Stalingrad Air Raid

[Jim Oxley]

On 23 August 1942 the Fourth Air Fleet under the command of General von Richthofen flew approximately 1,600 sorties and dropped 1,000 tons of bombs on the city of Stalingard, effectively destroying it. All for the loss of three (3) aircraft.
[Details from the book Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor].

Where on earth was the V.V.S.and why did it fail to inflict severe losses on the German units?

[NBE1942]

Originally Posted by Jim Oxley

On 23 August 1942 the Fourth Air Fleet under the command of General von Richthofen flew approximately 1,600 sorties and dropped 1,000 tons of bombs on the city of Stalingard, effectively destroying it. All for the loss of three (3) aircraft.
[Details from the book Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor].

Where on earth was the V.V.S.and why did it fail to inflict severe losses on the German units?

Hi,

Ritoric question. VVS was in the air trying to retaliate German formations. According to official statistics Soviet side claimed 120 German planes shot down, including 30 by anti-aircraft defense. I managed to find "only" around 50 Soviet claims by fighters of 8 VA and 102 IAD PVO on this date.
Actual poor results of Soviet defense attemts could be explained by the fact that in reality 6-th Army launched major offensive on Stalingrad in the morning and all the fighters were busy escorting sturmovicks to the advancing German columns. Even PVO units used their guns mostly against German tanks. Thus, when it came to react on the Stalingrad raids on the second half of the day units of 8 VA and 102 IAD were exausted enough to fail in effectively covering the city.

BR

[yogybär]

Imagine that amount of supply... 1000 tons of bombs, plus the same amount of fuel or even more...

And imagine that day... it started as a nice summer day for sure...during maybe 8hours of operations, 1.600 sorties... meaning 200 planes per hour over the city...

Remidnes me of that picture with the huge black cloud over Stalingrad, which according to a pilot had the shape of a cross - a grave's cross... and it hang their for several days...

We are just lucky persons to live in the early 21st century in the peaceful parts of the world.

[Boomerang]

Jim:

I believe the general picture at that time and place was that the Luftwaffe had acheived air supremacy over the VVS by virtue of qualitative (aircraft and pilots) and quantitative superiority.

If you want further information, I suggest that Stopped at Stalingrad by Joel Hayward gives a good description of the air war over the southern part of the Russian front from early 1942 to January 1943, including the battles in the Crimea, Stalingrad and the Caucacus. Told from the Luftwaffe point of view, but certainly plenty of descriptions of VVS operations and lots of primary references.

In fairness to the VVS, the Soviets had been pushed back literally hundreds of kilometres by the German summer offensive, so the VVS is likely to have been trying to maintain operations under all the duress of abandoning airfields, leaving behind unserviceable aircraft, trying to re-establish itself on new bases with inadequate infrastructure and so on.

Cheers

Boomerang

[Jim Oxley]

Hi Boomerang,

Haywards book is a good read, but it is very much just the view from one side ie the Luftwaffe's.

I'm really hanging out for Vol.3 of Bergstroms' Black Cross/Red Star series, which covers the German summer offensive from June 28, 1942 through to the hughe air battles Over Stalingrad. This should throw some light on why the Luftwaffe managed to dominate the air battles over Stalingrad in the early stages.

[yogybär]

The rough answer might be:

Becasue the VVS was totally exhausted:
1) Bad planes (Il-2 w/o rear gunner, early LaGG3, L&L-Hurricane, very old reserve-I-16 etc) ...
2) ... delivered only in unsufficient numbers during the summer, because of moving the whole industry towards the "safe areas".
3) After huge losses in 1941 already, most pilots were very unexperienced.
4) Ongoing changes in organizational structures towards the new system of Air Armies, which were independent from the ground forces' "Fronts".

[Graham Boak]

Experience seems to show that it takes more than 1000 tons of bombs to destroy a city.

[yogybär]

Experience seems to show that it takes more than 1000 tons of bombs to destroy a city.

Ah, yes, thanks for this valuable insight... Sorry, couldn't resist .

[kolya1]

I've got a question for a german-speaker, if sombebody could only confirm the meaning of a few expressions...

In this page :

http://www.ww2.dk/oob/bestand/jagd/biijg3.html

Does the following column :

Abgang/durch Feindeinw.

imply aircraft totally lost to enemy action ?


And this one :

Abgang/Überholung

refer to planes damaged or weared ?


If so, I've tried to compile the german losses on the southern part of the front for August and September 1942, I've included the following units, do you think this is a correct order of battle for this time frame (They should mainly be units serving either over Stalingrad or over the Caucasus) ?

Fighters :

JG3
JG52
II/JG77 (until september 1942)
I/JG53
I and II/ZG1


Attack/Stukas :

SchG1
I and II/StG2
II/StG1
I/StG77


Bombers :

KG1
KG2
KG27
KG55
III/KG4
II/KG53
I/KG100



Reconnaissance :

1.(H)/10
4.(H)/10
3.(H)/12
5.(H)/12
7.(H)/13
2.(H)/32
2.(H)/41
3.(H)/41
6.(H)/41
2.(F)/Aufkl.Gr. 33
3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr. 31


Transport :

KGrzbV 1
KGrzbV 50
KGrzbV 102
KGrzbV 172
KGrzbV 900


If that's correct, I'll post the list I got for these units... (I got it from that web-page I quoted above, they seemed to have correct sources (notably Bundesarchiv), but of course, the interest of such a list is limited bythe reliability of the data...),

Thanks,

Kolya.

[yogybär]

Your translations are OK.
"Feindeinwirkung" means "due to enemy action"
"Überholung" means "back to workshop for rehaul"

Concerning units, I need to check tomorrow.