"Tactical Bombing" Topic

I'm curious about the opinions out there of how effective tactical bombing was in the flow of battle. I suspect we would all agree that the overwhelming presence of Tactical Fighter Bombers over France in 1944 made strategic manoeuver of German divisions very difficult (and painful.) What I'm interested in is how effective and common was it for Typhoons and P-47s to interdict German forces right on the battlelines. Any examples where FBs tip the battle in favour of the Allies? Examples from 1940 or the Eastern front most welcome as well.

Thanks for any input.

Just the threat of a tactical strike can have an effect.
Units waiting for dark or bad weather rather than broad daylight. Also the fear of interdiction will cause dispersal and caution. This adds a time element to a force moving and reaching the jump off point.

Tactical bombing could at times have a dramatic effect on a particular engagement. Once the skies cleasred they were very effective against the panzer drives during the Bulge. Peiper, for example, was held up for some time. If I rememgber correctly, Peiper himself got out of his vehicle and holed up in a bunker or building.

I know the following isn't what you're looking for, but I happened to have just read this earlier today and it's too good to not pass along:
Near Mortain, France, August 6, 1944, during the German counterattack; "A British Typhoon fighter-bomber, shot down by German antiaircraft units a few hours before, had serendipitously crashed onto the lead Panther tank of the First SS panzer Division columns as it drove through a narrow defile at Vente a few hours before. Hours of backing and filling were required to get the blocked column turned around and onto an alternate route, delaying both the attack of the first SS panzer Division toward St. Barthelmy and the attack of the northern task force of the Second SS panzer Division towards Mortain and Hill 314."
From Against the Panzers: United States Infantry versus German Tanks, 1944-1945, by A. R. Vannoy & J. Karamales (pages 38-39).

While it's clear that Allied tactical air had a strong effect on the course of the fighting in 1944, there is considerable controversy over the ability of aircraft to kill tanks. (Peiper in his bunker is certainly one reason why.) Some historians suggest that German tanks and assault guns destroyed by aircraft in northwest Europe were counted in the tens. Plenty of trucks bit it, though.

Kelly had his halftracks shot up when he was on his way to rob the bank.

Montgomery used the Desert Air Force to very good effect tactically during Operation Supercharge II enabling a breakthrough from Tebaga to El Hamma. The operation was launched as the previous one, Operation Pugilist, had been stalled.

The plan called for the DAF FBs to go in very low, strafing and bombing armour, infantry and gun positions. Montgomery later said that Supercharge II may not have been successful had Conningham's pilots not done such a grand job.

Well the RAF tests before Normandy gave each of a Typhoons rockets a 0.5% chance of scoring a hit on a stationary tank sized target.

Thus firing all eight rockets gave a 4% chance of hitting a moving target.

However the psycological effect of massed air power had an effect that outweighed its actual material effects.

Thinking of the British advance during Market Garden, didn't they use a 'taxi rank' of fighter-bombers to call in support against enemy strongpoints that were holding up the advance? I presume this was not an innovation, so it was probably used in more successful operations.

Man From La Mancha: but doesn't that math get completely skewed when one takes into account that very often, in actual combat (unlike in the test), there would be more than one target in front of the Typhoon? Often many more, as in a road column full of tanks and other AFVs. Thus even a rocket which may have missed the intended target has a pretty good chance of hitting another just as juicy?

Sort of like the difference between trying to hit a single man with a single flintlock, and the damage inflicted by a volley from a shoulder-to-shoulder regiment versus a shoulder-to-shoulder regimental "target".

In 1940 the morale effect of the Stukas was possibly higher than the actual damage they did but you can't say they weren't effective. Their limitations were realised though and faster, more versatile ground attack aircraft were preferred by other combattants from lessons learned during the Spanish civil war.

Actually hitting and brewing an AFV isn't the only way of disabling it. Destroy its logistics and you effectively destroy the AFV AND fuel and ammo trucks are a lot more vulnerable.

Tony H

Napoleon III, the math gets even more difficult when you change the .5 chance was against a stationary target.

Zettering's book on Normandy,as well as Last Stand at Mortain, cite very low figures of tanks destroyed by air power, based upon manual inspection of destroyed vehicles. The threat, as zoneofcontrol rightly notes, was often the great disrupter (e.g. PZ Lehr arrived piecemeal in Normandy, due to hiding from jabos but did not suffer overwhelming losses. Also, Rommel's injury occured avoiding the strike, not by being hit by anything).

