The Plane that won the second world war

[CUJO_1970]

23 hours ago, oc2209 said:

 

Well, yeah, I already explained it before in this thread. Like I said, I'm getting tired of repeating myself when people are just hellbent on not seeing the obvious.

 

Well, you haven't really presented anything that shows the IL2 as the plane "obvious" for contributing more to win WW2 than any other airplane.

 

When you say Allied heavy bombing only contributed in the last two years of the war...the RAF began attacking the German zone with 4-engine heavy bombers in 1941, built up to three squadrons of Stirlings before the end of the year and continued on for four years,  not "the last two years of the war". The USAAF joined them the summer of 1942, and by November of 1942 the USAAF were mounting raids with as many as 100 4-engine heavy bombers.

 

A number of other factors make things a little less than obvious:

 

Could the IL2 attack German sub pens which directly permitted Atlantic Convoys to proceed to supply Russia? NO

Could the IL2 attack synthetic fuel plants and cause a drastic reduction in fuel supplies across all German branches? NO

Could the IL2 attack the ball bearing industry and cause a drastic reduction in parts supplies across all German branches? NO

Could the IL2 draw massive fighter and flak resources away from other fronts, thereby relieving them? NO

Could the IL2 disrupt German rail and logistics transport across all of western Europe? NO

Could the IL2 bring about the attrition and collapse of the Luftwaffe S/E fighter force? NO

Could the IL2 bring about the attrition and collapse of the Luftwaffe T/E fighter force? NO

Could the IL2 attack dams across the Ruhr valley and cause huge problems for German industrial output? NO

 

Et cetera, et cetera

 

The Allied strategic bomber force directly contributed to all of those things, and more. The IL2 could not hope to accomplish any of that, and in fact did not accomplish any of that.

 

Now, we can move on to the Mediterranean and Pacific theaters if you want but while the Allied 4-engine heavies were prolific there, the IL2 was most definitely not, so...it just doesn't seem so obvious why anyone would consider it the war winner of all Allied aircraft ? 

 

In the end, the IL2 being trotted out as the aircraft most responsible for Allied victory in WW2 is little more than edgy pseudo-history that makes for internet chatter, but not really much else. You simply can't seriously compare the tactical arm of the VVS, and it's effect on the war, with the strategic arm of the two most powerful air forces on the planet, and their effects on the war.

[oc2209]

1 hour ago, CUJO_1970 said:

 

Well, you haven't really presented anything that shows the IL2 as the plane "obvious" for contributing more to win WW2 than any other airplane.

 

 

Seriously, did you read anything I wrote?

 

Are you denying that one of the main purposes of strategic bombing was to break the will of the target population, so that they would eventually seek peace without first having to invade them and conquer their entire nation? The psychological aspect of the bombing failed in its intended purpose. As a direct result of the misguided belief that conventional bombing alone could force a surrender, much unnecessary death and destruction (for both sides) was caused.

 

I addressed the economic value of strategic bombing already. No, I don't agree that it's a worthwhile return of America/Britain's investment to build over 30k heavy bombers to attack ball bearing manufacturing and rail yards (sub pens meant very little after the U-boat force was effectively wiped out in one month of '43; prior to that, saturation bombing of the pens proved mostly ineffective without dedicated 'bunker busters'). The only strategic target that unequivocally crippled Germany (in the last year of the war acutely) was oil/synthetic fuel production. And that, as I said, did not require 'round the clock' bombing from tens of thousands of bombers.

 

1 hour ago, CUJO_1970 said:

When you say Allied heavy bombing only contributed in the last two years of the war...the RAF began attacking the German zone with 4-engine heavy bombers in 1941, built up to three squadrons of Stirlings before the end of the year and continued on for four years,  not "the last two years of the war". The USAAF joined them the summer of 1942, and by November of 1942 the USAAF were mounting raids with as many as 100 4-engine heavy bombers.

 

And these attacks were pinpricks in the greater scheme of Germany's war economy. They were inaccurate, badly organized, and largely ineffectual. They were a learning experience more than anything else. Only by late '43 was the bombing strategy perfected into a reliable system. And as a result, German industry was only severely harmed in '44.

 

Which brings me back to my other point that you seemed to not read, or you just decided to totally ignore it:

 

When you say heavy bombers won the war, you are also saying that the war was still able to be lost. By definition, you cannot win something that has already been decided.

 

The reason the Sturmovik matters is that Russia had to defeat the German army in order for Germany to be effectively knocked out of the war; in order for Germany to be pushed back into a defensive posture, which then guaranteed its ultimate defeat.

 

The Sturmovik was present during this critical period ('41 to '43) where the German army was repeatedly bludgeoned into submission. It was there, on the frontlines, having an impact on the German army that no strategic bomber had yet made by that time of the war.

 

By the time the strategic bombing campaign made itself fully felt, the war was over for Germany. I really cannot re-explain this anymore. There is no way around it, there is no way you can rationally deny it or side-step it.

 

If Germany was not considered defeated (by all rational minds, i.e, not Hitler) by 1943, then why would the Casablanca Declaration (of Jan. '43) be so bold as to demand nothing short of unconditional surrender from the Axis? Do you issue such declarations against an enemy you still fear can defeat you? No. The Allies knew the war would end in their favor by that time. It was simply a matter of how to go about doing it. But the mystery of 'will we win?' or 'can we win?' was over. The uncertainty of the early years was over. And that was achieved, in large part, by Germany's successive catastrophic losses on the Eastern Front. Which the Sturmovik in some way contributed towards. 

 

Here's a quote I think it fitting to end with:

 

"Writing in his diary on 1 January 1943, British General Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, reflected on the change in the position from a year before:

 

'I felt Russia could never hold, Caucasus was bound to be penetrated, and Abadan (our Achilles heel) would be captured with the consequent collapse of Middle East, India, etc. After Russia's defeat how were we to handle the German land and air forces liberated? England would be again bombarded, threat of invasion revived... And now! We start 1943 under conditions I would never have dared to hope. Russia has held, Egypt for the present is safe. There is a hope of clearing North Africa of Germans in the near future... Russia is scoring wonderful successes in Southern Russia.'"

[ZachariasX]

5 hours ago, oc2209 said:

Are you denying that one of the main purposes of strategic bombing was to break the will of the target population, so that they would eventually seek peace without first having to invade them and conquer their entire nation?

While I think that in principle it is true, as you say, that strategic bombing did not work as the British (and some others) dreamt it up in the 30's, you cannot discard what it actually did.

 

So, yes, strategic bombing as a concept is a scam and only works as a scam. It actually did so. It gave Czechoslovakia to the Germans for free. No invasion required. Harris, Mitchel and Douhet confirmed. But this was only possible as people in the 30's thought of airpower as we now think of nukes. And same as in Poker, as soon as you got to show your hand, then the value of your cards matters more than what your opponent thinks of its possible value. For a bluff (and the concept of strategic bombing only worked as a bluff, something that Harris et.al. would never ever admit) to work, you must never show your hand. If you can do that, then true value of your cards is meaningless. However, when it comes to a call, then the game changes from making your opponent believe something to a simple game of numbers and chances.

