Things happen in discussions that dont happen in real life. Ike didnt ask "do we have air superiority" the day before D-Day in order to decide whether to go ahead. There had been massive efforts of all sorts from the combined bomber offensive to the fortitude deception plans to ensure air and ground "tank" superiority. Ike was as sure as anyone could be that he had the assets to maintain air superiority over the beach head, that is the LW would not be able to substantially interfere with the landing. Since the second Colossus code breaking machine came on line just before and Ike had the ull German order of battle, plus confirmation that Hitler was swallowing the deception of D-Day being a diversion. I dont think Eisenhower could have been more certain that he would have air superiority, his biggest worry was the weather.
What if the Luftwaffe gained air superiority during d-day?
- Thread starter Venomstick121
- Start date
Where have you been, everyone knows that, dont they?
cherry blossom
Senior Airman
- 556
- Apr 23, 2007
One interesting whatif is if the Me 262 was developed as a bomber and developed much faster because the Jumo 004A was put into production at the cost of reducing U-boat production. Had these bombers been equipped with the Bombentorpedo Information on German Bomben Torpedos, they could have dropped their bombs at fairly high speeds with a reasonable chance of damaging ships.
I suspect that Hitler was thinking of this scenario when asking that the Me 262 should be developed as a bomber but didn't get the details across to his subordinates.
Now I leave it to all you sceptics to work out how many bombers would be needed to have an effect, how hard it would be to train the pilots and whether their airfields might have been attacked to blunt the weapon. I would add that the Arado 234 would have made the last less effective as it had a longer range.
I suspect that Hitler was thinking of this scenario when asking that the Me 262 should be developed as a bomber but didn't get the details across to his subordinates.
Now I leave it to all you sceptics to work out how many bombers would be needed to have an effect, how hard it would be to train the pilots and whether their airfields might have been attacked to blunt the weapon. I would add that the Arado 234 would have made the last less effective as it had a longer range.
I am not a sceptic, I am just amazed it didnt happen, such a simple, elegant solution.
Howard Gibson
Staff Sergeant
Me262s were also held up by development problems with the jet engines. I don't think there was a path to clouds of Me262s on D-Day.
Interesting thread about the BT's, hadn't heard of those.
Anyway, for a bit of napkin calculations, if about 4000 ships participated in the landing, and assuming a 20% casualty rate (sunk or crippled ships) would be required to cause the Allies to abort and turn back, that means the Germans need to cripple or sink 800 ships. If we further assume a success rate of 25% for a strike mission, it means the Germans would need to launch 3200 BT-equipped Me262 missions. Even if we assume every Me262 has time to do two missions (the time window is relatively short, presumably once the Allies start to unload men and equipment on the beachheads truly catastrophical casualties would be required to abort), that still means 1600 operational aircraft.
I don't think the Germans had more than a couple hundred Me262's operational at any point in the war, let alone mid 44.
The D-Day fleet was notoriously trigger happy and opened up on everything, they used P-38s close to it just because they looked different. My uncle was part o a team of Brits from the RoC put on US "liberty" flak ships to call "friend or foe" to the gunners. What type of BT could a 262 carry? s far as I can see it would be the smallest if at all. The advantage of a 262 is its high speed, which is no help at all picking out a target in a fleet of vessels shrouded in smoke and mist. Germany had a force of tanks that could have caused a disaster at D-Day if they used them or tried to use them. In fact they didnt use them and until days after the landing they were moving some towards Calais where they believed the main attack was coming. If an air force of 262s existed they would have done the same with that. The LW did have a force of aircraft that could drop bombs and torpedoes, they used it and lost it in the "baby blitz" Operation Steinbock 21 Jan to 29 May 1944. From Wiki losses as follows .
270 Junkers Ju 88s[2]
121 Dornier Do 217s[2]
35 Junkers Ju 188s[2]
46 Heinkel He 177As[2]
27 Messerschmitt Me 410s[2]
25 Focke-Wulf Fw 190s[2]
270 Junkers Ju 88s[2]
121 Dornier Do 217s[2]
35 Junkers Ju 188s[2]
46 Heinkel He 177As[2]
27 Messerschmitt Me 410s[2]
25 Focke-Wulf Fw 190s[2]
drgondog
Major
Negotiated Peace with West?
