Whats the point of aircraft?

[Guest Germanboy]

Originally posted by Simon Fox:

Personally German sooking about allied airpower makes me laugh. When the boot was on the other foot and the Luftwaffe dominated the skies over Greece, Crete and Tobruk the allied attitude seemed to be more phlegmatic.

Heh - any excuse for why you lost. If it was not airpower, it was Adolf's interference

Of course the generals could not set a foot wrong, if only they had been allowed to carry on the war as they liked to...

------------------

Andreas

Der Kessel

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[bluemx]

Hello,

I never use to use planes, now I always by at least one VETERAN fighter bomber. It keeps the german player honest - a good german player will always bye some AA support. But most don't - Just the fact he sees a plane will put fear in him. Whether or not they hit or not it will change the way

the german player attacks. He will seak cover

and be slower. If german player is defending the plane helps expose his troops.

I have seen a documentary about a ww2 veteran who did almost everything. I taped it and have it here somewhere in my 475 war and history movies. This VET of ww2 tells his story and pictures and movies are added.

He was a p47 pilot and very good - the would go out and search and destroy. After watching some off the guns cam pics I am sure they where hitting civilians to. A car

parked in a guys yard behind the line would be fired at.

Anyways - they started a new program where the ground troops wanted better air support

and actaully had the guy a former pilot of p47 with experience be assigned to ground forces as a air support spotter. He told one story and had pic of knocked out tank to proof it of a Town fight with a Panther in the street supported by infantry. The allied

troops where ketching all hell. They called

for support - and remember this is in a town street. He was near buy and got to the men in trouble. Saw the panther in street and called the P47s above assigned to him with special radios for support. Because this guy was a fromer pilot his spotting ability was Outstanding. Eight p47s came roaring in on his orders - Three were to drop on the Panther the rest behind the Panther in buildings and street for Infantry. Within 10

minutes they were diving in and BOOM!!!!!!!

The American Infantry and spotter where so close. When the panther was knoked out the men jumped up cheering! Did they all this awesome? Hell No! Where they there yes! Sometimes it worked sometimes it didn't, but

the Number ONE thing any german tanker was affraid off was Jabos.

So i add a few in VETERANS when doing a point battle. Germans get the great tanks and

rockets. Allies get the planes. Never underestimate the power of the wild card or unknown in a battle or a wargame. Planes will

at the very least make german player nervous and the is power on the battlefield.

One last thing while I am here wanted to add.

My grandfathers brother was a tank gunner in western front in shermans. He said the reason I am alive today is very simple we had a standing rule - WE NEVER ENGAGED GERMAN TANKS! We were INFANRTY support. If we saw german tanks we hid or withdrew out off site. The tankers who didn't died.

We would call in Art, tank destroyers and planes to take care off german armor.

Funny I play allies alot in game and I hide my armor until battle is well underway. Use the Inf,Art,At guns and reacon . The allied armor comes out towards end. Try it you will like it. If not drive your 8 shermans across that field and walk into a kill zone.

Well all thi stalk I need to play game now.

GOOD HUNTING to you as long as it is not me!

[Bimmer]

the Number ONE thing any german tanker was affraid off was Jabos

Care to support this statement? Interviews? Empirical evidence? Anything except blind faith or misguided conjecture?

[Jeff Heidman]

If anyone should be buying air support in CM, it is the Germans.

If the weather is good, the German player can do very well with air support, since the Allies have almost no air defence weapons.

Gamey as hell, but it works.

Jeff Heidman

[Gomer Pyle]

Well Bimmer lets be honest nobody really cares what German tankers were afraid of,a subject that has to be pure conjecture & has no relevance to the game.It would be reasonable to assert however that air power like artillery has a psychological effect beyond its lethality perhaps related to the unpleasant experience of being hit by something you can't hit back.

On the subject of purchasing then it very much depends on the scenario,if you're fighting mainly infantry in woods then it's not worth it.However if you're playing the sort of joker who likes to sit King Tigers on top of a big hill on his baseline then nothing moves them faster than a FB attack.

