Excerpt from a letter received by Oberst Hannes Trautloft from Major Hans Phillipp Kommodore JG 1 in October 1943…“probably Oberst, you can’t get the picture of what we have here. This time we are comfortably installed, the girls are numerous and we have all that we need. The bad point is that the aerial fighting is extremely hard. Hard, not only because the enemy are superior in numbers and the Boeing better armed, but also because we just left the comfortable chairs of the operation room and the music impregnated atmosphere of the living area. To fight against twenty Russians or some Spitfire is fun and you forget that you are not certain you will survive. But to go over a group of seventy Flying Fortresses makes you see your whole life in front of you. And once you have made up your mind and go in, it is even more difficult to force each pilot of the squadron, right down to the youngest ‘green’ to do the same…”
Hans Phillipp one of Germany’s most successful, experienced and popular fighter pilots was killed in combat soon after, when attacking American bomber formations over Munster.
Between January and May 1944, 1,850 German fighter pilots were lost in combat over the Reich, including many of the finest Geschwader, Gruppen and Staffel leaders. These men were irreplacable and all were killed attempting to defeat the air armadas attacking German cities and installations.
So serious was the situation German pilots were ordered to evade combat with the fighter escort and go after the bombers.
The bombing raids on German were responsible for the defeat of the Luftwaffe, despite what post war studies concluded. Surviving German fighter pilots testify to this.
Source from the above quotes-Defenders Of The Reich- Jagdgeschwader 1 volumes two and three by Eric Mombeek.
Yes Digger since 1944 whan it was absolutly clear that strategic bombing could shot down the germans fighters, Allies changed the tactic and began to impose germans to the battle using the bombers armade as the bait.
Each B-17 had 5 gun-turret. Armade of of 200 handrets - 1000 turrets. What’s great power may you say!!!
Only at first look.
Indeed it was practically unpossible to hit the speed aim like Fw-190D/6 or especially jet Me-262 from the B-17 turret. The tupical pictures of shot down the german fighter was when he try to hit the bombers at this moment the escort fighters Mustang or Tanderbolt hit the germans fighter.
Exactly this way were shot down the lion part of german fighter when they attacked the bombers.
Besides in 1945 german fighters began to use the rocket R4M against strategic bombers from distance 1000 -700 meters. The resault was very essential for the allies: each volley of 4-6 rockets could easy hited one or two B-17.
Hans Phillipp one of Germany’s most successful, experienced and popular fighter pilots was killed in combat soon after, when attacking American bomber formations over Munster.
Yes he was shot down by the escort fighters ( its seems by the Tanderbolt)
But air superioty was not easy given in the Germany
…just for one week from 8 to 14 October of 1943 with the films in Bremen, Marienburg, Danzig, Munster and again Shvaynfurt the Americans lost 148 machines (B-17). This indicated the loss of altogether only for several days of almost 1500 people of crew. Even Americans it was not from the forces find by it replacement. Describing the second film on Shvaynfurt, official American historian said that the German response reaction was “unprecedented on the spread, the skill, with which it was planned, and on the cruelty, with which it was executed”.
Kause Bekker : “The war diaries of Luftwaffe”
This “succesfull bombing” could continie endless and till the lost of Germnany of its territory (i.e. war production power ). Becouse every time germans could find the effective way to counteraction of bomb air-strike till 1944 (i.e. till the lose its economic war power).
When Allies developed the P-51 Germans soon had the much better TA-152H and Me-262 and just lose of production regions like Silesia area and Rure made possible to save air-superior of allies after junuary 1945.
And how many members of crew of strategic bombers and fighters of escort were losed for this period?
Moving from one type of large aircraft to another is a comparatively simple job, so should only take a year or two (maybe a little longer in wartime). Engineering timescales are far longer than you are giving credit for. Where I work we’re just starting the project to introduce a new type of vacuum pump. The whole design/development/production cycle is going to take us two years despite the fact that we already know what it is going to look like and have a good understanding of the technologies involved. That’s the timescale for moving from deciding to make something to the first deliveries out of the door. While it’s a relatively high-tech machine, it’s also pretty simple (one moving part) and we’re used to building them.
