Quote:
Originally Posted by tcolvin
The criteria for good performance of an air force in maneuver warfare is, IMHO, the speed and effectiveness of its response to the presence of enemy anti-tank weapons and machine guns. This was first defined in 1918 by the British. It requires real time action that is dependent on direct communication between CAS and ground troops, and it is best provided when the CAS is under command of ground troops.
The RAF's 2TAF in WW2 was deficient both in speed and effectiveness, and was never under command of ground troops. My specific interest is to find a comparison with that provided by the VVS which was, of course, an army airforce.
Tony
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Tony,
I would say, the reaction time from 1944 was "good enough". I have not exact numbers, but we have many samples how even for single tank or bunker or AT position the shturmoviks were dispatched by air controllers on the ground. In many cases the ground controlles redirect the attacking groups in the air to the target with higher priority. Such close cooperation was one reason for the high losses in soviet airforce, the common formation with 2-6 Il-2 and 2-4 fighters was very vulnerable against german jäger, which often flew in bigger formation(at least it was reported by soviet pilot)
IIRC the air controller on the ground was assigned on the level of infantery/tank corps and it is clear, not every single company could call CAS.
The main problem of soviet CAS and also fighter protection occurs at the end phase of front operation. In some cases the ground forces moved hunderds kilometers to the west and the air force unit could not move so fast with their air fields and infrastructure and on the other hand the soviet plane have very limited action range. Therefore in such cases the situation for the ground forces was not much better as in 1941-42. The examples are either the end of Bagration operation, where soviet 2nd tank army suffered under german air attack or german attack on the bridgehead on the Oder river in february 1945.