Could the IL-2 have stopped Barbarossa in 1941?

[witchbottles]

56 operational Sturmoviks remained in the Soviet Air Forces on June 23rd, 1941. Each of them was being flown by an inexperienced pilot at the time. By the time of the August turn / wheel to form the Kiev pocket, they were reduced to only three remaining airframes.

Most of the losses ( about 1 plane every 5 missions) were due to the inexperience of the pilots and their inability to use not yet developed tactics such as the low altitude Lufbery circles over the panzer units below.
( By 1944, such tactics had resulted in a loss rate of about 1 IL-2 every 90 -100 missions).

If effectively used ( they were already massed into the single 4th Air Regiment), could those 1941 Sturmoviks have stopped the panzers before the Kiev pocket and Operaiton Typhoon?

Another semi related question. The third highest scoring fighter pilot in the Soviet Air Force placed 49 of his 61 confirmed kills from the cockpit of a P-400 Airacobra provided via Lend - Lease across the Bering Straits. The first Airacobras arrived in April of 1942 in the Soviet Union. Could these planes have stopped the Luftwaffe and by dint the drive of the 6th Army to Stalingrad if provided en masse to the Stalingrad Front?

 

[Vinnie]

Sorry answer, no.

The use of airpower cannot be determined in a vacuum. The Germans were very good at ground air cooperation in the beginning and used the Luftwaffe to seal off the parts of the battlefield they wanted to. Even massed, the sturmovik could not have stopped the ground forces although they certainly would have slowed them down.
Later analysis of the battlefield in Normandy showed that aircraft caused relatively little damage to armoured vehicles although they cause havoc amongst the soft skins.

 

[witchbottles]

Sorry answer, no.

The use of airpower cannot be determined in a vacuum. The Germans were very good at ground air cooperation in the beginning and used the Luftwaffe to seal off the parts of the battlefield they wanted to. Even massed, the sturmovik could not have stopped the ground forces although they certainly would have slowed them down.
Later analysis of the battlefield in Normandy showed that aircraft caused relatively little damage to armoured vehicles although they cause havoc amongst the soft skins.

If so, how do you explain the events of the IL-2s over Ponyri during Kursk, 2 years later? The Luftwaffe still put up one hell of a fight for air parity, and re- established air superiority in some places ( 91 IL-2s shot down by Luftwaffe pilots during the first week of Zitadelle alone).

Yet the IL-2s with a strict policy of escort by minimal numbers of La-5 fighters, who , like the 109s over England in 1940, were not allowed to leave the bomber formations to engage, and were shot down in droves because of this - all this meant naught when the sturmovik formations went into their famous Lufbery circles and began striking the armored columns below. 207 Panther V and PzKpfW IV models confirmed destroyed in a single day of air attacks near the Ponyri flank on their way to the fighting - before they ever saw a single russian ground unit.

Sounds far more effective of a trade in equipment than what occurred over Normandy - where, by the by, the bomber commands on both halves of the Western Allies gave their commanders fits if it was even suggested that bombing units be used to directly support ground forces in the field. Spaatz and Harris had the bombers tied so tight it took Churchill and Marshall to break them free for the single massed attack they did make. The T-Bolts and Typhoons wee far too nusy knocking down enemy reinforcements ( which they effectively did in Normandy - obviously, or else the Brits would have met Das Reich 2 SS Panzers in Caen, among other units they prevented from arriving into the Normandy peninsula).

a massed effort by tactical strike aircraft was proven time and again during the war to be a key component in breaking enemy units before they had an opportunity to enter ground combat.

those 56 IL-2s in 1941 could have traded their planes for over 100 panzers on the roll. That kind of a loss on the 27th of June at Brody could have allowed Ryabezyev's column of 49 T-34s and 31 KVs to reach Popel's group with over 100 heavy tanks, and completely cut the supply lines to PanzerGruppe I in the south, as it had been planned by Zhukov.

PzGruppe I was in fits just due to Popel's heavy tanks sitting on their railhead, they completely stopped forward momentum and screamed at Kleist for help. Now if the other pincer had closed around them , 5 days after they began an offensive, I think there is little doubt that OKH and / or Hitler would have ordered Guderian's turn south far earlier than after Smolensk in August.

KRL, Jon H

 

[Vinnie]

207 tank kills seems excessive. I would very much doubt such figures.

 

[rugger1982]

I'd have to agree with Vinnie. Even in modern warfare and current ongoing conflicts it has been borne out that air power alone cannot defeat an enemy on the ground.

 

[Proff3RTR]

Jon, No Panthers on the Northern flank near Ponyri, so I would suggest the source of this information is somewhat dubious.

As to the 51 left on the Russian front in 1941, I would say that the Luwftwaffe would of swept them away soon enough to limit what ever impact they may of had on the advance of the Panzerwaffe. They may of caused a day or so in delay if they hit en-masse, but I feel the y would not of stopped the Germans.

And if Guderian was ordered south earlier that would of played into the Germans hands as they could of finished off the Kiev pocket earlier and thus allowed themselves a lot more time to advance on Moscow in good time and before the real bad weather hit, just MHO

 

[Thunderchief]

In war you need to take and hold ground – aircraft cannot do that by themselves.

 

[witchbottles]

In war you need to take and hold ground – aircraft cannot do that by themselves.

Defending against an armored thrust backed up by light armor rapid forces and some transported infantry - you need mission kills to take the tank punching power out of the spearhead, and a method to cut off the supply / logistical lines to the rear to prevent enemy replacement of lost armor up front. The first is done with infantry / gun teams, the second is the realm of air superiority. Artillery can only seal off small portions of a thrust - airpower seals off entire corridors of transportation via interdiction missions.

The IL-2 existed asa viable working airframe in 1940. If Stalin had thrown as much weight into the IL-2 program as he did into the KV series tanks - air superiority could have been achieved over army group center / army group north. That alone would have delayed the Kiev turn to a point where the Wehrmacht could not have begun Typhoon. No Vyazma rail line or pocket during the winter of 41, spring of 42. No butchering of the siberian infantry holding a necessary supply line on the railroad to Moscow from Smolensk.

That would have been a major turn for the Soviet forces, perhaps leading to their actual fight in the summer of 42 not getting stalled in the Donets basin, as there would not have been a sufficient concentration of AFVs in the South by the Wehrmacht t o stop it and then counter attack into an offensive.