Now move to Britain in the 1940s. They don’t have any of the labour-saving devices that we use to compress the development/industrialisation timeframe (principally CAD/CAM and PCs), and if you change their strategy you need to train the highly skilled people up to support this.
Now, let’s look at the things they need to do to change strategy from say heavy bombers to tanks and landing craft.
Stage 1:
Decide overall strategy (includes allocating resources, people, budget, company workshare, etc.)
Given the lack of certainty about the future and the inevitable fights over resources, this is likely to take at least a year from the overall decision being made.
Stage 2:
Build Infrastructure (what do you need - dry docks, airfields, factories, etc.)
Built advanced research base (e.g. universities, metallurgists, engine companies, ship design bureau, test pilot school, etc.)
Train skilled employees (draughtsmen, engineers, welders, riveters, machinists, etc.)
The critical path here is training the employees. While some can simply be transferred over (e.g. an engine drawing is pretty much the same no matter what it goes into) most cannot and must be trained from scratch. That will take an absolute minimum of 5 years to be able to do the job in sufficient numbers - remember that you cannot train everyone at once, as someone must train the trainers. 10 years is a far more realistic timescale for this.
Stage 3:
Technology phase - come up with advanced designs and get them to the technology demonstrator phase.
Call this a year, although it is frequently longer.
Stage 4:
Development/production - turning the technology demonstrators into something that is in mass production. Usually involves at least two prototype stages, and a huge amount of production engineering. Minimum 2 years.
Stage 5:
Stockpiling and training troops to use the new equipment.
A new design is no use if on the outbreak of war you only have none with a promise of lots more soon. Likewise, the troops need time to learn to use the new kit, train together in appropriate formations, etc. Minimum 1 year, at least 2 strongly preferred.
If we stop the clock in summer 1939 (declaration of WW2 - strategy has to be in place and ready to go by this point), we can work back to where the decision has to be made.
Stage 1: 1 year
Stage 2: 5-10 years
Stage 3: 1-2 years
Stage 4: 2 years
Stage 5: 1-2 years
This gives a timescale of 10-17 years - meaning a decision had to be made between 1922 and 1929. Add in the great depression slowing things down and 1922 comes out as the most plausible date. In other words, British strategy in WW2 was fixed a mere four years after the end of WW1, at a time when people thought of it as “the war to end all wars”. This was also the time when the theories of Douhet first became popular, and the populace was still reeling from the slaughter in Flanders. Worst of all, by midway through stage 2 the process is pretty much irreversible unless you want to risk starting a war armed with limited stocks of obselete weapons.
You are absolutly right, pdf.
If we’uld tolk about full cycle from the first project to the begining of serial production the simular kind devices like you told.
I’ll say you more. When i work in the military-defence plan in Krasnodar i learn the much of interesting. This plan developed the special combat car (on chassi of 6-wheels MAZ) for the Radio control of new russian strategical missle “Topol-M”. So i was wery wonder when learned that this rocet sistems was developed since 1975 till 1993 ( i.e. 18 years) and continie to modernize constantly.
But this example don’t touch to the problem which we consider here.
Becouse the Britains war plans didn’t need to developed the wearpon from the “zero”. All what they need were already developed and futhermore - already wery well fly ( C-47) and sailed.
Let’s look to the example:
As you know the B-17E was developed by Boing in 1942. So when US gov ordered the big party (3000) of B-17E\G and Boing could to produce such quantity then Douglas and Vega began to produce B-17E just after a few month becouse they got from Boing not just full complex of documentation but also the one ready B-17.
Another example. As you know USSR had the own strategic bomber Pe-8 but after german invasion the production of Pe-8 was practically stopped becouse as uneffective and extremaly dear ( one Pe-8 need such quntity of metal as 25-30 fighters like Mig-3(!!!)). Instead of it was begining the mass production of Il-2 just for 2-3 month (!!!).
And i want to repit for you USSR till the war had absolute anothe war doctrine (strategy) then in the end of 1941.
