Close Air Support

[histgamer]

That said it should be noted that even USAAF estimates state that the air attacks prio to mid 1944 did negligable damage.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
P.S. Did you notice the allies lost about 1700 planes to flak while conducting that CAS in the 3 month campaign at Normandy? Flak was a huge part of the reason CAS was so inaccurate.

Three months took them from Omaha Beach to Lorraine and Belgium, and shattered the German Armies in France...., so they must have been doing something right. And out of those 90+ days they had at least 50 days of decent weather when 2,000 sorties a day would be flown, making that 1700 loss into a rate of about 01.7%. Certainly not a problem for the Allies in the Summer of 1944.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

There were over 1700 planes in that bombardment, and in the grand scheme of things 700 men is less than 1% of a 14,000 man division, so even that should barley achieve 15%-20% disruption (if that).

The pz Lehr division only lost about 38% (this may be too high, I’m going off memory from when I designed all my Overlord scenarios for TOAW) of its combat effectiveness after 2-3 days fighting which was preceded with the largest bombardment of the war.

Most CAS raids in the war were conducted by flights of 4-12 planes and they were highly inaccurate. Roaming interdictors behind enemy lines had a lot more luck, but even they didn’t score lots of kills as his stats show for the campaign totals.

The fact is it was nearly impossible to hit deployed troops in WWII with airpower (moving troops in road march deployment was a completely different ballgame). And when massed bombers were used, accuracy was pathetically bad and results were not very good either.

Interdiction would be different than CAS, so your battle of maneuver example would fall under an interdiction category. But even so, no way should entire divisions in WitP be subjected to 60%-80% disruption from a 40-100 bomber strike as we see now.

As I said they should get slowed considerably if they are trying to move (with perhaps a small increase to disruption caused), but their fighting ability should not be so easily negated by 40-100 bomber raids.

Jim

P.S. Did you notice the allies lost about 1700 planes to flak while conducting that CAS in the 3 month campaign at Normandy? Flak was a huge part of the reason CAS was so inaccurate.

hmm, I can´t come up with stats about how effective Allied close air support was but from what my grandfather told me (German tank commander in the West) is that there was only ONE thing they were afraid (or had respect of): Allied fighter bombers and 2E bombers. He never told me they were afraid of Shermans, AT guns or whatever. They always thought they had superior equipment, even 6 months before the war ended. They had fuel problems and they were afraid of the Allied air force.

[Barb]

There are two kinds of effectivenes:
kill ratio
suppression/delay

Kill ratio depends on more factors. AFVs, APCs, trucks, and guns becomes destroyed and damaged the same way as common soldiers becomes killed and wounded. If there is an opportunity many of damaged vehicles/guns can be repaired quickly in matter of hours/days. Only totaly destroyed, or leaved behind to the enemy will be written off. So you may get some 10-30% (approximately) total kill ratio to any hit target (so a 12 plane CAS squadron could have 1-2 tanks destroyed, 3-5 damaged maximally). As not every attacket target was hit, and many missions were targeting communications (trains, barges, river-ships, train stations) and infantry there could be no mass wiping out of whole divisions by air.

Suppression/delays - this cause that enemy is not able to move, to attack or retreat under the threat of many vehicles damaged lowering the attack power or leaving them to the enemy. Infantry pinned down by starfing aircrafts will not be able to attack or retreat effectively. Artillery positions cannot fire without the fear they will be attacked by CAS. Batteries supressed, infantry hiding in holes, and damaged tanks. Whatewer action in these conditions will be almost useless. CAS attacks on communications means that enemy reaction time and ability will be  lowered.

CAS main function is to keep the enemy supressed and slowed allowing ground forces to encircle or defeat him.

[Feltan]

Logistics!

The CAS of WWII pounded supply lines much better than front line troops.

This was true in Korea too, some years after WWII. The Chinese divisions were all but cut-off from supply as a result of UN air attacks on trucks and trains.

For WWII, yes, some front line damage/disruption is appropriate to model. However, what is missing is that a LCU should suffer supply and movement problems from CAS much more than body count loss.

Regards,
Feltan

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: pbear

Herwin, I don't understand your point.[&:] The A-10 isn't a fighter, but that is like saying that a tank isn't a sports car.

For close air support, the A-10 was/is very effective:

Herwin is quite correct, if you are a FI driver would you rather drive a tank or a sports car.

Fighter Pilots do like their hot rods and they like to compeat against other hot rods (at 20k plus feet). They don't like to "Do it in the dirt". [:D]

The A10 is a good A/C and does a good job at what it was designed for but it's not glamorous to shoot up tanks. WartHogs rule.[&o]

I think that's a pretty unfair question. If you are a F1 driver of course you would rather drive a sports car. However, if your objective is to roll over and destroy any and all enemies in your path then you are damn sure gonna prefer the tank! I also disagree with your conclusion. Shooting up tanks is VERY glamorous!

[Charbroiled]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

and in the grand scheme of things 700 men is less than 1% of a 14,000 man division, so even that should barley achieve 15%-20% disruption (if that).

Sorry to be the math police, but 700 men is 5% of a 14,000 man division.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Charbroiled
Sorry to be the math police, but 700 men is 5% of a 14,000 man division.

