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D-Day: where were the fighter-bombers?
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Message 1.Â
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Sunday, 5th June 2011
In every war documentary and film, I have only ever seen allied troops pinned down by enemy fire on the beaches and slaughtered due to ineffectual naval gunfire against the German clifftop pillboxes and machine gun nests?
I have never seen, or heard anything related to the logical use of allied fighters or fighter-bombers strafing the clifftops to protect the boys below?
After all, we had air superiority and (during the Caen/Falaise campaign days/weeks later) the tactics dictated that such allied aircraft circled the battle-scene until called for? Couldn't the field commanders have had them at least try to aid their stricken lads, well away from the Germans at that point? -
Message 2
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Monday, 6th June 2011
The "cab rank" system that kept fighter-bombers waiting for quick intervention on the battlefield was a later invention. On D-Day, the radio teams of the units on the beach were supposed to transmit requests for air support to the headquarters ship (every landing beach had one). The HQ ship would transmit it to the headquarters of 21st army group, and this would pass it on to the HQ of the allied expeditionary air force. This was expected to take about 2 hours.
Fire support during the landing depended a lot on naval gunfire, with the assistance of spotters in Seafires and Spitfires. (In the preparations for Overlord, number of USN spotter pilots quite unexpectedly found themselves assigned Spitfires, instead of their usual far less glamorous mounts.) Presumably this was faster to respond. It could also be very accurate, which mattered a lot when the battle was on such a narrow strip of land.
Nevertheless, some fighter-bombers were indeed deployed to attack targets on the coastline, at the time of the landing. For example, twelve squadrons of Typhoons were tasked with attacking bunkers and artillery positions on the British beaches. This was more in the hope of forcing the heads of the defenders down at a crucial time than in the expectation of doing much damage.
The best use of fighter-bomber units was against targets further inland, with the goal of delaying or preventing the arrival of German reinforcements, by attacking bridges, anything that moved on the roads, and enemy headquarters. -
Message 3
Posted by sinbadnick (U14506866) on Monday, 6th June 2011
Ineffectual Naval gunfire' well I was there on aCruiser and ive been in a
few Naval barrages but this was one hell of a barrage not from just a
few small ships but Battle ships Cruisers and Destroyers and watching
the shells smashing into those shore batteries and pill boxes along the
shore as the troops went in to land was some'thing that I and every one
who was there at the time will never forget ' it was god help the enemy
soldiers under that lot.
And I wonder why the British troops after landing got so far ashore inland
in quick time,and I am not talking about the American sector. -
Message 4
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Monday, 6th June 2011
Thanks, but in reply to both posts, the naval gunfire was either ineffectual (hence the troops being pinned down on the US Omaha beach), or all films and docs by British and American productions, have twisted history? Not one FB has yet been shown blasting bunkers apart and strafing along the coastal length on the Utah/Omaha beaches, if any of the five?
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Message 5
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Monday, 6th June 2011
Omaha was different. Cloud cover. Bombs too far inland, etc.
Utah was the opposite - almost unopposed, partly due to landing in the wrong place.
The Brit beaches were at seaside towns, with houses on the seafront, etc, They had DD tanks on the beaches, etc, and were cleared quite well. due in part to the excellent naval support. But 15 inch guns were better used to blast things farther away, as were the planes, so the tanks and lighter inshore ships done the job.
The 'close support' role by fighter bombers was developed later, when the technique was refined to a fine art, but close support was not in the D-day plan, as far as I am aware. The airforces were supposed to clear the sky of German planes, to protect the landings, and keep the panzers inland from getting to the beaches, which they did very well. OK, so on the day, very few German planes turned up, but that was not known when they were planning it! -
Message 6
Posted by jack29p (U1877186) on Monday, 6th June 2011
Well, probably not what the author means, but if you are talking of Mosquito's I can tell you where one was
My father flew MM124 with 571 Squadron the night of DDay to Mannheim - Ludwigshaven. Carrying 1 X4,000 HC with Flying officer Mapes, the flight took 3hrs 20 mins. He writes in his diary " Met boobed again, and target covered by 10/10 cloud up to 20,000ft. No T.I's could be seen. Went into thickest part of flak and let bomb go. Flak quite accurate and a fair amount, had to weave considerably to get out but not hit,. A wonderful night, full moon- first class opportunity for fighters. This was D-Day."
