Where was the air-support during D-Day in Normandy?

Question

During the beginning of Saving Private Ryan, where was the air-support? Were there actually air-support?

Answer 1

The Allies had an average of 260 combat aircraft per division allocated for air support on D-Day.



However, once troops were ashore their proximity to the German defenders was such that air support ran the risk of hitting Allied troops as well as Germans, so it was difficult to use it in these situations.



Air support on D-Day was thus used to soften uf the defenders before the troops reached the beaches, bombing the transport network being used by German reinforcements and reserves coming up to help defend the beaches, and attacking these reserve and reinforcement formations before they reached the beaches. Panzer Lehr armoured division suffered extremely heavy casualties from Allied air attacks while moving up to counterattack the Allied troops that were landing.

Answer 2

D Day Air Support

Answer 3

The air support was there the night before pounding shore defences so the landings could be easier, also they couldn't be there when the infantry landed, Too big a risk of hitting their own countrymen. Lastly air support went in with the cargo planes dropping the 101st airborne and other divisions into france.



So yes there was air support, but very limited during the day.

Answer 4

Most of it was flying interdiction sorties well in advance of the lines on the ground. The close air support was mostly limited to P-38's on D-day, the idea being that the unique silhouette of the Lightning would make it less likely to be shot at by Allied AAA.

Answer 5

- From the beginning Eisenhower and the rest of the combined forces planners recognized that air power would be critical to success of OVERLORD. Experience had taught planners to avoid facing hostile air power over the battlefront. This meant that the Luftwaffe would have to be destroyed, but not at the price of sacrificing vitally needed air support missions for air superiority ones.

Between January and June 1941 the five months before D-Day--the Luftwaffe was effectively destroyed: 2,262 German fighter pilots died during that time. In May alone, no less than 25 percent of Germany's total fighter pilot force (which averaged 2,283 at any one time during this period) perished. During Big Week, American air forces targeted the German aircraft industry for special treatment; while production continued, the fighter force took staggering losses. In March 1944, fully 56 percent of the available German fighters were lost, dipping to 43 percent in April (as the bomber effort switched to Germany's petroleum production), and rising again to just over 50 percent in May, on the eve of Normandy. No wonder, then, that the Luftwaffe could contribute less than a hundred sorties to the defense of Normandy. Months of concentrated air warfare had given the Allies not only air superiority, but air supremacy as well.



Basically, the Allied air campaign for the invasion of Europe consisted of three phases. First, Allied fighters would attempt to destroy the Luftwaffe. The second phase called for isolating the battlefield by interdicting road and rail networks. And once the invasion began, Allied air forces would concentrate on battlefield interdiction and close air support. The requirements to keep the landing sites secret-particularly the deception to encourage the Germans to devote their greatest attention in the region of the Pas de Calais-complicated the air campaign. Strike planners had to schedule vastly more operations across the sweep of likely landing sites rather than just at the true site of OVERLORD. For example, rocket-armed Royal Air Force Hawker Typhoon fighter-bombers of the Second Tactical Air Force (2 TAF) attacked two radar installations outside the planned assault area for every one they attacked within it.

Answer 6

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"Altogether, the tactical air forces had 2,434 fighters and fighter-bombers, together with approximately 700 light and medium bombers available for the Normandy campaign. This force first struck against the Germans during the preparatory campaign prior to D-Day. At D minus 60 days, Allied air forces began their interdiction attacks against rail centers; these attacks increased in ferocity and tempo up to the eve of the invasion itself and were accompanied by strategic bomber raids against the same targets. The bridge campaign, which aimed at isolating the battlefield by cutting Seine bridges below Paris and Loire bridges below Orléans, began on D minus 46. Here, fighter-bombers proved more efficient than medium or heavy bombers, largely because their agility enabled them to make pinpoint attacks in a way that the larger bombers, committed to horizontal bombing runs, could not. The fighter-bombers also had the speed, firepower, and maneuverability to evade or even dominate the Luftwaffe. Though ground fire and (rarely) fighters did claim some attacking fighter-bombers, the loss rate was considerably less than it would have been with conventional attack or dive bombers. By D minus 21, Allied air forces were attacking German airfields within a radius of 130 miles of the battle area and these operations too continued up to the assault on the beachhead." Air Support on the Beaches "During the June 6 D-Day assault itself, a total of 171 squadrons of British and AAF fighters undertook a variety of tasks in support of the invasion. Fifteen squadrons provided shipping cover, fifty-four provided beach cover, thirty-three undertook bomber escort and offensive fighter sweeps, thirty-three struck at targets inland from the landing area, and thirty-six provided direct air support to invading forces. The Luftwaffe's appearance was so minuscule that Allied counterair measures against the few German aircraft that did appear are not worth mentioning. Of far greater importance was the role of aircraft in supporting the land battle. As troops came ashore at Normandy, they made an unpleasant discovery all too familiar to the Marine Corps and Army operating in the Pacific campaign. Despite the intensive air and naval bombardment of coastal defenses, those defenses were, by and large, intact when the invasion force "hit the beach." This was particularly true at OMAHA beach, where American forces suffered serious casualties and critical delays. Despite a massive series of attacks by Eighth Air Force B-17s, B-24s and medium bombers in the early hours of June 6, the invading troops were hung up on the beach. The air commanders themselves had, in fact, predicted that the air and naval bombardments would not achieve the desired degree of destruction of German defensive positions. The Army's general optimism that air would cleanse the beaches before its approach, however, was shattered. Only the subsequent success of fighter-bombers operating against the battlefield would revive the Army's confidence in air support. Indeed, throughout the post-Normandy campaign--and in the Second World War as a whole--the fighter-bomber proved overwhelmingly more valuable in supporting and attacking ground forces in the battle area than did the heavy or even the medium bomber."