Who were the ww2 aerial combat tactic innovators ? (forget outright kills)

Njaco · May 9, 2012

Thanks Stona, it looked odd when I typed it.

How about Lufberry?

Crimea_River · May 10, 2012

Was it Heinz Knoke who come up with the idea to drop a bomb into bomber boxes?

davebender · May 10, 2012

That innovation didn't work too well. Neither did precision bombing from 30,000 feet using unguided weapons.

stona · May 10, 2012

Njaco said:
Thanks Stona, it looked odd when I typed it.

How about Lufberry?

Well the guy's name was spelt "Lufbery" but I've seen it spelt in combat reports in just about every conceivable way!

I stick to "defensive circle" as I'm British and that's what RAF pilots describe Bf110s as forming

Cheers
Steve

war eagle · May 10, 2012

For me its got to be Aleksandr Pokryshkin arguably the greatest deflection shooter of all time officially ranked 2nd highest ranking allied fighter pilot of ww2 (unofficially and by me ranked number 1 with at least 80 kills ) but thats a topic for another thread.He got so upset seeing his comrades shot down using the old tired fighter tactics he defied stalin and completely re-wrote the combat tactics manual,his ideas so transformed the airforces effectiveness that the high command had to take notice and his manual became the standard training methodology making the VVS a much more formidable adversary for the Luftwaffe later in the eastern front campaign.

drgondog · May 10, 2012

Dave - Daylight precision bombing (while frequently 'not precision') worked FAR better than any other strategic air force... and typical ETO altitudes worked from 20K to 26K - not 30. B-29 Ops didn't work well at 28-30 so LeMay adapted. Contrast his night bombing results with any air force you care to name?

Crimea_River · May 10, 2012

davebender said:
That innovation didn't work too well. Neither did precision bombing from 30,000 feet using unguided weapons.

Yes, but it was innovative.

michaelmaltby · May 10, 2012

".... the greatest deflection shooter of all time officially ranked 2nd highest ranking allied fighter pilot of ww2 "

I'm not sure what that claim (deflection shooting) is based on. He had his 2 50's and 37mm wired to the same switch for point blank attacks. Given the different characteristics of those 2 different weapons, I don't think deflection shooting was his forte. What he is known for is taking the fight into the "vertical" [ that's Soviet-speak for boom-and-zoom, I think ]and using the P-39's strengths at 11,000 and below.

http://wio.ru/pokr/pokr.htm

MM

pbfoot · May 10, 2012

drgondog said:
Dave - Daylight precision bombing (while frequently 'not precision') worked FAR better than any other strategic air force... and typical ETO altitudes worked from 20K to 26K - not 30. B-29 Ops didn't work well at 28-30 so LeMay adapted. Contrast his night bombing results with any air force you care to name?

Lets not forget the opposition faced by Lemay as compared to those faced by any other military in the ETO. Lemay was a very scary man to have in charge ,

drgondog · May 11, 2012

pbfoot said:
Lets not forget the opposition faced by Lemay as compared to those faced by any other military in the ETO. Lemay was a very scary man to have in charge ,

No question Neil. He fired Possum Hansel, a former protege because he wasn't getting the job done. Spent some serious time thinking out of the box 'Japanese Air defense vs Luftwaffe' and nailed the lack of night fighters and radar tracking AAA. The rest of the Big Problem was convincing his crews that he wasn't trying to kill 'em all by dropping to 9000+- in staggered altitudes and times.

war eagle · May 11, 2012

Thankyou MichaelMaltby I stand corrected right accolade wrong hero of the soviet union of course the deflection master was Ivan Kozedub.

buffnut453 · May 11, 2012

Just to think out of the box a little, I'd go for Geoffrey de Havilland. His Mosquito design essentially created the concept of low-level strike/attack with a fast aircraft with a small crew and no defensive armament, a concept that can be traced forward through the Canberra and every modern strike/attack aircraft. That whole idea really was revolutionary in 1941 (although there were earlier ideas for fast, unarmed bombers dating back to 1937).

