Motor transports

totals between June 6th '44 and May 8th '45
destroyed 53 811
damaged 22 546

Between June 6th and July 25th (Normandy campaign)
destroyed 1 945
damaged 774

Between July 26th and August 26th (Northern France campaign)
destroyed 8 743
damaged 2 878

AFV's and tanks

totals between June 6th '44 and May 8th '45
destroyed 4 509
damaged 3 751

Between June 6th and July 25th (Normandy campaign)
destroyed 155
damaged 94

Between July 26th and August 26th (Northern France campaign)
destroyed 1 030
damaged 829

Locomotives

totals between June 6th '44 and May 8th '45
destroyed 5 753
damaged 2 677

Between June 6th and July 25th (Normandy campaign)
destroyed 194
damaged 193

Between July 26th and August 26th (Northern France campaign)
destroyed 189
damaged 101

RR cars
totals between June 6th '44 and May 8th '45
destroyed 43 317
damaged 51 269

Between June 6th and July 25th (Normandy campaign)
destroyed 2 117
damaged 3 449

Between July 26th and August 26th (Northern France campaign)
destroyed 2 521
damaged 2 553

Dumps

totals between June 6th '44 and May 8th '45
destroyed 582
damaged 320

Between June 6th and July 25th (Normandy campaign)
destroyed 4
damaged 1

Between July 26th and August 26th (Northern France campaign)
destroyed 16
damaged 3

Horse drawn vehicles
totals between June 6th '44 and May 8th '45
destroyed 6 312
damaged 1 362

Between June 6th and July 25th (Normandy campaign)
destroyed 365
damaged 86

But in the ORO study entitled Effectiveness of Air Support Operation in Korea (26 Sep 51) an analysis of 239 T-34 losses is included. Of them 102 were to air weapons, 63 to ground weapons and 74 abandoned and unknown. Now the air weapons include 60 to napalm, 18 to rockets, 7 to bombs, 7 to straffing, and 10 to unknown (why it was known to be destroyed by an air weapon rather than a ground weapon is not explained).

So of 185 destroyed by enemy action 60 were to napalm, a weapon not common in the ETO prior to 1945. Rockets, bombs and straffing -- the common form of aerial attack in the ETO -- accounted for only 32. Even more interesting ORO Memo No. 29 of 31 Dec 50 makes the interesting comment that the effectiveness of napalm versus tanks was accidental. Pilots made claims for napalm destroying or damaging tanks only 5% of the time, while it was actually effective 71% (64 of 90 cases investigated in this study) of the time.

Depuy Institute, US ARMY Colonel T.N. Depuy “Numbers, Predictions & War”

quote:

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EFFECTS OF AIRPOWER, AND GERMAN PROWESS

Despite the complaints of our airmen that we were not giving due consideration to the effects of air weapons, we seemed to be getting a pretty good fit for most engagements, and were not distressed when a few failed to fit into the pattern. After all, human behavior will vary from time to time and place to place. Suddenly, however, it became disconcertingly obvious that the deviations from the norm were most evident in those battles in which Allied airpower was not employed, or in which its involvement was slight—usually due to bad weather. At the same time another phenomenon became evident in our results. Where the Allied power superiority in the Pf/Pe ratio was very great, the result was usually (but not always) an Allied success. Where the Allies' Pf/Pe ratio was slight or marginal, the Germans were usually successful, or the outcome was inconclusive (an outcome value between +0.5 and —0.5); where the Pr/Pe ratio suggested an indeterminate outcome (a value between 0.9 and I.I), the Germans were invariably successful, as they were when the Pf/Pe ratio was in their favor. We had started out with an assumption that the Germans probably had something like a 10 percent combat effectiveness advantage over the less experienced British and Americans at the time of the Salerno landings. But we also assumed that (discounting the inevitable differences that will exist among units due to leadership and other indefinable causes) by mid-1944 the Allies would, on the average, have closed this experience-capability gap. Our results now indicated that this was not the case.