On 4th - 5th June he was over Cologne and on 9th -10th over Berlin
Just thought you would like a little info
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Message 7
Posted by Bish (U14883863) on Monday, 6th June 2011
It seems odd that the allies had not yet developed effective close air support seeing as the Germans had been useing it since the start of the war. I think the Allies were relying on the naval gunfire to deal with the defences. Also, for close air support to work right, you need FAC on the ground to guide the aircrfat in. And once the Allied troops were on the shore they would probab;lt have been to close to the defences for either air support or naval support to help out much.
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Message 8
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Tuesday, 7th June 2011
The only place the Allies were actually fighting was in N.Africa and then Italy, and the British Desert Air Force was developing the 'tactical air support' techniques later perfected in N W Europe, but it was not until the rocket-armed Typhoons came along that this was really effective.
Seeing what the Germans did by way of close support is not the same as learning how to do it yourself - that has to be trial and error, and improving your techniques, which is what they were still doing in Normandy. It was not a sudden insight - 'Gerry does that, lets copy it', and you have a fully fledged system in place. The detail of just how 'Gerry does that' is what has to be learned, and people trained to do it, and do it by instinct when under fire, etc.
Bad close support is worse than none - hitting your own side does not endear the pilots to their 'pals' in the hedgerows!
The Yanks, of course, refused to learn from anyone else, (same as WWI) and had to get a few thousand of their own men killed before 'learning' the techniques the Brits already knew. -
Message 9
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Tuesday, 7th June 2011
hitting your own side does not endear the pilots to their 'pals' in the hedgerows!Â
The British POWs being marched across Germany weren't too impressed when some of their number were killed and wounded by some idiot in a Typhoon, either! -
Message 10
Posted by Bish (U14883863) on Tuesday, 7th June 2011
Thats all very true. But given that the Germans had been doing this since 1939, you would have thought it would have been something we picked up on and at least worked on in the 4 years before D-Day. After all, we picked up on the idea of paratroops, and we trained the forces to do it before sending them to battle. Just seems odd we never considered somthing so important before D-day, especially when you consider the threat from German armour.
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Message 11
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Wednesday, 8th June 2011
I have read that the RAF were using such aerial FB tactics at the time of the Caen and Falaise phase of D-Day plus?
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Message 12
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Wednesday, 8th June 2011
Not only had we considered it, we WERE using it already, and developing it better and better as time went on. But it had not yet nreached the 'state of the art' it had become by the time of Falaise - that only comes with "hands-on" experience.
In the end, we were a lot better at it than the Germans ever were! Just in the D-Day plan, the close support was down to the navy, and the DD tanks, and the air was used on the German tanks, etc, coming up from the rear, which worked extremely well.
Remember, the Navy were firing huge shells at the beachhead, and inland - and figher-bombers coming in at low level would have been in grave danger from passing rounds! Even the air disturbance from a 15in naval shell going past could be enough to flip a fighter plane over, and make it crash. The bombers went in high, and the fighters patrolled the edges - as far as I know, they were banned from flying too low over the beaches, due to naval shelling.
Besides, if past experience was anything to go by, any Allied fighter coming low over the beaches would be shot at by a significant number of their own troops, even in spite of the 'invasion stripes' painted under the wings! -
Message 13
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Saturday, 11th June 2011
Two further points:
No-one knew - no-one COULD know - that the Luftwaffe was going to be so conspicuously absent from the air above the beaches, and the fighters would not be required to deal with them. One of the lessons learned from Dieppe was that doing so would probably lead to disproportionate casualties on the Allied side.
