Stalingrad Air Raid
 

On 23 August 1942 the Fourth Air Fleet under the command of General von Richthofen flew approximately 1,600 sorties and dropped 1,000 tons of bombs on the city of Stalingard, effectively destroying it. All for the loss of three (3) aircraft.
[Details from the book Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor].

Where on earth was the V.V.S.and why did it fail to inflict severe losses on the German units?

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

Hi,

Ritoric question. VVS was in the air trying to retaliate German formations. According to official statistics Soviet side claimed 120 German planes shot down, including 30 by anti-aircraft defense. I managed to find "only" around 50 Soviet claims by fighters of 8 VA and 102 IAD PVO on this date.
Actual poor results of Soviet defense attemts could be explained by the fact that in reality 6-th Army launched major offensive on Stalingrad in the morning and all the fighters were busy escorting sturmovicks to the advancing German columns. Even PVO units used their guns mostly against German tanks. Thus, when it came to react on the Stalingrad raids on the second half of the day units of 8 VA and 102 IAD were exausted enough to fail in effectively covering the city.

BR

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

Imagine that amount of supply... 1000 tons of bombs, plus the same amount of fuel or even more...

And imagine that day... it started as a nice summer day for sure...during maybe 8hours of operations, 1.600 sorties... meaning 200 planes per hour over the city...

Remidnes me of that picture with the huge black cloud over Stalingrad, which according to a pilot had the shape of a cross - a grave's cross... and it hang their for several days...

We are just lucky persons to live in the early 21st century in the peaceful parts of the world.

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

Jim:

I believe the general picture at that time and place was that the Luftwaffe had acheived air supremacy over the VVS by virtue of qualitative (aircraft and pilots) and quantitative superiority.

If you want further information, I suggest that Stopped at Stalingrad by Joel Hayward gives a good description of the air war over the southern part of the Russian front from early 1942 to January 1943, including the battles in the Crimea, Stalingrad and the Caucacus. Told from the Luftwaffe point of view, but certainly plenty of descriptions of VVS operations and lots of primary references.

In fairness to the VVS, the Soviets had been pushed back literally hundreds of kilometres by the German summer offensive, so the VVS is likely to have been trying to maintain operations under all the duress of abandoning airfields, leaving behind unserviceable aircraft, trying to re-establish itself on new bases with inadequate infrastructure and so on.

Cheers

Boomerang

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

Hi Boomerang,

Haywards book is a good read, but it is very much just the view from one side ie the Luftwaffe's.

I'm really hanging out for Vol.3 of Bergstroms' Black Cross/Red Star series, which covers the German summer offensive from June 28, 1942 through to the hughe air battles Over Stalingrad. This should throw some light on why the Luftwaffe managed to dominate the air battles over Stalingrad in the early stages. :)

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

The rough answer might be:

Becasue the VVS was totally exhausted:
1) Bad planes (Il-2 w/o rear gunner, early LaGG3, L&L-Hurricane, very old reserve-I-16 etc) ...
2) ... delivered only in unsufficient numbers during the summer, because of moving the whole industry towards the "safe areas".
3) After huge losses in 1941 already, most pilots were very unexperienced.
4) Ongoing changes in organizational structures towards the new system of Air Armies, which were independent from the ground forces' "Fronts".

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

Experience seems to show that it takes more than 1000 tons of bombs to destroy a city.

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

Ah, yes, thanks for this valuable insight... Sorry, couldn't resist :rolleyes: .

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

I've got a question for a german-speaker, if sombebody could only confirm the meaning of a few expressions...

In this page :

http://www.ww2.dk/oob/bestand/jagd/biijg3.html

Does the following column :

Abgang/durch Feindeinw.

imply aircraft totally lost to enemy action ?


And this one :

Abgang/Überholung

refer to planes damaged or weared ?


If so, I've tried to compile the german losses on the southern part of the front for August and September 1942, I've included the following units, do you think this is a correct order of battle for this time frame (They should mainly be units serving either over Stalingrad or over the Caucasus) ?

