"Fighter formations and tactics" Topic
6 Posts
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| Bashytubits | 20 Jul 2016 10:29 a.m. PST |
Does anyone have any good links or suggestions on fighter formations and tactics for the different nations during world war II? Any good books on the subject would be appreciated also, thanks TMP brain trust! |
| boy wundyr x | 20 Jul 2016 10:44 a.m. PST |
Off the top of my head, some of Mike Spick's works has it, and I know the Bag the Hun rules by Toofatlardies have the basics in them. Someone will probably give a better shorthand version, but the Germans had the finger four of two elements of two, but changed later when they were fighting the bomber formations. The British used the line astern and vic until late 1940 or early 1941. I think the US was into the finger four by the time they joined. Soviets I'm not so sure about, the Japanese were pretty much every man for himself, though the Ospreys on their AF and naval aces may have more detail. I think the Finns were finger four, and the Poles probably vics. Not sure about the Italians or 1940 French offhand. |
| Whirlwind | 20 Jul 2016 11:27 a.m. PST |
Try these: link link Bag the Hun has (very simplified):
RAF has vics and lines (abreast and astern) upto the end of 1940, finger four thereafter. Same for Italians and French. Russians change at the beginning of 1942.
Japanese Navy the same as above plus Shotai until beginning of 1943, Japanese Army beginning of 1944 (although I think maybe the IJN was a typo and should be '44 too)
USN/USAF using lines until the beginning of 1943, then finger four
Germans use schwarme and lines
Finns use finger four and lines, then add the schwarme in 41. |
| Timmo uk | 20 Jul 2016 12:25 p.m. PST |
There were at least a couple of BoB RAF squadrons that used finger four, Sailor Malan's 74 squadron was one. The Osprey Duel series have some tactical information in them. |
| Gozerius | 20 Jul 2016 2:24 p.m. PST |
Lundstrom's "The First Team" has a good description of the USN tactics development during the first year of the war.
The basic unit was the pair, divisions were made of 3 pairs. Jimmy Thatch developed the "beam defense", or "Thatch Weave" using divisions of two pairs, which became the norm after Midway. |
| jowady | 20 Jul 2016 8:01 p.m. PST |
Remember that in 1939-1940 the RAF had a number (if memory serves) of preplanned attack formations. The Leader would call out #3 attack….GO! Being preplanned of course the Luftwaffe quickly caught on and made the RAF pay. This also usually called for the RAF to fly in vics of three in line astern. Far from the idea that the Japanese, or at least the Japanese Navy flew "every man for himself" they flew in vics of 3 whenever possible, right up to VJ day. This is from Saburo Sakai's book "Samurai". |
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