Tero

Originally posted by Andreas: So I wouldn't consider them completely disabled or sunk. So, since they did not make the effort to get the guns operational immediately they can be kept in the "sunk" status ?

Originally posted by Andreas: Which of the US battleships was able to interfere in enemy action within weeks after the attack, even theoretically? At least West Virginia, possibly also California, would have been able to get some guns firing within days if the Japanese had invaded.

Originally posted by Andreas: Which of the US battleships was able to interfere in enemy action within weeks after the attack, even theoretically? At least West Virginia, possibly also California, would have been able to get some guns firing within days if the Japanese had invaded.

Originally posted by JasonC: An attacking Stuka is going around 100 m/s, maybe 75 if not in a steep dive. So the engagement time at those ranges is a second and a fraction. How do you calculate that ? Or are you assuming they acquired the target a second before they opened fire ? Really the shot might start as far away as 400m and the pilot might pull out after getting to half of that, 2-3 seconds later. Did you actually bother to look at the vid showing the engagement method ? The firing rate would burn all 12 rounds in 2 1/4 seconds anyway, using both guns. AFAIK the BK-37 had single shot capability. In fact, how smart would it be to go full auto with a 12rpg ammo load out ? Oh, I get it. You are still hung up on the A-10 Gatling gun with a ****load of DU ammo comparison. Stretching that into 2 passes would have been rare. If they did full auto. Which I am certain they did not. The point blank claim is again not very credible, and is probably giving the force something to aim for rather than actually routinely done etc. I doubt that. With a high speed FW-190 that would be plausible. With the slower Ju-87 I'd have to say you would have to go for point blank shots just to minimize the risk of getting shot down by the flak if you had to do more than 2 passes at the same target. Rudel reportedly (supposedly, whichever you like) wrecked 7 machines in his worst day. The FLAK/CAP loss ratio would indicate they were not doing high angle highspeed full auto passes on a regular basis. As for bomb accuracy and CM, consider SBDs at Midway. It was a war changing outlier on the achievement side. But the number of hits compared to bombs dropped ran about 1 in 8. The target sizes are, in CM terms, 11 to 13 tiles long and 1 to 1.5 times wide. The hits actually achieved against targets that size suggest the 50% circle is more like 8 tiles across, or in other words only about half dropped can be expected to land within 80 meters of the aiming point. And that is for dive bombing, which was inherently far more accurate than the shallower glide bomb approaches typically used by fighter bombers. More than a few flaws in that comparison: The accuracy rate should not calculated in this case from the target center point but the aiming center point. This because it was not the same bomber on the same dive vector doing all the bombing but separate machines on parallel dive vectors on the same target. There is no 50% circle since every single bomb (and impact point) is an individual. Each also had a separate aiming point so your 80 meter radius from aim point propability is out the window. Most of the dives were doomed to miss before the dive started because the dive start point determined the aim point. If the aim point was off the pilot could do only so much to alter it or to try to use the chosen one by altering the release point. There is a reason they sent out entire squadrons at a time. Yep. So that more than (even) one would get even a fair statistical chance of surviving the CAP and the FLAK to the ordnance release point. There were instances where the entire squadron was plucked down or blocked way before they reached the target. Or were entire squardons made it to the attack point and they all missed.

Originally posted by JonS: No, I think in the specific case of the Marat, it's theoretical mobility was completely irrelevant. There was simply no way it was going to go anywhere without German permission. The bottling up of the Red Banner Fleet at the base of the Gulf of Finland . The Red Banner Fleet subs sortied from Leningrad so there was a way to get the surface ships out if they had wanted to risk it.

Originally posted by JonS: No, I think in the specific case of the Marat, it's theoretical mobility was completely irrelevant. There was simply no way it was going to go anywhere without German permission. The bottling up of the Red Banner Fleet at the base of the Gulf of Finland . The Red Banner Fleet subs sortied from Leningrad so there was a way to get the surface ships out if they had wanted to risk it.