Suddenly, answers for these various discrepancies fell into place within our theory of combat. We had been getting reasonably consistent results for most of our engagements because our underestimation of German combat effectiveness had been offset by an underestimation of the effect of predominantly greater Allied air strength. We listed both the power ratio and outcome values in order of descending magnitude, and drew a line through the middle of the indeterminate engagements (on the P/P listing) and through the middle of the inconclusive outcomes (on the R-R listing), and found that these midpoints did not match. We found, however, that we could bring these two midpoints into close conformity with each other by applying a 1.2 relative combat effectiveness value (CEV) factor to show the German superiority, and by doubling the values we had been applying for the effects of air weapons. We didn't like one of the two conclusions which this adjustment forced upon us— that 100 Germans were roughly the combat equivalent of 120 Americans or British—but we could not ignore the fact that our numbers demonstrated that this was so. Our airmen, of course, felt justified by the other conclusion: that air weapons had about twice as much effect on ground combat outcomes as we ground soldiers had initially been willing to recognize.

This decision substantially reduced the number of engagements of our Development Data Base that did not fit the theory of combat represented by our two basic formulae and the factors for variables of combat. As noted above, only five out of sixty, less than 10 percent, did not fit.

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Over the next week or so, I am going to be posting the results of the various efforts to measure the relative combat effectiveness between Germans and the allied forces in WWII. My first posting has been made under "Current TDI Interests"

Of course, what Trevor was discussing was the actual OLI (Operational Lethality Index) value assigned to aircraft. Every weapon is eventually given a numerical value based upon a formula that takes into account its salient charateristics. As such, the OLI of a WWII airplane is about the same as a tank. This is not because when they are on the battlefield, they have the same firepower, it is because the tank is on the battlefield 24 hours a day, whereas the time the plane spends over the battlefield is considerably less (note that the OLI value for a plane is per sortie). Furthermore, the model degrades the various scores by operational conditions (weather, terrain, etc.). This degradation differs depending on the type of weapon (obviously weather really affects aircraft). I think the point that shocks the airpower people is that the tank is rated roughly equal to the aircraft, ignoring the fact that it is only superior to the tank when it over the battlefield, which it is not most of the time. What Trevor was trying to establish was the overall combat value of such a system.

As such, while the OLIs are a firepower-type score, they are not a "firepower" score. They instead measure something more nebulus, like combat power. In effect, it is an index number. This assiging a number to an undefinable "measure of effectiveness" is something that has caused lots of heartburn in the OR (Operations Reserch) community. Still, it seems to work better than the alternatives: real firepower scores and SSPKs (single-shot probability of kill).

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Originally posted by Tero:
I have not been able to reconnect to the AFHRA site but luckily I was able to find a hardcopy of the 9th AF ground kill list..."

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Would this be claims or actual verified kills? I'm asking because OR studies found great discrepancies between claims and actual kills.

Regarding Gen. Depuy and the topic at hand he does present some interesting observations in “Changing An Army”.

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(pg 49 of the Interview) The final bottleneck in the Falaise Pocket was at a little town called Chambois. The 358th infantry finally put a battalion right in there and absolutely stopped the escape of the German forces. Our tanks and tank destroyers knocked out some tanks at the head of the columns, but the real slaughter, and it was an incredible inferno, was done by the artillery and by the Fighters. I guess it’s wrong to say that it was all done by the artillery. P-47s and the British rocket firing Typhoons were also in there all of the time. In fact, they shot at us some too, but they were very effective in destroying columns.

There was a main east-west road that was blocked at Chambois. There were two or three
parallel columns all headed to the east, right on the road where they tried to pass one another. Then, on each side of the road. In the fields, were clearly discernible additional columns, about ten on each side of the road, so there were about 20 to 25 parallel columns as far as the eye could see. By -that I mean miles of destroyed vehicles, horses, tanks, and trucks. It was just an incredible sight. And, indeed, if we fight again, and if the Seventh Army and V Corps can hold and prevent a breakthrough, and the Russians get jammed up coming in, and if the Air Force can get at them, there is no doubt in my mind that that's where the killing will occur.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alex H:
Would this be claims or actual verified kills? I'm asking because OR studies found great discrepancies between claims and actual kills.

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Alex: The original source was probably the USAAF Statistical Digest of circa 1946-48. The 9th TAF 'kills' are indeed actually 'claims.'

