Paul J. Adam
6/26/2014 6:17:00 PM
On 26/06/2014 13:57, SolomonW wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Jun 2014 19:05:01 +0100, Paul J. Adam wrote:
>> To the south of England, hoping to hit London.
>
> I am sure that they will hit London at least as well as in 1944.
They won't do any better.
>> The problem with that is... so what? It doesn't damage Fighter Command,
>> which is the Luftwaffe's key objective.It doesn't damage the Royal
>> Navy, which is the main obstacle the Germans actually face (they need
>> air superiority, in order to try to suppress the RN, in order to have
>> any chance at all of invading). It'll destroy some homes and kill some
>> civilians, but that isn't going to win the war for Germany, and it can't
>> achieve Harris-style disruption because they can't concentrate the
>> effects in time or space.
>
> All this refers to the Battle of Britain; this POD starts in 1943.
Same problems. What tangible strategic effect is this campaign having?
The 1940-41 Blitz didn't knock Britain out of the war and the RAF and
USAAF didn't force a German surrender in isolation.
>> And it's back to the problem that the Germans are already being
>> outproduced in aircraft and are losing the attrition fight during the
>> real Battle of Britain: diverting production to V1s doesn't help that
>> one little bit.
>
> Again all this refers to the Battle of Britain; this POD starts in 1943.
Where German aircraft production is even further behind that of the
Allies, and so the disadvantage even greater.
>> Answer it how? Attacks on the production and launch sites, perhaps.
>> Fewer Circuses and Rhubarbs over France to free up fighters for the
>> Diver Belts... except that, actually, hunting for V1 launch sites would
>> turn the "fighter sweep" into something more useful. It doesn't appear
>> to have much effect.
>
> Fighter sweeps over France failed in this period and fighters in 1944
> proved useless again V1 launchers.
Really? Fighter-bombers were ineffective against V1 launch sites? The
Germans weren't forced to abandon the fixed "ski jump" sites in favour
of mobile operations because of Allied air attacks?
>> Nor is it war-winning, or sustainable. If you want to sustain that
>> weight of attack for four times as long, you need to produce four times
>> as many V1s, which adds up to major impacts on other programmes: labour,
>> materials, fuel, ordnance, all pinch points for the Third Reich.
>
> 1944 proved there was no pinch point for either V1s or V2s.
Then why didn't they launch two, three, ten, a hundred times more? It
seems there were indeed constraints on the production and deployment of
the V1 and V2.
>> Okay, what response? Surrender? Don't think so. What else?
>
> What about demands for action which would cause large diversion of
> resources to the British coast to stop the incoming V1s and against the
> launchers in France.
You mean, like we actually did in 1944? Didn't appear to cripple the
British war effort.
>> The solution is a successful OVERLORD to push the launch sites out of
>> range of the UK. This may help the UK because it stops Churchill's
>> obsession with the "soft underbelly" and may mean no invasion of Italy,
>> for example, in order to prioritise resources for a 1944 OVERLORD
>> coupled to a counter-V1 campaign in the short term.
>
> Despite some experts, I doubt until the Battle of the Atlantic was won that
> Overlord was possible.
Correct, but a more severe V1 threat focusses the attention on the key
task and away from distractions.
>> Oh, they needed to, they just couldn't do it.
>
> Why did the Germans in 1943 need air reconnaissance over Britain in 1943?
To find out what's happening in Britan, like - for example -
preparations for an invasion of France? The sort of thing that
commanders find useful.
>> Strategic bombers won't be retasked to hit V1 launch sites: wrong tool
>> for the job.
>
> Well larger numbers were used in 1944 with almost no effect.
The heavies weren't tasked much if at all for hitting V1 sites, that was
a tactical aviation job; and even if someone demands it, the
inefffective results will mean it's a short-lived diversion at best.
Not really worth a year's fighter production to Germany, is it?
>> The same factors, and the same lessons learned at Dieppe, say "not
>> 1943". What's more likely is no Italian campaign (maybe Sicily, but not
>> mainland Italy) to avoid diverting resources from (a) OVERLORD and (b)
>> countering the V-1.
>
> Alone this would justify the V1 program to Germany.
Why? Italy was a handy win for them, tying up a lot of Allied effort for
very little result and at low cost and risk to the Germans.
>> Lots of tactical aviation freed up from the Italian
>> campaign, to hit V1 sites in France
>
> Which would fail as in 1944.
It forced the Germans away from fixed sites onto mobile launchers, and
with a much higher density of launches there's many more targets to be
had. Ten times the activity means at least ten times the chance of being
spotted and strafed...