If the LW had air superiority over France, they also would have air superiority elsewhere, which then means the Allied Bomber Offensive failed. There is no invasion. BTW, had Eisenhower not gambled on acceptab;e weather on June 6, it is probable that the weather patterns for June may have foced postponment months anyway.
Extending air superiority loss over western Europe means that UK would be under dire threat also, futher rendering ports and Channel and North Sea lanes completely vulnerable. US and Briish air bases would also be under constant treat, along with POL.
If air superiority extends all anong the coast then U-Boat production under less threat, V-1 launch sites able to launch higher percentage.
Invading Europe by sea would seem prohibitive, Italy was World War I 're-visited' as far as ground war concerned - With overwhelming air superiority.
cherry blossom
Senior Airman
- 556
- Apr 23, 2007
I decided to come back to this after reading pbehn's informative comments on Operation Steinbock above. What this shows is that the Luftwaffe was fighting its own war without giving any thought to the overall situation. Very little thought would have told them that a successful Allied invasion of France would lead to Germany's defeat but the Luftwaffe did not make any serious plan to oppose such an invasion.
Of course the force of two engined bombers (and crews) that was expended in Operation Steinbock could not survived if they had tried to attack the invasion fleet by day. However, attacks at night might have at least caused some confusion had the crews undergone some training and had the bombers been equipped with radar (June 6th 1944 was a full moon but the weather was close to stormy) and had some technique been developed for using flares.
"But how could they know that an invasion was imminent or that it was aimed at Normandy?", I hear someone ask. Well back to the Me 262. Only a dozen Me 262s flying over the South Coast of Britain every day would be enough to roll back the curtain concealing Allied plans.
So we return to asking when the 262 could have been put into production. My guess is that production could have started very early in 1943, squadrons could have started training in Autumn 1943 and several hundred aircraft might have been available by June 1944. The Me 262 was aerodynamically ready by early 1943 and the aircraft tested by Galland in May 1943 was very similar to an early production 262 apart from the engines.
Which brings us to the engines. According to Luftwaffe Resource Center - German Luftwaffe (Air Force) from 1935-1945 - A Warbirds Resource Group Site "By Summer 1943, the Jumo 004A engine had passed several 100-hour tests, with a time between overhauls of 50 hours being achieved." The article goes on to say "However, the Jumo 004A engine proved unsuitable for full-scale production because of its considerable weight and its high utilization of strategic material (Ni, Co, Mo), which were in short supply." Now it is certainly true that cobalt was unavailable after Operation Torch. However, chromium was being imported from Turkey and nickel from Finland up to Summer 1944. Germany's molybdenum was produced at the Knaben mine in Norway and production was disrupted by air attacks in March and November 1943 but the Jumo 004A contained little molybdenum which was a critical component of armour for tanks. The Jumo 004A may have been heavier than the 004B but it was more powerful as it spun faster and its weight did not greatly reduce the performance of prototypes. It does seem likely to me that a Jumo 004A after a slight redesign to remove cobalt could have been produced from June 1943 to June 1944 in fairly large numbers without straining Germany's resources.
There is some very weak support for this in "Engines of Desperation: Jet Engines, Production and New Weapons in the Third Reich" by Hermione Giffard, Journal of Contemporary History 48(4) 821-844, 2013 which has "In the case of the jet engine, lower quality (made worse by shoddy construction work) was accepted, even recommended - as a way to ease production regardless of the known and dangerous consequences of doing so." Unfortunately, I don't know if the author meant the 004A to 004B decision or the transition from piston engines to jets and I haven't yet worked out how to get her thesis. She references Schabel's Die Illusion der Wunderwaffen but my German is poor and the parts at Die Illusion der Wunderwaffen seem to mostly say the same as Walter J. Boyne's article "Goering's Big Bungle" at Goering's Big Bungle | Air & Space Forces Magazine.
