Placing the Bell P39 Aircobra.

[Kutscha]

The Rhine bridges were never brought down by 2TAF, and were eventually destroyed by the Germans themselves.

They were?

[Juha]

""It was found that none of 134 fired RS-132 hit the target during the test,"
while 140 Rocket Projectiles fired by Typhoon gave 50% chance of hitting a Panther.

These results are identical."

Tony
How typical to You! The Typhoon case is from combat situation and Il-2 case from test. Are you claiming that ground fire had no effect to accuracy of ground attack planes?

Now there are also test on RP Typhoons. On one case against captured Panther in the middle of an open field out of 64 RP fired only 3 hit the tank. Not outstanding, I admit. British estimated that in battlefield against single tank only one out of 200 fired hit, and that some 20-30% of RP warheads failed to detonate.

Now without knowing the test conditions of the Il-2 test I would not draw conclusion on accuracies between Typhoon with RP and Il-2 with RS-132 but only suggest that you also checked how effective Ju 87 Gs were in reality, contrary to claims, against Soviet tanks. And Il-2s with 37mm cannon were not liked by pilots and they had inhered accuracy problems which you of course should know already after 35 years of study and with your pursuit of thruth. Otherwise you would not of course express definite conclusions.

Juha

[Franek Grabowski]

Sorry, but 134 rockets fired with no hit is not exactly the same thing as 64 rockets fired with 3 hits. Or I do not understand maths.

[Graham Boak]

3 hits from eight aircraft doesn't seem that terrible. Actually, that's better than would be expected under combat conditions. However, one hit will kill a Panther. But how often was there an isolated single target? Think of the spread of 64 (or 200) rockets and a column or cluster of vehicles.

The statistic about failures to explode are irrelevant to anti-tank warfare, where solid-head shot is used.

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Juha

Tony
How typical to You! The Typhoon case is from combat situation and Il-2 case from test. Are you claiming that ground fire had no effect to accuracy of ground attack planes?
Juha

Of course not. I said the results were identical. Maybe 'consistent' is more accurate, and I pointed out the difference in the test environment. Certainly the results are not inconsistent which was what Franek was saying.

Perhaps you have forgotten, or never knew, the reason 2TAF adopted the rocket projectile. It was because it allowed the pilot to stand off from the target and release his munitions from a safer distance than from a gun or a bomb. The pilot had a slightly better chance of living when he fired an RP than when he fired a gun.

The rocket projectile was inaccurate and ineffective because of its notorious gravity drop. This was inherent and made the RP ineffective. It didn't matter whether the pilot spoke German, Russian or English, or whether he flew a Hs129, IL-2 or Typhoon, or whether the RP was made in Birmingham, Essen or Tula. Rocketswere all the same - bloody useless.

Or do you have a contrary point of view? If so then spit it out, man!

Tony

[Kutscha]

Originally Posted by Juha

And Il-2s with 37mm cannon were not liked by pilots and they had inhered accuracy problems which you of course should know already after 35 years of study and with your pursuit of thruth. Otherwise you would not of course express definite conclusions.
Juha

The NS37 mounted under the wings of the Il-2 3M weighed 522lbs with 50 rds. The bombload was reduced to 440lbs. When fully load, the CG moved 3.5% rearward. The a/c required considerable piloting skill and had much more demanding flight characteristics. There was also a shortage of NS37 cannons.

[Juha]

"The statistic about failures to explode are irrelevant to anti-tank warfare, where solid-head shot is used."

Graham, that was original intention, 60lb HE against ships and 25lb solid head against tanks but after tests that was switched to 60lb HE warheads against tanks and 25lb solid head against ships and subs.

Reasons: solid head didn't have enough penetration power against Tigers and solid heads had passable underwater trajectory and were effective to hole hulls under waterline.

Juha

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Kutscha

They were?

Yes. Schlemm's First Parachute Army grew from a single division on February 8 to 11 divisions before pulling out on March 10, 1945. He stemmed the Allied advance west of the Rhine for 31 days, inflicting 15,634 casualties on 1st Canadian Army and 7,300 casualties on 9th US Army. The Germans lost 40,000 killed and 50,000 captured.
The Germans were supplied across 9 Rhine bridges, which were blown up by the Germans only when threatened. Schlemm blew the last two bridges at Wesel on March 10th after withdrawing in good order and ensuring the Russians got to Berlin first.
Bomber Command tried to destroy the Wesel bridges. On February 16, 100 Lancasters bombed Wesel, and on the next day 298 heavies and Mosquitoes aborted a raid due to cloud. On March 6, 48 Mosquitoes of 8 Group bombed the Wesel road bridge and that night 87 Lancasters of 3 Group and 51 Mosquitoes of 8 Group bombed both bridges. Not one bridge was taken out of action.
2TAF seem to have left the bridges completely alone because of Flak. Shores & Thomas on page 443 record the Flak concentrations at Xanten, Wesel, Bocholt and Doersten which determined the routing of the medium bombers, which by this time had been banned from army support because their inaccuracy killed too many Allied soldiers. Wesel and the others were no-go areas to 2TAF which lacked the equipment to deal with them.
The inability of BC and 2TAF to destroy the Rhine bridges was such a scandal that a post-war postmortem was held into it. IIRC the RAF suggested they had made a mistake and should have used mediums. At least they kept their sense of humour.
Tony

[Graham Boak]

Yes, gravity drop is one reason for the inaccuracy of rockets. So? No-one is actually arguing the point that they were less accurate. Wind is one reason for the inaccuracy of bombs, and affects rockets less because of the reduced time of flight. Barrel wear is one reason for the inaccuracy of guns, and affects rockets and bombs not at all. Every weapon has its advantages and disadvantages. It is the effect of the overall package that matters.

Less accurate is not the same as ineffectual. There is a spectrum in all things. It is not simply black and white but all shades of grey. Not good- throw a switch- bad but a graduation from poor to even worse. The accuracy/hit probability is but one factor: the kill probability given a hit is another. Surviving to make a second attack is a third. The amount of training required to operate a weapon successfully is another. The cost of the weapon (and platform) is yet another - not just money but manpower and logistics. The rocket rates highly on every count except the first: which is not enough to justify your comments, given the results, which are not to be measured simply in terms of punctured Panzers.

More generally, survivability is a prime factor in weapon choice - else the Army would have been sending 17 pdrs into battle mounted on open lorries.

Incidentally, I've just been reading Firestorm, in which one Typhoon pilot states that he flew lower on rocket attacks than with bombs. I suspect this is not general, but interesting.

[Kutscha]

Must have made a mess of the approaches to the bridges.

The Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen—the last standing span over the Rhine—was captured by American soldiers of the U.S. 9th Armored Division 7 March, during Operation Lumberjack.

So not all were blown up by the Germans. The Germans tried to destroy this bridge with Me262s and Ar234s and failed dispite less AAA than what the Germans had in place. You would be whining about the terrible losses of the 2TAF.

The Soviets would have got to Berlin first, no matter what, as they were 10 times closer to Berlin than the Western Allies.