As we all know, the most effective fighter bomber in 1944 was the P-51 Tank Buster, which had a 100% to hit chance vs. Tiger tanks approaching bridges defended by wounded men with pistols :)

"doesn't that math get completely skewed when one takes into account that very often,"

The low success rate of tac air against armour is based on post action analysis, battlefield surveys etc.

The main thing is that air strikes were incredibly disruptive, even if they didn't actually destroy much or kill many people. AFV crews would abandon their vehicles (not the wisest thing to do under air attack!), infantry would scatter and hide etc. I recall one account from the BEF in 1940 were it literally took an hour to pull an infantry unit back to together after a Stuka attack which only destroyed a couple of trucks – the troops were psychologically shattered by the experience. The main thing air attacks were good at destroying were softskins, horse transport and artillery positions.

In game terms though, tactical airstrikes were very good at rendering units combat ineffective, either permanently or temporarily – whether they will be able to reorganise in a useful timespan depends on the level of game you are playing. It is probably best to model airstrikes (at a higher level) as being similar to artillery concentrations – they have similar destructive effects, although the psychological effects can last a bit longer.

Battlefield interdiction is slightly different, that more tends to affect operational movement, forming up etc which may not be within scope for a lot of wargames.

Marcus
Part of your question was how often were they effective 'right on the battle lines'. I've wondered that myself. In wargames it is common to be able to call on air support even in company-level actions. I can't help feeling that the main influence that aircraft would have would be off table – or perhaps in depleting units prior to the battle. Not nearly so much fun as seeing a couple of Stuka's flying over the table, but perhaps more realistic than calling in an airstrike a hundred yards from your own lines.
I guess that the ability to call in aircraft at such a tactical level varied tremendously by nation and year, of course – can anyone point me to a good source on the capbilities of different nations thoughout WW2?

We're tossing a lot of words around that have very specific meanings. As far as battlefield interdiction goes, the purpose was to isolate the enemy on the battlefield, not to destroy his forces in contact, and it typically performed by air and artillery units.

But as I re-read MB's original post, he's looking for the effects on battle line interdiction. And that's a different ballgame (against, presuming everyone is using the right terms).

The principal effect of "battleline" air support/interdiction is to cause the enemy to move into contact much quicker, and to continue to maintain contact rather than to try to outflank the enemy. Fast-moving aircraft can't differentiate friendly and enemy targets all that easily, and if they're inter-mixed or close, airstrikes are too dangerous to the friendlies.

So, battlefield interdiction to isolate the enemy from reinforcements, resupply, and escape routes; "battleline" (or what I'd call CAS) to encourage the enemy into the meatgrinder of well-prepared defensive positions (much like minefields to channel the enemy into planned kill zones).

"the ability to call in aircraft at such a tactical level varied tremendously by nation and year"

In the vast majority of cases in WW2, it is best to treat airstrikes like pre-planned artillery. Even for the mighty Germans with air liaison officers attached directly to unit HQs etc it took many minutes (45+) or even hours to arrange tactical air strikes, and even then the arrival times aren't certain – so in a tactical game you'd pre-plan the airstrike targets but then the arrival time would be randomised, which could be exciting! The one major exception are very, very late war allies (not Normandy) with cab ranks in the air and air controllers directly with the forward troops, in which case they could be called down fairly quickly onto point targets in the same manner as on-call artillery.

It depends how realistic you want your games to be, real military operations involve huge amounts of planning, comms and logistics which takes a very long time and that includes the integration of airstrikes into the fireplan. The Germans could mount a hasty battalion sized attack off the line of march in 45 minutes, which was regarded as fast but there wouldn't be time to integrate any sort of higher level fire support into that – the planning time for a formal British battalion attack with armour and artillery support (from the artillery regiment assigned to the brigade) was four hours, a divisional attack could take a day or more just to plan, let alone execute.

In the vast majority of wargames, the pace of operations is somewhat faster than that, and artillery/air response times are reduced accordingly.

