Could the battle have been won in the air? In this bit of alternate history, the battle that inexorably shifted the strategic initiative on the Eastern Front is examined. It is common among scholars these days to assume that the Nazis were finished after the battle of Kursk in July 1943, and many even start Germany's failure as early as Moscow in 1941-42. According to this general interpretation, the Red Army, with its "invincible" T-34 tanks and seemingly unlimited supply of infantry and artillery, inevitably was going to roll over the German forces sooner or later. "What ifs" are always dangerous work, and never more so than in World War II, where the scope of operations resists alternate paths of history. For example, many think that Hitler's rigid refusal to allow the Sixth Army to withdraw from Stalingrad ended any hopes for the Nazis in Russia, regardless of the outcome of Kursk or other battles. Perhaps. However, the integrated nature of war in the 1940s meant that developments on the western front had an underappreciated impact on the Soviet success in the East. For example, while much is made of the Soviet tank superiority (mainly through the wide tracks, easy repair, and heavier gun on the T-34 as contrasted with the Panzer IVs or the sophisticated-but highly temperamental Panthers and Tigers), little mention is made of the fact that American industry provided nearly all of the Soviets' trucks, armored personnel carriers, and jeeps. To this day, there is no Russian equivalent of the "Vee-lees" and there is no Russian "Jeepski." [1] S. J. Zaloga and J. Grandsen, the main authorities on Soviet armor in World War II, note that the U.S. and Britain supplied 12% of all of the USSR's self-propelled guns and 100% of all armored personnel carriers! [2] Lost in the numbers of tanks and support vehicles, though, are far more critical sources of support that turned the tide. For example, not only did the United States make the weapons, but it had to first build the ships to deliver them and the warships, submarines, and aircraft to protect them en route. When it came to shipbuilding, the USA had no equal. Henry Kaiser's magnificent shipyards turned out a Liberty Ship in less than a week from scratch, and set a record constructing the Robert E. Peary in 4.5 days. Andrew Jackson Higgins invented the famous "Higgins boats" used in virtually every Allied amphibious invasion of the war, leading Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to label Higgins "the man who won the war." [3] Again, however, even the production of ships ignores one of the main sources of success on the Eastern front, and that was American air power. "Wait," you say. "How can American air power, which was confined to the Western front, account for the Soviet victories in the East?" Let's begin with the numbers, which are nothing short of staggering. The U.S. aviation industry produced 211,000 aircraft in four years of war. By DDay, U.S. and British forces had air superiority of 30:1 over the Germans over France, and at that time the Nazis were already dedicating 30% of all military-related production to resisting the Anglo-American bombing campaign, which had started in earnest in the spring of 1943. More important, by June of 1943, Germany was dedicating 21% of its Luftwaffe forces to anti-bombing missions. [4] Even if some of those missions counted against Soviet bomber aircraft (very few, as the Soviets did not engage in large-scale bombing missions until after Kursk), this siphoned off a critical portion of air resources (not counting anti-aircraft, support, medical, civil defense, scouting, and so on for western anti-bombing activities) from the East. Most important, a 20% increase in Luftwaffe forces at, say, the Battle of Kursk might have made all the difference in the world. As shown in Table 1, between December 1942 and June 1943--the pivotal point preceding Kursk--American aircraft over European skies increased the Allied total by 6,400 aircraft. Moreover, most of the new American arrivals were bombers. The response of the German war industry is obvious in Table 2. Notice also the staggering decline of aircraft available on the Eastern front after the Americans began daylight bombing missions, as seen in Table 3. Let me acknowledge at the outset, though, that recent research by David Glantz and Jonathan House has revealed that the Soviets had a substantial advantage in military intelligence as a result of Allied codebreaking efforts such as Ultra and others. [5] This further complicates a "what if," because advance warning of where the Germans planned to attack not only allowed the Soviets to prepare their defense in depth, but enabled them to transfer air units to the theater. How many Soviet planes were added due to this intelligence (again, partly due to the Americans and mostly due to the British) is impossible to estimate. The result, however, was that "at Kursk, for the first time in the war, the Soviets contested the Germans in the air on an almost equal footing." [6] With that caveat in mind, let's examine the German order of battle, as unit sizes vary with each nation's air force. The Luftwaffe's smallest standard formation, the "staffel," consisted of 12 planes, while the "gruppe" usually number about 40. A "wing" totaled between two to three "gruppes," or 80-120 planes. (After 1944, the fighter staffeln were increased by four planes each), but for our hypothetical at Kursk, we will keep the historically accurate staffel at 12. At Kursk, the Luftwaffe had available for operations at two Air Fleets, the Fourth and the Sixth. These included, in the Fourth, two "pure" fighter wings (each consisting of three Me-109 groups) and four squadrons of antitank fighters, plus six Ju-87 dive-bomber groups and one Fw-190 dive-bomber group. In addition, there were eight bomber groups, plus one harassing bomber group assigned to this Fleet . [7] This Air Fleet was placed under the command of VIII Air Corps, which, when including the Hungarian