Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrey Kuznetsov
Hello Dan
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Hello Andrey,
Thank you for your response. I have been busy with work, but I will reply to you here and hope to also reply to the others who are waiting for a response within the next few days.
Let me begin by saying that attacking my integrity is not the best way to start a discussion. I did not see Ruy's comment as an attack in the way that you have implied, and I will leave it to Ruy to speak for himself. Your attack is unwarranted, since I have set out a substantial body of evidence, some of it never before presented. Only after presenting the evidence did I reach my conclusions, which the evidence supports.
I am very surprised that you, as a historian of the Second World War, suggest that the Luftwaffe was "one of the components, not more" of the initial German victories. It is abundantly clear that the campaigns in Scandinavia and in the West in 1940 were critically dependent on the German air force. It was the Luftwaffe that broke Allied resistance and allowed other German forces to succeed. Much the same phenomenon was in evidence during the summer of 1941 on the Eastern front. Suggesting otherwise betrays a fundamentally incorrect understanding of the course of the war, so I am quite surprised that you have made such a comment.
To reply to your specific comments:
1. Aircraft distribution
To start with your main point, the distribution between East and West is the crux of my study. This allows an understanding of German resource allocation between the very different wars against the Western Allies and the Soviet Union respectively. Greater detail of aircraft distribution by theatre would be useful to discuss the interplay between Luftwaffe operations on the Western front and in the Mediterranean. I may include this data in a future study.
Data on total numbers of sorties flown is certainly interesting, but I would strongly dispute it is more useful than the the data on aircraft strength. Data on aircraft strength gives an overall sense of capability in a given theatre of operations, while sortie numbers are dependent on a large number of factors, for example range to target, availability of specific equipment needed for particular missions etc. Nevertheless, overall data on the number of sorties by front and aircraft class (single-engine fighters, bombers etc.) would be extremely interesting, but I have never seen it. There are fragments about the Battle of Sevastopol in 1942 and other selected operations, but nothing which allows a comparison between fronts. I am aware of the reports to army groups and other army units submitted by various air headquarters, but again these are merely fragments in the history of the war as a whole. If someone could collate such reports, it would be of substantial utility for our field of research, but this is a vast task on its own and would probably not provide much data which can be compared across different fronts.
As for Luftflotte 5, I have divided its units between East and West, based on some comments in the original documents themselves and on secondary sources. I may have made some errors in this division, but because of the small size of Luftflotte 5 and of the specific units involved, this does not materially affect the overall argument. As sircraft in reserve I counted those with units resting, refitting or in transit, as well as newly delivered aircraft which had not yet been absorbed by frontline units. I will give a breakdown for a specific day of the war when I will have had time to set it out formally unit by unit, since clarity of public presentation is important.
2. Allocation of guns
Thank you for the note concerning heavy flak units in the Kerch area. It is clear that the summary report is in error here, but you are wrong to imply that this somehow casts the entire body of data presented in the report into doubt. The overwhelming majority of every single category of flak equipment was deployed against the Western allies. It would, of course, be very interesting to present similar information on army and naval anti-aircraft units. The majority of army flak was in the East and of naval flak in the West, but there is no reason to suggest that adding these units would change the overall picture. The majority of German flak guns was concentrated under Luftwaffe control.
If you can provide data, or reference to sources at Freiburg, which give a more specific breakdown of anti-aircraft guns by front, I would gladly make use of this and would gratefully acknowledge your assistance.
3. Losses of anti-aircraft batteries
I think this data is very useful, since the majority of flak batteries were not deployed on the battlefield, but some distance behind the frontline. Therefore, losses of entire flak units were relatively rare events and it is interesting to see where such events occurred. The phenomenon that you are surprised by, that so many more batteries were lost in the Mediterranean than in the East in the years 1941 to 1943, is quite easy to explain. The Allied forces were far more efficient at sinking Axis ships than Soviet forces were, so some flak units would have been sunk in transit. Furthermore, the retreats in Africa and the final surrender in Tunisia happened at a speed and intensity which was rare on the Eastern front. The German army suffered many defeats in the East, but rarely would it flee at a speed and for such a long distance as after the Battle of El-Alamein, for example.
There is data at Freiburg summarising the losses of flak guns by Luftflotte for most months of 1942 and 1943, so this can be calculated and adduced as additional evidence. If you want to help with this endeavour, I would be glad! The key observation to make is that since the Soviet war effort was less technologically advanced than that of the Western Allies, the Soviet armed forces had difficulty inflicting substantial losses on German forces away from the immediate frontline. Therefore, even with the greater scale of ground fighting in the East, Luftwaffe flak losses were not particularly large.
4. The replacement of losses
It is extraordinary to read the statement that there was no reduction in the quality of Luftwaffe aircrew before Operation Barbarossa. This would mean that the very high losses of experienced aircrew in the Battle of Britain, in particular, had no effect on the quality of Luftwaffe personnel as a whole. Furthermore, the suggestion that all new crews became battle-hardened is clearly at variance with the facts. Experienced and successful aircrew were extremely difficult to replace for all air forces, something which is frequently commented on in a variety of secondary sources.
5. Completeness or otherwise of German loss records
While a few questions have been raised about the completeness and accuracy of the Gen.Qu. loss lists of individual aircraft, it has not been demonstrated that the same issue affects summary loss reports. You assume that these were simply summaries of individual loss returns, while they could have been formed based on a much wider and more complete set of sources. Looking at the issue as a whole, it is very difficult to sustain the position that the Luftwaffe simply did not know or consciously under-reported its losses in its internal accounting. Furthermore, there is no reason to think that in the case of individual aircraft losses, the problem of Gen.Qu. reporting was more pronounced in the East than on other fronts. Vast numbers of airframes were abandoned not just in Tunisia, but in Sicily and southern Italy and later in France. There are a few researchers on this forum who will have much to say about this, including Andrew, of course.
6. Aerial mines
It is excellent to read your response here, thank you! Kurchatov was not in any substantive sense the ‘father’ of the Soviet nuclear programme, but to get back to the subject at hand, you are right that the Germans misused aerial mines. However, I think you are changing the emphasis subtly in your response. During spring 1942 in the Kerch straight, there was a palpable immediate operational effect of the use of aerial mines. This in itself is highly unusual for a single weapons system, since usually only a combination of different weapons has an effect at an operational level. The main effect of aerial mines was to put a general stress on Soviet naval operations, which was significant, as can be seen from your own writing. It was certainly not in any sense decisive, as you emphasise, but it is very reasonable to suggest that if much more than 9% of German aerial mines were used in the East in 1941, the Soviet navy would have had very substantial problems. You know the context very well, that even less sophisticated naval mines caused catastrophic problems in selected operations, especially the evacuation of Tallinn. If you look at the raw numbers, you will see that the greater proportion of mine expenditure in the East in 1942 was a function of the overall decrease in the scale of mining operations on all fronts.
7. Counting bombs
As a naval historian, you will be well aware that small bombs were of very limited utility in attacking any protected target, be it warships or coastal fortifications. Therefore, it is very reasonable to treat heavier bombs separately, since certain types of operations were entirely impossible when such bombs were unavailable. Given what you know of German problems of reducing the fortifications of Sevastopol and sinking warships in the Baltic and Black Seas, it is surprising that you have “no comment”.
Kind regards,
Dan