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Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:
This isn't the first time I have favored General Depuy's spelling over Col. Dupuy's. I chalk it up to my own personal Dupuy\Depuy dyslexia. I don’t feel too guilty however. Those who like to use proper spelling in moderation have butchered my own surname all my life.

Regarding Gen. Depuy and the topic at hand he does present some interesting observations in “Changing An Army”.

[This message has been edited by Jeff Duquette (edited 08-26-2001).]

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Jeff: curiously enough my father served with the 90th Division in WW II, with the 527th AAA Bn supporting the 90th DIVARTY. Three of the four divisional battalions were arrayed around the tiny village of Nonat-le-Pin from about 18 to 22 August firing almost continuously into the pocket to the north west. In the Divisional AAR and DIVARTY AAR there is little mention of air support effects, but a lot on the effects of the artillery.

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On the morning of the 6th September we completed our withdrawal and my troops went over to the defensive. . . . Our casualties had been very severe, caused mainly by the bombing and low-flying attacks of the R.A.F. They totaled, German and Italian together, 570 dead, 1800 wounded and 570 prisoners--in all, nearly 3000 men. On the material side, the main feature was our vehicle losses, which totaled 50 tanks, 15 field guns and 35 anti-tank guns, and 400 lorries.

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Infact Rommel toward the latter half of “The Rommel Papers” seems to go on and on about the terriable effects Allied Tactical air had on his Panzerarmee from approx 1942 onward.

Does anyone have any idea where a copy can be obtained of: Wolfgang Pickert’s “The Impact of Allied Air Attacks on German Divisions and Other Army Forces in Zones of Combat” GAF Historical Monograph Series, No. 184, Karlsruhe, Germany: US Air Force, 1958.

We have written up and will eventually post a history of all of Trevor's various organizations on the web site.

The report in question was written by HERO (Historical Evaluation Research Organization), which Trevor first established in 1962 and was his primary organization until the early 1990s (by itself or as part of TNDA or DMSI).

HERO Books was an independent book selling company he establised independent of HERO in the 1970s that sold his books and HERO reports. HERO eventually ended up as part of DMSI, a corporate shell established by Trevor that included a number stockholders. When Trevor quit DMSI in 1990, he took HERO Books with him to his new company, TNDA (which was actually a corporate shell he had used before). When TNDA went out of business, so to did HERO Books.

Trevor then set up The Dupuy Institute (TDI) in 1992. Meanwhile, in 1993, his son, Arnold Dupuy, set up NOVA Publications as a seperate business using the old HERO Books assets. This year, we took over the selling of NOVA Publications books from Arny, although the books and company are still his property.

This was probably more of an explanation than you bargained for.

quote:

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Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:
The HERO Books study I obtained several months ago from TDI entitled “German Evaluation of Allied Air Interdiction in WWII (Oct 1969) seems to imply in several locations that German armor was quite vulnerable to tactical air attacks. What is the association of TDI with HERO Books?

Does anyone have any idea where a copy can be obtained of: Wolfgang Pickert’s “The Impact of Allied Air Attacks on German Divisions and Other Army Forces in Zones of Combat” GAF Historical Monograph Series, No. 184, Karlsruhe, Germany: US Air Force, 1958.

[This message has been edited by Jeff Duquette (edited 08-27-2001).]

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Jeff, fragments of Pickert's memoir has been used in a number of different books. However, the original monograph series is available from the USAF Historical Office at Dayton and is also available (in microfilm copies) from the Historical Office at Andrews AFB.

quote:

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Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:
This is an excerpt from “The Rommel Papers”, p. 283, (Edited by BH Liddell Hart)

Infact Rommel toward the latter half of “The Rommel Papers” seems to go on and on about the terriable effects Allied Tactical air had on his Panzerarmee from approx 1942 onward.

[This message has been edited by Jeff Duquette (edited 08-27-2001).]

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But Jeff, he is describing the results of the Battle of Alam Halfa, the last major attempt to break through to Egypt, and needed some explanation other than "I exceeded my orders and authority, disregarded logistical realities, and stuck my head into the lion's den."

