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Because you post like Steiner: the same misspellings, sharing the same point of view and even structure your posts similarly.

So Steiner is another board member? Am I calling you "sburke", only because you use the same kind of anti-logic?

Unfortunately for you, Soviet loss accounting where available does not bear this out.

Let me see, if I understand this correctly:

The Germans, when they identified targets for their Stukas, called them, used them, afterwards they attacked and they could not judge, if the attack with this weapon was successful. :D Forum "experts" know much better, than the soldiers, that attacked after the use of this weapon. :o This is so embarassing, honestly I don't want to waste any time on such ignorance and stupidity.

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Let me see, if I understand this correctly:

The Germans, when they identified targets for their Stukas, called them, used them, afterwards they attacked and they could not judge, if the attack with this weapon was successful. :D Forum "experts" know much better, than the soldiers, that attacked after the use of this weapon. :o This is so embarassing, honestly I don't want to waste any time on such ignorance and stupidity.

No, once again you DON'T seem to understand. It is not the "forum experts" who know better, but the people that the Stukas attack (ie, the Sovs) that would seem to know best how effective they were. Oh, but wait, I guess they are "ignorant and stupid" too, so they don't count...

PS: you do sound like Steiner, maybe you went to school together or something?

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This weapon achieved the highest success against armored targets and heavy entrenchements, like bunkers, bunker-artillery or forts. Everywhere a bomb needed to be dropped very accurately on target.

At Sedan, 100 (I think) Stukas attacked a large bunker (#103) and achieved one direct hit, with most bombs landing within 98 feet. That is with complete air superiority and, as far as I know, little flak opposition. AFAIK, that represents the highest accuracy demonstrated with actual operational results of any aircraft during the war. Stukas achieved more psychologically than materially.

Very dangerous and extremly bold pilots needed, not only because of approaching the enemy with such a slow and weak machine, but to know that you will lose your consciousness for a few seconds in the moment of highest danger, is nothing that is risked without very high rewards and nothing that is done, if much less dangerous methods are available.

They mostly died regardless. Which is why Rudel is so famous. He was very lucky, and that combined with his undoubted skill allowed him to accumulate numbers (although exaggerated) that were impossible for all the dead, young pilots thrown away in daylight attacks with Stukas.

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In the silly Nazi's post, anyone else notice the crap about preceded by a wave of Tiger tanks? Now count the number of times after the Germans even had waves of Tiger tanks when they conducted an operational attack with them - Kursk, being very generous the counterattack west of Kiev... then we run out. Now count the number of times they had any significant air support at the same time, not having already lost the war in the air. Right, we are down to just Kursk. Now track when all the Tigers left operational status, and we are down to the first week of the Kursk campaign, in a grand total of 4 tactical locations on the map. Oh and in one of the four, they lost most of the attacking Tigers immobilized in a minefield by the end of the second day.

OK, OK, so really all we are talking about is one time, SS Panzer Corps at Kursk, first week and well before the climax of the battle (because all the Tigers were in the workshops by then). Fine, what were the Russian tank losses to Stukas on that occasion?

Tiny. We can find cases where the German pilots *claim* that they knocked out 50 tanks in one big airstrike - but the contemporary Russian loss reports on the ground for the same location report 4 tanks lost to air attacks.

The Russians are not underreporting their losses - they report very high ones, to German ground fire, mostly from tanks, and those almost entirely Panzer IVs and StuGs, not Tigers or Panthers (based on timing of the losses, which are highest after the Panthers have all broken down and the Tigers have all been sent to the shops etc). They just don't report losing them to air attacks.

Back in May of 1942, I have German side reports during the counterattack phase of the defeat of the Kharkov offensive, that have the pilots claiming over 200 tanks taken out by air attack, including over 100 on a single day from a single air unit. But the Russians on the ground didn't lose anything like that number.

Pilot claims of bomb damage to targets on the ground just aren't worth diddly squat. Any side, any era, any weapon type.

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In periods in which FBs knocked out less than 50 tanks in ground attacks, they lost in the low thousands of aircraft to ground fire.

Out of interest, which period are you referring to, here, Jason? I would think this can only be 2nd TAF et al's campaign over Western Europe in the last year of the war?

