All you airplane experts

The Bf 109 E already flew with 300L drop tanks in 1940!

The BF109E-4 which was the standard version during the battle did not have the fuel system to take drop tanks.

 

But, here we have to raise a interesting point, since the war, many Germans and academics have said that "Operation Sealion" was part of a deception plan surrounding Barbarossa.
I don't buy that. I believe they are just making excuses. Operation Sealion was simply too expensive in both time and assets. You don't waste an air force on a deception plan. They were planning to invade. <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region> represented a threat they didn't want hanging over them and after Dunkirk Hitler was under the delusion that the Isles would fall just like <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">France</st1:place></st1:country-region>. It was at that point when Hitler had viewed his army as invincible. I think he was aware of the RAF threat because he knew they had an effective Bomber Command that was his biggest threat and thought he could eliminate that threat and then move on to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region></st1:place>. <o:p></o:p>
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On paper, at least with the view of war in that day, he had a far more powerful army but it was in 1940 when the world first realized that wars were no longer won by armies but rather by air forces. To me this keeps going back to my position that if the RAF had fallen then so would <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region> have fallen. You cannot overestimate the leverage that air power gives you. I don’t want to open the subject back up, and I know people really believed in the Royal Navy, but I am just of the mindset that Naval power was in a relative sense obsolete in WWII. If you look at the battle of <st1:place w:st="on">Crete</st1:place> the Germans had an aerial blockade that the Royal Navy kept trying to break until too heavy of losses from aircraft sinking ships forced them to withdraw. It would have been the same thing in the Channel only withdrawing might not have been possible.<o:p></o:p>
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With 3 of the 16 American air forces based in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region> (and eventually on Fortress Europe) the RAF played a less critical role after 1943. Don’t get me wrong, they were not insignificant having both experience and good planes and tactics, but the war after 1943 could have been won without them, though at a greater cost. But before this period especially before 1942, the fall of the German and Japanese empires was decided by the RAF. If <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region> had a chance to win it was then and only then. Without the RAF, there is no <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Without <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region> there is no defeating <st1:country-region w:st="on">Japan</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region> (yes I am well aware that I included <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region></st1:place> in with the enemies…those b*****ds). <o:p></o:p>
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People just don’t have an appreciation for air forces playing the major role in the WWII conflict but when you begin to read between the lines it becomes obvious that they were the single most critical factor in virtually all battles in WWII where they were involved.<o:p></o:p>
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Pick ANY major battle in WWII and ask the following two questions:<o:p></o:p>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->1)[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]<!--[endif]-->Could the Allies defeat the Germans if the air power had been equal on both sides? – The answer would probably be no, that the German armies were too well equipped and trained too powerful and too well supplied with their own industry.<o:p></o:p>
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2)[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]<!--[endif]-->Could the Allies defeat the Germans if the Germans had the air superiority? – Come on people; are there really two differing opinions to this?<o:p></o:p>

 

The info that I had seen was not until November?? 1940 on the E-7.

I've seen that it was in October.

 

I don't buy that. I believe they are just making excuses. Operation Sealion was simply too expensive in both time and assets. You don't waste an air force on a deception plan. They were planning to invade.

However, they did not have the proper equipment to land the troops on the beaches. Also, the opening phases of the BofB showed that the Luftwaffe had no proper plan of attack, which meant their plan to destroy the RAF was flawed.

In addition, more preparations had been made for barbarossa than Sealion.

Britain represented a threat they didn't want hanging over them and after Dunkirk Hitler was under the delusion that the Isles would fall just like <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comhttp://www.ww2talk.com/forum/ /><ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st=<ST1:PLACE w:st="on">France</ST1:PLACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION>.

<CENTER>Operation Seelöwe (Sealion)
DIRECTIVE No. 16</CENTER>
<TABLE cols=2 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top>The Fuhrer and CINC of the Wehrmacht
OKW/WFA/L #33 160/4O g. Kdos
Secret</TD><TD vAlign=top align=right>Führer Headquarters
16 Jusly 1940
Office Courier only</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Concerning preparations for an amphibious operation against England.
Since Britain still shows no sign of willingness to come to an agreement in spite of her hopeless military situation, I have decided to prepare and if necessary carry out an amphibious operation against England.

http://adolfhitler.ws/lib/proc/proclamtion.htm

it would seem that Hitler did not consider Britian as a threat.

