Goering and Luftwaffe Infantry

[Erwin]

"Most of us here (including me) probably went through a "phase" of worship, or at least strong admiration, for Germany's fighting forces of WW2. There are MANY reasons for this..."

Wonder how much credit should go to Hugo Boss for those cool fashionable outfits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Boss

[Saferight]

"Most of us here (including me) probably went through a "phase" of worship, or at least strong admiration, for Germany's fighting forces of WW2. There are MANY reasons for this..."

Wonder how much credit should go to Hugo Boss for those cool fashionable outfits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Boss

surely they had some "cool" factors going for them besides the nifty uniforms. but none of it did any good in the end an I think everyone should be grateful for that.

[GJR144]

Search for 'Dolchstosslegende' or 'ungeschlagen im Felde' and you will find a lot of things how WWI was used to rationalize WWII.

On which front were the Germans beaten? The war in the east was won already.

Ever heard about Wilson's 14 points?

Or maybe you have ever heard about the planned eternal enslavement called "Versailles"?

"Dolchstoßlegende" used to rationale WWII? Never heard about the Germans being massacred in Polish occupied territory, because the British guarantee to back the Polish chauvinists put the rationale Polish forces checkmate?

But I guess someone has to live with the fact, that even if huge lies like the official 9/11 story have been proven wrong, people are not interested to question more than what is necessary. People usually prefer to believe what is the most comfortable explanation for their lifes. You prefer to live with lies, I prefer to look at the facts.

[GJR144]

Definitely. Which is why we occasionally have to ban someone. Thankfully it happens very, very, very rarely.

Steve

After you have turned this forum into a politically correct yes-men platform without any interesting historic discussions by banning almost everyone who dared to raise a politically not "correct" opinon over the last 10 years you say this? Hypocrite.

[sburke]

okay then I think we know where this is going. Facts. Such a funny word when you seem to be able to create them out of whatever political axe it is you have to grind.

Polish Chauvinists? I think someone has decided what comfortably fits their world view and has adjusted the "facts" to fit.

IBTL!

or more appropriately maybe IBTB!

[Apocal]

"But I guess someone has to live with the fact, that even if huge lies like the official 9/11 story have been proven wrong..."

Good to see someone else has avoided inhaling those chem trails.

[womble]

After you have turned this forum into a politically correct yes-men platform without any interesting historic discussions...

As opposed to what? Making it a free-for-all for Nazi apologists to spout their conspiracy theories? What's "interesting" to you is a yawn-fest of astronomical proportions to many others with more rational world views.

...by banning almost everyone who dared to raise a politically not "correct" opinon over the last 10 years you say this? Hypocrite.

Ooo. Great way to have a prophecy fulfill itself. Deliberately break the rules of civil behaviour. Nice. Have fun making up another sock puppet user ID. I'm pretty sure it takes Steve a lot less effort to ban you.

[Rosseau]

Of all the forums (Matrix, Paradox, Ageod - even Steam), I always hesitate to post on this one for "fear" of being ripped apart. Although I learn a lot, the attitude is pretty rough - especially for the non-regulars. Too bad, as many of us have been with the team since Charles wrote Flight Commander II.

[Battlefront.com]

On which front were the Germans beaten? The war in the east was won already.

Ever heard about Wilson's 14 points?

Or maybe you have ever heard about the planned eternal enslavement called "Versailles"?

"Dolchstoßlegende" used to rationale WWII? Never heard about the Germans being massacred in Polish occupied territory, because the British guarantee to back the Polish chauvinists put the rationale Polish forces checkmate?

Damn. I was hoping it wouldn't go down this route. But I suppose we've seen it enough that it's not surprising. Sigh...

But I guess someone has to live with the fact, that even if huge lies like the official 9/11 story have been proven wrong, people are not interested to question more than what is necessary. People usually prefer to believe what is the most comfortable explanation for their lifes. You prefer to live with lies, I prefer to look at the facts.

If you prefer to look at facts then you should have no problem debating without name calling and abusive behavior. Because only someone who doesn't know facts has to resort to name calling and baseless accusations.

After you have turned this forum into a politically correct yes-men platform without any interesting historic discussions by banning almost everyone who dared to raise a politically not "correct" opinon over the last 10 years you say this? Hypocrite.

