The real impact of the fighter bomber post D-day
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Tom Houlihan
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The term 'Jabo' will still have the same meaning and origin no matter who it is used by. However, as it is a German word, of course it is going to be used by Germans, to describe Allied A/C. As I'm sure you'll know, the real dawn of the ground attack aircraft was WWII, hence the coining of a term for them during that time. What exactly are you trying to disprove? I'm sure I can dig up some sources where Allied A/C are refered to as 'Jabo's'.
I dont see anything in this thread that tries to claim that large numbers of Allied servicemen called Fighter Bombers Jabo's. Also, if you are German or Austrian, you call a Sherman a Panzer. What is the problem with using Jabo for a P-51? Its a descriptive, evocotive term of the time which describes it well.
Are all the words in your language native? I take it you have no cross over words which are from another language, or that you ever use a foreign word to describe something?
I dont see anything in this thread that tries to claim that large numbers of Allied servicemen called Fighter Bombers Jabo's. Also, if you are German or Austrian, you call a Sherman a Panzer. What is the problem with using Jabo for a P-51? Its a descriptive, evocotive term of the time which describes it well.
Are all the words in your language native? I take it you have no cross over words which are from another language, or that you ever use a foreign word to describe something?
Jock
Reb wrote:Jock
There is a good piece in "Armour Battles of the W-SS" where Fritz Langanke talks of being strafed by an American Jabo while in a panther tank. Pretty daggone nerve racking - the .50 guns shot out all the periscopes and wrecked everything but did not penetrate. But damn - that must ruin your day - after a couple times I can imagine you're feeling pretty shaken!
cheers
Reb
Of course MG even HMGs came from more than just allied AC.
Also jacob was ger soliders WWII slang for the allied ftr-bombers.
Its interesting to point out the allied ftr-bombers also suffered sever cas during the normandy era. The 2nd TAF and 9th AF togeather lost over 1700 planes. Normandy 1944 by Nicklas Zetterling.
Well the allied ac were suited to fighting they were vulnerable to AAA fire from the ground. Hence the high turnover rate close to 100% during normandy alone.
The ger on the other hand seemed to lose less than 10% of their tanks to ac and 20% of thier MVs.
Most of the supply problem came from rear area disruption of the railway bridges. THe bridge in paris was never des. A 2nd brisge to the west of paris was des but repaired partially. This partially reparied bridge kept the ger army near it going at minimal basis. It was des again near the middle of aug.
I think part of the reasons the Allies never developed a word for the German fighter bomber is because they rarely ever saw one. As you already point to, the German AA effort against strafing jabos deserve special mention. They had a few excellent guns available for such work, including a quad 20mm and a first rate 37mm gun. Unfortunatly for them they didnt have enough of them,or, trained crews to man them.
I used to know a veteran of a panzer unit and he once told me it was the 5" rockets of the Jabos that were particularly terrifying. He lost some friends to the jabos and they absolutely despised them.
I used to know a veteran of a panzer unit and he once told me it was the 5" rockets of the Jabos that were particularly terrifying. He lost some friends to the jabos and they absolutely despised them.
The stuka was a fine attack airplane when the war started but within a few years the Germans learned a painfull lesson. That jaobs are only effective when you have air superiority,and, the most successful jabos are the ones that can also protect themselves.
"Stuka" could have been used often early in the war but as time went on it would be used less and less. I'd say the exception being the JU-87G, which must have been a fearsome machine to see coming at your armored convoy. Even still, by the time it appeared to attack Soviet tanks, the Reds had fielded some excellent fighters and "G" pilots were constantly looking over their shoulders.
Even still, I guess, 'Kanonenvogel' (Cannonbird) and 'Panzerknacker' (tank cracker), would apply.
"Stuka" could have been used often early in the war but as time went on it would be used less and less. I'd say the exception being the JU-87G, which must have been a fearsome machine to see coming at your armored convoy. Even still, by the time it appeared to attack Soviet tanks, the Reds had fielded some excellent fighters and "G" pilots were constantly looking over their shoulders.
Even still, I guess, 'Kanonenvogel' (Cannonbird) and 'Panzerknacker' (tank cracker), would apply.
Rich47 wrote:I think part of the reasons the Allies never developed a word for the German fighter bomber is because they rarely ever saw one. As you already point to, the German AA effort against strafing jabos deserve special mention. They had a few excellent guns available for such work, including a quad 20mm and a first rate 37mm gun. Unfortunatly for them they didnt have enough of them,or, trained crews to man them.
I used to know a veteran of a panzer unit and he once told me it was the 5" rockets of the Jabos that were particularly terrifying. He lost some friends to the jabos and they absolutely despised them.
A CW report cited an entire salvo of 8 rockets under range cond had a 2.5% chance of hitting a tank sized target. Under battle cond it must have been less than 1%. Even though this sounds low the ger tanks, atgs and arty all had simialar low eff.
The same report sited the 80mm panther fwd armour as invulnearable to the rockets even if they did hit it. The tiger with its armour protection would be invuneable from the sides front and rear. Therefore its not surprising that 1 tiger out of 40 des tigers examined by the allies was des due to AC cannons and rockets.
The rocket war head was a fairly small HE bomb by ac standards. The allies did test and routinly used in real life the adv of arm under cover of rolling arty barage. Without serious damage...
The large numbers of tanks and other vehicles either destroyed by their crews due to lack of fuel, or simply abandoned, must also be considered Jabo casualties. Germany had plenty of materiel piling up in the depots north of the Seine, but only a trickle ever reached Normandy.
Anybody know offhand the %age of air strikes devoted to battlefield support as opposed to supply-line interdiction? I'd guess only about 5% of strikes hit the front line and no more than 15% hit the region within 15kms of the front.