I think he was aware of the RAF threat because he knew they had an effective Bomber Command that was his biggest threat and thought he could eliminate that threat and then move on to <ST1:PLACE w:st="on"><ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st="on">Russia</ST1:COUNTRY-REGION></ST1:PLACE>.

Bomber Command at the time was undergoing a major restructuring because of the various weakness in both aircraft and training that had been found during the phoney war.

Having discovered that their bombers could not operate without fighter escort during the day, were changing over to nighttime operations.

As stuffy dowding used to point out tghat during the BofB fighter command lost 497 pilots and aircrew, whereas during the same period Bomber Command lost 897 pilots and aircrew.

and I know people really believed in the Royal Navy, but I am just of the mindset that Naval power was in a relative sense obsolete in WWII.

The Royal Navy had a vital role to play in the anti-invasion plans and that was to launch a attack against the transports and barges. remember what happened to the yanks when E-boats got into the ships taking part in the pre-d-day exercise.

The commonwealth were providing ships of the line to bolster the Royal navy in home waters.

Don’t get me wrong, they were not insignificant having both experience and good planes and tactics,

That would explain why the USAAF asked Bomber command for help and assistance in setting up their bombing operations.

Please remember that famous quote from Albert Speer after the bombing of Hamburg, "if six more cities were subjected to the same, then Germany would fall"

 

The Royal Navy would have been a massive factor in Sealion, maybe even to a bigger extent than the airforce.
The thing is, Hitler never thought that he would have to invade the UK until quite late. Maybe that's why the plans were rushed.
They didn't have enough landing equipment to do the job. And with Bomber Command attacking French ports it was even harder.

 

However, they did not have the proper equipment to land the troops on the beaches. Also, the opening phases of the BofB showed that the Luftwaffe had no proper plan of attack, which meant their plan to destroy the RAF was flawed.
Don’t know about the opening phases. Could be a learning experience. Since the RAF offered little help in the Battle of France, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the Germans took them for granted. The Battle of France was not their “finest hour”. But they did have one.

it would seem that Hitler did not consider Britian as a threat.
I think if history told us one thing, it was that what Hitler said was not always what he meant. Since actions speak louder than words, you have to look past his usual propaganda and rhetoric and view it for what it always was. A ruse. It was pretty obvious from reading comments by German generals that they never took it as a whim. In fact destroy the RAF they almost did and fortunately for us did not because of the foolish pride of Hitler. Look Morse, in all the BofB movies I am pulling for the RAF pilots. I know who the good people were. Hitler could out produce the British and even with the help of the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place> it was limited as if the Lend Lease act kept mounting up the American people would have seen it as throwing money down a pit and lost support for it. <o:p></o:p>
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Yes the RAF was good. Yes the RN was good. Yes the USAAF was good. Yes the USN was good. But folks, the simplest way you can put it is that we got lucky! No way around that, we simply got lucky.


Bomber Command at the time was undergoing a major restructuring because of the various weakness in both aircraft and training that had been found during the phoney war.

Having discovered that their bombers could not operate without fighter escort during the day, were changing over to nighttime operations.

As stuffy dowding used to point out tghat during the BofB fighter command lost 497 pilots and aircrew, whereas during the same period Bomber Command lost 897 pilots and aircrew.
True, but still Morse, nighttime bombing was just not very effective. It could have never have slowed down the output of the German industry enough to gain air superiority. Daylight bombing was dangerous even with fighter escort. But it had to be done or Big Week (which created Allied air superiority) could never have happened. They would have simply replaced the aircraft. From 1939-early 1944 the Germans had air superiority in experienced pilots. Their problem was that they couldn’t get the planes. This costly daylight bombing was what kept their numbers at bay until the Jugs and P-51s could kill enough pilots and escort and strafing missions that their production became relatively inconsequential. In the BofB, it was the planes they shot down that hurt the Luftwaffe and which spurned industry expansion in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region> that took accurate heavy bombing to reduce its capacity. Once the German pilots started disappearing then the industry shifted to other production as there is no sense in producing planes when you don’t have enough pilots to fly them.

