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(16 of 31)
Re: Effect of Air War on World War 2
Jul 8, 2009 7:47 AM
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Since B-24s and B-17s could and did self deploy to Britain it's not at all clear how much additional ground forces would be available there especially for a 43 invasion. Landing craft were one of the big shoratages I beleive and I don't think it was a lack of resources that was the primary hold up in that regards.
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(17 of 31)
Re: Effect of Air War on World War 2
Jul 8, 2009 8:08 AM
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I think you've hit on a good point - perhaps inadvertently? Most of what went into putting and sustaining a bomb group in action was personnel and supplies that went over by ship. Otherwise a bomber landing in Britain is just a metal shell and ten guys looking for dinner. How many men or vehicles did a bomb group have? What was their daily supply tonnage? How does it compare to the 6-700 tons/day to sustain an American division in action?
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Posts:
2,522
From:
GLASGOW
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(18 of 31)
Re: Effect of Air War on World War 2
Jul 8, 2009 3:55 PM
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> I sometimes wonder what the effect would have been
> if instead of building bombers we were building
> tanks, ground attack aircraft and other war
> material.
Not sure about the United States, but Great Britain invested around 7% of its industries in obliterating Germany's cities. This should be compared with the effect of the air war on German production. See some older discussions for some good statistics.
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(19 of 31)
Re: Effect of Air War on World War 2
Jul 8, 2009 4:44 PM
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The Air war help keep Germany transport to a crawel, tie up communcation and take out oil but the buring of whole citys was in my opine a waste of money men and inncsents
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555
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(20 of 31)
Re: Effect of Air War on World War 2
Jul 9, 2009 10:05 AM
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>
> One of the great what-ifs is the possibility of a
> cross-Channel invasion in 1943, and one element of
> that would be building up US ground forces in Britian
> in lieu of 8th Air Force.
I don't really like the "what-if" scenarios but what-if?
All of the resources that went into high & mid-level bombing in the the areas immediately behind the landing beaches on D-Day, +1, +2 would have been channeled into the production of ground attack aircraft to be used in the same target area ? Different scenario on Omaha Beach ? Were flying conditions to overcast to make a difference ?
edited to add that I know you cant make long range production decisions based on three days of fighting
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Posts:
888
From:
South Texas, where the snow never falls.
Registered:
1/12/09
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(21 of 31)
Re: Effect of Air War on World War 2
Jul 9, 2009 6:28 PM
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Pillow did you get my response to your Texan quiz prior to it sprouting wings?
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555
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(22 of 31)
Re: Effect of Air War on World War 2
Jul 9, 2009 6:47 PM
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Yes, the answers I was looking for are:
1) Boss - your wife probably knows this but being a good Maggie she held her tongue
2) Blue Quail, I never heard of a red quail either. When I was much younger we used to chase them around the brush south of Uvalde near the Rio Frio. Its hard to get them to fly unless you have dogs to hold the coveys tight until the shooters can get in the proper position and avoid a Cheney.
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Posts:
888
From:
South Texas, where the snow never falls.
Registered:
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(23 of 31)
Re: Effect of Air War on World War 2
Jul 10, 2009 6:31 AM
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Hi Pillow, Bush the elder hunts Quail annually about 2 miles from our ranch.
What do you figure the consequences (if any) would have been on the Eastern front had Germany built long range bombers?
Cheers, Matt.
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555
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(24 of 31)
Re: Effect of Air War on World War 2
Jul 10, 2009 7:20 AM
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If Germany had really developed a long-range bombing capability I don tthink it would have had much of an effect on the Eastern Front for the following reasons.
1) Lend-Lease aid would not have been severely hampered with routes via Siberia and SW Aisa.
2) I dont know if "long range" would have allowed them to hit on or east of the Urals. If the targets could be identified.
3) HIgh level bombing against troop concentrations was not that effective
4) Fuel suuplies for massive bomber sorties ???
Others here I'm sure could respond with more knowledge.
You are not as far south as I had speculated. "Remember G" 10/10/1835. My uncle lives there and last I heard was sometimes meeting Bum Phillips for morning coffee at the local DQ.
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(25 of 31)
Re: Effect of Air War on World War 2
Jul 10, 2009 7:26 AM
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As the Allies demonstrated, a strategic bombing campaign required a massive industrial effort, thousands of bombers being continually expended and replaced, infrastructure and logistics to support them, and still took years to have a significant impact.
Unless this massive air armada just fell from the sky - o.k., maybe not the best phrase - it would be at the expense of something else, tactical air, panzers, motor transport, take your pick.
The state of the art in 1941 was aircraft like the Lancaster or B-17. The Germans in Barbarossa overran in a few months most of the area such bombers could have attacked. I've always been a little puzzled by the idea that bombing something over and over again is called "strategic", "air-minded" etc., but helping your army to capture it once and for all is "tactical" and somehow inferior.
