HistoryGeek2019 wrote: ↑06 Nov 2019, 19:57People often claim this, but I have yet to see cites of specific results from Germany's medium bombers that meaningfully impacted any battle. Even the Stukas were not that effective. The over 1,000 sorties against Sedan on May 13 generated something like 50 French casualties.
Airpower was greatly overrated in the early years of the war. It was a different story with the US army air force later in the war because we possessed far superior planes, and many more of them, than what the Germans had in 1940 and 1941.
Maybe it's due to ignorance of tactics/operational levels rather than historical reality? You constantly cite very superficial books like Tooze , Citno, Stahel. Sedan. Sounds like a trope from the "Blitzkrieg legend". The irony is that you shoot yourself in the foot! The breakthrough at the Sedan worked...the best purpose of close air support was to facilitate break-throughs. The effectiveness of CAS is clearest on operational/tactic studies on the Eastern Front, something you have ignored.
Actually a big issue with "allied air power" in 1944 from the British OR pov is the lack of cost-effectiveness and capability of the 2TAF (due to the lack of accuracy of some 151,000 Typhoon rockets fired and divided nature of army-air force operations ) and strategic bombers when used in the operational level (once again, lack of accuracy and high cost). German dive bombers and ground attack were pound for pound a lot more effective in the anti-tank and close support role than allied fighter-bombers as they didn't have these issues.
The British OR recognized that the primary value of strategic bombing when used in the operations was not destructive fire but to destroy the combat morale of defending troops, clearing the way for ground forces for an easier breakthrough battle. The casualties taken by dug-in german troops in the 1,000-1,600 +/- carpet bombing in Normandy were not great either in comparison of the results of ground forces- one of them inflicted something like 20 casualties. But most of these bombing plans softened up the combat morale of german troops a great deal. British OR also recognized that the morale effects of air power exceeded that of artillery superiority- even though the latter was far more destructive.