If you are going to light up <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Dresden</st1:place></st1:City>’s butt, nighttime bombing works just fine. With a blackout like the Germans had, you can’t see jack-squat. But taking out the main strasse orphanage rather than the factory you had desperately needed to take out does not serve any purposes in losing less men. Nighttime bombing was rarely worth the effort. It was simply too inaccurate. <o:p></o:p>

The Royal Navy had a vital role to play in the anti-invasion plans and that was to launch a attack against the transports and barges. remember what happened to the yanks when E-boats got into the ships taking part in the pre-d-day exercise. <o:p></o:p>
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The commonwealth were providing ships of the line to bolster the Royal navy in home waters.
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The situation you quoted seems to indicate anything but RN prowess. If a bunch of transport barges could get plastered under right under your protection god help you if some German aircraft spot you. Transport barges aren’t known for their ability to defend themselves against sea attack. What they needed was fighter cover since they could not count on the Navy to protect them. But like I said, the RN tried to defend <st1:place w:st="on">Crete</st1:place> from invasion. They did get a few of the transport ships carrying men (though the men were recovered), up until the Luftwaffe spotted them. Then it got really ugly and the British had to flee encountering heavy losses in the escape. I have no reason to think that if the Luftwaffe held air superiority that they wouldn’t have sunk the RN in the Channel as well. In fact it would make escape harder. In the rock-paper-scissors game of WWII combat, airplane trumps ship (any speed, any power). If a German aircraft could sink destroyers at will, submarines could have operated right under the noses of the destroyers as long as they moved when the sinking destroyer came down over them. They could have had a field day on the battleships and cruisers. It’s about air baby, it always was! Air superiority makes anything 10 times more powerful than the enemy’s equivalent.



That would explain why the USAAF asked Bomber command for help and assistance in setting up their bombing operations.
I never indicated that the RAF was stupid. If the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> enlisted RAF help in bomber bases and operations in <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>, more power to them. In fact, Spaatz spent the BofB in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region> observing everything the British and Germans did. He was extremely impressed by the British use of aircraft and spoke very well of just about every aspect of the RAF. They impressed him. He feed back every success and failure immediately into the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> aircraft industry. In fact my beloved Jug was designed on the best of what he had observed including the Typhoon which he liked very much but said it was too “thin”. (Maybe why the Jug weighed 7.5 tons). You simply won’t get any criticism out of the RAF from me. They won WWII. They won it by not losing the BofB, of which men without the same resolve would not have. My admiration for the RAF knows few bounds. That’s not to say I think their choices of aircraft or tactics were always the best. I believe many of the best tactics they and their allies used in WWII were developed either by cleverness, luck or mistakes. The British didn’t build the worlds greatest empire or invent modern democracy being a stupid people.
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Please remember that famous quote from Albert Speer after the bombing of Hamburg, "if six more cities were subjected to the same, then Germany would fall"
Do I take from this that you agree with Arthur Harris? That was his contention too right? And Hitler believed that too and why he stopped targeting the RAF and went after the citizens of <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:City>. <o:p></o:p>
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Jim, I'm gonna need reading glasses.

A question, Don't raids have to be gathered from various fields for let's say a 100+ group? This would consume fuel. Bombers would be okay but fighters coming from various fields to provide escort would also use fuel so tanks would increase range regardless of radar as long as the 109s could use drop fuel followed by inboard fuel. I would think piece of mind as well as that giving it the gas when rolling out or some other manuver would require less overall nerves for the raid allowing the pilots to concentrate more on their job. Don't have to conserve fuel so much in the fight.

 

The RAF in France had to cope with temporary airfields that were not defended as they should have. lack of spares and supplies, but time and time again they did prove their worth in what was fast becoming a futile effort. it was fortunate that Dowding wrote his memo about Fighter command when he did otherwise, if Churchill had his way then more and more suadrons would have been slaughtered for nothing.

Lets not forget that there were RAF personnel who had to be rescued from the Dunkirk beaches.

that would indicate that Hitler never truly expressed his views to the generals.

The idea that they almost won, is debatable, since many people including the Senior RAF Commanders had said that after August 15th, the battle swung in the RAFs favour. the most the Luftwaffe could achieve was air-superiority over 11 Group, which although it covered the invasion area, left the other groups still free to fight.

the Bombing policy of britian was based upon the destruction of both people and housing, as well as, industrial targets.

if you look at my posting you will see not the development of the bombing policy

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3836&page=6

Not really since as the Chief Luftwaffe Historian Dr Hoog points out, the luftwaffe did not really put as much empahsis on pilot training as did the Allies. In the early campaigns, the Luftwaffe drew on instructors to bolster their operational strength. The loss of many instructors in combat meant that there was not enough experienced intsructors and unlike the RAF, the Luftwaffe did not rotate combat tour expired aircrew to instructors posts for a rest.

