Who Really Destroyed the Luftwaffe?

Shortround6 · Nov 28, 2010

tomo pauk said:
I know that not every man can fly an aircraft, let alone to fly it efficiently in presence of enemy fire. But, if 2 men (pilot + navigator/bombardier) can fly Mosquito during night and make their presence important over German-held Europe, and live to tell about that, then there is no doubt that US could've fielded something similar.

that doesn't follow. Yes, the US could have done something similar but could the US and Britain fielded ENOUGH MORE such two man teams to make up for the thousands of heavy bombers carrying roughly twice the payload you propose taking out of service?

tomo pauk said:
IIRC the main complain from General Kenney was that he lacked bombers, not that ones he commanded were of short range.

And what was his mix of bombers? All A-20s or did he have longer range bombers available?

tomo pauk said:
The targets are located just after the front line.

Where is the front line in the Pacific?

As an example in 1941 in the Philippians the B-17s had the ability to fly to Formosa and bomb the Japanese airfields with 4,000lb loads anywhere on the island. They didn't but A-20s in the same position would have been able to reach only 1/2 of Formosa while carrying 1000lb loads.
Are enemy airfields that are supporting planes bombing your ships, troops and airfields in the front line?

tomo pauk said:
Trying to use planes to get in fast and at high alt, make shallow dive and pepper enemy from lower altitude would've worked just fine.

Why don't we salt them too or use other spices?

The original idea of the turbo charged aircraft was to fly higher than the effective ceiling of the AA guns. Granted the higher speed and changing altitude complicates the firing control solution but giving the guns more time to fire and allowing more guns to shoot at you doesn't seem the best way to go about it. If you are not bombing by night you have to out dive the fighters. If you are bombing by night accuracy is going to suck.
this technique seems to be fine for nuisance raids but for actually doing a lot of damage per airplane it doesn't have that great a record. Your bomb aimer (if you are even using one) has that much less time to acquire the target and do his job.

tomo pauk said:
2 x 1200 HP, zero issues, more survivability.

Vs what? Up to 2 X 1600Hp in later P-38s. B-24s had zero issues with their engines? Some P-38 issues were with the turbo controls, those go away if you keep the same turbos but change engines? Some early P-38s were lost because only one engine had a generator. Loose that engine the electric controlled props screw up. if you don't fit dual generators to your R-1830 powered plane you haven't solved that problem. I could go on but perhaps this should have thread of it's own?

tomo pauk said:
Germans have had tens of thousands AAA pieces by 1943 and further, yet that did not stop Allies to use their air forces to a devastating effect.

Many of those tens of thousands were 20mm and 37mm were they not?
Not much good against high flyers but just the ticket for those diving attacks

tomo pauk said:
By what time the effects of strategic bombing were taking dent to the AAA it's ammo factories?

We don't really know do we?

We do know when production actually dropped but we don't know when production didn't increase as much as it might have without bombing.

As an example the Supermarine factory at Southampton was destroyed in a bombing raid but production of Spitfires didn't actually drop because the new factory at Castle Bromwich was coming on line at the time. If the Southampton factory hadn't been hit how many more Spitfires would have built in the few months after the raid?

Because production of Spitfires didn't actually decrease does that mean the Southampton raid was totally useless?

Shortround6 · Nov 28, 2010

tomo pauk said:
In other words, the bombers would lack targets in Europe/Med, within their reach? Then we are in disagreement

They lack targets that would force the Luftwaffe to fight to defend them. Giving the advantage to the Luftwaffe.

tomo pauk · Nov 28, 2010

I doubt that Luftwaffe would be sitting aside while enemy air forces are tearing apart German units installations. Including LW airbases.

Civettone · Nov 30, 2010

BombTaxi said:
Kris, I think your comments hold true for the latter stages of the war, where Germany was suffering from crippling manpower shortages. But German pilots early in the war, like their counterparts in the other belligerent nations were very highly trained. While the Nazi leadership and it's apparatchiks may have trumpeted the virtues of the Aryan warrior, the commanders of the armed forces, for the most part, understood that excellently trained and motivated men with top-class equipment are what win wars. In this they were simply continuing a tradition going right back to the Prussian armed forces. It was also reflected in the German approach to war-fighting. Blitzkrieg was not a philosophy based on elan and Aryan vigour, but an extremely carefully thought-out means to bring overwhelming force to bear at critical points. You need trained thinkers, not zealous berserkers, to make that work.