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist: So IMO it was not sunk, If it does not float, it not run aground, it was not beached, it did not exactly settle at the bottom of the harbour (peacefully) then what do you call it ? and it was not destroyed. Agreed. The fate of the Marat was not unlike the Pearl Harbour battleship row BB's. IMO the same criteria should be uset to Marat as was used for the US battleships at Pearl Harbour. If you think they sunk (apart from the one that was beached and the one(s) which capsised) then Marat also sunk. [ February 27, 2007, 11:54 PM: Message edited by: Tero ]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist: So IMO it was not sunk, If it does not float, it not run aground, it was not beached, it did not exactly settle at the bottom of the harbour (peacefully) then what do you call it ? and it was not destroyed. Agreed. The fate of the Marat was not unlike the Pearl Harbour battleship row BB's. IMO the same criteria should be uset to Marat as was used for the US battleships at Pearl Harbour. If you think they sunk (apart from the one that was beached and the one(s) which capsised) then Marat also sunk. [ February 27, 2007, 11:54 PM: Message edited by: Tero ]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: A battleship that is still capable of using its weapons is not a "write off". That's just it. Is a kill made during combat always a write off ? All of you are getting wrapped around the axle on matters of nomenclature, but its not an unimportant distinction to make. Technically you're both correct. The ship was sunk, in the truest, broadest sense of the term, but since it was still able to use its weapons (and considered dangerous enough to be subjected to renewed attacks), it was not "sunk" in the sense of the word that uses that term to mean destroyed. By the same token, using the same logic a tank is not a kill if it is repaired and returned to service even if was rendered combat ineffective. The man reporting the kill can not possibly know the tank he killed will be returned to service later. Yet the kill is verified by multiple witnesses. Should he be credited with the kill or not ? In the Finnish army a tank was not considered and credited as a kill unless it caught fire. How was it in the other armies ?

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: A battleship that is still capable of using its weapons is not a "write off". That's just it. Is a kill made during combat always a write off ? All of you are getting wrapped around the axle on matters of nomenclature, but its not an unimportant distinction to make. Technically you're both correct. The ship was sunk, in the truest, broadest sense of the term, but since it was still able to use its weapons (and considered dangerous enough to be subjected to renewed attacks), it was not "sunk" in the sense of the word that uses that term to mean destroyed. By the same token, using the same logic a tank is not a kill if it is repaired and returned to service even if was rendered combat ineffective. The man reporting the kill can not possibly know the tank he killed will be returned to service later. Yet the kill is verified by multiple witnesses. Should he be credited with the kill or not ? In the Finnish army a tank was not considered and credited as a kill unless it caught fire. How was it in the other armies ?

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist: Yes John, if the water is shallow enough yuo cannot sink a ship - again, that is precisely WHY badly damaged ships are grounded if possible - to STOP them sinking. So, the heroic Red Banner fleet sailors beached the Marat on its mooring to prevent the dastardly Nazi flyers from sinking it ?

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist: Yes John, if the water is shallow enough yuo cannot sink a ship - again, that is precisely WHY badly damaged ships are grounded if possible - to STOP them sinking. So, the heroic Red Banner fleet sailors beached the Marat on its mooring to prevent the dastardly Nazi flyers from sinking it ?