At dresden, the RAF bombed at night, the USAAF bombed during the day. Please remember, that Dresden was bombed on the request of the Russians who saw it as a very important target. as for bombing any orphanages, then remember it was carpet bombing, the RAF were hide bound by regulations that said that could not bomb civilian targets at the start of the war!

its worth pointing out this from DR Boog

Bomber Command began operating pathfinder units to both find the target and mark it. Navigational aids were being constantly developed like Oboe, Gee, GH and best of all H2S radar. It is worth pointing out that the USAAF admited that with H2S they achived better bombing results than with the norden bomb sight, which in fact was inferior to the RAF MK9 bombsight.

As they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then we should note that in 1944, german aircraft were found to be carrying GEE equipment for navigation.

Given that the RN ships would be in the shipping lanes, then it would be difficult for the Luftwaffe, who had at the time many anti-shipping trained aircrew to sucessfully attack the RN ships without hitting their own. the RN's position would be akin to the Vietcong view of holding on to the belts of the Americans so that they could not deploy their firepower.

I agree that that the carpet bombing of cities could and did hasten the end of the war.

 

Jim, I'm gonna need reading glasses.

A question, Don't raids have to be gathered from various fields for let's say a 100+ group? This would consume fuel. Bombers would be okay but fighters coming from various fields to provide escort would also use fuel so tanks would increase range regardless of radar as long as the 109s could use drop fuel followed by inboard fuel. I would think piece of mind as well as that giving it the gas when rolling out or some other manuver would require less overall nerves for the raid allowing the pilots to concentrate more on their job. Don't have to conserve fuel so much in the fight.
Couple of things here. First fighters always came from other bases and rendezvoused with the bombers. The bombers take for ever to take off and climb to altitude. The always start out well before the fighters. Fighters would operate in the most forward bases for reasons that should be obvious. Fighters can also get in the air in seconds and will use time waiting on other fighters to climb. It takes a bomber 30 minutes to reach altitude. Fighters could climb between 2000 and 4000 fpm.

Second, the fuel differences you are talking about are negligible. A plane gets pretty good fuel economy at cruise speed in straight and level flight. It’s when you dog fight that you throttle up or climb that you burn the most fuel. It’s just like in a car, driving fast wastes fuel. Going up hill uses more gas as well. Of course that’s obvious.<o:p></o:p>

I never considered fuel economy the biggest problem as most of the important targets were in south <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region> (those friggen Supermarine and Hawker factories!) But it was the RAF they needed to take out. Everything else would be academic (in my opinion). Of course many would disagree as we have debated many times whether Royal Navy ships were super-buoyant even with mammoth fires and holes in their decks as long as they were in the Channel and as such they could prevent a land invasion. I think it was a mistake of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region> to try to bomb out <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s industries (other than fighters, fighter parts and fuel). When you land on the shores you can seize the factories and shut them down or start up production on your own things so you didn’t have to ship them across the channel. <o:p></o:p>
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That’s really the gist of the BofB invasion debate. I think everyone agrees that the right move would be to take out the RAF, whether they agree that an invasion success was possible for the aforementioned reasons. I guess from my standpoint of being an American and seeing and relating to the biggest battleships in the war at the time being sunk like they were the most useless pieces of scrap iron ever developed by mankind, leaves me with a little less awe of naval power. Though I often wonder what the average RN fan thinks of the <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Taranto</st1:place></st1:City> operation by the RN using its aircraft to do the something to the Italians ships they seem convinced was impossible to happen to their own ships. The RN was not known for its pilots or aircraft, but then again, rock-paper-scissors, planes are going to win every time. I guess you could say that Billy Mitchell was the only real prophet of technological warfare of WWII much as Winston Churchill was when he promised Chamberlain that war with Germany would come regardless of a stupid agreement on a piece of paper. <o:p></o:p>
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I am to this date, still not sure if it is the romance of tanks, battleships, and clever generals that causes most historians to blatantly miss how WWII was won. I realize why the average person thinks that way. I believe, is because they tend to follow the ideas of the historians rather than reading between the lines and being afraid to consider a minority position. But, I have found the minority position much more palatable than trying to swallow how Shermans managed to chase Tigers across France in stark terror getting many of them to abandoned along the way, or when they came upon some these tanks and found them bent in half or flipped upside down on their turret, wondering how a 75mm shell could manage to accomplish such a tremendous feat of physics. <o:p></o:p>
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The thing about WW2 is that for many people, of even my age, they came in contact with the men who had taken part in the action.
Yes but you are the exception not the rule. The majority are under the delusions that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region> was defeated by the Allies "duking" it out with Tigers in their <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Shermans</st1:place></st1:city> while ignoring the manifold pejorative expressions used for them like "Ronson Burners", "Tommy Cookers", et al. On one hand historians speak of Allied armor as some massive iron juggernaut while the actual users of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Shermans</st1:place></st1:city> have their own names for them that makes you think they believed them to be vulnerable to even small arms fire. Its like Historians say “boy that Allied armor carried the day” and the tankers saying “my god! that officer has his luger out, hide the <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Shermans</st1:place></st1:city>!”.<o:p></o:p>
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Morse, I know you are a big fighter fan, but go read a few books on RAF 2^nd TAC, US IX, US XIX, US XXIX and you see a picture that is quite different from which you typically from you Allied ground commander books. There is a 1/3 scale brass model of my beloved P-47 at the Honor Court of the Chapel on the campus of the US Air Force Academy that lists the following accreditations for the P-47 ALONE:<o:p></o:p>
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This multi-role fighter, affectionately know as the JUG, was the largest, heaviest, most destructive, single engine aircraft used during World War II. The P-47 excelled in close ground support and aerial combat.