 

Strategic bombing that you are mentioning is just that. It is poker after the call. And this is a simple battle of attrition. In case of Germany it was a terrible situation as they were compelled to fight a losing match. It was known to them from the beginning that they were losing that match, yet they were compelled to play it. Hitler was rather sober about the situation after the Hamburg catastrophe when he thought then just let them bomb. But he knew that even for him, giving that order would have been impossible to give.

 

That battle of attrition took away 2/3rd of high quality optics and cannons from use on the eastern front, where they could have been used to tremendous effect. It is of note that those weapons could directly have been applied to the battle situation in the east. Flak guns work fantastic against any kind of armor as well as soft targets.

 

The air war over Germany did much less "bring Germany to its knees" by destroying the industry as such, as it simply drained irreplaceable resources. In fact, it did surprisingly little to the German war pruduction effort considering the means. It is the civilians that noted the effect of "cannons instead of butter" much harder. German industry for a large part was a looting enterprise and not a sustainable industry. Going in reverse after 4 years of war precluded the up to then entire business model of looting that Nazi Germany largely depended upon to sustain itself.

 

As opposed to the Japanese who invaded the worst territories imaginable that had nothing to offer but malaria and dysentery (beautiful tropical woods were not that much in demand yet). Imperial Japan never had that luxury to sustain their war effort with conqiuest (India? Dream on...) and had to resort to further go looting in China and in the East Indies. Any venture beyond China (besides maintaining their current gas station in Borneo) was a net loss to the Japanese economy.

 

The Japanese succumbed to a similar war of attrition, but as opposed to Germany, it is ironic that they entered it by free choice by having themselves annihilated slowly in the South Pacific. You do not really want to go, but you go. Then you do not win, you send some more, always a bit, but never enough for a win as they wanted to keep forces together to meet the Americans in the envisioned decisive battle in the central Pacific. As if the American war production in 1943, increasingly tilting the odds made “safe play” a viable strategy. The MTO, Germany’s analogue to what the south Pacific was to Japan, was never that decisive sink of men and material for Germany as the South Pacific was for Japan.

 

So yes, strategic bombing was indeed strategic as it was a blood let to the German war effort of monumental proportions that destryed German war effort like the actions the south Pacific destroyed Imperial Japans war machine. In germany, factories and civilian casualties were mostly circumstantial victims and contributed less to the bottom line. In that air war over Germany was the most expensive front to Nazi Germany. Shooting people comes cheap. Shooting bombers at 20'000 ft. is not.

 

Hence, if you want a poster boy for that, you can have the B-17 as "plane that won the war".

 

I would also be careful not to dismiss the British early attempts in “strategic bombing” in 1940. It going on the offensive this way that took away the Bf-110’s from the Channel front line and had them turn them into night fighters. That did not happen because the Bf-110 was a bad aircraft (on the contrary, it is one of the best airframes of WW2) even though many like to believe that. They were needed like that in other places and the Bf-109 could simply not be used for that new role. It is irrelevant what the British hit with those few bombers in the years of 1940 and 1941. What matters is that this action commanded a reaction from the German side. This reaction was the reallocation of forces that essentially pulled the plug on the Battle of Britain. A halfhearted operation that did not yield the desired results anyway, had then to be postponed for more pressing delusions.

 

Now what about the IL-2? I don’t think it can be the winner of this contest as this plane is no different in use and function that ordinary field artillery. You can also fight it efficiently with ordinary artillery. The Germans though so too and did so. They concentrated heir fighters in some places and for the rest, they used Flak. Soviet aviation generally was used as an extended field artillery and was almost exclusively used in the concept of that function. I'd say the Flak 88 is far more significant of a weapon than the IL-2. You know, with that one, you actually can destroy heavy armor, while CAS planes (of all kind) were of questionable effect to heavy armor.

 

So what's left as "Plane that won WW2"?

The Swordfish, of course, as you say! That was indeed the plane that made the whole world change. Taranto that served as blueprint for Pearl Harbor, then the Bismark ("Yes, we can!") and killing Axis transportation in the Med.

 

But I feel we should have a runner up. I was dismissing the Soviets with their "flying field artillery", but that requires the exception to the rule.

 

The Po-2.

 

In production for 26 years, that is something. They also did what the IL-2 could do best, mainly just give the Landsers a miserable time. But they could do it at night. If I had to choose between Landsers unnerved during daytime and Landsers that can't get no sleep, I chose the latter.

 

Hence we have:

 

1. Swordfish

2. Po-2

3. B-17

 

 

[MiloMorai]

Kursk: Sturmovik pilots reported the destruction of 270 tanks in the Third Panzer Division, and 240 tanks of the Seventeenth Panzer Division. Curiously, these two units had only 90 and 67 operational tanks at the beginning of the battle, respectively. ?

56 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

That battle of attrition took away 2/3rd of high quality optics and cannons from use on the eastern front, where they could have been used to tremendous effect.

 It also reduced German war production by about 30%.

 

59 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

This reaction was the reallocation of forces that essentially pulled the plug on the Battle of Britain.

it also required manpower for the defense of the Reich and manpower to repair the resulting damage done by the SBC. 

[jeanba]

The plane that won the war for the allies is the Bf210

[Gambit21]

On 7/14/2021 at 1:16 AM, oc2209 said:

The pop-culture historian will see widely advertised, movie-subject battles like Midway and Stalingrad and D-Day, and think those were the turning points.

 

 

Yep - Midway was nothing more than a turning point in the Central Pacific.

 

Midway was akin to a little bully giving a much larger, much more powerful adversary a cheap-shot shove from behind. The salient take-home is that both sides exited this battle on equal footing despite losses.

 

The actual brawl that ensued was the 6-month battle for Guadalcanal. This is where Japan actually lost the war. Both sides entered the battle in a state of force parity - Japan lost.

 

Even had they managed to hang on, it would have been temporary as the writing was on the wall. Despite his hubris, Yamamoto knew this from square one.

 

To your point however you could say that the little bully was dead meat the moment he sneaked up and shoved the bigger guy. 

[oc2209]

10 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

While I think that in principle it is true, as you say, that strategic bombing did not work as the British (and some others) dreamt it up in the 30's, you cannot discard what it actually did.

 

That battle of attrition took away 2/3rd of high quality optics and cannons from use on the eastern front, where they could have been used to tremendous effect. It is of note that those weapons could directly have been applied to the battle situation in the east. Flak guns work fantastic against any kind of armor as well as soft targets.

 

 

It was never my intention to entirely dismiss the effects of strategic bombing.

