"Armchair" General - Change a Battle

From the site:

http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/portland/971/Inbox/k-m/me-323-i.htm



An Me 323 unloading a tank destroyer based on a PzKpfw II tank chassis. This is almost certainly a Marder II, equipped with a 75 mm PAK 40 gun. At around 11 tonnes, this would be close to the limit of the Me 323's theoretical payload- in practice, the limits were probably exceeded on many occasions, with consequent reductions in safety margins.

 

A Marder II, definitely. We'll give it the benefit of the doubt and assume this is not a propaganda pic. Everyone is too relaxed, not really working...

Any uniforms experts areound? At least the guys in front do look like PzJgr troops to me.

Besides stressing the aircraft structure, a load this size would also put severe constraints on range, for two reasons:

a) You have a permissible maximum take-off weight. If you add load you have to decrease on what? Fuel!

b) If you take off at no load but max. weight you carry maximum fuel. As you fly along you will be spending fuel so your plane will unload, allowing you to progressively fly at a lesser angle of attack, thereby reducing drag. Therefore longer range due to better efficiency.

If you take load on, you won't be able to unload so much weight in-flight so you will not be able do markedly increase you efficiency and therefore optimise range...

The upshot is a monster like this would be a short-legged slow duck while flying with such an extreme load...

 

Adding to my earlier comments by Kriebel, I have continued to look for info and have found nothing. I still dont believe that 50 Panzer IVs were broken into small enough loads to be carried by aircraft. Its just not possible. Besides which the effort required to rebuild them may well have been more than a werkstate kompanie could manage given the large number of small bits...

All the sources I have state that the MKIV and MKIII came into Africa by ship.

Plus there is no plane that can carry one!

ME 321/323...

321 - 20 Tons
323 - 16 Tons (?)

A Panzer IV F2 weighs 23 tons... Also the Panzer IV F2 is 2.84m wide the ME321 hold is 3.15m wide. A tight squeeze...

The ME323 began transport duties to Africa in November 1942. They were soon withdrawn after the loss of 14 out of 16 in a formation in mid-april 1943. Bloody awful things!

I have to say I find it unlikely that one was transported by air, let alone 50!

 

What about using the Graf Zeppelin I and II to take an entire heavy Panzer battalion from the Ruhr to North Africa?

If that doesn't work, you can always scrap the Tirpitz and re-built it at Venice…

 

O for a plasma cutter in 1941...

Then you cud chop up anything and send it by ME110...

Like the idea of using the Graf Zepplin as a HUGE landing barge... Fill it full of Tiger Is. Sail it at full speed at the coast, beach it, drop the ramp and let out all the Tiger Is with snorkelling gear!!!

Blinding!!!

 

I am surprised at some members lack of seriousness! And resourcefulness too!

What about "Beam me up, Erwin"?

 

Beaufighters & beauforts eh? & the "occasional" fighter covering transports. That comment is very revealing to the whole subject of transport protection. Again if Luftwaffe were in Med in full force, ( some div would still be in France ),but with the larger percentage being in med as fighter cover for supply ships, it raises the question of could the convoys make it across with much less sinkings. British sub attacks would have to be addressed as well & could well be with extra aircraft on hand. They could be sent to harry Brit subs at Malta as Brit aircraft did off French coast.

 

It's smart-ass comments like this why no one bothers posting a reply here!

 

Perhaps we should reflect on the meaning and purpose and even limits of this What-If section.

What-Ifs have a meaning and they can serva a concrete purpose. What-Ifs certainly did have a meaning in those times. For instance, the Germans should but never wondered "what if the Russians deploy a tank with an extremly superior gun to ours, and totaly impervious to our service AT guns?" or would Gamelin dream "what if the Germans decide to strike at a totally unexpected place at an unthinkable operational tempo? Would they slice us in half? Could we redeploy?"

Of course one has the right to come to this thread and dream a bit about what wasn't and what might be, but then he should not be surprised if some skeptics then contend that his "might be" is really a "can't be because so and so".

Much worse if we come down to technical level, where numbers are available and there is not much possibility of disputing. There is no point in arguing what if a 2pdr could penetrate 200mm at 60deg at 2000m! This is ridiculous and people should not be surprised if the skeptical side treat it as such. But then these technical-tactical details may not be the most important for their impact in the end result may be minimal. For instance, we can agree the 8.8 KwK and the 7.5 cm L/70 guns were (well...) among the best tank-killing guns at the time. What-IF they were never invented, would that have a deep impact in the final result? I suppose not (let's not pick on this at least for now!).

