Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

[lwd]

...My opinion, for what it's worth, is that effective air-to-air shooting range was really limited more by the gunsight and pilot skill than by the ballistics of the guns...

That pretty much conforms to everything I've read and my opinion as well. The former being worth more than the latter.

[Byron Angel]

And maybe the experience the pilot had with a certain weapon? Many of the Me262 pilots were used to the rapid-firing, high m-v 20mm Mausers, and I think they needed some time adjusting to the new cannons.

..... Certainly possible. I think that the much higher overtake/closure rates of the faster 262 would have required some adjustment from the pilots as well.


Byron

[lwd]

...
The Me could fire ~ 44rps@540mps
The Meteor could fire ~ 47rps@880mps
The P-80 could fire ~ 80 rps@887mps

The Me-262 had ...: 4xMk108 with a total of 360 rounds,

Note that this represents about 8 seconds of fire for the Me. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-80_Shooting_Star the P-80 has 300 rounds/gun which works out to about 22 seconds of fire.
...

I'm not at all sure this is the case. While higher velocity guns often have more dispersion this is in part because they are more sensative to things like variation in projectile weight or propellent. Note that some of the most accurate rounds are also very high velocity rounds. Furthermore when you are firing at a moving target particularly with an mg some dispersion may be desirealbe. Putting 10 rounds in the exact same place may not be that effective particularly if your opponent isn't there. That's why the AA versions of the US gatling guns (at least some of them) had eliptical rather than circular plates holding the barrels.

Well, that's what I wanted to say. I'm sory if I wasnt' clear enough: dispersion is smaller if muzzle-vel. is higher.

Well that's not quite right either. Like I said higher velocity guns are more sensative to "irregularities" ie variations in projectile weight or propellent. They also often have higher barrel wear and that creats incrcreased dispersion as well. One really has to look at the round and the particular weapon.

A note on the effect of gravity. If you assume a .5 sec time of flight then gravity will cause the round to be about 2.45m below where it would other wise have been. This can be a bit of a problem for a fighter as if it is moving horizontally upright the aim must be adjusted "upward" from the pilots POV. If iths moving horizontally but inverted the correction is in the opposite direction. Verticly downward and the round is a bit further out and the opposite if verticly upward. "normal" shots would be in some combination of the above complicating the targeting a bit. If at the same range TOF was .3 sec the distance is only ~.9m. If one is firing at center of mass 2.45m may be enough to cause a miss while .9m is probably not.

[hammy]

The three weapons - German 30mm cannon , "British" 20mm cannon and U S 0.50cal MG , are direct products of the differing experiences of the three Airforces involved .

In the German case , the relatively short - barrelled and relatively slow firing 30mm cannon were , as has been pointed out above , four engine bomber-killers , it having been found that the 20mm weapons did not have sufficient punch to render a kill certain from a hit or two in high speed closing encounters with such big targets .

In the British case , the 8 x rifle calibre 0.303 machine guns having proved to be insufficiently lethal in combating both fighters and two engine bombers during 1940 , the 20mm cannon was installed instead in British Fighters , and having proved adequate , continued ( with minor improvements ) until the 1960s.

In the American case , their airforce came relatively late to the European theatre of operations .
Their first combats were against the Japanese , whose lack of self-sealing fuel tanks and armour protection , and relatively light scale of armament showed that the heavy MG rounds in U S service were perfectly adequate to deal with these opponents .
And when the Yanks DID get into the European Air War , it was in conditions of Air Superiority , where the MG armed U S fighters generally encountered their enemies with greater numbers , so any shortcomings of continuing to use this gun did not show up as a problem requiring action .
The Korean War , where some 6 x 0.50 cal MG armed Sabres had to take on Cannon armed Migs , signalled the end of the line , and the U S adopted the cannon in Fighters thereafter .

[Karl Heidenreich]

Hey guys:

Have you realize this thread is 25 pages longby now? Not that bad for a "mainly ideological" topic (Tigers and Me 262 are result of examples, not the mainstream issue)!

Warmest regards,

The Ugly Troll

[lwd]

Another reason the US didn't switch to the 20mm sooner is they messed up thier version of it which resulted in reliability problems. The M2 was and is an incredibly reliable weapon. So they went with a reliable "good enough" weapon. Especially since the latter was used in so many different places it did simplify logistics a bit as well. The navy however decided it needed a more potent weapon to take down kamikazes and started shifting over to 20mm at the end of the war.

[VeenenbergR]

LWd. Were the 20mm's not too light stopping the kamikaze's? I thought the 40mm's and 5 inch AA guns were the better weapons.
One reason why the KM abolished its too slow firing naval 37mm in favour of the 40mm Bofors (Prinz Eugen was rearmed with the Bofors!)

