AA-cruiser Niobe

[Christian W.]

The Kriegsmarine AA-cruiser Niobe was sunk after an battle agaisnt 130 Soviet planes near Kotka harbour in Finland. The question is, whos idea was it to send Niobe to Finland?

[Erich]

Christian great pic ! do you have more of this craft ?
also what was the year it was sunk ?

Erich ~

[Christian W.]

Well, thank you. Niobe was sunk on July 16th 1944 near Kotka harbour in Finland. Soviets trought that Niobe was Finnish Coastal Defence Ship Väinämöinen, the largest ship on the Finnish Navy. 130 Soviet planes attacked Niobe on July 16th 1944 near Kotka harbour. Niobe fought bravely back until she was finally sunk.

[Erich]

do you know the loss of life on this Flak schiff ?

E ♪

[Christian W.]

Niobe had crew of 394. About 70 were killed during the air attack and when the ship sank.

[Erich]

Christian where is your info coming from if I may ask ? was the Niobe sunk in the harbor ? I know about 0 of this event but the flak ships hold a fascination for me..........

Erich ~

[Christian W.]

Niobe was stationed near Kotka harbour when she was attacked.

http://home.wxs.nl/~jviss000/Gelderland.htm

You can find technical info of Niobe and brief history from there.

Niobe after she had sunk.

[SES]

Hi.
Interesting pic. Notice the Würzburg-Dora on the platform behund the funnel.
bregds
SES

[Kurt_Steiner]

How many planes shot down before being sunk?

[Christian W.]

If I recal, from 130 planes 10 were shot down.

[Rauli]

IMO attack against Niobe was best planned and executed operation that Soviet airforce made during the Continuation war.

Pe-2s divebombed landbased (Kotka and Hamina?) flakbatteries and silenced them. While everyones attention was fixed to the high two Bostons attacked from the low using bombs that bounced from the surface of the sea and hit Niobe to the side.

Reason why Niobe was moved to Kotka was to give protection to the light surface forces (ferries, M-boats) that were employed at the bay of Viipuri, guarding the minefiels cross bay of Finland and watching after antisubmarinenet at the mouth of bay of Finland. Good book about the subject is Itämeri ja Suomenlahti 1944-45 (Baltic sea and bay of Finland 1944-45) by Cajus Bekker. It easy to get from any decent library.

And finally, how an earth the Soviet pilots couldn´t tell the difference between Niobe and Väinämöinen? At least their bombing was more accurate than knowledge of ships

[Erich]

interesting gentlemen // and I see that the Niobe had the Fla- (light) updated to 4cm bofors. Imagine that these as well as the Flakvierlings were responsible for the soviet a/c downings before she was sunk.

keep this thread alive please !

[RoW]

If I recal, from 130 planes 10 were shot down.

According Russian documents:

Firstly, Soviet command thought what this ship is Finnish Väinämöinen.
They have planed very detailed air strikes. But attack on July, 12 was unsuccesfull - 30 Pe-2 of 12th Guards BAP KBF under command of lieutenant-colonel V.I.Rakov attacked "Niobe" - no hits, but no losses. Second air strike on July, 16 was more massive and more co-ordinated.

Plan:

x - strike of A-20G.
x-7 min. - strike of Pe-2.
[x-8 min...x+2 min] - supression of AA-fire by Il-2.
[x-10 min...x+2 min] - fighters control the air.

Units and fighting order:

1st wave: 23 Il-2 under command of lieutenant-colonel N.G.Stepanyan (supression group) from 11th ShAD and 24 La-5 from 1st Guards IAD KBF.

2nd wave: 28 Pe-2 from 12th Guards BAP KBF (22 in attacking group: leaders - lieutenant-colonel V.I.Rakov and captain A.I.Barsky; 6 in demonstration group: leader - lieutenant Y.A.Kozhevnikov) and 22 Yak-9 from 21st IAP KBF.

3rd wave: 4 A-20G from 51st MTAP under command of lieutenant-colonel I.N.Ponomarenko and 8 Yak-9 from 21st IAP KBF.

Bomb loading:

Pe-2 - 2 FAB-250 and 2 FAB-100.
A-20G - 1 FAB-1000.

Results:

It's unclear - had Pe-2 any hits in "Niobe" - I have different data. Strike of A-20G was decisive. I can add the names of A-20G pilots - lieutenant-colonel I. N.Ponomarenko (for him it was 57th mission), captain I.V.Tihomirov, lieutenant I.K.Sachko and lieutenant P.I.Shilkin.

Losses:

1 A-20G was shot down by AA-fire of ship (crew: pilot lieutenant Shilkin, navigator lieutenant Falkov and marksman sergeant Malyovanniy - killed in action).

It was only Russian loss during this airstrike. Also 5 planes were damaged.

[Christian W.]

That might be mere propaganda. As we all know, Soviets had an odd habid to lie about their losses. According to this, Soviets lost nine planes.

Well, go and see yourself.

http://rafiger.de/Homepage/Artgallery/Historic02.htm

By the way, that song...is that Russian? I would be intrested in knowing what the song is about.

[RoW]

That might be mere propaganda. As we all know, Soviets had an odd habid to lie about their losses. According to this, Soviets lost nine planes.

Well, go and see yourself.

http://rafiger.de/Homepage/Artgallery/Historic02.htm

By the way, that song...is that Russian?

Offical list of losses of 51st MTAP from military archives (if you can read Russian): http://www.bellabs.ru/51/Analysis/Losses.html
Date of loss of captain's I.V.Tihomirov crew - 24.07.44. Possibly he was awarded posthumously, but he died in other mission. All 3 pilots were awarded with Hero's Star. By the way Sachko was killed in action 30.10.44 in 1st Guards MTAP and Ponomarenko was only pilot from "Niobe"-killers who survived the war. Your source can't correctly show awards for this operation.

It's not propoganda - it's simple documents. I can tell you about soviet propoganda after this operation... It's pretty merilly...