units, totaled more than 1,100 aircraft. To the north, the Sixth Air Fleet, commanded by the First Air Division, numbered about 730 aircraft, including 4 1 /3 wings of fighter-bombers. Numbers of Me-110 "tank destroyers" are also captured in pictures at Kursk, yet they do not appear in official treatments of the Luftwaffe at that battle. It is reasonable to assume that there were more "tank killers" at Kursk than are suggested by even some of the official literature. At the onset of Operation Citadel, the Germans had control of the skies, partly because the Soviets wished to conserve their aircraft and partly because when the first large numbers of Russian fighters appeared late on the first day of combat, the Luftwaffe shot down 110 of them against slight losses. As was often the case in Russia, the initial German advances gave way to tough slogging through entrenched positions, and the attrition of damaged or malfunctioning aircraft-which took extreme fire while operating in close combat support-exceeded the Germans' ability to repair or replace them. Sortie rates fell dramatically after the first two days, although the Luftwaffe could still "surge" air units (especially bombers) well after that to achieve superiority in a particular zone. But after three days, the Germans no longer had air superiority. Focusing on the hypothetical-the impact of additional aircraft freed from antibomber duties for action at Kursk-the two key aircraft that might have made a significant difference were additional fighters and tank-killer Ju-87s or Me- 110s. In armored combat, where the best single anti-tank weapon was a tank-killer Ju-87 with a 37 mm. gun (often called the "Stuka," although there were many "Stukas" besides the Ju-87), the denial of air superiority was critical. Moreover, the Soviets only achieved their air equivalence through sheer number, requiring twice the sortie rate to beat the Germans. Luftwaffe tactics and skill far exceeded that of the Russians. [8] Even in "dominance," Soviet air power only accounted for between 2% and 6% of German tank losses. During the battle for the Orel bulge, German aircraft flew 37,000 missions, killing 1,733 Soviet aircraft at a loss of only 64 planes, while at the same time destroying 1,100 tanks and 1,300 trucks or tracked vehicles. [9] In short, while there is tendency to look at Kursk as an inevitable Russian "win" because of the "advantage" in armor and manpower, at the time it was a close-run thing, decided, as most battles are, by control of the skies. It becomes even more close-run if we engage in a counterfactual and take the United States out of the equation. With no massive bombing raids in the west--at least, no daylight raids by American planes--it is reasonable to assume that the Germans would have been able to transfer 75% of their anti-aircraft resources (including warnings, support craft, planning and administration, artillery, personnel, and so on) to the eastern front and Kursk. If onefifth of Germany's war resources were going to the war in the skies, it is reasonable to assume that absent a U.S. presence, as much as 10-15% of total German war resources could have been transferred to the east. (In fact, official histories note that the Allied invasion of Sicily, combined with the weak Italian performance there, caused Hitler to order units out of the Kursk engagement even before the battle was fully decided). [10] Here, we confront that plague of all counterfactuals, options: would Hitler have kept the proportions of resources the same among the service branches? Would he have the insight to increase the Luftwaffe's share, or the Panzer divisions' share? Just for purposes of this hypothetical, suppose the two major air fleets at Kursk had an additional 20% in numbers of planes, pilots, spare parts, and so on. Would that have made a difference? More importantly, what if the additional 20% came totally in the form of fighter aircraft and "tank-killers," and that it was evenly divided between the two? It seems reasonable that it would have had a significant impact on events. Such additions would have given the Germans an additional 350 aircraft in Russia. Given the importance of "Citadel," it is likely that the bulk of those forces would have been transferred to the Fourth and Sixth Air Fleets. In other words, absent a serious American bomber threat from the West (let alone a hypothetical in which the U.S. did not enter the war in Europe), the Germans could have deployed 350 more aircraft in the Kursk battle. If we divide these up between anti-tank and fighter aircraft, this would have added 175 more fighters and 175 more "tank killers" to the Luftwaffe forces deployed at Kursk. These would have been significant numbers, but for simplicity, let's say all were assigned to the Fourth Air Fleet, which had about 200 dive-bombers and/or fighterbombers designated for anti-tank roles, not counting some 320 medium high-altitude bombers. Our hypothetical would have nearly doubled the number of dive-bombers available to the Fourth Air Fleet. German fighter strength at Kursk was slightly higher-about 240 aircraft in the Fourth Air Fleet alone, not counting night fighters and special aircraft-so the addition of another 175 would have had only a slightly smaller impact on air superiority. Such numbers would have affected virtually every aspect of the battle. For example, even in the early stages when it was victorious, the Luftwaffe lacked sufficient air resources to conduct deep attacks in the rear of the operational area, forcing the Luftwaffe to "exercise extremely tight control over all its forces, even those used for flexible operations...." [11] Such deep operations permitted by a near-doubling of fighter escorts and by freeing up high-level bombers to pursue more natural missions would have reduced the flow of Russian reinforcements and ammunition and destroyed the ability of the Soviets to repair their broken equipment. Second, a near-doubling of fighter and anti-tank/dive-bomber power