Enemy Vehicles Destroyed: 160,000
Wing Span: 40 feet - 9 inches
Enemy Aircraft Destroyed: 11,874
Length: 36 feet - 2 inches
Enemy Trains Destroyed: 9,000
Gross Weight: Over 20,000 lbs
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<o:p> </o:p><o:p></o:p>Now this does not include what the British TAC destroyed nor the Light, Medium and Heavy Bombers of all three TAC and the strategic wings of the USAAF in WWII.<o:p></o:p>
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160 THOUSAND vehicles for one single plane type alone. My question is this: When did a <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Sherman</st1:city></st1:place> ever get a chance to blow up enemy equipment if the air was always (weather permitting) sent ahead of it to destroy everything it could find before the armor started moving? <o:p></o:p>
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Why are the armor history books not about tactical aircraft instead of Allied tanks? Who missed one this big? That’s like claiming to be an expert astronomer but being ignorant of the presence of the Sun in solar system. That’s one big “matzo ball” hanging from their noses. <o:p></o:p>

 

Isn't 'weather permitting' a crucial phrase here. If war was fought in perfect sunny cloudless conditions all day every day then the pie in the sky theories of winning purely by controlling the air could, perhaps, have an infintessimally small chance of success, however it isn't, it never has been, never will be. Occupying the enemies ground is the only way other than Diplomacy to win wars. Always has been, always will be. The 'battered bastards of Bastogne' were massively assisted when the sky cleared by the air support coming in but they managed to destroy a whole heap of enemy equipment without it, and hung onto the territory (admittedly by the skin of their teeth), Something that a Grounded aeroplane on a base 30 miles away simply cannot do.
You are quite right in saying weather permitting was a crucial phrase. But the same can be said about armor as in the <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lorraine</st1:place></st1:State> campaign got bogged down because the tanks got mired down in liquid mud for over a month. You don’t need around the clock attacking. You simply need to hold your front so air can do its thing.

