How Dangerous was Aerial Reconaissance?

[6./ZG26_Klaus_Mann]

I just watched a Presentation by the Panzermuseum about the Dobno Tank Battle. During the Battle there was no Luftwaffe in the Area to Speak of, and the VVS had total Air Superiority. Yet apparently the Wehrmacht was able to fully Profit from Aerial Reconaissance during the Advance. 

I also noticed that Recon Units were always Small and that only around 1% of Service Aircraft were ever used in the Recon Role, so their Survivability must have been rather good, or am I misconceeding?

[-TBC-AeroAce]

I think it depends on the recon mission. 

 

If you are tasked with over flying France at 30k ft you are gonna be safe. In fact I have heard stories of Spit recon pilots that say the loved the recon variant because they could just put their nose down and get the hell out of dodge while they watched 109s stalling out trying to get up to them.

 

On the other hand if you have to do low level work or over fly somthing heavily defended like the Turpitz, then your day is going to be interesting. 

[ZachariasX]

1 hour ago, AeroAce said:

If you are tasked with over flying France at 30k ft you are gonna be safe.

Not really. If you do that, you are producing a condensation trail visible to anyone and as a loner it is a sure bet you will get company. The Luftwaffe did have ground controllers as well. Pilots were keenly flying at a level just below making contrails.

 

It is true however that the PR Spitfires were genarally faster than the German aircraft. So they could make a run for it if they saw the enemy approach in time. But it was still a dangerous business. There were some high altitude 109 variants that could well get up to their altitude. In 1944 things got really bad when the Me-262 started apearing and the jets would use the PR flights tp practise attacks on bombers with the fringe benefit of shooting down recon planes. It effectively halted all reconflights done by aircraft other than the Mk.XIV FR that could at least outmaneuver the jets while being rather quick.

 

1 hour ago, 6./ZG26_Klaus_Mann said:

I also noticed that Recon Units were always Small and that only around 1% of Service Aircraft were ever used in the Recon Role, so their Survivability must have been rather good, or am I misconceeding?

It is important to know that both Luftwaffe and VVS completely lacked any imagination for recon missions beyond the battle on the front lines. They simply could not understand the Britsh (and later American) way of a constant monitoring of their whole industry. Both services almost exclusively did flights to find targets for immediate bombardment (of any sort) and assessing damage afterwards. It means that few aircraft were sufficient taking pictures of the front lines. Also would those aircraft not really penetrate enemy airspace. They would operate relatively low and close to their own AAA. There's usually a lot of that near very contested ground. And that ground is what they wanted photographed.

 

Edited October 11, 2018 by ZachariasX

[Finkeren]

Yeah, it really, really depends on the mission as well as the tactical situation. 

 

Conducting low level recon over an area where the enemy has air superiority is extraordinarilly dangerous. For a great describtion of how it feels to fly such a mission, I’d suggest reading Antoine de Saint Éxupery’s “Pilot de Guerre”.

[Diggun]

25 minutes ago, Finkeren said:

Antoine de Saint Éxupery’s “Pilot de Guerre”.

Is that the same thing I have in translation as 'Flight from Arras'? 

 

Very good. Get the strain and exhaustion across very well. Though I tend to sympathise with the brass that StX may have been a bit long in the tooth for combat. 

[Ehret]

26 minutes ago, Finkeren said:

Conducting low level recon over an area where the enemy has air superiority is extraordinarilly dangerous. For a great describtion of how it feels to fly such a mission, I’d suggest reading Antoine de Saint Éxupery’s “Pilot de Guerre”.

 

A known alcoholic... it could be he was endangering himself.

[MiloMorai]

The Luftwaffe had both tactical and strategic recon units.

 

Iirc it was in Aug 1944 that the Germans finally got useful recon photos of England using the Ar234. With the build up to D-day British airspace was virtually closed to Lw a/c except where allowed to.

[Zirashi]

Its a slight tangent, as it doesn’t really focus on risk assessment of aerial recon operations as a whole , but:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie3SrjLlcUY

 

The main focus is someone found some video of a Spitfire PR variant crash landing and found the pilot was still alive. He had no idea his crash was caught on film. They showed it to him and asked him to tell them about his experience as an American Spitfire PR pilot.

 

Edited October 11, 2018 by Zirashi

[-TBC-AeroAce]

1 hour ago, ZachariasX said:

Not really. If you do that, you are producing a condensation trail visible to anyone and as a loner it is a sure bet you will get company. 

 

 

Yeah actually the pilot that said he like the high alt stuff because it was safest said his only enemy was contrails and then the aaa that would follow.  But he generally said high alt work was the safest. 

[Sgt_Joch]

for those who are interested, a large chunk of RAF WW2 recon photo are online and can be viewed free:

 

https://ncap.org.uk/search?view=map

 

I had a chance to use some of these photos in a ww2 map project a few years back and some of these photos are really hi-res. For example, the Allies had photos of the entire Normandy area before the invasion and the photos were updated daily or every few days.

[-TBC-AeroAce]

1 hour ago, Sgt_Joch said:

for those who are interested, a large chunk of RAF WW2 recon photo are online and can be viewed free:

 

https://ncap.org.uk/search?view=map

 

I had a chance to use some of these photos in a ww2 map project a few years back and some of these photos are really hi-res. For example, the Allies had photos of the entire Normandy area before the invasion and the photos were updated daily or every few days.

