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

[Juha]

Tony
with PzGr 43 Pak 43 /Flak 41 could penetrate 193mm at 30deg from 1000m, ammo was scare, but partly because normal Pzgr was almost always enough, if the need had arose, germans could have made more Pzgr 43s even by scrapping smaller calibre APCR rounds.

Now one could probably see easier an A/T gun in woods/forests from ground level than from air. So artillery FOO should have been able to handle an AT gun that had revealed itself by opening fire, or at least by using smoke shells to blind it.

Have you calculated how would the 600 hp Meteor have fit inside the engine compartment? Now extra frontal armour might have made Churchill noseheavy and awkward to drive, heavier engine might have helped but would it have fit.

Quote:” The result was that the Anglo-Canadian Army took 30 days to travel 30 miles from Kranenburg to Wesel.”

So the battle of Reichswald, I doubt that heavier Churchill would have helped much, even lighter Churchills had big difficulties in all that mud, IIRC one disappeared totally according to one Churchill unit history. In forest fighting heavier frontal armour would not have been an answer, at least not the whole answer, I can say that because I was trained to fight against armour heavy mechanical forces in forest areas. Panzerscreks and Panzerfausts would still have been effective against sides as well as 75mm and heavier A/T guns from flanking fire positions, saying nothing on StuGs. And all that rain and clouds would have grounded your Vengeances. War wasn’t/isn’t easy and usually there are no simple and easy ways to fought through heavily forested muddy areas defended by well motivated defenders. In fact lot of artillery or bombs is one of the best ways, of course problem is how to protect own troops from that firepower, for artillery high elevation would minimize risks of shells bursting in trees over own troops.

And Churchill Crocodiles were very effective, spared much Commonwealth blood during attacks against heavily fortified German positions.

It was Army’s decision to built all those cruiser tanks and they worked well after each breakthroughs in 44-45, if the Army would have wanted only to make breakthroughs after breakthroughs without any exploitation phases between, they could have built many more Churchills. Or at least more those add-on armour sets for all those older Churchills. BTW do you know how many older Churchills had those add-on armour sets in NWEurope? I have tried to find out that without much success. And the poor A/T power of that 75mm L/40 was really a big problem, look for ex the histories of 6th Guards Tank Brigade and that of 9 RTR. Even 6pdr APDS rounds seemed to have been disappointing to Churchill crews.

Juha

[tcolvin]

Hi Juha,

PzGr 43 (APCR or HVAP) was surely more than scarce; it was unavailable in 1945 due to lack of tungsten, with all supplies reserved for machine tools.

The poor A/T performance of the 75mm L40 was not a problem in infantry support which required HE performance, and that was good. In any case 20% of Churchills were equipped with 6pdr APDS. And towed Allied A/T guns were outstanding, especially the 17pdr.

Theoretically the aerial FOO could have directed the artillery to destroy or mask the 88-mm/StuGs, which were usually placed among farm buildings. But from my reading they usually couldn't, or didn't.

The required weapon was an accurately placed bomb from a dive-bomber, or an aimed shell fired from an aircraft, or an immune tank.

Black Prince running gear would have eliminated front-heaviness, which existed in any case with most tanks because they unofficially welded a ton or more of track links to hull and turret fronts in a vain attempt to keep out the 88-mm.

No; I haven't checked whether the Meteor fitted, and it is not crucial to my argument. It would have been nice to have.
And BTW, the Churchills outran the Cromwell and Sherman cruiser tanks of 21AG on the east bank of the Rhine, simply because cruisers could not deal as well as the Churchills with the poor roads and periodic road blocks.

Woods were a problem in Op Veritable, but most of the holdup during the 30 days occurred on the rolling and open land between the Reichswald and Wesel, particularly the approach to the Hochwald Layback, which gave the 88-mm wide fields of fire.

