RE: Many things - mostly very late aviation

Actually, in the appendix of "the Rommel Papers",  Manfred Rommel
recalls his conversation with his father one night about the eventual
conflict between the Soviets and the rest of the Allies.  Erwin Rommel
outlined exactly the  same kind of plan as you said about the Americans
and British using their air superiority to defeat the Soviets.

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"Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac man affected us as
kids,
we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and
listening
to repetitive music." - Kristian Wilson of Nintendo, Inc.  1989
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-----Original Message-----
From:	Michael Llaneza [SMTP:maserati@earthlink.net]
Sent:	Friday, May 31, 2002 11:03 PM
To:	gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
Subject:	Re: Many things - mostly very late aviation

The Red Air Force had no chance to handle the Allied heavy bomber 
offensive. Their armies would have withered on the vine as heavy bombers

smashed their supply lines and airfields. No tank fights well without 
gas. Both air forces were combat experienced, with a probable edge to 
the USAAF in training and doctrine [1]. Put the US had the P-80 coming 
on line, and the Meteor was ready for series production as well. The 
Soviets had a few dozen rocket interceptors in service, but not much 
prospect for a front line jet fighter anytime soon. Add airborne radar 
to the Allied technological advantage. Given air superiority there is 
every reason to believe that the Soviet tank corps could find themselves

trapped at the end of a long and vulnerable supply line and without air 
cover. At least the Germans had the advantage of short supply lines. The

Soviets could even stand to lose Siberia to American , British and 
Commonwealth troops intended for the invasion of Japan. Two million men 
thrown against	the troops holding a static front against the Japanese. 
I give the honors to the Allies, with all of Eastern Europe and Siberia 
liberated by English speaking troops.

That said,

I must give the Red Air Force full credit for an excellent job in the 
role for which it was designed: close air support. I've recently 
acquired a healthy respect for the Reds in the air, I've been playing a 
lot of a Russian made flight sim. Even given a certain natural bias, 
just from the different perspective, the Russian aircraft perform well 
in all roles -- at least by the end of the war as the Luftwaffe had a 
notable advantage through 1942. They had an excellent ground attack 
plane in the Sturmovik, and fighters to escort it at low level and some 
to go up for air superiority and go after the mediocre bombers the 
Germans had.

But nothing to cope with hundreds of P-80s in service by the end of 
1945. And thousands in 1946.

[1] I use doctrine to mean the rules, procedures, shared assumptions and

philosophy of a military service as a finghting entity. That covers the 
range from line and column tactics to modern armored Maneuver Warfare, 
it's just what you call whatever it is that they actually do.

>The Red Air Force was designed to provide close air
>>support and not much more.
>>(Moved text)> The Red Air Force would have been eaten
>  
>
>for lunch by the USAF.  Sorry, but that's the way it
>is. 
>-------
>Agree with the close support.	 You need to consider
>the USAAF was at that time a high altitude force,
>having to play the game at low altitude by the 
>Russian rules would have caused excessive losses
>(Not to mention the damage that the Russian 
>close support would have caused to American 
>units that lacked proper/effective AA.)
>
>  
>