Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

This really is like arguing with my fifteen year old. It's just like it.

Look: your arguments never hold up to examination -- for the excellent example that they rarely have any foundation in reality.

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Take it another way. Go to ten random locations in your day. Look around and see over what percentage of the horizon you could see a low flying aircraft eight miles away. Even if you could see it, could you identify it as hostile?

It's random, but I looked around my place. I have visibility along ground level eight miles out over about 10% of the 360 degree circle around my house. Even in that case, I doubt if I could distinguish a small aircraft eight miles out. I certainly couldn't tell whose it was or what its intentions were.

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Offhand, and on average -- and going by what accounts I can recall, I'd guess fifteen seconds warning of an incoming strafing attack is average. Certainly not two minutes.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay




Again, they aren't cruise missiles. They have to find their targets from altitude. You can see them from enormous distances if they start out at 20,000 feet.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

This really is like arguing with my fifteen year old. It's just like it.

Look: your arguments never hold up to examination -- for the excellent example that they rarely have any foundation in reality.

Here come the insults. Right on schedule. He's incapable of anything else.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay


Your own post #1092 actually describes the use of heavy flak during moves:

...Protection against high-level attack by heavy Flak is required only at assembly, entrucking and detrucking areas, halts and especially dangerous points the route such as bridges, defiles or intersections.

That means that moving units needed heavy Flak to cover their moves.

This whole issue is getting absurd. If the 88mm Flak was only used for AT in the field, then why continue to provide a Flak gun to the field units? Why not just make a dedicated AT gun? The Germans made 57 versions of just about everything. What prevented them from making a dedicated 88mm Flak gun using the Flak-37 tube?

The only plausible answer is that it was performing a dual purpose in the field at the time. Later, as the Allies got more coordinated, that ceased to be the case, and they finally did have to make the dedicated AT gun, and 86ed the Flak-41.

QED.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

This is fairly typical. First, fighters on a strafing mission don't need to climb to 20,000 feet. In fact, coming down to the deck and zipping along a road until something turns up would be a fine idea.

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Second, go ahead and look outside. Pick out a point eight miles away and tell me what detail you can distinguish. Your average fighter bomber would have a wingspan of thirty feet. Can you see such an object? Make out its nationality and its heading?

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Third, go look at the horizon around where you live. Something at an altitude of say five thousand feet (not twenty thousand) is going to be out of sight at a range of eight miles in a good many cases. Hills and things, you know. Hard to look through trees.

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Finally, and most important, look at the flak that was actually attached to mobile units. 88's aren't there -- not with the mobile elements.

Happily, as it happens, I have my Seelowe Scenario. All nicely researched, too. There was a lot of flak attached. But 88's to the mobile units? No. All light flak.

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You don't let anything -- historical practice, technical feasibility, or even common sense -- get in the way of what you're bent on asserting. It's all a matter of you sticking to whatever silly-ass assertion you made in the first place, come hell or high water.

Even that wouldn't be so bad -- except that we're stuck with you being in a position where you can influence the development of TOAW. It's like having an advocate of 'wooden ships and iron men' in charge of warship development in 1890.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Here come the insults. Right on schedule. He's incapable of anything else.

I knew that post was around here somewhere. I actually went back to look for it last night to strip this stuff out -- in the interests of keeping some focus to the argument if nothing else.

Couldn't find it, though. But seriously, it happens to be true. Your arguments usually don't have any foundation in reality. They display an almost incredible refusal to take any cognizance of it at all.

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ORIGINAL: madner

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay


Your own post #1092 actually describes the use of heavy flak during moves:

...Protection against high-level attack by heavy Flak is required only at assembly, entrucking and detrucking areas, halts and especially dangerous points the route such as bridges, defiles or intersections.

That means that moving units needed heavy Flak to cover their moves.