If we want to know how quickly an efficient organization can bring an aircraft into production, we can look at the Wikipedia article on a nearly exact contemporary of the Me 262:
The Cyclone-powered XF6F-1 (02981) first flew on 26 June 1942, followed by the first Double Wasp-equipped aircraft, the XF6F-3 (02982), which first flew on 30 July 1942. The first production F6F-3, powered by an R-2800-10, flew on 3 October 1942, with the type reaching operational readiness with VF-9 on USS Essex in February 1943.
Of course the force of two engined bombers (and crews) that was expended in Operation Steinbock could not survived if they had tried to attack the invasion fleet by day. However, attacks at night might have at least caused some confusion had the crews undergone some training and had the bombers been equipped with radar (June 6th 1944 was a full moon but the weather was close to stormy) and had some technique been developed for using flares.
"But how could they know that an invasion was imminent or that it was aimed at Normandy?", I hear someone ask. Well back to the Me 262. Only a dozen Me 262s flying over the South Coast of Britain every day would be enough to roll back the curtain concealing Allied plans.
So we return to asking when the 262 could have been put into production. My guess is that production could have started very early in 1943, squadrons could have started training in Autumn 1943 and several hundred aircraft might have been available by June 1944. The Me 262 was aerodynamically ready by early 1943 and the aircraft tested by Galland in May 1943 was very similar to an early production 262 apart from the engines.
Which brings us to the engines. According to Luftwaffe Resource Center - German Luftwaffe (Air Force) from 1935-1945 - A Warbirds Resource Group Site "By Summer 1943, the Jumo 004A engine had passed several 100-hour tests, with a time between overhauls of 50 hours being achieved." The article goes on to say "However, the Jumo 004A engine proved unsuitable for full-scale production because of its considerable weight and its high utilization of strategic material (Ni, Co, Mo), which were in short supply." Now it is certainly true that cobalt was unavailable after Operation Torch. However, chromium was being imported from Turkey and nickel from Finland up to Summer 1944. Germany's molybdenum was produced at the Knaben mine in Norway and production was disrupted by air attacks in March and November 1943 but the Jumo 004A contained little molybdenum which was a critical component of armour for tanks. The Jumo 004A may have been heavier than the 004B but it was more powerful as it spun faster and its weight did not greatly reduce the performance of prototypes. It does seem likely to me that a Jumo 004A after a slight redesign to remove cobalt could have been produced from June 1943 to June 1944 in fairly large numbers without straining Germany's resources.
There is some very weak support for this in "Engines of Desperation: Jet Engines, Production and New Weapons in the Third Reich" by Hermione Giffard, Journal of Contemporary History 48(4) 821-844, 2013 which has "In the case of the jet engine, lower quality (made worse by shoddy construction work) was accepted, even recommended - as a way to ease production regardless of the known and dangerous consequences of doing so." Unfortunately, I don't know if the author meant the 004A to 004B decision or the transition from piston engines to jets and I haven't yet worked out how to get her thesis. She references Schabel's Die Illusion der Wunderwaffen but my German is poor and the parts at Die Illusion der Wunderwaffen seem to mostly say the same as Walter J. Boyne's article "Goering's Big Bungle" at Goering's Big Bungle | Air & Space Forces Magazine.
If we want to know how quickly an efficient organization can bring an aircraft into production, we can look at the Wikipedia article on a nearly exact contemporary of the Me 262:
The Cyclone-powered XF6F-1 (02981) first flew on 26 June 1942, followed by the first Double Wasp-equipped aircraft, the XF6F-3 (02982), which first flew on 30 July 1942. The first production F6F-3, powered by an R-2800-10, flew on 3 October 1942, with the type reaching operational readiness with VF-9 on USS Essex in February 1943.