Have you ever been in one of the German batteries? In 1968, I got stuck at the edges of the invasion area during "Les évènements" and spent a number of nights sleeping in one. I reckon nothing short of a direct hit from heavy ordnance, or hit from air munitions full on the mantlet plate (needle / haystock jobbie) would have rendered them permanently inoperable. Air and Naval bombardment could - and did - make them useless whilst in progress. -
Message 14
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Saturday, 11th June 2011
No-one knew - no-one COULD know - that the Luftwaffe was going to be so conspicuously absent from the air above the beaches, and the fighters would not be required to deal with them. One of the lessons learned from Dieppe was that doing so would probably lead to disproportionate casualties on the Allied side.Â
Eisenhower's HQ had good reason to be optimistic in this, if surprise could be achieved. There was virtually no Luftwaffe presence left in France: The bombers and attack aircraft were needed on the Eastern front, the fighters for the air defense of the Reich. The Luftwaffe planned to send aircraft into France as a response to the invasion, but this gave the invading Allies an initial advantage. And even when they arrived, a few hundred German fighters would find it impossible to seriously challenge Allied air supremacy over the beaches. Apart from the strength of 2nd TAF and the 9th AF, the invasion could be covered by the fighters of the 8th AF and ADGB.
Such was Allied air superiority that the Luftwaffe could not even get photographic coverage of the beaches until August 2, when a prototype Ar 234 jet was sent to France to photograph the landing areas. -
Message 15
Posted by caissier (U14073060) on Thursday, 30th June 2011
From Anthony Beevor's D-Day ....... even during the heavy ground attacks in the Falaise pockets the effect of rocket-firing assault Typhoons has been over-estimated with far fewer tanks destroyed than has been generally thought. Film of such attacks could suggest they were pretty hard to aim. He says they were very effective against 'soft; targets but it was artillery which did most damage.
He also says that the air forces would not attack in line with the defences as that was judged too dangerous but did so on a north south axis and most bombs went over, as did rockets from specialised assault landing craft, spectacular though they looked.
The Germans had been specialising in dive-bombing for a long time but as part of blitzkreig tactics within mobile warfare against fairly exposed targets. Those of thge Atlantic Wall were relatively small and highly protected. The bombardments of the First World War were limited in their effectiveness? ....... and did the Allies have any effective dive-bombing capability anyway?
It is interesting to go over the beaches on Google earth spotting the defences. Craters from bombing from before the invasion are still visible (in line with the coast) ...... at one point a row of huge ones look as if they would have wiped out a very strong series of concrete emplacements if it had dropped thirty feet to the right. I think some of that kind of defences were disturbed by an 'earthquake effect' and some were abandoned with guns removed to less visible pits behind the coast.
Omaha was the only beach where there were serious difficulties in getting ashore ...... ? ...... and my impression is that was because of high ground overlooking the very exposed beach ....... so a lack of close air support was perhaps not a factor/ -
Message 16
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Thursday, 30th June 2011
did the Allies have any effective dive-bombing capability anyway?Â
Ask the Japanese after Midway - I'm sure they would tell you that the US Navy at least had effective dive-bombers. -
Message 17
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 30th June 2011
Just to second what caissier has just written, surely the point about the "Blitzkrieg" concept of a lightning strike, and an important part of the whole dive-bomber tactic was its value as a terror weapon against soft-targets- especially with the sound deliberately exploited to create terror and hamper lucid thinking. If the coast of France had been a soft-target, D Day would have been much easier.
Furthermore a recent reading of a Fifties biography of Group Captain Cheshire brought out very clearly how he showed the superior value of low-level precision bombing over Germany- in place of the previous high-level bombing which bomber command had been using..
But the change in tactics to a greater emphasis on low-level precision targets was aimed at industrial plants in the German economy, and that was dangerous enough. Heavily fortified emplacements along the Atlantic Wall would have been a very different matter: and in any case the ability of war-ships to bombard places by the coast had been a feature of naval warfare at least since the Dutch came up and bombarded London in the 1660's.
But the Americans were perhaps less experienced in war on this scale.. Certainly I believe that the American ships on one of the beaches launched its "amphibians" far too far out to sea, with the result that large numbers capsized and the mechanised nature of the landing was impaired. Many of the machines were equipped with technology that was aimed at making it easier for simple infantry-men. But I believe old British Army wisdom argues that- in the final analysis- it is feet on the ground that make all the difference in spite of all the boffins' technology.
The role for the RAF in D Day was (a) to win the battle for the skies over the Channel, which had been the whole point of the Battle of Britain. Germany initially aimed to get control of the air in 1940 so that German air-power could have been used against the British Navy, leaving the Channel free for the German invasion barges. Gaining and maintaining that command of the skies was crucial to the whole D Day plan, presumably as far as possible keeping the whole region free from spying planes and submarines that might have made sense of the build-up.