A major clue is the 570 Axis PWs he mentions -- exactly how is the Desert Air Force to account for those? In any case, the best I have been able to determine the casualties for the battle of 29 August to 5 September are:

Axis 536 KIA, 1750 WIA, 511 MIA, 2797 Total
Brit 394 KIA, 1470 WIA, 501 MIA, 2365 Total

I also know that the Axis lost (destroyed, damaged, broken-down) 49 tanks of the 510 operational on 29 August -- not many considering the intensity of the battle and all of that Allied air flying about.

Also, 55 guns were given as lost from a total of 1219 field artillery, AT artillery, and AA artillery available -- again not many given that towed artillery is usually considered to be highly vulnerable to air attack in the open desert.

========================

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Rich Said: BTW, Pickert was a Flak Kommandeur, so has something of a biased view of his own (see Niklas Zetterling's commentary on his memoirs regaring the III Flak Korps experience in Normandy in "Normandy 1944").

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Rich Said: curiously enough my father served with the 90th Division in WW II, with the 527th AAA Bn supporting the 90th DIVARTY. Three of the four divisional battalions were arrayed around the tiny village of Nonat-le-Pin from about 18 to 22 August firing almost continuously into the pocket to the north west. In the Divisional AAR and DIVARTY AAR there is little mention of air support effects, but a lot on the effects of the artillery.

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I should on the one hand discount the writings of Flak Kommandeur Pickert as being biased, but on the other hand I should feel there is no such bias on the part of a member of triple-A unit in the 90th ID? (No disrespect intended to your father)

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Rich Said: But Jeff, he is describing the results of the Battle of Alam Halfa, the last major attempt to break through to Egypt, and needed some explanation other than "I exceeded my orders and authority, disregarded logistical realities, and stuck my head into the lion's den."

A major clue is the 570 Axis PWs he mentions -- exactly how is the Desert Air Force to account for those? In any case, the best I have been able to determine the casualties for the battle of 29 August to 5 September are

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The implication is that I should place little reliance on “The Rommel Papers”? This is curious in that this direct quote is used in the TDI study I mentioned earlier entitled “German Evaluation of Allied Air Interdiction in WWII”. Employed presumably for the purpose of demonstrating the effectiveness of Allied Tactical Air Interdiction in North Africa (Page II-7). If I am reading Chris’s post correctly HERO Books is in essence TDI?

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Rich Said: Alex: The original source was probably the USAAF Statistical Digest of circa 1946-48. The 9th TAF 'kills' are indeed actually 'claims.'

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Presumably you are implying that the USAAF Statistical Digest is to be taken with a grain of salt as well.

Your article on “Artillery vs. Armor” seems to rely heavily – at least for the various Normandy Tables – on No. 2 ORS Report 15 & 17. What was the acceptance criteria you developed for establishing credibility in these particular reports?

To touch on the Rommel Paper’s again, I think you are misconstruing the quote I provided above. Clearly the passage is referring to the impact of RAF ground attacks on the Afrika Korps, and the casualties listed come with the stipulation that the main cause was from air attacks. Rommel goes on to indicate that British ground efforts were negligible during this period.

“British ground forces, as has been shown, had hardly put in an appearance during the offensive. Montgomery had attempted no large-scale attack to retake the southern part of his line; and would probably have failed if he had. He had relied instead on the effect of his enormously powerful artillery and air force.” (Rommel Papers pg 284 “The Third Dimension”)

The section of Chapter XIII of The Rommel Paper’s in which the quote detailing German casualties was derived from a section of the book entitled “The Third Dimension” -- a reference to the effects of British Air Attacks – and focuses almost entirely on Rommel’s frustrations with British Air Power in North Africa.

“Anyone who has to fight even with the most modern weapons, against an enemy in complete command of the air, fights like a savage against modern European troops, under the same handicaps and with the same chances of success.” (Rommel Papers pg 285 “The Third Dimension”)

and

"We therefore had to try to put our defence against the forthcoming British attack into such a form that British air superiority would have the least effect. For the first and most serious danger which now threatened us -was from the air. This being so, we could no longer rest our defence on the motorised forces used in a mobile role, since these forces were too vulnerable to air attack. We had instead to try to resist the enemy in field positions which had to be construtced for defence against the most modern weapons of war." (Rommel Papers pg 286 “The Third Dimension”)

The point of Depuy (battalion commander in the infantry, 90th Division) and my Dad (effectively in the artillery, 90th Division) was the coincidence, nothing more. BTW, there is no way that I could find that it is possible to view the approaches from the west to the bridge at Chambois, and certainly none from La Bourg St. Leonard (which IIRC is where Depuy actually was). I just question how he -- without the intense scrutiny and analysis of the OR teams (he had a rather different job after all) could differentiate between the air and artillery effects.