This whole issue is getting absurd. If the 88mm Flak was only used for AT in the field, then why continue to provide a Flak gun to the field units? Why not just make a dedicated AT gun? The Germans made 57 versions of just about everything. What prevented them from making a dedicated 88mm Flak gun using the Flak-37 tube?

The only plausible answer is that it was performing a dual purpose in the field at the time. Later, as the Allies got more coordinated, that ceased to be the case, and they finally did have to make the dedicated AT gun, and 86ed the Flak-41.

QED.

You are trying to bend facts to fit with your opinion. The opinion being that the increased tactical proficiency of the allies spelled doom on the regular 8.8. Which ignores that the same units which used the 8.8 to support the Heer units did it right to the end, with the same gun. The Flak 41 wasn't used, but the Luftwaffe units still were used in field and still were called upon to assist with ground targets.

What changed was that other Heer units now had a dedicated AT gun of the same caliber.
If your opinion would be correct, those Flak units couldn't and wouldn't be used.

What fits the facts is that the Heer didn't consider the AA capability of the dual gun useful, or at least not useful enough.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Note that naval units used heavy flak as their main defense against air attack. US BBs had the 5” DP guns. British Nelsons had 4.7” AA guns. German BBs had 105mm Flak. Italian BBs had 90mm AA. Japanese BBs had 127mm AA guns. While the US and British did have proximity fuses late in the war, those BBs were designed with heavy AA long before such existed. US BBs designed after 1943 wouldn’t have been launched before the end of the war. And the other nations never had it at all.

Now, naval vessels at sea only need defend against low-altitude air attack. High-altitude air bombardment would be near useless against a ship at sea – avoided by mere maneuver. At port the ship would depend upon port air defenses. The use of tonnage on a vessel is critical and no naval architect would waste tons of it on armament that was worthless at sea.

Conclusion: Heavy AA is effective vs. low-altitude air attack, even without proximity fuses. That it would be more effective with them doesn’t mean that it wasn’t effective without them.

QED.

Greetings from the Netherlands

Jo van der Pluym
CrazyDutch

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
Again, I'm not bending facts to fit my opinion. I'm actually listing facts. Let's list them again:

1. Early in the war the Germans used a Flak gun in an AT role. They never made a dedicated AT gun with that tube.
2. Late in the war the Germans finally made a dedicated 88mm AT gun and the Flak 88's were phased out of use in the AT role.

There's only one explaination for those two facts that doesn't require the Germans to be militarily incompetent: At first the gun provided a dual use, later it didn't.

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The link is both definitive and conclusive. It supports everything I’ve been saying all along. It should be the end of this discussion.

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This was despite the fact that the unit did not have SPAAG.

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ORIGINAL: madner

That is indeed a very good link, but there seems to be a slight discrepancy between the claims. The 462 claim for aircraft is matched with 92 tanks and 14 armored cars. Now Normandy isn't the desert or the Ukraine, so the long range advantage is less.

However, notice that the Flak unit was still used in the ground support role, not primarily, but it wasn't withdrawn from that role. That link is evidence that despite much better pak guns, the 8.8 still saw ground combat, despite the far less favorable terrain.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

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The link is both definitive and conclusive. It supports everything I’ve been saying all along. It should be the end of this discussion.

Lol.

Without wasting more time on this than it merits, let me point out the most obvious problem with your assertion. You have adopted the singularly improbable position that the 88 could be used to provide mobile flak protection, and you apparently feel that the fact that this unit claimed 35 aircraft shot down during its approach march to Normandy is 'both definitive and conclusive proof' for this assertion. Yet the only relevant fact you cite suggests that the unit contained more light AA than 88's ('They lost about 35 8,8 cm guns and 70 light Flak guns'). How is it that you know that it was the 88's that shot down these aircraft rather than the light AA? I might as well argue that since Fliegerkorps VIII contained Stukas, and since it shot down 387 Russian fighters during the battle of _______, that the Stuka was a formidable opponent in dog fights.

