I'm doing research for an article on the Soviet counterattack at Lepel/Senno in early July 1941 in which two Soviet mechanized corps with well over 1,000 tanks between them attacked elements of the 47th and 39th Panzer Corps and were soundly beaten. Like in many Soviet documents, the Luftwaffe is given a great deal of credit for defeating the attacks. If you read books such as AIRPOWER AT THE BATTLE FRONT by Ian Gooderson, you find that Allied airplanes were next to useless against tanks, regardless of what weapons they were using. I can't believe that other airforces were any better. In STRIKE FROM THE SKY Richard Hallion writes (p. 239) "...four days into the invasion of Russia, an entire wing of Stukas attacked a concentration of sixty Soviet tanks near Grodno, destroying only one of them."
I get the feeling that the Soviets used the excuse of airpower as a convenient excuse to justify their defeats. The storyline would be that the VVS was to blame for not covering the gound forces, therefore the ground commanders could not be held accountable for being defeated by aviation (the excuse that the German tanks were technically better fills the same role).
I'd be interested in finding out if anyone knows of any studies or data on the effectiveness of the Luftwaffe against tanks on the Eastern Front or has anything to say on this topic.
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posted 01-14-2006 06:25 AM