 

What I'm arguing against is the casual dismissal of the practical Russian contribution to the war. Said dismissal is pretty common in my experience. What it usually amounts to: they lost a lot of planes/soldiers because they were stupid, and winter had to save them. And that kind of attitude doesn't give Russians the credit for doing the heavy lifting (however incompetently at first) of destroying the German army in the field. Any way you slice it, for every German they killed, it meant that many fewer American or British casualties down the road.

 

Since I've never discussed WWII directly with any Russians, I wouldn't know how they speak of the Anglo-American contribution. At any rate, I'm never in a position to criticize their views.

 

What I want to emphasize with strategic bombing is to properly put in perspective what was accomplished and how it was accomplished. There was considerable inefficiency that should not be overlooked; that inefficiency was in part due to the learning process intrinsic to any new and large undertaking; and in part due to terribly flawed thinking that diluted the potency of the bomber arm by directing it at non-critical targets.

 

10 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

It is irrelevant what the British hit with those few bombers in the years of 1940 and 1941. What matters is that this action commanded a reaction from the German side. This reaction was the reallocation of forces that essentially pulled the plug on the Battle of Britain. A halfhearted operation that did not yield the desired results anyway, had then to be postponed for more pressing delusions.

 

Have to agree to disagree here. I see the Battle of Britain as nothing more than a Hitlerian temper tantrum; a bad joke from a military perspective. Anything that diverted the Germans from attacking Britain (including well after the BoB) was actually beneficial for the Germans, because none of the casualties they incurred had a worthwhile payoff. The BoB itself was a useless drain on Germany from start to finish. Subsequent attempts to "lean in" to Britain were as fundamentally unproductive for Germany as it was for Britain leaning into France throughout '41 and '42. A waste of pilots and bad for morale, all in a sad attempt to look like you're doing something important.

 

11 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

Now what about the IL-2? I don’t think it can be the winner of this contest as this plane is no different in use and function that ordinary field artillery. You can also fight it efficiently with ordinary artillery. The Germans though so too and did so. They concentrated heir fighters in some places and for the rest, they used Flak. Soviet aviation generally was used as an extended field artillery and was almost exclusively used in the concept of that function. I'd say the Flak 88 is far more significant of a weapon than the IL-2. You know, with that one, you actually can destroy heavy armor, while CAS planes (of all kind) were of questionable effect to heavy armor.

 

Flying field artillery is a little different than ordinary field artillery. For one thing, it requires different countermeasures. For another, the Sturmovik could disrupt transport immediately near the frontlines (by destroying trucks and soft targets), which is something regular artillery can't do with indirect fire.

 

Even if you want to treat the Sturmovik as nothing more than a giant gnat, a distraction, it was still a distraction that was flying in the face of the Germans non-stop. It, as you said above regarding feeble British bombing in the early war years, demanded a reaction from the Germans; and the Germans were already hard-pressed as it was, so any further distractions were that much more enervating.

 

If you want to imagine the German army at the edge of a precipice at any given moment in Russia, you could well argue that the Sturmovik provided that little nudge into the abyss.

 

 

11 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

As opposed to the Japanese who invaded the worst territories imaginable that had nothing to offer but malaria and dysentery (beautiful tropical woods were not that much in demand yet). Imperial Japan never had that luxury to sustain their war effort with conqiuest (India? Dream on...) and had to resort to further go looting in China and in the East Indies. Any venture beyond China (besides maintaining their current gas station in Borneo) was a net loss to the Japanese economy.

 

1 hour ago, Gambit21 said:

The actual brawl that ensued was the 6-month battle for Guadalcanal. This is where Japan actually lost the war.

 

I never learned it until recently, but the Japanese didn't even have proper anti-malaria medication. I couldn't believe that when I read it. I was always under the assumption that they were as well prepared for island/jungle warfare as the Russians were for winter warfare.

 

Nope.

 

They were literally sitting around waiting to die (of disease first, then from bullets, and finally starvation if the first two didn't work). Their garrisons were unsustainable in the long run. Hence the long-term threat they posed to the world at large can be quite comfortably dismissed. The only way they could shift the balance of power is if they attacked Russia along with Germany in '41. That'd be an interesting alt-history scenario to explore.

 

The Japanese would undoubtedly take horrific losses to the Russians, but the distraction from the German invasion might well be enough to defeat Russia. I don't expect the Japanese would make significant progress into Russian territory; this is chiefly because they had useless tanks and few of them. With no significant armored power or refined tactics with which to exploit armor, the Japanese had little offensive leverage against an opponent like Russia.

[Gambit21]

19 minutes ago, oc2209 said:

 

I never learned it until recently, but the Japanese didn't even have proper anti-malaria medication. I couldn't believe that when I read it. I was always under the assumption that they were as well prepared for island/jungle warfare as the Russians were for winter warfare.

 

Nope.

 

They were literally sitting around waiting to die (of disease first, then from bullets, and finally starvation if the first two didn't work). Their garrisons were unsustainable in the long run. Hence the long-term threat they posed to the world at large can be quite comfortably dismissed. The only way they could shift the balance of power is if they attacked Russia along with Germany in '41. That'd be an interesting alt-history scenario to explore.

 

The Japanese would undoubtedly take horrific losses to the Russians, but the distraction from the German invasion might well be enough to defeat Russia. I don't expect the Japanese would make significant progress into Russian territory; this is chiefly because they had useless tanks and few of them. With no significant armored power or refined tactics with which to exploit armor, the Japanese had little offensive leverage against an opponent like Russia.

 

 

As one author put it (Bergeroud I think) “Japan was a nation with a foot still in the 19th century” 

[oc2209]

4 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

As one author put it (Bergeroud I think) “Japan was a nation with a foot still in the 19th century” 

 

Or the 9th century, depending on how you view their suicidal charges into machine gun fire.

 

I mean, the Europeans were guilty of doing the same for most of WWI, but at least running headlong into machine guns was... slightly less popular in Europe by WWII.

 

All in all, the Japanese were far too fatalistic for their own good. To laugh at death is one thing; to seek it out irrationally with no purpose to your death is another.

 

It's because of Japan's cultural oddities and severely underdeveloped economy/industry (they made Germany look like America by comparison) that I don't really figure Pacific planes into the equation of which 'won' the war.

 

At face value that sounds like I'm demeaning the American effort and blood spent to dislodge the Japanese; and Japanese skill and bravery in spite of their self-defeating attitudes regarding warfare; but I don't want to demean anyone.

 

Mathematically, however, you can see the Japanese had no chance. I think America could honestly just sit on its ass until '45, don't bother invading any Japanese held-island, use our Navy to wipe out the Japanese Navy, build more submarines to absolutely strangle Japanese shipping, wait for Japan's island fortresses to starve out, and then push into the western Pacific far enough to reach Japan with a nuke-laden B-29. Marines would mostly be facing skeletons on the beaches by '46.

 

Obviously I have the comfort of hindsight to develop that strategy with. But I think it would have worked just as well, with less American casualties. There was some urgency necessary to defeat Germany, because Germany was developing some pretty scarily advanced tech (short of nukes). But Japan posed no such equal threat.