LOL sorry, it was late and I was tired. I didn't bother checking the math.

Jim

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: castor troy
hmm, I can´t come up with stats about how effective Allied close air support was but from what my grandfather told me (German tank commander in the West) is that there was only ONE thing they were afraid (or had respect of): Allied fighter bombers and 2E bombers. He never told me they were afraid of Shermans, AT guns or whatever. They always thought they had superior equipment, even 6 months before the war ended. They had fuel problems and they were afraid of the Allied air force.

If you read his article I think training trials only produced a 4% hit ratio with the most accurate munitions of the day (rockets), even when fired in 8 rocket volleys. You can’t kill it if you can’t hit it and hitting tanks was very difficult in sterile training trials. Add in flak, the chance of friendly fire and fear of death to the mix, and the hits scored in combat were rare indeed.

In his review of 3 different British studies of captured/wrecked German Panther tanks from Normandy and the Bulge he lists what killed the tanks. Out of 223 tanks, only 11 were destroyed by air rockets and 3 by air cannons. The rest were lost due to other causes.

Men feared the CAS because they could easily see and hear it, so it played on their fears. That’s a large part of the reason the myth of the power of allied CAS in WWII exists today. But the facts do not back up the myth. The axis or the allies simply didn’t have the means to conduct effective CAS in WWII.

Interdiction is a different kettle of fish, because you’re attacking anything that moves on the transportation net behind enemy lines. Things like target identification and friend or foe identification along with heavily concentrated flak aren’t part of that equation.

Jim

[panda124c]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: pbear

Herwin, I don't understand your point.[&:] The A-10 isn't a fighter, but that is like saying that a tank isn't a sports car.

For close air support, the A-10 was/is very effective:

Herwin is quite correct, if you are a FI driver would you rather drive a tank or a sports car.

Fighter Pilots do like their hot rods and they like to compeat against other hot rods (at 20k plus feet). They don't like to "Do it in the dirt". [:D]

The A10 is a good A/C and does a good job at what it was designed for but it's not glamorous to shoot up tanks. WartHogs rule.[&o]

I think that's a pretty unfair question. If you are a F1 driver of course you would rather drive a sports car. However, if your objective is to roll over and destroy any and all enemies in your path then you are damn sure gonna prefer the tank! I also disagree with your conclusion. Shooting up tanks is VERY glamorous!

The point is that an AF Fighter pilot (FI Driver) would rather fly an F-16 (sports car) than an A-10 (tank). This really has nothing to do with the objective of either weapon. It's just more glamarous to fly F-16 than to fly an A-10 as far as AF pilots are concerened. And by the way I agree watching a tank brew up is much better than seeing a Mig going down in flames. But that's a personal preference. [:D]

Instructions for an F-16 pilot: Climb to altitude cruise to such and such coordinates and shoot down any enemy A/C you see.

Instructions for an A-10 pilot: Go down the the first stop sign turn right, go to the second intercetion turn left destroy the line of enemy tanks and while at it take out the gas station on the corner and pick up a quart of milk while you're at it. [:D]

CAS is very important to the Army but they have to call the Air Force to get it done. The Marines send their pilots to Grunt school so they know who they are supporting.

[anarchyintheuk]

ORIGINAL: pbear

CAS is very important to the Army but they have to call the Air Force to get it done.

First they call they call their own choppers, then they call the Marines, then the call the Navy, then they call the Air Force (cept for the A-10 guys).

[Charbroiled]

ORIGINAL: pbear

Instructions for an A-10 pilot: Go down the the first stop sign turn right, go to the second intercetion turn left destroy the line of enemy tanks and while at it take out the gas station on the corner and pick up a quart of milk while you're at it. [:D]

LOL....You caused a coffee eruption, but that's OK, my monitor needed cleaning anyway.[:D]

[Cutman]

I am a Marine and not AF. I agree that the Stragetic Bombing worked much less effective than sold. I also know that the had huge problem with over selling most of there BDAs and underpalnning during WWII. I study CAS a lot for my work side, so I look at historical cases. That is why I am posting on this one so much.

I thought I remember that the RAF and AF doing better at CAS during the last 2 months of the anzio landing time period. Cabranz I think is what the AF called it? I know they screwed up pretty badly down here for the initial years.. I just remember that I had read somewhere that the AF/RAF had eventually learned the hard way in the Italy.

cutman

[AcePylut]

Here's what cracks me up about the A-10...

So the engineers designed this wonderfully effective aircraft, built it, were getting ready to test it... and then a pilot looked at the prototype and said "where's the engines"... and the engineers went, "um, uh, er, ah lemme get back to you in a couple months", and then the engineers went back the drawing board and slapped a couple of engines on the fuselage of the aircraft and said, "whadda ya mean, where are the engines, they're right there, see!"

[histgamer]

Barb: Your not talking about CAS. CAS is not indirdicting communications or anything not directly in contact with the front. Hitting units while moving and communications and roads is Interdiction. Hitting enamy troops while they are engaged with friendlys is CAS.

As for the F-16 its possibly more glamerous but the F-16 is a very good multi role aircraft and in todays day in age F-16 pilots are trained equally almost in A-A as they are in A-G manevers. The F-16 is a very good A-G platform.