Ju-87G Stuka

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Furio

There’s not any law requiring Rudel as the final outcome. In other words, it’s not like a National Lottery where, as thin as the winning chances are, a number is ultimately drawn. A war can be – and most probably is – fought without any single soldier reaching such mythical results.

Never said "require", just said allows. And how ever improbable it may be, not impossible.

Originally Posted by Furio

2.500 missions and 30 times shot down are the numbers declared by Rudel. To put it simply, I consider them unbelievable, period. Logbooks and documents are falsifiable for propaganda purpose.

In a state so focused to document everything correctly, even their own war crimes? And at least for missions flown, there would have been witnesses to every take-off and every landing. Not impossible to do, but I'd bet some witness would have come forward after the war and tried to debunk the myth then. The shotdowns should even today be verifyable by comparing documents.

Originally Posted by Furio

Here I disagree, and I think numbers disagree also. If we take for good Rudel’s victory tally, just 240 of Rudel-type men would have destroyed 124,560 tanks, more that the total built in Russia during the whole war. Now, let’s divide Rudel’s efficiency by a factor of ten, for a victory tally of 50 destroyed tanks each. Just 2.491 pilots would have been enough to obtain the same result. If we consider that Russian tanks faced also many other dangers, mainly German panzers, jagdpanzers and 88 mm. guns, a much lower kill number was needed to win the war. It’s just a guess, but 25,000 destroyed tanks could have been more than enough to change history. And to obtain that result just 500 pilots, each one with one tenth of Rudel’s victory tally, are needed.
Play a little with different numbers, if you like, but the picture doesn’t change that much and, Rudel apart, says something about anti-tank weapons efficiency.

You know i was deliberately overexaggerating, do you?

But let's just extend this a little further. It is just too much fun.
Ten thousand Rudels would not have been able to kill as many tanks each as Rudel did, even given no shortage on planes and fuel and so on.
Rudel was operating in a target rich environment - he usually should have found more targets than he was able to shoot at. But if there were more Rudels around it gets increasingly difficult to find targets to the point where more than one Rudel is hunting the last available enemy vehicle - and they need to find it first.
So 10000 Rudels may be able to largely kill any AFVs the Red Army could throw at the Germans - still the Wehrmacht needs to occupy Russia with lots of ground to cover and infantry, artillery, airforce still defending. Already overextended supply lines getting even more extended, making any partisan warfare more effective - impossible to occupy all of Russia in time. And after total occupation the war is not won, there are still enemies, one you just gave a big breathing space(Britain), and one who is still powering up, and by that time - maybe unknowingly - has degraded your ally Japan from a vital to a medium threat (Midway).
So i do think even with the help of ten thousand Rudels the Germans would not have been able to conquer Russia, Great Britain and North Africa in time to make it impossible for the US to get seriously involved in the ETO, which in the end should highly likely lead to defeat - even if it may prolong the war for a few years - in the end your leadership errors kill you -and attacking any and all powers around you except a few allies at the same time is even beyond dumb.

Originally Posted by Furio

30 times shot down. I know that Rudel was severely wounded and lost a leg, but just think a little at this number. Try to hit an airplane for 30 times with bullets and shells, always leaving the pilot alive. Pilots apart, for 30 times the plane receive fatal damage: one time the engine is stopped, another the fuel tank sets on fire or explode, control linkages are severed, wings or tail are shot away, and each time the pilot bail out or crashland successfully, and always comes out alive and is never captured.
There’s no need for statistical analysis here.

As I said he must have been one of the luckiest pilots in that war.

[gaunt1]

Soviet tank losses became completely unsustainable by the end of war. They were already running out of tanks in 1944-1945, despite the myths. Total losses are around 95.000 (a shocking number, but true), while total produced is around 110-120.000 That means, 20 Rudels would be enough in that hypothetical scenario...

[Furio]

Originally Posted by gaunt1

Soviet tank losses became completely unsustainable by the end of war. They were already running out of tanks in 1944-1945, despite the myths. Total losses are around 95.000 (a shocking number, but true), while total produced is around 110-120.000 That means, 20 Rudels would be enough in that hypothetical scenario...

This is a significant number. May you quote the source? This source gives any breakdown for these losses? Destroyed in combat with enemy tanks, by enemy artillery, on mine fields, by air attack?
Thanks.

[Furio]

On Wikipedia, this summary can be found.
2,530 mission flown, 2,100 with Ju87 variants, 430 with Fw190.
Credited with the destruction of:
1 battleship (the Marat)
1 cruiser
1 (or 2) destroyers
70 landing crafts
800 vehicles of all types
150 artillery
519 tanks
4 armoured trains
9 (or 11) aircrafts
If the 800 vehicles don’t include tanks, the total of single target destroyed is:
1,557
Not counting an unspecified, but high number of bridges, bunkers and supply lines (whatever these last could be). The word “hundreds” is used.
All of the above is credited as individual kills, ships included. No shared kills are listed.