[Bgile]

LWd. Were the 20mm's not too light stopping the kamikaze's? I thought the 40mm's and 5 inch AA guns were the better weapons.
One reason why the KM abolished its too slow firing naval 37mm in favour of the 40mm Bofors (Prinz Eugen was rearmed with the Bofors!)

You seem to be confusing the use of 20mm in fighters with shipboard use. A fighter gets to fire at his target at relatively short range and doesn't have to worry about what it crashes into. A ship has to open fire at very long range so as to bring down the Kamikaze before it arrives on board. 20mm on board ship wasn't very successful at that because of it's relatively short effective range, but in a fighter it was very effective.

[Karl Heidenreich]

Returning to the main issue in this thread, it is important to check that the Western Front, from 1944 to 1945 was contended by the following forces:

Axis (Germany and Italy):

1,500,000 troops comprended in
German 1st Army
German 7th Army
German 15th Army
German 19th Army
German 5th Panzer Army
German 6th Panzer Army

Allies (US, UK, Canada, Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Czekoslovaquia, Australia, New Zealand, Luxembourg and Free France):

5,412,000 troops
US 1st Army
US 3rd Army
US 7th Army
US 9th Army
US 15th Army
British 2nd Army
Canadian 1st Army
French 1st Army

As it is plain clear the allies had a numerical advantage of 360,8% on men only.

The total casualties on that front summary is:

Axis (since 1939 to December 1944): 339,957 dead. Wounded data not available.

Allies (1939 to 1940): 375,000 dead or wounded
Allies (1944-1945): 776,294 dead or wounded

From this we can be certain that the information, previously posted in this thread, accounting for the Normandy Campaign IS NOT the total of the European Theater (which the one posted above is) but, again:

Allies at Normandy: 1,332,000
Axis at Normandy: 380,000

Both to July 24th, 1945.

Curious, also, that the casualties during that period of overwhelming allied numerical superiority (350,5%) were the following:

Up to July 24th the allies suffered 120,000 dead or wounded aprox.
Up to July 23rd the axis suffered 113,059 dead or wounded

It´s obvious that statistical information, per se, is not the totality of what can and may be used in order to produce a whole scenario or picture of what happened. Neither can be ignored.

The previous assumption that numerical superiority was the main strenght of the allied warmaking capacity is, at least, quite correct still.

Warmest regards

[Karl Heidenreich]

In order to check, also, what happened at the Eastern Front we can use the following information.

Total German dead count: 3,985,009
Total Axis dead count: 4,928,078 (includes soviets in German Army, Hungarians, Italians, Finlands, Romanians and Slovals)

Total Russian dead count: 8,656,369
Total Pro Soviet: 9,135, 291 (includes Polish, Romanians, Bulgars, Czechoslovaquians and Finish).

Soviet aircraft production figures: From 1941 to 1945: 136,314
German aircraft production figures: 100,210
(it must be reminded that the German figures were to fight both: soviets and their western allies whist the Soviet figures were used 100% to fight the Germans; that plus those aircraft sent by the US as "help" to Stalin)

Tank and Self Propelled Guns figures: 99,488 Soviet
Tank and Self Propelled Guns figures: 61,600 German (same situation as with aircraft)

Best regards,

[Bgile]

Just to put this in perspective, the USA suffered less than 10% as many service members KIA as Germany.

[mkenny]

Returning to the main issue in this thread, it is important to check that the Western Front, from 1944 to 1945 was contended by the following forces:

Axis (Germany and Italy):

1,500,000 troops

Strange.
By September 1944, German prisoners of war in the West numbered 545,756.
By January 1945 the POW total was 811,796
By March it was 1,000,000
By April it was 3,000,000
The total number of German POW's peaked at 6 million in May 1945

Where did the extra 4.5 million come from?
Add the dead and wounded and you will see the 1.5 million figure is fiction.

[Karl Heidenreich]

mkenny:

Strange.
By September 1944, German prisoners of war in the West numbered 545,756.
By January 1945 the POW total was 811,796
By March it was 1,000,000
By April it was 3,000,000
The total number of German POW's peaked at 6 million in May 1945

Where did the extra 4.5 million come from?
Add the dead and wounded and you will see the 1.5 million figure is fiction.

Hey, look who appeared here: Sir Bernard "I took Caen in record time and I won Arnhem" Montgomery Mkenny!!