That is only partially true. Especially the Blitzkrieg principle is really not that innovative.
But I am glad you know that the German early-war pilot was not better than his allied or axis counterpart. In fact, already in the beginning of the war training was cut short or suspended because of political orders higher up. Tactics were however superior.

The German military of the early war years was not that formidable as often portrayed. It was succesful because of allied shortcomings. One can read several accounts of Germans in battle who were dumb struck by allied mistakes. This went on until 1942 in the West and until the very end in the East.

And one more thing, the commanders may have known that training was essential. But as soon as a nazi leader gave an order, it was followed. And most of these orders were idiotic by nature.

One can only wonder what a German WW1 leadership could have achieved in WW2.
Kris

Civettone · Nov 30, 2010

parsifal said:
In the case of Britain the alternative.... a continental land based strategy based on a mass ground army, was simply not a feasible option. Even as it stood, with just 13 divisions in the frontline in Europe in 19844, the British suffered such acute manpower shortages, that wholsale unit disbandments were the norm rather than the exception. This explains a lot behind Monty's caution....every man lost was a man lost for good, with little possibility fore replacement. Britiain determiined from the outbreak of the war that she simply could not field a mass army, and suffer the same casualty rates as had been sustained 20 years earlier. The 55000 aircrew lost during WWII pale into insignificance compared to the 2 million casualties suffered in the battlefields of France. The British lacked the resources to do that, AND fight a modern war of machines and production. They rightly chose the development of a strategic bomber force, to hit the germans in the only way possible. They courted, and succeeded in forming a grand alliance with the Russians and the Americans, to defeat evil.

I think you are mistaking.
The British disbanded units which had suffered losses and combined them together with new recruits into new units. Meanwhile Germans would simply withdraw a badly mauled unit and put replacements in them. Heck, even totally lost units (hell, even the 6th Armee) were recreated.
The British decision to focus on strategic bombing was taken BEFORE Douhet's publication. They were planning a 1000 bomber raid on Germany in 1919! As often is the case, decisions are reactions to what the opposite comes up with. Why did the Germans focus on tanks? Because they were caught with their pants down back in WW1. Likewise, the British reacted heavily on the Zeppelin raids which completely terrorized them, as incredible this may sound today. The damage done was very limited compared to what happened in 1940.
And final point, the British had 48 million inhabitants while Germany had 80 million. It is only natural that you would try to stretch your manpower resources. So of course you would equip your divisions with as much artillery and tanks as your industry could produce. Only natural and no point to make huge psycho-social explanations about it.

Kris

BikerBabe · Nov 30, 2010

The Allies and the russians??? *blonde look*

michaelmaltby · Nov 30, 2010

"... The Allies and the russians??? "

Out of the mouths of Babes ....

MM

tail end charlie · Nov 30, 2010

drgondog said:
For Tail End Charlie -

Here are some quotes from folks Not American, Not Brit, not somebody's grandfather on the forum - regarding opinions regarding air superiority..

The Reich's Ex-leaders Explain Why They Were Beaten - World War 2 Talk

There are many quotes there from people under interrogation.

consider Goerings quotes.

He was the head of the Luftwaffe and second in command of the German Millitary.

In 1944 he had seen Germany kicked out of Africa, kicked out of the mediterranian, lose the battle of the Atlantic, advance to Moscow Leningrad and Stalingrad and the Caucasus but seize nothing and then retreat he was on the brink of losing Belaruss and Rumania but what really really gripped his mind was a mustang over Berlin.

On the eastern front Germany lost approximately 5 million men killed and a similar number wounded taken prisoner a vast number of tanks self propelled guns and a fantastic number of trucks and supplies but what gripped Goering was a single engined fighter. Germany lost the war in europe as soon as they failed to take Britain or Russia at the first go, what followed was the inevitable demise throuh lack of resources.