Originally posted by Bigduke6: 1. Rudel reports his bomb sank the battleship Marat, while Soviet records show two bombs - Rudel's and his wing man's - sank the battleship. 2. Rudel says he dropped a 1000 kg bomb on the warship. The Soviets concluded the ship had been sunk by two 500 kg bombs. AFAIK even in the Allied air forces the flight leader got to keep the kill even when the wingman participated in making it. BTW: what does Rudel actually say: he dropped a 1000kg bomb or 1000kg of bombs was dropped ? 2. Rudel reports there was no Soviet interceptor effort, the Soviet record shooting down Stukas. What about the actual, official LW reports ? Assuming Rudel submitted his report and it was filed somewhere. 3. Rudel claims he destroyed he destroyed 519 tanks - that is ten per cent of all tanks the Soviets knew they lost to air attacks, during the entire friggin' war. The Soviets knew or admitted to ? 4. Rudel reports he fired on tanks at targets at 100 - 200 meters. Given the speed of a Stuka and the fact diving a Stuka at a tank requires a good deal of a pilot's attention, this begs the question, how did Rudel manage to see what the rounds did? Take a look at the youtube link I found. 5. Rudel reports at one point, his superior flying skill enabled him to avoid 20 Airacobras. Problem: 20 x P-39 is an entire fighter regiment, and the Soviets never operated an entire regiment in a single small airspace. Even if they tried, the chances of a regiment actually having 20 x P-39 functional at any one time are next to zero. How do you account for the fact that during their summer of 1944 offensive against the Finns their air strikes regularly had comparable numbers of single aircraft types in them ? 6. Rudel was an excellent pilot but also an egotistical bastard, self-centered, and a trophy hunter. And that makes him different how from all the aces in all the airforces ? Yet his diary for all its "today I destroyed 20 x T-34s" doesn't if you count them add up to 519 tanks. Maybe because his diaries were not identical to and perhaps not even as "accurate" as the reports he submitted. He could (and propably would) write in his diary he killed 20 but he propably could not put down on his report more than 5 because they had to be corraborated by somebody. 7. Rudel's tank kills were confirmed not by people counting hulks on the ground, but by other pilots under fire like he was, and for practically all purposes under his direct command. The ground forces were also by 1943 falling back more often than not so hulk counting was not possible. In case you did not know it during the Battle of Britain the most accurate claim/actual kill claims for both the RAF and the LW were made during the phase when the fighting was done over water. 8. Rudel's book doesn't just toot his own horn, but describes kills by his wingmen etc. A reasonable reading of the effectiveness of his air unit, based on his description of his own kill rate, would make it logical to conclude somewhere between 15 and 50 per cent of all tanks lost by the Soviets during WW2, were destroyed by Rudel's unit. People read the book and are miffed at the selfcongratulatory claims and make hyberbolic remarks like that. Somehow I find it incredible that the Red Barons Flying Circus is acknowleged to have been a very effective unit of highly skilled professionals and excellent kill/loss ratio but somehow Rudels unit could not possibly have been anything remotely like that. 9. Rudel says he was shot down 22 times - and not once by Soviet aircraft. Every time by ground fire. How reasonable is that, given that close to half of his missions took place in 43-45? Very reasonable. The Soviet airforces were mission driven. Free hunt was not their thing. The Finns were able to move entire divisions via rail from one part of the front to another only some 150km behind enemy lines even when the Soviets had absolute air superiority. The FAF was also able to conduct quite extensive bombing missions against point targets without undue casualty rates as the Red Army fighters was tied to protecting the bombers to a very large degree. The fallacy in the Soviet CAS and CAP doctrine was it was restricted to FEBA as a part of the overall plan. Interdiction some distance from the frontline was not a priority. Mostly because their plans called for gringing the enemy reserves piecemeal by the ground assault and not disabling or reducing it. The CAP was tasked with protecting the bombers against enemy fighters. People on the Russian side think Rudel's claims are laughable. We Finns are familar with this aspect of the Russian mindset and their views on facts and their interpretation. The feeling is mutual. "We should not that the claims of German pilots about the destruction of large numbers of Soviet tanks, as well as other ground targets, were usually not supported by anything else than their own words. On the majority of aircraft there were no gun cameras, and if there were they recorded at best shell strikes, rather than actual damage. As one would expect, real losses of Soviet tanks to bombs and aerial gunnery of German aviation was dramatically more modest, than was expressed in the reports of the German pilots." Again this boils down to the guestion about what constitutes a kill. The Red Army had a very extensive battle field recovery set up. Finnish troops observed some KO'd tanks had been hastily repaired and it was supposed the Red Army could recycle KO'd tanks to combat ready status over night in many cases. This is why, like Sergei stated, Finnish AT gunners would use up to 41 50mm AT rounds just to make one single hulk burn thus rendering it a write off instead of a regular kill. So there you have it. Rudel says he was a stud, and the Russians say he was liar, and furt her that his claims don't have a leg to stand on. Somehow if the Russians say he is a liar does not make Rudels claims less credible. The required specific data on indivdual engagement is elusive.

