[tcolvin]

Graham is right that any difference between the VVS and 2TAF does not lie in the nature of their tasks. 2 TAF routinely performed CAS and interdiction on the German side of the lines.

Rather the differences in question are related to a) the responsiveness in real time to what was happening on the ground, and b) the effectiveness of that response.

From first principles the VVS should have performed better in both regards.

The VVS was an army airforce, and played an integrated role in an all-arms approach. 2TAF never subscribed to all-arms, but operated independently 'in support' and never 'under command' of 21 Army Group. The soldiers and airmen who did the fighting never met face-to-face and there was no tactical coordination between them. Graham reflects this view; "the army has many tools ......... without necessarily calling on expensive assets such as aircraft at every stumbling block". I believe that in every Russian operation, the Schwerpunkt force would have identified the PAK front and given the task of its destruction to the VVS. This never happened with 2TAF.

The VVS, unlike 2TAF, was equipped with aircraft designed for CAS; the armoured Il-2 had enhanced resistance to FLAK compared with the Typhoon and Spitfire, and the Pe-2 dive-bomber could, although the literature is silent on whether it actually did, bomb accurately in an 80 plus degree dive on enemy field positions, which was the only accurate method in WW2 for delivering high explosive.

Graham correctly states that soldiers were generally, but by no means universally, enthusiastic about seeing the German lines being pounded by the RAF; for example they stood on the parapets of their slit trenches and cheered as Bomber Command destroyed Caen. They were not informed of Zuckerman's post-operational audit which revealed no German assets were destroyed or even damaged. The army's enthusiasm was due to ignorance. The RAF might, and indeed did, state that military morale-boosting and German civilian morale-destruction was their main if not sole business, but few argue that point today.

The RAF identified their task as being to "cart bombs" to German cities and to the German front-line. The ORBs of 2TAF's fighter-bomber squadrons are replete with the word "success". By this they meant that they navigated to the target, dropped ordnance, and returned. It meant nothing more. If the StuG, PAK or MG continued to fire after being attacked by 2TAF, there was no obligation for the attack to be repeated; 2TAF had done its job, and in fact never returned to a protected target after the FLAK had been aroused.

One example must suffice. The Germans stood in February 1945 on the west bank of the Rhine. They were supplied for a month during Operation Veritable mainly over the heavily defended Rhine bridges at Wesel. The destruction of these bridges was the task of 2TAF, which they failed to perform, the bridges eventually being destroyed by the Germans after they had withdrawn on about March 10. 2TAF's lack of an effective armoured Il-2 or of a dive-bomber had serious consequences.

I suspect the VVS would never have got away with that, and they would have been ordered to return until the bridges were down. I suspect, furthermore, that the high Il-2 loss rate was due to an uncompromising insistence that the VVS perform without excuses. The RAF, on the other hand, had been traumatised in 1940 when its strategic Fairey Battle force had been 'diverted' from attacking the Ruhr to attacking the Meuse bridges with great loss. There were two consequences; the RAF refused to operate dive-bombers or armoured aircraft, and insisted on having the final say about whether an Army request was 'reasonable'.

Igor's comments on all of this would be interesting.

Tony