He was shot down or forced to land 30 times by anti aircraft fire (never by enemy fighters).
He rescued 6 stranded aircrew from enemy held territory.
He was wounded five times.
He lost a leg on February 8th 1,945, returned to fight on March 25th , claiming 26 more tanks before surrendering to U.S. forces on may 8th.

[Derda508]

I followed this thread with a lot of interest.
All in all I tend towards Furios side, hopefully not only because I find Rudel an absolutely despicable person.
I am pretty sure that he was a very good pilot, but largely a creature of propaganda. The Nazis, despite their mass-ideology that tried to eliminate indiviuality, needed heroes. The public especially loved fighter pilots like Marseille. Hitler himself, who always perceived the war from the perspective of a foot soldier in WWI trenches, never liked the 'gentlemanly' fighters pilots, but favoured the bombers (interestingly labelled 'Kampfflieger', that is fighters, while fighters are 'Jäger' = hunters). The idea of bringing unescapable death from above most probably was a wet dream of his sick brain. So there was a need to find a bomber pilot and make him a propaganda hero. Rudel was fitting the description and very willing and ready to believe that he was the 'chosen one'
It is true that the Nazis were obsessed with keeping records and kill claim procedure was meticulous. But for propaganda exeptions were easily madeor numbers were manipulated. For example the rumours never died that Galland, as long as he was in favour, reached his kill numbers by shooting down airplanes that were already crippled by his squadron members (no shared kills in the Luftwaffe system), other pilots like Krupinski found it sometimes pretty hard to get their kill claims accepted.
So I think it is easily possible that every time Rudel started the engine of his plane, it was counted as a sortie. Or equally that he was credited with the kills of other pilots of his squadron, who conveniently did not return ...

[gaunt1]

Originally Posted by Furio

This is a significant number. May you quote the source? This source gives any breakdown for these losses? Destroyed in combat with enemy tanks, by enemy artillery, on mine fields, by air attack?
Thanks.

Here you go:
http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/t...e-performance/

total losses are 96.500 tanks and SP guns.

source: G.F. Krivosheev , et al, Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century, Edited by Colonel General G.F. Krivosheev, Greenhill Books, London, 1997. p. 253, table 95.

No breakdown for these unfortunately. But one thing is sure, more than 25.000 of them can be attributed to a single type, the most successful tank killer of WW2: the StuG III.

[Furio]

Originally Posted by gaunt1

Here you go:
http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/t...e-performance/

total losses are 96.500 tanks and SP guns.

source: G.F. Krivosheev , et al, Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century, Edited by Colonel General G.F. Krivosheev, Greenhill Books, London, 1997. p. 253, table 95.

No breakdown for these unfortunately. But one thing is sure, more than 25.000 of them can be attributed to a single type, the most successful tank killer of WW2: the StuG III.

I’ve carefully read this page, and others in the same site, including one that deals with our very topic: effectiveness of anti tank aircrafts versus tanks. Overall, the feeling is that the author read a lot of books, but didn’t do any first hand research. He then plays with available numbers (just like me…) and draws his conclusions, but the lack of direct research cast doubts about the reliability of these conclusions. They are good when he chooses a good source, but we can only have or have not faith in his choices.
That said, author cites reports from Research and Analysis teams entering combat areas, once they were secured, to verify the real effect of weapons and tactics on the battlefield. Or, to put it simply: to compare claims and reality. He cited two cases: Normandy 1,944 and Kursk 1,943 from German side. Somewhat confusing, he then analyses overall result of Soviet ground attack aircrafts for the whole war, basing his evaluation mainly on German reports.
The results are:
4-5% kill-claim ratios for Allied in Normandy, with an overclaiming of 95%, mostly by Typhoons.
2-5% for Germans at Kursk, overclaiming of 95% at best, mostly by Hs129s and Ju87Gs.
6-7% for Russian in the whole war, overclaiming of 93 %, mostly by Il2 and Pe2.
For what is worth, I read elsewhere the same analysis result about Normandy. It is perhaps significant that Russians, with the less specialized Shturmoviks and Peshkas, obtained the best results, but I doubt that the word “best” can be used for such dismal performances. The author cited as the probable causes:
Primitive gun sighting.
Poor precision of unguided rockets.
Very limited ammunition load for cannons, and very low rate of fire.
Very short useful times for target acquisition, sighting, firing and assessing results, all the while manoeuvring to avoid anti aircraft fire.
All of the above looks reasonable to me, and I would add the effect of dust and smoke on visibility, and of wind and typical low-level turbulence on sighting for slow aircraft with relatively low wing loading.
However, in all those analysis (as surely in my posts too) the author makes some suspicious mistakes. For example, talks abut the Il2 and Il10 as being specialized anti-tank types, while they were multi purpose CAS types, with the exception of the Il2-37 with 37 mm cannons, built in relatively small numbers and only briefly employed.
Elsewhere, while debunking the T34 myth, he says: “In addition, USAAF and RAF gave the Russians air superiority for the first time (in 1,944)”. This is clearly absurd, as no USAAF or RAF units were fighting in Russia. I suspect he was implying that the indirect effects of bombing offensive on Western Front should be factored, but then the reverse is equally true, as Russians kept busy Luftwaffe forces that otherwise would have been available against USAAF/RAF bomber offensive. In a “what if” folly, he says that Russia would have lost war in 1,941 if not saved by Lend Lease help received in subsequent years. I have a better “What if”. Demoralised by shameful defeats and appalling losses, Stalin committed suicide in October 1,941, Soviet Union surrendered and Germany conquered the world.
We should always be sceptical about everything: Rudel’s claims and historical analysis by book readers, like we all are.