[MiloMorai]

Biological weapons by the Japanese is not scary?

[oc2209]

30 minutes ago, MiloMorai said:

Biological weapons by the Japanese is not scary?

 

Not really.

 

The delivery methods would be ridiculously inefficient.

 

I'd bet good money that in the 0.001% chance of a successful attack, the casualties we incurred from Okinawa alone would still be higher.

[Eisenfaustus]

21 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

You simply can't seriously compare the tactical arm of the VVS, and it's effect on the war, with the strategic arm of the two most powerful air forces on the planet, and their effects on the war.

The strategic air offensive started to show a serious effect on the German war effort in spring of 44 according to Masters of the air. At that point the Wehrmacht was already defeated in the east. And that defeat wasn’t sealed by a lack of steel or oil -but by a lack of (trained) blood. The German military was to stubborn to surrender and few elite divisions were able to achieve minor local victories but from nowadays available sources there is little doubt that latest after the defeat during Citadel there was no way the Wehrmacht could have defeated the Ref Army anymore - some historians even claim that this was already the case after the defeat at Moscow 41. 
 

Furthermore at Anzio the Wehrmacht demonstrated that even well equipped, trained and supplied elite formations like the Luftwaffenpanzerdivision Hermann Göring were unable to defeat Allied firepower. 

 

So while there are sometimes mislead tendencies to completely neglect the effect of Strategic bombing I think the wardeciding effect others wish to see in it isn’t backed up by historical research. 
 

The attrition in the east (to which the vvs contributed although less then soviet ground forces) was far more deciding for the outcome of the war in Europe. 

[oc2209]

1 hour ago, Eisenfaustus said:

there was no way the Wehrmacht could have defeated the Ref Army anymore - some historians even claim that this was already the case after the defeat at Moscow 41.

 

Thanks for pointing this out.

 

After Moscow '41, the German army has two good (I use the word loosely) options that I can see:

 

A) Attack Moscow again, hoping that capturing it will end the war decisively.

 

B) Fall back into mostly defensive positions, conserve manpower by only making small, local attacks when advantageous. Attempt to bleed the Russians faster than they bleed you.

 

Both options would have a very low probability of success. However, the option the Germans chose was the Stalingrad push. Which, as we can see, was a thrust with nothing to back it up; an armored spear tip on a glass shaft (i.e, Romanian/Italian/Hungarian armies on the flank).

 

The fact is that after the initial impact of Barbarossa was absorbed and Russia gained a bit of breathing space, Germany did not possess a second punch. They simply did not have the manpower to defend the whole frontline adequately while also mounting a major, war-ending offensive. Barbarossa itself was the one shot, and it was a long shot even if the Germans did everything perfectly.

 

Which ultimately means they never should have attacked Russia in the first place. Certainly not while Britain was still in the picture. Which is probably one of the reasons even a very paranoid Stalin didn't expect the attack. It was almost inconceivably stupid. But then, on the other hand, Barbarossa was one of those moves that can be filed under 'so nuts, it just might work'; the chief advantage of the plan, the only real advantage, was surprise. If Germany waited until after it defeated Britain, then you damn well know Stalin would be watching Hitler like a hawk at that point, knowing he was next on Hitler's hit list.

[BraveSirRobin]

The Soviet Union won the war against Germany.  They faced the most German troops.  They killed the most German troops.  They fought their way to Berlin and forced Germany to surrender.  Ipso fatso (sic), their most effective aircraft “won the war”.    If you want to argue that strategic bombing prevented Stalin from controlling more of Western Europe, go for it.  But the Soviets won the war.  Period.

[oc2209]

1 hour ago, BraveSirRobin said:

  If you want to argue that strategic bombing prevented Stalin from controlling more of Western Europe, go for it.

 

I don't want to make that argument, because (as I've said elsewhere) for every bomb dropped on German industry in '44, it increased the rate at which Germany collapsed from both sides equally. You can't really argue that Germany crumpled from the west faster than the east because of said bombing. The implosion was universal.

 

Just to summarize my stance here: as I've maintained this whole debate, I have never denied that strategic bombing accelerated Germany's defeat (I did say that bombing didn't force Germany's surrender, which is a different matter than its inevitable defeat; surrender can occur before or after total defeat).

 

Rather, I have specified that Germany was past the point of no return in terms of ending the war favorably, before strategic bombing had severely undermined its ability to fight. Therefore credit goes to the Russians for delivering the fatal blow, while heavy bombing gets credit for speeding up the fait accompli created by Russian victories.

 

As I also said previously, had America not given the Russians so many trucks, that would have had a measurable impact on how far Russia pushed into central Europe, and how quickly.

Edited July 16, 2021 by oc2209

[CUJO_1970]

Everyone is getting sidetracked talking about who won the war.

 

The original point is about the aircraft that contributed most to winning WORLD WAR TWO.

 

It certainly wasn't the IL2 Sturmovik, absent in western Europe, absent in the Mediterranean, absent in the Pacific and in fact - a non-factor even in many of the land battles on the eastern front.

[oc2209]

20 minutes ago, CUJO_1970 said:

Everyone is getting sidetracked talking about who won the war.

 

The original point is about the aircraft that contributed most to winning WORLD WAR TWO.

 

It certainly wasn't the IL2 Sturmovik, absent in western Europe, absent in the Mediterranean, absent in the Pacific and in fact - a non-factor even in many of the land battles on the eastern front.

 

You're right, we've only established the following:

 

1) Japan had little offensive ability outside of its brittle, radar-lacking carrier fleet, which was rendered ineffective as an invasion force by '42.

 

2) Britain would have lost North Africa had Germany not been involved in Russia; specifically the German losses at El Alamein perfectly coincided with the German drive to Stalingrad. I guess there was no conflict of which theater got supply preference and more air support.

 

Again, I refer to this quote:

 

"Writing in his diary on 1 January 1943, British General Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, reflected on the change in the position from a year before:

 

'I felt Russia could never hold, Caucasus was bound to be penetrated, and Abadan (our Achilles heel) would be captured with the consequent collapse of Middle East, India, etc. After Russia's defeat how were we to handle the German land and air forces liberated? England would be again bombarded, threat of invasion revived... And now! We start 1943 under conditions I would never have dared to hope. Russia has held, Egypt for the present is safe."'

 

If you're going to keep ignoring points I make, I'll just have to keep repeating them. The British knew their own weaknesses better than the Germans evidently did. They feared what the Germans (99% Hitler's fault) were too stupid to exploit. Pretending like the British actually had a firm grip in North Africa, and the Germans didn't defeat themselves there through Hitler's bad decisions, is quite the stretch.

 

3) Western Europe had already been cleared out by the Germans. D-Day didn't happen until mid '44. Not sure what your point is here. Are you still trying to argue the Germans could have turned things around and won up until then?

