Was the Nazi War machine really that powerful?

beauf

Its not simply about producing numbers and being easier to maintain and operate. It has to be easier to fight. The German tanks were easier to fight, more accurate, and later harder to kill.

The T-34 had an early advantage but was quickly outclassed by the later heavier German tanks. The T-34 had a lot of problems too, and wasn't that reliable.

The combat statistics for 1941 show that the Soviets lost an average of over seven tanks for every German tank lost.[76][77] The Soviets lost a total of 20,500 tanks in 1941 (approximately 2,300 of them T-34s, as well as over 900 heavy tanks, mostly KVs).[78] At least half the first summer's total T-34 losses came about due to mechanical failure, lack of fuel, or abandonment, rather than direct fire from German tanks or artillery.[69] There was a shortage of repair equipment and recovery vehicles, and it was not uncommon for early T-34s to enter combat carrying a spare transmission on the engine deck.[79]

... and that when the T-34 was superior to all the German tanks in the field.

The allies simply out produced the Germans.

beauf

Reekwind wrote: »

...
Really? I hate taking hardware but let's look at a few key categories:

[.....
• Fighters: We'll give that to the Me-262. Prior to that both British and US planes matched the Luftwaffe's best...

Now one of the reasons I don't like talking about hardware is that few, if any, of the above were decisive. With the exception of clear step changes in technology (eg the T-34 or Me-262) these merely gave an incremental edge... and a small one compared to training and organisation. For example, the M1 was clearly a better rifle than the K98k but would anyone argue that it automatically made the US infantryman a better soldier than one of the Wehrmacht?

The reality is that the Allies (both US/UK and Soviets) were producing hardware that was, at the very least, of similar quality to that of the Germans but they were producing it in greater numbers and less cost. That's not because they had some secret industrial technology but because they had the better design engineers

I don't think thats entirely true. You had entire periods where the 109 or 190 was clearly the best fighter in the battle. The allies had to scramble to catch up a lot of the time. The allies produced a lot of flawed designs in their day too. At the end of the day it was the greater manufacturing capacity that won the war.

Jawgap

The T-34 wasn't conceived as a tank destroyer or a heavy tank, it was conceived as a cavalry or fast tank to be used to exploit breakthroughs.

In this it excelled.

Jawgap

beauf wrote: »

I don't think thats entirely true. You had entire periods where the 109 or 190 was clearly the best fighter in the battle. The allies had to scramble to catch up a lot of the time. The allies produced a lot of flawed designs in their day too. At the end of the day it was the greater manufacturing capacity that won the war.

that, plus half decent designs, adequate technology and competent generalship.

Above all, though, I'd say it was the individual commitment, skill and valour of the soldiers, sailors and airmen that saw the Allies through to victory.

beauf

An unreliable breakout and vulnerable tank is flawed. But these flaws are not important, if you can produce so many.

The mental image of the T-34 travelling hundreds of kilometers without stopping is fantasy.
The V-2 engine had serious reliability problems. Depending on the source in 1941 it supposedly lasted for 100 hours on average. This figure went down in 1942 since some T-34’s could not travel more then 30-35 km.

The T-34 tested at the Aberdeen centre was built at the best factory using materials of superior quality but its engine stopped working after 72.5 hours. This was not due to American interference as there was a Soviet mechanic (engineer Matveev) charged with maintaining it. Still it was much better than the standard tanks since it covered a distance of 343km.
According to the head of the Armored Directorate of the Red Army N.Fedorenko, the average mileage of the T-34 to overhaul during the war, did not exceed 200 kilometers. This was considered adequate since the T-34’s service life at the front was considerably less. For example in 1942 only 66km.
In that sense the T-34 was indeed ‘reliable’ because it was destroyed before it had a chance to break down on its own!
Still there are examples of T-34’s breaking down during assaults even late in the war. For instance the 5th Guards Tank army in 1943 lost as much as 15% of its tanks during its march to Prokhorovka. In August ’43 the 1st Tank army lost 50% of its tanks due to malfunction. As late as the second half of 1944 tank units tried to replace engines with more than 30 hours of operation before a major attack.