In that case, although I very much agree with your general point re: CAS effectiveness, this was often a case of interceptors being given CAS missions more-or-less because there was nothing else for them to do. Spitfires being sent out with single 250lb bombs slung underneath, just because they could fit one on and there wasn't a coherent Luftwaffe for them to fight, for example.

My point is that, if this is the period you're referring to, there were a substantial number of particularly poorly-suited aircraft being used in ground attack roles at the time, which will at least partially skew the results in the defenders' favour if it is to be used as a reference for results achieved by more capable and specialised aircraft types.

The likely outcome is that a Stuka gets damaged rather than actually shot down, and then they cut short their attacks after dropping their primary bomb loads.

Agreed. When faced with multiple AAA defences I would very much like to see pilots in CM simply 'complete the mission' (i.e. drop/fire their primary ordnance at the chosen target) and then bugger off ASAP, rather than return for multiple strafing runs afterwards. This would make purchasing AAA guns a more interesting choice, I think, if they had a very good chance of prohibiting follow-up attacks and didn't just have to rely on actually destroying enemy aircraft to be worthwhile.

I have read that the fastest roll rate of any first line fighter in the theater during the last two years of the war was by the P-47. Remember the "big, clumsy" Jug? It may not have been all that clumsy after all. Surely it did not have the turn radius of its opponents, but if instead of trying to turn with them, you go into a high scissors, that may not matter at all.

I can't remember whether P-47s out-performed FW-190s in terms of roll-rate, but the Jug certainly wasn't an agile machine in any other dimension and so in that sense, yes, it was 'clumsy'. As I'm sure you know, though, well-trained Thunderbolt pilots wouldn't get dragged into a turning fight when they had superior altitude and dive performance to rely on in a 'vertical' battle, instead.

In the silly Nazi's post, anyone else notice the crap about preceded by a wave of Tiger tanks?

Yup. Was that the same post in which the implicitly reliable 'eye-witness' refers to "Ju-97s" armed with "three 37mm cannons" and 'Pz VIs supporting the attack from dug-in positions'? The impression I got from that whole account is that it was a noisy and chaotic event but that the guy recounting it basically didn't know what was going on in any detail, which is unsurprising when one thinks about it.

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http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/naca868-rollchart.jpg

My memory failed me horribly on this one and I obviously resorted to anecdotal evidence I had read. P-47C roll-rate was good but unremarkable when compared to FW-190 (sub-type unspecified) or clipped-wing Spitfires. It only exceeded the rate achieved by normal Spits over ~280mph...

I don't know whether P-47D, N, or M models improved on this. Back to the intertubes!

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I have been reading some of this interview. A sample below and the link afterwards.

General Hozzel:

The task was to give close air support to the Sixth Army thrusting in the direction of Stalingrad. At that time this thrust had come to a stop because of the River Don which runs parallel to the Volga River, building a kind of isthmus between the Volga and the Don. On the Don River was situated the town of Kalach. The Soviets, knowing our intention to take Stalingrad, had put up a barrier on the West bank of the Don, in front of this town. This barrier consisted of 200 to 300 tanks, and it was the first time we came in contact with such a mass of tanks. The Soviet resistance had clearly stiffened here. Apparently it was intended to delay the German thrust at Stalingrad as far as possible. The Sixth Army was therefore bound to attempt a breakthrough of the tank position with close air support to be able to cross the Don and push on to Stalingrad. Thus the tank battle started the Geschwader Immelman encountered for the first time a large concentration of tanks. We saw many packs of T-34s, also some older types. The fronts between friend and foe were clearly discernible. It would have been pointless to attack in large groups because our planes would have hindered one another. Instead we detailed one Staffel after another. They approached single tanks in Ketten and from the side, from south to north or vice versa. Each plane looked for its target, flying parallel to its neighbor, at approach angles of 30 to 40 degrees, aiming with the whole aircraft through the reflex sight, at the center of the tank, then dropping 500-kg bombs with tank busting head into the tank's side while making an extremely low pass above the ground. Flame- bombs also proved to be most effective because due to the heat developing the crew was incapacitated while the fuel container of the tank exploded. It was, of course, imperative to react rapidly, to pull up the plane in a split second after bomb dropping, flying across the tank so as to avoid being hit by the explosion of our own bomb. It sounds adventurous but that's exactly what it was. Later, a better method of tank killing was devised. The JU-87 was armed with two 3.7-cm cannons below the wings which led to great successes. In the Kalatch tank battle it was our tactics to keep one Staffel of 9 to 12 planes constantly in touch with the enemy. Whilst one Staffel still pressed home its last attack, the one following was approaching the target area. Thus the Russian tank forces, being unrelentingly harassed from the air, could not fully concentrate on the ground situation and the fighting of German tanks. When the crew of a single enemy tank saw itself attacked from the air, it immediately started curving so as to avoid the attacrer. In doing so it was, <f course, unable to fire against our tanks. Seeing that any Soviet tank must have felt attacked along the whole width of our offensive front, our tank hunting strikes had quite obviously a paralyzing effect on the firepower of the enemy tank force. I should not fail to mention here that among the Russian tanks there were also antiaircraft tanks we had to watch out for. We could easily identify them by their vertical barrels. It goes without saying that they were the first to be attacked by us. Yet, there were some of them who fired from camouflaged positions not made out by us in time. Still they scored no hits because of the angular velocity of our JU-87s attacking at a slant dive angle. The speed of our planes was too high for their cannon to follow it.