It was 3 different war doctrine ;
1 till the 1941 - this was total offencive doctrine ( so called “the quick victory by small blood on the enemy territory”).
2.1941-1943(till Stalingrad) - the total defence doctrine by all of the means ( so called “all for the defence”).
3. 1943-45 - strategical total offencive towar the west. so called “Liberation”.
Every doctrine period need the it’s own tactic and strategy of war. And if you look to the germany the it’s doctrine changed from the Blizkrige till the 1941,
the strategical defence 1942-1944 and the “total defence war” 1944-45.
And every doctrine need it’s “special” wearpon till 1941 - tanks and dive bombers, in the end of war - more high figters.
And Germany wery quick and effective change the war production according the situation ( while it was possible). For the short time were developed decads of principal newest weaponry ( like ballistic missles, jet fighters and heavy tanks).
So i really don’t understand why Germany and USSR could change the war doctrine 3 times during the war but Britain as you say could change it since 1929
May be Britains high command belived in it’s doctrine as the religion?
Not think so, indeed it wasn’t nessesary to change the production line for getting of transport airplains. Just it need to order in USA instead of 200-300 of B-17 just 1000 C-47 and FOR THE ALL WAR decide the problem of air supplie for the britain troops.
But no , we has the doctrine of Douhet!!!?
Now move to Britain in the 1940s. They don’t have any of the labour-saving devices that we use to compress the development/industrialisation timeframe (principally CAD/CAM and PCs), and if you change their strategy you need to train the highly skilled people up to support this.
well may be USA , Germany and USSR had the labour-saving devices?
They all were able to quick change the production lines and began the mass production for 2-6 month???
Now, let’s look at the things they need to do to change strategy from say heavy bombers to tanks and landing craft.
Stage 1:
Decide overall strategy (includes allocating resources, people, budget, company workshare, etc.)
Given the lack of certainty about the future and the inevitable fights over resources, this is likely to take at least a year from the overall decision being made. Stage 2:
Build Infrastructure (what do you need - dry docks, etc.)
Built advanced research base (e.g. universities, metallurgists, engine companies, ship design bureau, test pilot school, etc.)
Train (skilled employees draughtsmen, engineers, welders, riveters, machinists, etc.)
The critical path here is training the employees. While some can simply be transferred over (e.g. an engine drawing is pretty much the same no matter what it goes into) most cannot and must be trained from scratch. That will take an absolute minimum of 5 years to be able to do the job in sufficient numbers - remember that you cannot train everyone at once, as someone must train the trainers. 10 years is a far more realistic timescale for this.
Stage 3:
Technology phase - come up with advanced designs and get them to the technology demonstrator phase.
Call this a year, although it is frequently longer.
Stage 4:
Development/production - turning the technology demonstrators into something that is in mass production. Usually involves at least two prototype stages, and a huge amount of production engineering. Minimum 2 years.
Stage 5:
Stockpiling and training troops to use the new equipment.
A new design is no use if on the outbreak of war you only have none with a promise of lots more soon. Likewise, the troops need time to learn to use the new kit, train together in appropriate formations, etc. Minimum 1 year, at least 2 strongly preferred.
If we stop the clock in summer 1939 (declaration of WW2 - strategy has to be in place and ready to go by this point), we can work back to where the decision has to be made.
Stage 1: 1 year
Stage 2: 5-10 years
Stage 3: 1-2 years
Stage 4: 2 years
Stage 5: 1-2 years
Sure 10-17 years , pdf
Only stupid germans developed tank “Tiger” just for 8 month and already after the firs tests in 1942 through the 6 month begin the mass production.
And Russian could developed the heavy Is-2 for 1,5 year.
Why nobody said them “to wait 10-17 years”
And why US developed B-17 since 1938 to the 1941 ?
All what you wrote hasn’t any relation to the Britain war production, becouse:
Britain already had in 1940 full infrastructure: plant , dry docks and skilled employees).
All WHAT THEY REALLY NEED WAS THE DECISION OF COMMAND (firstly W. Churchill). Whinston Churchill - that who was the REAL Britain strategist.