In 1944 the Soviets still managed to lose 23,700 fully tracked AFVs of which only 2,200 were light tanks: the highest number of AFV losses in a single year by any country in history.(20) Of these losses 58% were T-34s, the large majority being T-34/85s. Despite all possible factors being in their favour and despite massive German operational losses during 1944, the Soviets still managed to loose around three AFVs for every German AFV destroyed, or around four tanks (mostly T-34/85s) for every German tank destroyed.

So if you take the point it was weight of numbers, that won the war, then the fact you can produce something in vast numbers is going to be decisive. Hard on crews though.

Reekwind

Jawgap wrote: »

I think engineering, design and production are used interchangeably and sometimes wrongly

There's a host of modern buzzwords (concurrent engineering, design for manufacture/assembly, etc) to describe the ideal approach to new product development. The key however is that they all stress the importance of a holistic approach. That is, that everyone - from production engineers through to the 'voice of the customer' - has an input into the final design. Which is really just common sense.

The Germans did not practice this. Their machines were over-engineered, overly expensive and often unreliable in the field. These faults stemmed from the very first stages of the design process when designers went away in isolation and came up with great ideas that were simply impractical or difficult to produce. Which is a luxury that Germany could ill afford.

beauf wrote:

At the end of the day it was the greater manufacturing capacity that won the war.

The Soviets, for example, could produce more tanks than the Germans, under circumstances of extreme disruption and hardship, not because they had massively superior industrial capacity (they didn't). Rather it was because their tanks were designed to be built as cheaply and efficiently as possible. They understood and worked within their resource and production constraints. No need for mass retooling of factories (hello, Panther) or issuing of completely manuals and toolkits for each model (I'm looking at you Bf109). Just steadily decreasing costs and increasing production runs.

... and that when the T-34 was superior to all the German tanks in the field.

The vast majority of such losses being the product of entirely untrained and under-equipped crews. Ditto with comparing lifetimes of tanks in a period when the Red Army was on wholesale retreat

beauf

Reekwind wrote: »

...The Germans did not practice this. Their machines were over-engineered, overly expensive and often unreliable in the field. ..

Some stats would suggest that the German tanks where much more reliable than the Russians ones.

Reekwind wrote: »

.They understood and worked within their resource and production constraints. No need for mass retooling of factories (hello, Panther) or issuing of completely manuals and toolkits for each model (I'm looking at you Bf109). Just steadily decreasing costs and increasing production runs.

The low standard of build cost them in terms of reliability, survivability.

Reekwind wrote: »

The vast majority of such losses being the product of entirely untrained and under-equipped crews. Ditto with comparing lifetimes of tanks in a period when the Red Army was on wholesale retreat

Not entirely the T34 had design issues, like poor sights, poor rate of fire, poor crew ergonomics. Also the German still had much better kill ratio even in retreat.

The T-34 was a great design. Its a little over hyped though.

Jawgap

beauf wrote: »

An unreliable breakout and vulnerable tank is flawed. But these flaws are not important, if you can produce so many.

Sorry, but I said it was designed to be used in the breakthrough phase of an offensive, not the breakout or break-in phases. It was intended to be used in the tactical rather than the pursuit zones.

In the Soviet doctrine, breakout and pursuit is the job of the mechanised and motorised formations, not the armour.

No doubt it was badly engineered and suffered reliability problems - but it could be readily repaired and easily recovered.

I don't care to get into an argument over which tank / aircraft / rifle etc was the best but given the impact the T34 had, it's difficult to see it as anything other than a success, imo.

beauf

IMO the most critical factor in its success was the vast numbers it was produced in.

Reekwind

beauf wrote: »

IMO the most critical factor in its success was the vast numbers it was produced in.

As Stalin put it: sometimes quantity has a quality all of its own. The Germans could never have outproduced the Soviet armour not because the Panther was the pinnacle of engineering excellence but the opposite: it was poorly designed for production

But really, the idea that the T-34 was simply a mass produced throwaway tank is hard to credit. In terms of simple fighting ability, it was head and shoulders above all German machines on its introduction and its later variants/upgrades remained competitive with the Panther. It was, by any standard, an excellent tank

Some stats would suggest that the German tanks where much more reliable than the Russians ones.

Some stats would. Other stats wouldn't. Like those from Operation Citadel

Jawgap

Like a lot of Soviet kit it was designed and fabricated to be peasant proof and winter proof.

