gingerbob Posted November 29, 2014 Share Posted November 29, 2014 It wasn't always terribly clear contemporaneously, either! There's also the problem of Army desires, versus RAF practice (or theory), and it almost seems as if they went out of their way to fail to understand each other at times, which might even carry down to not agreeing on common (as in shared) terminology. Not that there weren't also people in both parties earnestly trying to find something that worked well. As for reconciling "...the acknowledged effectiveness of air attack with the probabilities of success of the weapons", I wonder if some of that acknowledgement is based more on conviction than on analysis. Now, if I were a guy on the ground, knowing that there was quite a low probability of a "bulls-eye" probably wouldn't make me feel much more secure when the other side's aircraft were bearing down on me. This all sounds more negative than I think I intended it to, but I do feel that it is mostly the air enthusiasts (amateur or professional) who take the effectiveness of air attack (or "power") as a given. bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Boak Posted November 29, 2014 Share Posted November 29, 2014 I agree that the enthusiasts do get their say, to perhaps extremes, but I am relying more on the effect on the ground battle, not least the response from the commanders. I'm not talking about any individual tactical success (or not) but the overall effect. In advance of D-Day, Rommel was convinced that the Germans would be unable to win the battle on the Western Front because of the difficulty in manoeuvring under Allied air superiority. That was based on experience gained facing much weaker air forces than seen in Normandy. Allied commanders were regularly to praise the air support. The most extreme examples being the change of weather in the Bulge, and the effect at Mortain when the Germans nearly broke through against Patton. Also described is the later worry of British commanders that their infantry were reluctant to advance until after the way had been cleared by the air strikes, thus potentially slowing the advance. None of these cast any doubt on the effectiveness of the support that was provided. It is one thing to list the problems experienced between the Army and the RAF in the early days of the war, very real indeed, but this thread is about D-Day and beyond. It was quite another matter in these later years, after Tedder had laid the foundations of a healthier relationship and a practical, effective, organisation. It was this knowledge and experience that was given to the USAAF for their operations in North Africa, and formed the basis of the actions in Italy and NW Europe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerbob Posted November 29, 2014 Share Posted November 29, 2014 Yes, my comment on terms and understanding was flavored primarily by earlier times, not so much D-Day and beyond. But I had also just read Tom Cleaver's background to an F-100 build (Modeling Madness) where he talked about "Fast FAC" and its development when things like O-2s proved too vulnerable. All I could think was, "different war, same story". (think Mustang Is and Lysanders) Of course, this is a case where it's primarily the eye from above, rather than any real direct attack capability. It seems obvious that overwhelming air superiority is going to make life a whole lot harder for the other side, and it doesn't have to be very shrewdly (efficiently) utilized to prove effective. But again, this is not to say that the Allies didn't know how to do it pretty well by then. But whether you blow up the tank with your rockets or bombs or not, if you can keep the crew's heads down (or make them run for their lives) during a critical interval, that may be enough to have an enormous impact. Besides, as has been said, the soft-skinned vehicles (and humans) were most definitely vulnerable to Direct Air Attack (did I introduce another new term?), and the tanks couldn't carry on too long without the rest. Simply slowing down movement might be the most significant contribution, all in all. Sorry if I've helped to wander rather off the point of this thread! bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FalkeEins Posted November 29, 2014 Share Posted November 29, 2014 (edited) - The rules of the game give no options for German aviation in this theatre. It's not an area I've delved hugely into, but a brief read through a history of JG26 gives some accounts of Bf109s being used to attack allied forces, notably using underwing mortars. There's also the famous Pips Priller attack on June 6th itself. I was also lucky enough to interview a Ju88 pilot early in the year (if anybody is interested, please let me know and I'll post a link!) and he told me about attacking the beachheads at night, but didn't talk about any daylight operations against the advancing ground forces. here's a few accounts of other Luftwaffe actions post D-Day, not all ground attack as the Germans' primary offensive concern was