Category Air Warfare

Two Different Accounts of the Same Air Battle – part 2 of 2

Fokker E.III at the airport in Jaroměř, Pterodactyl Flight, Radka Máchová, 2016 – photo taken by “Portwyn” (from Wikipedia)

And then Boelcke’s letter continues, clearly referring to events on the same day (from same paragraph that says “on the 9th…”):

“The French were very cross with us about that; when the pair of us arrived at the front in the evening for a peaceful bit of hunting, practically all the French aircraft in the neighbourhood went for us. And suddenly those fellows really got megalomania and attacked me; among the assailants was a new type of biplane (with a cockpit and very fast). They appeared to be very astonished that we calmly let them attack us — on the contrary we were very pleased to run up against someone who didn’t bolt at once. After several futile attacks they retired, but we–being far from lazy–went after them, and each of us forced an enemy machine down in a glide.

As it was fairy late, we were satisfied with this success and flew off, side by side, in the direction of Douai [their home airfield]. But when I happened to look round, I saw two other machines circling about behind their lines. As I did not want to give our people in the trenches the impression that we were bolting, I signalled to Immelmann that we would fly round a couple of times, just to show that we were cock of the walk. But Immelmann misunderstood me and attacked one of the Frenchmen (Farman type, without a cockpit), who was not going to be drawn into a fight and so sheered off. But while Immelmann was busy with the Farman, the other Frenchman (a Morane-Saulnier Biplane) swooped down on him from behind. So then I had to turn back to help Immelmann, who could not see the second French machine. When the Morane saw me coming up, he turned round to meet me, I peppered his nose a bit, so that he got in a funk and turned back. That was his greatest mistake. I sat on his neck, and as I hung on and came up fairly close–up to fifty metres–it was not long before I hit him. I must have mortally wounded the pilot–suddenly he threw up both his hands and the machine went down vertically. I watched it fall, and saw it turn over a couple of times and crash about four hundred metres in front of our trenches. Our people ascertained that it was smashed to bits and both inmates dead. 

Meanwhile it had grown fairly late and was high time for us to fly home, especially as our petrol was running out. Finally we had to land about eight hundred metres in front of our aerodrome; as the corn had already been cut, we succeeded in making good landings in spite of the growing darkness.

There was much joy in the section over my new victory. Our infantry had already rung up from the trenches to announce the crash…”

Now Immelmann’s letter of 11 September;

“The following day [which would be the 10th] I forced two enemy aircraft to land. Boelcke joined in the fight with the second one.

We signalled to each other to fly home, because it was already dusk. Suddenly I saw an enemy biplane attack Boelcke from behind. Boelcke did not seem to have seen him.

As if by agreement, we both turned round. First he came into Boelcke’s sights, then into mine, and finally we both went for him and closed up on him to within 50-80 metres. Boelcke’s gun appeared to have jammed, but I fired 300 rounds. Then I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the enemy airman throw up both his arms. His crash helmet fell out and went down in wide circles, and a second later the machine plunged headlong into the depth from 2,200 metres. A pillar of dust showed where he hit the ground.

So then home. It was almost dark. Flares were burning when we reached our aerodrome, we could see nothing of the aerodrome itself. Suddenly my engine stopped–run out of petrol. So a forced landing. I made a smooth landing in the darkness, climbed out and looked round for Boelcke. He had been flying behind me. Nothing to be seen of him. Finally–he had he same bad luck. Ran out of petrol and made a forced landing. We were welcomed with congratulations on all sides, for everyone had watched the fight and the crash which ended it through their field-glasses.”

So:

From Immelmann’s account:

  1. Immelmann victory on the 9th?
  2. 2nd Immelmann victory on the 10th?

From Boelcke’s account:

  1. Just a single Boelcke victory on the 9th or 10th?
  2. If Immelmann did shoot down a plane on the 9th or the 10th, which one was it?

By the way, with modern text messaging, emails, and tweets, will we be able to preserve these type of accounts of what happened in combat like they did with letters?

Two Different Accounts of the Same Air Battle – part 1 of 2

Fokker E.III at the airport in Jaroměř, Pterodactyl Flight, Radka Máchová, 2016 – photo taken by “Portwyn” (from Wikipedia)

On 9 September 1915, both Oswald Boelcke and Max Immelmann are credited with a kill, the 3rd kill for Boelcke and the 2nd for Immelmann. According to the Aerodrome website, Boelcke shot down a Morane two-seater in the P.M. at French lines. Immelmann shot down a biplane. We gather these claims are drawn from Norman Franks books.