 

4) The Russians built over 30k Sturmoviks (urged at Stalin's behest), and you're telling me there's "many" important battles in Russia they didn't participate in or had zero influence on. Yet, you're also saying that inaccurate, unescorted bombing raids into Germany circa '41 and '42 did have a measurable impact on the ground situation in Russia. Okay.  

 

At this point you're either trolling or just being contrary for the sake of being contrary. Either way, this 'debate' is a sham because you have no interest in going to the trouble to refute valid arguments.

[Eisenfaustus]

2 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

The original point is about the aircraft that contributed most to winning WORLD WAR TWO.

Yes and in my opinion the answer has to be: The airplane that contributed most to the meatgrinder that was the eastern front. 

 

2 hours ago, oc2209 said:

I don't want to make that argument, because (as I've said elsewhere) for every bomb dropped on German industry in '44, it increased the rate at which Germany collapsed from both sides equally. You can't really argue that Germany crumpled from the west faster than the east because of said bombing. The implosion was universal.

I think @BraveSirRobin is correct. The western Allies concluded just like the Germans did in 1940 that air supremacy was a prerequisite for seaborne invasions. And the strategic air arm crucial for air supremacy. With no Allied troops on continental Europe the soviets would have „liberated“ the workers of France and BeNeLux just like they did in Poland and Hungary.  

[BraveSirRobin]

12 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

Everyone is getting sidetracked talking about who won the war.

 

The original point is about the aircraft that contributed most to winning WORLD WAR TWO.

 

It certainly wasn't the IL2 Sturmovik, absent in western Europe, absent in the Mediterranean, absent in the Pacific and in fact - a non-factor even in many of the land battles on the eastern front.

The IL2 didn’t need to go to all those places to win the war.  Because most of the Germans were in the place where the IL2 was fighting.

[AndyJWest]

I think I have the definitive answer: the plane that won WW2 was the Fokker D.VII. ?

 

If Hermann Göring had flown an inferior aircraft in 1918, he'd have been shot down and killed, thereby preventing him from becoming boss of the Luftwaffe, and the great asset the the Allied cause he clearly was. ?

 

 

[cardboard_killer]

Was the Il-2 really that great? If, instead of 30,000 Il-2s the Soviets had instead produced 30,000 more La-5s wouldn't the war have been over sooner? Blast the LW from the sky and even a DB-2 can look great.

[oc2209]

1 hour ago, cardboard_killer said:

Was the Il-2 really that great? If, instead of 30,000 Il-2s the Soviets had instead produced 30,000 more La-5s wouldn't the war have been over sooner? Blast the LW from the sky and even a DB-2 can look great.

 

If you're really that desperate to be contrary, sure, you could say a DB-2's just as capable.

 

Could the DB-2 take potentially hundreds of hits from ground fire? Did it carry fixed cannons for strafing?

 

But, again, if you want to be contrary just because, you can think anything you want.

 

14 hours ago, Eisenfaustus said:

I think @BraveSirRobin is correct. The western Allies concluded just like the Germans did in 1940 that air supremacy was a prerequisite for seaborne invasions. And the strategic air arm crucial for air supremacy. With no Allied troops on continental Europe the soviets would have „liberated“ the workers of France and BeNeLux just like they did in Poland and Hungary.  

 

I didn't take his meaning to include a scenario where D-Day doesn't happen.

 

D-Day's always going to happen, whether the strategic bombing campaign occurs or not. Germany was in no position to resist the amount of fighters and tactical bombers that had been assembled in Britain by mid '44. Allied air supremacy over the landing zone was assured at that point; the only question would be how much of an ultimately futile resistance the Luftwaffe could muster.

 

Did strategic bombing force the Luftwaffe to fight at a disadvantage? Undoubtedly. Did that make D-Day easier afterwards? Yes. Was D-Day impossible without strategic bombing? No. The Luftwaffe would never be capable of going toe-to-toe with the combined forces of the US and UK, right across the channel. The Luftwaffe could barely cope with P-47 escorts over western Germany in late '43, prior to the arrival of P-51s. Throw in Spitfires and Typhoons (from British bases just across the Channel), and no, there is no scenario where the Luftwaffe gains air superiority over the D-Day zone.

 

The only way the Luftwaffe resists D-Day is the alt-history scenario where Russia's out of the picture, and Germany has an extra million men in France, with all of its Eastern Front air assets there as well. And even in that case, the battle would likely be decided on the ground, as the Luftwaffe still would not be able to dominate the skies. At best they could just run a lot of interference.

Edited July 16, 2021 by oc2209

[oc2209]

36 minutes ago, raaaid said:

tecnically the plane that won the war was the g6 onwards

 

That is a genuinely funny point, but I think the poor 109 gets a bad wrap because it's expected to work a level of magic that no plane could. Sure, it was obsolescent by 1943. Let's imagine a scenario, though, where Germany can put 500 Ta-152s or 500 Me-262s in the air at once, as of January 1, 1943. Just pretend. Who cares how absurd and impossible it is.

 

Such aircraft would immediately stop the Allied bombing offensive over Germany (at least by day; for the sake of argument, pretend the night fighter force was equally well-equipped).

 

This addition of advanced Luftwaffe planes still would not:

 

Have helped Germany to take Moscow in '41;

 

Have helped Germany to take Stalingrad in '42;

 

Have helped Germany to win at Kursk in '43;

 

Have prevented the collapse of German North Africa in '42.

 

A technologically advanced successor to the 109, in service in large numbers, still does not affect any of the above outcomes. Germany would still not be able to build enough planes and put experienced enough pilots in said planes, and muster enough fuel to sortie said planes for non-stop offensive air support, to match the combined air forces of Britain, the US, and Russia.

 

Germany was locked in a defensive posture by this stage of the war. Not much could change that. The question isn't whether Germany can win, but how long it takes to die. America having nukes by late '45 ensures a pretty predictable end-game scenario.

[cardboard_killer]

2 hours ago, oc2209 said:

If you're really that desperate to be contrary, sure, you could say a DB-2's just as capable.

 

Makes as much sense as saying the Il-2 won the war.

[oc2209]

9 minutes ago, cardboard_killer said:

 

Makes as much sense as saying the Il-2 won the war.

 

You must be from the Cujo school of debate. Making absurd statements like this:

 

19 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

It certainly wasn't the IL2 Sturmovik, absent in western Europe, absent in the Mediterranean, absent in the Pacific and in fact - a non-factor even in many of the land battles on the eastern front.

 

...is not a valid method of debate.

 

What is valid, is to use specific examples, such as the following:

 

On 7/15/2021 at 2:11 AM, ZachariasX said:

That battle of attrition took away 2/3rd of high quality optics and cannons from use on the eastern front, where they could have been used to tremendous effect. It is of note that those weapons could directly have been applied to the battle situation in the east.

 

Unfortunately, his point is lost on the fact that Hamburg wasn't destroyed until the middle of '43, well after Germany's Eastern Front decline was assured.

 

I can, however, cite specific examples of where and how the Sturmovik was employed.