Hitler and Goering and most of their cohorts never realised the war they were in. Even in the battle of Britain the RAF was able to replace losses quicker than the LF and what did Hitler do? pick a fight with Russia.

The LW completely destroyed the soviet airforce during Barberrossa and throughout the eastern war had considerable success but it didnt actually matter because Russia was out producing Germany in tanks guns and aeroplanes.

As far as the oil plan goes, Russia won the first battle when it stopped germany reaching the Caucasus, Germany was always short of fuel. While advancing they had to stop to re supply but while retreating they lost huge reserves of fuel. (I learned that on my CSE history project)

You ask for my credentials, what books I have read, well I have read a lot. I am in France at present and the latest book which I brought with me is "Lancaster" by Leo McKinstry. It is described by the daily telegraph as "excellent". Describing the bombing campaign it goes into the far end of a smelly fart about the various merits of daylight and night time bombing about targets and aims and achievements but it rarely mentions the war in the east.
It is clearly against Harris and clearly for the Oil and Transport plan.
One line does mention the war in the east which says planned raids by lancasters on Belaruss were shelved when it was over run by the Russians. No doubt if the raids took place they would have been a triumph for the "oil plan" but since the country was over run by the Russians it doesnt count.
This is typical of post war history there are no "facts" just a miasma of numbers, in the same book it states the latest survey of deaths at Dresden (in 2004) were 18,000 whereas I have read other accounts that state upto 75,000. I dont know how anyone can investigate such an event so long after but hey, he was getting paid. I presume the figures he produced satisfied his sponsors, previous sponsors wanted high numbers lately the fashion is to lower them.

Germany started to run severely short of oil when they were really on the back foot after Kurk the situation became critical when they lost Belaruss and oil supplies dried up completely when Rumania was overrun. The Luftwaffe played very little part in this

A similar attitude exists for the transport plan. The bombing campaign claims 2,400 locomotives destroyed. The French resistance claim they destroyed 1,800. Congratulations all round except when you add the two together and then accept there were still locomotives in service you wonder what else was in the marshalling yards except locomotives. I have never ever read how you destroy a marshalling yard any way it is a piece of flat land with pieces of steel laid on it, any "destroyed" marshalling yard can be back in service within a week at maximum.

Re write history at your own peril Hitler committed suicide and the war in Europe ended when Berlin fell to the Soviet Army not to an airforce the LW was by that time irrelevant. The Pacific war ended when the emperor ordered the military to stop fighting and surrender, if Japan had a fruit cake like Hitler in charge then the USA may have had to keep bombing until the early 1950s.

Milosh · Nov 30, 2010

I would say it would take more than a few days to repairs this damage.

syscom3 · Dec 1, 2010

Milosh said:
I would say it would take more than a few days to repairs this damage.

Actually, the Germans were able to repair rail line damage quite quickly [in Germany proper].

The destruction or damage of the engines caused the most grief, but that was only temporary. At most that method only introduced inefficiencies into their industrial and manufacturing production.

Milosh · Dec 1, 2010

syscom3 said:
Actually, the Germans were able to repair rail line damage quite quickly [in Germany proper].

The destruction or damage of the engines caused the most grief, but that was only temporary. At most that method only introduced inefficiencies into their industrial and manufacturing production.

Rail lines are not marshaling yards.

michaelmaltby · Dec 1, 2010

"... if Japan had a fruit cake like Hitler in charge then the USA may have had to keep bombing until the early 1950s."

That's true. Good to have you back in the schoolyard TEC .

MM

Nikademus · Dec 1, 2010

tail end charlie said:
Germany started to run severely short of oil when they were really on the back foot after Kurk the situation became critical when they lost Belaruss and oil supplies dried up completely when Rumania was overrun. The Luftwaffe played very little part in this

Even sooner according to David Glantz. As early as Oct 41, the German economy and war machine began falling short of it's petroleum needs, forcing them to pressure the Romanians to increase their contributions. Capturing the oil reserves of the Soviet Union was the major goal of Case Blau. (target region contained 80% of USSR's oil output).