Infantry protected the Churchills against Panzerfaust/Panzerschrek. Sherman flail tanks cleared the mines. The unsolved problem was the 88-mm DP and the StuG. StuGs, however, were confined to the roads while the Churchills could travel across country.
Attacks were usually planned to minimise the possibility of enfilade by 50mm and 75mm Paks. These were in fact usually placed across the Stuetzpunkt to deal with the cruisers and recce Stuarts, with the 88-mms placed in enfilade position to stop any (rare) breakthrough.

Crocodiles had a place, but Hobart should never have been allowed to take almost all of the available Mk VIIs - see below.

You ask how many add-on armour sets were fitted on older models. AFAIK all older models were retrofitted. Since you're interested, I will beg the indulgence of those not interested in AFVs, and cut-and-paste what I know about Churchill tanks in 1945.

"On January 21, 1945, 21 Army Group disposed of 1,011 Churchills against an establishment of 496, representing a margin of over 100%, and with enough to equip a Canadian armoured brigade. About one quarter of all Churchills, or 245 units, were Mk VIIs, but only a negligible 4% or 18 units, had been issued to the gun-tank battalions; 5 were with the Czech Brigade and 13 with 6 Guards Tank Brigade. The other six battalions had none, although there were 110 surplus Mk VIIs even after 7 RTR had been newly equipped with Crocodiles. J.G. Smith of 141 Regiment RAC provided a reason why these Mk VIIs were not distributed to the gun-tank units;
‘At this stage all Mk VIIs on the Continent were sent to us. The reason lay in its armour being about twice as thick as that of the earlier marks. This was necessary as our work entailed very close support of the infantry and reduction in manoeuvrability due to the trailer.’
Gun-tanks worked in perhaps even closer support with the infantry than did Crocodiles, while the trailer significantly impeded manoeuvrability only when trying to reverse. Smith’s contemporary observation would appear to be Hobart’s rationalization of his parsimonious distribution of Mk VII gun-tanks.
The Mk VII made up nine percent of Churchills in 6 Guards Tank Brigade, which meant that only one or two were available in each squadron of 15 tanks. Compounding this problem of scarcity was an inability to take advantage of the Mk VII’s superiority. They seem to have been used interchangeably with the Mk VI, and given no special assignment. All Churchills were allocated to crews in the Guards by ‘the luck of the draw’, and it is now impossible to know where the 13 Mk VIIs went and how they were used. Some users, such as Charles Farrell and John Macdonald-Buchanan of 3 Scots Guards, seem to have been unaware of the scarcity of Mk VIIs or even of their existence. With the exception of 203 Mk III, IV and VI with 6-pdrs firing the exceptional armour-piercing sabot, all marks were retrofitted with a 75-mm gun and appliqué side armour and became difficult to distinguish apart from the round doors and front hatches in the hull. Frontal armour of non-Mk VIIs was not improved, and this was the vulnerable part of any Infantry tank."

Tony

[drgondog]

Tony - I respect your opinion but reject your thesis re: lack of a Dive Bomber was the cause of slow advance from the West, and conversely, having one would have ended the war sooner... and particularly the answer to a maiden's prayer on both these points was the A-36 or some similar aircraft.

I don't know how much flying experience you have. I will suggest that spotting targets on the ground in cover country like the Normandy front, the Huertgen Forest, the Ardennes, etc is difficult in bright clear weather and very difficult in gloomy cloud cover. FAC's in Vietnam and Laos generally had to be 'bait' to draw fire and locate targets and they were at very low altitude.

Juha's comments were dead on re; anti tank tactics and opportunities in heavy cover. Europe does not abound in terrain that is wide open and cover sparse.

The difficulty in exploiting the numerical superiority the Allies had was more lack of suitable long stretches of armor favorable terrain for the fast Shermans to get past prepared defenses and run wild (with continuous logistics) to entrap large masses of German forces - not the capability of the Tiger or the Pak 43 or Panzerfaust.

History might have been different if Eisenhower had kept Patton supplied and permitted his thrust past Metz in August, instead of rolling the dice on Market Garden.

Rivers, despite the superb performance of British and American Airborne, and lack of open country for armor - and Intelligence 'losing' 10th Panzer were the deciding factors in the failure of Market Garden. Had it been successful the war similarly would have been won months earlier.

