Luftwaffe Question

We're all familiar with the disasterous results of the Bismarck's lack of air cover.Did the Luftwaffe ever work in concert with the German Navy?
When and where?

Thanks

SturmTiger

 

The Luftwaffe coordinated very well with the navy during Operation Cerberus.

 

I believe Luftwaffe provided some valuable aerial recon for u-boat forces.

 

The operations in Norway against the Artic convoys showed some good cooperation.

 

The existence of an anti-shipping squadron (I forgot the number) seems enough proof that such coordination did exist.

 

I read the account of a escort destroyer captain. He was pretty uncomplimentry of coastal commands ability to co-ordinate with the RN well into the war.

 

Regarding the Bismarck sortie, we should note the successful attacks on Mashone and Maori.

 

Can you explain further,I'm not familiar with this?

 

Mashone was with Tovey, I believe, and Maori was one of Vian's destroyers. On 28 May, during the withdrawal from the Bismarck sinking, Ju 88's from I/KG 77 sank Mashone, and He 111's of KG 100 hit Maori. I don't know what those Luftwaffe designators mean; I'm a ship guy.

 

He and Ju are abbreviations for the aircraft manufacturers.Ju=Junkers.
He=Heinkel.The numbers indicate the model of aircraft.

 

Hee! Thanks, but that's the part I knew....

 

The designators stand for:

I Gruppe of Kampfgeschwader 77 and for Kampfgeschwader 100.

Geschwader was a unit of about 100-120 planes (on paper, anyway; they were usually understrength). Kampfgeschwader was a bomber unit, Jagdgeschwader was fighters, Zerstorergeschwader was twin engined fighters, Stukageschwader was dive bombers, Schlachtgeshwader was ground attack, Nachtjagdgeschwader was night fighters. There was also the Lehrgeschwader, which is kinda hard to define. The term was originally supposed to designate a training or demonstartion unit, then morphed into the designation of an elite unit.

The Gruppe was the standard tactical unit of the Luftwaffe and consisted of about 30-36 planes (again, on paper). It was not unusual for the individual Gruppen of a Geschwader to operate independently in widely separated theaters of the war; one might be in Russia, another in France, yet another in Norway, and so on. There were three Gruppen to each Geschwader.

 

Kampfgeschwader? You're making that up, I know it. How are you supposed to tell the difference between actual German words and something that just happened when you dropped the Scrabble box on the kitchen floor?

 

The terms come from "The Luftwaffe War Diaries", by Cajus Bekker, among others. Trust me, my imagination is NOT that good!

 

Anybody got a game of scrabble handy to check what word scores these would give?

 

Different countries have different values, I wouldn't know the American score, but if it's over 15 letters you'd have to round the corner of the board.

Kampfgechwader would translate "war squadron" so bombing squadron wouldn't be entirely off.

 

"Anybody got a game of scrabble handy to check what word scores these would give?"
Can a German play Scrabble and NOT get a Triple Word Score or some such thing?
In German Scrabble, they probably get to start with twenty tiles each, and the board has to be much bigger. Say, roughly the size of France and Poland....
My family name was actually von Worth, so don't send me any hate mail.

 

German is sort funny language, you can get quite long words, like this:
Hottentotterstottertrottelmutterlattengitterkotterbeutelrattenattentater

To find out what that means, try to use google.

 

Attentater is something like terrorist, a Beutelratte is a gerbil or thereabouts, and the Hottentotts are also known as the Pygmees. Mutter means mother. The rest of it, just shoot me.

 

Perhaps we should create a new section for linguistics ? This is not the first time a thread have gone off topic because of a linguistic discussion.