 

From November 15 to December 5, 1941, the Red Air Force recorded 15,840 sorties against the German drive on Moscow (versus the German total of 3500 in the same period). Sturmoviks were part of that.

 

From November 19th to the 23rd of 1942, Sturmoviks launched 1,000 sorties against the Germans as a prelude to the Stalingrad counteroffensive. The Luftwaffe managed 150 sorties in this time period (meaning the Sturmoviks moved about largely unhindered, with only ground fire able to stop them). Targets were not just troops and vehicles; 2/3 of these sorties were directed at German airfields.

 

At Kursk, 940 Sturmoviks were in action. Nearly 2,000 Sturmoviks were present for Bagration.

[CUJO_1970]

17 hours ago, oc2209 said:

Are you still trying to argue the Germans could have turned things around and won up until then?

 

No, please pay attention. What I'm saying, again, is that the IL2 was not the aircraft that was most effective in winning the Second World War.

 

17 hours ago, oc2209 said:

you're also saying that inaccurate, unescorted bombing raids into Germany circa '41 and '42 did have a measurable impact on the ground situation in Russia. Okay. 

 

There you go again. But since you brought it up - yes - unescorted bombing raids into Germany circa '41 and '42 probably did have about as much of a measurable impact on the ground situation in Russia as did the IL2 Sturmovik. Later those raids would have a much greater effect.

 

All over the planet.

 

Unlike the Il2.

 

17 hours ago, oc2209 said:

At this point you're either trolling or just being contrary for the sake of being contrary. Either way, this 'debate' is a sham because you have no interest in going to the trouble to refute valid arguments.

 

It may seem like I'm trolling, but just seems that way.

 

Claiming the whole of the the Western Theater, The entirety of the Mediterranean Theater and the whole of the Pacific Theater  - all areas where the IL2 had no impact at all - somehow takes a backseat to the Eastern Front in importance to winning WW2 is laughable - but here we are. Two individual sorties by a single 4-engine bomber literally ended WW2.

 

The world would probably be a better placed if both were dropped on Stalin's Coldwater dacha. Instead, he ordered bolt by bolt copies of the B-29. You want to know who ordered bolt by bolt copies of the IL2 Sturmovik? Nobody, that's who.

 

3 minutes ago, oc2209 said:

Unfortunately, his point is lost on the fact that Hamburg wasn't destroyed until the middle of '43, well after Germany's Eastern Front decline was assured.

 

I can, however, cite specific examples of where and how the Sturmovik was employed.

 

From November 15 to December 5, 1941, the Red Air Force recorded 15,840 sorties against the German drive on Moscow (versus the German total of 3500 in the same period). Sturmoviks were part of that.

 

From November 19th to the 23rd of 1942, Sturmoviks launched 1,000 sorties against the Germans as a prelude to the Stalingrad counteroffensive. The Luftwaffe managed 150 sorties in this time period (meaning the Sturmoviks moved about largely unhindered, with only ground fire able to stop them). Targets were not just troops and vehicles; 2/3 of these sorties were directed at German airfields.

 

At Kursk, 940 Sturmoviks were in action. Nearly 2,000 Sturmoviks were present for Bagration.

 

 

You would do better to learn from ZachariusX, than to try unsuccessfully to provide a weak counterpoint to his very correct and actually valid point. He is spot on, and it's only one of the factors that brought tremendous relief to the soviets on the eastern front...all because of English and American strategic bombing.

 

Next, you cite numbers of Sturmovik sorties flown. *sigh*

 

How many Sturmovik sorties if 3 full JG of FW190 (or more) are transferred east to swat them out of the sky, since the aren't busy defending the Reich against Allied heavy bomber raids?

 

[Gambit21]

I read an interesting book years ago called ‘No Simple Victory’ by Norman Davies.

 

In this volume he illustrates what a side show the western front etc were compared to the massive scale of fighting and dying that took place on the Eastern Front. It’s not something we learn about in our high school history classes in the U.S.

 

It’s all about Pearl Harbor and D-Day - you’d be lucky if the Eastern Front got more than a minute of lecture time.

[ST_Catchov]

1 hour ago, Gambit21 said:

It’s all about Pearl Harbor and D-Day - you’d be lucky if the Eastern Front got more than a minute of lecture time.

 

Well, it's always the victors that write the history. It would be the same in Russia. National pride and all that. But getting back to the plane(s) that won the war and looking outside the square, I'd postulate that it was the Val, Zero and Kates that attacked Pearl Harbour .... thus bringing the USA into the war. Without their assistance in gearing up amazingly quickly in manpower and machine I'd say the Allies would quite possibly have been f*cked. Or at least in a jolly well tough spot.

[Gambit21]

2 minutes ago, ST_Catchov said:

 

Well, it's always the victors that write the history. It would be the same in Russia. National pride and all that. But getting back to the plane(s) that won the war and looking outside the square, I'd postulate that it was the Val, Zero and Kates that attacked Pearl Harbour .... thus bringing the USA into the war. Without their assistance in gearing up amazingly quickly in manpower and machine I'd say the Allies would quite possibly have been f*cked. Or at least in a jolly well tough spot.

 

Eh...no.

”Norman Davies” isn’t exactly a Russian name in case that escaped your notice. Might be best to actually crack the book before you dismiss it.

 

[BraveSirRobin]

9 minutes ago, ST_Catchov said:

 

Well, it's always the victors that write the history. It would be the same in Russia. National pride and all that. But getting back to the plane(s) that won the war and looking outside the square, I'd postulate that it was the Val, Zero and Kates that attacked Pearl Harbour .... thus bringing the USA into the war. Without their assistance in gearing up amazingly quickly in manpower and machine I'd say the Allies would quite possibly have been f*cked. Or at least in a jolly well tough spot.

 

2 days prior to Pearl Harbor the Soviets launched the offensive that halted the German attack on Moscow.  Stalingrad took place prior to any significant USAAF bomber attacks on Germany.  The Russians would have been just fine without US intervention.  France, on the other hand, probably would have been screwed.

[ST_Catchov]

4 hours ago, Gambit21 said:

 

Eh...no.

”Norman Davies” isn’t exactly a Russian name in case that escaped your notice. Might be best to actually crack the book before you dismiss it.

 

 

I'm not dismissing the book. I'm sure it's very good. I'm talking about how victors (as in nations, not authors) teach their version of history to school kids. As you implied, it can be over-simplistic.

 

4 hours ago, BraveSirRobin said:

 

2 days prior to Pearl Harbor the Soviets launched the offensive that halted the German attack on Moscow.  Stalingrad took place prior to any significant USAAF bomber attacks on Germany.  The Russians would have been just fine without US intervention.  France, on the other hand, probably would have been screwed.

 

Pretty much agree with that. Although without the yanks we'd be talking Japanese downunder. And the Brits, probably cars that didn't leak oil.

[Eisenfaustus]

14 hours ago, oc2209 said:

D-Day's always going to happen, whether the strategic bombing campaign occurs or not.