See:

http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/boelcke.php

Max Immelmann (theaerodrome.com)

Now, I do have letters from both pilots that discuss these air battles. Unfortunately, they do not agree (bolding is mine).  

From Boelcke’s letter dated 18 September 1915:

“On the 9th, we succeeded in getting on either side of huge French fighting machine, so that it did not know what to do and only escaped us by a hasty dive.”

From Immelmann letter dated 11 September 1915:

“Only yesterday and the day before yesterday it was different. I forced an artillery flier down. At first there were three enemy fighters in the neighbourhood, but after a while only me. The machine was a huge thing, with two engines and two machine guns; it was 3,400 metres up and I was 3,200. I therefore screwed myself up a bit higher on our side of the lines, and crossed when I reached 3,400.”

“Suddenly I caught sight of Boelcke, who wanted to attack, but was much lower. He followed me. After I had fired 100 rounds, the enemy began to go down. Then Boelcke was able to attack him as well. The enemy as now between two fires; he went down in a series of very risky turns. He could not escape us.”

“After I had fired 250-300 round he made a hasty landing. Unfortunately he succeeded in reaching his own ground. Meanwhile we had come down to 1,900 metres, and it was pitch dark. So home! When we landed, we found they knew all about our success. Someone had telephoned that two Fokkers had shot down an enemy fighter.”

This story continues….

 

Things related to our discussion on invading Taiwan

Over the last month, we did something like eleven posts analyzing the possibilities and the ability of China to invade and occupy Taiwan. The summery post is here:
Will China invade Taiwan in the next 20 years? Summation: | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Just spotted a CNN article that is related: US Air Force to send dozens of F-22 fighter jets to the Pacific amid tensions with China

A few highlights:

  1. We are sending 25 F-22s to Guam and Tinian Islands (Northern Marianas).
  2. F-22’s are fifth-generation combat jets. China has 20-24. We have 180 F-22s (and then there are F-35s).
  3. Only about half of the F-22s “…are mission capable at any one time due to maintenance requirements.”
  4. 10 F-15s and 2 C-130Js are also deploying.

I copied the cover picture from the article. 

The Soviet General Staff study on Kursk compared to Unit Records (part 3 of 3 – Conclusions)

What we did was a simple comparison of the Soviet General Staff study data on the air fighting in the south compared to the daily records we gathered from the Second and Seventeenth Air Armies. What we found was their were minor differences in the sortie counts, but overall that was close to what was reported in the unit records we had.

On the other hand, the reports on casualties was not. There were outrageously incorrect estimations of enemy losses, which is typical of Soviet accounts. But as significant, the reports of their own losses were low. In particular, our count of Second Air Army losses from 5-18 July was 481, their count was 371. This Soviet General Staff study only reported 77% of their losses. Does this mean that if I draw losses reports from the Sixteenth Air Army from the Soviet General Staff study (as I don’t have the unit records), should I “inflate” them by 30%? (the inverse of 0.77).

Added to that, they simply left out the Seventeenth Air Army losses (182 aircraft). It may have been an oversight or a deliberate effort to downplay their losses.

But, just to focus on the Second Air Army losses, the staff study has the total losses for the 5th – 18th as 371: 172 fighters, 31 bombers, and 168 assault. We have the Second Air Army’s losses for 5 to 18 July 1943, taken from their daily reports, as 481 (See Table IV.32 of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka). This includes 248 fighters, 48 bombers, 180 assault and 5 night bombers. So actual losses of the Second Air Army were 30% higher than what was reported in the Soviet General Staff study, or 28% if one leaves out the night bombers.

One does wonder about the process where even the internal classified post-operation staff studies understate their losses (in addition to many other errors). They did have the unit records available to them. In particular, their table is vastly off on the 5th of July when the Second Air Army lost 114 planes and the Soviet General Staff study reports only 78, but it consistently underreports for every single day. They also do not report the losses for the Seventeenth Air Army, which according to our count was another 182 or 221 planes lost (see Tables IV.34 and Tables IV.35). This does argue that the reported losses for the Sixteenth Air Army may be low compared to reality.

In the bigger picture, the Soviet General Staff studies are secondary sources, not primary sources. Furthermore they are secondary sources with considerable bias and errors. They invariably (grossly) overplay German losses and seemed to try to minimize their own losses. Furthermore their narrative of accounts often downplays certain aspects of their operations. They do have be used with extreme caution, as opposed to treating them as somewhat authoritative.