The tank barrier near Kalach was finally pierced in a combined effort of Army and Luftwaffe. The way to Stalingrad was open. Within one day only the German armored divisions crossed the Don on a wide front, rushing forward across the isthmus—being about 60 to 80 kms wide—to their strategic aim of Stalingrad while steadily receiving close air support from Stukageschwader "Immelman" and Schlachtgeschwader 1. In the evening of the same day the Supreme Command of the Sixth Army was able to report that its armored spearheads had entered Stalingrad from north and south. The Germans felt sure of victory. 3ut soon it was realized that a tough struggle was ahead.

http://www.allworldwars.com/Conversations-with-a-Stuka-Pilot-Paul-Werner-Hozzel.html

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I can't remember whether P-47s out-performed FW-190s in terms of roll-rate, but the Jug certainly wasn't an agile machine in any other dimension and so in that sense, yes, it was 'clumsy'. As I'm sure you know, though, well-trained Thunderbolt pilots wouldn't get dragged into a turning fight when they had superior altitude and dive performance to rely on in a 'vertical' battle, instead.

It all depends. Fighter performance is highly complex. The P-47's performance also improved a lot over its service life as improvements were made to various components and in some contexts you actually could say a P-47 is more agile than a Fw-190 or Me-109.

Beyond the excellent dive performance that is always cited, the P-47 did indeed have a very good roll rate which generally beat the roll rate of German fighters. But the big performance aspect of the P-47 that is often underappreciated is that its performance got better relative other designs at high altitude -- it actually had a better turn rate than an Me-109 or Fw-190 at altitudes above about 15,000 feet.

So on escort missions, as long as the dogfight stayed up near the bombers, the P-47 pretty seriously outclassed the opposing German piston-engine designs. This is one reason why German fighters often tried to make slashing attacks through the bomber formations and then get away to lower altitude quickly -- the escorting American fighters had a pretty serious performance advantage at high altitude. If the Germans could draw the American pilots down to below 15,000 feet, they were better off.

Late war, after the improved Curtiss paddle prop was added, the P-47 also outclimbed the Fw-190, even at low altitude. So for the late-war P-47s, against German piston-engine designs it was only the low altitude, low speed turning fights where they were at a disadvantage, and unless caught at a serious energy disadvantage, the P-47 could always refuse this fight by climbing away from it.

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/--OT

I'm not restricting myself to US/NATO or history, I'm including every serious air war fought post WW2 (Iran-Iraq War, Arab-Israeli Wars, Indo-Pakistan Wars, Ethiopia-Eritrea, etc.) and looking at the order of battle of other nations we could plausibly fight today or in the near-term. All of them feature preferential focus on long-range and mobile SAMs, numerous AAA systems, etc. with some of them spending on the order of three or four times their expenditures into fighters.

