VIIIUSAAF and BC failures at the Wesel bridges.

[tcolvin]

The Russians claimed that the IL-2 could destroy bridges. Oleg Rastrenin's book, 'IL-2 Shturmovik Guards Units of WW2" mentions the destruction by IL-2s of;
- all of the bridges on the Belynichi-Berezina road on June 29/30, 1944, including a concrete road bridge over the Berezina which is pictured
- the wooden bridge over the River Prut, also pictured.
Rastrenin, however, also states that in 1942 the GAF and Flak successfully defended German bridges over the Severiskiy Donets, Tavolzhanka and Staritsa. This failure was the subject of a report by Gen Falaleev, GOC South-western Front aviation, that criticised the tactics employed.
The impression given is that the use of ground attack for bridge destruction worked for the Red Air Force in the latter part of the war when they could reliably achieve local air superiority.
AFAIK, 2TAF, even with air superiority, did not use ground attack aircraft for bridge destruction after the Fairey Battle fiasco, which points up the difference in equipment choice between armoured and unarmoured aircraft, also engraved on the RAF's tombstone.

It could be interesting to analyse how the GAF went about destroying their three bugbears; the Nijmegen road and rail bridges, and the Remagen rail bridge. I shall raise that matter in the GAF section.

Tony