Re: Opinions please (impact Allied fighter bombers on D-day)
 

Hi Boandlgramer.

It takes far more than an observation to offend me, so no worries.
I am English, so i suppose you can't get more native English speaking then that.

Regards
Jon

Re: Opinions please (impact Allied fighter bombers on D-day)
 

Hello Drgondog
my previous message was misleading, the effects of rail attacks was so enormous that even with drastic cutting back of French civilian traffic the volume of German military traffic was greatly reduced. For more detailed info please consult one of these. With good graphical presentations The Strategic Air War Against Germany 1939 – 1945. Report on the British Bombing Survey Unit. Frank Cass (1998 ) pp. 116 – 121. Almost as good Williamson Murrey’s Luftwaffe George Allen & Unwin (1985) pp. 239 -44. Same info as in latter without most of the notes and with clearly more imprecise graphics is in Williamson Murrey’s Strategy for Defeat. The Luftwaffe 1933 – 1945 (Eagle Editions 2000) pp. 197 – 201. The memories is Solly Zuckerman, From Apes to Warlords (1978 ).

Sorry for the earlier message, my memory made a trick once more
Juha

Re: Opinions please (impact Allied fighter bombers on D-day)
 

Hi all,

Slightly OT by me, but weren't the casualty rates of Typhoon pilots very high during these operations?

Re: Opinions please (impact Allied fighter bombers on D-day)
 

Hello all.
This is a most interesting thread. If you don't mind, I have a couple of questions.

A number of posters seem to be posting absolutes. Such as 'The guns on AC were not effective in the destruction of tanks' etc. So my question is: does 'damaged' factor into this equation? For example, although some guns may not cause a Tiger tank to explode, what of the damage done to wheels and tracks that would make movement difficult and so present the damaged vehicle to further attack by either ground or air based action?

My second question is: what of troops killed? What sort of percentage of troops were killed alongside the damaged vehicles?

Many thanks.

Re: Opinions please (impact Allied fighter bombers on D-day)
 

Rockets certainly did destroy Tanks, and i would imagine that armour casualties killed, were few ,with a great many damaged hindering them in later land battles.
Soft Skinned vehicles were torn appart by the Typhoons, Infantry often rode vehicles so these must be in amongs the casualties however by 1944 every column and probably single vehicles carried spotters looking for Allied Fighter Bombers. Troops could take cover but still losses must have been terrible.
Again i stress the winning feature of the Typhoon was its moral busting straffing attacks, troops who had been on the recieving at some time and, were later taken prisoner physically broke down often crying and deficating when Typhoons flew over, and other Allied ground attack aircraft.
Destroyed vehicles are only a tiny part of the war winning contribution given by Allied fighter bombers. I am convinced that with out these or if the Luftwaffe could have done the same then the War in Europe could have had a very different ending

Re: Opinions please (impact Allied fighter bombers on D-day)
 

Jon,
You wrote: "Again i stress the winning feature of the Typhoon was its moral busting straffing attacks, troops who had been on the recieving at some time and, were later taken prisoner physically broke down often crying and deficating when Typhoons flew over, and other Allied ground attack aircraft."

How You define often and from how reliable sources You have got the info? In aviation literature one sometimes saw exaggerated claims on the effects of airpower, in worst cases claims like" Typhoons stopped German panzers singlehandedly during the German counter-attack around Mortain" which is utterly false. So the question is how common the phenomenon You mentioned was in reality? I have seen in histories of the land campaign more often reports on how stunned the German PoWs were after heavy artillery barrage or after carpet bombing than after fighter bomber attacks. Germans surely hated Jabos and were frustrated because of their effects on their movements but IMHO usually the moral effects of Jabos was that of insecurity, powerlessness and loss of faith to victory and bitterness towards LW.

Even if it is a fact that Allied fighter bombers made an important contribution during the Normandy campaign I would claim that if all other components would stay as they were (Allied fighters to neutralise LW and Allied bombers to interdict German communications and sometimes to carpet bomb german frontline with the overall Allied superiority on land forces especially the overwhelming artillery superiority with those tiny Austers and Pipers AOPs)one could take away the fighter bombers from Allied OoB without much difference to the outcome of Normandy battles. IMHO the fighter bombers were more important after the Breakout because their flexibility. Allied armoured spearheads could move fast forward without to much worring how far behind the towed artillery of higher echelons would fall. If they found themselves in a situation where their organic SP artillery would not have been enough they could, weather permitting, rely on fighter bombers for extra firepower.