Originally posted by Sergei: And you seriously believe that he could have killed 5 tanks during a single mission? Could, yes. Did, dunno. Consider for instance that Finnish 50mm AT gun crews had to use up to 41 grenades to set a T-34 on fire. Indeed. But IIRC the fact they tried to set it on fire was indicative of the fact that only a write off would guarantee the bugger would not be recovered and returned to duty at a later date. And lets not forget he was not firing at the top of the tank. Certainly the AT gun crew has better conditions to achieve a kill than a Jabo - and better conditions to confirm it as an actual kill. Agreed. Then again the summer of 1944 Finnish KO claim is in the order of 600 tanks and my Google-fu could not produce the Red Army figure for their losses but IIRC it was in the order of 200 vehicles. The Winter War figure is available and it indicates that the actual verified kill/write off rate was 6 kills for 1 write off. There is no proof that Ju 87 G was effective. It was really just a glorified toy. Says who ? Is there actual proof Ju-87G was ineffective ? The Kuhlmey Ju-87D's sure as hell delivered. Their casualties were high but they delivered. Nice pic, BTW. I'll have to show it to my kids.

Originally posted by Andreas: I am sure there were no propaganda reasons for that. I doubt the Pearl Harbour attack would raise the same emotions and be of similar significance it now has if the "sunken" BB's of battleship row would have been classified as "temporarily out of action" by the US spin doctors at the time. [ February 26, 2007, 03:53 AM: Message edited by: Tero ]

Originally posted by Andreas: I am sure there were no propaganda reasons for that. I doubt the Pearl Harbour attack would raise the same emotions and be of similar significance it now has if the "sunken" BB's of battleship row would have been classified as "temporarily out of action" by the US spin doctors at the time. [ February 26, 2007, 03:53 AM: Message edited by: Tero ]

Originally posted by JasonC: If the Germans actually achieved 100 to 1 exchange ratios between 37mm stukas and Russian tanks, they would simply have made and fielded 1000 37mm gun stukas and won the war. Where does this 100-1 exchange ratio come from ? If they had actually routinely achieved anything like Rudel's claims even with the size fleet they had, all Russian tank losses in 1943-4 would have been accounted for by the Luftwaffe. Instead losses to air were a handful of percent, all types. Why don't you reveal what you consider to be a kill: a write off or a combat loss ? The US destroyed thousands of tanks in the space of 40 days using approximately 200 aircraft for dedicated tank killing missions. The operational effect was total paralysis and entire tank armies evaporating. The Germans had a tank busting force of comparable size (within a factor of two at any one time, easily) and easily 10-20 times the time period to run up sorties. If they had routinely achieved kill rates even with a factor of 2 of US ones with smart weapons, even that tiny air arm would have KOed at least as many Russian tanks as Tigers and Panthers did. Why don't you reveal how many Russian tanks the Tiger and the Panther killed then ? You are making all kinds of suppositions based on modern US weapons systems performance. Why are you not comparing the German WWII CAS with the contemporary US CAS ? It readily would have, if Rudel scale claims were readily achieved by tank busting aircraft. How many Rudel scale (less than 1 kill every second mission) claimants are there then ? They simply were not. It is not a matter that can be rendered doubtful by spin. The explanation is simple - the claimed kill rates per sortie simply did not happen. Rudels kill per sortie rate is less than 1 every second mission flown. If he claims for example 5 kills during one mission that means that he flew something like 13 missions without a single kill to his name to balance his kill/mission rate.

Originally posted by Hetzer38: Hell yea, why not? How many allied pilots flew that many (2.530) combat missions ? How many were shot down / had to crash-land 30 times and lived to tell the story ? No doubt his mission logs are also falsified... BTW, Rudel didn't really sink the "Marat", but seriously crippled her... She was dead in the water (at the bottom in the harbour actually) from 1941 until the end of the war so does that count as a kill ?