By late 1943 into 1944 facts ceased to be important, it was what Hitler believed that mattered. Steinbock was Hitler's idea as retaliation for the allied combined bomber offensive which was starting to take effect in late 1943. Its hard to say what effect 500 twin engined bombers could have had at D-Day, certainly more effect than Steinbock which did nothing. On 6th June with a full moon there is no actual black dark night, by moonlight you can recognise the coastline and ships at sea, the allies were able to find the "Pegasus bridge" in the "dark". There was no doubt in anyones minds that a landing would be made, the question was where and when, so any recon over UK would have confirmed what the allies had convinced Hitler, there waould be a landing in the Pas de Calais, with a diversionary landing in Normandy. Just prior to D-Day German weather reports said no landing would be possible for 2 weeks because o storms. Allied weather forecasts spotted a "window" just long enough for the landings to go ahead. When D-Day took place, much of the German high command were absent, because they believed no landing anywhere was possible, Rommel was in Germany with his wife for her birthday. However Hitler had been convinced that Normandy was a diversion and so he wouldnt release reserves to counter the landing at Normandy. Allied superiority in weather forecasting and espionage/intelligence was more significant than actual numbers of planes and tanks. Incredibly "Garbo" a double agent working for the allies was awarded the Iron Cross second class for his efforts on 29 July 1944 everything he told the Germans was either BS or true but too late to be any use. He was awarded an MBE by king George VI on 25 November. Juan Pujol García - Wikipedia
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
What else could I award?
Something with oak leaves, diamonds, and crossed cricket bats?
Andrew Arthy
Airman 1st Class
Luftflotte 3 did undertake nightly operations over the invasion area, including bombing and mining, but it was pretty costly. See below:
Night 6/7 June 1944 - 249 sorties, 11 losses
Night 7/8 June 1944 - 295 sorties, 22 losses
Night 8/9 June 1944 - 105 sorties, 4 losses
Night 9/10 June 1944 - 246 sorties, 15 losses
Night 10/11 June 1944 - 200 sorties, 16 losses
Night 11/12 June 1944 - 77 sorties, 3 losses
Night 12/13 June 1944 - 304 sorties, 19 losses
Night 13/14 June 1944 - 198 sorties, 13 losses
Cheers,
Andrew A.
First off - beware of anything that note Wikipedia as one of its sources. Wikipedia - particularly on the subject of the Second World War and German technology is incredibly unreliable - infested with everything from those believing the old wives tails to full-on Robert Arndt level S-Tier Wehraboos.
Everybody who was thinking rationally knew that a successful invasion of France would lead to Germany's defeat. Everybody who has a clue about Industrial Economy and Logistics knew that a serious Allied invasion was going to succeed. But - Germany had never, in its existence had a number of people with a good grasp of either.
The Luftwaffe certainly had a plan to deal with the upcoming Allied invasion of France. They could not handle the intense Counter-Air offensive over Western France, that made their what would be forward airfields untenable - so they stocked up the airfields, and pulled their fighter and strike units back beyond allied fighter-bomber and medium bomber range, ready to stage them forward when the Invasion came. It didn't work. Their scheme to stage the aircraft forward consisted of immediately deploying their fighters, with their Crew Chiefs stuffed in the baggage compartments, to the forward airfields - no transport aircraft, and ground transport was too slow - and effectively interdicted by the Allies - Fighter-Bombers may not have been very effective against tanks, but trucks, trains, even bicycles, could not move in daylight without getting swarmed. The result was when the German Jabos showed up, they were massacred - out of fuel, unarmed, the Crew Chiefs in the hold unable to escape, and the Pilots unwilling to abandon them. Any that did deploy were swarmed as soon as they moved.
It took weeks for those traveling by ground to get there in any organized fashion.
Now - Jumo 004 had more problems than just weight and requiring strategic materials - while there were sources of some of them, transportation was beyond difficult - the Baltic, the Mediterranean, and the Black Seas were effectively blockaded, and had been since early 1943. Land routes are long, circuitous, and, in the Eastern sections, run fairly close to the combat zones - where they not only are at risk of interdiction, but are competing with supplying the fighting.