Now, Niklas Zetterling & Anders Frankson offer a similar discussion of the problems of relying on the Soviet General Staff studies in their book The Korsun Pocket: The Encirclement and Breakout of a German Army in the East, 1944. It is clear that these are secondary sources with biases that must be used with considerable caution.

The Soviet General Staff study on Kursk compared to Unit Records (part 2 of 3 – Airplane Losses)

This is the second part of my comparison of the data provided in the Soviet General Staff study on Kursk that was prepared in March-April 1944 compared to the Second and Seventeenth Air Army records that I have.

Losses:

            There are one table on losses in the Soviet General Staff study on Kursk that relate to the Second and Seventeenth Air Army. They are provided below. I have broken it into two tables for this blog:

The Air Struggle Along the Enemy’s Main Axis

                             Air          Enemy Losses:

                             Battles   Fighter   Bomber  Total

5 July                       81           71           83         154

6 July                       64           40           65         105 

7 July                       74           44           78         122  

8 July                       65           54           52         106

9 July                       62           49           22           71

10-14 July              152         112           93         205

15-18 July               43           45           27           72

Totals                     541         415         420         835

 

                            Second Air Army Losses:   

                            Fighter  Bomber  Assault   Total

5 July                       36           15           27           78

6 July                       23           —             22           45

7 July                       24           —             13           37

8 July                       24             1           16           41

9 July                       16             1           15           32

10-14 July                49           14           75         138

15-18 July              (the figures in the line above cover from 10-18 July)  

Totals                       172           31         168         371

            Now, these figures have been discussed before. The losses of the German VIII Air Corps was 111 planes, vice the 835 claimed here. The losses of the Second Air Army according to the records we reviewed was 481 planes from 5 to 18 July: see Appendix IV, Table II.32 (page 1424) of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka), vice the 371 reported here. This report also does not include Seventeenth Air Army claims or losses. The Seventeenth Air Army’s losses were significant (182 planes). So, it does appear that the Soviet General Staff study basically leaves out 292 out of their 663 airplanes losses (44% of their losses), effectively under reporting their air losses by almost half.

       This is concerning, for it does appear that Soviet General Staff study is understating the Second Air Army losses, omitting the considerable losses from the Seventeenth Air Army and of course, grossly overclaiming the number of German aircraft shot down. This was in an internal classified report that was supposed to be an analysis of the battle. Hard to properly analyze if your data is not correct.

The Soviet General Staff study on Kursk compared to Unit Records (part 1 of 3 – Sortie Counts)

Yak-9 at war memorial, northeast of Yakovlevo, Belrorod-Oboyan road

For my on-going Aces at Kursk book I was asked by the publishers to include a Chapter on the air war in the north from 5-11 July 1943. For the original Kursk project we were able to access the Second and Seventeenth Air Army records in the south. We did not attempt to obtain the Sixteenth Air Army records at that time (1993-1995). Therefore I was forced to rely on the Soviet General Staff study on Kursk that was prepared in March-April 1944 for the count of sorties and losses. As the staff study also reported the sorties and losses from the south, and I had the records for the air armies involved in that, I decided to do a little comparison and added a write-up of this to an appendix of the book.

Sortie Counts (I left out the table of the sortie count from Soviet General Staff study) :

          The Soviet General Staff study data on sortie counts is similar to the data we have assembled. The data we have for the Second and Seventeenth Air Armies operations are taken directly from the daily air army reports as drawn from the archives. The Soviet General Staff study may used these same reports, or used higher level reports or other assembled reports for their study. But there are minor differences between ours and their reports, so most likely they used other higher level or assembled reports for their study. For example, we have the Second Air Army flying 1,296 daytime sorties on 5 July. The Soviet General Staff study has them flying 1,274. There are also minor differences the next two days, but the two sets of counts are the same for 8 and 9 July and then vary slightly for most of the subsequent days (except for the 15th and 16th, where they again match). After the 5th, the largest difference is on the 12th, where our reports record 10 more daytime sorties. These are very minor differences. The Second Air Army nighttime sorties match in all cases between the counts we assembled from the air army daily reports and what the Soviet General Staff study reports.