Never having seen such post-battle analyses, I am not specifically quibbling with the math or the conclusions being drawn here. But 2 things still seem very puzzling to me, and somewhat irreconcilable with thse conclusions:

1) Reference is repeatedly made to the greater effectiveness of air attacks against sofstkins and horse transport than against AFVs. However, if accuracy is the issue (as it was contended to be above), then surely a truck or a wagon is no easier to hit than a tank if that is what one is aiming at. If anything they are usually smaller "targets". So why would they be hit more often?? Or is the assumption that AFVs, even if hit, would have greater survivability than said softskins, thus more of the latter were destroyed? This doesn't jive with my understanding of the effectiveness of the rockets themselves (I'm speaking mainly of '44-'45 here). Or is the assumption that the pilots simply "shot at" sofstkins way more often that they did at AFVs? And if so, why would they possibly do that, given a similar (and likely smaller?) chance of a hit as opposed to a miss?

2) The point has been made above that part of the effectiveness of air attacks against tanks stemmed from the disruption of causing the crews to bail out and scramble for the nearest roadside ditch, etc. for "cover". One can certainly imagine an initial over-reaction to the presence of airstrikes, especially among troops new to combat. The 1940 campaign saw much of that "over-reaction" amongst the British and French soldiers subjected to Stuka attacks, for instance. However, for the Normandy campaign alone, the German Panzer formations were often on the roads for days/weeks, being subjected to incessant air attacks whenever the skies permitted it. So my question would be: why wouldn't such crews relatively- "quickly" realize their best bet of surviving a fighter-bomber attack was to stay inside their tanks, since apparently the planes couldn't hit the broad side of a barn?? Why would they repeatedly leave their armoured protection for the nearest ditch, etc., when the plane's secondary armament of MGs/cannon could cut them to pieces in their vulnerable state? It seems to me we should trust the combat instincts of the tanks crews as to what was better for their survival over the post-battle "bean counters" trying to quantify things.

Genuinely puzzled…

In my games air support is not necesarily "called up" or spotted by the troops on the ground. Rather one side may be given air support by the scenario and they roll each turn to see if it arives. When it arrives a player on that side picks a target and roll to see if that's the target which the plane has chosen (60% chance). If not a different target at least 12 inches away from the first is chosen and the roll is made again. I supose that this can be taken to simulate (using that word loosely) air suport that is roaming the battlfield and which happens to choose targets on the portion of the battle being depicted on the table top, or it can be taken to simulate air support that has been called down.

Chris, I like that idea of getting to choose the target you would "like" the air attack to come down on, but having to roll for it to see if the pilot "chooses" that target too!! Nice innovation, and one I think we will try out, too. Thanks.

The psychological impact from the threat of air attack could be considerable. The Germans started their Mortain counterattack at night to avoid the Allied air cover, but they gave their spearheads specific orders to keep pushing once daylight came. Despite those orders when dawn came many German armor units pulled off the roads, went under the trees and stopped, helping stall the advance.

I saw a documentary on PBS where they were interviewing P47 pilots who flew ground attack missions over NWE. A pilot mentioned using napalm on tanks as well as shooting at them with the P47's 8 .50cals. He said that the 50cals would on occasion richocet under the tank and through the bottom, as well as making a mess of anything not armored on the tank itself. He also mentioned shooting at individual infantryman with the MGs. Accuracy with the MGs where you could walk tracers into the target were probably higher than a 5" rockets. And 8 .50cals hosing a softskin vehicle of horse drawn arty would mess it up good.

"Never having seen such post-battle analyses.."

link

"Reference is repeatedly made to the greater effectiveness of air attacks against sofstkins and horse transport than against AFVs."

You need to hit an AFV with a bomb or rocket (or at least get very close with a bomb) and MG bullets tend to bounce off them. Bombs and rockets are appalling effective against softskins and horses as the targets don't have any armour and air delivered weapons generally have a rather large blast and fragmentation radius. Interestingly in the study above MG/cannon were found to be more effective against softskins than bombs, but that may be because the allies didn't go in for divebombing which reduced the accuracy of bombs compared to walking automatic weapons fire onto the target.

Napoleon III – I presume that softskins would bne much more affected by near-misses than armoured vehicles, so each rocket owuld have a larger kill zone.