anti-shipping The Mantes bridgehead fighting was significant for being one of the rare occasions on which the Luftwaffe utilized 21 cm Werfer rocket launchers against ground targets.. http://falkeeins.blogspot.fr/2011/08/seine-bridgehead-22-august-1944.html KG 100 Do 217 + Hs 293 missile combination against Allied shipping & bridges on the Cherbourg peninsula - these aircraft were based in Toulouse. Five missile-launching aircraft were lost attempting to stop Patton at Pontaubault. He 177 bombers were also deployed in the Bandbekämpfung – anti-partisan bombing - 'ground-attack' role http://falkeeins.blogspot.fr/2012/04/translated-extract-from-roderich.html first Mistel sorties against Allied shipping http://falkeeins.blogspot.fr/2012/11/horst-dieter-lux-kg-200-mistel-test.html an account of I./ SKG 10's Fw 190 Gs downing of the Lancasters is here http://falkeeins.blogspot.fr/2012/10/iskg-10-first-luftwaffe-unit-in-action.html Edited November 29, 2014 by FalkeEins 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stonar Posted November 29, 2014 Share Posted November 29, 2014 2nd TAF drew a distinction between 'immediate and prearranged support sorties', what we would call close air support, and armed reconnaissance. It (or at least 83 Group) further sub divided armed reconnaissance into 'deep' and 'shallow' sorties. Deep sorties were those that passed a line about 60 miles behind the German lines. In February 1945 this line ran Hamm-Munster-Rheine-Almelo-Zwolle for the Google earthers. Distinctions were made, and not in a haphazard way. 2nd TAF flew far more armed reconnaissance than close air support, but I can't put my hand on the figures at the moment. Cheers Steve 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stonar Posted November 29, 2014 Share Posted November 29, 2014 Don't underestimate the efficacy of a tactical air force in your rules. Just because it was subsequently demonstrated that neither allied tactical air force was very good at destroying armoured vehicles doesn't detract from the debilitating effect they had on German movement and supply. They also destroyed thousands of soft skinned vehicles, and a tank won't go anywhere without fuel. They also had a psychological and demoralising effect on troops subjected to their attacks. Cheers Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wafu_vasco Posted November 29, 2014 Author Share Posted November 29, 2014 (edited) There's absolutely no question of that, my point was purely with regards to armoured targets - the issue is that the way the rules work, a Typhoon strafing a Panther has a decent chance of taking it out with 20mm gunfire. A few people have also pointe out on the forums that rockets hit too easily, but nobody is complaining about taking out soft targets or personnel, the effectiveness of air power against those sorts of targets is rather a given. Edited November 29, 2014 by wafu_vasco Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Boak Posted November 29, 2014 Share Posted November 29, 2014 (edited) The problem with games is that using realistic probabilities does rather take the fun out of it. The trick is to have the results from rockets in much the same proportion as the other weapons - there was a pretty low probability of hitting a tank with a bomb, too. The only figures I can recall also come from the Northern France theatre: knocking down a bridge took 250 tons of bombs if fighter-bombers were used or 500 tons using medium bombers. That's about 500 sorties, either way. I have seen claims that P-47s knocked out tanks just with 0.5mgs - I think the 20mm would have a rather better chance but "decent" still seems rather optimistic. Edited November 29, 2014 by Graham Boak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellsprop Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 Didn't the Mossie do a fair bit of low level work against V1 sites? I do believe Mossies carried out pinpoint attacks on rail yards, factories and the like right till the end of the war. Ben Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stonar Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 (edited) For RAF Typhoons rockets were more accurate than bombs. The 2nd TAF's ORS analysed attacks made on German occupied Dutch buildings in 1944 and similar targets in Germany in 1945. The two distances for the mean point of impact from the aiming point were found to be 62.5 yards and 43 yards. The later figure was lower due to the introduction of a better, gyroscopic, sight. The same ORS also analysed the accuracy of Typhoon bombers, dropping free fall bombs, between October 1944 and April 1945. The average radial error for these attacks was 158 yards with 50% of the bombs falling within 130 yards of the target. The same investigation examined the results of attacks on seventeen railway line targets by Typhoons and Spitfires. This time the average line error (i.e. either side of the railway track) was 69 yards, with 50% of bombs falling within 50 yards either side of the target. Accuracy was lower