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As I say, I could go on, but why bother? You'd never concede even the most carefully proven proposition.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

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This was despite the fact that the unit did not have SPAAG.

I really should quit -- but Curtis is such a gold mine!

I read the above sentence and wondered in passing: does that have any basis in fact, or did he just say it because it would be helpful to his argument if such was the case?

After all, this is Curtis we're talking about.

So I should be working on that retaining wall out back, but...

I read the one page article he cites. No discussion of the matter either way. I went to 'Lexicon der Wehrmacht.' Looked up the composition of the 'Flak Sturm Regimenter' that made up the 'Flak Korps III' under discussion. The light flak batteries are listed as (sf).

Uh huh. Off to Niehorster. 'Sf' = 'self-propelled.'

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ORIGINAL: madner

That is indeed a very good link, but there seems to be a slight discrepancy between the claims. The 462 claim for aircraft is matched with 92 tanks and 14 armored cars.

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Now Normandy isn't the desert or the Ukraine, so the long range advantage is less.

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However, notice that the Flak unit was still used in the ground support role, not primarily, but it wasn't withdrawn from that role. That link is evidence that despite much better pak guns, the 8.8 still saw ground combat, despite the far less favorable terrain.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

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This was despite the fact that the unit did not have SPAAG.

I really should quit -- but Curtis is such a gold mine!

I read the above sentence and wondered in passing: does that have any basis in fact, or did he just say it because it would be helpful to his argument if such was the case?

After all, this is Curtis we're talking about.

So I should be working on that retaining wall out back, but...

I read the one page article he cites. No discussion of the matter either way. I went to 'Lexicon der Wehrmacht.' Looked up the composition of the 'Flak Sturm Regimenter' that made up the 'Flak Korps III' under discussion. The light flak batteries are listed as (sf).

Uh huh. Off to Niehorster. 'Sf' = 'self-propelled.'

"Handbook on German Military Forces", pg 167, figure 151: "Antiaircraft Regiment (motorized)". No SPAAG.

And, of course, the article notably fails to list any of the guns as SPAAG.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay



That's hilarious, considering I've just posted an article that destroys your claim that the 88's were only used by field units in the AT role and only defended fixed targets against air attack. Yet here you are sticking to your, now indefensible, claims.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: madner

That is indeed a very good link, but there seems to be a slight discrepancy between the claims. The 462 claim for aircraft is matched with 92 tanks and 14 armored cars.

"Of the tanks destroyed about twelve fell victims to the man-held Panzerfaust close range antitank weapon.32"

"The number of tanks claimed is quite small. Given the fact that Army and Waffen-SS units claimed to have destroyed 3 663 enemy tanks from 6 June to 21 August35, the III. Flak-Korps can not be regarded as a very important part of German anti-tank defences."


"The longer range of the 8,8 cm Flak gun compared to the 7,5 cm AT gun was of course an advantage, but at longer range, accuracy declines for all guns, even the 8,8 cm gun. Thus, the chances of hitting with the first shot was lower. Since the 8,8 cm AA gun was difficult to conceal and easy to spot when it had fired, this made it likely that the enemy tanks could respond with HE fire, or call for indirect artillery on the positions of the Flak guns before they were destroyed at long range."

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However, notice that the Flak unit was still used in the ground support role, not primarily, but it wasn't withdrawn from that role. That link is evidence that despite much better pak guns, the 8.8 still saw ground combat, despite the far less favorable terrain.

"The fact that the 8,8 cm Flak was not suitable for anti-tank misisons was also clearly recognized by the commanders and men serving in the III. Flak-Korps. Both in the post-war manuscript produced by the corps commander, Wolfgang Pickert5, and in a report, dated 20 September 1944, discussing the experiences from the actions of the corps during the battles in Normandy6, this is clear."

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

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This was despite the fact that the unit did not have SPAAG.

I really should quit -- but Curtis is such a gold mine!

I read the above sentence and wondered in passing: does that have any basis in fact, or did he just say it because it would be helpful to his argument if such was the case?