If he would wish instead of sensless strategic bombing Britain could easy to accumulate air and sea transport means in 1943 for the allies troops.
But he prefered to convince the Rusvelt to land in Italy on political reason. He wish to capture the Balkans and save the Britain political influence - the biggest Churchill mistake.
As the resault after the war USSR and especialy USA get the big political influence in the world - but Britain the bigges impire till the WW2 - lost a lot of it’s power.
That’s a rather easier situation, as the industrial base is already there. However, you still have problems. You can’t use the US drawings in the UK as the dimensions used are different in places (different screw threads for instance). Furthermore, the UK didn’t use the likes of statistical process control to control tolerances, but rather relied on craftsmen who would modify and adjust parts until the tolerance stack fitted. This also requires drawing modifications and design changes. The final difference is that many of the parts will have been made by sub-contractors in the US who would not have to change over - all these would have to be sourced from the UK.
Even then, this isn’t that major a change. It was only in very rare cases (mostly in Burma, with the Kohima/Imphal campaign being a notable case) that supplies dropped by air transport were critical. By and large, the air transport fleet was large enough to support what airmobile units we did have. Hence, while very pretty this arguament is a strawman - it doesn’t represent the sort of wholesale change you are suggesting be made to British strategy, and in fact the net effect is the same as if they simply stopped bombings and left the bombers on their airfields in the UK. It isn’t an alternative.
In any case, you’re still looking at a couple of years to make all the changes required and have appreciable numbers in service. None of the problems above applied to the US with the B-17s, and it was still a year or so before they had significant numbers available.
More or less. However, if you look at the weapons they require it’s pretty much all in common - tanks, artillery, infantry weapons, ground attack aircraft and fighters. They require pretty much the same industrial base, skills, etc.
This is where your arguament falls down. The German industrial strategy in WW2 was chronically screwed up, and the improvements Speer made to it from 1944 onwards are more reflective of how bad the situation was to start with than any quality in the industry. The big problem the Germans had was that the kit they were “mass-producing” was usually either slightly modified versions of prewar designs (note that the Panzer IV and Me-109 were still in production at the end of the war, and made up a major part of output even then) or bodged-together prototypes that were never fully developed and rarely made it into large-scale production. The Tiger tank is a perfect example of this - because it pretty much went straight into production as a prototype many of the bugs were never really ironed out leaving it horribly unreliable. Because the Germans both never really understood production engineering and didn’t have an industrial base capable of producing heavy armoured vehicles not nowhere near what the Soviets or US were producing. That’s why the Tigers were always outnumbered 20+ to 1 on the battlefield - Germany was incapable of producing enough, and those it did produce broke down all the time.
Jet fighters are another issue - despite being virtually identical to conventional aircraft apart from the engine, their reliability was awful and it took the Germans years to get them in anything resembling mass production.
The Soviet doctrine barely changed at all - the use of combined arms armour and infantry supported by artillery and ground attack aircraft. That was their doctrine from 1941 to 1945, and they made it work for them.
German doctrine changed a bit (mainly the emphasis on wonder-weapons and ultra heavy armoured vehicles). As discussed above, they screwed it up a treat and lost accordingly.
UK doctrine was to use the Navy to keep invaders out, send a small professional army to assist allies then destroy the enemy from the air with heavy bombers. That means the industrial base can support a reasonably sized navy, a small army and a large air force. Unless you follow the timeline back to the 1920s, you have to keep this proportion (as both the Soviets and Germans did).
This wasn’t a problem in reality. Besides, as the Berlin airlift demonstrates 1,000 C-47 aircraft really isn’t very much in terms of airlift capacity. It’s roughly equivalent to 5 Boeing 747s.
But no , we has the doctrine of Douhet!!!?
As already mentioned, the Tiger was horribly unreliable and the Germans were incapable of mass-producing it. The Germans produced 1,850 Tiger tanks of all types during the war. Over the same timescale, the US produced 40,000 Shermans and the Soviets 58,000 T-34s. That isn’t mass production - they were making around two tanks per day!
The Soviets were building extremely heavy tanks prewar. The British were not.