As to the OR reports, they very reliably distinguish between causitive agents when possible and make no bones about saying they don't know (always a charming habit in this business ). The scant numbers available from the 'Pocket' was because there were so many vehicles to examine, and so many of them were simply abandoned. A case could be made that they were abandoned because of air attacks (the crews panic and flee because they see masses of Allied aircraft????, was it clearer then or something?, there had been masses of Allied aircraft over the skies of Normandy for months by then). Another case could be made becuase that they were abandoned due to tactical circumstances (outflanked, nearly surrounded, their logistical infrastructure outside the pocket [hard to get em gas in that situation], under constant ground, artillery, and air attack, and with only two effective routes of withdrawal -- Trun and Chambois -- both under attack).

quote:

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Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:

For the first and most serious danger which now threatened us -was from the air. This being so, we could no longer rest our defence on the motorised forces used in a mobile role, since these forces were too vulnerable to air attack. We had instead to try to resist the enemy in field positions which had to be construtced for defence against the most modern weapons of war." (Rommel Papers pg 286 “The Third Dimension”)

[/B]

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I would say that the experiences that can be concluded from Normandy suggest that Rommel was wrong on this. First of all, it was not the mechanized or motorized units that suffered most from the air threat, but those dependent on the horse. In fact, when motorized units tried to make it to Normandy (mechanized were usually transported on rail) by their own means, they did so quickly and with losses that seldom exceed what would be expected from half a day of normal ground combat. We have examples like the 12. SS-Pz.Div., Pz.Lehr, elements from 17. SS-Pz.Gren.Div. just to mention a few. Some of the movements took place in daylight, some in darkness and some under the cover of clouds. However, to supply these movements with fuel proved more difficult, and often the units arrived with empty fuel tanks, with no depots available in the combat zone. The fuel problem was partly an effect of allied air power and partly an effect of a general German shortage of fuel.
When it comes to the movement of tanks, it seems that the Germans were more anctions to reduce wear and tear on their tracks, engines and transmission, than bothering with the threat from the air, or else they would probably not have chosen to use rail transport for the tanks, since the railways were much more easy to interdict than the roads.

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Rich Said: To clarify a bit. Pickert's III Flak Korps possibly suffered the highest losses from Allied air attack of any comparably sized German unit in Normandy.

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All the more reason not to disregard his information. Who better to relay the impact of Allied Tactical Air affects then someone who has been at the sharp end of the stick. Presumably we are all ultimately interested in seeing that equal air time is granted to both sides of this coin.

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Rich Said: I just question how he -- without the intense scrutiny and analysis of the OR teams (he had a rather different job after all) could differentiate between the air and artillery effects.

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How much specialized training is needed for a US ARMY officer to make an observation regarding burning vehicles resultant from a strafing\bombing run by P-47’s or rocket firing Typhoons. Depuy isn’t belching out numbers and percentages; he is simply providing us with his personal insights regarding an air attack on a German road column. Depuy’s observations are also not out of line with an examination by ORS “experts” on a similar situation. See ORS Report No. 3 “Investigation of an Air Attack on A German Column Near La Baleine".

quote:

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Rich Said: As to the OR reports, they very reliably distinguish between causitive agents when possible and make no bones about saying they don't know.

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The intense study\examination of knocked out German AFV’s implied in ORS No. 15 and 17 is nevertheless limited to captured vehicles. German tank recovery operations would obviously skew any conclusions resultant from over reliance on these reports.

As you so aptly indicated the notes associated with these reports details in depth causative agents. But in all instances the reports also include elaboration on the inability to determine causation for many destroyed vehicles. The ubiquitous “Unknown Causes” typically make up significant percentages of destroyed vehicles examined in both ORS 15 & 17. A direct hit by a 500lbs bomb apparently makes a mess of an AFV…no doubt a direct hit by an 8” shell also makes a MkIV somewhat of a greasy smear. ORS Report No. 3 includes 19 unknown causes out of 33 KO’d vehicles examined…ORS Report No. 4 includes 41 unknown causes of 115 destroyed vehicles examined...etc...etc...etc (sorry the wife made me watch “The King and I” last night...I never realized Yul Brenner dies in the end ;().