SAMs without air cover is from the start at a disadvantage, because they're defensive and do not dictate when and where to fight. Their superior numbers pose a threat in attrition, but the fight is still on our terms I can leave it alone bypass it or bait it or kill it. Modern day SEAD tactics and technology have the single digit SAMs down pat bar operational **** ups for sensor fusion and data link has advanced way beyond what is widely recognized. A known SAM location during a strike package ingress will be suppressed by PET shots and not given a chance to breath. A ambush SAM site once it starts illuminating will get bounced by HARMCAPs and follow on DEAD strikes. An example: the SA-2, from turning on it's fire control radar to achieving a lock requires say 20 seconds. The strike package traveling at 480kts ground speed will trespass its WEZ for 8nm, which translates to 1 minute. At T+0 the strike package arrive at the SA-2's WEZ the SEAD escort flight will place the first PET shot on target. T+20 the 2nd HARM on target and T+40 the 3rd. This way ensures the strikers' safe passage. Simply put the SA-2 either opens up and face destruction, or stay dormant but risk losing vital objectives assigned it to protect. Meanwhile at least 1 sead aircraft is not assigned any PET duty but in sniff mode to react to any pop up threat. Once a new threat is detected, it's location is pinpointed and the data shared among the net. And this is the tactic before the HDAM module is installed, since with GPS it provides the HARM with DEAD ability.

Double digit SAMs otoh can be considered as land based Aegis systems and pose a problem for legacy fighters, it is still possible to kill but like an Aegis it needs to be overloaded with smart munitions from multiple aspects, which isn't very cost effective hence the need for stealth aircrafts like F-22 and 35s.

In Falcon? I'd just fire my AMRAAM and keep the HARMs or ignore them totally by pushing up AB. Not like I'm going to die if I get caught.

HARMs on a F-16 limits: +6G/-2G, speed 600Kts/Mach1.2 CATIII. So by choice 1 you're aborting your mission at the least most likely damaging your airframe as carrying heavy and draggy AG munitions while trying to win the upper hand in a BVR energy joust is dream talk, and by choice 2 you're running straight into enemy missile's WEZ.

Primary purpose of a2a is not to achieve "one shot one kill" like that depicted against the AI, for if both sides are smart enough and do not trespass Minimum Abort Range (basically the range to enemy when you execute an down slice maneuver and still can out run the missile) there will be no kills. However, the side that eventually gains the upper hand will have achieved the objective: to push back enemy a2a assets so that friendly strike package can go through, or friendly intercepts can acquire inbound strikers. As we are usually the attacker, what if enemy gains the upper hand? We try a "kick" lateral to the strikers ingress direction, which means drawing enemy air to the side allowing the strikers to pass.

This though, inevitably takes more time and requires more airspace so as a commander, having known the tactical side of things like above, need to decide based on current desired objective, threat analysis and your own platforms capabilities, how many aircraft you need, where can they get to, what role they'll perform, when do they do it, what support asset is required, down to details like waypoint location/altitude/timings, fuel state, weapons loadout, comms plan, mission codewords and callsigns, divert airfields and secondary/tertiary targets etc. This involves many factors too long to discuss. In the example above, anticipating stiff opfor air resistance, the commander can assign a flight of 4 detached escorts in addition to current attached ones. Detached escorts is usually placed 15 minutes ahead of the main package, so that they have the space and time to perform BVR engagements against about 3 bandit groups. If there is not enough airframes for the job, that objective goes off the list.

TLDR, the sim is there but because of its vastness how much "simulation" gets outta it is the user's choice, some go the whole 9 yards while others just play the game, fine with both. However when going the whole way I will be very much surprised that "this is not a real air war". It's not perfect but what is? The ton of stuff one can learn about how modern air power operates thru it is amazing it's like drinking from a fire hose because you are not only shown the how, but also why. And nope the campaign engine doesn't quite tell one that, I can understand why you have problems with it coz all you see there is the tip of the iceburg.