The B-17 was building on previous bombers. In the same way as the Lancaster was developed from about 1941 onwards, again building on previous bombers and commercial aircraft. They were made in the same factories that before the war were producing airliners.
To do what? Everything they had was building whatever it could flat out from 1939 onwards.
Sealift was never something we were short of, except where the U-boats were causing huge losses. Furthermore, an aircraft factory is not suitable for producing shipping.
Airlift wasn’t very useful as it couldn’t shift the heavy equipment an army needs (tanks, artillery, stores, etc.) until after the war.
Naff all to do with Churchill’s decisions on where to fight. The UK was literally bankrupt after WW2 (to the extent that we were selling the Royal Navy for scrap to buy food - rationing got much stricter after the war when the US was no longer sending us lend-lease food) and in no condition to fight to hang on to the empire. The fact that a deal had been done with the various nationalist parties in the Empire that they would get independence after the war in return for helping the UK fight it also had a great deal to do with things.
Incidentally, the Italian/Balkan plans were not for political reasons primarily but simply because we had an army available in Africa and landings in Southern Europe were percieved to be easier than landings in Northern France. Remember at this point nobody really had any idea of how to do an amphibious assault, we were inventing the techniques as we went along.
I think the assets that were used for strategic bombing would have been better allocated when used in a tactical air-support role and attacking only transportation faciltlites and fuel/lubricant refineries.
But that’s what we call “Monday morning quarterbacking” in the US.
This tactical support warfare was clearly used in France to the lead up of the Normandy invasion. The results were little different to the effects of strategic bombing with something like 97% of the French railway system destroyed and tremendous collateral damage.
Soley attacking transportation facilities still draws into focus one major problem, the central nervous system of these facilities are invariably in the centre of towns and cities. Given the limitations of bombing at the time, there would still have been widespread damage to the areas surrounding the target.
Good points Dig. But I have to say that a sustained, mainly tactical campaign was never tired. But the effectiveness of which was proven as the USAAF conducted an experiment of sorts, one in which they used strategic bombing against a Wehrmacht division (in Normandy I believe, but this is all off the top of my head). The Germans were attacked using B-24s/B-17s on the first wave, then they were hit by B-26s on the second (I think), then fighters came in and conducted strafing attacks to finish off anything that was left moving.
The result was a dazed collection of survivors, that to say were “combat ineffective” is a gross understatement. But on the negative side, over 100 US soldiers were killed by their own air force because they were to close…
Absolutely true! The strategic bombing campaign: for all its flaws, shortcomings, and moral questions --was in fact as much a “battle of attrition” as it was an effort to destroy German War production. Whether this was by design, or accident, is irrelevant.
The operation you’re talking about mate was the opening air attack of Operation Cobra, when 1,500 heavy bombers, 380 medium bombers and 550 fighter bombers were to attack a target box of 7000 metre frontage, to a depth of about 2,500 meters on 25th July.
Parts of the target were obscured and a portion of the force dropped the bombload on US troops killing over 100 and wounding nearly 500 others. The effect on Panzer Lehr was worse with over one thousand men killed and most of the divisions tanks put out of action.
A similar action by the British, Operation Totalize using just over 1,000 bombers began on 7th August and shattered the 89th Infantry Division opening a 3,000 metre gap in the German lines.
Here the success of strategic and tactical airpower is exemplified but it must be said the Luftwaffe was no where to be seen. The bulk of the German fighters sent to France had by this time been largely nullified.
Yes, it was. From about December 1943 or so until D-Day nearly half the bombing missions were against transport and similar targets in France. The result was that by the time of the invasion Normandy was virtually isolated.
There are limits to extending this beyond France and the Low Countries however, notably to do with aircraft range/survivability and navigation.
Indeed the dawing and different screw threads is not seriouse problem.
Do you know the history of creation of Ty-4 - the soviet copy of B-29.
In 1944 3 B-29 had forced landing near the Vladivostok. The american crews were sended to the US but airplains …
When Cold war had begin USSR need the strategic bombers. Constructor Typolev take the captured B-29 for the sample and begin to made copy of B-29 using the accesible soviet technologies.