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Rich Said: The problem with the Rommel papers is the unsupported juxtaposition of Axis casualties with British air effectiveness. Simply put, I cannot find any evidence in the contemporary accounts that there was much effect felt on the front lines...

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Presumably you are implying that there is no corroborating evidence by other German Soldiers bemoaning the nuisances of British Tactical Air Interdiction in North Africa? I am interested in your thoughts as to why Rommel would insinuate the losses were mainly due to air action. "I exceeded my orders and authority, disregarded logistical realities, and stuck my head into the lion's den" seems overly vague. Rommel was continuously exceeding his orders and disregarding logistical shortages throughout much of his campaign in N. Africa…starting from initial push from El Agheila in March of 1941.

From further above...

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Rich Said:But in the ORO study entitled Effectiveness of Air Support Operation in Korea (26 Sep 51) an analysis of 239 T-34 losses is included. Of them 102 were to air weapons, 63 to ground weapons and 74 abandoned and unknown. Now the air weapons include 60 to napalm, 18 to rockets, 7 to bombs, 7 to straffing, and 10 to unknown (why it was known to be destroyed by an air weapon rather than a ground weapon is not explained).

So of 185 destroyed by enemy action 60 were to napalm, a weapon not common in the ETO prior to 1945. Rockets, bombs and straffing -- the common form of aerial attack in the ETO -- accounted for only 32. Even more interesting ORO Memo No. 29 of 31 Dec 50 makes the interesting comment that the effectiveness of napalm versus tanks was accidental. Pilots made claims for napalm destroying or damaging tanks only 5% of the time, while it was actually effective 71% (64 of 90 cases investigated in this study) of the time.

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A couple of things:

1) Interesting regarding the underestimation of Claims by Pilot with respect to napalm attacks on tanks.

Back in our way back machine to ETO; 2nd Tactical Air Force ORS studies for the Ardennes indicates that Pilot Claims to actual destruction on the ground showed a ratio of approximately 10:1 for armored fighting vehicles…10 claims probably meant one real kill. This ratio is referenced by Danny Parker in his book “To Win The Winter Sky” and apparently originally derived from “The Contributions of the Air Force to the Stemming of the Enemy Thrust in the Ardennes” Report No. 19, p 5-6.

2) What was the decision making process involved in not employing Napalm in ETO?

3) 185 tanks KO’d by UN forces and subsequently examined by ORO. Discounting the 60 T-34’s and SU-76’s destroyed by Napalm the study still indicates 41 tanks knocked out by other air action (RP, bombs, or strafing, etc.). ~ 22%.

I think that the recovery question has little, if any, impact on the issue. The cases we look at all included a large number of German tanks abandoned without being hit by anything. It would have been more worthwhile to recover those than any vehicles hit from the air. Furthermore, it is not certain that this would skew the result against the air units, it could just as well skew the results in favour of air claims. Also it must be remembered that the situation around Falaise was not propitious for recovering AFV, it must have made more sense to keep the operational vehicles running.

I can not agree that "unkown causes" are a significant problem for tank losses.
I have to repeat that we have to separate armoured vehicles from soft-skinned and also lightly armoured (APC, A/C etc) from heavily armoured, like tanks. If we look at the Mortain data, we find that out of 43 tanks, only 4 were unknown causes, or less than 10 %. Of the three SP guns two were unknown causes (but such a minuscule number is not much to make conclusions from). Out of 90 tanks in the “Falaise Pocket”, nine were unknown causes, of 31 SP guns, four were unknown causes. Of 82 tanks and assault guns in the Shambles area, one was listed as “unknown or other cause” Of 98 tanks in the “Chase area”, nine were classified as “unknown or other cause”. All in all around 90 % of all tanks seem to have been possible to classify.
There seems to be little evidence that air power would count for a large share of the “unknown”. For example, in the Mortain area, most of the “unknown” were found at a considerable distance from any kind of evidence of air attack. Also, air attacks were usually accompanied with typical marks from machine gun fire from an altitude that ruled out ground fire. This was true even if rockets or bombs were used. In the end there seems not to have been a great problem to identify those tanks that were destroyed from the air, but it may have been somewhat more difficult to identify other vehicles, whihc could be expected to be more destroyed than tanks.