OT--/

I can't remember whether P-47s out-performed FW-190s in terms of roll-rate, but the Jug certainly wasn't an agile machine in any other dimension and so in that sense, yes, it was 'clumsy'. As I'm sure you know, though, well-trained Thunderbolt pilots wouldn't get dragged into a turning fight when they had superior altitude and dive performance to rely on in a 'vertical' battle, instead.

IIRC the 190s out rolled anything around 250mph it approached the 180deg/sec mark. However with the increase in air speed that advantage drops quickly.

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Forum "experts" know much better, than the soldiers, that attacked after the use of this weapon. :o This is so embarassing, honestly I don't want to waste any time on such ignorance and stupidity.

I don't know anything myself, I just crib notes from the receiving end, who were in the best position to know what the effects of bombing were.

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It all depends. Fighter performance is highly complex. The P-47's performance also improved a lot over its service life as improvements were made to various components and in some contexts you actually could say a P-47 is more agile than a Fw-190 or Me-109.

Beyond the excellent dive performance that is always cited, the P-47 did indeed have a very good roll rate which generally beat the roll rate of German fighters. But the big performance aspect of the P-47 that is often underappreciated is that its performance got better relative other designs at high altitude -- it actually had a better turn rate than an Me-109 or Fw-190 at altitudes above about 15,000 feet.

So on escort missions, as long as the dogfight stayed up near the bombers, the P-47 pretty seriously outclassed the opposing German piston-engine designs. This is one reason why German fighters often tried to make slashing attacks through the bomber formations and then get away to lower altitude quickly -- the escorting American fighters had a pretty serious performance advantage at high altitude. If the Germans could draw the American pilots down to below 15,000 feet, they were better off.

Late war, after the improved Curtiss paddle prop was added, the P-47 also outclimbed the Fw-190, even at low altitude. So for the late-war P-47s, against German piston-engine designs it was only the low altitude, low speed turning fights where they were at a disadvantage, and unless caught at a serious energy disadvantage, the P-47 could always refuse this fight by climbing away from it.

Agreed mate. I didn't want to go too far off-topic but I'm actually of the opinion that the P-47 was the most useful single-engined aircraft available to the USAAF. The Mustang thrived in the high-altitude, long-range escort role against an already-almost-beaten Jagdwaffe and that has led a lot of people to underestimate the P-47's worth.

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/--OTIIRC the 190s out rolled anything around 250mph it approached the 180deg/sec mark. However with the increase in air speed that advantage drops quickly.

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/naca868-rollchart.jpg

The NACA graph above agrees that the 190 tested hit ~160 deg/s at around 250mph but it's advantage was safe until >360mph when only the P-51B gains a small advantage, of the operational allied fighters tested.

I would be interested to know how the roll-rate of a P-47N, with it's clipped wing, compares. I also seem to remember that the Tempest was none too shabby above 250mph.

This is the last OT post from me though. Apologies to the OP.

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Big problem with the P-47 is that it was expensive as hell; it was the most expensive single-engine fighter of the war.

But I do think it was very good, and certainly underappreciated. For overall jack-of-all-trades fighter-bomber, though, I'd put the F4U ahead of it. Especially the later war 4-hogs were faster, more agile, had slightly better range, could carry almost as much ordnance load, and could take off and land on short field or aircraft carriers to boot.

Given interservice rivalries, though, the USAAF probably never would have even considered dropping the P-47 for the F-4U. Too bad.

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In the silly Nazi's post, anyone else notice the crap about preceded by a wave of Tiger tanks? Now count the number of times after the Germans even had waves of Tiger tanks when they conducted an operational attack with them - Kursk, being very generous the counterattack west of Kiev... then we run out. Now count the number of times they had any significant air support at the same time, not having already lost the war in the air. Right, we are down to just Kursk. Now track when all the Tigers left operational status, and we are down to the first week of the Kursk campaign, in a grand total of 4 tactical locations on the map. Oh and in one of the four, they lost most of the attacking Tigers immobilized in a minefield by the end of the second day.

OK, OK, so really all we are talking about is one time, SS Panzer Corps at Kursk, first week and well before the climax of the battle (because all the Tigers were in the workshops by then). Fine, what were the Russian tank losses to Stukas on that occasion?