So look to the chronology:
june 1945 - november 1945 : Dismantling and stidy of two B-29
Winter 1945-46- developed the dawing and technical documentations for the B-4 ( first name of Ty-4)
Summer 1946 - authumn 1946: creation of first prototype and testing in air.
End of 1946 - begin the serial production on the Ty-4 on the Kazan’s plant.
9 may of 1947 - first 3 serial Ty-4 took part in Victory parade in Moscow.
End of 1947 - second plan ( in Kuibyshev) begin serial production of Ty-4.
And don’t forget thet practically of 90% of material and technology were developed from the “zero”. So the total period of creation of soviet super-bomber was 1,5 year + about 1 year for the full elimination of defects.
Now what do you try to prove for me???
USSR which has low industrial base (in 1945) was able for 1.5 to create from “zero” (whithout any drawings or technical documentation) the copy of US superbomber but Britain was need 10 year to copy (much easy) the vehicle like of C-47 ??
By the way Britain has own project transport airplain and it was absolutly don’t need to take C-47 as sample.
More or less. However, if you look at the weapons they require it’s pretty much all in common - tanks, artillery, infantry weapons, ground attack aircraft and fighters. They require pretty much the same industrial base, skills, etc.
Yes they require the tanks, artillery, infantry weapons, ground attack aircraft and fighters. USSR hadn’t the time or resources for “experimented” with doctrine of Douhet or something else. The USSR war doctrine was the resault of batlte for the survival in the East. No illusion , no experiments just realy needed things.
The big problem the Germans had was that the kit they were “mass-producing” was usually either slightly modified versions of prewar designs (note that the Panzer IV and Me-109 were still in production at the end of the war, and made up a major part of output even then) or bodged-together prototypes that were never fully developed and rarely made it into large-scale production.
This is very controversial qustion.
Certainly Me-19 and Panzer IV were developed till the war , but were deep modernized during the war. Except there are many principialy new kind of wearpon - for instance Fay-2 - was in the end of 1944 practically ready tactical rocket ( which could be used for the nuclear charge)
The Tiger tank is a perfect example of this - because it pretty much went straight into production as a prototype many of the bugs were never really ironed out leaving it horribly unreliable.
Certainly first Tigers in 1943 had a dafects. But despite this till the appearance King Tager it was the BEST HEAVY TANK OF WW2.
And you are wrong there’re produced only 1850 Tigers not becouse Germany couldn’t made it more but HEAVI WAS NOT THE BASIC TANK OF ANY ARMY in WW2.
For instance in USSR the heavi tank production had just 4% (Is-1/2, KB-1/2) of all tanks. ( i.e. about 1500-2000 at all) .
And don’t forget there’we a lot of cases when Tiger win ( at least not lost) the batlle with 10-15 Sherman or T-34. The King Tiger was the best of the heavy tank , It was absolutly proved and use Tiger2 skillfuly in active defence German could very succesfull fight with allies medium tanks.
Another good example of very quick creation of mass tamk -Panther.
Since first project of spring of 1942 germans ( being under impression from T-34-76) developed it own excellent medium tank Panther. Already in summer 1943 first Panthers were made and tested at the front. Till the march 1945 were prodused about 5500 Panther all of modification. Not bed i think for 2 years. And againg Panther was one of the best medium tank of WW2.
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Jet fighters are another issue - despite being virtually identical to conventional aircraft apart from the engine, their reliability was awful and it took the Germans years to get them in anything resembling mass production.
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But nobody could made something simular Me-262 till 1945. Britains and US jet fighters appeared alredy after the capitulation of Germany.
The Soviet doctrine barely changed at all - the use of combined arms armour and infantry supported by artillery and ground attack aircraft. That was their doctrine from 1941 to 1945, and they made it work for them.
Not true. Soviet doctrine had very big change after the 22 june of 1941 from the offencive doctrine to the strategical defence. It was restructed and rebuilded very many in war industry.
For instance : it was practicaly stoped the soviet prodaction heavi bombers ( to build more fighters and Il-2 principually new king of aircraft -shurmovik)
production of many easy tanks like t-26 or BT was stopped or limited.