Regards,
dduff
Anybody know offhand the %age of air strikes devoted to battlefield support as opposed to supply-line interdiction? I'd guess only about 5% of strikes hit the front line and no more than 15% hit the region within 15kms of the front.
Regards,
dduff
Ah-ha! This just happens to be my area of research.dduff442 wrote:Anybody know offhand the %age of air strikes devoted to battlefield support as opposed to supply-line interdiction?
The following is from one of my most recent publications ("The Question of British Influence on U.S. Tactical Air Power in World War II" in Air Power History (Spring 2005) available on-line at http://pauldjohnston.tripod.com/brit-us-tacair.pdf ):
For a bit more on the meanings of "pre-arranged", "impromptu" and Brit/CW tactical air power organization and doctrine generally, see my website at http://tactical-airpower.tripod.com/As regards mission apportionment, the records extant in the archives do not facilitate a definitive answer, but the author estimates that about 40 percent of 2d TAF’s fighter-bomber sorties were consumed by defensive fighter missions, 35 percent by armed recce, 15 percent by prearranged missions, and 10 percent by impromptu close support. Discounting the defensive fighter sorties in order to focus purely on the effort allocated to the various types of ground attack missions, the figures become roughly 60 percent armed recce, 25 percent pre-arranged, and 15 percent impromptu.
We can be reasonably sure that the armed recce missions were all supply-line interdiction, and that the impromptu were all battlefield support. What is more difficult is to estimate the split in the pre-arranged. After years of studying this from various angles, I would estimate that a bottom-line answer to your question would be:
- battlefield support = one-quarter to one-third; and
- deeper interdiction = three-quarters to two-thirds.
Note that these figures are for the Brit/CW 2nd TAF. It would be interesting to investigate if USAAF practice varied from this any.
The reason this is somewhat difficult to pin down is the way records were kept, which was both somewhat rushed under the press of events and not entirely standardized. Sometimes sorties are recorded as "armed recce in area such-and-such", which is clear enough. But other times it simply says "divebombing, bridge at location X", which leaves it unclear if this was on the front-line or in depth without checking locations against the front-line at that time. Another complicating factor is that CABRANKs were all given either (or both) a dump target and/or an armed recce area to execute in the event that there was no immediate call for close support whilst they were on station. Thus, what was tasked as a CABRANK could become an armed recce. Conversely, in the event of emergency, aircraft could be diverted in the air to impromptu direct support.
In the press of events (often, squadrons' aircraft were making five or six sorties a day) the ops personnel (most of whom were young men on wartime duty) did not necessarily leave exhaustively detailed records of all this for every single sortie.
Hi Paul,
Excellent info...Thanks.
I presume the 25-33% of strikes devoted to direct support covers all activity to the typical corps-depth or so? While I'd guess (and my guesses are clearly only worth so much...) maybe only half of these would hit the front lines per se, that's still a very high number IMO.
The army's concerns were understandable but I believe if Normandy were re-run on the basis of modern understanding of this kind of warfare, the RAF's viewpoint would hold sway and (like you indicated) far fewer resources would be devoted to the battlefield.
Tacair's immense flexibility makes it useful far beyond its hitting-power (which is tiny on a per-$ basis). It's an offensive implement that can "Hit 'em where they ain't" day-in day-out.
Allocating just 5% of strikes to the battlefield might sound low, but that translates to 38 days of strikes against roads, depots, bridges etc and then (voila!) the fighter-bombers all appear over the battlefield to support the ground troops for 2 days during the breakthrough.
The concentration/counter-concentration dynamic strongly favours the attacker, and the sudden application of that airpower to a given point of attack is devastating.
BTW, I don't mean to set my breezy suppositions against your hard facts. I'm just theorizing here. I've nothing at all to contest your data.
Regards,
dduff
Excellent info...Thanks.
I presume the 25-33% of strikes devoted to direct support covers all activity to the typical corps-depth or so? While I'd guess (and my guesses are clearly only worth so much...) maybe only half of these would hit the front lines per se, that's still a very high number IMO.
The army's concerns were understandable but I believe if Normandy were re-run on the basis of modern understanding of this kind of warfare, the RAF's viewpoint would hold sway and (like you indicated) far fewer resources would be devoted to the battlefield.
Tacair's immense flexibility makes it useful far beyond its hitting-power (which is tiny on a per-$ basis). It's an offensive implement that can "Hit 'em where they ain't" day-in day-out.
Allocating just 5% of strikes to the battlefield might sound low, but that translates to 38 days of strikes against roads, depots, bridges etc and then (voila!) the fighter-bombers all appear over the battlefield to support the ground troops for 2 days during the breakthrough.
The concentration/counter-concentration dynamic strongly favours the attacker, and the sudden application of that airpower to a given point of attack is devastating.
BTW, I don't mean to set my breezy suppositions against your hard facts. I'm just theorizing here. I've nothing at all to contest your data.
Regards,
dduff
Rich47 wrote:Yeah but very few members of Panzer divisions, and support units, actually traveled in tanks. Even fewer in Tigers.
95% of cas happened in the inf bats and Panzer grenadiers. Even during normandy the rear area combat units and non-tanks were not mauled disportionatly.
In fact amoung all types of ger tanks invetigated by allied crews during normandy and ard 11 out of 209 were des by rockets and 3 by cannons. For a grand total of 14 out of 209 or 7% the tigers alone were not far of at 2.5 %.
It didn't mater what type of tank actual des by ac was minimal. Regerdless of the theatre of war personal cas happened amoung front line inf bats and pz gred bats to the near exclusion of all else.