From:
"CONVERSATIONS WITH A STUKA PILOT"
CONFERENCE FEATURING PAUL-WERNER HOZZEL BRIG. GENERAL (RET.)/ GERMAN AIR FORCE
AT THE NATIONAL WAR COLLEGE 1978
The section in question:
"The month of October 1942 passed week by week without the Sixth Army being able to break Soviet resistance in the center of Stalingrad. To make things worse, the fighting power of the enemy, while being far from slackening, was aven getting stronger and stronger from day to day. I will here report of a sortie we flew with about 120 JU-87s against a special target in the center of Stalingrad, It was the ruins of a giant production plant in the basement of which the Russians had so firmly entrenched themselves that there was no getting at them from the ground. The only chance to drive them out of their underground position appeared to be a mass Stuka attack. The plant extended from west to east for a length of about 1,000 meters and a width of 50 meters. In the north, the west, and the south, it was closed in by our infantry, but it was open to the east which was enemy territory. The stiffened resistance of the Soviet combat force stuck like a painful thorn in the side of the German divisions operating there. They could steadily be given logistic support from the east. General oberst von Richtofen, the commander of the air force in that area, made us understand that our Geschwader had to do precision bombing so as to avoid danger to our troops entrenched close to the target area. He wanted to watch our sorties, judge the accuracy of our pilots, from his command post at the western outskirts of the city. This was indeed a very delicate order. We could not risk making a dive bombing attack from 4,000 meters altitude because of the wide area of dispersion. We had to fly a slant range attack, releasing the bombs directly over the roofs. We had to push the bombs into the target like loaves of bread into an oven, with one plane succeeding the other. We loaded each plane with one 500-kilo bomb with a tank-busting head and delayed action fuze for piercing the roofs. Each plane also carried two 250-kilo bombs under the wings, so each carried a load of 1,000 kilos. Each pilot was fully briefed in accordance with the aerial mosaic mentioned and informed about the sequence of the attack. It was planned to drop the bombs in rapid succession so as to wear down the enemy by endless detonations. The order of the attack was accurately fixed. The Geschwader assembled at altitudes between 1,000 and 2,000 meters in a holding area west of Stalingrad outside the anti-air range without fighter escort. From there the individual Staffel started their slant range approach in the sequence ordered. The Staffskette, having signaled the attack, started first and dived on its target, dropping its bomb from a very low altitude. Then, pulling our planes around, we left the anti-air range in low level flight, gaining altitude west of the city so as to observe the attacks of the planes following us. As on a string of pearls, one plane followed the others within an interval of a few seconds, throwing the bombs on the oblong target area divided up among us. Not one single bomb missed its target. This brought our crews high praises by the infantry in the target area. But what was the result of the whole operation? It was next to nothing. When the division resumed its attacks in order to test the effects of the bombing raid, it unexpectedly met with fierce counterattacks as though nothing had happened; as if the Geschwader had dropped toy torpedoes instead of bombs."
Does anyone know what the specific target was in this attack? Red October Factory? Barrikady Factory? Dzerzhinsky Tractor Factory?
I'm reassessing all my factory attack missions for an IL2 Stuka Campaign to avoid repetition for players. Any help would be appreciated.
Originally was going to have a mission in this time frame based on this:
The German assault on the Stalingrad Tractor Factory in Stalingrad, Russia was aided by more than 2,000 sorties by aircraft of Luftflotte 4. On the morning of October 14, at 6 a.m., the German attack resumed. Every serviceable Stuka dive-bomber in General Wolfram von Richthofen’s Fourth Air Fleet took off to attack the Russians. The sky became dark with them. The Russians opened up as the planes came over, with “every flak gun firing, bombs roaring down-” in the words of a German officer in the 389th Infantry Division “-aircraft crashing, an enormous piece of theatre which we followed with very mixed feelings in our trenches.” In all, about 2,000 Luftwaffe sorties hit the besieged Russian defensive position. Then the panzers attacked.
General Hozzel describing an attack - please help
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