They built the thing to perform well in Russia and the Russian climate - and it did the job.

beauf

Reekwind wrote: »

As Stalin put it: sometimes quantity has a quality all of its own.

Lol I like that.

Reekwind wrote: »

The Germans could never have outproduced the Soviet armour not because the Panther was the pinnacle of engineering excellence but the opposite: it was poorly designed for production

But really, the idea that the T-34 was simply a mass produced throwaway tank is hard to credit. In terms of simple fighting ability, it was head and shoulders above all German machines on its introduction and its later variants/upgrades remained competitive with the Panther. It was, by any standard, an excellent tank

Actually thats not what I'm saying. It was a great tank. I'm just saying it not as good as many make out. Its main advantage was in numbers. IMO, not everyone is going to agree.

As the war went on, the T-34 gradually lost some of its initial advantage. By the end of 1943, it had become a relatively easy target for German 75 mm-armed tanks and anti-tank guns, while hits from 88 mm-armed Tigers, anti-aircraft guns, and PaK 43 anti-tank guns usually proved lethal.[48] Not even the T-34-85 upgrade mitigated this: a German Army study dated October 5, 1944 showed that a Panther tank could easily penetrate the turret of a T-34-85 from the front at ranges up to 2000 m, and the frontal hull armour at 3000 m.[49]

The Germans also noted the T-34 was very slow to find and engage targets, while their own tanks could typically get off three rounds for every one fired by the T-34.[54]
When new German tanks types with thicker armour began appearing in late 1942, the T-34's 76.2 mm cannon was unable to deal with them. As a result, the T-34 was upgraded to the T-34-85 model. This model, with its 85 mm (3.35 in) ZiS gun, provided greatly increased firepower compared to the previous T-34/76 gun. The 85 mm gun could penetrate the front of a Tiger I tank between 200 and 500 m (220 and 550 yd).[55] Against the frontal armour of the Panther tank, the T-34-85 could only penetrate the non-mantlet part of the Panther turret at 500 m (550 yd),[49] meaning that even upgraded models of the T-34 usually had to flank a Panther to destroy it.[56]

Reekwind wrote: »

Some stats would. Other stats wouldn't. Like those from Operation Citadel

Depends what you read....

The German losses in destroyed tanks were very small compared to the losses suffered by the Red Army. Rotmistrov's 5th Guards Tank Army reported that it had lost 222 T-34, 89 T-70, 12 Churchill and 11 assault guns up to 16 July. These were total write-offs. This gives a total of 334 destroyed Soviet tanks and assault guns, which can be compared to, at most, 54 German tanks and assault guns destroyed. This means the Soviet tank losses were at least six times higher.

http://historum.com/war-military-history/22571-myth-prokhorovka-2.html#post945853?postcount=18

Reekwind

beauf wrote: »

Depends what you read....

http://historum.com/war-military-history/22571-myth-prokhorovka-2.html#post945853?postcount=18

I should have been clearer: I was referring to the Panthers at that point. According to Osprey's work on the Panther, "by 7 July 1943, the third day of the offensive, just 40 of the 184 Panthers that started Citadel were still operational, while by 10 July just 10 of them were still in service". Note that this excludes an additional 16 that broke down on the short journey of disembarking from the railhead and making it to the muster point

beauf

Bit of a lemon alright

Capt'n Midnight

beauf wrote: »

It wasn't enough to be robust. You need vastly greater numbers to overwhelm a technologically more advanced opponent.

Which is what happened on the Eastern front. Except that the Germans were still relying on horses during the invasion of France and the Russians had things like the T34 tank and aircraft like the IL-2 and Yak-3 up their sleeves.

One of the headstarts the Germans had was that they had losses of up to 1% [citation needed] during training. And that they only attacked one major country at a time at first, until the invasion of Russia. OK yes they attacked Poland and knew that would bring in the French but they also knew that the Russians would also attack so Poland would be defeated and they'd be back to one on one with France shortly.

Capt'n Midnight

beauf wrote: »

The T-34 had an early advantage but was quickly outclassed by the later heavier German tanks. The T-34 had a lot of problems too, and wasn't that reliable.

Of course the T-34 was outclassed, that was the whole point of building bigger tanks, but they built less of them.