Got news for you buddy, the one week before the December 23^rd weather break, there were Jugs flying armed reconnaissance sending back critical info on the nature and details of the offensive. You look at the scene in the Patton movie, which in my opinion about the only thing that wasn't embellished, where on the morning of the "weather prayer" shows wing after wing after wing of Jugs heading out while Patton was discussing the mission for the day. Those Jugs were going to remove the German armor which they did by the fact that Patton’s 4^th Armor was able to drive the remaining Germans away from Bastone and back to the Eiffel with <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Shermans</st1:place></st1:City>. <o:p></o:p>
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Thanks to Ultra (or should I say thanks to the British) the Allies got wind of a general withdrawal from the Bulge toward the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Dansberg</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Bridge</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> on the Our River. The fighter/bombers took out the railroads and the size of the withdrawal necessitated a withdrawal during the day. XIX TAC (The Air Force assigned to Patton) medium bombers hit the start of the convoy near the bridge and blocked and congested the column on the roads. Then the fighter bombers were sent in to and the pilots reported it was a better shooting opportunity than the Falaise gap where air destroyed between 60 and 80% of the equipment in the gap. <o:p></o:p>
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Everybody claims Patton had no enemy in front of him in the breakout. The truth is that the COBRA bombing which caused less than 300 Allied casualties, resulted in almost the entire German resistance in front of him being leveled creating a corridor of German-less ground which Patton knew very well how to exploit. Patton and Weyland (head of XIX TAC) developed a highly efficient and coordinated system of ground and close support where Patton was allowed to “fly” across <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region> with <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Shermans</st1:place></st1:City> because his fighter/bombers replaced the artillery that could not keep up with the advances. This exploitation caused the Germans to withdraw so fast they had started abandoning heavy armor which could not move fast enough. Patton kept them on the run using XIX TAC always operating about 20 miles ahead of him. He would flush the Germans out and the air would destroy them. This move which was on the verge of collapsing the Western front to where he could sprint into <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region> was stopped by having his fuel and ammo taken away for other operations. This allowed the Germans to regroup and move in reinforcement and dig in. That combined with the constant rain from Oct to Dec 44 created a static front in which neither army could move. <o:p></o:p>
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I am of the belief that the differences in tank doctrine between the British and Americans cost the British much of the movement they could have had. The British were old-school where they tended to “slug it out” with FireFly tanks and 17/25 pdrs rather than placing sufficient attack emphasis on tactical air. In fact it was Coyningham that insulted Patton in <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place> claiming he was making excuses when his troops were being incessantly strafed and bombed by German tactical air. This is proof that he didn’t understand that in WWII there was a changing of the guard in what was the most critical phase of execution. In fact to me that is pure irony that Patton (a ground commander) got it whereas Coyningham (an Air Force commander) did not. <o:p></o:p>
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The point is air superiority was everything. It alone, decided who was going to win the war. That’s not to say the Army was not needed to clean up the mess when air was done, it is just that the power of the Army was of a lot less significance in the advent of air superiority. In WWII tactical air was still new and not well understood but Patton and Weyland were way ahead of their time and that was what made Patton standout more than anything. That’s the real brilliance of Patton; he got it as far as air power was concerned. Yes, he could predict virtually every move the enemy was going to make including the Winter Offensive that the other generals ignored that came with being obsessed with every aspect of war from the age of eight. But it was his knowledge that air “got it done” and armor and infantry cleaned up the remains. <o:p></o:p>

 

Yes but you are the exception not the rule

Not really, when you consider that there were a few of my school teacher who took an active part in the war. One was even a troop comander on Shermans.

Many of the books I have dealing with armoured warfare mention how a single Tiger stopped a canadian Brigade advancing. The programme I saw on the History channel, quoted a German Officer who was in Italy in charge of a 88 gun. He talked about sherman tanks comming down a road one by one and his unit destroying them with one shot. He did say that in the end, he ran out of shells but the allies did not run out of shermans.

I have photo which I have attached and it was taken at the Overloon Museum and shows a sherman which had been knocked out by a 50mm Pak.

There are many more books who talk about the co-operation between the Air Forces and the ground forces.

here is a quote from Bee Beamont who flew as commander of 122 wing 2TAF

"In <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:State><st1:place>Normandy</st1:place></st1:State> there was never any lack of understanding and cooperation between our forward liaison officers and the army chaps they were helping, and it worked both ways. We had fighter pilots up in the forward positions controlling the cab-ranks and they came back with an enormous respect for the soldiers on the ground and the nasty job that they had to do. In recent years I have had a flow of correspondence, mostly unsolicited, containing interesting insights into this. One of these came recently from a chap who was a platoon commander dug-in on the roundabout on the south side of the <st1:City><st1:place>Nijmegen</st1:place></st1:City> bridge in October 1944. He described in great detail sitting in his slit trench keeping out of the way of 88mm fire and watching a finger four, as he described them, of Tempests patrolling overhead, which were obviously from my outfit. He concluded by saying 'thank God for the Air Force in <st1:State><st1:place>Normandy</st1:place></st1:State>, we would have been lost without you'. I have had a number of letters from soldiers like that, who I don't know, all saying exactly the same thing; their appreciation on the ground of our support was enormous. I think that at the same level we had an enormous appreciation of what they were doing."<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o:p></o:p>
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RPB Beamont quoted in Overlord – 1944 – A Symposium on the Normandy Landings, RAFHS, <st1:City><st1:place>London</st1:place></st1:City>, 1994, P86