And (b) to weaken the German defences in the hinterland support area, attacking key lines of communication by bombing, and by attempted seizures as large gliders were towed in-land where paratroopers were also dropped.
In this respect I remember many years ago being struck on an anniversary of D Day by the actor Alan Badel recollecting his role as one of the paratroopers, dropped behind the enemy lines with orders and training that involved sneaking up on German guards, seizing them with the left arm and hand- clamped over the mouth to prevent them giving any allarm, and thrusting a knife up from under the rib-cage and into the heart.
Then , still to prevent noise, holding the man as his life drained away, and he could be gently lowered to the ground.. Such an intimate knowledge of the borders between life and death informed his acting.
Taking the theme of the thread, so much of the coverage of war- especially that war- makes it appear to be a war between machines and technology. But it was a war largely between men.
Cass
Cass -
Message 18
Posted by caissier (U14073060) on Thursday, 30th June 2011
did the Allies have any effective dive-bombing capability anyway?
Ask the Japanese after Midway - I'm sure they would tell you that the US Navy at least had effective dive-bombers.
ha! thay would have been a surprise ..... to see the American carrier fleet appear in the English Channel ! .... with dark blue SBDs etc ! ...... but I'm sure I have seen footage of Fleet Air Arm Corsairs and Barracudas having a go at the Turpitz from a steep angle ..... but that was a lot bigger than conctete emplacements .... and it could sink ........ but it would be interesting to know the reasoning why targeted bombing was not used, but weren't the defenses layouts of trenches, tobruks and m/g nests .... hard to damage with bombs.
Japanese island defences stood up well to most that was thrown at them, didn't they? -
Message 19
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Thursday, 30th June 2011
Bearing Midway and other Pacific actions in mind (not to mention the caption to be found HERE - ) any lack of RAF and USAAF dive bomber capacity should, perhaps, be worthy of further investigation.
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Message 20
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Friday, 1st July 2011
The fighter-bombers used "dive bombing" as well, but they could not safely achieve the steep diving angles of dedicated dive bombers, so they were less accurate. On the other hand, they were much less dependent on having complete air superiority. By 1944, of course, the RAF and USAAF had achieved complete air superiority, but having earlier observed the vulnerability of the Ju 87 in air combat, these services had become biased against the concept.
As for dedicated dive-bombers, the USAAF had a small number of A-36s operational, a version of the Allison-engined P-51 Mustang that was fitted with dive brakes. At least units in Italy used them operationally as dive bombers, despite skepticism back in the USA. Of course, later the aircraft was too much in demand as a fighter to be available for this role, and besides the liquid-cooled engine was too vulnerable for a ground support role.
The USAAF also ordered versions of the SBD Dauntless and SB2C Helldiver dive-bombers for its own use, as the A-24 Banshee and A-25 Shrike. The problem here is that the A-24 was already obsolescent, and its combat use was very brief. Production of the troublesome A-25 took so long that the USAAF had lost all interest in it when the type finally arrived. Both aircraft ended their lives as trainers.
The "forgotten dive bomber" of the war was the A-31/A-35 Vengeance. A rather awkward but reasonably effective design that was in the end only used operationally by the RAF in Burma. -
Message 21
Posted by GrandFalconRailroad (U14802912) on Wednesday, 6th July 2011
The Germans had the best CAS aircraft of the war not in the famous ju-87 "Stuka" but the Hs 123 built by Henschell - so good in fact that they wanted the production line restarted to build more of this obsolete aircraft but they found they couldn't do it - that's how good it was.
Mind you compared to a Typhoon with rockets then I guess it's short-comings are obvious. -
Message 22
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 6th July 2011
I'd suggest the Sturmovik was a pretty fair contnder for the title - and also the Boomerang had a pretty good record in the role.
