Brcourt Manor Assault (d-day - Band of Brothers)

1,866 Views | 11 Replies | Last: 6 yr ago by CT'97
coupland boy
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AG
Great story and loved the depiction on BoB.

Question about the use of air power though. We had air superiority so why not dispatch a fighter or two for CAS? Things were no doubt stretched thin that day but an artillery battery like that would surely be a priority target would it not?

Similarly, on Saving Private Ryan, Miller made a comment about the air force not dispatching airpower for a single machine gun nest. That one makes more sense.

Curious as to how priorities for air sorties were decided.
rafkennel
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Not sure about the use of AirPower maybe a priority issue. But this is one of the more interesting sites that I have visited. I thought the lay of the battle field to be much more severe than depicted in the film
JABQ04
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AG
Interesting read on that topic

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a471896.pdf

Basically if you don't read the article, Allied Airpower was mostly for destroying the Luftwaffe if it sortied and for interdiction of German reinforcements. The part where it talks of German Divisions taking up wards of a week and a half to two weeks to reach the front and from first hand accounts of how German troops were terrified of the "jabos" (ground attack aircraft) speaks volumes to our mastery of the skies. Supporting ground troops was last on the priority of our Airpower
ABATTBQ87
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AG
coupland boy said:

Great story and loved the depiction on BoB.

Question about the use of air power though. We had air superiority so why not dispatch a fighter or two for CAS? Things were no doubt stretched thin that day but an artillery battery like that would surely be a priority target would it not?

Similarly, on Saving Private Ryan, Miller made a comment about the air force not dispatching airpower for a single machine gun nest. That one makes more sense.

Curious as to how priorities for air sorties were decided.
I was in Normandy in June of 2004 and had the privilege to meet and visit with some of those men who were involved with the June 6 landings and air campaign.

One of the men I met was a B24 pilot and he told me that the airways over the beaches were designed for continuous coverage and the flight pattern was very specific per aircraft type (B17, B24, B25) and any aircraft outside of the pattern would be considered hostile and attacked by fighters.
gigemhilo
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AG
I would think that ground to air communication was difficult, and that It would take a long time to issue a target for air support. by the time it reached the plane, the target may have already been taken.

Also, it would be difficult for someone in the air to distinguish friend or foe on the ground without direct communication. Friendly fire would be a serious issue, and impromptu ground support would be difficult.

So unless a known target was slated for a specific mission, I would think anything "on the fly" would be extremely difficult to coordinate in a ground support effort. the scale of normandy was huge as far as how much was going on all at once. Once determinable front lines were established, I would think the coordination would be easier.

Of course I have no idea what I'm talking about, just guessing.
Rabid Cougar
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AG
CAS was not the same as we understand it today. There were no forward air controllers. Spotter aircraft were mainly for ships fire and artillery fire. All airstrikes during d-day were pre-assigned, either a known strong point or road junction. They also had free ranging "Jabo" flights which roamed the countryside looking for targets of opportunity, such as the German units transiting by road.

Unknown targets that presented themselves during the day had to be handled the old fashion way, ground assault.
CT'97
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AG
There was no way for ground troops to talk to air craft. Because of that, air craft weren't assigned to ground attack roles that way. It wasn't until later in the war that air craft were assigned to ground attack and then it was usually targets of opportunity on return trips from other missions.

Even as late as Vietnam most aircraft radios didn't work on the same frequencies as ground radios. So there would be a coordinator plane that had both types of radios and would then relay instructions from one group to another.
coupland boy
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AG
Thanks. Maybe i need to go back and look at the Pacific theater. Maybe the smaller islands of that campaign were easier to coordinate CAS. Always git the impression it was used effectively there.
Rabid Cougar
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AG
coupland boy said:

Thanks. Maybe i need to go back and look at the Pacific theater. Maybe the smaller islands of that campaign were easier to coordinate CAS. Always git the impression it was used effectively there.

Marines in the Pacifc were a different animal when it came to CAS. They had been practicing the art since 1939 and first used Air Liason Officers Parties at Tarawa in 1943. They were very close to what are called. Forward Air Controllers today. They even provided theses parties to Army units in the Phillipeans and Okinawa.
aalan94
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AG
We did have the ability to talk to aircraft, but as Rabid Cougar notes, this was more common in the Pacific than in the West. But air superiority does not mean a plethora of planes at your beck and call.

While I'm not an expert on airpower history, I know some stuff, but I also have experience with the modern problem from the military today. Admittedly, we have fewer planes, but with higher bomb loads and accuracy. Still, some problems are unchanged.

I'd caution against thinking that air superiority means you have clouds of planes in the sky. You do have raids with 1,000 bombers, but you don't have that many groups of 10 or fewer bombers wandering around. In fact, you never do for the big birds, only A-26s or something. Fighters are different, but they don't blanket the battlefield.

First of all, only some of your planes can be assigned to ground targets. Lots of your fighters are hunting German airfields or escorting bombers. You will have a set of planned targets identified and targeted ahead of time. Sorties will be planned to hit them based on priorities. Then you'll have targets of opportunity, which is what you're talking about. A machine gun nest or small battery of artillery, is really low on the priority level.

It's important to note that the planes are still flying from England, which makes tactical, non-planned strikes very difficult. Your time over target is not too great. Better than the Germans in 1940, but still not all that long. So you can't simply wait around for the call. And there are still so many Germans around that you can easily soak up all of your strikes hitting trucks, tanks, small groups of men as you find them. Yes, that could include small guns, but it's more on an ad-hoc basis.

And at this stage in the war (close to the coast), it was probably more fruitful to call in Naval gunfire than an airstrike, because depending on availability, your planes could take 3, 4 or more hours to get there and you've got a timetable to keep up to. But even the Naval guns have lots of targets and unlike the Marines, you don't have the people trained to work with naval gunfire on a routine basis. And you have to be careful calling in naval gunfire against targets in close proximity to your troops.

I think for these reasons, and for doctrine, you use a ground attack. If you sit around calling in airstrikes against every impediment, then you're literally crawling across Normandy and open yourselves up to counterattack.
dcbowers
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AG
Agree with above.

Six weeks later, Operation Cobra demonstrated the lack of coordination between ground troops and aircraft with the loss of >100 soldiers due to friendly fire.
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coupland boy
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AG
Thanks.

Thanks to everyone else too.
CT'97
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aalan94 makes good points all of which played into the lack of CAS, but the standard Army infantry radio was a low power radio that won't talk to the VHF radios the planes had. So while some HQ or higher units may have had the ability to talk to planes the troops on the ground did not. The Marine Corps units carried special radios, that were large and required extra battery packs I believe, to be able to communicate with aircraft. It wasn't till 1945 that the Army fielded the man portable backpack sized VHF radios.

There also was no specific training or technique to tell a pilot where you wanted him to drop the bomb or shoot his rockets. Knowing what I know about calling in CAS today, with guided munitions and easy communication with pilots, if I was an infantryman in WW2 I wouldn't want a plane dropping a 500lb bomb within 500 meters of my position and really would want it to be 1Km.
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