Check out the numbers some time. IIRC the Germans only built about 6,000 Panthers and 1,350 Tiger I's and 500 Tiger II's

The Russians had similar numbers of heavy tanks with the KV and IS. And in 1941 meeting a KV-2 wasn't the best way to start the day even if you had an entire panzer division. As both the 1st and 6th Panzer Divisions found out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Raseiniai

Wibbs

beauf wrote: »

I don't think thats entirely true. You had entire periods where the 109 or 190 was clearly the best fighter in the battle.

It can be down to not so obvious factors too. Take the 109 in the Battle of Britain. It was better on paper in almost every way. It could fly inverted because it had fuel injection whereas te Spit and the Hurricane would fart and splutter after the barest negative G maneuver. The Spitfires gorgeous wing was great except it was large and could hide all sorts of dangers approaching beneath it. The 109 was easier to fix for the ground crew and the engine tended to be more reliable. The 109 had far better armament too with it's centrally firing cannon. Turning circle? Well volumes have been written on that point. It could out turn the Hurricane and German aces said they could out turn the Spit too.

And that was the biggest problem with the Me109. It was a thundering bitch to fly. It did not suffer fools gladly and killed almost as many pilots in training and take off and landing crashes as were taken down by allied bullets. In the hands of a Galland or Marseille it was unbeatable, but where the Spit had the advantage was pilots with even limited hours could fly it close to the limit in combat without fear of the thing falling out of the sky.* Plus if they had to bail out they had a much better chance of doing so. On paper the Me109, in the harsh reality of combat the Spitfire.

I'd say you could apply that kinda comparison to any number of tanks, guns, planes of WW2 on all sides. I mentioned the Stuka in another thread. Crap on paper. Underpowered, outdated even by war's start, slow, vulnerable etc, yet in reality as far as the level of damage done to enemies (both physical and mental) it was one of the most effective pieces of kit at the German's disposal. Tanks? Yes the German tanks were superior for the most part. Their crews were generally much better trained and just better fighters. However the Soviet tanks were easier and cheaper to build, cheaper to repair and there were so many more of them.







*The Spit shakes the stick violently as you approach the stall. You get plenty of warning. It would take a real gobshíte to lose it. The Me109 gave no warning and the next thing you'd notice were the leading edge slats deploying(non symmetrically) and then you'd spin out. Game over.

beauf

Wibbs wrote: »

... On paper the Me109, in the harsh reality of combat the Spitfire....

...During WWII, the average kill ratio in combat was 1 to 10 on the Eastern front and 1 to 4 on the Western front including the Battle of Britain to give an average of 1 to 7 for the Me109. For every German shot down, 7 Allied fighters were shot down. ...

Who knows if the stats are accurate. Anyway I was only disagreeing with the comment that "...the Me-262. Prior to that both British and US planes matched the Luftwaffe's best...". Because there were significant times were the allies had to play catch up developments of the 109 and 190.

Jawgap

Quote:
...During WWII, the average kill ratio in combat was 1 to 10 on the Eastern front and 1 to 4 on the Western front including the Battle of Britain to give an average of 1 to 7 for the Me109. For every German shot down, 7 Allied fighters were shot down. ...

Is there a source for this?

Post the summer of 1940 the Stuka only 'worked' on the Eastern Front. It couldn't operate in contested air space. The vastness of the Eastern Front suited it because there were always pockets of air space that were uncontested or where the Germans enjoyed a degree of air superiority. In North Western Europe it was swept from the sky and in Italy it was reduced to conducting nuisance hit and run raids under the cover of darkness.

It was another example of a wasteful weapon system. It could only be used to dive bomb or ground attack (or a bit of anti-shipping work)- unlike the aircraft the Allies used in this role which could also be used in either the ground support, interdiction, escort or fighter role - sometimes they performed all those roles on the same sortie.

beauf

Its all over the web uncredited hence my disclaimer 😉

Stats from WWII for aircraft shot down are not reliable anyway. I think its been done from the Amount of aircraft built and then lost. Even the losses from accidents figures seem differ enormously. I threw it in there for fun. 😊

Wibbs

Jawgap wrote: »

Post the summer of 1940 the Stuka only 'worked' on the Eastern Front.

Not quite. It also was very effective in the Greek campaign, the Mediterranean and North Africa. In the Med they(German and Italian manned) harried allied shipping in a big way and sank a lot of tonnage.