The Jumo's compressor aerocynamics were, to put it mildly, crap. Abysmal Pressure Rise per stage, low efficency, and unstable aerodynamics that induced Compressor Stalls when exposedd to anything but ideal conditions. The hot sections weren't any better - The burners were poor (If you've got flame coming our of the back of a non-afterburning jet engine, you're Doing It Wrong - it means you're not properly burning the fuel you're pumping in) - They came up with a very clever solution to having to use lower temperature materiels - air cooled turbine blades, with cooling air ducted up through the blades - something everybody uses now. Then you fold in the German's poor record as regards Mass Production. Even when they were pushing large numbers of unusable airframes out the factory doors, quality was an issue - with their methods requiring lots of hand-fitting, very little real parts interchangability, and, due to their policies of filling out the factories with forced labor and slave labor, sabotage on a large scale.
Comparing U.S. and German experience in developing and introducing new aircraft is comparing Apple to Cumquats. First - the U.S. has a much larger industrial base, was not reliant on conscript labor, and the Hellcat was an evolutionary desigh that used proven engines and other components. The U.S. had a huge and comprehensive training system that produced pilots able to fly the airplane, fly on instruments, (This is important, more later), navigate long distances, and had combat training from veterans rotated back to the interior to pass on their experience. The Germans were trying to feed in an experimental type, with radically new engines, and an incomplete flight testing program, into a system where, even if airframes were available, pilot training was inadequate - Day Fighter Pilots received, at best, rudimentary instrument flying training, and little navigation training. Training itself was, by late 1943, at risk of being jumped by Allied fighters. The Instructors, at least those who hadn't been lost flying the Stalingrad and Tunisia aerial supply efforts, were few and far between. Veterans were retained in combat until they were casualties, and air combat training was provided by the operational units.
When Kommando Novotny finally began service tests in late summer 1944, with experienced pilots, they lost more aircraft and pilots to operational losses than combat. (And combat losses were high, as well)
As for the "dozen Me 262s flying recon over England" - where are you going to base them? The 262's not long-legged. They'd have to be based on the French Coast. Which, like pretty much all of Western Europe is under constant Photo-Recon cover. We already knew about the Me 262 at that time - and a jet base can't be concealed in that era - it required a fairly long paved runway, and the jet exhausts left unique and easily identifiable trails on the pavement. What would have happened, as happened in late 1944-45, is that those airfields would have been bombed by Allied Light and Medium Bombers on a regular basis, and Allied Fighters would be swarming around them, waiting for a jet to take off or land - where the Piston Fighters have a significant performance advantage over the jets. (Below about 250-275 mph, the Prop FIghters have a significant Excess Power advantage, which turns into higher acceleration, climb, and sustained turn rates - the slow spoolup times of the jets aren't relevant). The other most likely consequence is that the Meteor goes into squadron service earlier, and the Vampire gets higher priority.
The simplest path to this scenario is the P-51 is never re-engined with the Merlin. This eliminates the path to Allied air superiority.
Without air superiority, I believe the invasion of France looks like this:
1) The original Overlord plan takes shape with Operations Neptune and Dragoon planned as simultaneous landings.
2) Recognizing that air superiority is not guaranteed, Operation Dragoon proceeds ahead of Neptune as there is less resistance in Southern France.
3) Dragoon is a success, albeit more costly than actually occurred.
4) Allies base air forces in France and achieve control of air.
5) Neptune happens in the fall.
Without air superiority, I believe the invasion of France looks like this:
1) The original Overlord plan takes shape with Operations Neptune and Dragoon planned as simultaneous landings.
2) Recognizing that air superiority is not guaranteed, Operation Dragoon proceeds ahead of Neptune as there is less resistance in Southern France.
3) Dragoon is a success, albeit more costly than actually occurred.
4) Allies base air forces in France and achieve control of air.
5) Neptune happens in the fall.
Luftwaffe still needs to defeat the combination of P-47 + Spitfire + Tempest + P-38 fighters in the 1st half of 1944.
P-51s with then-current V-1710 will still give a good run for their money to the Luftwaffe, too.
Good as the Merlin powered Mustang was, hard to see it as THE decisive factor for air superiority during the Normandy landings.
Can they resume the LR bombing campaign as far as the P-47 escort allows it, like trying to bomb the Ruhr in the stone age for starters?
Thumpalumpacus
Colonel
I don't think the Allies would launch Overlord in the autumn, taking weather into consideration.