Also, I can understand why as an individual I'd rather be in a ditch somewhere away from an obvious target, rather than sitting out in the open with nothing I can do to protect myself. Assuming that a couple of aircraft are attacking at a time, there should be enough down time to leave your vehicle and get hidden before the jabo's come back.

Chris PzTp suggestions for modelling tactical air on the gaming table are excellent – I do a very similar thing with randomised arrival. The main thing is trying to model what the troops on the ground experience of airpower is in game terms without a lot of pratting around.

Napoleon III: "1) Reference is repeatedly made to the greater effectiveness of air attacks against sofstkins and horse transport than against AFVs. However, if accuracy is the issue (as it was contended to be above), then surely a truck or a wagon is no easier to hit than a tank if that is what one is aiming at. If anything they are usually smaller "targets"."

Trucks are not really smaller than tanks. Horse-drawn vehicles can vary in size from small cart to howitzer and limber pulled by 6+ horses. Horse-drawn vehicles are also slower on the move than than motor vehicles, making them easier targets.

Also, soft-skins (and especially horses) are much more vulnerable to machine-gun fire and to shrapnel from bombs. Tanks would require a direct hit from rocket or cannon, or a close miss from a bomb, or lucky hit from .50 cal MG, to be damaged.

Lastly, there were lot more softskins than tanks in the war, so there for sure were a lot more sortskin losses to air power. Keep this in mind when checking any statistics.

Griefbringer

Part of the problem is this notion (and it is total NONSENSE!) that Fighterbombers "roamed the battlefield" They didn't. In areas where there was any likelyhood of friendlies Air activity was minimal and then only then a pre-planned strike, (which would still be rigorously controlled by an FAC liason officer) or, for the allies after very late July 44 a (rare- 1 per spearhead division) FAC calling in aircraft on targets requested by ground troops (FAC's didn't call in aircraft on their own initiative- only when requested specifically by ground troops.
FBs did indeed "roam" but rarely within 10 miles of the front line. Usually major geographic features usually rivers or roads or railway lines would be used to determine the bomb line which was always several miles from potential friendlies (So Kelly's heroes deserved to get strafed- they wern't supposed to be there after all!) The FB line on D-day for example was the Aube river, which is about "only" 5 miles inland, this was deemed an acceptable high risk but neccessary for the landings.
The point about trucks, softskins, horses etc being easier targets than armour is simple…there are indeed far more of them moving around in the rear areas, they are generally confined to roads which make them more conspicuous, they are physically more susceptable to damage and they tended to be in formations which lacked flak protection. Armour anywhere, and particularly on the battlefield, would invariably have some (or often, copious) flak protection which made them a lot less popular as targets with pilots. My Father was a hurricane and typhooon Ground attack pilot from late 42 onwards (desert and then NWE). His experience (in NWE) was that THE MOMENT there was any appreciable AA fire over the target you dumped all your ordanance in the direction of the enemy and left, for the simple reason that his squadron lost more pilots in the first week of the Normandy campaign than they had in the previous year. After that they didn't bother to press their attacks if they encountered opposition- Different story if the target lacked flak protection- Rockets he deemed to be a total waste of time, although he thought they must have scared the out of whoever was on the recieving end, He says he never knowingly hit a target with rockets, cannon is the opposite, with no opposing flak he didn't think the target stood a chance.
Old soldiers tales, some of it, I'm sure, but on the whole it seems backed up by good evidence- Gooderson is the big authority on this although the more easily available Zetterling book distills a lot of his findings- Tanks and assault guns didn't tend to be knocked out (or even targeted much) by aircraft….how you relate this to your game is another thing…that the tank runs out of fuel or breaks down because of lack of spares which is the result of an FB attack days before and many miles away is your business. THAT was the effect of FB attacks on frontline troops- but blowing them up, unrequested and within sight of friendly troops??? total hollywood cobblers, in fact, probably as likely as knocking a tank out with a .45 pistol.

cheers chris

Napoleon III & Martin, Thanks for the kind words!

In MacDonald's 'Company Commander', he notes artillery support a few times and air support once. That one time was as a planned prep barrage.

His company lined up with tank support. They could see another US company with tank support. Artillery worked over the target town. Then planes hit it. This was all so rare that both companies stood up and cheered. When they went forward the Germans mostly surrendered after a few shots.