<o:p> but go read a few books on RAF 2<SUP>nd</SUP> TAC, US IX, US XIX, US XXIX and you see a picture that is quite different from which you typically from you Allied ground commander books.
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John Terraine wrote in his book "Right of the Line" which is a widely aclaimed history of the RAF

An outstanding triumph of air power. It was air power that paved the way into Europe; air power covered the landings and made it impossible for the germans to concentrate against them; air power maintained interdiction, and pressure on the enemy when the "master plan" failed; air power completed the overwhelming victory

Morse, I know you are a big fighter fan

Thanks for the compliment but I am really a Bomber ops person.
This multi-role fighter, affectionately know as the JUG, was the largest, heaviest, most destructive, single engine aircraft used during World War II. The P-47 excelled in close ground support and aerial combat.

please remember that the P47 served with 16 squadrons of the RAF mainly in the Far east.

Why are the armor history books not about tactical aircraft instead of Allied tanks? Who missed one this big?

Just to give you an example of what is contained in books on armoured history.

The narrow defile at Gorze had caused a serious traffic jam but at 0630 am the assult boats were ready at the river. German artillery fire was heavy and American losses were high but some of the infantry got across the river to attack Fort Saint-Blaise immediately opposite Dornot. They were thrown back but managed to tretain a narrow foothold. Air support was requested but none was available, all air support being involved in the effort to take Brest. Icks, Robert Famous Tank Battles, profile, Winsor, 1971

 

Oh come on Morse, you know most history books make scant mention of air power other than the minimalist and gratuitous "oh, by the way, the air force also showed up, they did ok". As many thousands of books written on WWII Allied front, very few give air its proper place or else it would be news to most people that the Allies had tanks on the ground at all. I say that in a relative sense. You don't hear the typical historian discussions on Patton and Monty where they act like the air was good for anything except recon and tactical air consisted of a bunch of piper cubs.

The only place I found out why Patton flew across <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region></st1:place> was in Patton's diary. All of his "biographies" make it look like his genius somehow converted his medium tanks into ETO dominating machines. The fallback to this is that the American's had tremendous artillery, but I find that on Patton's front, he moved too fast for artillery to be a factor and what enabled him to do this was not "superior" general'ing but rather tremendous coordination of air moving just in front of his troops and the fact he would not let them dig in to where air could not find them.

People talk about his war machine needing refitting, the fact of the matter was that the German front he was moving was on the verge of total collapse because he wouldn't let up. His refusal to let up force German armor to abandon that which could not escape or flush into the open to where XIX TAC could have a turkey shoot on them. Fighter/bombers are merciless against tanks. Without control of the air, tanks are useless.

Patton issued an order to his press corps that they were not allowed to speak of Third Army victories without mentioning XIX TAC. He must have been trying to tell us something. No one else "divided the wealth" like that and few historians ever said, "tactical air drove to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region> and oh by the way, the Army came along".

Even though you can see this if you look, it is not something many historians have ever emphasized. You are a plane oriented person, that's what I meant by a fighter fan. You are liable to read the few books that document the war as having been waged from the skies.

To me, this unfortunate yet ubiquitous ignorance causes two unfortunate things side effects to WWII history. First is the absolute prowess of Allied air. Quite frankly, the allies were not marginally better than the Germans anymore than the SS were marginally better than the green teenage boys we sent over there. They reversed the advantages the Germans held in a remarkably short time and caused such a tremendous disparity, most of which took place in one short week in Feb 1944.

The other unfortunate ignorance was just how good the German army was. It put up a good fight despite being castrated daily in ways that would have caused normal armies collapse. Without air supremacy, the second battle of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">France</st1:place></st1:country-region> would have looked like the first one, maybe worse.
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The narrow defile at Gorze had caused a serious traffic jam but at 0630 am the assult boats were ready at the river. German artillery fire was heavy and American losses were high but some of the infantry got across the river to attack Fort Saint-Blaise immediately opposite Dornot. They were thrown back but managed to tretain a narrow foothold. Air support was requested but none was available, all air support being involved in the effort to take <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Brest</st1:place></st1:City>. Icks, Robert Famous Tank Battles, profile, Winsor, 1971
I think you make the case perfectly. Where the air was, complete devastation of the enemy ensued. In <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Brest</st1:place></st1:City>, they got the living dog crap bombed out of them. You should look at Rommel's notes on that as he laments and foretells that with the level of destruction his troops were facing at Brest that he didn't expect them to hold on long or make it out alive (which for the most part they didn't). Where you don't have air power, then it is army and army which does not bode well for the Allies at all.