 

And they are 3d. Way before the current 3d craze that tbh died a couple of years ago.

[Bremspropeller]

5 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

It is important to know that both Luftwaffe and VVS completely lacked any imagination for recon missions beyond the battle on the front lines. They simply could not understand the Britsh (and later American) way of a constant monitoring of their whole industry. Both services almost exclusively did flights to find targets for immediate bombardment (of any sort) and assessing damage afterwards. It means that few aircraft were sufficient taking pictures of the front lines. Also would those aircraft not really penetrate enemy airspace. They would operate relatively low and close to their own AAA. There's usually a lot of that near very contested ground. And that ground is what they wanted photographed.

 

While this is generally true, the Luftwaffe also had sporadic strategic recce assets.

There are german recce-pictures of Musul (yes, THAT Mosul), Samara and airfields close to Teheran made by Ju 88s of 2.(F)/Ob.d.L.

[ZachariasX]

There is a good book on the topic

 

Taylor Dowding: Spies in the Sky

 

When I say that the Germans etc. did‘t do strategic recon mission, it mainly means that they did not realize the benefits of constant monitoring of the enemies whole economy for getting a fairly accurate idea on what is going on and where plus assessing the opponents economy as a whole.

 

They surely looked at bridges, airfields, etc. when they felt like it was needed. But they never would look at tank farms trying to asses total stored volume, counting the number of gasoline deliveries to trace, all indirect things that were not meant to be bombed, but studying how bombing affected the economy and planning accordingly. It is fair to say that the recon flights were as efficient as enigma, and on combination they had the German economy with its pants down.

[Swing]

Like Finkeren says   "Pilote de Guerre" from Saint Exupery is a very good book about that 

[DD_Arthur]

46 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

There is a good book on the topic

 

Taylor Dowding: Spies in the Sky

 

When I say that the Germans etc. did‘t do strategic recon mission, it mainly means that they did not realize the benefits of constant monitoring of the enemies whole economy for getting a fairly accurate idea on what is going on and where plus assessing the opponents economy as a whole.

 

They surely looked at bridges, airfields, etc. when they felt like it was needed. But they never would look at tank farms trying to asses total stored volume, counting the number of gasoline deliveries to trace, all indirect things that were not meant to be bombed, but studying how bombing affected the economy and planning accordingly. It is fair to say that the recon flights were as efficient as enigma, and on combination they had the German economy with its pants down.

 

Er...the Allies had just about zero information about the state of the German economy throughout the whole war.  There was no constant monitoring of the German economy by aerial recon.

Neither did the allies plan their bombing according to aerial recon. info.

 

RAF Bomber Command's targets were chosen on the whim of Sir Arthur Harris the morning before they took place.  The only thing he was influenced by was the weather report.  He disdained reports by various ministries economic warfare units unless they coincided with his campaign to reduce Germany's cities to rubble.

Its important to remember that the RAF's bombing campaign was against 'morale' not industry itself.  Thats why aiming points were mostly city centre landmarks.  Any damage done to industry was considered a useful by-product.

 

The effort made by photo recon pilots - at considerable personal risk - to over-fly these targets the next day was used by Harris to impress Churchill who in turn used them to impress King George VI,  Roosevelt and Stalin.  These pictures were then massively misinterpreted by 'experts' who were unable to realise that a factory without a roof - in the hands of a capable, organised workforce is merely a factory without a roof.  Neither the RAF by night, nor the USAAF by day were capable of delivering an accurate weight of bombs that would destroy the machine tools within.  Hence these roofless factories continued to churn out weapons.

 

The German economy - with it's pants down - attained peak production in October 1944 after five years and one month of war.

 

The most accurate information on the Germany economy obtained by the allies came through Swiss, Swedish and Finnish diplomatic sources and the Polish resistance. 

 

 

[senseispcc]

"Pilote de Guerre" should be traduced into "War pilot" and yes like the majority of those pilots he did like to drink, but most of them did and even the young or not so young ones did.

Most knew they could die tomorrow or the next day so they did try to live their lives fully like there was no tomorrow. 

But Saint Ex was no young men when he was shot down and did go on missions using is influence to fly some missions. But he had already cheated death on some occasions. But this was one time to many.

[ZachariasX]

9 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

RAF Bomber Command's targets were chosen on the whim of Sir Arthur Harris the morning before they took place. 

Bombing Command actually had little to do with all that. While it is true that they absorbed a part of those flights, the reconnaissance missions were handled as an independent service. Sidney Cotton cound set them up more as part of SIS (secret intelligence service). They were anything but airforce (although officially part of it), they had even to fight the airforce for „the fast Spitfires“ to make PR planes from them. Only Cottons good understanding with Newall made it possible establish the service and expand it.

 

The Swiss, besides some intel, did contribute to the service. This by selling them a Wild A5 stereoplotter that proved vital for their work.

 

I‘m not sure where you have the „misinterpretations“ from, but you should be aware that initially, the services had their own recon divisions. But Cotton got such a reputation for delivering that even the Navy came asking for whether he could find out the Tirpitz whereabouts in 1940! He produced nice photos of it in the Docks.

 

It is fair to say that Cotton completely changed the way recon was done and eventually absorbed all competing divisions.