Using some trackable information from wikipedia`s sources we have that:

German deployments to the Western Front (including North Africa and Italy) reached levels as high as approximately 40% of their ground forces, and 75% of the Luftwaffe. During 1944, there were approximately 69 German divisions in France and in Italy there were around 19. (Approximate data is given because the number of units changed over time as a result of troop transfers and arrivals of new units.) Source-Axis History Factbook, "The Second World War" by John Keegan. According to David Glantz http://www.strom.clemson.edu/publications/sg-war41-45.pdf, In January 1945 the Axis fielded over 2.3 million men, including 60 percent of the Wehrmacht’s forces and the forces of virtually all of its remaining allies, against the Red Army. In the course of the ensuing winter campaign, the Wehrmacht suffered 510,000 losses in the East against 325,000 in the West. By April 1945, 1,960,000 German troops faced the 6.4 million Red Army troops at the gates of Berlin, in Czechoslovakia, and in numerous isolated pockets to the east, while 4 million Allied forces in western Germany faced under 1 million Wehrmacht soldiers. In May 1945 the Soviets accepted the surrender of almost 1.5 million German soldiers, while almost 1 million more fortunate Germans soldiers surrendered to the British and Americans, including many who fled west to escape the dreaded Red Army.,

In the west, according to REAL experts as Glantz, House and Beevor (not amateur pro Monty hallucinations) the Germans fielded 1 million soldiers against 4 million allied (400% numerical superiority). Over the course of the war the Germans fielded more soldiers in the East than in the West (I wonder why) and they never exceeded the 40% overall of their forces in the West.

How on Earth the Western Forces did capture 3,000,000 Germans by April 1945 where the Germans could only have deployed 1,5 million, tops, beats Mr. Beevor, Mr. Glantz, Mr. House and, of course me?

Now I imagine that we will go to another sesion of (course) photos in which we will see the same Tiger destroyed 2 times and columns of Germans prisioners being sent to their homes.

But the fact remains that during the same period of time: 11 months a force of 4 times whatever the Germans could muster suffered more casualties in combat. Also, we must wonder, is that the allies took 11 months to re conquer what the Germans did in just one month in 1940.

Best regards,

[Karl Heidenreich]

I found, also, this very interesting so I`m posting it:

from wikipedia:

The Allies made serious errors and questionable uses of their forces several times during the course of operations in 1944–45.

Upon breaking out of Normandy in August, the Americans committed two armored divisions to operations in Brittany when armored units were direly needed for the pursuit of the German army across France. While the port of Brest, France was ultimately captured by the Americans, it consumed the operations of an American corps for an entire month and ultimately did little for the Allied effort because the Germans so thoroughly destroyed the port before it was captured.[23]

Out of fear that two wings of their forces might collide, the Allies failed to definitively close the Falaise Gap in August, allowing trapped German forces an escape route to the east.[24] Although the operations around Falaise trapped a considerable number of German prisoners, experienced German leadership cadres evaded Allied forces and were available to reconstitute a cohesive front line along the Siegfried Line.

Although British forces conducted a brilliant pursuit across northern France that resulted in the liberation of the critically important port of Antwerp in early September, they failed to promptly clear the Scheldt Estuary of Germans.[25][26] The Germans immediately grasped the significance of the Scheldt Estuary and moved in troops to conduct a lengthy defense.[27][28] The Allied failure to swiftly clear the Scheldt Estuary meant the port of Antwerp could not be used until November 28, and strongly contributed to the lengthy logistical crisis that hamstrung Allied operations for four months. Operation Market-Garden was a double failure in the sense that the resources used for it would have been more profitably committed to clearing the Scheldt Estuary instead of carving out an extended salient that did nothing but extend an already over-extended Allied front line.[29]

Despite grave shortages of riflemen, American operations in front of the Siegfried Line, particularly in U.S. First Army's area, were characterized by bloody frontal assaults.[19] Stubbornness and misplaced notions that the U.S. Army could not allow itself to abandon unprofitable operations[14][23] saw five infantry divisions shredded in the Huertgen Forest fighting, with the attack being abandoned only in December after the Germans attacked into the Ardennes. The concentration of divisions in the Huertgen Forest–Aachen area also forced a corresponding lack of concentration along the Ardennes front, with the result that only four U.S. divisions were initially available in the Ardennes to parry a German offensive that was 26 divisions strong.
When, in November, the Allies enjoyed significant success in 6th Army Group's area, General Eisenhower refused to reinforce the success and even forbade his commanders in the south to attempt to assault across the Rhine in the area of Strasbourg while the German defenses were in shambles.[30] This lack of bold enterprise[31] was a by-product of General Eisenhower's decision to conduct limited-objective attacks on a broad front even though the Allies lacked a sufficient number of divisions to both man a broad front and concentrate enough combat power in chosen areas to achieve breakthroughs.[32][33] And there were other instances of cautious Allied generalship.[34][35]