Fighters :

JG3
JG52
II/JG77 (until september 1942)
I/JG53
I and II/ZG1


Attack/Stukas :

SchG1
I and II/StG2
II/StG1
I/StG77


Bombers :

KG1
KG2
KG27
KG55
III/KG4
II/KG53
I/KG100



Reconnaissance :

1.(H)/10
4.(H)/10
3.(H)/12
5.(H)/12
7.(H)/13
2.(H)/32
2.(H)/41
3.(H)/41
6.(H)/41
2.(F)/Aufkl.Gr. 33
3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr. 31


Transport :

KGrzbV 1
KGrzbV 50
KGrzbV 102
KGrzbV 172
KGrzbV 900


If that's correct, I'll post the list I got for these units... (I got it from that web-page I quoted above, they seemed to have correct sources (notably Bundesarchiv), but of course, the interest of such a list is limited bythe reliability of the data...),

Thanks,

Kolya.

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

Your translations are OK.
"Feindeinwirkung" means "due to enemy action"
"Überholung" means "back to workshop for rehaul"

Concerning units, I need to check tomorrow.

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

Hello Kolya
IIRC, the losses (Abgang/durch Feindeinw.) included damaged a/c. I mean at least those damaged that were sent out of unit for repairs.
Abgang/Überholung I have understood meaning a/c sent to overhaul.
A word of caution, my German has never been good and its now also rusty.

Juha

Later addition: BTW KG 2 was in West, flying Do 217s against England.

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

Hello kolya1,
If my memory serves me right, those lists include aircraft damaged to any degree, rather than just those totally destroyed. The order of battle you posted contains a few inaccuracies, notably both KG 1 and KG 2 were not present in the Luftflotte 4 area at this time.
Regarding the raid on Stalingrad, it must be kept in mind that the Soviets were in complete disarray since German armoured forces reached Stalingrad that very day. As a result, the defences were a shambles and the Luftwaffe met very little opposition.

Yours sincerely,

Jack Sanders

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

For LF4's OoB in 8'42, you can check this link:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaver...2.html#20Aug42

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

OOps, I swapped KG2, which was deployed in the West and KG3, which was indeed in the East.

About KG1, are you sure it wasn't in the South of Russia, I have the bases indicated as Dno and Siverskaya for August and September 1942... ?

A few more checks, and I'll post what I got so far...

I think I should add KG51 to this list.

P.S. : As for KG27, it was based in Kursk until August then went to Rossosch (?) and Millerovo, so I wonder if I should count them for August....

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

OK, as a full total for August and september for those units I quoted above (except KG 3 instead of KG 2, + KG 51), losses "to enemy action" are 475 airplanes, 256 for August and 219 for September.

Included are : - Fighters (including Zerstorers) : 192 (95 and 97)
- Stukas and Attack : 84 (48 and 36)
- Bombers : 171 (98 and 73)
- Recon : 24 (11 and 13)
- Transport : 4 (4 and 0)

Now, to which proportion some of these planes were total losses, and others only damaged (sufficiently enough however to be included in the "Abgang" column) I don't know...

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

Wow... 475 is a lot, especially the 180 bombers...

For comparison: Claims by JG3,52,53,77in 8+9'42 were ca. 2700 out of 4700 on the whole Eastern front. The soviets report/admit 2063 losses during the "Stalingrad defense 17.7-18.11.42". An unbelievable war of attrition...

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

I've completed the lists with losses from October and November, but unfortunately, there are some units for which the data is missing : whole SchG. 1 for the two months.

Anyway, so far, I found 138 losses for October and 153 for November.

In total for the two months : - Fighters : 50 (29 and 21)
- Stukas/Attack : 42+ (23+ and 19+)
- Bombers : 159 (71 and 68 )
- Recon : 42 (8 and 34)
- Transport : 18 (7 and 11)

So for August till the end of November, these lists indicate a total of 766+ "losses" to enemy fire...

I tried to adapt the order of battle, not counting the units which were withdrawn from the southern East sector...

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

OK, sorry, it seems somebody had already answered that question, I post the link, because of the interesting reflexion on loss percentages :

http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showth...oss+percentage

So losses reported each month would be only 40 % destoyed or more...

Others would appear in verlustelisten but not in monthly inventories...

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

Dno and Siverskaya are south of Leningrad.

Jason

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

Hi all!

I live in Volgograd (nowdays name of Stalingrad). I know, august 23th was day of hell here... Very big losses of civilians...

Just look at this site... There You can find maps, notes, and so on about Battle of Stalingrad.

Re: Stalingrad Air Raid
 

Yes I found this while checking... JG54 also operated from there for a while.

Nico.