[John Kelly]

Planes add a great diminsion to the game. The experience of the pilot makes all the difference. John

[StellarRat]

They can make or break even the most carefully laid battle plans. Personally, I like heavy artillery better. Although someone has to spot for arty it is much more controllable. Planes are good for messing the enemy before you make contact (on a large map.) They are too dangerous to use in close combat.

[Sheck]

Originally posted by Bimmer:

Very good points, although the Falaise numbers seems extremely high. By these figures, there were 30000-40000 German vehicles in the Falaise Pocket?!?

I have seen figures that support the contention that Allied tac air was even less effective against AFVs than the numbers you quote suggest. Regardless, (as I have said here before) it seems to me that tac air is far too likely to knock out armor in CM.

Conservative figures for the Falaise Pocket put the Germans at at least 30,000 vehicles e.g. they had the bulk of the 7.AOK + 5.Pz.AOK. + attached units + Heersgruppe 'B' units + all misc. vehicles that were in rear area commands all retreating. Some estimates put the number as high as 50,000. BTW: That is all vehicles.

Yes, I used the higher end of the range / scale.

Another consideration that has not been brought up is air observation. The greatest tactical bonus airpower brought to the battlefield, which exceeded 'breaking up' of a German attack was arial observation. The planes could radio back to HQ where the Germans were, especially armored units. This in turn brought the superior Allied artillery in play (superior in the sense of better fire control, more tubes, and a greater quantity of projectiles / shells). There were ground to air coordinators in th field, but in general they were not effective - so most information flowed from air units to air HQ, who in turn provided it to higher echelon ground commanders. Artillery could immobilze tanks, but most importantly, it stripped away their infantry support. Contrary to popular belief, most tank commanders did not to operate without infantry support (there are many cases where they did not, but if they could find a reason not to advance when they lacked infantry, they did - air attacks became a frequent 'excuse' not to proceed.)

Air observation provides intelligence and intelligence allows you to focus resources, which wins battles. The Germans lacked that support and fought 'blindly'.

[bluemx]

Hello,

I will try to dig up my sources on the quote

Number ONE thing german tankers were affraid of was Jabos.

I recall a very good interview of a SS tank commander who lived through the war talking about it, I have the video. May take some time to find exact section and Guy's name and unit. But it in here somewhere I guess I have to start watching some these great ww2 documentaries and interveiws you again all this talk is getting me in the mood.

The best way to learn anything about the war is simply listening to the men who where thier and lived it. May take some time but I will return with the exact words of fthe german tanker.

[Bimmer]

I'm sorry, but the words of one, or two, or ten vets do not in any way represent the attitudes of the whole of any group.

I know and have interviewed vets. I know the value of first-hand recollections. I also know the limitations: failing memories, the distortions that occur after many years, the influence of later analysis on those recollections, etc.

You must look at ALL the available sources if you want to see the closest possible construct of what actually happened.

[Sheck]

Originally posted by bluemx:

Number ONE thing german tankers were affraid of was Jabos.

I believe what wrote is correct. I have read many first hand accounts by both unit commanders, senior commanders, and flag rank German officers discussing how destructive the Allied aircraft was. The problem is that the facts, actual German losses from Allied aircraft, do not match what many of these commanders/soldiers say.

An example, is Kurt Meyer (I am going by memeory here so I do not remember the exact sources - I can look them up if anyone is interested), who 'claims' an attack by his 12th SS was broken up and had to abort due to losses from Allied air attacks. Yet when you look into the daily reports and casualties, they (the losses he claims) are not there. This was not uncommon. Many commanders wrote books based on memeories without unit records and sources to factual evidence. First hand accounts are very good, but one of their drawbacks is you are relying upon memories that are often jumbled - combat is completely choatic and no soldier 'sees' the whole picture. Consequnetly, first hand account have signifignat relevance but do have limitations.

BTW: There has been discussion in literature about this very subject i.e. how veterans say one thing and then the 'facts' bear out something else, which is one of the problems with a lot of popular WW2 literature. They simply took what the veterans had to say without researching the actual events from both sides and put it out as 'the way it was.'