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Did 2E level-bombers actually fly ground support missions in PTO? I have only found info on US B-25s flying ground attack missions against IJA infantry in China, plus a couple of instances of A-20s flying such missions over Pacific islands. Other than that, it is either P-40, P-47, P-51 or Navy SBD.

Used this book by Eric Hammel
https://www.amazon.com/Air-Pacific-Chro ... B000AP9830.

Is using 2E bombers in ground attack role in WITP:AE ahistorical?

EDIT: changed the thread's title from "...ground support" to "...air support".

To my knowledge B-25's were used for ground strafing in PNG. I believe I read this in one of Kenney's books. That said, if they didn't, I think it should be allowable to better them. Just my opinion.

Fred

P.S.: This is copied from a book on Pappy Gunn - the use of modified B'25s:

''On August 17, 1943, they struck Wewak at dawn like rolling thunder. The Grim Reapers of the Third Attack surprised
the Japanese completely. Two years removed from Pearl Harbor, they had lined up their aircraft almost wingtip to
wingtip to conduct inspections and engine tests. The target was a strafers dream. They sped down the long rows,
flames spewing from their noses as their .50-cals boomed. A collective twelve thousand rounds per minute poured
from Reaper weapons into the fuel-laden, ground-bound Japanese planes. The cream of the Japanese Army Air Force
was torn to bits in a matter of minutes. At the other fields around Wewak, other strafe squadrons discovered the
same scene and wrought havoc with merciless efficiency. They dropped parachute fragmentation bombs in their wake,
blowing apart whatever their guns missed. Follow-up raids continued through the rest of August. When it was over,
conservative postwar estimates placed the final count at 175 Japanese planes destroyed. In concert with high-level
attacks by four-engine B-24 Liberators, the strafers destroyed most of the fuel and supplies built up around Wewak
to sustain air operations. In the wake of the raids, U.S. signal intelligence intercepted multiple calls from
Wewak asking Tokyo for gasoline. The raids crippled the Japanese Army Air Force. Kenney’s crews smashed every
other attempt to build up airpower in the South West Pacific Area, as the initiative they seized over Wewak in
August ensured the Japanese would never regain a foothold in the air over New Guinea''.

Actually all planes were used in a ground support role from time to time.

First you have to define it
- Based on the US WW2 terminology, the Ground Support (or precisely Close Air Support) is a mission in direct support of the ground troops, preferably performed in a way that is not available to other means (mortar/artillery, etc).
- Yet it is usually the least profitable employment of the air forces in terms of expediture/rewards, so most commanders would oppose it in some way.
- On the other hand the ground forces usually either did not understand the air force application (spreading it around), capabilities (requesting support for missions better perfomred by artillery), or limitations (accuracy, etc.)

- Heavy bombers performed a CAS mission in pacific numerous times - e.g. bombing of beaches/atolls/etc. immediately prior to amphibious landings - main effect being the general suppression of movement, communication, mine blowing, etc. But they were always more profitably used on Patrol and air superiority mission bombing enemy airfields/communications (Burma/Thailand-Railway). But they were not used on day-by-day basis to destroy a Japanese ground unit on a cut-off island or in front of the landing as some players are using them.

- So did medium bombers a number of times - striking a prominent feature, laying smoke screen, strafing the beaches prior to landing, bombing ammo dumps (in pacific usually from low level/or in glide) - as the Japanese AA was less formidable then the German. Yet the accuracy was limited and they were almost useless against a single gun firing from some well masked cave. It was more profitable to use A-20 to destroy a supply dump, camp, or strafe airfield and para-frag it. B-25s with their longer range were better used to strike more distant targets - airfields, ports, barges, supply ships.

- Fighters/fighter bombers were used mainly, because they usually carried a single/two bombs and rockets, they can deliver them with some accuracy, relatively close and quickly to the front-line without endangering friendly troops. Also planes like SBDs/Vengeance/A-36, etc. were used because of their increased accuracy in dive.


However as the war progressed and short leg fighters like P-39/P-40/Hurricane were less required/able to provide Air superiority mission due to their combat range, they were equipped by bombs and rockets. They were available, close on hand, can carry a respectable bomb load (say P-40 with 1x500lb and 2x250lb carried half load of A-20!, P-47 with 8x0.50cal and 2x500lb carried 2/3rd load of B-25D1 equipped with bomb bay tanks for long range carrying 3x500lbs and 8+2x0.50cal). A P-47 carrying 8x5in FFAR/HVAR Rockets was equivalent to two destroyer/battery salvo!