I will grant this. Because the Allies had such tactical numerical superiority, it would have been possible to provide effective air cover for an A-36 in the 'dive bombing' mode - but the ability of A-36's in pairs or increased numbers to acquire useful targets at low altitude may not have added much to the efficiency over Tempest or Jug. Once the altitudes are raised to dive bombing altitudes the vulnerabilty to 20mm flak increases dramatically and the ability to spot camo decreases. At 3-5K the escort is also in greater danger.

Regards,

Bill

[Juha]

Hello Tony and sorry for the OT message
Thanks for appliqué armour info, texts say that most Mk IVs and VIs had it, but I have found out that it is difficult to identify from photos because most Churchills in NW Europe seemed to had been heavily camouflaged with hessian or foliage. In fact according to drawings I have seen appliqué sets incl also a part for hull nose.

Quote:” The poor A/T performance of the 75mm L40 was not a problem in infantry support which required HE performance, and that was good. In any case 20% of Churchills were equipped with 6pdr APDS. And towed Allied A/T guns were outstanding, especially the 17pdr.”

Now even if 17pdr was excellent A/T gun it was heavy and very vulnerable, not a right weapon to support attacking Churchills throught German counter barrages. Look for ex what happened on Hill 112, even M10s/Achilleses suffered heavily because of open tops and weak armour and could not give reasonable support for Churchills which suffered heavy losses to German tank fire. And unit histories are full of bitter comments on lack of penetration power of 75mm.

Quote: “Attacks were usually planned to minimise the possibility of enfilade by 50mm and 75mm Paks”

In theory yes but in reality because of insufficient info on enemy not often possible.

It wasn’t so easy in the Eastern Front in 44-45 than you seemed to think. Soviets lost 1800 heavy tanks and 1800 heavy SP guns in 1944-45 and suffered high human losses. You might compare Oper Veritable and the the Battle of Tali-Ihantala http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tali-Ihantala, sorry Wikipedia, terrain at Tali-Ihantala suited better to tanks but still, even if we forgot the preliminary fighting 20-24 June 44, it took for Soviets 7 days to advance appr 7km from Tali to Ihantala where they were stopped. The battle continued several days but without any significant gains to Soviets. Terrain was better for attacker, it was summer and weather was much better, lots of daylight here north, defence preparations minimal and in this case attacker suffered clearly heavier losses than the defender, contrary to what happened during Oper. Veritable/Blockbuster.
.
You mentioned Soviets and IS-2s, one small combat, rather insignificant but bloody. One of preliminaries of Tali-Ihantala. On 20 June 44 152 Tank Brigade and 26 Separate Guards Heavy Tank Regiment (21IS tanks) attacked with troops from 358 RifleD in order to take Tammisuo which was defended by Finnish III/3. Brigade ie one exhausted infantry battalion, which had arrived on previous evening, the neighbouring battalion had 2 StuGs attached. There wasn’t much defensive works so troops had to also do some digging even if they desperately needed some sleep. The lack of defence preparations might have been a blessing in disguise, at least at first; later under Soviet artillery fire it would mean clearly higher losses to Finns, because Soviets attacked without reconnaissance and without artillery preparation. They didn’t succeed to take Tammisuo and on that day the heavy tank regiment lost destroyed and damaged 11 IS tanks and 152 Tank Br had only 10 T-34s in strength on 21 Jun. The battalion sector was appr 2 kilometres wide. After two days hard fighting the Brigade, which had suffered heavy losses in heavy Soviet artillery fire, had to retreat 2½ km to new positions. I don’t know the number of A/T guns III/3.Br had, but they could not have had many and none were bigger than 75mm, no air support.
Now the first picture in the thread http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167588 happened to be on a destroyed IS-2 at Tammisuo on 21 Jun 44, so you can see that the terrain was fairly open and firm. Other pictures are from Ihantala.

Juha

[tcolvin]

I don't buy your thesis, Bill.
Logistics were a fact of life.
But it's true that if Patton and not Montgomery had commanded the left flank, then Antwerp would have been cleared, and probably Rotterdam as well, solving the logistics problem for everybody.

