Why the USAAF gave up on the A-36 in favour of the P-47.

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

That's a different point, Nick.

Spitfires were free to strafe and bomb ineffectively because they couldn't dive-bomb.
"Superior" German machines chased around the skies ineffectively because they couldn't mix it with the Spitfires.

Meanwhile the war was being determined badly and slowly on the ground because the Army lacked accurate air-to-ground support and armour resistant to the DP 88-mm.

I suppose it 'depends'. German heavy armor was a factor during Normandy campaign, Operation Market Garden at Arnhem and the Battle of the Bulge - until the weather cleared. Progress of the Allies was as much factored by the skill and stubborness of the Wermacht fighting on the homeland - in terrain NOT conducive to Allied Armor - than the lack of a super dive bomber.

As to the point that Allies didn't have armor resistant to DP-88's, the LW didn't have fighters or bombers resistant to .50 caliber, much less the 20mm of the Spit IX.. and so?

In sum, it was a mess.

Tony

Tony - inability to dive bomb was certainly a common denominator for the Fw 190, P-47, P-38, P-51 (B/D), Spit, Tempest, Zero, F6F and F4U. Did that make them 'ineffective' while strafing? No. Ineffective at dropping napalm or cluster bombs? No. Ineffective at destroying heavy armor with bombs? Yes.

Was one of the best dive bombers of the war - the Ju 87 - effective in the West against the Allied invasion and campaign? No, essentially after D-Day it was non existant. Did the Ju 87 stop the Soviet advances? No.

What conclusions regarding application of dive bombing should one draw?

LW fighters in the West after D-Day were drawn into engaging Spit IX (and P-51s and P-47s and Tempests, etc) because they were engaged in tactical operations against Allied Ground forces. Defense of the Reich high altitude ops were out of range of the Spit IX so not important for this conversation.

Once engaged along Allied lines at low to medium altitudes they were particularly vulnerable to Allied fighters simply because ALL of the ETO fighters were flying Sweeps, dropping to the deck after bomber escort, etc and the improved LW fighters (190D or 109K) Weren't superior in a dogfight and often unable to capitalize on speed advantages over a Spit IX.. similarly, a 51B/C/D wasn't able to really capitalize on its high altitude performance against a Fw 190A or Me 109G at medium to low altitudes. Pilot skill and tactical situation prevailed.

Pilot skill, numbers and tactical situation were far more important that relative performance tweaks of late model LW conventional fighters over a Spit IX.

[Kutscha]

If there were no detested heavy bombers (B-17, B-24) and their escorts (P-47, P-51) for the LW fighters to intercept, then these LW fighters would have been available to intercept the Allied dive bombers. The LW fighter force was still a viable force til ~ June 1944, not that after June 1944 it still did not have the capability to inflick losses on the Allies. It was the Allied SBC that put the LW fighter force in a death spiral to oblivion.

No SBC would have put more LW fighters over the battlefield negating the Allied air supremicy over the battlefield making it hard for Allied dive bombers to operate. If there was no SBC, there was no need for the thousands of long range fighters.

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by Kutscha

If there were no detested heavy bombers (B-17, B-24) and their escorts (P-47, P-51) for the LW fighters to intercept, then these LW fighters would have been available to intercept the Allied dive bombers. The LW fighter force was still a viable force til ~ June 1944, not that after June 1944 it still did not have the capability to inflick losses on the Allies. It was the Allied SBC that put the LW fighter force in a death spiral to oblivion.

No SBC would have put more LW fighters over the battlefield negating the Allied air supremicy over the battlefield making it hard for Allied dive bombers to operate. If there was no SBC, there was no need for the thousands of long range fighters.

All good points Kutscha -

The SBC, combined with long range escorts for them took the battle to Germany and gave the LW no respite. Quality of training, combined with waves of fighter pilot replacements gave 8th AF (and 15th/12th AF) the ability to fight on equal terms with skilled LW core pilots.

Quantity of high performance fighters (now combined with skilled and experienced pilots) over Germany then took the initiative away, attrition during the Battle of Germany took the core of experienced LW fighter pilots away - and rendered newer high performance German fighters less capable than they Might have been.

It was gradual until the winter/Spring 1944 when it became inexorable.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

In June and July 1944 at least the bulk of the German fighter units in the West were deployed in France and their main opponents were Allied tactical units, and no more the 8th Air Force.

In most cases, the missions of fighters of both sides this summer were the same: ground attack, escort of fighter-bombers and sweep. Allied fighters were still escorting heavy bombers, of course, but the heavy raids were usually not opposed by German fighters over France.

So this was a battle seeing German fighters vs Allied fighter-bombers, and the battle was still lost by Germany.