Unfortunately, there is a third important mission that is not really "visible" in the WITP:AE that most medium bombers were used IRL - Interdiction. Bombing of supply dumps, roads, tunnels, bridges, rail centers were the usual targets for Medium bombers both in ETO and PTO. The only "usual" Interdiction target visible in game is port - reducing its effectiveness in providing unloading services. All others are hidden - like bombing airfield producing supply hits, bombing ports producing supply/fuel hits, bombing troops increasing disruption, supply consumption, etc. Using A-20/B-25/B-26/A-26s to attack ships in low level was more an effort to use the planes at hand more effectively then bombing from medium altitudes.

I find this document very useful: The Air Campaign: Planning for Combat by Col. John A. Warden III

ORIGINAL: Leandros

To my knowledge B-25's were used for ground strafing in PNG. I believe I read this in one of Kenney's books. That said, if they didn't, I think it should be allowable to better them. Just my opinion.

Fred

P.S.: This is copied from a book on Pappy Gunn - the use of modified B'25s:

''On August 17, 1943, they struck Wewak at dawn like rolling thunder. The Grim Reapers of the Third Attack surprised
the Japanese completely. Two years removed from Pearl Harbor, they had lined up their aircraft almost wingtip to
wingtip to conduct inspections and engine tests. The target was a strafers dream. They sped down the long rows,
flames spewing from their noses as their .50-cals boomed. A collective twelve thousand rounds per minute poured
from Reaper weapons into the fuel-laden, ground-bound Japanese planes. The cream of the Japanese Army Air Force
was torn to bits in a matter of minutes. At the other fields around Wewak, other strafe squadrons discovered the
same scene and wrought havoc with merciless efficiency. They dropped parachute fragmentation bombs in their wake,
blowing apart whatever their guns missed. Follow-up raids continued through the rest of August. When it was over,
conservative postwar estimates placed the final count at 175 Japanese planes destroyed. In concert with high-level
attacks by four-engine B-24 Liberators, the strafers destroyed most of the fuel and supplies built up around Wewak
to sustain air operations. In the wake of the raids, U.S. signal intelligence intercepted multiple calls from
Wewak asking Tokyo for gasoline. The raids crippled the Japanese Army Air Force. Kenney’s crews smashed every
other attempt to build up airpower in the South West Pacific Area, as the initiative they seized over Wewak in
August ensured the Japanese would never regain a foothold in the air over New Guinea''.

The mission you quote is actually Air Superiority, and not Ground support mission.
While Air Superiority definitely helps the ground forces in the end, it is removed from the Close Air Support mission by both time and space (striking in advance of ground offensive to clear the skies and hundreds of miles removed from the actual ground battle is about to occur).

One example....

During the US offensive on Munda (July-Aug '43), B-25's of the 42nd BG routinely conducted ground strikes against identified enemy
strongpoints, troop concentrations and artillery positions in support of the push by US Army troops. The ground strikes included
both bombing and (on occasion) strafing runs against the enemy, although the actual targets were rarely ever visible beneath the
jungle canopy.

Their actions are mentioned in Craven and Cates' "The Army Air Forces in World War II (Vol 4)" as well as in the records of Marine
air wings whose TBFs and SBDs participated in many of the same support missions.

several examples here:

http://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/U ... Group.html

Fred

P.S.: Some details on 42nd BG:

http://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/U ... Group.html

Barb, sorry, I meant the Ground Attack mission understood as an air attack against an front-line enemy LCU ( I don't think we can talk about troop concetrations in WITP:AE other than LCU parked in a base hex). I know that the game has no bridges, rail stations, repair shops and trains, also barge activity is less than in the RL, thus players are left with scores of idle 2ES ehich are used to bomb each other's LCUs in all AARs.

Leandros, I found only one example for the 3rd BG:

"The group supported the landings at Cape Gloucester in December 1943, including an attack on Japanese machine gun positions on 28 December (carried out by A-20s)."

42nd BG, one example:

"In early June the group moved to Guadalcanal where it entered combat. During 1943 it operated over the central Solomons, attacking Japanese airfields, bases, gun positions and shipping."

Strange, are we using the 2Es in a totally different role compared to the RL?

Just for clarification, the attacks I mentioned by the B-25s of the 42nd BG also included ones made against identified Japanese front-line
positions on Munda after the US Army units had landed and pushed forward to contact with the enemy. These positions were normally marked
with smoke by nearby US troops as a guide for the strikes called in by the 43rd Div's Air Liason Party.

Sounds pretty close to a Ground Attack mission against an enemy front-line LCU to me. I doubt it was a common occurance in the Pacific War
but it clearly did happen at times.