Allied planners in 1943 judged this differently, according to masters of the air.

 

8 hours ago, Gambit21 said:

It’s all about Pearl Harbor and D-Day - you’d be lucky if the Eastern Front got more than a minute of lecture time.

In Germany the war isn't subject in school at all - only as a side notice in the subject how the nazis came to power and what crimes against humanity they committed.

 

If you're interested I can recommend the youtube channel military hisrory visialized.

While he covers many different military subjects his main focus is WWII with very well researched videos on subjects like why Barbarossa failed or in what bad condition the Wehrmacht already was in summer '42.

[cardboard_killer]

I'd recommend Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East (Cambridge Military Histories) by David Stahel. And, of course, Germany and the Second World War: Volume IV: The Attack on the Soviet Union.

 

 

[RAY-EU]

[oc2209]

9 hours ago, Eisenfaustus said:

Allied planners in 1943 judged this differently, according to masters of the air.

 

The Allied planners in '43 likely didn't factor in the value of the P-51 available in large numbers (I'm not talking as an escort, I just mean the plane's qualities by themselves), among many other factors that had irrevocably tipped the balance of power in the Allies' favor by D-Day.

 

If you compare the raw number of planes of all types available to America/Britain on D-Day (within range of the operational area), and match that to what the Germans had across all theaters; and then specifically compare fighter numbers beyond that; I believe my point would stand.

 

17 hours ago, Gambit21 said:

I read an interesting book years ago called ‘No Simple Victory’ by Norman Davies.

 

In this volume he illustrates what a side show the western front etc were compared to the massive scale of fighting and dying that took place on the Eastern Front. It’s not something we learn about in our high school history classes in the U.S.

 

It’s all about Pearl Harbor and D-Day - you’d be lucky if the Eastern Front got more than a minute of lecture time.

 

I've been reading about WWII since I was about 9 years old, and watching documentaries, etc. My point is that I gradually formed my own conclusions without paying attention to what was popularly believed. By the time I got to high school, the depth of history covered there was laughable.

 

It's not just about WWII, either. It's about studying cause/effect in any large, dying organism. That includes the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the inherent geographical limitations of the Mongol invasions, the lack of cohesion in Native American tribes that guaranteed their destruction, the fundamental weaknesses of Aztec warfare compared to the European style, and on and on.

[oc2209]

22 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

unescorted bombing raids into Germany circa '41 and '42 probably did have about as much of a measurable impact on the ground situation in Russia as did the IL2 Sturmovik.

 

This is not an argument.

 

I'm citing examples of how many sorties are flown during major Russian counteroffensives. The Sturmovik was part of all of those. It was therefore directly affecting the frontline situation. The Russian combat philosophy was built around ground attack and air forces existing solely as a means of supporting the frontline. Your original assertion that the Sturmovik wasn't even part of many Russian battles is simply absurd.

 

Early bombing raids into Germany were notoriously inaccurate. If you can cite an example of a raid prior to 1943 that devastated a specific part of German industry, which in turn directly affected their combat performance, then do so. Extra points if you can find an example from before 1942.

 

22 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

All over the planet.

 

From Wikipedia:

 

"Allied forces conducted many air raids on Japan during World War II, causing extensive destruction to the country's cities and killing between 241,000 and 900,000 people. During the first years of the Pacific War these attacks were limited to the Doolittle Raid in April 1942 and small-scale raids on military positions in the Kuril Islands from mid-1943. Strategic bombing raids began in June 1944 and continued until the end of the war in August 1945. Allied naval and land-based tactical air units also attacked Japan during 1945.

 

The United States military air campaign waged against Japan began in earnest in mid-1944 and intensified during the war's last months. While plans for attacks on Japan had been prepared prior to the Pacific War, these could not begin until the long-range B-29 Superfortress bomber was ready for combat. From June 1944 until January 1945, B-29s stationed in India staged through bases in China to make a series of nine raids on targets in western Japan, but this effort proved ineffective. The strategic bombing campaign was greatly expanded from November 1944 when bases in the Mariana Islands became available as a result of the Mariana Islands Campaign. These attacks initially attempted to target industrial facilities using high-altitude daylight "precision" bombing, which was also largely ineffective. From February 1945, the bombers switched to low-altitude night firebombing against urban areas as much of the manufacturing process was carried out in small workshops and private homes: this approach resulted in large-scale urban damage. Aircraft flying from Allied aircraft carriers and the Ryukyu Islands also frequently struck targets in Japan during 1945 in preparation for the planned invasion of Japan scheduled for October 1945. During early August 1945, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were struck and mostly destroyed by atomic bombs."

 

So the bombings weren't really profitable until Feb. '45.

 

Japan wasn't already totally screwed by then, was it?

 

You might want to properly frame the value of that "All over the planet" claim. Strategic bombers certainly wouldn't have been able to reach critical industrial areas of German-occupied Russia in the event of the latter's capitulation; and whatever they could reach would be without escort.

 

22 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

Claiming the whole of the the Western Theater, The entirety of the Mediterranean Theater and the whole of the Pacific Theater  - all areas where the IL2 had no impact at all

 

And for 2/3 of those, the Allied heavy bombing campaign had no impact at all, either. The Mediterranean theater was decided prior to 1943. Again, before Allied bombing really mattered. I'm not reiterating why the bombing had no impact on the Pacific theater.

 

22 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

Two individual sorties by a single 4-engine bomber literally ended WW2.

 

You're really equating nukes with conventional bombing? I'm pretty sure 2 sorties by 4-engined bombers with regular bombs wouldn't have the same effect. Not sure what your point is here. Having a 4-engine bomber in your air force inventory isn't what's being debated here. I never said that no one ever had a reason to develop heavy bombers for 'just in case we need to bomb this critical target' scenarios. There's a big difference between having them available, and building tens of thousands of them, and falsely believing that bombers alone... with conventional bombs... win wars.

 

See this example (again from Wikipedia):

 

"Bombing was not restricted to North Vietnam. Other aerial campaigns, such as Operation Barrel Roll, targeted different parts of the Viet Cong and PAVN infrastructure. These included the Ho Chi Minh trail supply route, which ran through Laos and Cambodia. The ostensibly neutral Laos had become the scene of a civil war, pitting the Laotian government backed by the US against the Pathet Lao and its North Vietnamese allies.

 

Massive aerial bombardment against the Pathet Lao and PAVN forces were carried out by the US to prevent the collapse of the Royal central government, and to deny the use of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. dropped two million tons of bombs on Laos, nearly equal to the 2.1 million tons of bombs the U.S. dropped on Europe and Asia during all of World War II, making Laos the most heavily bombed country in history relative to the size of its population.

The objective of stopping North Vietnam and the Viet Cong was never reached. The Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force Curtis LeMay, however, had long advocated saturation bombing in Vietnam and wrote of the communists that "we're going to bomb them back into the Stone Age""

 

22 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

 it's only one of the factors that brought tremendous relief to the soviets on the eastern front...all because of English and American strategic bombing.