It couldn't operate in contested air space.

Indeed, but the fact is with exceptions like the later Mosquito few bombers of that era could, but for some reason the 87 as a bomber is singled out as bad. The attrition rate of the allied heavy bombers was scarily high. Something like a 70% chance of being shot down for aircrew over a tour. Allied bomber crews suffered horrendous casualty rates. I'd bet the farm that if someone was to round up the figures and balance targets hit, number of bombers in action and losses the JU87 was near the top for survivability and effectiveness in WW2. Take a very similar(in the sense of ground attack purpose) aircraft that has a much better reputation today, the Soviet Sturmovik. It had significantly higher losses per missions flown compared to the JU(and had significantly lower tank kill rates too. Less than 4% of German tank losses). Crews nicknamed it the flying coffin, but today it's thought of as a great design, the T34 of the sky. One aspect does stand out. For an aircraft with such infamy and reputation there were only 4000 JU87's built and only ever at most 400 odd in service at any one time and usually less.

Even over the UK in the BoB where it's assumed they were a dead duck the story isn't so clear. There were a number of serious exaggerations of propaganda regarding the JU87's during and post war. Only when researchers started to look at German records did more of the truth come out. EG a November raid on Dover with Gallands 109's flying top cover(actually they stayed well back because of flak and left the 87's to their own devices to fly into the teeth of it). Nineteen 87's went in and did some pretty heavy damage to Dover. The British fighters appeared on the scene and claimed they shot down sixteen of them, but German records and pilots on the day showed they only lost two. Others were shot up alright, but all were combat ready within a few days(Mahlke 1991). They had effectively won the Battle of the English channel too, shutting down the channel ports and causing mayhem to shipping passing through. Russian ace reports of guys shooting down 5 in one mission have been shown to be nonsense too. Indeed the vast majority of JU87's lost were lost due to ground fire, not to fighters.

The vastness of the Eastern Front suited it because there were always pockets of air space that were uncontested or where the Germans enjoyed a degree of air superiority.

Another advantage it had was the ability to fly from very rough fields. This was a major problem the Germans had when the FW190s were brought in as replacements. Too often they were grounded because of conditions. As one German commander put it "I'd rather have one old JU in the air, than 20 190's on the ground". Another problem with the 190's was they were much harder to fly and weren't nearly as accurate as bombers so required more missions to achieve the same ends. They couldn't take nearly as much combat damage either. Hence many of the JU aces with clout went back to their old warhorses when they could. Rudel a good example of this. A remarkable number of old Stuka jockeys finished the war in the same aircraft they started it in, by choice.

After the war when the Cold war raged, US researchers looked to the experiences of the Germans in Russia, thinking that one day they might have to face a horde of Soviet tanks and troops themselves. The airforce guys were particularly interested in the Stuka jockeys experiences. Out of these kind of discussions and planning an aircraft like the A10 was born. Slow, low level, high survivability, bombs and a big gun. The space age version of the Stuka Panzerknacker. Rudels book was apparently required reading for the designers and there have been consistent rumours he was even interviewed personally by the design team.

In North Western Europe it was swept from the sky and in Italy it was reduced to conducting nuisance hit and run raids under the cover of darkness

.Hit and run raids that were successful enough that the P61 Black widow squadrons had them at the top of their hitlist even that late in the day. In some ways it was their reputation that sealed their fate. They were a hated symbol of Nazism, the crooked cross and the crooked wing and were a real threat to ground troops and materiel. Where they operated the shout "Stukas!" was a sound you really didn't want to hear, so they had a huge target on their backs from early on. This was the case in the BoB, where pilots would risk flying through escorting fighters to shoot them down.

beauf

Ground attack is lethal for attacking aircraft, regardless of type. Even the A-10 prefers to attack from height if it can.

I don't think you can usefully compare Russian tactics with German, as they threw men away regardless of cost.

Air kills claims were highly exaggerated. But anything slow would suffer more than something quicker.

I think modern analysis suggests that air to ground effectiveness was/is also greatly over stated.

Jawgap

First, the A-10's lineage goes back through the Skyraider, which was already off the design board and in the air before the end of the war. The Skyraider itself was commissioned (by the US Navy and Marines) as a replacement for the F-4 Corsair and specifically to fulfill the ground attack 'mudfighter' role the F-4s had been doing, and to act against shipping.