Originally posted by Hetzer38: Hell yea, why not? How many allied pilots flew that many (2.530) combat missions ? How many were shot down / had to crash-land 30 times and lived to tell the story ? No doubt his mission logs are also falsified... BTW, Rudel didn't really sink the "Marat", but seriously crippled her... She was dead in the water (at the bottom in the harbour actually) from 1941 until the end of the war so does that count as a kill ?

Originally posted by JasonC: So, where are the other 2-400,000 dead tanks the Germans claim supposed to have come from? Were they made by pixies? I'll hazard a guess: at least some were killed more than once. http://www.winterwar.com/Tactics/FINatTactics.htm#losses The Finnish estimate for killed tanks was ~2000. The actual write off figure (for the Isthmus front alone mind you) was 368. The actual combat loss figure was 1904. Grand total with technical failures is 3179. Which is the correct figure for killed tanks: 368 or 1904 (of which at least some were killed more than once) or 3179 ? It is totally realistic to say that the Finns killed 1904 tanks while the Red Army lost 368 tanks. Neither figure is downplaying or inflating the losses. It is just a matter of what is considered to be a kill. For the defender a kill is any tank which is rendered combat ineffective through combat operations. For the attacker the killed vehicle is any vehicle not returned to the motor pool as a combat ready unit at the end of the campaign/war. The point being, Russian staff reports of own side losses are clinically accurate. Their claims are not believable, the propaganda memoires of the generals are not believable, but nobody relies on such things for own side losses. So why such discrepencies in loss figures ? They had to either puff up the enemy losses or down play their own losses to make themselves look good. JK - you still aren't getting it as to order of magnitude. Not even 0.33, but 0.2, is the order of magnitude of full tank kills per sorties actually achieved by A-10s firing guided missiles under optimal conditions. When German pilots with 12 rounds of 37mm report a higher figure than A-10s firing guided missiles actually achieve, it is a sure sign they are wrong. There is no reason to be surprised at this - own side air to ground kill claims are always wrong, always high, and before modern precision weapons, always by large amounts. You are in a sense comparing Roman Legions to modern infantry squads. A legionaire could not possibly have dispatched dozens of enemy warriors in a single battle because a modern infatryman seldom makes more than a few kills during a war. 3 - never admitting having missed i.e. if he engages a target of type X, he claims kills of target type X. This would account for the parallel (actually, his higher by up to a factor fo 2) between his claims and actual performance of A-10s etc. He was not flying an A-10 against modern tanks in a relatively target poor environment, was he ? There is one possibility that can be dismissed out of hand as patently absurd - that he actually killed 500 tanks by achieving twice the effectiveness of an A-10 with guided missiles, because he ate his wheaties. He flew some 2500 missions and claimed some 1400 tanks and vehicles killed (but of course you knew this). That adds up to slightly under 1 kill every second mission. Given the Red Army loss rates I would not say that is overly optimistic, even at face value. Especially since his missions span over the period of 4 years.

Originally posted by JasonC: So, where are the other 2-400,000 dead tanks the Germans claim supposed to have come from? Were they made by pixies? I'll hazard a guess: at least some were killed more than once. http://www.winterwar.com/Tactics/FINatTactics.htm#losses The Finnish estimate for killed tanks was ~2000. The actual write off figure (for the Isthmus front alone mind you) was 368. The actual combat loss figure was 1904. Grand total with technical failures is 3179. Which is the correct figure for killed tanks: 368 or 1904 (of which at least some were killed more than once) or 3179 ? It is totally realistic to say that the Finns killed 1904 tanks while the Red Army lost 368 tanks. Neither figure is downplaying or inflating the losses. It is just a matter of what is considered to be a kill. For the defender a kill is any tank which is rendered combat ineffective through combat operations. For the attacker the killed vehicle is any vehicle not returned to the motor pool as a combat ready unit at the end of the campaign/war. The point being, Russian staff reports of own side losses are clinically accurate. Their claims are not believable, the propaganda memoires of the generals are not believable, but nobody relies on such things for own side losses. So why such discrepencies in loss figures ? They had to either puff up the enemy losses or down play their own losses to make themselves look good. JK - you still aren't getting it as to order of magnitude. Not even 0.33, but 0.2, is the order of magnitude of full tank kills per sorties actually achieved by A-10s firing guided missiles under optimal conditions. When German pilots with 12 rounds of 37mm report a higher figure than A-10s firing guided missiles actually achieve, it is a sure sign they are wrong. There is no reason to be surprised at this - own side air to ground kill claims are always wrong, always high, and before modern precision weapons, always by large amounts. You are in a sense comparing Roman Legions to modern infantry squads. A legionaire could not possibly have dispatched dozens of enemy warriors in a single battle because a modern infatryman seldom makes more than a few kills during a war. 3 - never admitting having missed i.e. if he engages a target of type X, he claims kills of target type X. This would account for the parallel (actually, his higher by up to a factor fo 2) between his claims and actual performance of A-10s etc. He was not flying an A-10 against modern tanks in a relatively target poor environment, was he ? There is one possibility that can be dismissed out of hand as patently absurd - that he actually killed 500 tanks by achieving twice the effectiveness of an A-10 with guided missiles, because he ate his wheaties. He flew some 2500 missions and claimed some 1400 tanks and vehicles killed (but of course you knew this). That adds up to slightly under 1 kill every second mission. Given the Red Army loss rates I would not say that is overly optimistic, even at face value. Especially since his missions span over the period of 4 years.