bobbysocks · Dec 1, 2010

originally quoted by TEC..."if Japan had a fruit cake like Hitler in charge then the USA may have had to keep bombing until the early 1950s. "

if bombing was done with nothing but conventional ordnance perhaps. but i dont think it would have gone that long. a year .....or two maybe. the duration would have depended upon how fast A-bombs could be produced and that would have depended the resources needed to do that. i do not know what the us abilities were at that time. but if the us would have been able to produce them sufficiently to any degree i believe curtis lemay's axiom of "bombing them back to the stone age" would have been the adopted strategy resulting in a fewer allied losses but a tremendous loss of japanese lives. and then russia would have jumped in at the very end to claim their piece of the prize.

pbfoot · Dec 1, 2010

Just some musing on this topic I don't deny fpr a moment that the USAAF delivered the knockout blow to the LW in 44 but it not the same LW as it was from 39-43 . The LW IMHO had been getting weaker and weaker not in aircraft but in the skill sets of its aircrew . 5 years of combat against Fighter Command , Red AF , Bomber Command , Coastal Command had to have taken a major toll .

Milosh · Dec 1, 2010

The Pacific war ended when the emperor ordered the military to stop fighting and surrender, if Japan had a fruit cake like Hitler in charge then the USA may have had to keep bombing until the early 1950s.

Not likely as the Japanese were being hit harder, and suffered more, than the Germans.

USSBS - Pacific

United States Strategic Bombing Survey: Summary Report (Pacific War)

HealzDevo · Dec 1, 2010

Totally possible, as Japan is a series of islands with a lot of natural fortresses which would have kept out invasion. As for the atomic bomb, until the Los Alamos test it wasn't even sure that it would work. Nobody knew or could predict the effects. Even today we are still learning about that particular genie...

drgondog · Dec 1, 2010

pbfoot said:
Just some musing on this topic I don't deny fpr a moment that the USAAF delivered the knockout blow to the LW in 44 but it not the same LW as it was from 39-43 . The LW IMHO had been getting weaker and weaker not in aircraft but in the skill sets of its aircrew . 5 years of combat against Fighter Command , Red AF , Bomber Command , Coastal Command had to have taken a major toll .

We tend to think of LW as only German fighter pilots and forget that the Finns and Hungarians and Rumanians and Italians furnished a lot of skilled pilots - enabling the LW to re shuffle the deck from East, North and South to battle the Allies over Germany (mostly USAAF).

drgondog · Dec 1, 2010

tail end charlie said:
There are many quotes there from people under interrogation.

consider Goerings quotes.

He was the head of the Luftwaffe and second in command of the German Millitary.

In 1944 he had seen Germany kicked out of Africa, kicked out of the mediterranian, lose the battle of the Atlantic, advance to Moscow Leningrad and Stalingrad and the Caucasus but seize nothing and then retreat he was on the brink of losing Belaruss and Rumania but what really really gripped his mind was a mustang over Berlin.

Oh, I understand now. Goering was paid by NAA to endorse the Mustang, as the numerous fighter pilots of the Reich that considered it the most 'dangerous' of the Allied fighters in the battle for air superiority over Germany.

On the eastern front Germany lost approximately 5 million men killed and a similar number wounded taken prisoner a vast number of tanks self propelled guns and a fantastic number of trucks and supplies but what gripped Goering was a single engined fighter. Germany lost the war in europe as soon as they failed to take Britain or Russia at the first go, what followed was the inevitable demise throuh lack of resources.

I think you missed his point. The USSR was not bombing German industry, the Russian tanks were not destroying Mersebeg, Ploesti, Misburg, etc - the 8th and 15th AF were doing so. Further, the Russians never threatened German industry in the Ruhr, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Leipzig, Hamburg, Keil, Bri=unswicke, etc etc etc etc..

That diminutive single engine fighter turned the air battle over Germany from one that the LW was winning to a catstrophic turn of events in which the LW was powerless to stop them from destroying the LW in the air and on the ground throughout Germany, while the Soviets were held to a draw in the east against the LW with far fewer forces.

Further, there was no train or barge or truck transporting sub assemblies from individual factories to major assemply plants - making re-distribution of industry more costly.

Hitler and Goering and most of their cohorts never realised the war they were in. Even in the battle of Britain the RAF was able to replace losses quicker than the LF and what did Hitler do? pick a fight with Russia.