when flying what we now call close air support. A pertinent factor in explaining the lower accuracy was considered to be that targets such as bridges or railway lines could be seen by the pilots whereas many close support targets were well camouflaged and could not be. The pilots often aimed at coloured smoke fired as a target indicator by friendly artillery, which itself compounded the errors. Cheers Steve Edited November 30, 2014 by Stonar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgar Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 A few weeks ago, I found A.P.2082C "Rocket Racket," which I'd previously never heard of, but which is a 30-page "primer" on rocket-firing. When you read it, and discover that a pilot was expected to keep to a set I.A.S., dive angle, flight trajectory (not curved, but straight,) not allow the a/c to skid, allow for the target's movement, and allow for wind, all the while trying not to flinch while being shot at (and possibly thrown off course by near misses,) it becomes rather less surprising that some rockets (which didn't all follow exactly the same course, anyway) missed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paramedic Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 Flames of War? It is just a game... And since this is a modelling Forum - have a look at alternative aircraft models than theirs. Theirs are both very, very expensive and less detailed that plastic ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wafu_vasco Posted November 30, 2014 Author Share Posted November 30, 2014 Flames of War? It is just a game... And since this is a modelling Forum - have a look at alternative aircraft models than theirs. Theirs are both very, very expensive and less detailed that plastic ones. Yep, very much on the same hymn sheet - right now I'm stocking up on a lot of Revell micro wings. They seem pretty good for the price, certainly seeing as you can buy five models for the price of one FoW model, AND they've far more detailed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paramedic Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 Yes, and a clear canopy.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wafu_vasco Posted November 30, 2014 Author Share Posted November 30, 2014 Shame there's no pilot or even seat, but for £1.99 it feels a bit rude to complain! I've ordered a Spitfire Mk.I which I'm going to try to convert into a Seafire for NGS - filing the exhaust stubs down and making an arrestor hook should be ok, changing panel lines and wing bulges for 20mm cannon might be a bit optimistic at that scale for somebody of my very limited experience! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julien Posted December 1, 2014 Share Posted December 1, 2014 312 Sqn flew Spitfire IXe's in the fighter bomber role in June and July over Normandy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dfqweofekwpeweiop4 Posted December 1, 2014 Share Posted December 1, 2014 Just a couple of points, from what I've read about that haven't been mentioned. Priller was commander of JG26 if memory serves in June 44 and he flew a Fw190A-8 and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have carried a bomb as the pic I've of his plane doesn't have a bomb rack. He sometimes carried a drop tank and that was carried by what looks like type of rack/cradle that the Bf110 used when it carried wing drop tanks. I heard that Typhoons did most of their damage with their cannons as they were the most accurate weapon they had. Although I too doubt they could destroy one of the German's heavier tanks with cannon fire. I did read about one retreating German column being attacked by rocket firing Typhoons. Somewhere in the column was a Tiger with a staff car in front of it, when the Typhoon's attacked, the Tiger's commander ordered the driver to accelerate to full speed, much to the horror of those in the unfortunate staff car...... thanks Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stonar Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 What rocket firing aircraft did to those subjected to such attacks materially was much less important than the psychological effect. Rockets seem to have had an ability to scare the bejasus out of those subject to such attacks. For example,experienced tank crews would hunker down in their tanks knowing they were almost invulnerable whereas inexperienced men would abandon the protection of their armour to seek cover elsewhere, exposing themselves to more risk. This illogical behaviour was described in various prisoner interrogations by 2nd TAF's ORS. At least one German unit surrendered to, I think, the Canadians in Normandy at the threat of attack by rocket firing Typhoons. I'd have to look up the details when I get home in a few days time. Cheers Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noelh Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 I have a copy of Desmond Scott's 'Typhoon Pilot' which includes graphic descriptions of the effects and aftermath of Typhoon