Allied armies were in no way as good or as effective as the Germans. That’s not a knock on allied armies but a complement to the Germans. The Germans were truly professional soldiers, the Americans (and other allies) were thrown into war having no interest in soldiering, some of them wondering one week who to ask to the dance at the high school and the next week figuring out where the MF-42 firing was coming from. But air power trumps all of that. It trivializes the other tactical advantages of virtually every other aspect of warfare (including navy). Even the most experience and well trained soldier is not effective as his molecules are vaporizing in the presence of 100 pound white phosphorous anti-personnel bombs (the thing the German soldier feared the most) or 8 - 50 cal 800 rounds per/second per/plane strafing runs on them. No truck, light armor, or even trees will protect you from those rounds, they go through everything, there’s no where to hide on a good strafing attack, you can kill entire companies on a single pass just by kicking the rudders. The rate of fire on the aerial 50 calibers was twice that of the ground Ma Duce’s. If you can't the stop the air, then “game over” I don't care how awesome your tanks, artillery and strategies are. It's all relative.

Also, it was not the Jug per se that caused the annihilation of the Germans in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">France</st1:place></st1:country-region>, it was air superiority. With air superiority, virtually all tactical bombers, light, medium, fighter bomber, etc anything that can carry and drop ordinance would have similar results. Jugs were the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s primary fighter up until middle spring of 1944 when the mustangs took over the role. The Jugs were too valuable because they could carry so much ordinance. P-51s were also used as fighter/bombers but like the Spitfire, it couldn’t deliver enough ordinance at the Jugs rate or that the beating the Jug could. The P-51 replaced the Jug because of its range and cost, not its performance. The performance was approximately a wash (though some Jug pilots insist the it was a better fighter than the P-51). But still, the Mosquitoes, Typhoons, and Tempests were also tremendous ground assault aircraft, but I maintain that the British did not use them enough to their best capability. It might have been the numbers, I believe the British for their capacity and budget produced too many fighters and not enough fighter/bombers. After D-Day, the value of the Spit just was not as important as the German fighters were disappearing. Better use of the production would have been on Tempests and Typhoons in my opinion<o:p></o:p>
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You mentioned the affects of the German artillery. Patton faced very little German artillery until he was halted in the <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lorraine</st1:place></st1:State>. The Germans considered it too risky to fire their artillery, not just because the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> artillery had better range and accuracy for counter fire, but most so because it gave away their positions to the Jabos that would easily destroy them even with strafing. This was a common complaint of German commanders back to their superiors how their artillery was not even usable. <o:p></o:p>

 

Allied armies were in no way as good or as effective as the Germans. That’s not a knock on allied armies but a complement to the Germans. The Germans were truly professional soldiers, the Americans (and other allies) were thrown into war having no interest in soldiering, some of them wondering one week who to ask to the dance at the high school and the next week figuring out where the MF-42 firing was coming from.

Ever heard of the Battle of the Bulge ?
And what is a MF-42 btw ?

 

Ever heard of the Battle of the Bulge ?
And what is a MF-42 btw ?

I think it should be MG42, just a simple typo!

 

I think it should be MG42, just a simple typo!

I think there is something called rereading.

 

Yes but you are the exception not the rule. The majority are under the delusions that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region> was defeated by the Allies "duking" it out with Tigers in their <st1:city w:st="on"><st1 ="">:place w:st="on">Shermans</st1>:place></st1:city> while ignoring the manifold pejorative expressions used for them like "Ronson Burners", "Tommy Cookers", et al. On one hand historians speak of Allied armor as some massive iron juggernaut while the actual users of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1 ="">:place w:st="on">Shermans</st1>:place></st1:city> have their own names for them that makes you think they believed them to be vulnerable to even small arms fire. Its like Historians say “boy that Allied armor carried the day” and the tankers saying “my god! that officer has his luger out, hide the <st1:city w:st="on"><st1 ="">:place w:st="on">Shermans</st1>:place></st1:city>!”.<o ="">:p></o>:p>
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Lol I missed that other gem from our local loony: shall I point out that the majority is also under the delusions that: Von Rundstedt was hardly involved in the operational conduct of the Battle of the Bulge or that the EP was not issued at the end of the Civil war (to quote just a few of our expert gems).