This is immaterial because it was not a single gun or weapon system or whatever that won or lost the war by itself. The war was not won or lost because of the Norden Sight, H2S radar, Me262, JS-II, Tiger II, if Malta was in the middle of the Med or if it was in Antartica, whatever. War was won or lost because of larger scale decisions and their implementation.

Some What-Ifs may be rather farfetched, and will receive a bigger amount of flak, but then the wise pilot would know when to change course instead of insisting on flying through denser and denser a flak barrage!

And if you want to know what a really hellish flak barrage is, then try and go setting up some of the what-ifs I've seen here in www.tank-net.org to se some really really vicious flak! These guys pull no punches Especially if you mention 2 out of 3 of "Democrat, european and liberal" in the same sentence

What we see happening is this:

A) "What if bla bla bla?"
B) "I guess not, because bla bla bla"
A) "But then what if bla bla bla?"
B) "Can't be because you're forgetting about bla bla bla, and moreover bla bla bla, and I have this data here that demonstrates that..."
A) "Then what if I paint it purple and bla bla bla"
B) "Either you can't read or can't take a counter-argument or you're joking so don't be surprised when I go into hyperbole mode"

Instead of trying to fly deeper and deeper into the flak cloud, it would be more reasonable to say: "All right, I accept is too far-fetched and physically impossible, I'll go out for a week and think of another possibility".

 

Because sarcastic remarks aren't supposed to be responded…

 

I remembered this thread when I found a comment:

It appears the French managed to transport 10 M24's from Hanoi to Dien Bien Phu before the battle, disassembled for transport and reassembled on site, demanding two Bristol 170 and 5 C-47 sorties per vehicle. This was a 18 ton tank.

This gives a good idea of the magnitude of the effort. I still think this does not bring validity to the idea of flying fleets of Panzers in .

 

Well, I did find one reference to this topic. I will reluctantly post it. It is from a book titled Rommel's Last Stand by Lawrence Cortesi Zebra books 1984.

Page 143;However, frantic activity prevailed at the KVT 16 transport fields at Capodichino and Pomigliano outside of Naples. The Germans had fully loaded 22 of the giant ME 323 six engine transport planes and 34 JU 53 three engine transports. Aboard the 56 aircraft were another 2000 men of the Grenadier Division along with 15.000 tons of supplies that included shells, ammunition, fuel, and provisions. Also on these planes were 20 of the 88mm artillery pieces, some 30 Mark IV tanks, and over 50 motor vehicles of all types.

There is also a photo of a large Lorry being loaded on a 323, 15 ft long or so. I will try & scan it in.

Please bear in mind I did not write this book.& it is the 2nd time I have read about this type of transport activity. If you've got a negative comment to make, save it for yourself.

 

Why should I make a negative comment? It's monday morning, relax

If you want to believe that book of yours, go ahead, what can I say more than I've said before?

Even if 15000 tons loaded into 56 planes seems a bit rich... Or is it 15 tons?

And 20 88mm guns, plus 30+/- PzIVs and 50+ wheeled vehicles? Hmmm. Makes you think, doesn't it?

[ 15. November 2004, 03:41 AM: Message edited by: Za Rodina ]

 

Lets just look at that quote you posted for a second...

If we discount the JU-52 (I take it he means 52 not 53?)as being capable of carrying a vehicle, which it was, I presume the author is packing the 2000 troops in these... and lets be generous and pack the 15,000 tons of supplies in them too...

This leaves us with 22 Gigants. Correct?

So in these 22 Gigants the author believes that...

"20 of the 88mm artillery pieces, some 30 Mark IV tanks, and over 50 motor vehicles of all types."

Bearing in mind that the load list for a Gigant states it is capable of lifting an "88mm Flak gun or light tank" it seems rather unlikely they rammed all those in. Also as I previously posted before the Panzer IV is simply too large to fit in a Gigant regardless of the weight issue. Perhaps the author means that this lift was conducted over a number of days? The quote is out of context so we dont know. But on the face of it still seems highly unlikely given the figures in your quote. Does the author give a date for this operation? As planes as heavily loaded as this must have crawled to North Africa...

Anyway thanks for posting the book, at least I know which book to avoid!

 

Wasn't speaking directly to you Rodina. I didn't say I believed the book either. I was asked previously if I had a source for this topic,ran across this reference, so here it is.

