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Aircraft Designed for a Variety of Roles In examining the rationale behind creating or rebuilding any military establishment it is important to look at more than doctrine and organization. In examining the aircraft designed and built by the Luftwaffe's founders we can better glean their true intentions for the nascent German air arm. By March 1936, final testing in Germany had begun on the next aircraft generation carrying the Luftwaffe forward into the war. These aircraft included the Me-109 and Me-110 fighters, Ju-87 dive-bomber, several reconnaissance models, the JU-52 transport, and the Do-17, He-111, and Ju-88 bombers.[15] |
The Globe At War |
Was The Luftwaffe Really Intended To Be Little More Than an Adjunct to the German Army? |
Junkers Ju-88 Multi-Role Aircraft- Picture Courtesy of Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), Bild 101I-407-0686-39 |
The development of advanced aircraft across the spectrum, with even prototype four engine bombers such as the Ju-89 and Do-19 in the pipeline, owed its existence to Wever working with an effective and politically well-connected Hermann Goering, commanding the Luftwaffe, along with Erhard Milch, working on the industrial output side of the process; together this triumvirate produced superb initial results. Wever provided the vision, led the way and many today regard him as the key to the Luftwaffe's successful development. Wever's untimely death, from an air accident in June 1936, is widely regarded as irrevocably stunting the Luftwaffe's growth.[16] Nevertheless, by September 1939, the Luftwaffe possessed over 4,300 operational aircraft available for use in combat, with a well-trained pilot cadre to fly these aircraft.[17] The Luftwaffe's aircraft and aircrews were capable of performing a number of roles ranging from winning air superiority over vast tracts of air space; to strategically bombing Germany's immediate targets for aggression, Poland and France; to providing close air support for the German army. Well organized, equipped and staffed the Luftwaffe was truly world class in 1939. |
Endnotes: 1. Steven Douglas Mercatante has recently completed a manuscript exploring both why Germany came far closer to winning the Second World War in Europe than previously thought and also why Germany suffered catastrophic defeat; a manuscript stemming from over two decades researching and studying the Second World War. Steven's writing in the historical field also draws upon his experience as a former history teacher, from his undergraduate studies in history at the University of Michigan and his graduate work in history at Eastern Michigan University. Steven is also a practicing attorney and a published author in the legal field; combining his interests in writing and history for an article entitled The Deregulation of Usury Ceilings, Rise of Easy Credit, and Increasing Consumer Debt, published in volume 53 of the South Dakota Law Review. 2. Paul Deichmann, Ed. Dr. Littleton B. Atkinson, USAF Historical Division Research Studies Institute Air University, USAF Historical Studies No. 163, German Air Force Operations in Support of the Army, (Arno Press, 1968) at pp. 9-10. 3. Robert L. Dinardo, Germany's Panzer Arm in WWII, (Stackpole Books, 2006) ay page 64. 4. Paul Deichmann, Ed. Dr. Littleton B. Atkinson, USAF Historical Division Research Studies Institute Air University, USAF Historical Studies No. 163, German Air Force Operations in Support of the Army, (Arno Press, 1968) at pp. 34-36. 5. Germany, in the words of a member of the Luftwaffe's command hierarchy, 'was so limited with regard to raw materials and gasoline that her production capacity and, in turn, her war potential, simply did not permit the construction of sufficient numbers of heavy bomber fleets. She had no choice but to limit herself to medium and light bombers with the highest possible degree of hitting accuracy.' Eberhard Spetzler, from whom the foregoing was quoted, goes on to say a preference for precision bombing 'was quite natural to Germany, since it was in keeping with the continental concept of the conduct of war,' and as this concept applied to air warfare, it called for maximum precision in hitting a militarily significant target-normally a relatively small area.' Richard Suchenwirth, USAF Historical Division Research Studies Institute Air University, USAF Historical Studies No. 189, Historical Turning Points in the German Air Force War Effort, (Arno Press, 1968) at pp. 28-29. 6. "The dive…presents an extremely difficult problem in aeronautics. Only the best pilots are capable of carrying it through so that they really hit their targets, and that only after long practice…hitting accuracy achieved during a dive depends necessarily upon the bomb-release altitude and upon the pilot's knowledge of wind conditions at that altitude." Richard Suchenwirth, USAF Historical Division Research Studies Institute Air University, USAF Historical Studies No. 189, Historical Turning Points in the German Air Force War Effort, (Arno Press, 1968) at page 30. 7. Jim Winchester (General Editor), The Aviation Factfile, Aircraft of World War II, (Thunder Bay Press, 2004) at page 145. 8. Combat operations during this war included the use of forward radio equipped spotters attached to ground combat units which aided close air support response times and convinced German planners to search for further applications of dive-bombing tactics. In addition, many in Germany believed the motor industry's difficulties in turning out enough vehicles to self-propel the army's artillery arm meant dive-bombers could fill the production gap through acting as mobile artillery. The focus on dive-bombing nonetheless did produce negatives beyond limiting the strategic bombing program. Both the twin engine Ju-88 and four engine HE-177 heavy bomber's development lagged because of an effort to make these aircraft capable of acting as a dive-bomber 9. James S. Corum, The Roots of Blitzkrieg, Hans von Seekt and German Military Reform, (University Press of Kansas, 1992) at page 168. 10. David Baker, Adolf Galland The Authorised Biography, (Windrow & Greene, 1996) at page 23. 11. Ed. Horst Boog, The Conduct of the Air War in the Second World War, An International Comparison, Proceedings of the International Conference of Historians in Freiburg im Breisgau, Federal Republic of Germany, from 29 August to 2 September 1988, (Berg, 1992) at pp. 34-36. 12. James S. Corum, The Roots of Blitzkrieg, Hans von Seekt and German Military Reform, (University Press of Kansas, 1992) at page 14-15. 13. Ed. I.C.B. Dear, The Oxford Guide to World War II, (Oxford University Press, 1995) at page 375. 14. Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East, The Nazi-Soviet War 1941-1945, (Hodder Headline Group, 2005) at page 25. 15. Ed. W.H. Tantum IV and E.J. Hoffschmidt, The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force 1933-1945, (WE Inc. Old Greenwich, 1969) at page 12. 16. After Wever's death the Luftwaffe's leadership never measured up to the standards he had set. Udet in particular, appointed by Hitler, was a poor substitute lacking the ability to replace his predecessor's considerable talents. 17. Robert M. Kennedy, The German Campaign in Poland 1939, (Washington, 1956) at pages 24-25. |