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Message 23
Posted by GrandFalconRailroad (U14802912) on Thursday, 7th July 2011
I'd suggest the Sturmovik was a pretty fair contnder for the title - and also the Boomerang had a pretty good record in the role. I can see where you're comming from but the Il-2 was a refinement of lessons learnt whereas the Hs-123 was the Lesson according to Henschel - mind you the ultimate refinement of both the Hs-123 and the Il-2 are the A-10 Thunberbolt II and the Su-25 Frogfoot - both excellent aircraft at their particular job of CAS and lest we forget the A-1 Skyraider that served for over 20 years in the most frontline of frontline's that's to say behind enemy lines circling flak batteries and SAM sites in North Vietnam waiting for choppers to rescue downed pilots...when you reckon that th US went from A1's and A-26's to A-6's and F-111's within 20 years thats a phenominal advance in technology...the carrier decks of the USN went from A1's and A2 Savage's armed with unguided rockets, free fall bombs and machine guns to A6 Vigilantes, F4's and A6's able to operate in all weathers with cannon, LGB's and guided missiles in less than 15 years.....All lessons of ground-attack and CAS in part learnt from the operations of a humble biplane that was obsolete at the outbreak of war and couldn't be replaced after 1941-2 due to the jogs and machine tools being destroyed by order, mistaken orders. Maybe overstating the case slightly but the airframe itself is a legend - shame of the uses it was put to.
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Message 24
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Thursday, 7th July 2011
Surely the original lessons were incoporated in, and refined from, the Halberstadt CL.II and the Junkers J.I – and the British riposte, the Sopwith Salamander?
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Message 25
Posted by TrailApe (U1701496) on Monday, 11th July 2011
The allies did use air support, however it is not a silver bullet and cannot clear away all opposition. The heavier casements of the german defences required more firepower than CAS aircraft could supply, and as mentioned earlier, the much vaunted Rocket Firing Typhoons (and Thunderbolts) main role in the defeat of the German forces were by taking out the soft transport (lorries, horse drawn wagons) that provided the Panzers with their ammo and fuel. In the main, the naval gunfire was very effective, and in those cases where the turrets were not totally destroyed, the observation and communications network that is required to use these guns to their full capabilities, were often degraded to the point of uselessness. On the left flank, Sword Beach, I think I’m right in recalling that Destroyers sailed in close to the shore to pummel some of the fortified defenses when the attackers had problems with them, putting rounds through the windows of fortified houses in some cases.
The problem with a lot of the films – and it’s still the same today with our current media – is that if everything goes well, it’s not noteworthy and not worth reporting. So for the 5 invasion beaches, 4 of them are hardly mentioned, it’s Omaha that the filmmakers tend to gravitate to. Juno and Gold were also quite bloody (the Canadian first wave on Juno suffered 50% casualties), but in the case of these two beaches, the armour that had been allocated to the beaches got ashore and began to help in clearing the defenses. None of the beaches were a picnic, but in the main the troops got ashore (under fire) and moved up the beaches (under fire) and closed with the enemy defenses.
I don’t know about you, but if I’m a 19 year old German manning an MG42 and I see the enemy troops congregating on the waterline and going to ground, I’ll give them my undivided attention. However, if I’m the same gunner and out of the corner of my eye I can see enemy troops running past my position, I’d start to think about plan B and getting the hell out of there.
Back to Close Air Support - It’s also worth considering that one of the factors that contributed to GOODWOOD being a bit of a disaster for the British armour (although it still fulfilled it’s primary function in keeping the German Armoured Divisions clustered against the 21st Army Group) was that the single FAC (Forward Air Controller) was killed early on in the operation, and the German A/T guns, who would have been the primary targets for close air support, were left to punish the advancing British Armour.
So, in summation
"In every war documentary and film, I have only ever seen allied troops pinned down by enemy fire on the beaches and slaughtered"
Is mainly because that is what the film makers want you to see, and is not a fair and accurate picture of what actually happened. -
Message 26
Posted by caissier (U14073060) on Wednesday, 13th July 2011
"In every war documentary and film, I have only ever seen allied troops pinned down by enemy fire on the beaches and slaughtered"
....... allowing for interpersonal dramas, wimpy officers failing or Becoming Men before the eyes of their men, the conquering of individual's demons, the resolving of rivalries over a girl, ludicrous defiance of orders, cheerful humour under fire and the Sheer Inhumanity of War .........
Any other sillynesses ? oh .... there's ridiculous national stereotypes .........
