Wirbelwind

[Scrummage]

So one of my Soviet infantry platoons found a Wirbelwind today. As they where caught in the open they didn't live to tell about it. First burst, 20 WIA/ KIA! These things are insanely effective against infantry and a lot less fragile than the truck mounted flak guns.

To what an extent where Wirbelwinds and other flakpanzers used against infantry targets during the war?

[Oddball_E8]

At any opportunity that arose I would suspect.

I don't think they were right at the front lines, however, and I don't think they were directly used as anti-infantry assets very often.

[c3k]

So one of my Soviet infantry platoons found a Wirbelwind today. As they where caught in the open they didn't live to tell about it. First burst, 20 WIA/ KIA! These things are insanely effective against infantry and a lot less fragile than the truck mounted flak guns.

To what an extent where Wirbelwinds and other flakpanzers used against infantry targets during the war?

Reading Spaeter's "Grossdeutschland" books, an early Barbarossa encounter is described. A halftrack mounted flak is specifically used to defend against a Soviet attack across a field. That was within the first few weeks of the campaign. The effectiveness was unquestioned. Mobile autocannon are men-killers, pure and simple.

[Michael Emrys]

I don't think they were right at the front lines, however, and I don't think they were directly used as anti-infantry assets very often.

Doctrine was that they were assigned to armored formations to protect them while on the move. But I expect that they were willing to shoot at anything that crossed their paths whether in the air or on the ground.

Michael

[MikeyD]

Don't forget that Gustav Line Youtube clip of the quad 20mm in action.

[Andrew H.]

So one of my Soviet infantry platoons found a Wirbelwind today. As they where caught in the open they didn't live to tell about it. First burst, 20 WIA/ KIA! These things are insanely effective against infantry and a lot less fragile than the truck mounted flak guns.

They are also very effective against tank riders.

[Holman]

Would AA weapons have been moved forward with assaulting troops or held back in an actual air-defense role?

Put another way, why didn't Germans always use them the way CM players surely will?

[Baneman]

Would AA weapons have been moved forward with assaulting troops or held back in an actual air-defense role?

Put another way, why didn't Germans always use them the way CM players surely will?

They were probably a tad more vulnerable irl than in game.

[Bastables]

Would AA weapons have been moved forward with assaulting troops or held back in an actual air-defense role?

Put another way, why didn't Germans always use them the way CM players surely will?

They certainly tried to use them as a cm player. In Normandy FlaK III Korp defending div rear areas, towns, rail yards ect(also indirect fire) also deployed Flakkampfgruppen or anti aircraft combat sections trained for ground combat. They were not successful in Normandy losing 35 8,8cm guns and 70 light Flak in exchange for 20 tanks knocked out.

But the Germans did like deploying them in forward positions to shoot ground targets. The Germans were so enamoured with the idea that even rear area FlaK Korps tasked with defending important centres behind the lines had special detachments that operated with divisions as front line support as well as those divisions organic Flak guns.

(2000 Zetterling pg153).

[agusto]

Put another way, why didn't Germans always use them the way CM players surely will?

In 1944 the Germans were already in a position where they were forced throw everything at the enemy they could get their hands on. The sad climax of this necessity was reached when in 1945 old men and children were assigned to a job that not even the elite of the Wehrmacht had been able to accomplish earlier in the war.

[jtsjc1]

I'm sure the Germans probably did use them frequently as anti-personnel weapons but most likely the allied air superiority later in the war made them reluctant to use ammo on ground targets unless they were going to be overrun.