Must "ground support" be a low-level attack? Are we not mixing up "Close Air Support" and "Ground Support" now. The latter is also known as bombing static lines.

Anyway, I believe close air support/ground support was used more than generally perceived, probably because anti-ship operations were more in focus, and easier to account for. Just my feeling..

Fred

Altitude is irrelevant. I just want to see how often medium bombers attacked Japanese LCUs.

Well, if so, the discussion here so far has been too narrow in my opinion. Since there were Japanese Land Combat
Units on most Japanese bases "ground support" against LCU's must have been quite common.

Now we have to define "LCUs"......

Fred

I have found many refrencese of mediums attacking runways, parked aircraft, ports, ships, barges, trains, bridges, depots, trains and train repair facilities. I am only looking for attacks on LCUs (combat units). Attack altitude is irrelevant.

For further examples of medium bombers attacking Japanese front-line troops in direct support of an Allied ground offensive, read up on the
New Guinea offensive, particularly the Buna-Gona action in late '42 where 5th AF B-25s were often pressed into action in place of artillery
to bombard Japanese troop positions preparatory to Allied assaults.

Milner's "United States Army in WWII - The War in the Pacific (Vol 4)" has plenty of detail on this and other New Guinea/Papuan operations
where 2E medium bombers were directly involved in missions that would be considered the equivalent of AE's Ground Attack.

I have not seen statistics but I think you are right in assuming that. Even in Europe mediums were not direct ground support aircraft. That was just not what they were designed for. I don't think even strafers were intended for direct ground support.

ORIGINAL: crsutton

I have not seen statistics but I think you are right in assuming that. Even in Europe mediums were not direct ground support aircraft. That was just not what they were designed for. I don't think even strafers were intended for direct ground support.

The bombers of the 5th Air force were not used as they were designed for. They were heavily modified in equipment
and tactics.

Lae, New Guinea, September 4th 1943:

The following day, B-24s attacked Lae from altitudes greater than 11,000 feet. B-25D-1s hit the landing-beach
grounds northeast of Lae, attacking from 300 feet and below expending 20,500 rounds of .50-caliber ammunition
to suppress enemy fire. Because the attacks predated the full incorporation of parademos into the Fifth’s
inventory, low-altitude attackers used demolition bombs with delayed-action fuses. The 3d Attack Group employed
60 300-pound weapons equipped with four-to-five-second-delay fuses against the landing beach on 4 September. Much
like the mast-height attacks in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, the delays allowed aircraft enough time to exit
the detonation area after release. Furthermore, the loosely packed beach sand helped inhibit any skipping
tendencies of the weapons. A-20s followed the B-25s, laying down a screen of smoke to protect the Allied landings
on the beach. Like the day before, on 5 September—the main day of the operation—A-20s were used primarily to
create a smoke screen for American and Australian paratroopers landing at Nadzab, approximately 15-20 nm
west-northwest inland from Lae. Combined with a low-altitude paradrop—the first airborne operation in the
Pacific—the operation featured extraordinary coordination between light bombers and cargo aircraft, producing
some of the more recognizable photographs of the war. Twenty-four B-24s and one B-17 dropped 188 1,000-pound
bombs on a nearby plantation (occupied by the Japanese) to prevent enemy reinforcements from reaching the drop
zone. Sixty-four B-25s from the 38th and 345th BGs dropped just over 3,200 20-pound fragmentation bombs as well
as 420 23-pound parafrags, and expended over 60,000 rounds of .50-caliber ammunition as they strafed the landing
zone in 16-abreast formation. Finally, seven A-20s from the 3d Attack Group surrounded the Allied drop zone in
a thick veil of smoke. By the afternoon’s end, over 1,700 paratroopers were safely on the ground.

The Philippines, 1945:

With the invasion of the Philippines, low-altitude work again took center stage. The Philippines campaign tied
Fifth Air Force’s bombers closely to the ground offensive: “They just paralyzed all movement on all the roads,
and there wasn’t a locomotive in the Philippines that was running; they were all full of holes. They blew up
railroad tracks and destroyed bridges. The armored crowd—of course, their particular target for a while was
Yamashita’s armored division, which we didn’t want to get moving around, because an armored division is a nuisance
to have fiddling around with your advance—and their armored division never moved. It was stopped right where it
parked.”{224} At times, bombers acted at the direct behest of ground troops in what could be called close air
support. On 17 March 1945, for example, a B-25 of the 499th BS was called off its mission by ground
troops: “Ground Forces requested a/p to knock out enemy tank in house which was holding up advance.
House was strafed with 1200 x 50 cal resulting in a large fire and explosion with black smoke. Tank was
destroyed and Ground Forces congratulated pilot on excellent job done.”{225} Attackers and bombers not
otherwise assigned to fixed targets or ground-support missions performed opportunistic interdiction attacks.