I know we've had this conversation before, but a lot of respected and contemporary commentators on air power, including Slessor, have highlighted the Stuka's obsolescence at the start of the war.

A bit like a bolt action rifle, in the hands of a skilled marksman it was a deadly bit of kit but for the average person (pilot) not so much.

Wibbs

Jawgap wrote: »

I know we've had this conversation before, but a lot of respected and contemporary commentators on air power, including Slessor, have highlighted the Stuka's obsolescence at the start of the war.

Aye, but I would still suggest the element of received wisdom on the type in subsequent commentary. It's bald results as a weapon do speak for themselves. Though I'd agree 100% that it was obsolescent in technology from the start.

A bit like a bolt action rifle, in the hands of a skilled marksman it was a deadly bit of kit but for the average person (pilot) not so much.

Spot on perfect description JG. Yep I'd agree with that. The Germans seem to have thought similar. Getting a pilots seat in a JU87 was one of the hardest to get and had a high rate of guys being washed out in training because they weren't considered good enough. Some of them were considered good enough for fighters so it seems the Germans realised what you've pointed out, that they needed real experts as pilots. Hell even someone like Rudel nearly got washed out, kept being left on the ground and couldn't get an operational seat for a year. Ironically it was apparently one of the easiest wartime tail dragger planes to actually fly for a novice. Very forgiving by all accounts and by far and away the best example of the divebomber principle on all sides*.






*I've a great book by Eric Brown the British test pilot(signed no less ) on various German aircraft he flew/tested after the war and he noted this aspect. Said it was a true 90 degree screamer, stable and with no sense of it running away from the pilot unlike others of this concept he had flown and he had hours of fun practice divebombing off the coast of the UK. How cool was his job? Apparently it also had fantastic brakes on the ground, whereas he consistently noted German aircraft of the time usually had godawful brakes. Actually that book is an interesting read on some of the more famous German aircraft, their benefits and their foibles.

Capt'n Midnight

Jawgap wrote: »

The Skyraider itself was commissioned (by the US Navy and Marines) as a replacement for the F-4 Corsair and specifically to fulfill the ground attack 'mudfighter' role the F-4s had been doing, and to act against shipping.

First test flight before the war ended

A single engined ground attack aircraft that could carry a payload of 8,000 lb
the same payload as a B17 or ten times that of a Stuka , it was used heavily in Vietnam

Rockets to a certain extent replaced dive bombing later in WWII

Skip bombing was also used at sea.

Oddly enough the Americans didn't navalise the A10 for use in anti shipping role.

Jawgap

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

First test flight before the war ended

A single engined ground attack aircraft that could carry a payload of 8,000 lb
the same payload as a B17 or ten times that of a Stuka , it was used heavily in Vietnam

Rockets to a certain extent replaced dive bombing later in WWII

Skip bombing was also used at sea.

Oddly enough the Americans didn't navalise the A10 for use in anti shipping role.

Skip bombing was also used a fair bit on land as a bridge busting technique and to take out strongpoints especially farm buildings that had been fortified.

Wibbs

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

A single engined ground attack aircraft that could carry a payload of 8,000 lb
the same payload as a B17 or ten times that of a Stuka ,

Not quite Capt'n. The Stuka B could carry just over 1000lbs, so eight times. The Stuka D could carry nearly 4000lbs so half as much. The Skyraider was a fantastic warhorse though. Could take stupid amounts of fire and keep on trucking. Ugly too. I have to admit I like the ugly old planes from time to time.

Jawgap wrote:

Skip bombing was also used a fair bit on land as a bridge busting technique

Pretty effective it was too. On that score, I was looking through some of the links and such I've collected over the years from allied and axis sources and found one I'd forgotten about and one I've never read anywhere else. From an old interview with Hermann Neumann and one bit has what must have been one of the last full on operational missions for Stuka attacking the bridges over the Oder.

Neumann: They asked for volunteers for a special mission. They wanted pilots and did not need navigators. I was at an air base north of Berlin. They told us that the Russian army was on the east side of the Oder River. They wanted to assemble a group of pilots who would destroy the rest of the permanent bridges across the Order from the Czech border to the Baltic Sea. So, stupid as I was, I volunteered along with Lieutenant Hans Lenz. We both went to an airport near Juterbog, which is near Altes Lager.