It's the only time he mentions a two-company attack or air support. He commanded a company from before the Bulge to the end of the war.

MacDonald also mentions an air strike while his unit was holding a part of the Siegfried line. Hq told him to pick out targets on the map for F/Bs to hit the next day.

The U.S. 11th Inf Div was bombed by the 9th Tac AF on three separate occasions, including once during the Bulge. No love lost.
Max Hastings book on the 2ns S.S. Pz Div describes how every movment to the Normandy beaches was planned around the possibilty of air attack.

Thank you, Blind Old Hag. I'd forgot. That makes two airstrikes, both pre-planned. Neither one was the off-the-cuff strike so beloved of gamers.

You are preaching to the unconvertable Chris.

A minute's thought about how hard it would be to tell friendly from enemy, both camoflaged, while flying at 100 mph over the countryside with people shooting at you, would soon squash the idea of battlefield interdiction. Yet people will continue to play it, because the myth is better.

I'm picking that it would be pretty much impossible to even SEE infantry in a field from a plane (recalling that if it circles gently around it is pretty much asking to be shot down by AA fire).

"You are preaching to the unconvertable Chris. "

Not really, some of the mechanisms described above are ways of introducing the friction inherent in ground-air cooperation in a playable way and which give the players some input into the process. These are games after all, however it might be correct to say that too much of our view of WW2 tac air is coloured by TV coverage of small aspects of modern air operations.

In 99.9% of cases airstrikes in tactical WW2 wargames should be treated as (somewhat erratic) pre-planned artillery barrages, as that is how they were employed IRL. It could also be argued that 99% of artillery fire should be pre-planned as well, but that might cause a riot…(and the truth of it depends on the level of game you are playing).

Martin…all artillery as preplanned as well….NOW you are talking!!

cheers chris

in a playable way and which give the players some input into the process

Indeed. By why SHOULD a ground commander have ANY input into the attack by a plane?

Since the planes shouldn't be at the front line, they could equally well be left out entirely. But, as we know, removing toys from boys can be tricky.

"By why SHOULD a ground commander have ANY input into the attack by a plane?"

Because the planes are there to support the ground commander. Short of nuclear annihilation, all air operations are ultimately in support of ground operations. Despite what some die-hard air-power folks claim, history has proven repeatedly that air power can not win a war. Only putting boots on the ground and making the other guy give up will win. Air power makes this job a lot easier and less costly, but it still can only support the guys carrying rifles.

Hey Mark, presumably, Forward Air Controllers, who were assigned to ground based fighting formations, were integrated for the purposes of coordinating air and land based combined attacks.

I'm still wondering exactly how this integrated relationship worked and whether TBs could intervene on the front line in sufficient numbers as to tip the battle in one way or another.

It would seem to me at first glance that FACs were not created in order to achieve the interdiction of formations moving to the front lines but to coordinate air/ground attacks.

A few random ramblings on this topic:

I believe that the Americans operated much closer to their front lines than the British did, and were accordingly responsible for many more 'friendly fire' incidents.

Wasn't it more common for the Britsh planes to be operating close to the American lines than vice versa? Perhaps this suports the idea that the Americans operated closer to their own lines than the British did? -just speculation here, so take it for what you will.

The Russians put very prominant air-recognition markings on their tanks, which might further support the evidence that aircraft operated far from their own troops, but it might also suport the impression that the aircraft targeted armor.

A few German pilots racked up huge tallies of enemy armor knocked out. This supports the notion that armor was targeted. These pilots may have been exceptions, they very likley didn't knock out nearly as much as they thought they did, and they likely hit more trucks and fewer tanks than they thought, but the fact that the records were kept and they were encouraged to go out and hit more does support the idea that armor was targeted.

On the other hand, I don't recall seeing very much nose camera footage of tanks being targeted. Alot of trains, marshaling yards, and bridges. There is the famous footage of what is taken to be Rommel's car getting hit, but this is a great example of a target that is way behind the lines. (How far behind the lines was he when he got hit?).

There were certainly examples of German columns targeted from the air during the bulge, when they were practically 'behind' the American lines (if you can call them lines). It's hard to call the attack on Peiper "preplotted," though I don't know the details of how the mission was carried out, and this doesn't mean that the British would have done it the same way.