Soviet swimming tang (T-37/37) also was stopped . Why???
Becouse the extremaly effective in war intelligence during the offencive easy tanks were very weak in defence against germans tank like Pz-3/4.
USSr was forced to refuse many kind of weaponry and concentrated on production of REALY nedeed wearpon.
UK doctrine was to use the Navy to keep invaders out, send a small professional army to assist allies then destroy the enemy from the air with heavy bombers. That means the industrial base can support a reasonably sized navy, a small army and a large air force. Unless you follow the timeline back to the 1920s, you have to keep this proportion (as both the Soviets and Germans did).
This british doctrine was a big mistake. It was absolutly clear already in 1940 after Hitler quick capture of the Europe and Britain ( one of the greatest war country in the world till the WW2) nothing could did to stop germans.
Thank’s the god Britain had a USA as ally which had a lot of money ( i.e. recources). If not US resources ( about 60% of world production) Britain certainly losed the war. Thanks of your “doctrine”.
This wasn’t a problem in reality. Besides, as the Berlin airlift demonstrates 1,000 C-47 aircraft really isn’t very much in terms of airlift capacity. It’s roughly equivalent to 5 Boeing 747s.
But no , we has the doctrine of Douhet!!!?
What???!!!
According your mathematic 1 Boing 747 is equal 200 of C-47, right?
C-47 could transported 27 passangers. OK, 20 full complected of ammunition soldiers.
So 20 *200 = 4 000 mens !!! WHERE DID YOU SEE SUCH BOING 747 guy. May be in a dream
Indeed 1000 C-47 were able to transported about 20 000 good armered soldied ( 2 airborne army) anywhere for some hours. Use C-47 for airlift of troops and power british fleet for the transporting of tanks end ets.
Use air superior in fighters to shot down the Luftwaffe. Perfect doctrine !
But no , we has the doctrine of Douhet???..and good US ally which was very glad to sell a super-dear strategic bombers for YOUR OWN MONEY.
As already mentioned, the Tiger was horribly unreliable and the Germans were incapable of mass-producing it. The Germans produced 1,850 Tiger tanks of all types during the war. Over the same timescale, the US produced 40,000 Shermans and the Soviets 58,000 T-34s. That isn’t mass production - they were making around two tanks per day!
Really is it not mass production?
So soviet heavy IS-1/2 were builded about 3000 all of modification - was it not mass production too?
And how many did heavy tanks the Britain and US together?
I think no more 2000.
And don’t forget 1 tiger was able to fight with 10-15 Shermans and win. If allies hadn’t absolute air superior and couldn’t crushed germans heavy tank from the air - I SERIOUSLY DOUBT they could able effectively fight with germans tanks.
The Soviets were building extremely heavy tanks prewar. The British were not.
Wrong, remember multy-towers Britains steel monsters of 1917yy like MkIV.
Also Britain had the heavy projects in 1920yy.
The B-17 was building on previous bombers. In the same way as the Lancaster was developed from about 1941 onwards, again building on previous bombers and commercial aircraft. They were made in the same factories that before the war were producing airliners.
So Britain could easy build its own transport aircraft. Just if they wish.
Incidentally, the Italian/Balkan plans were not for political reasons primarily but simply because we had an army available in Africa and landings in Southern Europe were percieved to be easier than landings in Northern France. .
This “easy way” landing to the Italia had no strategic resault in 1943 becouse germans saved all of its Italian troops and just retreat to the strong positions.
It was absolutly clear that just Nothern France landing - real second front could crashed the germany. And allies excellent understand it in 1943-44. They just take a time in 1943.
The fitting of drop tanks to the P-51 series helped to greatly alter the course of the air war, not forgetting the P-47 and P-38 also benefited from drop tanks and could fly deeper into Germany.
This threat, long feared by the Luftwaffe materialized in January 1944. The German response was slow, as the planes that would have been best equipped to handle the new threat were still under development.
