Transports

[plan_D]

The Li-2 was a copy of the C-47, but the Russians turned them into Gunships, as well as transports. Which the Americans then copied which became the AC-47 Spooky.

The Ju-52 wasn't impressive by late war, the paratroop operations of the Germans was minimal. And the transport was mainly done on the ground.
Apart from in the few encircling incidents that the Germans got themselves into. I say few because the Germans were very good at organisation and would be able to retreat before being encircled.

[Lightning Guy]

Paratroop operations were minimal because of the disaster the German paratroop force suffered at Crete (Operation Mercury). Hitler had lost faith in them (not to mention MOST of them). Plus paratroops are generally an offensive weapon and the Germans had very little offense going in the later part of the war. The German paratroops mostly served as regular infantry much like the Allied paratroopers after Market-Garden.

[MP-Willow]

Som,e great looks at a C-47 on floats I wonder about the payload and it just took a pritty plane and made it look crazy. But it shows that they put it everywhere.

Question after Market-Garden, the Allies did not have a lot of places to use paratroops, yes? Please corect me if I am at falt.

[plan_D]

The did a drop on the Rhine. And that's about it.

Yes, Crete proved that you can't use paratroopers as the main force, with 25% losses that was a bad performance.

[MP-Willow]

Interesting. Question, this being more a what if, but we are talking paratroops, would they had made any difference in the Bulge if dropped? Could they have say helped to open the way to Anterp?

[plan_D]

You mean if the Germans dropped them? No. The Germans didn't need them anyway, if the 101st hadn't held on as they did the German Panzers would have overrun our oil reserves, and probably pushed all the way back, deep into France before an effective counter attack could have been mounted.

[Crazy]

Originally Posted by plan_D

Apart from in the few encircling incidents that the Germans got themselves into. I say few because the Germans were very good at organisation and would be able to retreat before being encircled.

Yes, and look at the magnitude of those encirclements. Stalingrad, for example. The airlift to the Sixth Army failed miserably. The army needed a minimum of 300 tons of supplies per day, and often didn't get more than 100 tons.

/rant

The Ju-52 was a good plane, but (IMO) wasn't used to it's potential

[plan_D]

That wasn't the German generals fault. Von Paulus ordered a retreat but he was told by Hitler to stop it, and take Stalingrad. Had the Von Paulus been allowed to do what he wanted, those Germans would not have been encircled. As I said, they were very well organised and disciplined.
And even then, the only place the Russian broke out to encircle the 6th Army was through the Romanian held lines.

[Lightning Guy]

Hitler wanted to hold Stalingrad for its symbolic importance (city of Stalin and all that) and for the same reason Stalin wanted to take it back. Strategically it wasn't that important to either side and yet it became perhaps the key battle of the Eastern Front. All because of the leaders' egos. . . interesting.

[MP-Willow]

Interesting. Ego seems to be a big player in war yes?
I will have to agree the 101st holding out was a BIG reason maybe the only reason the Bulge held. I am not shure how they did it, but they did.

Crazy, is that a P-47? I am trying to test myself, so I could be really off.

[Lightning Guy]

Ego is a huge matter in war. In happened all over the place. No examples of the Japanese need be sited but the Brits had Monty and we had Patton, 'nuff said there.

Yes MP-Willow that is a P-47. Specifically it belongs to the 355th FS, 354th FG, 9th AF.

[MP-Willow]

thanks, I hope to get a little better on identifing aircraft as i read this forum and talk with you all.

Yes but Patton did get the job done. I am not so high on Monty, maybe because of Patton and Monties slow break from the Normandy Beachead.

I think Stalingrad would have been a key point for the Germans in that it could be a major supply and transport hub in the south. I will have to read more on that, to get a better underatanding, but it would give an invading army a comand of some key water ways. But the city was almost flat ruined in the fight so the Germans would have had little to use.

[Lightning Guy]

I'm not too high on Monty either (Market-Garden was a fiasco) but he was a good armor commander and did a fine job against Rommel in North Africa. But any commander (be it Monty, Rommel, Patton, whoever) almost always got into trouble when they let ego affect their command.

[plan_D]

Monty was a very good General. Operation Market Garden was a good idea, he just failed to listen to his recce group. Even then the operation only just fell short.
1st Airborne (The ones that held Arnhem Bridge for 9 days against the 10th SS Panzer division) had to be dropped in three stages because the Americans had taken most of the C-47s allowing them to be dropped in one. Even then the 1st Airborne held Oosterbeek and held Arnhem road bridge for 9 days expecting relief from 30 Armoured Corps on the 3rd day.
The 82nd tasked with taking Nijmegan, failed. They took the south side but had to wait until the 30 Corps arrived to take the bridge.
101st tasked with taking Son Bridge also failed. The bridge was blown and 30 corps had to stop to build a pontoon bridge.
30 Corps was also delayed in Eindhoven by the Dutch crowds. So, what should have take 4 days took 10 which resulted in the capture of 3 of the 4 intended bridges. 30 Corps being British was delayed at Eindhoven, again at Son, then again at Nijmegan the bridges that should have been captured by the Americans. Through no real fault of their own, they failed.
The 1st Airborne, the only real heros of that operation held out without supply, an airborne division against the full might of the 10th SS Panzer division for 9 days before evacuating.

This was one mistake by Monty, but not only his mistake. He was a great General. Now, Patton was a good general but very arrogant, and he didn't care about the life of his men. Rommel, don't start with Rommel, Rommel was the greatest general of the war, and he was not arrogant just confident. You cannot fault Rommel, with his little supply he achieved a lot. The only General I mark above Rommel is Heinz Guderian.


Now, I know this seems to be common thought that Stalingrad wasn't strategically important but that's a load of crap. Stalingrad was important for many reasons; 1) It carried the name of their leader, therefore its capture breaks moral. 2)It's a city, with a large garrison, you don't leave yourself open to flank attacks from a city. 3)It's a large industrial city, with huge industrial capacity, even when flattened the basis for a large industry is there. 4)It was next to the large Caucasus Oil Fields, and taking Stalingrad gave them a point of process and a garrison to hold those fields 5)Caucasus was the only viable place ot meet hte Japanese armies, although 1000 miles apart in China, German pressure on China might have caused their collapse and a meeting between the Japanese and German armies. Which would have been deadly for the Allied Armies.

[MP-Willow]

Plan_D, I did not even think of Germany and Japan trying to join up. I also forgot about the oil, that was a big brain frez. So I still think that the city was important. Now you said oil am I right that the oil was the objective of the German push on the city?