(I read the other day of a daylight Lancaster squadron mission attacking coastal defences on D-day) -
Message 27
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Wednesday, 13th July 2011
Almost all the 'big bombers', British and American, were switched to support the invasion, and bombed coastal defenses. (much to the annoyance of Bomber Harris, etc!) Part of the problems at Omaha (the only one where troops really did get bogged down on the beaches) was that the bombs fell too far inland.
The question on this thread was about fighter-bombers, etc, which were not used in close support, for a variety of reasons, one of which was the presence of the naval gunfire to do the job instead. Even at Omaha, they were only bogged down for a few hours, and everywhere else the combination of courage, enterprise, good planning, and naval support got them ashore and through the killing zone and into the hinterland more or less according to plan. -
Message 28
Posted by rhmnney (U14528380) on Saturday, 30th July 2011
I wonder of the firepower of a single destroyer, vs. number of fighter bomber, plus rate of fire on same target.
Unsure of high elevation vs. low elevation regarding artillery, but mortars cease firing at any elevation if friendly aircraft overhead. I would also think the same for artillery. -
Message 29
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Saturday, 30th July 2011
rhmnney,
I think your faith in artillery, etc, is misguided - read any of the fighter pilots accounts of their experiences over Normandy in the weeks after the invasion. Even with black and white 'Invasion' stripes on the wings, and in spite of 99% air superiority, our planes were still often shot at by Allied troops.
And do not underestimate the power of even a 4.5in destroyer shell - especially 6 of them arriving every few seconds, with the gunnery officer watching the fall of shot, and correcting his aim each time. When the fighter-bomber drops it's bomb, or fires it's 8 rockets, it has to go home for more. Even 4 of them is still a 'short sharp shock' rather than a prolonged bombardment. The navy sat out there all day, offering close support.
The close air support techniques were simply not sophisticated enough at that stage of the war - they were perfected as the weeks went by, in Normandy. -
Message 30
Posted by caissier (U14073060) on Sunday, 31st July 2011
"And do not underestimate the power of even a 4.5in destroyer shell - especially 6 of them arriving every few seconds, with the gunnery officer watching the fall of shot, and correcting his aim each time. When the fighter-bomber drops it's bomb, or fires it's 8 rockets, it has to go home for more. Even 4 of them is still a 'short sharp shock' rather than a prolonged bombardment. The navy sat out there all day, offering close support."
Yep ... the Navy offered a kind of proper artillery support whereas fighter-bombers were not at all appropriate and vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire. They could be valuable as support inland with advancing forces but on the coast warships must have been much more effective. -
Message 31
Posted by sinbadnick (U14506866) on Sunday, 31st July 2011
Well you are right about the destroyers but I did'nt see any that were close in
shore at the start of the landings as all the firing was done by the heavy
cruisers and one battle'ship and as I have stated previously this was being done just be'fore the landings were about take place, the troops were going
down the scrambling nets into there landing crafts and the shore line was being
realy hammered with H'E shells, and by the way lots of the big Destroyers
fire 4,7 shells, I think that you will find that the destroyers were there mostly as
escorts for the massive convoy of ships of all sorts that took part. -
Message 32
Posted by rhmnney (U14528380) on Sunday, 31st July 2011
giraffe47;
I fail to understand your post re."faith in artillery, etc, is misguided". then allied planes being fired upon by allied troops, probably because being attacked by said planes called in from the ground for support, and in radio contact with each other at the same time.
I was comparing fire power of even a small battleship fire power vs aircraft, being able to correct aim, plus put on continuing support for advancing troops with creeping barrage.
Ground troops have been fired upon by supporting fighter bombers. An American tank commander called for air support and he sure got it, on himself, big white star was of no help, turned out to be an aiming guide for said pilot. Later when he attended collage speaking of the incident by coincidence he was talking to the pilot who attacked him, Usual excuses, unsure of target owing to smoke cover, heat of battle etc.
British ground troops bombed and fired upon by RAF when calling in for support. Stuff happens.
