to be "in order" for confirmation up to the time the system broke down altogether in 1945.[4]

(bold added by me)

Overstating bomber losses seems a bit gratuitous since one assumes most of the bombers fell on German territory and therefore they should have been able to count the wrecks (not matter how many pilots claimed the shoot down, whether flak got them or not etc.).

S

May I add an a brief unconfirmed story from a friend stationed in Germany from 1959-63. Being from south Louisiana, hung with three guys from Florida who also were divers. They also heard stories of guns in Bavarian lakes. Eventually they pulled up barrels filled with oil and some were all Mausers which they resealed and resank but the ones which had pistols, mostly P-38s or Lugers, were sold for 15 dollars each to other G.I.s. I know it is not truly this thread, but you triggered a memory.

special ed said:

May I add an a brief unconfirmed story from a friend stationed in Germany from 1959-63. Being from south Louisiana, hung with three guys from Florida who also were divers. They also heard stories of guns in Bavarian lakes. Eventually they pulled up barrels filled with oil and some were all Mausers which they resealed and resank but the ones which had pistols, mostly P-38s or Lugers, were sold for 15 dollars each to other G.I.s. I know it is not truly this thread, but you triggered a memory.

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Yeah I was stationed there in the 80's and that kind of thing had been going on since right after the war. It had slowed down a bit when I was there but they still found something every few months or so which would be on AFN news. Sometimes they found entire military vehicles. There was an active trade in all such artifacts needless to say.

There is, by the way, still an active industry of recovering and repairing / refitting WW2 military vehicles, especially German ones, in Eastern Europe

The salvagers who raise World War Two tanks from the dead

Recently when there were forest fires near Berlin the firefighters had to stay out of the woods because of all the unexploded grenades and mines going off.

Exploding World War II ammo slows firefighters as forests outside Berlin burn

We (especially in the US) tend to think of the War as so far back in time it was another era, but it really wasn't that long ago and still casts a long shadow, particularly in Europe and Russia. In the Far East too.

Schweik said:

Did I suggest such a thing? Did I quote a number? Did I say when (what year) this policy started or where precisely? This was the policy they adopted, if you find it offensive, take it up with them. I'm sure they do have a lot of aircraft identity plates as a result

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The 'low' number I mentioned comes from the foreword to Christer Bergstrom's Black Cross/ Red Star , the high number I believe was given post war by a high standing Soviet officer.

Btw, there is no need for you to lecture me about Luftwaffe overclaiming; I am quite familiar with the subject.

As a follow on to the artifacts story, the friend (US army) was involved in a joint exercise with the West German army about 60 or 61. There was a no-go wooded area prohibited to both sides. As a corporal, he was selected as a runner. Radio comm was "out" so old fashioned runners carried messages. He and I had been Civil Air Patrol cadets in the fifties and were taught to improvise. Urgency was stressed, so when out of sight, he left rifle, stripped to tee shirt and ran through the prohibited woods allowing his unit to score well. On these trips he came on Large semi under ground hangars covered with earth and trees. He told me that standing on end , leaning against the walls he recognized 109 and 190 wings standing in the water. One other trip he said one hangar was empty except for a small sewing machine assembling business. We didn't know then, but since Willy Messerschmitt's first business after the war was making sewing machines, could this have been it?

After the war, Messerschmitt manufactured bubble cars at their old Regensburg plant. I also seem to recall that the firm also experimented with pre-fab houses.

Many years ago a man I'd met who had been to Germany in the USAF and said there was a airfield where the Germans had come up with a clever way to disguise it. They would flood the runways and apron with water, giving it the appearance of a lake. The hangar had a retractable floor so they could lower the airplanes down to hide them. He said you look down and see FW-190's and BF-109's that were still down there, under water, since the mechanisms had long since failed.

michael rauls said:

This is something I have seen referenced only rarely in books and internet articles. As a matter a fact outside of this forum I have only seen two references to it in my entire life, one anecdotal and one statistical. The anecdote was an interview with Franz Stigler in which he stated he shot down eleven four engine bombers and was shot down or had his plane shot up badly eleven times by four engine bombers.
The statistical reference was a positive kill/loss ratio claimed for the SBD in Barrett Tillmans book The Dauntless.
Both of these things would seem to point to designated bomber types as substantial factor in air to air atrition but outside these two references I have never read anything in the media about it so I'm not really sure.
Would love to hear facts, statistics, and peoples thoughts on this.

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Here I am at the back of the cyber classroom again!

The figure of 138 aerial victories for SBDs that I cited in my first book (1976!) was from the postwar Naval Aviation statistical summary. That was of course before the internet, but at one time semi-recently Naval History & Heritage Command's website had much if not all of the document.

Hasten to add: claimed victories almost NEVER match the actuality. The reasons are well known: confusion, optimism, ambition, etc. But suffice to say that the Dauntless could handle itself in particular instances (I knew Swede Vejtasa, who BTW never claimed 3 Coral Sea kills) far better than the Axis entries. Wildcats and Hellcats snacked on Vals while Spits and Hurricanes scooped up Stukas and asked for seconds.

I think there's an Osprey "Duel" series volume on SBDs air-air but I've not seen it.