After all, this is Curtis we're talking about.

So I should be working on that retaining wall out back, but...

I read the one page article he cites. No discussion of the matter either way. I went to 'Lexicon der Wehrmacht.' Looked up the composition of the 'Flak Sturm Regimenter' that made up the 'Flak Korps III' under discussion. The light flak batteries are listed as (sf).

Uh huh. Off to Niehorster. 'Sf' = 'self-propelled.'

"Handbook on German Military Forces", pg 167, figure 151: "Antiaircraft Regiment (motorized)". No SPAAG.

And, of course, the article notably fails to list any of the guns as SPAAG.

There's really no point in bothering. I cite evidence that those specific regiments contained self-propelled AA guns -- you steam roller right over it. Never mind you've still shown no reason at all to think the 88's served as mobile flak.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Nothing in the article supports your assertion that 88's were used as mobile AA. I have never asserted that 88's were only used by field units in the AT role.

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Very few of them were there with the field units. And they were up front to serve as AT, not as AA. In their AA role, they would be used to defend fixed targets vulnerable to high-level bombing, not for defense against tactical aircraft.

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A limbered up 88 moving along with a column would be useless if some Tomahawks showed up.

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ORIGINAL: madner

Now that is a good argument if someone would argue that, but your argument was that due to superior allied tactics the flak units were no longer used to support ground operations. Clearly the III. Flak-Korps was used in that fashion, and clearly it did destroy around 80 tanks.

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Now, 92 or 80 out of 3663 may be a low percentage, but consider this, on his heyday:

Causes of T-34 losses from June 1941 to September 1942 (expressed as % of total).
Weapon Calibre 88mm 3.4%.

So the 2.5% don't look out of ordinary.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Otherwise, it would be nice if flak could either provide AA protection or be used for direct ground support. As noted here, 88's did not do both at once. They did apparently serve simultaneously as both AA and artillery, which is interesting, and yet another aspect of their role that could be simulated -- but isn't something we're arguing about.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Otherwise, it would be nice if flak could either provide AA protection or be used for direct ground support. As noted here, 88's did not do both at once. They did apparently serve simultaneously as both AA and artillery, which is interesting, and yet another aspect of their role that could be simulated -- but isn't something we're arguing about.

Actually, the figures do show that they did both at once. 462 AC and 92 Tanks destroyed.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: madner

Now that is a good argument if someone would argue that, but your argument was that due to superior allied tactics the flak units were no longer used to support ground operations. Clearly the III. Flak-Korps was used in that fashion, and clearly it did destroy around 80 tanks.

I've never claimed that their use as AT completely ended. I've said that they were phased out of that role. And that's just what happened. The unit kept its guns behind the lines for air defense purposes, rarely engaging tanks. But the Germans were on the defensive in Normandy, so tanks couldn't be avoided altogether.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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Now, 92 or 80 out of 3663 may be a low percentage, but consider this, on his heyday:

Causes of T-34 losses from June 1941 to September 1942 (expressed as % of total).
Weapon Calibre 88mm 3.4%.

So the 2.5% don't look out of ordinary.

Those T-34's were primarily on the defensive for those periods, in contrast to Allied tanks in Normandy. Regardless, I'm sure those figures pale in comparison to the 88's performance in the Desert.

The important point is that longer ranges don't realy benefit an unarmored gun. That's because it is subject to HE fire, and HE ranges far exceed AT ranges. Only in those cases where the enemy has poor coordination of artilery with armor, and tanks that lack HE will that range matter. Late in the war even the Soviets were probably competent enough to discount that advantage, and they had huge artillery support.

Since we now know for certain that the 88mm Flak was used for air defense of ground units, that makes my point about the Pak 43 telling: Why build a dedicated AT gun if a Flak gun can give you dual use? The only answer is that the Flak gun was no longer effective in the AT role. And that's just what the article emphasizes.