"In 99.9% of cases airstrikes in tactical WW2 wargames should be treated as (somewhat erratic) pre-planned artillery barrages…"

I don't know about that. One only has to look closely at tactical air support in the PTO to see that these percentages aren't even close. Sure perhaps 99.9% of CAS is pre-planned but once planes are on station they were most often guided on target by ground controllers. For much of the war Marine units employed an abundance of ALPs (Air Liason Parties), enough to equip each infantry regiment with four of them. The main duty of these ALPs was to guide air assets, whether dropping bombs or supplies, onto the target via direct radio communication, often to within 100 yards of friendly positions, and with very few blue on blue events.

The exception to this technique of ALPs guiding air to targets was Okinawa due to the congested nature of the battlefield. Col Vernon Megee commander LFASCU-3 had this to say about why it was not done at Okinawa. "…to have permitted each battalion air liaison party to control striking aircraft on a Corp front of only ten miles, when many simultaneous strikes were being run, would obviously have lead only to pandemonium and grave hazard…"

So how effective was it? Considering that the techniques used and perfected by the Marines/Navy serve as the framework for current CAS doctrine speaks volumes IMO.

One must also realize that the US Army Air Corps in Europe had no desire to provide tactical air support to ground units. That was the job for artillery. The job of the Air Corps was to kill enemy fighters and destroy their infrastructure. Only grudgingly did the Air Corps provide tactical air support.

"..all artillery as preplanned as well.."

That is something I usually try to encourage, maybe let each battalion have a battery in DS or something depending on nationality. For defenders you ideally need to have pre-plotted defensive fire tasks as well.

Interesting info about the Pacific, not something I know much about – presumably this was partly to work around the lack of obvious terrain features like roads, rivers, towns etc? So the planes arrive over a designated area on some sort of schedule, and are then assigned to their final targets by local air controllers? Presumably they must have had some sort of indication of target type so they could load up on the right weapons. Depending on the level of game, this still sounds 'pre-planned' to me, albeit with some final correction at the end.

Terrain had little affect on CAS development. The primary reason is that once the landing force was ashore it did not have access to it's organic artillery, and naval gunfire could not fully compensate for this lack. Also, Navy and Marine air commanders were willing to develop the techniques necessary to fulfill the role air played in regards to CAS.

Since supporting air assets were based so close to the fighting, air was often waiting on station rather than at some airfield many miles away from the battlefield. Even when air was not already aloft, response time from a request for air support by ground forces to execution is measured in minutes not hours, with the average response time being around 15 min if I recall correctly.

Also realize that the ALPs could direct air assets onto targets of their choosing taking into account weapon loadout of the supporting a/c. The target, and weapon loadout did not have to be designated before planes were on station.

There is really little distinction between a pre-planned mission and an "on-call" mission in any wargame where all we need to be concerned about is the execution of the actual attack rather than the procedure etc that lead up to it. The primary concern being whether or not ground forces have control over the strike or not, and when and for how long air assets are available. For Europe, or anywhere else beside Marines and sometimes US Army in the PTO Air missions should be the latter, very limited use use of air in direct support of ground forces, and even less where air is directed by ground controllers.

In most wargames the air support is modelled as a random occurrence and most also cover the friendly fire. I've never had a problem with it as it's difficult to have air support otherwise in a wargame.

US Armored Combat Commands usually had a FAC in the column mounted in a tank. This liason was particularly useful during the pursuit phase, where fighter bombers were used to disperse the road blocks thrown up to delay the armor advance. Don't forget that targets or friendlies could be marked with smoke,and the FAC could always adjust the wingman or second flight off of lead's bombs. It's true that Jabos didn't knock out many tanks, but rail and road movement were impossible for logistical operations. Mechanised armies don't fight without ammunition, fuel, parts, and food. The generally poor automotive reliability of late war German tanks would really be exacerbated by fighter bombers. Even today tank transporters and rail are the most efficient way to move armor. Imagine trying to move an underpowered Tiger with a finnicky transmission 120 KM to the front through traffic jams without rail or transporters only to find there was no fuel or ammo when you got there.

This has been an interesting discussion.

