Foot in the mouth disease? Big mouth syndrome?

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Gliders in a supply role in the snow of Russia? What if the snow[and it snowed an average of 11inches/day]was soft? They'd plow right through it,probably jamming the cargo doors shut.
The ex-glider pilot is now "in the army".....given a gun and told good luck!

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You know FramerT, just sucks for that guy, one more for the party.

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Hence the saying: One may know how to conquer without being able to do it- Sun Tzu

Very, very interesting source, Kai! It shows perfectly how the German High Command simply lacked cohesion and co-operation... Form Hitler downwards.

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Thanx Friedrich!

It´s all in the book " Stopped at Stalingrad Luftwaffe in the East 1942-43 ".


BTW, guess what Göring did after the first info came about the Stalingrad being surrounded...He went shopping to Paris for some four days after saying the air supply system works. Instead of staying with his generals and Hitler to study the situation more carefully. Can you trust this sorta guy at any level really?

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Ok, so here are the air fields for the air lift

To start with

Tatsinskaya- the Ju 52´s

Morozorskaya- All he 111´s

Stalino- All long range bombers and reconnaissance aircraft

On 24th Dec the Red Army overran Tatsinskaya and Ju 52´s went to Salsk.

At the same time Stukas and He 111´s were flown to Novocherkassk, near Rostov, on 24th, but once the Soviet threat was removed, the most He 111´s returned to Morozorskaya on 26th Dec.On January 1st they went to Novocherkassk for good.

Later on on 16th January Salsk was evacuated and the Ju 52´s went to Zverevo.

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Ha, that's what I wanted to know, Kai. The upshot is the promises made were flimsy enough already, what with the weather, the Sov air force and flak, the normal friction, the accidents.

Now factor in the lenghtened routes, the friction involved in moving to a different field (more than once) and rerouting the land supply route there, and the final result is an utter mess.

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Some general notes on the Stalingrad airlift:

AGS, and in particular 6th Army, had been getting a portion of its daily supply requirement by air prior to the encirclement. This was due to the lack of a rail line (as noted previously, the single rail line available ended at Stalino about 400 km to the rear of the German advance at Stalingrad) and the shortage of motor vehicles to haul supplies forward.
Initially, the Germans alloted approxmately 11,000 trucks in general headquarters units to lift supplies for the offensive. This was done in part by stripping the civilian economy in occupied areas and by stripping most divisions not in the assault of all or most of their motor transport. Of course, after weeks of use many of these trucks were no longer runners most having already seen extensive use before this point in the war.
Up through the encirclement of 6th Army the Luftwaffe had flown in 9,223 tons of supplies and had also had to airlift a good portion of their own supply needs in addition to that.

As for aircraft committed, the first week saw only a handful of locally available aircraft in use. Sorties per day hovered around 30 or so in this period.
By December 5 (about 10 days after the operation started) there were 11 Gruppen of Ju 52, 2 more formed with Ju 86 from bomber schools manned by the instructors, and four of He 111.
As the airlift progressed, the Henkel proponet grew to 14 Gruppen basically stripping the Luftwaffe of any offensive capacity it might have had. In addition, aircraft from Fleiger Führer Atlantic were flown in (primarily Fw 200s) along with the prototype Ju 290 and several He 177. The total aircraft on hand quickly reached over 600 with about a 20% operational rate on any given day.
On January 13 for example, there were 317 Ju 52, 181 He 111, 20 Fw 200, 1 Ju 290, and 10 He 177 available for the airlift. In addition 87 Ju 52 and 219 He 111 were enroute from other portions of the Reich to augment this lift.
Of the above, only 47 aircraft were deemed operational and these managed 69 sorties delivering 224.5 tons of supplies. In all, this was one of the better days of the airlift.

Is all "this" Glider info in that book,Kia?? Sorry, but I just find this new to me info on Gliders interesting.

T.A. said there were roughly 90 planes air-worthy in early January yet they were still bringing gliders to the front?

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yes, FramerT,

according to " Stopped at Stalingrad" Milch´s idea was to make supply flights with gliders, all in all some 100 ended at the Stalingrad front but before any use Milch abandoned the idea. However the trains were still bringing the gliders to the area.

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