>> or patrol the Diver Belt...
>
> This had a lot of success in 1944, but it only reduced about half the V1s.
Still acceptable, given that there's no evidence that this V1 campaign
has a significant strategic success in prospect. Germany didn't give up
and surrender under thousand-bomber raids, why would the UK quit under a
drizzle of inaccurate V1s?
>> One problem of several was that radar-equipped patrol aircraft made
>> surfacing suicidal, and even snorting dangerous. Unfortunately, this
>> makes a long transatlantic cruise followed by a lengthy surfaced
>> excursion close to the US... unwise, for the U-boat force in 1943.
>
> It would not take that long to assemble and fire most people here think
> about half an hour.
That's a *long* time to spend on the surface, close to a hostile coast,
with enemy aircraft patrolling.
What happened to U-boats running on the surface in the Bay of Biscay in
1943, for example?
> In fact, U-boats in 1943, spent a lot of time near the US coast not only to
> hunt but also for air.
In 1943? Really? I think you'll find that the U-boats had been pushed
into the "black hole" outside land-based air cover, and that it was the
advent of VLR Liberators able to plug that gap that was part of their
death knell.
> Until the snorkel was widely distributed, all
> U-boats came up for long periods for air.
Which was so safe and straightforward... that they needed the snorkel?
> After May 1943, it may be the best use of German resources.
It isn't going to put many V1s into important US targets, that's for sure.
>> Really? The V-1s themselves are lost on every sortie (either fired or
>> sunk with their submarine), many of the submarines will be lost along
>> with their trained crews (inexperienced or not, they need to be trained)
>
> This mission would be much less dangerous then attacking convoys.
Which in 1943 isn't saying much.
>> while the attrition to the Liberators would be virtually zero.
>
> The big expense is that they need a lot of radar to cover this large
> territory,
One Liberator can sweep - big handfuls - four hundred square miles an
hour against a surfaced submarine, and is triggering the warning
receivers at much longer ranges than it can detect (which in turn is
triggering crash dives and abandoned missiles, unless you've got very
bold - and quite possibly soon-to-be-dead - crews on the U-boat).
Perfect coverage is difficult and expensive, but seriously
inconveniencing their operations and killing a decent number of them is
quite manageable.
>> Germany is not really in a position to try to defeat the US by
>> bankrupting it or by running it out of resources. The problem the US had
>> by 1944 was that it was embarrassed by its riches, with *too many* ships
>> and aircraft in production, too many crews training up for them, and a
>> diminishing mission for them to fulfil. The US can afford this cost
>> easily, while the Germans are already scraping along on the bones of
>> their arse and are busy losing the war even before diverting resources
>> to other tasks.
>
> I cannot think of something else that Germany could spend on money that
> resulted in such a diversion of Allied resources as the V1 program did, can
> you?
And yet, they still lose.
>> The Germans might, perhaps, have found a more cost/effective alternative
>> by focussing on the Red Horde that's coming to slaughter their menfolk
>> and brutally ravish the flower of German womanhood, rather than fiddling
>> around dropping random explosives on the UK and a few on the US. That
>> might include a unilateral surrender and withdrawal from all their
>> western conquests, pulling back to the Westwall and concentrating their
>> efforts on the Soviets: but, tactically, they've got no prospect of
>> defeating the UK, let alone the US.
>
> No way we are talking here of Hitler.
Which is why rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic isn't delaying
the sinking by much, if at all.
>> "Cheap" isn't "free". The V1 cost 5,090 Reichmarks, compared to 42,900RM
>> for a Me109G in 1943 (Wikipedia figures); your entire Me109 production
>> for 1943 buys you barely half of the V1 force you need, if you want to
>> deliver a hundred thousand in 1943.
>
> How could Germany run more planes, besides oil, materials, etc. another
> big problem was pilots? V1s they could operate much more than they did.
The point is, they didn't have enough planes: producing more V1s means
fewer aircraft at a point where they're already seriously short.
>> And yet you still need the labour, the materials, and the warheads, and
>> if you want many more V1s you need many more resources to do it that
>> then aren't available for other tasks.
>
> What weapon system the Germans had would be affected by a large V1 program
> in 1943.
Anything needing manpower, materials and explosives.
> As it was it was affordable in 1944..
Doesn't mean you can produce ten times as many without any effects
elsewhere.
Otherwise, I simply say that Britain launches a crash program in
response to the V1 threat and fields a hundred thousand Gloster Meteors
by mid-1943, which is clearly feasible because we could afford to
produce and field some in 1944...
--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.