Actually that's not such a high number when compared to the total artillery produced by Germany including: SPA, (self propelled artillery - gun ), mortars, rockets such as the Nebelwerfer, and of course standard artillery pieces such as the pack 43 and 44.

Astounding numbers, & many thought "One a day in Tampa Bay" was bad...

It excludes light/intermediate artillery such as 'bofors' type guns which were produced in greater numbers.

Having looked into this further the L70 automatic wouldn't have been available until well after the war, and the L60 only had an effective range uwell below that of the B17s. The Germans used a fast firing 3.7 cm but with a effective firing range of only 4,800 m (15,700 ft). An obvious priority should have been to extend the range of this intermediate automatic flak, something they were surely capable of. Instead they went for developing exotic ground to air missiles which never bore fruit in time. Simply firing canon shells or missiles from aircraft into the box would have been effective as well which was a tactic used by the few Me 262 which got airborne.

However, it still doesn't explain how the Americans were able to maintain such tight 'combat boxes' since even a single 88mm shell would have had a 5% chance of a direct impact assuming it could be fired accurately enough to 'penetrate' the combat box. It makes me wonder if the Germans didn't think swapping to an impact fuse for the large artillery. A timed shell must have just made 'small' holes in the aircraft and exploded outside.

While I am not sure this was part of the German grand plan I would like to point out that there was more advantage in a badly shot up aircraft and crew getting home than there was in bringing that aircraft down.

It consumes far more allied resources to fix an aircraft (for example a replacement engine would be one that never went into an extra bomber) and provide medical aid to wounded crewmen (both at base and at home) that made it home by comparison shooting it down consumes German resources in guarding/feeding and healing downed allied crewmen.

Originally Posted by MontyB

While I am not sure this was part of the German grand plan I would like to point out that there was more advantage in a badly shot up aircraft and crew getting home than there was in bringing that aircraft down.

It consumes far more allied resources to fix an aircraft (for example a replacement engine would be one that never went into an extra bomber) and provide medical aid to wounded crewmen (both at base and at home) that made it home by comparison shooting it down consumes German resources in guarding/feeding and healing downed allied crewmen.

Yeah wasn't that the philosophy behind the Schu mine?

that said, I guess downed aircraft and pilots could be a valuable source of raw materials and information. I wonder why they didn't try to patch up allied aircraft from the downed ones. Plenty of spares available!

Originally Posted by perseus

Yeah wasn't that the philosophy behind the Schu mine?

that said, I guess downed aircraft and pilots could be a valuable source of raw materials and information. I wonder why they didn't try to patch up allied aircraft from the downed ones. Plenty of spares available!

They did patch up the aircraft the could and the rest were recycled but the manpower cost of the PoW camps alone would have furnished a couple of extra divisions alone add to that feeding (even if it wasn't the best quality) and maintaining the health of POWs would have been a fairly major burden on the Reich.

This does not take into account the logistics requirements and subsequent industries and workforces needed to maintain the camps.

Personally if I was Goering I would have hoped just about every aircraft made it home on one engine and with its crew injured enough to be sent home.

Originally Posted by perseus

Yeah wasn't that the philosophy behind the Schu mine?

that said, I guess downed aircraft and pilots could be a valuable source of raw materials and information. I wonder why they didn't try to patch up allied aircraft from the downed ones. Plenty of spares available!

Little salvaging was accomplished by the Germans as far as the B-17 were concerned. Of the > 10,000 used to bomb Germany ~ 4150 were shot down in the European theater. However only 40 were salvaged or forced down by the Luftwaffe over the course of the war. The fact is that these planes were high altitude bombers and when they went down usually their was little left.

Originally Posted by perseus

An obvious priority should have been to extend the range of this intermediate automatic flak, something they were surely capable of. Instead they went for developing exotic ground to air missiles which never bore fruit in time. .

Read somewhere where a German scientist/arms developer said they could have fielded lots of cheap and effective anti-tank guided missiles but the Army kept asking for bigger and heavier A-T guns.

Originally Posted by JOC

Little salvaging was accomplished by the Germans as far as the B-17 were concerned. Of the > 10,000 used to bomb Germany ~ 4150 were shot down in the European theater. However only 40 were salvaged or forced down by the Luftwaffe over the course of the war. The fact is that these planes were high altitude bombers and when they went down usually their was little left.

Considering the shortages of materials, I'm surprised they didn't at least collect and remelt the aluminium fuselage and engine steel. I suppose recycling wasn't the thing in those days! You should get an idea what state a B17 ends up in just by googling B17 crashed. I thought these planes were tough cookies. That said, these are probably landings over friendly territory. Over occupied countries the crew were probably instructed to bail out rather than try to land so the enemy couldn't reuse the plane directly.

sometimes the crews were too low to bail out, as was the case with this Lancaster.

The wreckage of Allied bomber and fighter aircraft proved to be an important source of raw materials for Germany. The Germans systematically collected all wreckage from the scattered crash sites into scrap dumps both in the Reich and in the occupied territories.

One of these dumps was located at Utrecht in the Netherlands. In November of 1943, this yard alone supplied more than 308,000 pounds of aluminum alloy to German industry. During late 1943, they were scraping approximately fifty Luftwaffe and thirty Allied aircraft each month.

Source: “Strangers in a strange land” by Hans-Heiri Stapfer.

The book deals primarily with captured American aircraft. But there is a section that tells about “How an American bomber becomes a new Messerschmitt”