attacks in Normandy. Also he claims the German garrison in Boulogne eventually surrendered after two squadrons of Typhoons circled ominously overhead. Whether true or not it reflects the fact that whether or not they were effective in killing tanks. Their mere presence induced panic in the German troops. Incidentally if you want to experiment with the difficulty and effectiveness of rocket or bomb attacks in a Typhoon or indeed any WW2 fighter. I would suggest downloading 'Aces High' by Hitech Creations. It's an online air combat game with an element of ground warfare but unlike others it's aimed at the older enthusiast market and is a monthly subscription. You can get two weeks free access. It is different to other similar online air combat games in that you get access to all the aircraft and vehicles immediately offline and most online. But the best thing about is that the flight models are very accurate for the aircraft. You can practice with the Typhoon or any other WW2 aircraft and get the a real insight into the difficulty in hitting anything when everyone is shooting at you. Be careful though it can be addictive. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paramedic Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 It is kinda important to rememeber that the tank crew did not have access to the research of how effective the tockets were (and some tanks were actually knocked out by them...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Millman Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 I see that another doctrinal term has been introduced in this thread - "armed reconnaissance". There is now:- Air cover Close support Close air support Direct air support Tactical reconnaissance - Tac R Armed reconnaissance - "deep and shallow sorties" Confusion over the translation of doctrinal terms in the Soviet Air Force contributed to misperceptions about the role of aircraft like the P-39. Now there seems to be a mix of wartime US, RAF and modern terms used in books and discussion but little clarity about their contextual definition which ought to be of historical interest. For example the terms 'armed reconnaissance' and 'tactical reconnaissance' are both still used today but not always in contexts that make it clear whether the users mean the same or different doctrines. Did the doctrines of US and RAF tactical air forces differ? Was there any wartime reconciliation of terms or tensions over differences? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stonar Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 RAF 2nd TAF's phrase "'immediate and prearranged support sorties" must surely cover items 1-4 above. "Armed reconnaissance" whether deep or shallow the rest. I believe the critical difference is in the command structure for the two types of mission, which is why the distinction was made. The former was a joint operation between the RAF and another Service, usually the Army. The latter were RAF operations. It is important to remember that the RAF did not see what we now call close air support as being a job it should be doing. There was much inter Service rivalry and it had taken a lot of effort to establish the systems that existed for D-Day. They were based on experience elsewhere, notably North Africa, but they were also far from perfect, something of a work in progress. We shouldn't be surprised that, maybe contrary to popular belief, the 2nd TAF flew nearly twice as many "armed reconnaissance" sorties as it did "immediate and prearranged support sorties" between D-Day and the end of the war. The situation was somewhat different for the US, they were all nominally part of the same Service for a start, but they were flying similar missions. You can substitute 'Flying Spearhead' for 'Cab Rank' almost seamlessly. The USAAF as late as the invasion of Italy had also made it clear that it did not consider close air support to be a profitable use of its resources. I have somewhere a sort of crib sheet issued to US officers which would enable them to understand the terminology used by their British counterparts. I can't remember if close air support and similar terms are included, but I'll have a look when I get home. Cheers Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prosser Posted October 23, 2018 Share Posted October 23, 2018 I've just come across this topic, but it has a lot of interest for me. Are there any detailing kits for bomb racks/bombs for 2nd TAF Spitfire IX fighter bombers in 1:72 scale?? I'm interested because my boss's father in law (who was Polish) flew these aircraft with 308 squadron before and after D Day, and I've seen his log book which makes for interesting reading...….. Many thanks in advance! Martyn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Procopius Posted October 23, 2018 Share Posted October 23, 2018 Eduard's Spitfire IXc Late kit contains the necessary parts to make a Normandy fighter-bomber. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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