Rodman , Captain Matt: A War of Their Own: Bombers Over the Southwest Pacific [Illustrated Edition] Verdun Press.

It's a good read "A War of Their Own: Bombers Over the Southwest Pacific"

A pdf
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By2Ht_ ... sp=sharing

"Of the 55,585 sorties flown and 45,744 tons of bombs dropped on Luzon, more than 85% were in ground cooperation."

"The Philippines campaign tied Fifth Air Force's bombers closely to the ground offensive:"


" Now he introduced an even more powerful armament combination. Taking one of the 3 12th A-20's, with the help of crew chief and armament men he installed fourteen forward firing .50 cal. machine guns in the aircraft. .. Tom pressed the trigger to fire all four-teen machine guns simultaneously. As Tom recalls, and as substantiated by fellow flyers of the 312th, the recoil shock of the simultaneous continuous explosions of fourteen guns seemed to halt the plane's forward motion"




"In a period of four days beginning on 1 April, twenty-one B-17's and nine B-24's harassed the ships at anchor, attacking from medium and low altitude. The greatest damage was claimed by B-17's skip-bombing from 75 to 250 feet."

My father was attached to different units as a photographer. From late 43 through most of 1944 he was with the 5th AF riding in the nose of B-25s in New Guinea and at Tacloban, PI. He said they did many ground attack missions. That was their primary mission.

Bill

I was not trying to state that the A-20s/B-25s were not used on Close Air Support - actually I said they did a lot of it! But I also tried to explain the idea behind as well as limitations and "more visible" or customary mission profiles.

E.G. In Luzon the A-20s were used by night to conduct a harassing/night surveillance/flare dropping force flying up the walley sealed by the ground troops. Purpose was to keep enemy up, monitor enemy movement, illuminate from time to time to prevent movement, etc. This is certainly one of the missions that should classify as Close Air Support.
E.G. At the battles of Buna-Gona-Sanananda-Salamaua the A-20/B-25 of the 3rd Bomb Group (Light)/Attack Group often served in a role of artillery. Because the movement of the artillery pieces through the mountains was impossible and only few can be landed by planes and manhandled to positions while the ammo had to be brought by coastal barges and carried miles through the jungle, the 3rd BG was often called in for CAS.

ORIGINAL: Leandros


Well, if so, the discussion here so far has been too narrow in my opinion. Since there were Japanese Land Combat
Units on most Japanese bases "ground support" against LCU's must have been quite common.

Now we have to define "LCUs"......

Fred

This broad definition would qualify the dropping of the atomic bombs as "ground support", no?

"Ground support" is "Close air support", it's direct support of your fighting troops in contact with the enemy's fighting troops, i.e. attacking enemy infantry, tanks, arty, bunkers etc. shooting at your own troops. It may also include "battlefield air interdiction" aiming to isolate the battlefield by attacking reinforcements moving up behind the front before they can make contact.

But "ground support" differs from "interdiction" or "air superiority" missions targeting enemy LOCs and bases. Any ground troops killed or wounded while attacking a railway, a port or an airbase (aiming to put it out of business) would be an ancillary effect.

So simply bombing an enemy base with troops present does not constitute a "ground support" mission.


The "classic" division of tasks (and plane design) was heavy bombers = strategic bombing of enemy war-making capabilities like resources and industries, medium bombers = interdiction and air superiority, light bombers = ground support.

In practice the division of tasks blurred a bit and planes were used in roles not originally intended. "Ground support" missions have been flown by all types of aircraft, but fighter-bombers and light bombers turned out to be most suited for that role due to bombing accuracy and reaction times / availability.

That said, I absolutely hate Allied bombers in the ground support role in the game. They can wipe-out entire LCUs on their own with a few attacks. OTOH I find the light and medium bombers of the Japanese are ineffective - I obtain a disabled squad per 50 sorties or so. Light bomb loads suck...

LargeSlowTarget: The original poster's question was whether 2E (twin-engine) bombers were used in ground support (close air support)
in the PTO at all. He is doubting this. I believe the previous postings here have shown they were.

Apart from that, one can always discuss whether the game handles the various aspects on this in a correct manner. My
experience on the allied bomber units' efficiency differs from yours. I often feel I get very little back from using
them in a "ground support" role.

That this is your experience with the Japanese side shouldn't surprise anybody. To my knowledge they never went to
the same extremes as did the 5th Air force in modifying their light or medium bombers for such (low-level ground or
close air support) missions.

Fred