Who have I banned who is not politically correct? In the last few years I can think of only one. A neo-Nazi who we collectively put up with for YEARS before he was booted. So one person. And even he was banned for being abusive, not because he was a neo-Nazi (though they tend to go together). So I guess I haven't banned anybody for being politically incorrect. And nobody has missed them at all.

So, make your choice. If you want to challenge assumptions by citing facts (not conspiracy theories and mythology) and engaging in an honest debate, great. But if you're just interested in spouting off ideological, historically unsound lines of argument and then get pissy and abusive about it when you're challenged... you'll find your stay on this Forum a short one.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Here's some fun logic to follow. Organizations, especially fairly new ones, go out of their way to justify their existence so that they can continue to exist and/or expand. The USAF is no different than any other organization in that sense. It consumed huge amounts of resources because it claimed it could single handedly end the war with strategic bombing. It also claimed that it could win battles with tactical airpower. Since airpower was new, and the theories sounded pretty good, they got a huge chunk of war production and personnel that otherwise would have gone into the Army or Navy.

Naturally the US military was curious to know how theory translated into reality. As part of that the USAF commissioned their own studies to prove that they were as awesome in reality as they said they were. Unfortunately for them, their studies actually showed that they were not. Tallies of material destroyed by air power was a fraction of what the pilots had claimed. The impact on German industry was also questionable as German war production actually increased during the strategic bombing campaign. Etc.

So... why would an organization trying to justify it's position and allocation of resources produce reports to support their own positions come up with evidence that questioned its effectiveness and the wisdom of allocating it so many resources? I guess because they felt sorry for the US Army's inability to win battles without it and so they falsified their reports to downplay the real fact that they were the only reason the US Army got to the Rhein??

Steve

[GJR144]

I guess these studies were written by academics who never have asked an infantry men or tanker crew how the USAF had helped to destroy German defenses or to deny that these defenses could even be established with full strenght units.

If this study would be worth one cent it foremost would have looked at the German analysis, because you usually know very well, if your column is blown up by Jabos or by tanks...

If below 20% of the German tanks in the West were lost due to enemy tanks and all German analysis shows the tremendous impact of the overwhelming amounts of airforce (and artillery), denying tactical and timely operational moves, and I have the German accounts describing in detail how the US progress was done, namely by a steamroller of bombs, and I have the furious French accounts about scorched towns only because a German battaillon was defending it, then I would read a study claiming the airforce was not decisively successful with some healthy scepticism.

Since lobbies have been ruling the USA ever since, it also should be looked very closely which lobby, which branch of the industrial-military complex was behind each "study". If money rules a society this is a very important aspect to understand what is going on.

Another important fact is, the USA can't sacrifice lots of human losses without the morale at home collapsing. But you have (had) endless industrial production capabilities and endless resources bcause of the British colonies. Therefore the USAF with unlimited amounts of bombs and grenades was the logical development to compensate the brittle morale with the overwhelming use of material.

[Apocal]

Since lobbies have been ruling the USA ever since, it also should be looked very closely which lobby, which branch of the industrial-military complex was behind each "study". If money rules a society this is a very important aspect to understand what is going on.

Another important fact is, the USA can't sacrifice lots of human losses without the morale at home collapsing. But you have (had) endless industrial production capabilities and endless resources bcause of the British colonies. Therefore the USAF with unlimited amounts of bombs and grenades was the logical development to compensate the brittle morale with the overwhelming use of material.

The studies indicating that tac-air was completely ineffective at killing AFVs were done during the war by the British, specifically Mortain. And the British were the ones that could scarcely afford the losses they were taking during WW2, disbanding full divisions to make good the losses in others.

[Wicky]

http://mr-home.staff.shef.ac.uk/hobbies/rocket.txt

Re. Mortain. Ian Gooderson's 'Air Power at the Battlefront', London 1998, contains a couple of cases studies.

This shows that a total of only 46 German tanks and self-propelled guns were actually found in the battle area, and of these only nine were considered to have been destroyed by air weapons.