Tiny. We can find cases where the German pilots *claim* that they knocked out 50 tanks in one big airstrike - but the contemporary Russian loss reports on the ground for the same location report 4 tanks lost to air attacks.

The Russians are not underreporting their losses - they report very high ones, to German ground fire, mostly from tanks, and those almost entirely Panzer IVs and StuGs, not Tigers or Panthers (based on timing of the losses, which are highest after the Panthers have all broken down and the Tigers have all been sent to the shops etc). They just don't report losing them to air attacks.

Back in May of 1942, I have German side reports during the counterattack phase of the defeat of the Kharkov offensive, that have the pilots claiming over 200 tanks taken out by air attack, including over 100 on a single day from a single air unit. But the Russians on the ground didn't lose anything like that number.

Pilot claims of bomb damage to targets on the ground just aren't worth diddly squat. Any side, any era, any weapon type.

Hod on a minute. You do realise that this is a qoute from a book by a Russian (?) author, Valeriy Zamulin, who is qouting from a Russian source. Oh, and by the way, the Russian General Staff Study often also exaggerates the number off Tigers and Panthers at Kursk.

Since I was qouting a passage directly from a book I have to qoute the passage accuraely. You and I both know that those "Tigers" were in fact most likely Panzer III and IV.

However, the type of German tanks used is of no relevance to the current debate which is about air strikes and specifically what the Russians called "he Devil's Wheel" which is as apt a name for what the Germans wre doing as any other.

And what we see in Zamulin's qoute is a witness account from those on the receiving end. We find from this that there was both a physical impact and a psychological impact. if anything the latter is likely to be at least as signficant as the physical damage, probably more so.

So, while we do need to measure the physical damage we also need to consider the degree and duration of the morale impact on units of differing levels of training and motivation. I suspect we will find thatlower quality troops with lower motivation are likely to have a far more negative and longer lasting reaction. And, if you can time The Devil's Wheel correctly the Soviets get hit by the ground troops very quickly after the air attacks before they can recover their equilibrium. Which, after all, was the whole point of this German tactic.

One might get similar results from, for instance a Nebelwerfer strike which invoves a lot of HE landing around your ears in a very short space of times. Just anothe tool doing a similar job but delivered differently.

Remember, though Firepower does kil, it also shocks!

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Big problem with the P-47 is that it was expensive as hell; it was the most expensive single-engine fighter of the war.

True. I saw some comparative figures a few months ago and IIRC a P-47 cost almost double what a P-51 did, which goes a long way to explain why P-51 production and service employment outstripped the P-47.

For overall jack-of-all-trades fighter-bomber, though, I'd put the F4U ahead of it. Especially the later war 4-hogs were faster, more agile, had slightly better range, could carry almost as much ordnance load, and could take off and land on short field or aircraft carriers to boot.

Given interservice rivalries, though, the USAAF probably never would have even considered dropping the P-47 for the F-4U. Too bad.

Agree. Possibly another of my favorite lost causes was the Vultee A-31 Vengeance. It was at least as accurate a bomb deliverer as the Stuka. IMHO its biggest liability was that it was slightly underpowered (or maybe more than slightly for the later war). The USAAF wasn't interested in dive bombers, so they passed it up. The Navy already had the SBD Dauntless and the SB2C Helldiver, on which the Navy had pinned so many hopes, was in prolonged development, so they weren't looking for another dive bomber either. Vultee ended up supplying one squadron each of the RAF and RAAF who were very happy with it.

Michael

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Agree. Possibly another of my favorite lost causes was the Vultee A-31 Vengeance. It was at least as accurate a bomb deliverer as the Stuka. IMHO its biggest liability was that it was slightly underpowered (or maybe more than slightly for the later war). The USAAF wasn't interested in dive bombers, so they passed it up. The Navy already had the SBD Dauntless and the SB2C Helldiver, on which the Navy had pinned so many hopes, was in prolonged development, so they weren't looking for another dive bomber either. Vultee ended up supplying one squadron each of the RAF and RAAF who were very happy with it.