 

Very well, Chromey, when I presented that snippet about the 10 M-24s all I wanted to say was that I had found an actual reference of tank ferrying by air, but it was such a damn logistical effort that I wasn't really seeing the Wehrmacht doing the same on a much riskier route. Imagine what would happen if the JU carrying the right side track got shot down!

Of course we also have Tetrarchs and Locusts, these were designed to be air-freighted but really we're talking about an entirely differtent class of tank.

 

Discussing logistics is very interesting.As was your post. As to your question about Ju's, they were shot down en masse just like the 323's were. The value of airlift to certain frontline areas has been done successfully in Burma & on eastern front here & there with sucess. The value is to get specific supplies to a certain sector at a critical time. Especially in areas that have no rail traffic or are not near a port.It is not a silly subject.

The 323's have been regarded as a joke because they were shot down so easily. The Germans did not anticipate the overwhelming allied control of the air. Nor for that matter did many top military commanders-allied or axis understand the value of local air control. Had the east campaign been concluded late 41 or mid 42, the Luftwaffe would have been available in greater force for escort duties. Perhaps the 323's would still have been shot down piecmeal. But to dismiss it's capacity to supply front line areas,( much more quickly than shipborne traffic), as an unimportant strategic topic is inaccurrate.Shipborne traffic then has to hit the roads from the port to the front lines. Even Guadalcanal the ground troops mentioned the value of supply from the air, medical supplies,machiune gun ammo, evacuating injured troops etc. well, nuff said, its now a tired topic.

 

Wait, wait, wait! Please don't get discouraged so easily

No one here is denigrating the effectiveness of air transport, the pickle here boils down to the nature of loads.

Very heavy items such as tanks were / still are a practical impossibility, as:
- there simply were no planes able to carry loads this kind of weight;
- even if there were, tanks are much easily transported by boat, with thousands of tons capacity, discharged at a port, then taken preferably by rail to a depot, then transported on their own tracks or better yet on specialised tank transporters (rare birds, even for Yanks then).

Look at all the strategy of WW2, especially on the East Front! It all revolves around the rail network. The only effective way to transport large amounts of troops and supplies for hundreds of miles from back home to the front or transversally was by train. Well, by a lot of trains, really. Later I can dig up for instance how many trains it took to carry a sample Div.

The advantages would be speed, less material fatigue, less fuel consumption, and the unit would be more or less kept together instead of strung along a mud road, leaving a growing tail of stragglers and break downs.

As for air transport. First of all it has to operate under secure conditions, which certainly wasn't the case in the Med and Stalingrad. Also you need to have a minimum of logistical facilities on the receiving end, but that can be more or less arranged.

Once you grant that, air transport is normally fine for relatively light and urgent loads like troops, urgent supplies, ammunition etc, but always, always bear in mind your humble 2 1/2 ton truck will bear as much practical load as a C-47!

At an emergency, air transport can fit the bill, such as at Demiansk or during the Manchurian advance where the Russians managed to keep supplied part of their troops by air landing, I can dig the exact data later.

In both cases the air transport were operating under air superiority, so attrition was much less than say in the Med, and a higher percentage of loads would arrive.

Also in the case of Demiansk travel distances were much shorter than as Stalingrad, and the load requirements were much smaller as the pocket contained much less troops, so this was a situation the Luftwaffe could and did manage. Any bigger than that and you know the rest of the story.

 

Obviously, the author is wrong about what those 56 aircraft could accomplish. Just using the figures above, this works out to roughly 300+ tons of load per aircraft distributed equally. This would realistically mean these aircraft would have to make over 100 flights each to deliver this load. If one assumes 2 flights per aircraft per day (highly optimistic) this works out to about 2 months of flying time without let up.
The men alone would require, minimally, two lifts to fly in using every aircraft. You could assume another 3 lifts for the motor vehicles by the Me 232s, and another lift to bring the 88's. If the figure of 15,000 tons is reduced to 150 tons (far more likely) then an additional 2 or 3 lifts could manage it. The Mk IV's would be problematic as they exceed the weight limits of these aircraft. But, assuming somehow it was managed in say 2 lifts then the total becomes 10 lifts, a managable figure requiring say 7 to 10 days to accomplish.
The result is that the same could have been accomplished by one heavily escorted small convoy of ships in the same time or less so the airlift was really not cost effective in terms of delivery.