It was not possible to discriminate between victims of British and American aircraft as the latter had also fired some 600 rockets. Many of the 'unknown causes' were found some distance from any sign of air attack - such as cannon and machine gun strikes on the ground and rocket or bomb craters - and could not be considered as possible air victims. An obvious question is whether the Germans had been able to recover any of their tanks. The presence of a German tank recovery vehicle would seem to confirm they had but, while it is likely that some tanks were recovered, this can hardly be an adequate explanation for the discrepancy between air claims and the destruction found. Armoured and motor vehicles destroyed by air weapons were invariably burnt out, and for recovery purposes damaged and abandoned vehicles had priority over such. German prisoners, many of whoom were questioned on this subject, consistently stated that burnt out tanks were never salvaged. In effect, a tank hit by a rocket or bomb was not worth recovering and the ORS should have found what was left of it.

Another question is whether German accounts of the fighting can shed more light on the number of tanks and vehicles destroyed by air attack. The histories of the German divisions that fought at Mortain, compiled post-war, stress how decisive the intervention of the fighter-bombers had been, but are ambiguous with regard to the question of losses. That of the 2nd Panzer Division states of the Typhoons that they attacked with great accuracy and succeeded in knocking out even the heaviest tanks, but the number of tanks actually lost in this way is not given. The history of the 1st SS Panzer Division (LAH) is similarly unclear as to the actual number of tanks knocked out from the air, though it implies that the number was considerable and quotes an account of the air attacks by a panzer grenadier who recalled seeing many black oil clouds indicating the position of destroyed tanks. Also quoted is a panzer grenadier officer who, after describing how a fighter-bomber shot down by flak crashed onto a tank and put it out of action, adds that most of the other tanks and armoured personnel carriers also fell victim to the intense, hour-long, low-level attacks. Yet such German accounts attributing heavy tank and vehicle losses to air attack are misleading. They take little cognizance of the losses inflicted by US ground forces which, though almost certainly overestimated at the time in the confusion of battle, were none the less considerable. American accounts of the fighting indicate that, on 7 August, the forward troops of the US 30th and 9th Divisions claimed the destruction of at least eighteen German tanks, fourteen of them by the 30th Division's attached 823rd Tank Destroyer Battalion alone. Moreover, the ORS confirmed that US troops accounted for more heavy German armour than the fighter-bombers, the destruction of twenty of the total of forty-six tanks and SP guns found being attributed to US ground weapons.

The principal reason why such German accounts should be regarded with caution, however, is that they provide no explanation as to what had become of the tanks and vehicles destroyed by the fighter-bombers by the time the ORS examined the battle area. Nor do they explain the not inconsiderable number of tanks found abandoned or destroyed by their own crews. To some extent, German attribution of tank losses to air attack may stem from the confusion of battle, but it may also suggest both a reluctance to acknowledge the morale effect of such attack, and a desire to ascribe the halting of the armoured thrust, which was much in the nature of a forlorn hope, to Allied air power rather than to defeat at the hands of US ground forces.

….the report concluded that, while the contribution of the air forces to stemming the German offensive had been considerable, this was not by the direct destruction of armour, which appears to have been insignificant; but rather by the strafing and bombing of supply routes, which prevented essential supplies from reaching the front.

[Battlefront.com]

I guess these studies were written by academics who never have asked an infantry men or tanker crew how the USAF had helped to destroy German defenses or to deny that these defenses could even be established with full strenght units.

See the above posts. The basis for the conclusions came from specially trained "bomb damage assessment" teams sent to the battlefields specifically to determine how much of the destruction was caused by tactical air power.

If this study would be worth one cent it foremost would have looked at the German analysis, because you usually know very well, if your column is blown up by Jabos or by tanks...

Can you cite a German analysis equivalent to the USAF and RAF studies? Anecdotal reports don't mean much. Anybody who has read enough of them knows they tend to be more emotional than factual as well as self contradictory. They also are rarely categorized to take into consideration relative conditions. And of course, above all else, they are not scientific samples. This is true for any "eye witness" accounts about anything, not just German soldiers in Normandy.

Air power always has a higher fear factor for tankers than other tanks. The reason is pretty simple... you have some control and warning about other tanks, you have none for air power. Which is why I said in my very first post about this that the biggest impact was on morale and making the Germans more defensive than they otherwise would be. But that's about all it did.