Patton, however, had no more success in the set-piece than Montgomery, losing more men while failing around Metz than Montgomery did failing in Market Garden.

Every analysis of what went wrong in 1944 always comes back to the inability of the Western Allies to make progress in the set-piece against the Wehrmacht.

You say possession of dive-bombers, A/T aircraft and immune tanks would have made no difference.
I say they should have been tried.
The fact they weren't was due to the uncooperative attitude of the RAF.
Don't forget the Germans remustered a lot of LW ground crew personnel into eight divisions of effective paratroops.
The Allies would have almost certainly been more effective if they had done the same. There were thousands of surplus RAF ground and aircrew doing nothing while the British Army had to disband divisions because of lack of reinforcements, although some RAF Regiments were re-mustered.

Thanks for the reference to the Finnish Continuation War, Juha.
I would like to know why the Red Army failed against the Finns but succeeded against the Wehrmacht. Where, for example, were the IL-2 ground attack and Pe-2 dive bombers at Tali-Ihantala?
It seems the IS-IIs were destroyed by Panzerfaust/Panzerschreck fired into the engine compartment. It was the Russian infantry's job to prevent that. I know of no Churchills destroyed by hand-held weapons in Op Veritable except in built-up areas, but many had their turrets blown off by 88-mm and StuGs as they attempted to attack across open ground. StuGs changed position by moving fast along roads and were rarely if ever attacked by 2TAF fighter-bombers.

Which leads to the final observation, that modern war is successful only where there is intimate all-arms cooperation. 2TAF and the armoured divisions refused to cooperate intimately with the army, leaving only the infantry and artillery with an effective bond. That was very different from 1918 when tanks, aircraft, infantry and artillery fought cooperatively with equipment designed for the job, and destroyed the German army. That outcome was not due to the arrival of the US Army.

The difference with 1944/5 is marked, and therein lies the key to the difference in perfomance.

Tony

[Juha]

Hello Tony
why Soviets failed at Tali-Ihantala? Because attacking troops suffered too heavy losses and ran out of time, the timetable was fixed so that in mid-July 44 many of the best Soviet units were to be transferred to South to attack Germans. So the leaders of the Soviet offensive decided that the troops in Ihantala area were too exhausted and decided to make of a couple more main attacks on different parts of the Karelian Isthmus, but still they didn’t achieve breakthrough.

Why Finns survived. The main reason was that Soviet knew that the key player on Axis side was Germany. So they concentrated their efforts against it. If some of their main attacks failed to achieve designed results, Soviet made a new try. And Soviets were good in breakthroughs and very good to achieving surprises. Also Finns were well adapted to fighting in terrain dominating here, no vast plains here, and fighting in close country is bloody and usually slow. So the “race to Berlin”, tactical skills, good field artillery shooting procedures and stubbornness saved us but the price was high. Soviets were tough, excellent in planning attacks and they had very powerful artillery, they were difficult to stop and very difficult to push away from areas they had reached.
.
Yes, there was plenty of Il-2s, Pe-2 and Il-4 level bombers, plus of course fighters. In times over 200 planes were attacking at same time. But Finns were clearly more worried on very powerful Soviet artillery than on Il-2s.

IS-2s were destroyed by Panzerfaust/Panzerschreck hits on turrets, on sides and on rears, some were disabled by artillery, by bombs and by A/T mines and later destroyed by infantry/pioneer teams with explosives, some probably by direct hits by bombs or medium arty shells.

The key to successful defence against tank-infantry attack was the separation of tanks from their infantry escort, that was well understood by all, and best way to do that was powerful artillery barrage.

Quote:” that modern war is successful only where there is intimate all-arms cooperation.”

