Opinions please (impact Allied fighter bombers on D-day)

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Jukka Juutinen

Perhaps the best indication of the effectiveness of air power would be the answer to question: what if all aircraft in the world stopped working on June 5, 1944 for the next 12 months?

No aerial reconnaissance (the original reason why air forces were established) … which may have affected the outcome of a few land and naval battles.

No curtailment of German oil production until much later in the war … increasing the mobility of German land forces (and naval units perhaps)?

No wholesale dislocation of Germany's internal transportation system?

Hundreds of thousands of men and thousands of guns not needed in the Flak arm?

[mkenny]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

Hundreds of thousands of men and thousands of guns not needed in the Flak arm?

And the other side of the coin, the effort put into building the heavies could be diverted to making the Allied Armies/Navies much more powerful.

The loss of the German and Allied air forces would cancel each other out

[Tony Williams]

Originally Posted by mkenny

And the other side of the coin, the effort put into building the heavies could be diverted to making the Allied Armies/Navies much more powerful.

Not if the planes stopped working in June 1944. You can't switch an aircraft plant into making ships; in fact to convert it to anything else, find the machine tools, retrain the workers and get it back into production would probably take a year.

Even switching from making one type of aircraft to another caused considerable delays in production.

[Six Nifty .50s]

Originally Posted by Klaus Schiffler

Without the constant harrassment from the air, the 12th SS could have started the assault on the afternoon of the 6th.

Poor leadership is reason to question the possibility of a successful German counteroffensive.

The 12th SS Panzer Division commander (Fritz Witt) did not last long and his eventual replacement (Kurt Meyer) arrived at the invasion front first where he did not make a good account of himself. I don't know if Witt was more capable, but Meyer made errors that one should not expect from a battle-tested officer, especially when planning and timing counterattacks. Meyer criticized General Feuchtinger who failed to concentrate the firepower of his division on D-Day, yet Meyer did exactly the same in the days that followed! He did not wait for more forces to assemble. This guy was arrogant and impatient, and did not bother with fundamental details like mounting a sufficient local reconnaissance before a ground assault. That includes small unit actions in which he was an eyewitness; for example, Meyer and his staff were thoroughly unprofessional in their direction of Ribbentropp's company of Panther tanks. As of consequence that unit was quickly and violently defeated in their first attack; with their morale effectively destroyed by a minimum of well-placed shots.

Feuchtinger's 21st Panzer Division was not troubled much by air attack on D-Day. Indecision and confusion at various German Army HQs had a more telling effect on their movements. It's human nature to look for scapegoats when things go wrong and so German officers tended to minimize their own mistakes and shifted the blame towards Hitler and Allied fighter-bombers.

[Uncle Sam]

There is an excellent description of the failed counter-offensive in Hubert Meyer's dry but factual divisional history of the 12. SS-Panzer-Division 'Hitlerjugend'.

About the mention of the 21. Panzer-Division here, it's 3 Kampfgruppes, Von Luck, Rauch and Oppeln, actually did quite well on the first day but failed to receive support.

The 12. SS-Pz-Div was also not too badly mauled on it's way to the front, losing several KIA and several dozen wounded. Will check up exact statistics if anyone asks. mkenny is wrong about the 83 men being lost as they were casualties, and it does not mean that they necessarily were killed or out of action forever.

K

[indianer]

In one respect I would agree with Jukka about what would happen if aircraft stopped working on June 5 :
despite the huge air superiority of the allies, the germans inflicted heavy casualties and tactical defeats (Goodwood, to name one) and blunting of the offensive (Totalize) in Normandy. Air superiority was negated by german ground combat effectiveness and the vast inferiority of the Sherman vs the Panther (and the Tiger, tiny though its numbers were).

Anyway, on the subject of german armour in Normandy, frankly michael kenny (mkenny on this thread) is one of the experts (he is a regular contributor to feldgrau). Perhaps he can share more combat reports.
The chestnut about Typhoon rockets killing Wittman, by the way, has been well and truly buried by Brian Reid (in "No Holding Back"), a clear-eyed look at Totalize.