The German Stuka Dive Bomber excelled against civilians, but during raids on convoys in English channel got shot down in great numbers by ship AA guns, certainly put that idea to rest against armed protection. -
Message 33
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Sunday, 31st July 2011
I suggest you take a look at the diagrams in Roskill's "The War At Sea", which show that Hunt class (4" gunned) destroyers were near the head of each column of landing craft, and that fleet (4.7" gunned) destroyers were assigned to the close support of each column in it. That was one lesson well and truly learned from the fiasco at Dieppe. Unfortunately, the flat trajectory of naval guns makes them less than ideal for use against emplaced artillery, so a number of landing craft were assigned to carry anti-tank guns and gun/howitzers specifically to engage enemy gun batteries. For reference, a 4" naval shell weighed about 32 lbs, and a 4.7" around 50 lbs.
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Message 34
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Monday, 1st August 2011
The German Stuka Dive Bomber excelled against civilians, but during raids on convoys in English channel got shot down in great numbers by ship AA guns, certainly put that idea to rest against armed protection.Â
A curious notion, not to say wrong.
In reality the Stukas managed to make the Channel far too unsafe for British shipping. The Admiralty was forced to run convoys only in darkness. For example, in June convoy OA168, caught off Portland, lost four merchant ships, while nine more plus two destroyers were heavily damaged. The cost of this to the Luftwaffe was just one aircraft. Convoy CW8 in July did not fare much better: Five ships sunk, six badly damaged, for the loss of two dive bombers. Such losses were not sustainable.
These were merchant vessels, but warships were not much luckier: The damage to destroyers that ventured out of Dover were such that Admiralty also banned them from the channel in daylight, although many more were heavily damaged than were sunk. The RN also considered equipping merchant vessels as auxiliary AA ships, but HMS Foylebank was sunk in port by a determined Ju 87 attack, with little damage to the attackers.
The Stukas were vulnerable to fighter attack, as they were very slow and their construction, though robust against the g-forces of the pull-out, contained areas that were sensitive to combat damage. But they were not at all easy targets for AA gunners. The dive may offer a zero-deflection shot, but the change in range was very rapid, creating substantial difficulties to AA without proximity fuses. And of course the gunners had the disconcerting awareness that the aircraft, if hit, would fall down on top of them. -
Message 35
Posted by rhmnney (U14528380) on Monday, 1st August 2011
Granted truth is the first casualty of war, but during WW2 it was claimed that 342 Stukas had shot down during a raid on shipping in the English channel, there were raids before this particular one, many years later I was told that the Stukas were very vulnerable pulling out at the end of the dive, however the damage had been done, so even if the gunners were successful the cost to the convoy was too great.
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Message 36
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Monday, 1st August 2011
The Luftwaffe could not even put 342 Stuka's in the air... At this time, it possessed only around 400 dive bombers, and these were not all serviceable simultaneously. (During the battle of britain, the loss of 59 Ju 87s in six weeks -- a fifth of the serviceable strength -- would be regarded as prohibitively high.)
But the Luftwaffe's average loss rate on the anti-shipping missions over the Channel before and during the BoB was about 4%, or probably less than 100 aircraft for the entire anti-shipping campaign in the summer of the Battle of Britain. Generally, the bombers and dive-bombers had strong fighter cover on these missions. And although the RAF did offer some protection to the convoys, the commitment to this was limited. Fighter Command did not want to be drawn into a battle to protect the coastal traffic in the channel, which was hardly a vital target, if it could fight on more advantageous terms over the UK itself. -
Message 37
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Tuesday, 2nd August 2011
rhmnney - you say >>
"then allied planes being fired upon by allied troops, probably because being attacked by said planes called in from the ground for support, and in radio contact with each other at the same time"
Which, of course, reinforces my point about the state of close air support at this stage of the war. Troops were inclined to fire on any low flying plane, hoping to 'make it go away', at the very least. It was only after a few weeks of learning the trade, and what the planes could do, that they came to utilise and depend on air support to the degree that they did.
'Radio contact' at this time was not the state of the art thing it is now - an Officer would be attached to a large unit as 'air controller', and he talked to the planes. Soldiers might ask for air support, but they were not 'in radio contact' with the pilots in any sense we understand it now. As someone else said, the Goodwood operation some weeks later failed, with heavy casualties. The German 88s which did all the damage would have been easy targets, IF the planes had been called in against them, but the air controller had been killed early in the advance, so they were not in contact. -
Message 38
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Tuesday, 2nd August 2011
One point I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned :
Until the ground attack aircraft were able to operate from fields on the mainland, the length of time they were able to remain on task must have been somewhat limited.
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