Response to Glider and Juha.

[Six Nifty .50s]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

You again raise a red herring with the question of the Ju-87 being too slow to defend itself. This became a serious matter for Deichmann only when the GAF lost air superiority. As the problem appeared for the GAF it disappeared for the RAF who began flying their Heavies in daylight for the first time. Thus no problem either for the Vengeance.

In essence, you imply that the RAF should have ordered a large and expensive fleet of Vengeance bombers in 1940, just in case they might be able to use them safely in 1945.

Surely you must have read about the limited manpower in the British armed forces. I can't wait for you to explain to us what the Vengeance air and ground crews were supposed to do until Allied troops crossed the Rhine.

Originally Posted by tcolvin

On a cost-benefit basis there was no sense in sacrificing a Typhoon plus pilot for an MG42.

Speaking of red herrings, that point might be valid if you proved that a significant number of RAF Typhoons were felled by bullets from light infantry weapons. Given enough time to research the cause of loss data, I could probably identify a few cases, but most of the writers who suggest the possibility of this happening have also failed to provide the names of any actual victims.

I would be willing to wager that bad weather killed more Typhoons than the MG 42.

Originally Posted by tcolvin

Machine guns and PAKs were beyond the capability of 2TAF's RPs and glide-bombing. 2TAF claimed and believed they could do it, but in effect were providing a bit of 5) – fire suppression. In some circumstances this was better than nothing, but because of the vulnerability of Spitfire and Typhoon to infantry weapons, support was necessarily tentative.
Artillery was protected by FLAK. 2TAF's answer was to fly mediums above the FLAK, but accuracy was poor because of height and visibility. This was the target of choice for the Vengeance when combined with simultaneous strafing by fighters to suppress the FLAK.

This is a contradiction. If the Spitfire and Typhoon were so vulnerable as you claim, it hardly seems correct to throw them into a flak suppression role.

Originally Posted by tcolvin

Hardened defences were beyond 2TAF's capabilities. Something perhaps could have been done with the Vengeance and hollow charge bombs, even if it only achieved suppression for long enough to enable movement by tanks and infantry.

The Luftwaffe had the same problem because the Stuka was useless against the heavy fortresses on the Maginot Line and Sevastopol. Even if the Junkers 87 was redesigned to carry a 5,000-lb bomb, a direct hit would not be sufficient to knock out most of the enclosed positions.

A hollow charge bomb with enough power to destroy heavy concrete and steel bunkers or U-boat pens was still limited by the ability of the pilot to place it accurately. The best bet for reducing German forts was using flame weapons just prior to infantry attacks.

Originally Posted by tcolvin

Tanks and StuGs (4) were targeted by RP Typhoons which were hopelessly inaccurate. 2TAF also used Bombphoons; I know of a half-squadron of Bombphoons attacking in vain a StuG in Kervenheim. 2TAF hadn't the equipment for destroying AFVs. They needed an airborne PAK mounted in an armoured aircraft, like the Ju-87G or Hs129B.

Repeating a delusion does not make it more believable.

There is no empirical evidence that a 75mm gun was consistently effective against the thick armor plating of the StuG III or Panzers IV, V, and VI. So why would the RAF want to bother with a wider deployment of its heavy and clumsy 40mm guns?

[tcolvin]

Nifty.

Your points.

1. The RAF did order a "large and expensive fleet (300 aircraft) of Vengeance bombers in 1940". The British taxpayer paid for them and took delivery in 1942/43. They would therefore have been available, manned by trained crews, bombed and fuelled up, and ready to blitz Hillman on D-Day and support 21 Army Group through to Bremen in April 1945 if the RAF had believed in them. I have no idea, therefore, what you are talking about or what point you are trying to make with your sarcasm about resources being limited.
2. Of course aircraft vulnerable to FLAK were used in the FLAK suppression role. How else could FLAK be suppressed in WWII, or in Vietnam come to that?
3. I told you I was considering further the use of aircraft against fixed defences. The Wiki article I quoted claimed the German hollow-charge bomb could penetrate 11.5 feet of reinforced concrete. Hollow-charge bombs would have been developed by 1943 in order to rectify the Stuka's problem with the fixed defences in France/Belgium and at Sevastopol.
4. Airborne PAKs could easily penetrate the StuG III's 12-mm top plate and the 10-mm top plate of the Jagdpanzer IV. Rudel in his Ju-87G2 aimed his twin 37-mm guns at the engine covers when destroying 519 tanks and 150 StuGs. BTW, you know Rudel's withering opinion of RPs as "Quatsch". He told some Typhoon aces of 2TAF that he had tested RPs and rejected them as too inaccurate compared with guns. He did his homework while 2TAF did not.

Tony

[Kutscha]

Why would Rudel be attacking and destroying German armor, ie STuGs?

So Vengeance crews would be sitting around for up to two years with a war going on waiting for June 1944. Then they would go into combat with no operational experience.

How could hollow charge bombs, developed in 1943, be of help in Belgium/France in 1940 or Sevastopol in 1942-42?

[Bill Walker]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

BTW, you know Rudel's withering opinion of RPs as "Quatsch". He told some Typhoon aces of 2TAF that he had tested RPs and rejected them as too inaccurate compared with guns. He did his homework while 2TAF did not.