MH: I thought that the German armor destroyed all the permanent bridges across the Oder?

Neumann: No, they had not. After we got to the airfield we were treated like kings. We got chocolates and all sorts of food. There were 50 of us. They told us that if the Russian armies started across the Oder River that we were to knock out the bridges to stop them.

MH: The bridges were permanent bridges, not pontoon bridges?

Neumann: That is correct. We were the only ones flying Stukas, so everyone else's planes were rigged so that as soon as their bombs dropped they were armed. Our Stukas were still rigged so that the bombs had to fall quite some distance before they were armed. So, as soon as they switched on the power on to their planes their bombs would be hot. The reason was that most of all the other pilots were flying Messerschmitt Me-109's and Fw-190s and they were going to fly into the bridges....The strange thing is that I've never read about this mission anywhere. The two of us flying Stukas were the only two who were going to bomb the bridges, everyone else was going to fly into them. Since we were the slowest we had to start at 7:05pm on April 16, the day the Russians started their final push. We were carrying 1,800 pound bombs. The fighters had, I think, 1,200 pound bombs.

MH: Did you have any fighter escort on this mission?

Neumann: Yes, for the two of us we had eight Me-109s. however, when Lieutenant Lenz went to his Stuka and right after he pushed his master switch he happened to look down and saw that his bomb was armed. If he had started his motor, the bomb would have blown up. He tip-toed out of his plane and they pushed my plane, which was parked next to his, far away. So, I started by myself with all either of the fighters....After all of that I started later than what was planned, maybe 7:50. So, I flew to my target, which was the bridge at Aurith, just south of Frankfurt on the Oder. When I got there, it was almost sundown. I did not have that long a flight. I think it took me about 20 minutes. Before I got there I waved away my escort. When I got to the bridge, I went up to 6,000 meters, went into a dive and dropped my bomb. They did not know what hit them. That was the only time I blacked out from the G forces. When I came to, I saw the bridge breaking up. If you look at a map of Germany today you will notice that the bridge has not been rebuilt, even though the road still goes to the river. After I pulled up, I went back down and attacked the Russian trucks with my cannons. Initially, there was no ground fire, they were that surprised. On the third approach they woke up, and I got hit in the cooling tank.

I had heard of the potential for "kamikaze" missions in the Luftwaffe alright, the manned V1 being an example, but that plan went quietly away, but in the above account pilots of 109's and 190's were going to be suicide bombs. I wonder did any of them follow through with it and has anyone else heard of this mission or ones like it?

beauf

Interesting. any good books about Stuka pilots? I've never read any books about them at all.

Jawgap

Jawgap wrote: »

Skip bombing was also used a fair bit on land as a bridge busting technique and to take out strongpoints especially farm buildings that had been fortified.

Meant to add.......

Skip bombing against strong points was used to create breaches to allow infantry to access buildings but it's most devastating (and horrible) effects came when it was combined with napalm - or fuel tank bombs as they are referred to in a lot of the contemporary reports.

USAAF and RAF (DAF) pilots in Italy became proficient at low angle attacks on fortified positions and dropping their fuel tank bombs so they hit the ground, skipped up - timing it so the detonation of the fuel tank bomb took place just off the top of the arc and sprayed the jellied material over and into the position they were attacking.

Wibbs

beauf wrote: »

Interesting. any good books about Stuka pilots? I've never read any books about them at all.

Remarkably few compared to other equally famous aircraft. Only two I know of that are autobiographical; Stuka Pilot by Hans Ulrich Rudel first published in the early 50's(pdfs are out there on the interwebs) and Memoirs of a Stuka Pilot by Helmut Mahlke that came out in the early 90's. Both are different in tone. The Rudel one is more martial and came out not long after the war ended. He was a card carrying Nazi and favourite of Hiter. Mahlke's book is more human I'd say. Rudel misses out on France, the UK and the low countries, really only seeing action in Greece but mostly on the Eastern front. Mahlke is there from the start, inc the Battle of France, Britain, Greece, North Africa etc only leaving flying after he's shot down and badly injured in Russia. Hes got far more experience of all theatres and talks more on the wider military stuff. There are other dryer I suppose historical type books on the aircraft alright.