If below 20% of the German tanks in the West were lost due to enemy tanks and all German analysis shows the tremendous impact of the overwhelming amounts of airforce (and artillery),

Are you saying that 80% of the German tanks in the West were lost to air and artillery? Cite your source for that.

denying tactical and timely operational moves,

As I said in my first post on this topic, this is the other significant contribution that air power had. The above posts also are in agreement with this. It's not in dispute.

and I have the German accounts describing in detail how the US progress was done, namely by a steamroller of bombs, and I have the furious French accounts about scorched towns only because a German battaillon was defending it,

Quite true, but if you think every single engagement with the US went like this you're going to have to cite a source.

And if the Germans had that sort of firepower available, what do you think they would have done with it? The same thing, obviously.

then I would read a study claiming the airforce was not decisively successful with some healthy scepticism.

Healthy skepticism is good. Refusing to accept documented, relevant facts because they go against your previous conclusions is not.

Since lobbies have been ruling the USA ever since, it also should be looked very closely which lobby, which branch of the industrial-military complex was behind each "study". If money rules a society this is a very important aspect to understand what is going on.

The studies were done by the USAF and RAF. Nobody had more interest in making a case for their success than they. Or do you think the USAF and RAF purposefully made reports to make their positions weaker?

Another important fact is, the USA can't sacrifice lots of human losses without the morale at home collapsing.

This is fiction. Hitler had the same false understanding of American psychology. So did many of the senior and junior leadership of the German armed forces. But the reality shows that Americans had no problem taking horrendous losses without having morale and discipline break down. I can cite small and large scale battles over and over again without any problem.

The British, on the other hand, were very adverse to personnel losses by 1944. But it wasn't because they lacked the will, it's because they lacked replacements because of the years of losses their small population had suffered. Yet they still maintained an offensive posture for the whole war, even though there is some criticism about missed opportunities because of a more cautious approach.

But you have (had) endless industrial production capabilities and endless resources bcause of the British colonies.

Huh? Americans did not use resources from British colonies to any significant degree. Even the British didn't. They got a huge percentage of their war material from the US. It's why the US became the dominate power after the war... it had everything it needed. And it's why the US is no longer in the same position... it no longer has everything it needs (principally oil).

Therefore the USAF with unlimited amounts of bombs and grenades was the logical development to compensate the brittle morale with the overwhelming use of material.

Please cite some sources for this. I ask even though I know you can't.

This is just more of the same old tired excuses for the loss of the war by German's armed forces. They lost on the battlefields of their choosing for a large number of reasons. The spirt, skill, and dedication of the individual German soldier was not, in my opinion, one of those reasons. In fact, it is exactly this reason that German lasted until 1945 instead of 1943, when strategically it was already beaten.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

http://mr-home.staff.shef.ac.uk/hobbies/rocket.txt

Re. Mortain. Ian Gooderson's 'Air Power at the Battlefront', London 1998, contains a couple of cases studies.

Thanks for posting that, even if it is unlikely to change GJR144's selectively constructed view of how the war was actually fought and won by the Allies. And conversely fought and lost by the Wehrmacht.

Combat Mission is actually a pretty good indicator of the difficulty of knowing exactly what kills your tanks. I doubt there is a single CM player who hasn't been confused or unsure why he lost a particular vehicle at a particular time. I know I've seen plenty of multiplayer AARs that show this. CM players have FAR MORE information than any real world assessment team, and even then there's still confusion. Which is deliberate on the part of the game's design because that's the way it is in real life.

If one reads US veteran accounts you'll find the same factually flawed memories and perceptions as German veteran accounts. That's because we're talking about similar circumstances for both and Human nature. If you took US veteran accounts seriously you'd have to conclude that the Wehrmacht's only tank was the Tiger There's accounts of "Tigers" in sectors of front at periods of time where there absolutely wasn't a single Tiger in action. So do we believe the veterans because "they were there!" or do we believe the technical evidence which accounts for which units had Tigers and where those units were and were not? The latter, obviously. So when a USAF or RAF BDA team concludes that only x number of tanks were knocked out by airpower, I think that counts more than German accounts of "columns of smoke".

Steve

[Wicky]

Also there was the allies ability to conduct aerial reccie (strategic and mapping & intelligence in advance of tactical advances) which was far in advance of any comparable German capability.