at Kursk would have completely shifted the pace of the battle. German armored advances slowed significantly only after Russian bombers and fighters began to aid the ground forces. Certainly the entire offensive would have moved faster. In the Orel salient alone, the addition of another 20% to the Nazi air force structure would have yielded another 300 aircraft kills and hundreds more tank and armored vehicle kills. But force ratchets itself: once units are outmanned, morale breaks down more easily, they lose cohesiveness, and are yet easier targets for aircraft. Even as it was, on several occasions encircling Soviet advances that would have proved disastrous were blunted by the existing air power, indicating how the introduction of another 300 aircraft would have changed the battlefield. With faster moving German columns in the rear of the Soviet bulge, supplies would have fallen more quickly, and Russian lines weakened further. Indeed, it is hard to think of many major conflicts in which a 20% shift in resources, men, or weapons would not have had a critical impact (except, perhaps, Little Big Horn!). And, of course, I have stacked the deck by assuming that the resources would all be of a specialized nature-fighters and tank-killers-and further weighted my argument to place most of the additional resources at Kursk. Ultimately, it was the Anglo-American assault on Sicily that caused Hitler to abandon operations plans at Kursk even when there was still hope of winning. Without the American presence, not only would such an invasion have been impossible, but also Hitler may well have withdrawn significant forces from the stalemate in Egypt, where he had the British effectively bottled up, and transferred Rommel and some of his tanks and men to the East. Moreover, without the vast American buildup of shipping and Admiral Ernest King's successful plans to stabilize the sea lanes to England, it is entirely plausible that England would have been unable to reinforce any of its overseas bases or troops; that she would have been totally bankrupt (as Churchill predicted) by late 1942; and that the lack of fuel, replacement parts, and food would have made even her offensive air operations cease by late 1942, thus adding still more German resources to the Eastern front. On the other hand, even if the Germans had succeeded at Kursk, of course, there was no guarantee that they could have capitalized on the Soviet defeat, or launched new offensives in the south. Most experts argue that the war with Russia would have been extended by a couple of years, but ultimately with the same result. I'm not so sure. One thing is certain: without American entrance into the war, by 1946 virtually all of the Jews in Europe would have been exterminated, and Germany's Holocaust-related resources would also have been freed up for combat. Likewise, while it seems a foregone conclusion that the Germans were on the wrong track to make an atomic bomb, even that decision was shaped by American entrance into the war. Rudolph Hess, calculating the war's resource demand, concluded in late 1942 that Germany had to win in the next couple of years, and thus re-allocated resources based on an American presence and a threat of invasion from the west. Without America's involvement, though, Walter Heisenberg and other Nazi scientists might well have been given the green light to work on atomic bombs, and handed the resources to do so. Under those circumstances, a German-Soviet war that lasted past 1946 raised the threat of a Nazi bomb, at which point the Russian advantage in massed men and tanks would become a liability, not an asset. Fortunately, the world was spared these possible outcomes by the combination of American capitalist productivity, which freed the Soviets to make only tanks and artillery (allowing them to turn out some 2,000 tank chassis a month), and the bombing campaign in the west that soaked up 30% of Germany's resources by 1944, ensured the Soviet victory in 1943. Before heaping too much praise on Lenin's children, we first ought to acknowledge the contributions of American business that, even before landing a single G.I. on the European continent, had siphoned off a decisive war-making capacity from Germany and turned the tide. NOTES [1] The U.S. and Britain shipped more than 20,900 armored vehicles to Russia, including 12,300 tanks, and provided 300,000 field telephones. See Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won (New York: Norton, 1995), 182-190; S. J. Zaloga and J. Grandsen, Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles of World War II (London: Arms and Armor Press, 1984), 128, 206. See also Larry Schweikart, The Entrepreneurial Adventure: A History of Business in the United States (Ft. Worth: Harcourt, 2000), 378-379. [2] Zaloga and Grandsen, Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles (206). [3] For this quotation, and other information on Higgins, see John A. Heitmann, "The Man Who Won the War: Andrew Jackson Higgins," Louisiana History, 34 (1993), 35-40. [4] See James F. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi, eds., Dirty Little Secrets of World War II (New York: Quill, 1994), 195. [5] See David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House, The Battle of Kursk (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999). [6] Glantz and House, Battle of Kursk, 270. [7] Herman Plocher, The German Air Force Versus Russia, 1943, ed. By Harry R. Fletcher (New York: Arno Press, 1967), 75-76. [8] Glantz and House, Battle of Kursk, 270-71. [9] Plocher, The German Air Force Versus Russia, 1943, 105. [10] Plocher, The German Air Force Versus Russia, 1943, 102. [11] Plocher, The German Air Force Versus Russia, 1943, 86. Back to Table of Contents -- Against the Odds vol. 2 no. 2 Back to Against the Odds List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by LPS. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com * Buy this back issue or subscribe to Against the Odds direct from LPS.