Impact of Allied fighter-bombers

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

I said a while ago that when I'd found them I'd post some deciphered messages from the German side about the impact of Allied tactical aircraft and here they are (at last)

Two are from III. Flakkorps about Normandy in late August 1944, the third is from 9. SS Pz. Div. about Typhoons vs. Panthers, apparently in the Ardennes battles.

There is a wealth of information about the impact of Typhoons on both the Wehrmacht and 21 Army Group. OR investigated the effect on enemy morale. Normal infantry became very anxious in the presence of Typhoons because the rockets were an unknown quantity and the subject of rumour. The noise of the plane was frightening, but most alarming was the noise of the rockets leaving the rails at a distance of 300 to 500 yards. Infantry responded by taking cover and staying there for an average of ten minutes. Some tanks were abandoned by their crews. The exception were the GAF Flak gunners who stayed at their guns and exacted a toll.

There is also a wealth of information about the lack of damage caused by Typhoons and CAS in WWII, as we saw on the previous thread from the OR investigation of the Falaise Pocket.

But it was the Flak that destroyed the vulnerable unarmoured Typhoon. 2TAF ORB records 78 aircrew KIA and MIA in February 1945, of which 27 were Typhoon pilots. Aircraft losses numbered 80 of which 30 were Typhoons. For 84 Group supporting 1 Canadian Army the total numbers were 38 pilots and 47 aircraft.

The consequence of this unsustainable loss rate is ignored in the literature. '2nd TAF Volume Three' by Christopher Shores and Chris Thomas published in 2006 makes no mention of the following entry for March 1, 1945 in 84 Group Operations' Log recording a conference during the night with 1 Canadian Army. This conference led to a decision to impose a severe restriction on the "liberal use of aircraft in support roles owing to the shortage of both Typhoon and Spitfire aircraft and the weariness of the pilots. The automatic use of aircraft in the counter-battery role, for instance, would be discontinued during static or semi-static periods, and indeed only accepted in special cases in an advance when our artillery could not take on the role, or if the menace of enemy guns was having a really serious effect. Moreover the prolific use of Rocket Typhoons in cab rank under FCP (Forward Control Post) control would have to be reduced and the scope of the FCP limited to a definite sector of front; for example a Div(ision) or B(riga)de front rather than as at present on an entire Corps front. A further check was to be kept on the acceptance by GCC (Group Control Centre) of targets so that effort would not be wasted". (Brackets contain my explanation).

Shores & Thomas record the disbandment on March 3 of 610 Squadron and of 257 Squadron on March 5, 1945 without drawing any connection with the admission by 2 TAF of their defeat by Flak, which was becoming increasingly concentrated as German territory shrank and supply lines to the Ruhr factories diminished.

So you have the same paradox as with Bomber Command which pointed to the destruction of Germany where Germans were terrified by bombing but output from their underground factories continued. With CAS the fear expressed by the Wehrmacht that you record, and the delight of allied soldiers watching it in operation which I have recorded from several eyewitnesses, went along with recognition that CAS caused negligible damage to the German war effort. Meanwhile Allied cemeteries filled up with horrendous numbers of 21 Army Group soldiers in the Reichswald and Hochwald such that there was a replacement crisis and talk of disbanding more infantry divisions. And unsustainable numbers of Typhoon pilots were being killed whose final months were filled with their own debilitating terror of Flak, and whose deaths necessitated squadron disbandments and severe restiction on CAS availability.

Am I alone in seeing a connection between the vulnerability of the Typhoon to Flak and its use of the inaccurate RP and lobbed bomb to the great and blood-soaked difficulty experienced by 21 Army Group in getting into Germany let alone Berlin which was of course taken by the Russians.

[Nick Beale]

First off, if you are to cite the percentage of 2 TAF losses which were Typhoons then you need also to say what percentage of 2 TAF assets the type represented. It would also help to break down the losses by cause (and ditto for the tac support Spitfires). Similarly, if you're going to use a term like "unsustainable" then this needs to be set against the projected supply of replacement aircraft and pilots and the expected duration of the war.

Britain's manpower shortages were becoming apparent in Normandy (D'Este discusses this at some length but could not find answers on some crucial points re reserves in the UK). I believe that British divisions were being amalgamated and disbanded from Summer 1944 onward and certainly RAF Squadrons ditto in early 1945 (but this didn't seem to preclude the rotation of 2 TAF units to Armament Practice Camps in the UK) but as you say, German-held territory was shrinking fast by then.

There is another issue of context: the acceptability of losses will vary according to a commander's perception of what those losses are buying. (This board has seen a heated debate in the past about how Luftwaffe losses in France in 1940 exceeded those in the Battle of Britain. But in the former case much France was conquered and the country put out of the war - Germany's objectives were achieved in other words. In the latter, the Germans lost a lot of men and aircraft and came away with what?)

I feel that you fixate on direct destruction and morale effects while overlooking the disruption and paralysis produced by air attack or, yes, the fear of it. The less freely an army and (crucially) its supplies can move, the greater its disadvantage against an enemy not likewise handicapped. That is surely something more than your "negligible damage to the German war effort." Strategically, the same holds true for goods and materials in an industrial economy. Germany's "underground factories" (most of which were probably some component sub-contractor in an old tunnel) may have produced the goods but there is ample evidence of the difficulty of distributing them or of bringing sub-assemblies together into a finished product, or getting one vital bit for (say) an aircraft when the transport links were smashed or under interdiction by those "defeated" Typhoons, Spitfires, P-47s and P-51s.

And the material you have cited does not, to my eyes, amount to any kind of "admission of defeat" by Flak. It does however look like a recognition that German Flak was exacting a cost which cold not be justified by the results being obtained from some specific types of employment of close support aircraft. And the literature has often mentioned the Allied Generals' concerns that their troops were becoming hooked on air support and wouldn't make a move without it.

You speak of "Flak, which was becoming increasingly concentrated as German territory shrank and supply lines to the Ruhr factories diminished." Were not German guns often abandoned owing to lack of vehicles to move them and fuel to move the vehicles? Did ammunition and spare parts not have to brought to where they were needed? Did the raw materials to make them not have to reach the factories? Any "advantage" secured by the events leading up to the encirclement of the Ruhr was in reality a last gasp, dangerous for those who had finally to stifle it but not "sustainable."

21 Army Group's performance has been extensively debated (D'Este again or Max Hastings) and the reasons advanced for its perceived shortcomings are numerous but the British national resolve to have no more Sommes or Passchendaeles seems to be high on the list, alongside Montgomery's methodical approach and painstaking preparation.