Michael

No argument that if the USAAF had better foresight, they would have trained and equipped a few light attack squadrons; by the end of the war they had more fighter pilots than they knew what to do with... P-51s and P-47s manned by fighter jocks put through a crash course in ground attack did OK in the light attack role, but IMHO crews specifically trained as light attack crews in airframes built for the purpose would have done better. I wouldn't pick the Vultee to equip them, though. The Brits and Aussies managed to get some good use out of it, but it had some serious performance drawbacks. One of the most serious IMHO was very poor short field performance which is important in a light attack craft that is likely to be called upon to use improvised airstrips close to the front lines. Bomb load was middling at best as well -- both the SBD and the Helldiver could carry a larger ordnance load, the Helldiver considerably larger.

And the Vultee wouldn't have worked for the Navy at all -- the aforementioned poor short takeoff performance made it supremely unsuited to carrier ops.

The USAAF actually did contract for 900 of a land version of the Helldiver, which were designated A-25 Shrike, but they canceled the order after half of them had already been built and sent most of them to the Marines. The Helldiver had a bit of a checkered record with the Navy, but a lot of the issues the Navy had with the Helldiver were related to the fact it was rather difficult to land on a carrier deck, which of course wouldn't have been an issue in USAAF service; it actually would have made a much better land-based light attack airframe.

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When I was a kid in northern Maine one year several Grumman Avenger torpedo bombers converted to DDT(?) spraying were deployed to a local airfield. From miles away you could feel the ground shake beneath your feet when they fired up the engines. Its difficult to convey the feeling of raw power that emanated from these radial engine supercharged no-mufflered monsters. They made an F16 seem like a toy in comparison.

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And what we see in Zamulin's qoute is a witness account from those on the receiving end. We find from this that there was both a physical impact and a psychological impact. if anything the latter is likely to be at least as signficant as the physical damage, probably more so.

Um, once again, the text you quote neither specifies any "physical impact" or "Psychological impact". Please give us some numbers of tanks destroyed, or actual Sov quotes about being "suppressed" by the so-called Devil's Wheel, and there is something to talk about.

I've read much more about Stalingrad than Kursk, and in Stalingrad German air in fact seemed to be rather effective, even by Sov accounts, but your sources for Kursk have thus far not really given any specific or helpful info.

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When I was a kid in northern Maine one year several Grumman Avenger torpedo bombers converted to DDT(?) spraying were deployed to a local airfield. From miles away you could feel the ground shake beneath your feet when they fired up the engines. Its difficult to convey the feeling of raw power that emanated from these radial engine supercharged no-mufflered monsters. They made an F16 seem like a toy in comparison.

Ahhhh,... there is nothing like the sound of an R-2600 or R-2800 starting up. Like a beast being released from hell.

Man, you're making me nostalgic... my dad used to take me to lots of airshows when I was a kid... I didn't care much about the modern hardware; it was the old warbirds I always wanted to see.

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a lot of the issues the Navy had with the Helldiver were related to the fact it was rather difficult to land on a carrier deck, which of course wouldn't have been an issue in USAAF service; it actually would have made a much better land-based light attack airframe.

Shades of the Corsair, there.

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I'm including every serious air war fought post WW2 (Iran-Iraq War, Arab-Israeli Wars, Indo-Pakistan Wars, Ethiopia-Eritrea, etc.)

The air war of the Falklands War is kind of interesting, although quite unusual.

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Man, you're making me nostalgic... my dad used to take me to lots of airshows when I was a kid... I didn't care much about the modern hardware; it was the old warbirds I always wanted to see.

You should come down to Wanaka at Easter :D

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The Western Allies' "Cab Rank" system appears very similar to the German tactic.

Cab Rank (and Armored Column Cover) were superficially similar to the German system, but they were both miles ahead of German practice. The German system was very limited in terms of the comms assets available to it, which is a problem the Allies were able to resolve. Also, CR and ACC were both more flexible than the German system in that they were specifically designed to talk the a/c onto a fresh target within minutes and while the a/c were in the air. The Germans never had anything like that.

In fact, the German system basically remained frozen from about 1941, with no new developments or innovations after that point (a/c changed, of course, and so did aerial tactics, but the mechanics of air-ground cooperation did not). Actually, the primary function of the German forward air controllers by 1944 was to leak tactical information in real time to the highly attentive and capable Allied sigint services.

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