So, in short, the effects of fighter bombers got bigger during fast moving operations over open country.
And firepower has significant moral effect but because of it's stunning effect is normally short-living during static front situation the artillery and mortars were during WWII more effective because IIRC their safety zones were narrower ie infantry got faster to enemy after firepreparation. On the other hand for a more permanent moral incapacitation one needed so heavy firepreparation that one needed heavy artillery barrage and/or bombers to delivery that.

Also in more open country than bogage it would have been possible to use fighter bombers more effectively against enemy front line.

Re: Opinions please (impact Allied fighter bombers on D-day)
 

Hi Juha,
I have read on many many occasions the descriptions from both sides of the results of allied Fighter bombers. I agree that in destroyed numbers of tanks the claims were probably greatly over stated but, it is a fact that the German Army was at a huge dissadvantage when it came to moving troops and equipment by day. Every Allied fighter could potentially destroy light soft skinned vehicles and heavy Typhoons / P47's were only a call away.
Surely the winning contribution came not only in destroyed enemy vehicles and killed troops but in the fact that the German Army always had to account for an air attack wen moving, camping, being offensive and defensive.
Look at the Bulge for example, typical German fighting, brushing aside the green US troops it fought, all done in poor weather deliberatley to hamper the very thing that could have stopped the attack in its tracks..Typhoons and P47's.
The FW190 attacks of Southern England in 1942 /43 showed how effective and difficult to counter the Fighter bomber was, it was no accident that D Day occured when the chances of these Jabos arriving and more importantly living to do it again was reduced to almost Zero.

Re: Opinions please (impact Allied fighter bombers on D-day)
 

Hello Jon
I agree, and one important contribution of air power, if we include also the all kinds of fire direction/control a/c, was that it made difficult for Germans to concentrate their forces for decisive counterattacks.

Josh Osborne in his message on 1st Feb. summed the effects on Germans tactical/operational freedom well. The effect was not so decisive before the situation became more fluid, after that the bombers and especially fighter bombers made German timely responses to Allied moves very difficult, sometimes impossible. Even retreats became difficult and costly.

So we are not so far away in this question. But I maybe stress more the contribution of ground troops. You are right that the timing of the Ardennes offensive in Dec. 44 was decided by weather forecast in order to neutralize the Allied tactical airpower. But it was the tanks and combat engineers that stopped the German spearheads. Firstly a US combat engineer coy diverted KG (Kampfgruppe) Peiper at Trois Ponts by blowing up the bridge just front of the point Panther and IIRC the point of KG Peiper was stopped for good by a M4 Sherman platoon which destroyed the 3 point Panthers of the KG a day or two later elsewhere. And the point of the 2. PzD, which got farthest to west was stopped by a lonely British Firefly in do or die ambush mission on the eastern bank of Meuse. That almost the whole vanguard part of the 2nd Pz was soon afterwards wiped out by US 2nd Armored Div was partly made possible by air power but partly the 2nd Pz's vulnerable situation was consequency of time and place. Ardennes in wintertime was not a good place for heavy motorized units which had many inexperienced drivers.

Re: Opinions please (impact Allied fighter bombers on D-day)
 

Allied fighter-bombers were sometimes useful when attacking German units on roads and open pastures but the Jabos had little impact on events near the beaches on D-Day.

Despite a series of blunders and confused traffic movements based on conflicting orders, the 21st Panzer Division still managed to concentrate a modest but dangerous striking force on the West side of the River Orne; consisting of one battalion Panzer IV tanks and one infantry battalion riding half-tracks. The massive umbrella of Allied fighters did not prevent the assembly of these units, nor did they stop the subsequent counterattack in the gap between the Sword and Juno Beaches.

The German tank battalion was instead stopped by ground fire, but the panzergrenadier battalion advancing alongside reached the coast and remained there for an extended period of time. They did not withdraw from the area until a large airlift of reinforcements from the British 6th Airborne Divison flew overhead.

Re: Opinions please (impact Allied fighter bombers on D-day)
 

Here are some Geman damage reports following fighter-bomber attacks in France, from signals traffic deciphered in August 1944. (Source: National Archives HW5/561)