Here's another quote form 'Against the Panzers:'

"The reoccupation of the open slope prompted the German panzers once more to action. As before, the GIs had little protection on the exposed nose of the hill. But, as if out of a Hollywood movie, American P-47s suddenly entered the battle. They bombed and strafed the tanks, coming dangerously close to the foxhole line. One bomb appeared to bounce as it hit the ground and skidded to within a few yards of a group of Company A men, but it did not explode. In the face of the 'Jabos' the German panzers at last withdrew. The intervention by the P-47s, part of the XIX Tactical Air Command, was the first positive response to numerous requests for air support. … Besides assisting the First Bn. To repel the tanks, the planes bombed and strafed the German assembly area at Arry, leaving much of the town in flames. American pilots also supported ground operations by striking at targets on the roads leading into the bridgehead area, seven or eight kilometers to the south and east, strafing motor columns and destroying a convoy of fifteen gasoline trucks. … This incident (in front of Company A) may have possibly saved the crossing (p61-62)."

I like how the authors admit that this incident was like Hollywood.

Of course one can't pull and incident out of a book and assume that it was a common or typical occurrence. The earlier quote with the plane crashing into the panther is an illustration of that, and this incident may be atypical because it occurred during a river crossing (the Moselle, near Arnaville, France, September 10, 1944). But it seems that this sort of close tactical air support did occur, and the few examples that one can point out can be taken as justification for gamers to put it in their games if they are so inclined.

This is the great strength of gaming with miniatures; gamers can do their own research and then decide how to structure their games to fit their impression of how things occurred. Most rule systems for miniatures are flexible enough to allow this (and I try to write my own rules to allow for such flexibility). Board games and computer games are not so flexible.

Gamers may make their games a bit more like Hollywood on purpose, as many gamers find inspiration from the movies more so than history books (though I'm more of a non-fiction person myself).

".5 chance to hit with rocket"
Generally organized Tactical Air would not fly just a single aircraft into a strike. There were cab ranks of aircraft configured specifically to drop in on enemy formations on the ground. A flight of four, of a wing of fighter bombers is formidable. Time on task and experience would probably bring the percentage up. P-47's also carried eight heavy mg's a Typhoons four cannon. The gunsight documentaries on cable witness the ease it takes to hose a ground target. Better pilots also walk their tracer stream to bounce shots off the road into the weak bottom armor of tanks. Top armor, especially engine deck area of tanks were never constructed with fighter bomber threat in mind. The suggestion of staying inside the tank with this threat assumes the crews have never been attacked by planes, or just feel lucky that day.

In game experience, I usually forgo the Jabo thing, and will use a spotter plane to call down artillery. In Italy any landser who shot down an L-4 Grasshopper spotter plane would get an automatic 15 day leave.

Another factor related would be the artillery. Currently I'm reading Assault from the Sea from Peter Young about his experiencies on the commmandos.

Talking about Operation Goodwood at Normandy, where after an air attack with many bombers, the British armoured divisions advanced after a moving artillery barrage. One of the paragraphs details the impressions on the bombing of a german captain (Von Rosen) commanding a Tiger tank company:

"My own tanks [12 Tigers of 503 Heavy Battalion] were combat ready, well placed, camouflaged and dispersed in the park of Manneville [3.5 miles east of Caen]…We were located in the very middle of this bombardment [which lasted for over two hours] which was like HELL and I am still astonished to have survived it… [a] tank 30 metres away received a direct hit which set it on fire instantly. [Another] tank was turned upside down by the air pressure, a Tiger at the weight of 58 tons…All tanks were completely covered with earth. The engines were full of sand. Fifty men of my company were dead, two soldiers committed suicide. Another soldier went insane. When we withdrew in the early afternoon to the Cagny area the entire battalion had only six to eight tanks left [out of 42]"

Although von Rosen was exaggerating. The other two companies of his battalion (including the Tiger II company)were untouched by the bombing and engaged Guards Armoured Div later in the day.

The total losses for the entire battalion during the day were 13 tanks, of which one was flipped by a bomb and one suffered a direct hit from a bomb (both mentioned above). Rosens company was rendered combat ineffective by the bombing and did not take any useful part in the first days fighting. The battalion was at full strength and started the day with 45 Tigers not 42, it ended with 32 and continued to fight for the remainder of the operation.

The psychological impact of air attack….