The LW completely destroyed the soviet airforce during Barberrossa and throughout the eastern war had considerable success but it didnt actually matter

What mattered is that the LW could not deg=feat the USAAF in daylight strategic bombing of critical war making industry over Germany. The USSR had ZERO to do with that result.

As far as the oil plan goes, Russia won the first battle when it stopped germany reaching the Caucasus, Germany was always short of fuel. While advancing they had to stop to re supply but while retreating they lost huge reserves of fuel. (I learned that on my CSE history project)

Good for you. The Soviets took Ploesti but is was a mere sheel of pre war capacity due to the 12th and 15th AF attacks. The USSR had zero to do with attacks on critical industry in Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, etc until late 1944 and 1945 when the targets were already crippled past to point of economic viability.

You ask for my credentials, what books I have read, well I have read a lot. I am in France at present and the latest book which I brought with me is "Lancaster" by Leo McKinstry. It is described by the daily telegraph as "excellent". Describing the bombing campaign it goes into the far end of a smelly fart about the various merits of daylight and night time bombing about targets and aims and achievements but it rarely mentions the war in the east.
It is clearly against Harris and clearly for the Oil and Transport plan.
One line does mention the war in the east which says planned raids by lancasters on Belaruss were shelved when it was over run by the Russians. No doubt if the raids took place they would have been a triumph for the "oil plan" but since the country was over run by the Russians it doesnt count.

See the above for what 'did count' from August 1943 through November 1944.

This is typical of post war history there are no "facts" just a miasma of numbers, in the same book it states the latest survey of deaths at Dresden (in 2004) were 18,000 whereas I have read other accounts that state upto 75,000. I dont know how anyone can investigate such an event so long after but hey, he was getting paid. I presume the figures he produced satisfied his sponsors, previous sponsors wanted high numbers lately the fashion is to lower them.

I'm certain the grandsons of the WWII vets could set you straight

Germany started to run severely short of oil when they were really on the back foot after Kurk the situation became critical when they lost Belaruss and oil supplies dried up completely when Rumania was overrun. The Luftwaffe played very little part in this

You continually miss the essential point.

Germany was very clever at building synthetic fuels to augment the petroleum based chemical and gasoline/diesel production. The LW could not defeat the strategic attacks on ANY of the refineries and chemical plants that they managed inside Axis hel territory - the USSR was NOT attacking them in day or night, the USSAF was and later joined by the RAF (successfully) in basically eradicating fuel rpoduction in zones prhibited to the USSR but totally vulnerable to the western allies.

A similar attitude exists for the transport plan. The bombing campaign claims 2,400 locomotives destroyed. The French resistance claim they destroyed 1,800. Congratulations all round except when you add the two together and then accept there were still locomotives in service you wonder what else was in the marshalling yards except locomotives. I have never ever read how you destroy a marshalling yard any way it is a piece of flat land with pieces of steel laid on it, any "destroyed" marshalling yard can be back in service within a week at maximum.

Uh, consider the impossibilty of re-supplying the front lines when your rail capabilty is reduced by 'only 1800' locomotives? How many did the USSR destroy in Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Ftance, Holland, Belgium, Denmark? Greater than zero? Reflect on how the flat cars and box cars were moved from point A to B.. Horse?, yoke pulled by infantry? moved by gaseous emissions after a berr/bratworst orgy?

Re write history at your own peril Hitler committed suicide and the war in Europe ended when Berlin fell to the Soviet Army not to an airforce the LW was by that time irrelevant. The Pacific war ended when the emperor ordered the military to stop fighting and surrender, if Japan had a fruit cake like Hitler in charge then the USA may have had to keep bombing until the early 1950s.

I'm not re-writing anything. Point out any factual errors in my comments and i will ponder my miscues.

Vacca · Dec 2, 2010

I believe the war would have ended much sooner (despite Hitler's blunders earlier on, and even his massive blunder in attacking Russia) if Japan had opted to go with the original plan of attacking Russia jointly, instead of independently attacking America. While the US would probably still have entered the war at some stage (Roosevelt was looking for a way in), a two sided attack on Russia would have decimated that country in short order and might even have led to the US being defeated (if they had entered under those circumstances).

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