[dimlee]

Originally Posted by Furio

I suspect he was implying that the indirect effects of bombing offensive on Western Front should be factored, but then the reverse is equally true, as Russians kept busy Luftwaffe forces that otherwise would have been available against USAAF/RAF bomber offensive.

LW fighter force in Eastern Front in 1944-45 was cut down to bare minimum. Priorities were clear: home defence first, the rest secondary.

[Furio]

Originally Posted by dimlee

LW fighter force in Eastern Front in 1944-45 was cut down to bare minimum. Priorities were clear: home defence first, the rest secondary.

If this is true, then the reverse should be true also. Russians gained air superiority for RAF and USAAF during the previous year, exactly when the bomber offensive was risking failure. And it was 1,943 the decisive year for the outcome of war. In 1,944, war was already lost for Germany, regardless LW shifting from East to West, North to South or whatever. In my opinion.

[Furio]

The whole numbers game exploded in my hands! Each new number I write just adds to the confusion, so I would try one last time, reducing the whole thing to the very bare-bones essence.
20 (twenty, not 2,500 nor 10,000) Rudels would have changed the course of war.
200 pilots with one tenth of his ability and luck would have obtained the same result.
400 pilots with one twentieth of his ability and luck would have obtained the same result.
Germany lost the war, and this leave us with two possible explanations:
Rudel’s victory tally is far from reality.
Rudel’s victory tally is near reality, and all other Luftwaffe attack pilots were incredibly ineffective, unable to reach even one tenth to one twentieth of his results, while flying the same types against the same enemy.
This is what numbers tell to me, and I would not insist further on it.

Originally Posted by majorfailure

In a state so focused to document everything correctly, even their own war crimes? And at least for missions flown, there would have been witnesses to every take-off and every landing. Not impossible to do, but I'd bet some witness would have come forward after the war and tried to debunk the myth then. The shotdowns should even today be verifyable by comparing documents.

This is an interesting and serious objection, but at least three explanations come to my mind. They do not exclude each other. On the contrary they sum up happily.
First: the Germans were surely meticulous, but they concocted as much propaganda as any other combatant. By definition, propaganda alters reality, often to a bewildering level.
Second: Rudel was surely a great pilot and surely obtained remarkable results. He soon became a hero, than a super hero, and who would question a super-hero’s word? As a super-hero, returning from a mission he could claim anything. Nobody would contradict him, both for his status and for his propaganda value.
Third: after the war, witness became rapidly scarce. For many years Nazi war crimes fell into oblivion, while the attention of Western public was redirected toward the new enemy: Soviet Union. In the new climate, Rudel was free to relive his super-hero myth with a successful book, a good thing for his ego, his pocket and his political party.
As for debunking myths, it’s never easy. Between history and myths, people always favour myths. Look at how little success I had here in this thread!

Originally Posted by majorfailure

Never said "require", just said allows. And how ever improbable it may be, not impossible.
As I said he must have been one of the luckiest pilots in that war.

Here I think we’ll disagree forever. Everything is possible, you’re right. You can throw two dice and obtain two sixes, then again, and then again, but each time it’s less and less probable, to the point that it’s practically impossible. You cannot stretch luck forever. Please read again what I’ve written about USAAF policy on the matter. I maintain my opinion: Rudel flew fewer missions, or most of his missions had very low risk, or no risk at all.

I don’t want to repeat what I’ve already said about being shot down 30 times.