[Kutscha]

The so called high performance German fighters did not appear in units til the fall of 1944 and in any great numbers to the very late fall of 1944. The 1.98ata Me109K-4 did not appear, and then only in penny pocket numbers if at all, til late March 1945. By mid April the 4 Gruppe authorized to use 1.98 boost had retreated to south east Germany where it was very unlikely they would encounter any Spitfires of any Mark.

To put the numbers of German fighters, by type, available on can look at Bodenplatte. Of the 990 fighters the following is the percentage:

Fw190A-9 > 2,5%
Fw190A-8 > 27.3%
Fw190D-9 > 18.6%
Me109G-6 > 0.2%
Me109G-10 > 6.3%
Me109G-14 > 18.8%
Me109K-4 > 11.9%
Me109G-14/AS > 14.4%

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by drgondog

Tony - inability to dive bomb was certainly a common denominator for the Fw 190, P-47, P-38, P-51 (B/D), Spit, Tempest, Zero, F6F and F4U. Did that make them 'ineffective' while strafing? No. Ineffective at dropping napalm or cluster bombs? No. Ineffective at destroying heavy armor with bombs? Yes.

What conclusions regarding application of dive bombing should one draw?

I will try and give you the answer.

The war was won when the armies occupied Germany. This took a very long time for one reason; the Western allies (not the Russians) had no answer to the 88-mm Pak/StuG.

In a sort of rock-paper-scissors game;
Tank defeats machine gun.
Machine gun defeats infantryman.
88-mm Pak/StuG defeats tank.

That leaves a gaping hole - what did the Western Allies have to defeat the 88-mm Pak/StuG?

The answer was not artillery, since the Pak was camouflaged.

There were two answers theoretically available in 1944/5, but absent in practice.
1. An accurate aircraft, which meant a dive-bomber, which could drop a bomb on the 88-mm Pak/StuG when it opened fire and revealed its position.
2. A tank immune to the 88-mm Pak/StuG.

2TAF were committed to destroying guns and AFVs with bombs and/or RPs delivered by fighter bombers. They failed, and we have sort of accepted this now as a fact, have we not? It was not realised for some time that 2TAF were failing because they swore they were being successful.

It would have been no big deal to upgrade the Churchill MkVII tank to provide frontal immunity at 500 yds to the most potent Pak, the 88-mm L71, which could penetrate 7.5 inches (185-mm) of armour sloped at 30°.
The Churchill MkVII had the thickest armour of any tank in WWII at 6-inches (152-mm), placed vertically. By comparison, the ISII (Josef Stalin II) had 5inches (120mm) placed at a 60° slope, but because of the slope this was not far from giving it immunity, certainly at 2,000 yards. (In any case, because the VVS did what the Army told them, and equipped themselves accordingly with dive-bombers and armoured ground-attack aircraft, the ISII could afford to operate in the stand-off/oversight role, while the Churchill Mk VII had to go in and root out the Paks face-to-face at close quarters).

To achieve immunity, the Churchill VII would have needed 8-inches (200-mm) of vertical armour or 7.5-inches (185-mm) of sloped armour. Upgrading the glacis would have added an additional 3,200lbs (1.6 tons). The extra weight would have required the wider tracks and additional bogies designed for the Black Prince. (The Black Prince's 17-pdr gun and larger turret were not needed since the 75mm L40 was adequate for infantry support). The result would have been an excellent but underpowered tank weighing 46 tons (up from 40 tons). Increasing the weight to 47 tons by fitting the more powerful RR Meteor engine of 600hp (replacing the twin bus engines yielding 350hp) would have removed even this criticism. (BTW, the ISII weighed 47 tons, but of course had a massive 120mm gun and turret to match).

Why wasn't the Churchill Mk VII upgraded to provide immunity from the 88-mm and given the Army the means of defeating the 88-mm Pak/StuG? There are many reasons, but the main one is because Montgomery was obsessed with mobility and believed, wrongly, that the Sherman tank provided it. Montgomery even rejected the Churchill tank altogether, and allowed his brother-in-law to divert most of the limited number of Churchill VIIs that the War Office insisted on producing, for modification as flamethrowers.
Why did the War Office build only a few Churchill Mk VIIs? Because the army sucked hind tit and had to be satisfied with the crumbs that were left after Bomber Command had taken everything it imagined was needed to bomb Germany into surrender, and after the RN had modestly helped itself to the little that remained.

So, as you can see, the masses of ineffective aircraft and men wearing light blue came at a high cost. Bomber Command and 2TAF spent and consumed the resources. Churchill had gambled on the number that never came up.

The result was that the Anglo-Canadian Army took 30 days to travel 30 miles from Kranenburg to Wesel, and all because they had no means of destroying the masses of 88-mm Paks and StuGs that pinned them to the ground and filled up the war cemeteries.

Tony