Niklas Zetterling

I noticed in Chapter 5 “Effects of Allied Air Power” of your book Normandy 1944, you reference a Reisebericht Hauptmann Pickardt. Who is this officer?

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Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:
Niklas:

I noticed in Chapter 5 “Effects of Allied Air Power” of your book [b]Normandy 1944, you reference a Reisebericht Hauptmann Pickardt. Who is this officer?

[This message has been edited by Jeff Duquette (edited 08-30-2001).][/B]

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I don't know exactly who he was, but he was sent out to visit the commander and staff of 1st SS-Pz.Corps, the commander of 84th corps, the commander and chief of staff of 352nd Division and the commander of Pz.Gruppe West. This was done on 8 and 9 June and on 10 June he sent wrote his report, which was subsequently presented at OB West and filed on 15 June.
It was not particularly unusal for the Germans to send out junior staff officers to discuss matters with front commanders when the situation was unclear.

1) Interesting regarding the underestimation of Claims by Pilot with respect to napalm attacks on tanks.

Back in our way back machine to ETO; 2nd Tactical Air Force ORS studies for the Ardennes indicates that Pilot Claims to actual destruction on the ground showed a ratio of approximately 10:1 for armored fighting vehicles…10 claims probably meant one real kill. This ratio is referenced by Danny Parker in his book “To Win The Winter Sky” and apparently originally derived from “The Contributions of the Air Force to the Stemming of the Enemy Thrust in the Ardennes” Report No. 19, p 5-6.

Yep, however, later OR studies call some of those figures into question. Jean Paul Pallud addressed this very well in his 'Then and Now' book on the Ardennes. Recall the 1st SS-PzD JgPzIV that collapsed the bridge and was lost in the river near Chenaux? The air force claimed it as a kill.

2) What was the decision making process involved in not employing Napalm in ETO?

There was none. It was used in the ETO as an incendiary weapon. However, it was relatively new and was not frequently used. For example, in the Ardennes, the proportion of weapons used in ground attacks on tanks was (see ORS Joint Report No. 1, Air Attack on Enemy Armour in the Ardennes Salient, Appendix C to that report is also very enlightning):

GP Bombs 1,640
Frag Bombs 166
Rockets 572
Napalm 165

3) 185 tanks KO’d by UN forces and subsequently examined by ORO. Discounting the 60 T-34’s and SU-76’s destroyed by Napalm the study still indicates 41 tanks knocked out by other air action (RP, bombs, or strafing, etc.). ~ 22%.

Yes, as I said, this is perhaps the highest level of destruction that I can reliably attribute to air attack. However, consider that in this case, when the NKPA armor was attacking, US and ROKA ground forces had virtually no effective weapons against them. Well, at least until the first 3.5" bazookas were deployed at Taejon on mid-July and when the first M4s, M26s, and M46s landed in August and September. So, up to that point, an extraordinary number of CAS missions were being flown, most of them directed at armor. Combine that with the general inability for armor to maneuver off-road to any degree in Korea at the time (and it hasn't improved much since then) and you have a recipe for making air an effective tank killer.

Presumably you are implying that there is no corroborating evidence by other German Soldiers bemoaning the nuisances of British Tactical Air Interdiction in North Africa? I am interested in your thoughts as to why Rommel would insinuate the losses were mainly due to air action. "I exceeded my orders and authority, disregarded logistical realities, and stuck my head into the lion's den" seems overly vague. Rommel was continuously exceeding his orders and disregarding logistical shortages throughout much of his campaign in N. Africa…starting from initial push from El Agheila in March of 1941.

I am implying nothing of the sort. However, I am trying to quantify concretely what the physical effects were as differentiated from the "nuisance" effects or what someone "saw" the effects were.

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Mind you now, I admire Rommel, unfortunately, he had many of the same failings that plagued Robert E. Lee.

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Oops...publically slamming icons, who's next...MacArthur?

Niklas Zetterling