After crossing the Rhine, Allied force deployments were tainted by misplaced priorities,[36][37] lack of firm direction from supreme political echelons,[38][39] and to some extent, by exaggerated fears of German capabilities.[40][41] When American troops reached the Elbe River in mid-April, General Eisenhower unilaterally decided that Berlin was no longer a significant military objective.[42] The official U.S. Army history has defended this decision by stating that Eisenhower knew that Berlin would be within the Soviet zone of post-war Germany and saw no reason to fight for land that would have to be given to the Soviets after the war.[43] Other histories of the campaign have been less generous, assessing that it was a political decision which sacrificed certain military advantages.[44][45] Eisenhower pointed out to Patton that it was of no military strategic value and would take up a lot of resources to occupy and asked Patton "Who would want it?" Patton replied "I think history will answer that question for you." Unswayed by Patton, Simpson or even Churchill, Eisenhower ordered U.S. forces to halt along the Elbe and Mulde rivers.[46] Thus, these spearheads were practically immobilized while the war raged on for three more weeks. Simultaneously, General Bradley considered the Germans trapped in the Ruhr Pocket to be the most significant threat and committed surprisingly large numbers of U.S. troops to collapse (as opposed to containing) the pocket instead of reinforcing his troops at the Elbe River.[47] As a consequence of Eisenhower's decision, the British 21st Army Group was ordered to drive northeast in the direction of Hamburg instead of proceeding due east in the direction of Berlin. Finally, the Allies proved curiously gullible about German propaganda claiming the existence of a "National Redoubt" in the Alpine hinterlands of Bavaria and Austria.[48] Fearing a large-scale last stand by the Nazis in this so-called redoubt, General Eisenhower directed no less than three field armies to clear southern Germany at a time when the largest groups of German forces stood to the east, not the south, of General Eisenhower's troops. Fortunately for the Allies, the German Army of April 1945 was in no position to exploit troop concentrations and movements of questionable merit.

Thus, while the Allies enjoyed a great victory, on occasion their prosecution of the campaign afforded their German adversaries opportunities that prolonged the fighting unnecessarily.[49]


References:
Clarke, Jeffrey J., and Robert Ross Smith. Riviera to the Rhine. Government Printing Office, 1993.
Hastings, Max. (2004). Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944–1945. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-41433-9.
MacDonald, Charles B. The Last Offensive. Government Printing Office, 1993.
Seaton, Albert (1971). The Russo-German War. New York: Praeger Publishers.
Weigley, Russell F. (1981). Eisenhower's Lieutenants. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-13333-5.

I do believe that the western allies, on a one to one basis against the Germans would have simply been thrown back to the beaches, as Bradley feared on June 6th, 1944 at Omaha. They won because of logistical and numerical superiority, nothing more, nothing else.

[mkenny]

Hey, look who appeared here: Sir Bernard "I took Caen in record time and I won Arnhem" Montgomery Mkenny!!

Calm down fan-boy.

Feldheer Casualties 1 Jun 44-10 Jan 45 (Heeresartz i. OKH, Gen.Stb. d. Heer/Gen.Qu., NARA T78, R414, F3228-3229)
Losses in the Heer, Waffen SS, and Luftwaffe Ground Troops
...................................KIA ........................WIA...................... MIA........................ Total
Ostheer.................. 136,493.................632,028 ................565,834 ...................1,334,335
Geb.AOK 20............ 4,184 ...................15,034 ....................4,587....................... 23,805
AOK Norwegen ............27 ..........................71......................... 16............................ 114
OB Süd-West .........19,066.................. 66,066 ...................59,889 ......................145,021
OB Süd-Ost............ 8,241................... 27,259 ...................11,095 ........................46,595
OB West ...............59,145................. 196,134.................. 392,994 ......................648,273
Total ....................227,156...................936,592...............1,034,415....................2,198,143

Note that OB West lost HALF The East totals June-44 to Jan 45 and that EXCLUDES Italy.

Using some trackable information from wikipedia`s sources................

Sorry hysterical boy but the NARA Reference number on the above trumps any of your Wiki garbage.
This:
Heeresartz i. OKH, Gen.Stb. d. Heer/Gen.Qu., NARA T78, R414, F3228-3229
is the Original German Documtation title followed by the file number for the copy in The national Archives in the USA.

How on Earth the Western Forces did capture 3,000,000 Germans by April 1945 where the Germans could only have deployed 1,5 million, tops, beats Mr. Beevor, Mr. Glantz, Mr. House and, of course me?

The obvious answer fan-boy is that your figures are completely and utterly wrong.
Face it you are hopeless at this.

Number of German POW's by nation holding them:

France 940,000
Great Britain 3,640,000
USA 3,100,000
USSR 3,060,000

Note the Allies had twice the number of the Soviets.


See The First Year of the Occupation, Part 5 (in vol. 2), Occupation Forces in Europe Series, 1945-1946, Office of the Chief Historian, [US] European Command, Frankfurt-am-Main: 1947, pp. 125-135.
The POW numbers are on page 131.

http://www.history.hqusareur.army.mil/A ... ar%202.pdf

Who need Wiki when you have the period documentation?

So fan-boy forget the hysterical outburst and get better sources.