 

After the middle of 1943, in his specific example; how many times will you ignore this point? All the major German losses had already occurred. Certainly the catastrophic German casualties had already occurred.

 

22 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

How many Sturmovik sorties if 3 full JG of FW190 (or more) are transferred east to swat them out of the sky, since the aren't busy defending the Reich against Allied heavy bomber raids?

 

If you actually digested the numbers I posted regarding Sturmovik sorties and the dates, instead of glossing over them, you would see the point.

 

During Russian winter counteroffensives, in bad weather when the Luftwaffe couldn't/wouldn't fly, the Sturmovik could range over the frontlines unopposed by anything other than flak.

 

That means it's destroying soft targets, transportation, and parked airplanes at forward German fields. That's making an actual impact on the frontline.

Edited July 17, 2021 by oc2209

[Eisenfaustus]

2 hours ago, oc2209 said:

If you compare the raw number of planes of all types available to America/Britain on D-Day (within range of the operational area), and match that to what the Germans had across all theaters; and then specifically compare fighter numbers beyond that; I believe my point would stand.

Combat is not numbers alone - the Allies could have flown close air support at will - sure. But over the channel they would have been in the defence. Over the channel the Luftwaffe could have attacked the fleet supplying the invasion force. How successful that would have been we can’t know - but the allies didn’t want to take the risk. They preferred to play it safe. 
 

Furthermore the Luftwaffe was in such a bad state to a large degree because it’s fighters were forced into combat by the strategic raids. And wether it was actually necessary or not - for the Allied leadership Point Blank was a nonoptional prerequisite for D-Day wether you yourself could have executed the largest sea invasion in human history without it or not. By the way Point Blank not only should secure air supremacy but also wreck the German ability to quickly move reserves to the invasion area by destroying the railway network. 

[Lusekofte]

Why bother discussing the matter. Pilots from Luftwaffe said in interviews after the war.

There where not enough resources, human nor machines to invade USSR.

Almost all of them mention it in one or another way. Retrospect ofcource. 

That video just show that only USSR could afford put those numbers into action for so long and keep momentum. No matter the losses. Only USA and UK could afford the horrific losses in their bomber command. 

Germany could not afford their losses in Poland, France, England, Afrika, Baltics, Crete and Malta. And then take USSR. 

Luftwaffe simply did not have enough crews ,metal nor fuel. How they manage to keep going for so long, is really the only question I got

[BraveSirRobin]

1 minute ago, LuseKofte said:

Why bother discussing the matter. Pilots from Luftwaffe said in interviews after the war.

There where not enough resources, human nor machines to invade USSR.

And yet, they almost won.  Maybe.  Would the Soviets have surrendered if Moscow was captured in 41 and Stalin killed or taken prisoner?

[oc2209]

2 hours ago, BraveSirRobin said:

And yet, they almost won.  Maybe.  Would the Soviets have surrendered if Moscow was captured in 41 and Stalin killed or taken prisoner?

 

One of the key factors in the many miscalculations the Germans made to launch Barbarossa, is that not only were Russian numbers of everything (including production and replacement rates) underestimated, but the ability/willingness of the Russians to fight was severely underestimated. That last point is the most fatal one for Germany. They were expecting France/Poland on a larger scale. That's not what they got.

 

Take the Luftwaffe, for instance. Launched the invasion with about 1300 planes if memory serves, lost 774 of those within the first month. It doesn't matter that the Russians lost ten times as many; K/D only matters in video games, or in the case of Germany, when you can't afford to lose much of anything. The same applies to the ground war. Theoretically the Germans could have kept pushing into Russia well into '42, relatively comfortably, had their attrition rate been much smaller; but once they realized they were taking far heavier losses than they did in previous campaigns, and the Russians had a lot more of everything than German intelligence indicated... that's when the math of the situation tells you, absolutely, that you are screwed.

 

Because of the heavy losses Germany takes in both men and materiel on the road to Moscow, it's pretty difficult to imagine a scenario where it ends in their victory. The only way I figure it is launching Barbarossa approximately 3-4 weeks earlier (rainy weather permitting) coupled with a scenario where Hitler doesn't order the deviation from Moscow into Ukraine, and the massive delay that followed. If you add up all the wasted weeks, the German army might get another 6-8 weeks of good weather (depending on how generous you want to be with those alt-history estimations) in which to take Moscow. At face value, that sounds like ample time. However, Guderian mentions the stiffening resistance even before, say, October and the colder weather.

 

Even in the best case scenario for Germany, the margin of error was practically nil. They'd have to hit Moscow so fast, so hard, that the resistance within the city itself would simply crumple from lack of adequate preparation. Any long, Stalingrad-esque slog to take Moscow would end badly for the Germans. It either falls in a few weeks, or not at all.

 

Likewise, that would increase the probability Stalin might be captured/killed if he stays behind to organize the resistance. Stalin's end would be more likely to result in a surrender than the fall of Moscow by itself.

 

5 hours ago, Eisenfaustus said:

Combat is not numbers alone - the Allies could have flown close air support at will - sure. But over the channel they would have been in the defence. Over the channel the Luftwaffe could have attacked the fleet supplying the invasion force. How successful that would have been we can’t know - but the allies didn’t want to take the risk. They preferred to play it safe. 
 

Furthermore the Luftwaffe was in such a bad state to a large degree because it’s fighters were forced into combat by the strategic raids. And wether it was actually necessary or not - for the Allied leadership Point Blank was a nonoptional prerequisite for D-Day wether you yourself could have executed the largest sea invasion in human history without it or not. By the way Point Blank not only should secure air supremacy but also wreck the German ability to quickly move reserves to the invasion area by destroying the railway network. 

 

Okay, let's look at it another way.

 

Was the Luftwaffe able to neutralize the Russian army at any point after Barbarossa? As in, did the Luftwaffe ever have the power--even in '42 before strategic bombing had bled them--to stop the Red Army dead in its tracks on a wide front? Did the Luftwaffe ever throw back a major Russian offensive? I know it contained minor thrusts plenty of times and slowed Russian progress overall, but I'm talking about stopping a full offensive on par with the Normandy invasion.

 

My answer is 'no.'

 

So if the Luftwaffe of '42, against the Russians, couldn't perform miracles--I ask why you'd expect them to perform miracles in '44 against the combined air forces of the UK and US. With or without the preparatory strategic bombing phase.

 

The Luftwaffe was plenty soft enough already. It was always an inherently brittle instrument that was better on the offense than the defense. As you say, the D-Day planners were playing it safe. Very, very safe. There was no risk to the invasion force or beachhead itself. I might have the comfort of hindsight with which to say so, but that doesn't change the probabilities of the situation.

 

What the overly cautious Allied planning assured, was lower Allied casualties. It absolutely did that much. But to act like the end result of the operation was in any way jeopardized by anything within German power--that is what strikes me as highly improbable.

Edited July 18, 2021 by oc2209