            The Seventeenth Air Army is a little more complex as some of their missions were flown into the battle area while other of their missions were flown completely out of the battle area defended by the Voronezh Front. For the Kursk database project, I ended up reviewing each reported mission as to where it operated and made a judgment as to whether this mission was in the area of the Belgorod offensive or not. It does not appear that the Soviet General Staff study did that. For the 5th through the 16th, their estimate more closely matches with the total number of sorties flown by the Seventeenth Air Army than it does with my lower count of the number of sorties flown in the battle area. On eight of those 12 days in question, their totals matches the total we drew from the Seventeenth Air Army daily reports. The day they most differ was on 7 July when they reported 50 more sorties than we counted. We did re-check the original report and our total is 639. Suspect their number of 689 is a typo. As the Soviet General Staff study may have been drawn from a later aggregate report, there are multiple opportunities for typos.

           On the other hand, in the table we assembled of Seventeenth Air Army daytime sorties we had a lower count for “only those that were in the Belgorod Area or attacked the VIII Air Corps” (see table in Chapter Four). It is consistently lower from the 5th through the 16th, which the worse variance being on the 7th, where we count 588 as valid sorties in the battle area, whereas the Soviet General Staff study reports 689. On the 17th we count none in the area and on the 18th we count 12 sorties.

           Still there are a couple of observations we can make from this comparison. First, is that the Soviet General Staff study reports of Soviet sorties flown is fairly accurate in that it matches with records we have from the Second and Seventeenth Air Armies. This is important to note as we rely on the Soviet General Staff study for the count of sorties for the Sixteenth Air Army.

Results from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

This six-week war is now over. It was effectively a two-week war with a four-week poorly maintained ceasefire. Now I gather a more permanent ceasefire is in place, with 2,000 Russian troops placed between the warring factions. Russia is not entirely a neutral player here, having somewhat favored Armenia while Turkey supported Azerbaijan. But as Azerbaijan clearly won this round (and this has been going of and on since 1988) and took territory, then I suspect it is resolved for now. The president of Azerbaijan is touring the battlefield (his conquests) while the government of Armenia is in turmoil with several ministers resigning. Most governments don’t do very well after they lose a war and are usually replaced.

The big story from this war was the extensive use of drones and loitering munitions. These things trashed dozens of tanks, probably well over a 100. There are multiple videos of them, and some people have assembled body counts based upon these videos. I gather Armenia has stated that their losses are 2,317 killed, with other reports indicating 21 captured and several hundred missing. There are also losses from the Republic of Artsakh. Azerbaijan also suffered hundreds of losses and it may have been as high as 1,500, based upon an interpretation of a statement from the President of Azerbaijan. There were also Syrian fighters or mercenaries, which an outside agency reported 293 deaths. There were also civilian casualties. Overall, it looks like this conflict resulted in the deaths of at least 4,000 people and maybe over 5,000.

Losses in latest Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

It does open a few questions. 

  1. Is that main battle tank antiquated?
  2. Are drones the air force of the future?
  3. Is this simply the result of conducting a war with air superiority?

This last point is important. Is what happened to Armenia in this war any different to what happened to Iraq in 1991? How does the efficacy and efficiency of the air campaign in the 1991 Gulf War compare to this conflict? The answer to this question certainly influences the answer to the first two questions. Is this just another example of the advantage of air supremacy, or is there a bigger lesson here?

The second point about drones also needs to be examined in some depth. It does not appear that Armenia had an effective air defense or good countermeasures against the drones. What would have been the difference if they did? Azerbaijan does have an air force, which took some loses, but their primarily prosecuted their air-to-ground campaign using drones. This may have been the poor mans or the cost-effective way of doing this. They could purchase a lot of relatively inexpensive drones and effectively prosecute and air-to-ground campaign to a degree that they could not have done using considerably less expensive manned aircraft. This does lead to the question, is an air force of drones much cheaper in the long run than an air force of manned aircraft? In the end, budget is always a limiting factor, so do drones simply give you more bang for the buck? So, from an analytical point of view, we are not just looking at a comparison of which is better, an air force of mostly drones or mostly manned aircraft; but also which is cheaper. This is potentially a fairly complex piece of analysis.

All this eventually gets to the first question, which is “Is the main battle tank antiquated?” I am not sure how you answer that question until you have answered the other two questions. 

