Quote:
Originally Posted by Kutscha
If dive bombing Spitfires were shot down by flak then why would your Vengeance a/c not suffer the same fate?
If the 300+mph Spitfires were shot down by flak, then so would your much slower Austers and Stinsons which also would be operating well behind the front lines.
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Your answer is through organised and very heavy, indeed overwhelming, Flak suppression.
Remember the V2 launch sites in the Hague were the number one priority target for the RAF.
The RAF had an overwhelming number of aircraft and complete air superiority.
German Flak in the Hague was associated with the launch groups, and would not fire until these had been spotted and the Spitfire was in the dive - according to Simpson.
The RAF operated no Flak suppression - Fighter Command and 2TAF pilots were ordered not to hunt for Flak because the contest was too one-sided.
V2 launchings were defended by 37-mm Flak on half-tracks which Spitfires couldn't hit, but the Vengeance could.
Also the Vengeance was more Flak-resistant than the Spitfire and Typhoon.
The Germans would not have fired at Auster and Stinson spotters for fear of revealing the position of the launch groups and attracting heavy Flak suppression and attacks on the launchers. They played possum.
It keeps coming back to the need for an accurate dive-bomber, which the RAF refused to operate for well-known dogmatic reasons - they would not cooperate with the Army except on their own terms of complete independence, lest the Army "become drugged with bombs" and dependent on the RAF.
There was only a limited number of mobile Flak and launch groups available to the Germans in the Hague.
The RAF should have concentrated on taking most of them/all of them out - once they were gone they were gone.
The RAF had the means.
They had the Vengeance in numbers, but used them for target-towing in Devon.
Tony