EKdo 262 was formed in April 1944 to develop and evaluate tacics for the Me-262, flying the first experimental missions against Allied recon aircraft in June 1944. The first Me-262 Jabos of KG 51 were used in action over France in early August 1944 and the famousKommando Nowotny was established in early October 1944, some nine months after American fighters had begun tearing apart the Jagdwaffe.
Similarly the Fw-190D-9 finally reached the squadrons in October and the Ta-152H finally entered evaluation service in November 1944.
While these aircraft may have impacted on the air war if introduced to service earlier, they simply had no major impact on the fighting as the German fighter force had already lost the war.
Strawman - this time you’re definately verging on trolling, even allowing for the language barrier. I’ve said repeatedly that the 10-15 year figure is to change over the industrial base completely. This is another case where it didn’t happen, but instead existing production capacity was used to produce something marginally different. Going by my figures previously for the only relevant bits (retraining, building infrastructure, etc. is not needed as it is already there, as is the design) you get a figure of 2-3 years. The Soviets took nearly 4 to have the aircraft in service beyond a couple of prototypes, which is to be expected given their circumstances.
So in other words, they couldn’t afford to take the time to change over their industrial base to make something else? Yet the UK, which for quite some time was fighting Germany all by itself is somehow expected to do exactly that? Either you’re a hypocrite or you really haven’t thought that one through.
Problem is the new weapons were never produced in sufficient quantity, as a result of the Germans not following the process I’ve outlined.
Incidentally, I’m not familiar with the Fay-2 (V-2?). If you’re referring to the V-2, it wasn’t until the 1950s that nuclear warheads got small enough for a V-2 to carry one, and they were in artillery shell sizes shortly afterwards so that arguament is somewhat specious. V-2 production was never big enough to have any noticeable effect on the course of the war - it always stayed at the level of pure terror bombing without actually having the desired effect and so affecting the course of the war.
There’s a reason that heavy tanks became extinct pretty rapidly postwar. They’re a thoroughly bad idea, but the Germans were fascinated with them (see all the willy-waving going on over the Maus and similar).
Irrelevant - I was specifically addressing your claim that the Tiger was ever in “mass production”’.
It was never decisively superior to Allied tanks - the late model Shermans (-M4A3E8) came surprisingly close, while the Centurion and Patton tanks were thoroughly superior to the Panthers (if unfortunately just too late for useful war service).
Bulls**t. The RAF had an operational Meteor squadron in July 1944. They were used in the UK rather than on the continent as their high speed was critical against the V-1s, while the Allies didn’t need them to secure air supremacy on the continent.
So what? They were still producing aircraft, tanks, artillery and small arms. The exact type changed, but as I’ve mentioned earlier and even you appear to understand that’s a relatively easy change. Changing from say armoured vehicles to aircraft is very hard indeed.
So what? It was the most effective doctrine of any of the countries fighting Germany up until 1943 or so, in so far as only a few square miles of British territory was occupied. Everyone else who fought the Germans was either crushed (France, Poland, etc.) or lost immense areas of territory with huge numbers of PoWs (the Soviets).
Incidentally, no idea where you’ve got the idea that the UK was “one of the greatest war country in the world” in 1939 - the country was effectively bankrupt from fighting WW1 and still in psychological shock from it’s first experience of mass casulaties since the Norman conquest. It only lasted as long as it did thanks to huge US cash and material support.
True no matter what the UK’s doctrine - US production was big enough to crush everyone else put together.
Boeing 747 cruise speed = 910 km/h
C-47 cruise speed = 280 km/h
910/280 = 3.25
38.9 x 3.25 = 126.4 - hence, for short journeys where range is not an issue a single Boeing 747 can do the work of 125 C-47s. In reality it will be rather more capable as it is far better designed for bulk freight (lifting nose, palletised freight, etc.) and has around four times the range. Soldiers themselves make up a tiny fraction of any army - the majority of airlift requirements are for freight.
Hey pdf , lets without insults OK?
well Britons couldn’t changed “doctrine”. OK no problems.
Although i have seriouse objection it was really need to change something in war production but i think it’s wrong to refuse your point at all.
Becouse you are englishman not me.
My best wishes for the British