TheMustangRider · May 11, 2012

davebender said:
It's about time for popular history books to quit repeating this myth.

And who says that Garros by being the first airman during the war to use a non-pusher airplane as a forward platform gun shooting through the prop disc makes him a myth?

I'm well aware of several attempts to synchronize machine gun and propeller prior to the war, yet it was Garros the first airman to try it operationally during combat achieving favorable results; then came Fokker and the rest is history.

eagledad · May 12, 2012

Hello,

From my understanding I believe we should include George Kenney in the mix. Kenney originated and encouraged the use of skip bombing. He also encouraged the use of parafrag bombs, phosphorous bombs hung from parachutes (Kenney Cocktails) and the development and use of "strafer versions" of US light and medium bombers. I also believe he was responsible for keeping the P-38 in production until the war's end .

Eagedad

davebender · May 12, 2012

The Luftstreitkräfte pioneered that technique during WWI.

Junkers J.I
Junkers J.I - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

developed for low-level ground attack, observation and Army cooperation

In an extremely advanced design, a single-unit steel "bathtub" that ran from just behind the propeller to the rear crew position acted not only as an armour, but also both as the main fuselage structure and engine mounting setup in one unit. The armour was 5 millimetres (0.20 in) thick and weighed 470 kilograms (1,000 lb). It protected the crew, the engine, the fuel tanks and the radio equipment

I'd hazzard a guess the Junkers J.I was better protected against ground fire then a Mosquito and quite a few other WWII era aircraft.

Njaco · May 12, 2012

I would also include Kenney. Loading the nose of a B-25 with .50s was innovative!

Jabberwocky · May 14, 2012

buffnut453 said:
Just to think out of the box a little, I'd go for Geoffrey de Havilland. His Mosquito design essentially created the concept of low-level strike/attack with a fast aircraft with a small crew and no defensive armament, a concept that can be traced forward through the Canberra and every modern strike/attack aircraft. That whole idea really was revolutionary in 1941 (although there were earlier ideas for fast, unarmed bombers dating back to 1937).

The Mosquito wasn't designed as a low-level strike aircraft, but as a very fast bomber. The low level attack role was something the aircraft was developed into, not designed for.

You could just as easily argue that the Bristol Beaufighter or Potez designs of a few years earlier were much more influential in terms of

Davebender, the J-class aircraft were fundamentally a different concept from that of the Mosquito, more of a Sturmovik style ground attack/liason aircraft than a fast bomber/strike fighter.

buffnut453 · May 14, 2012

But it was a tactical innovation that put the Mosquito into that role. The Beaufighter was designed as a heavy fighter so not really a strike/attack aircraft. If by Potez you mean the 630, that still retained a rear gun position. As such, it wasn't much different from something like a Fairey Battle (and it wasn't much faster than the British aircraft).

davebender · May 14, 2012

That's a nice way of saying the RAF didn't make a purpose built CAS aircraft. So other aircraft such as the Mosquito high altitude light bomber and Hurricane fighter got stuck performing those missions.

Shortround6 · May 15, 2012

A number of countries did not make close support aircraft, or the ones that were designed as such didn't turn out very good or needed total air superiority (and weak AA defenses) to work.

Did the Italians have any purpose built CAS aircraft in service?

French did have CAS aircraft but their performance was pretty dismal.
The Japanese had one CAS aircraft, the Mitsubishi Ki-51.

For the US all of the 1930s CAS aircraft went nowhere and the USAAF switched to things like the A-20 for close support, in theory.

The British had designed a CAS aircraft in the 30s, the Lysander.

The problem is that most peoples theory's of land warfare in the 1930s weren't very realistic. They were thinking that things would pick up where they left off in 1917/18.

Who were the ww2 aerial combat tactic innovators ? (forget outright kills)

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