 

Jeschonnek’s Suicide – 18 August 1943

General Hans Jeschonnek, the Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe, committed suicide on 18 August 1943. This account has been garbled in a number of books, so here is my current write-up on the story:

Post-Mortem

General Hans Jeschonnek’s attempts to escape to the field by taking over command of the Fourth Air Fleet had failed. After the British bombing of Hamburg on 24/25 July, Goering decided that Jeschonnek would remain as chief of staff. Trapped in an impossible job, Jeschonnek was also affected by the recent loss of his father, brother, and brother-in-law. On the night of 17 August, the RAF bombed the missile base at Peenemuende.[1]

Jeschonnek had already displayed considerable sensitivity, having almost had a nervous breakdown in November 1941 and spending three days in bed after General Udet (the famous World War I ace) had committed suicide and General Wilberg and the famous ace Major Moelders had been killed in separate air crashes while flying to Udet’s funeral. He had also previously attempted suicide himself. During the day of 18 August, the young chief of staff wrote a number of suicide notes, including one short note that said “I can no longer work together with the Reichsmarschall [Goering]. Long live the Fuehrer!” He also wrote a memorandum to Hitler that was critical of his boss, Goering. He then shot himself in his office on the command train of the Luftwaffe, in what is now Goldap, Poland (at the time part of East Prussia). It was near Hitler’s command post, the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia.[2] He was 44 years old.

 

 

[1] There is a claim in many accounts that Adolf Hitler called Jeschonnek on the afternoon of 17 August or the morning of 18 August to again criticize the Luftwaffe, telling him “You know what to do” or “You know what is left for you to do now.” This story apparently comes from Field Marshal Erhard Milch, the Air Inspector General, who testified that Jeschonnek had a story stormy session with Hitler. This entire story is disputed and dismissed by Prof. Richard Suchenwirth, Command and Leadership in the German Air Force (USAF Historical Division, Aerospace Studies Institute, Air University, July 1969), page 288. Suchenwirth states “It is untrue, as Milch has claimed, that Jeschonnek had had a heated discussion with Hitler on the afternoon preceding his suicide, during which Hitler had told him that the failures were his responsibility and that he “ought to know now what was expect of him.” This account is denied by those who were best informed about the situation.”

[2] Suchenwirth, pages 284-290. Many accounts state that Jeschonnek committed suicide at Hitler’s command post, the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia, on 18 or 19 January 1943. His gravestone gives his date of death as 18 January 1943 (see https://ww2gravestone.com/people/jeschonnek-hans/). The date of his death was officially posted as 19 January 1943 by Hermann Goering to disconnect it from the Peenemunde bombing so as to hide the manner and reason for his death. They also published that he died from a hemorrhage of the stomach.

 

One does note that some otherwise credible accounts still give the date of his death as 19 August 1943: for example:

http://www.ww2.dk/Lw%20Offz%20-%20G-K%20Apr%202020%20.pdf

Losses in latest Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

Below is an article on the counts of losses from Nagorno-Karabakh. It is based upon viewing of drone footage, etc. by individuals some distance from the conflict. The numbers should be viewed with considerable caution. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2020/09/the-fight-for-nagorno-karabakh.html

They state: “This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is undoubtedly higher than recorded here.” 

 

Anyhow, their count is:

………………………….Artsakh/Armenia……..Azerbaijan
Tanks……………………………..177………….26

AFVs……………………………….34………….11

IFVs………………………………..42………….24

Aircraft and Helicopters…………..0…………..10

Towed Artillery…………………..138

SP Artillery………………………..17

MLRS……………………………..72

Trucks, vehicles and jeeps……408………….21

 

Tank losses in Azerbaijan-Armenia Conflict

In case you have been distracted by all the U.S. news lately, there has been a significant conflict for the last month between Azerbaijan-Armenia over Nogorno-Karabakh that resulted in dozens of tanks lost, many due to drones and loitering munitions. This is conventional war. We have not done any systematic analysis of this, so I am hesitant to make any comments on it, but it is a significant event, in that a number of Armenian tanks were taken out by Azerbaijani drones. I have found the twitter accounts @RALee85 and @Rebel44CZ and @oryxspioenkop to be worth following. They tend to include a lot of the videos that have been released from this fight.

This is an article on the subject that came out this week:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/attack-drones-dominating-tanks-armenia-085624016.html

A few highlights:
.

  1. Armenia says it has lost around 900 servicemen.
  2. Actual casualties are probably higher.
  3. Open source analysis by Forbes magazine has tracked the destruction by drones of around 200 tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, plus 300 soft-skinned military vehicles.
  4. It is kind of one-sided, as Armenia does not have such a collection of drones (it helps to have oil).