MIlitary aerial reccie was 'forgotten' between the wars though it continued through commercial use for mapping / resource surveying. It was picked up and developed by maverick Aussie Sidney Cotton in the early years of ww2 who saw that slow moving & low flying Blenheim/Lysander reccie/spotting aircraft were vulnerable and pushed for higher faster aircraft i.e spits & mossies equiped with better cameras before his units were gobbled up by the RAF and interservice interpretation organisation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Cotton

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spies-Sky-Secret-Battle-Intelligence/dp/1408703629

In 1938 General Werner Von Fritsch of the German High Command prophetically observed: 'The military organisation with the best aerial reconnaissance will win the next war.'

[Erwin]

Is that why playing at any height level other then one or two is "gamey"?

[Wicky]

It should be for Allies that in a PBEM QB that they automatically know their opponents password if they purchase an Intelligence Officer with access to Enigma!

[kensal]

The British, on the other hand, were very adverse to personnel losses by 1944. But it wasn't because they lacked the will, it's because they lacked replacements because of the years of losses

British losses in manpower were far lower in WWII than in WWI. I think the main reason for the lack of infantry replacements (and it was infantry replacements which were lacking rather than replacements generally) arose from the mistaken assumption that manpower losses would not be so heavily concentrated within the infantry arm. Britain grossly over supplied specialist and technical branches of their armed forces with manpower in the belief that these branches were more important and that led to a lack of trained infantry replacements to deal with the catastrophic casualties suffered by the infantry battalions in Normandy.

By 1944 -45 Britain had a very large and wholly under-utilised fighter aircraft force, and a very large bomber command, both of which involved a very large take up of trained manpower (ground crews, air crews etc etc), a very large convoy escort force and so on.

[Michael Emrys]

I think the main reason for the lack of infantry replacements (and it was infantry replacements which were lacking rather than replacements generally) arose from the mistaken assumption that manpower losses would not be so heavily concentrated within the infantry arm. Britain grossly over supplied specialist and technical branches of their armed forces with manpower in the belief that these branches were more important and that led to a lack of trained infantry replacements to deal with the catastrophic casualties suffered by the infantry battalions in Normandy.

The Americans had the same problem. Both nations' armies after 1943 had far more AAA units than they actually had need of, considering that the Luftwaffe had been cut down to a ghost of its former self, and that ghost was mainly concerned with defending the Reich against strategic bombing or was deployed on the East Front. Later in '44 the US army began disbanding many of those units and retraining their personnel as infantry. There was some additional combing out of personnel from rear area support units, but those continued to be somewhat overmanned right through to the end of the war. But some of those soldiers would not have been suitable as infantry for physical or other reasons.

Michael

[GJR144]

aus: Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, Kriegstagebuch, geführt von Helmuth Greiner, Percy Ernst Schramm

[GJR144]

[Wicky]

I've tried matching up your scanned text to this txt of the book you've referenced in the hope of translating it using computer tools but they don''t seem to match (using keywords).

http://archive.org/stream/kriegstagebuchde01jacorich/kriegstagebuchde01jacorich_djvu.txt Is your scan from Volume 2–8?

Perhaps you could please translate into English what it is you've posted - ta

[Battlefront.com]

British losses in manpower were far lower in WWII than in WWI. I think the main reason for the lack of infantry replacements (and it was infantry replacements which were lacking rather than replacements generally) arose from the mistaken assumption that manpower losses would not be so heavily concentrated within the infantry arm. Britain grossly over supplied specialist and technical branches of their armed forces with manpower in the belief that these branches were more important and that led to a lack of trained infantry replacements to deal with the catastrophic casualties suffered by the infantry battalions in Normandy.

Good point. Yes, it does seem that the primary reason for the shortage was too many personnel in non-infantry type positions. Including, as you point out, the RAF which was a much larger % of the total force compared to WW1. And within the Army there were more specializations (probably) than there were in WW1 that sapped fighting strength.

I know the late war TO&E disbanded and downsized a lot of sub units attached to divisions to free up personnel.

Anyway, my point was that the the Allies' willingness to sustain casualties and remain on the attack should not be in dispute. There's no evidence to show that and a mountain of evidence to show the opposite. Er, like they only stopped when they ran out of new places in Germany to occupy

Steve

[c3k]

Normandy casualty rates exceeded those of WWI, when broken out in a per-day basis. (Or so I've read. No, I haven't double-checked the figures.)

So, indeed, the Allies were more than willing to take losses in WWII in ETO.