Of course one could then move the bomber force, bases, supplies, etc. forward (using all that excess logistic capacity the Germans enjoyed in Russia....) and start bombing all over again, but one could just as easily make another bound on the ground. Either way much of Russia's industrial capacity will remain out of reach, in the Urals or beyond.
When major Russian offensives got going later in the war, they also covered distances comparable to bomber range. A German bomber force at that point would have been forced back out of range of its targets.
People like Wever advocated for a "Urals bomber" that could cover a substantial area of the USSR from bases in Germany, i.e. comparable or better than the B-29 that entered service in 1944.
The big strategic bombing campaign of the war reflected the unique situation of Britain being an island. Two major powers only a couple of hundred miles apart were for several years completely incapable of directly attacking each other. That's why the Germans in 1940-41 and the Allies thereafter turned to the air.
I do think the Germans would have benefitted from a small force of heavy bombers, standardizing on one of their many projects, for special missions and targets, carrying heavy bombs, maritime patrol, etc.
p.s. pillow mentioned a critical point, fuel, always an Achilles heel for the Germans, and consumed by heavy bombers in massive amounts, up to ten tons per sortie, say 1-3 tons of fuel for every ton of bombs delivered.
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(26 of 31)
Re: Effect of Air War on World War 2
Jul 10, 2009 9:03 AM
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I don't really like the "what-if" scenarios but what-if?
All of the resources that went into high & mid-level bombing in the the areas immediately behind the landing beaches on D-Day, +1, +2 would have been channeled into the production of ground attack aircraft to be used in the same target area ? Different scenario on Omaha Beach ? Were flying conditions to overcast to make a difference ?
edited to add that I know you cant make long range production decisions based on three days of fighting
Good point on the edit, we're really discussing ground attack aircraft, mainly fighter-bombers, in lieu of the heavy bomber force that operated 1943-45.
On the immediate question, it might not help the D-Day prep that much. Attack or fighter aircraft didn't have the navigation systems of the big bombers, their targeting was mainly by eye, so they'd be even more impacted by weather. It would also be a challenge putting that many thousand planes over a target area.
Invasion preparations like the Transportation Plan and suppression of the Luftwaffe in the West would go as well as historically, maybe better. There would not be the attrition of German fighters in the daylight bombing campaign, but Allied numbers would still ensure air supremacy for the invasion. One other impact is that more German fighters and fighter-bombers would have been retained on the Russian and/or Mediterranean fronts.
Most obviously we would lose the American half of the bombing of German industry, which Speer credits with reducing production by 20% in 1944 (I'm assuming RAF Bomber Command continues to operate). In particular we might lose some specific programs like the Oil Plan. The Germans could also reallocate some of the guns and resources that went into air defense of the Reich.
While the ground forces would benefit from having more tactical air support, there might a point of diminishing returns - how many fighter-bombers can you effectively employ? Ultimately we're talking about redirecting resources from strategic bombing to the air-ground campaign, so we might get back to putting a share into additional ground forces. On the other hand, aircraft have the advantage that they can do something useful prior to the invasion.
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Posts:
555
Registered:
4/19/09
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(27 of 31)
Re: Effect of Air War on World War 2
Jul 10, 2009 3:37 PM
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> ... Bush the elder
>
Speaking of him, the last time I was down in Corpus I went on the USS Lexington, on the hangar deck there was a restored TBF Avenger, big plane for single engine
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Posts:
505
Registered:
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(28 of 31)
Re: Effect of Air War on World War 2
Jul 10, 2009 6:32 PM
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>>>>> Pillow did you get my response to your Texan quiz
> prior to it sprouting wings?<<<<
Buck........What's with this board?.......I posted some good stuff (at least I thought so) only to find out the posts are now gone.....What's going on?
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Posts:
888
From:
South Texas, where the snow never falls.
Registered:
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(29 of 31)
Re: Effect of Air War on World War 2
Jul 17, 2009 2:11 PM
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I’m not sure Sam. I think if you get the better in a debate then the offended party reports your post to try and get it deleted. No one gets more deletions than myself. I treat each deletion as a victory.
Matt.
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Posts:
888
From:
South Texas, where the snow never falls.
Registered:
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(30 of 31)
Re: Effect of Air War on World War 2
Jul 17, 2009 2:15 PM
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> > ... Bush the elder
> >
>
> Speaking of him, the last time I was down in Corpus I
> went on the USS Lexington, on the hangar deck there
> was a restored TBF Avenger, big plane for single
> engine
Did you get a look at The Columbus Fleet? I was surprised by how small the ships were.
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