Tony

This nicely summarizes the difference between the German attitude and the Allied attitude to pilots and weapons in general, as I alluded to earlier in my mention of the Luftwaffe's night fighter pilots. The Germans gave Rudel the equipment he wanted and allowed him to develop his own tactics. His personal accomplishment was, as a result, quite spectacular. If the Luftwaffe could have generated a thousand Rudels the war might have gone differently. They couldn't do this because there aren't a thousand Rudels, and because they spent so much time and money catering to a handful of super stars that they couldn't sustain large fleets. The Allies took the approach of fielding large numbers of "average" quality pilots and weapons. That meant concentrating production on a relatively small number of aircraft and weapon systems. With the luxury of hind sight we can second guess their choices in these fields, but the results were obviously good enough - unlike the results of the German approach. The Allied attitude to "special purpose" weapons like dive bombers can be seen in the remarks of Major General Davenport Johnson, Director of Military Requirements for the USAAF about the Vengeance: "a shining example of the waste of material, man-power, and time in the production of an airplane which this office has tried to eliminate for several months".

But of course he was brain washed by the evil RAF high command.

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Bill Walker

The Allied attitude to "special purpose" weapons like dive bombers can be seen in the remarks of Major General Davenport Johnson, Director of Military Requirements for the USAAF about the Vengeance: "a shining example of the waste of material, man-power, and time in the production of an airplane which this office has tried to eliminate for several months".

But of course he was brain washed by the evil RAF high command.

Yes, he was. You've quoted me before with sarcasm, and I let it pass because you were venting, and how boring it would be to correct every misapprehension. Now you've repeated your attempt at ridicule, perhaps it's time to respond lest others are influenced to think you're on to something.

I will quote from Tami Davis Biddle;
"Throughout the interwar years a debate raged inside the US military ......... about the degree to which an air force could and should act independently in war. A desire for greater autonomy naturally inclined the airmen to focus their attention on strategic bombing - a role that promised them greater independence, responsibility, and prestige. Their subordinate status caused them to behave differently from the British, but the differences were, ultimately, more in the realm of official action than in the realm of ideas. RAF leaders defended themselves and Air Corps leaders sought to assert themselves by using similar claims about the possibilities for independent air operations. In both cases, the circumstances caused them to become heavily invested in those claims.
....American airmen ..... were not immune from problematical assumptions, faulty analyses, oversights, and a tendency to make bold, unsubstantiated claims. The latter in particular stemmed from a desire to win greater freedom from the institutional confines of the army."

Thus, as you say, "The Allied attitude to "special purpose" weapons like dive bombers can be seen in the remarks of Major General Davenport Johnson, Director of Military Requirements for the USAAF about the Vengeance: "a shining example of the waste of material, man-power, and time in the production of an airplane which this office has tried to eliminate for several months"".

Bottom line; an Air Corps desperate for independence believed sincerely in the RAF's judgment that a B-29 trumps an A-31. 'Brain washing' was an apt description of the process whereby the Air Corps adopted the Air Ministry's Trenchardist nonsense. By contrast, the VVS and Luftwaffe developed their part in the war-winning all-arms equation by concentrating on specialised CAS equipment.

As for Rudel and the Kanonenvogel, the lesson lies in his success. The RAF had a surplus of fully trained pilots who could have got the best out of the Ju-87G2, whereas the GAF suffered from deteriorating training standards caused by the fuel shortage. So your point is irrelevant to the Allies.

Tony

[Bill Walker]

We are just playing with words here Tony, but you used the term "brain washing" in referring to decisions made by US senior military. Arriving at the same faulty conclusion through the same faulty thought process (if that is what actually happened) is hardly brain washing. If you called what appears to have happened simultaneously in the US and the UK the result of people of similar backgrounds reaching similar conclusions when presented with similar data, I would appreciate that as an interesting view point. When you allege active malfeasance in this process you lose all credibility in my eyes.

And are you serious when you talk about the "the VVS and Luftwaffe developed their part in the war-winning all-arms equation"? VVS maybe, but hardly the Luftwaffe.

The VVS suffered much higher casualties than the RAF in part due to their subservient role to the Army in the military and economical decision processes within the USSR. Given the massive casualties also suffered by the Russian Army and the Russian people, I don't see how the Russian process offers any advantage over what was done in the US and the UK. Destroying a bridge here or a pillbox there doesn't win wars. Sustained effort wins wars. The Allies (including the Russians) could do it, the Germans could not. The reasons for that are far more complex than anything we are discussing here.

Wars kill people. Arguing about whether it is better to kill these people or those people dishonours the deaths on all sides. Making those arguements with incorrect facts annoys me, that is why I post here from time to time.

[glider1]

If the USAAF were so esily brainwashed by the RAF,
a) why did they do daylight bombing?
b) why did they develop a long range single engined fighter
c) why did their training techniques differ so much
d) why did they stick with the 0.50 HMG

No doubt with some thought I could come up with some other differences, but you get the point.

[Juha]

Tony
firstly some general notes
Germany lost the war, so it didn’t develop a war-winning system
We still don’t know what was Rudel’s achievement, we only know what he claimed.
VVS wasn’t very happy with Il-2s with 37mm guns and concluded that large number of small hollow-charge bomblets was more effective antitank weapon than large calibre cannon, so the use of 37mm armed Il-2 was limited.

Personally I think that RAF should have kept some sqns which could have used 40mm Vickers S gun, it was capable to penetrate side and rear armour of all German AFVs but that of Tigers if terrain allowed shallow dive attacks from side and/or from rear. And the gun was very accurate.

Juha

[Kutscha]

Nice little discussion on the so called effectiveness of the Hs129 and Ju87G in stopping tanks attacks: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/ubb/Fo...ML/000016.html

[Bill Walker]

Very interesting information from Kutscha. Particularly interesting is the observation that perhaps only 1% to 5% of the Soviet tank losses relsulted from air power, the rest resulting from Army activity.