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist: Yes we know that casualties from hte Battle of berlin were understated, but to then apply that to the whole war is pure supposition. From the über-Finnish POV, it is no mere supposition and gross generalization. When you look at the "official" Red Army casualty figures at various points in time. The first official set was most definitely understated, the second wildly overstated and the most recent admitted corresponding with the Finnish estimates made right after the war. The figure as of current research made in the Soviet archives should be close to the actual figure. Then again.... It is apparent that the official and actual loss figures coincide only when it was politically convenient. The propaganda figure was (and is) maintained when it was preferable (for whatever reason) to publishing the real figure. What is more, AFAIK the habbit of keeping dead men on the roster for resupply purposes was common in the Red Army during WWII. Just as was the supposed post war habbit in air bases in Estonia of pouring to ground aviation fuel so the consumption would correspond with the logged quota flight hours.

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist: Yes we know that casualties from hte Battle of berlin were understated, but to then apply that to the whole war is pure supposition. From the über-Finnish POV, it is no mere supposition and gross generalization. When you look at the "official" Red Army casualty figures at various points in time. The first official set was most definitely understated, the second wildly overstated and the most recent admitted corresponding with the Finnish estimates made right after the war. The figure as of current research made in the Soviet archives should be close to the actual figure. Then again.... It is apparent that the official and actual loss figures coincide only when it was politically convenient. The propaganda figure was (and is) maintained when it was preferable (for whatever reason) to publishing the real figure. What is more, AFAIK the habbit of keeping dead men on the roster for resupply purposes was common in the Red Army during WWII. Just as was the supposed post war habbit in air bases in Estonia of pouring to ground aviation fuel so the consumption would correspond with the logged quota flight hours.

Originally posted by Redwolf: You wouldn't be able to break off both wheels at the same time. leaving one you are guaranteed to tip your wing into the ground. In a Ju-87 which has the wing tips turned upwards... As to shearing off both wheels at the same time: the story was he was flying sideways so they would not shear off simultaneously anyway. I also don't get why you would want a belly landing in first place. Belly landings are very common - with aircraft that can't get their wheels down. The StuKa has them down by default. How could the situation improve from lack of wheels? Belly landing with a fixed undercarriage is, by definition, not a belly landing unless you shear off the undercarriage first.

Originally posted by Redwolf: You wouldn't be able to break off both wheels at the same time. leaving one you are guaranteed to tip your wing into the ground. In a Ju-87 which has the wing tips turned upwards... As to shearing off both wheels at the same time: the story was he was flying sideways so they would not shear off simultaneously anyway. I also don't get why you would want a belly landing in first place. Belly landings are very common - with aircraft that can't get their wheels down. The StuKa has them down by default. How could the situation improve from lack of wheels? Belly landing with a fixed undercarriage is, by definition, not a belly landing unless you shear off the undercarriage first.