The ETO's finest single engined ground attack aircraft

[cheddar cheese]

Yes but they were Olympic quality peashooters, which is quite understandable. But children...?

[trackend]

You are quite correct I apologies and humbly beg forgiveness oh mighty Gorgonzola feet of Turin

[cheddar cheese]

Forgiveness accepted

[the lancaster kicks ass]

[Udet]

Lanc:

Hhehehe.

It is understood. Do not fret at all. I am a laid back boy myself.


The point is i am not here to attempt changing nor influencing anybodys way of seeing the war.

I still have to learn a lot, but what i´ve learned so far is quite solid and no evidence to shatter my current overall vision of the war has came across my path.

I find it totally amusing to discover how full of manipulations and lies many allied depicted issues are. That is about it.


Legend has it hell is located downwards; yet, if there are any guys refusing to believe Stukas helped enemy soldiers believing hell is not located down but upwardly, and not just that, hell could rain upon their heads it is not my business.

Obsolete?
I will never understand why they insisit in calling it obsolete.
Simply because the conditions for its deployment in the west had ceased to exist in view of the numerical superiority of the enemy, does not imply it was obsolete.

Then the B-17 could be tagged as obsolete. For as long as it flew unescorted the German interceptors had a feast with them.

So would the IL-2.

[trackend]

Udet in the thread regarding moral objections to the war you said I was talking crap and had discovered a functioning brain you have now removed this statement along with the remark asserting that there where no black aces in WW2 how do you reconcile this with

but what i´ve learned so far is quite solid and no evidence to shatter my current overall vision of the war has came across my path.

I can only assume that your assertion that I was talking crap and there where no Black Aces is quite solid so the Tuskegee airmen of the 332nd fighter group conversely must not have existed.

[Udet]

Trackend:

Hmmm, on topic and off topic issues mingled here.


First off: you are totally WRONG. I did never say you were talking crap. That was rather directed to RG_Lunatic who came up with silly issues such as "denial" and "neo-nazis".

What i did tell was that you had clearly understood the sense of my comment on that particular thread (and that unlike RG, you have a functional brain) i was strictly referring to the racism issue; you got my idea there: the USA has no right to accuse Germany of being racists when many inhabitants of the USA were still having the byzantine debate on whether blacks could have the same rights white people had. That in the late 1950´s, WELL AFTER WORLD WAR TWO).


As to this black gentleman wearing USAAF uniform: why do you think i deleted my posting...something i possibly recalled?

Do you think that photo implies, on any degree, a modification, adjustment or revamping of my posture that ON MILITARY ISSUES the allies have lied and manipulated like hell?

That they won the war only due to "superior weapons", "superior technology" and "superior tactics", putting the numerical superiority element as a mere secondary issue?

Stuka obsolete. Can´t you just detect it here?

Without fighter cover the B-17 and B-24 are obsolete as well. Losses were so high, prohibitive on many battles, there came the moment when the guys of the 8th Air Force began wondering if the bombing runs could continue.

Not even the Germans faced this dilemma during the Battle of Britain.
While their losses were being high, they were within the acceptable range: they did not cancell their massive operations over England due to frightful losses. It was rather the final decision to abandon/postpone Seelowe that stopped German operations.

If you have any doubts on this, watch the performance of the Luftwaffe elsewhere after the Battle of Britain was called off. They swallowed their opponents here and there.


So what can you detect here?

Not only the Stuka demanded certain conditions for a most adequate performance: the B-17 and B-24 as heavy bombers, could behave as spoiled rich girls and demanded their own.

In an environment of no air superiority and/or when adequate fighter cover was lacking, the USAAF heavies got digested by the German inteceptors.


A Stuka equipped for tank busting missions, and a Typhoon fitted with rockets for equal purpose? The Stuka hits the mark first. The typhoon, very unlikely.

The typhoon was a very good plane. The problem were rather the non-guided rockets.

[DAVIDICUS]

Udet:

How accurate were Rockets launched from Typhoons and Thunderbolts?

I have listed a source that indicates that early Stukas were capable of putting 25 percent of their bombs in a circle with a radius of only 185 feet.

I am starting to suspect that this sort of accuracy was more effective at getting enemy tank crews to abandon their vehicles making them lame ducks for German tanks and artillery. Where else have we seen abandoned tanks destroyed by ground forces credited to air power? Just a thought.

Lastly, from one laid back boy to another, if you really feel that, "Hhehehe. It is understood. Do not fret at all. I am a laid back boy myself." then maybe you can address an apology to me. I like others, found your comments directed at me rather offensive.

[Udet]

Davidicus:

Ok, this laid back boy issues a sincere apology.

Cheddar Cheese and Davidicus, if you re-read what i posted here i did not ever say the Stuka -as a dive bomber- could place its bombload right into the upper hatch of tank moving, say, at 30 km/hr; however, it was very capable to place them real close to the moving targets. That was the task. Close enough to cripple or to cause important damage to tanks moving close to each other; furthermore, the shockwave of the explosion of the bombs could simply knock out the tank crews unconscious.

Say you are the driver of a T-34 and that a Stuka sends its regards from above releasing a 250 kg bomb. Let´s think the bomb does not hit your tank; it rather hits the ground and explodes roughly 30 meters away from you. What could happen to you and your comrades inside?

There i did not mention the cases when the bombs indeed hit the tanks or when they exploded a mere fistful of meters away from it, when you would have a cleanly destroyed tank and/or a killed crew.

Again, if there is a myth on the devastating power of the Stukas it was an allied invention. I see no myths in the world of the Stuka.

25% of its bombs only? Within a radius of 185 feet?
Seems too low. While I do not have any numbers at hand, I am confident it had a higher accuracy rate. Dive bombing was proved to be far more accurate than rather releasing the bombs on an horizontal flight. There is no debate on this.

With dive angles ranging from 60 to 90 degrees, the superb pilots trained for dive bombing, fulfilling their combat orders was not difficult. The opinion of a veteran has it that "when you had finally entered the required angle, the bombload was delivered as if by hand".

You could not make the B-17, B-24 or the Lanc a dive bomber to ensure the rough 7 or 8 tons of bombs carried would all hit the mark.

Dive bombing implied the aircraft designed for such role would be either small or medium size. The bombload was of course smaller than those of the four engine bombers.

That is certainly one of the reasons they made a plane for the sole specific role of dive bombing: to ensure the limited bombload would hit the mark on far higher rate.

What would then be the purpose of dive bombers?

You must understand the Stuka was developed for that very specific role, and later on was adapted for tank busting fitted with more powerful cannons. (There i can assure you it was more accurate than the rocket armed typhoons).

The Panzers and the Stukas made a symbiosis. With its rough non retractable undercarriage, the Stuka could keep up with the fast advance of armored columns and it could land on terrains where most planes would have perished, to be immediately refueled and rearmed and to get back in the air for another scream.


As I have said on this thread, the conditions for proper usage of the Stuka had ceased to exist by 1944 in the west. The Germans were not fools and ceased to deploy it in the west where a very numerous and capable enemy was being engaged.

The eastern front still offered some conditions for the Stuka and it was there where it saw service until the end: why? The enemy in the air, if as well numerous, was one of a lower quality.

That the soviets made good fighters by the end is true; what they never had in significant numbers was the properly trained pilots to get the very best out of them.

Actually losses of Stukas in the east were due more to AA/ground fire than to interceptors.