Yes, co-op was the key and Germans had understood that already before WWII. Finns also knew that, but early on lacked tanks and had too few shells and suffered from paucity of communication equipment. Also even NKVD (Soviet secret police) officers knew that already at the beginning of the Winter War, already in their reports in Dec 39 they criticized Red Army units for bad co-op between different branches. On co-op in British army, IMHO co-op for ex. between 15 (Scottish) Div and 6th Guards Tank Br was good, some other tank brigades had problems with co-op with infantry but that probably got better as time went because war is good if very hard teacher. And from Jun 44 to May 45 British Army advanced much farther than between Sept 16 and Nov 18.

And BTW there was no invulnerable tank in WWII, almost all of those 1800 Soviet heavy tanks destroyed in 44-45 were IS-2s.

Juha

[tcolvin]

Juha, I know there was no invulnerable tank in WWII.
What I'm talking about is frontal invulnerability to the enemy's common anti-tank weapon, and it did exist occasionally.
I'm not talking invulnerability to massive overkill such as the 3-inch 60lb SAP Typhoon RP, or 15-inch shells of HMS Warspite, or hand-held rocket-grenades fired into the sides or rear.
Matilda II in 1940 in the Arras counter-attack was invulnerable to the common 37-mm Pak36 'Doorknocker', and was eventually stopped only by intervention of the uncommon DP 88-mm. But the shock to Hitler led, IMHO, to the stand-still order outside Dunkirk and the turning point of WWII.
I've tried to show how in 1944/45 a reasonable upgrade to the Churchill VII would have achieved frontal invulnerability to the common DP 88-mm.

German and Russian all-arms cooperation was better than British/US because they had studied the lessons of Amiens 1918 and placed tactical aviation and armour under control of the ground commander - 'under command' rather than 'in support' which the RAF and Royal Armoured corps insisted on. I know the LW was nominally independent, and the USAAF was nominally under army control, but Kesselring made it clear to all subordinates that the Heer's wishes were paramount, while the USAAF hankered after the RAF's complete independence and acted accordingly, with the exceptions of Broadhurst and Quesada.

It seems from what you write that the Finns were very careful not to present a target to the VVS or Soviet artillery, and succeeded.

In Op Veritable the Germans tried to do the same, but often failed. The RAF dog saw the German rabbit, attacked it and missed nine times out of ten. Here is a typical story, known only because the German gunner wrote about it. No doubt 2TAF called it a success.
A Jagdpanzer IV (75-mm L48) of Panzerjäger Abteilung 33, 15 Panzer Grenadier Division, was in the village of Kervenheim on February 28, 1945. The gunner, Hans Kühn described how he destroyed the first Churchill to appear, which separated the tanks from the infantry, then the crew hid and were attacked from the air by 2TAF.


“The defence held against the enemy infantry who attacked continuously until the evening, the Paras giving no ground in spite of heavy losses from artillery fire. On the Üdem road the other tank destroyers hadn't 'let in a single goal' either. Meanwhile the crews gathered round 321 to have something to eat. It was more than a slice of dry bread, but not much more being only two months before the end of hostilities.
The hatch cover was open. The background noise of small arms and artillery fire never stopped. Nevertheless the crew suddenly picked up the well-known drone - Jabos! There were twelve of them flying in an elegant curve around Kervenheim. The crew of 321 knew the British procedure: whenever strong resistance was met and German tanks put in an appearance the higher commanders at once despatched the Jabos. And here were tracks in the field leading to the road and giving away their position! Lt. Merdian held the big hatch cover open with a gap of about 20 cm to see through. The gunner could also watch the flight pattern. The Jabos rounded Kervenheim church tower, gained a little height and peeled off, with the first diving straight for 321. Pray to God the hatch is solid! Each man sank down into his seat and soon aircraft bullets were rattling against the armour. Then there was a brief hissing followed by an almighty explosion. Instantly the inside of the SP Gun filled up with lime and brick dust. Everyone was coughing and gasping for air. It was a very dangerous moment. But the next bomb dropped further away. The hatch cover could not be opened. 321 was buried.
As night fell Lt. Merdian ordered the engine started. It actually fired up and the tank crawled out of the pile of rubble. The Paras greeted the crew with delight and described what had happened in the bombing attack. The first of the twelve Jabos had released two bombs which were overs and had hit the wall of the shoe factory producing an enormous cloud of dust. This had made the Tank Destroyer invisible to the following planes and was the biggest stroke of luck for the 321's crew. They were Lt. Merdian, the Commander; Sgt Kühn, Gunner; Sgt Voit, Driver; and Cpl Stürzbecher, Wireless Operator and Loader. “

Finally, do you recommend the films 'Tali-Ihantila 1944' and 'The Winter War - Talvisota' ?

