Curtis Lemay
Posts: 12969
Joined: 9/17/2004 From: Houston, TX Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: madner Now if that would be true, why would the above mentioned report complain about the usage versus ground forces? It only makes sense if they were deliberately used (like latter in Wacht am Rhein) to support ground forces. A small fraction were used in emergencies. When they did so, their performance was abysmal. Most were kept in the rear for air defense of the frontline forces. I don't see how anyone could read that article and not understand that the 88's had lost their effectiveness as AT by 1944. Or that they were now primarily used by ground forces for air defense because of that. quote:
Not comparable as in the desert the flak units represented a significant percentage of German units capable of destroying tanks. If you posses one third of the anti tank assets you should at least destroy as many tanks. Based on my CFNA scenarios, I have a grand total of about 2000 AFVs, 500 AT guns, and 138 88mm DP guns for the Axis in the Desert War. That's about 5% of the AT assets. I could be off by a little, but not that much. There weren't that many of them. Big contrast to Normandy. The important point is that a retreating force is subject to tank losses for operational reasons (cut off, breakdown, out of fuel, etc.), and tactical losses will mostly be inflicted by mobile equipment. quote:
The Red army artillery coordination was always poor, that said they 7.62 was by design meant to be both field and AT gun, and engage targets mostly by direct fire. They did get better as the war progressed. And, didn't their tanks have HE? And, I will repeat for one more time: The Germans were compelled, late in the war to create a dedicated 88mm AT gun, and abandoned the comparable Flak-41. That only has one rational explaination: The 88mm Flak was no longer effective in the AT role. Regardless, the point remains that the 88's were only effective in the AT role against incompetent enemies. If the Soviets were still incompentent, they may still have been effective against them. But only for that reason. quote:
But I digress, wasn't it you that claimed that the 8.8 was able to be dismounted fast enough to engage strafing aircraft without prior warning? No. I've said that: 1. In many cases they would have prior warning because the planes start out at altitude where they can be spotted at great distance, 2. Even if they don't, they can deploy in time to engage them before they fly back out of range, 3. Multiple passes by strafing aircraft can be engaged, 4. At certain locations (see post #1111) they would already be automatically unlimbered. Let's review the quote in that post one more time. Note that it contains the following three words: heavy Flak is required So, if the moving unit is ever going to cross a bridge, defile, or intersection, or ever halt, it requires heavy Flak. By policy. Hard for me to understand how anyone could read that statement and still claim that heavy Flak was "useless" for air defense of moving units. quote:
Certainly after destroying targets it would be possible to shift the firing positions? The article clearly shows that repositioning is a major weakness of the Flak gun.
< Message edited by Curtis Lemay -- 7/13/2010 5:25:51 PM >
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