Tony

[Laurent Rizzotti]

From what I have read air support on the battleground was not as important as was artillery fire. Far more attacks were broken by artillery fire than by aircraft, and the same can be said of enemy defensive positions neutralized by guns rather than by aircraft. The fact is that a squadron of fighter-bombers may attack one target for some minutes and then will go back to base to rearm, while artillery could pound an area for far longer.

Some studies have shown that airmen claimed far more tank kills than what they really achieved.

Another thing missing in your analysis IMHO is the importance of infantry fighting. In Western Europe most of the German defensive positions were in places where tanks could not be used. When you have to conquer a town, take a hill or cross a river under fire, the GI, Tommy or tirailleur has to go. And the fact is that in late 1944, the Allied were running out of infantry on the Western front sometimes. The British Army was disbanding units to fill up others, the French Army was replacing African soldiers by ex-Resistance fighters and the US Army was sending more and more troops, but not fast enough.

On the other hand, someone here said that Germany formed eight effective para divisions with Luftwaffe ground personnel. They were certainly not as effective as real para divisions (most of German "paratroops" in 1944-1945 never used a parachute, or even saw one) or even as an ordinary Wermacht division.

[Nick Beale]

Since I asked the original question and it was answered long ago, I'm declaring this thread closed.

The way the discussion has gone, I'd suggest it would be better to start a new thread or threads under "The Second World War in General" forum. Two obvious topics: (a) conduct of the campaign in NW Europe; (b) the effectiveness of tactical air power.

[Juha]

Hello Tony
IMHO Matilda, CharB, KV-1 and-2 and IS-2 showed, that some kind “supertank” wasn’t the answer to complex problem, even if they had real merits. It was possible to handle them. German answer to them was not only 88s, but also field artillery firing over open sights, for ex in 41 they usually attached to their leading units a couple of 88s and a couple of 10cm FK 18s and that usually worked, but not always. Also panzers in 1941 usually first shot up the lighter Soviet tanks then ganged up against remaining KVs and T-34s, confusing them and then eliminated them with short range hits on sides and rear with special APCR shots. Tiger I was really effective in 43 but of course had many problems because of its weight. Elefant/Ferdinand and Tiger II were IMHO too heavy and problems in their employment outweighed their merits, For ex Elefants were very effective when they happened to be in right place when Soviets attacked but moving them around was very complicated because of their excessive weight. Of course it always depends on situation, Matildas did well against Italians and Tiger Is were not very effective in Sicily.

Finns, being used to be the underdogs usually tried to position themselves so that they were difficult to pinpoint and the terrain helped much, even supply columns were much more difficult targets here than from example in open terrain in Ukraine.

Thanks for the story of that PzJg IV

On the films. I have not seen Tali-Ihantala but IMHO Talvisota is a good, realistic film based on true warpath of a Finnish unit. IIRC what I have heard on Tali-Ihantala filmis that it is realistic but maybe difficult to follow without some knowledge on the battle of Tali-Ihantala.

Hello Laurent
Yes, IMHO good infantry and good artillery were essential. IIRC according to German Field Regulations the most important thing in layout of main line of defence was good positions for artillery FOOs and the Soviet veterans of the Leningrad Front said that the worst thing they remembered was German artillery fire. On German Paras, yes the “new” para units were usually “gun fodder” even if 5th ParaD did surprisingly well during the Battle of Bulge. Also LW Field Divisions were very stupid invention but that kind of use of surplus ground crews has more to do with illogical inner working of the Third Reich than with the idea of retrain suitable surplus ground crews to infantry.

Juha