Forward Air Controllers?

German Luftwaffe 1935-1945.
Epaminondas
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Forward Air Controllers?

Post by Epaminondas »

On another site we are talking about airpower rules for a wargame...

Some people are arguing that Forward Air Controllers were Western Allies only, and relatively late war.

I've seen alot of descriptions however of stukas and other ground support aircraft being used in a planned, tactical application... and the GW unit history, vol 2 has a mention of a Stuka Controller (granted he was sleeping in the divisional command post).

What is a Stuka Controller, and what kind of FACs did the Germans utilize over the course of the war?
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Post by PaulJ »

Well, my expertise is Allied rather than German air support, but, in a nutshell, I would say that your friends arguing that the Germans did not have forward air controllers as we would think of them today are correct. Contrary to a lot of huff written about the "panzer-stuka" team and "the blitzkrieg substituting planes for artillery", German air support was quite straight forward.

The first point is that the Luftwaffe was a seperate service with its own chain of command (all the way up to Goering). No army commanders could order air support. The Luftwaffe sent liaision detachments (I forget the German term off the top of my head) to corps and divisional headquarters, and these dets would advise upon air support and pass requests for airstrikes back to the air fields from which the Luftwaffe was operating. Often (in keeping with German predlicitions) the Luftwaffe commander himself would go forward and discuss intentions and plans with the corps or div commander in person.

The thing to note is that this system did NOT involve what we would today think of as a forward air controller (FAC - a term not in use at the time in any army). The Luftwaffe dets we are describing here were not at the "front" (they were at div or even corps HQ), they were not picking out targets with their eyes, and they were not "talking aircraft onto target" by radio. Furthermore, the aircraft themselves were not directed onto immediate targets whilst in flight -- the mission was planned and briefed prior to take-off.

For instance, at the famous Meuse crossings in 1940, Guderian commanding XIX Corps, and the commander of II Fliegerkorps, Bruno Loerzer, met the evening before to discuss the air support.

Really, what made the Germans so successful, and their air support seem so responsive to the Allies, was the same as the rest of their "blitzkrieg" -- they were organized, energetic, determined, and tried hard, as opposed to the somewhat disorganized and irresolute Western Allies.

Later in the war, of course, German organization and practice for air support was rather irrelevant (in the West), as no German air power to speak of ever got even close to the Anglo-American armies.

For detail on British air support see my tactical air power website below, for detail on the US system see my recent article in Air Power History at
http://pauldjohnston.tripod.com/brit-us-tacair.pdf
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Post by Doktor Krollspell »

Hello Gentlemen!
The Luftwaffe sent liaision detachments (I forget the German term off the top of my head) to corps and divisional headquarters, and these dets would advise upon air support and pass requests for airstrikes back to the air fields from which the Luftwaffe was operating. Often (in keeping with German predlicitions) the Luftwaffe commander himself would go forward and discuss intentions and plans with the corps or div commander in person.
That would be the Flivo, the Fliegerverbindungsoffizier.


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Post by PaulJ »

Doktor Krollspell wrote:that would be the Flivo, the Fliegerverbindungsoffizier
Absolutely!

One has to admire those long composite words and nifty abreviation words the Germans are so good at coining!

Cheers,
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Post by Lorenz »

Strange -

I posted a lengthy and relatively comprehensive reply to Mr. Epaminondas' question on Axis History Forum, where he originally asked it. However, it seems that he has disappeared.......

--Lorenz
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Post by Lorenz »

The following was previously posted by me on AHF. and a distinguished and highly respected member of the Feldgrau forum asked me in a PM to re-post in here so those who do not use AHF could also see it. It was in reply to the exact same question that was also posted by Mr. Epaminondas.

Fliegerverbindungsoffizier (abbreviated "Flivo")

Although it translates as Air Force Liaison Officer, it actually means Forward Air Controller when used in the context that you are talking about. They were small teams of 3 to 12 Luftwaffe personnel who operated with the forward ground troops of the Heer and the Waffen-SS, especially Panzer spearheads during offensive operations, to coordinate direct air support at the front. These Flivo teams existed right from the beginning of the war and played a vital role in the successful application of combined arms warfare on all fronts. If anyone "copied" from anyone, it would have been the Western Allies copying from the Germans.

The Western Allies "loved" the German Flivos for a little-known reason. The Flivos used low and intermediate grade code systems to transmit and receive signals calling for direct air support. The British "Y" Service teams, and later their U.S. counterparts, were able to decode these signals almost instantly and thereby compile excellent battlefield intelligence on an hour-by-hour basis. This ability paid off big time in North Africa, Italy and in northwest Europe (i.e., Normandy) by saving the lives of Allied soldiers and by knowing exactly what the Germans were up to along the front.

Read more about it:

The following two books will give you a terrific insight into the workings of the Flivo teams. The author (Cambridge professor Bennett) worked in Bletchley Park Hut 3 during the war and knows what he is talking about - he was there.

BENNETT, Ralph. ULTRA in the West: The Normandy Campaign 1944-45. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1979. ISBN: 0-684-16704-2. Hb. Dj. 336p. Maps. Footnotes. Bibliography. Index.
BENNETT, Ralph. ULTRA and Mediterranean Strategy. New York: William Morrow and Co., 1989. ISBN: 0-68808175-4. Hb. Dj. 496p. Maps. Appendices. Extensive footnotes. Bibliography. Index.

Grüß

--Lorenz
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Post by Epaminondas »

Just away from the internet for long weekend.

Still hung over, but fun time :wink:
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Post by Michate »

From: The Battle of Stalingrad

By S.J. Lewis

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... TLewis.htm
The 24th Panzer Division reported that it was happy with the coordination of operations with the Luftwaffe, which it viewed as vital to success. Stuka dive-bombers were able to drop bombs 100 meters in front of their own lines. German soldiers reported, however, that they really needed to know when the last bomb had been dropped. The Luftwaffe liaison officer was in an armored vehicle close enough to see the strikes. German efforts in 1942 to link Luftwaffe formations with advancing armored units continued to fail. The situation was too fluid and too often bombs struck German positions. To the 24th Panzer Division, it seemed much more efficient for the Luftwaffe to operate deep against the enemy’s lines of communication. And finally, the ground troops wanted to be better informed of what targets the Luftwaffe were going after, so they could deploy sufficient light and signals equipment to protect themselves.



The division cooperated with the Luftwaffe through radio, until its last week in the city, when the regimental air support radio unit moved forward to join the tracked observation vehicles. This cooperation sped up prioritization and efficiency of air and fire support. It cut out one level of communication within the Luftwaffe and provided them many more eyes to evaluate the effectiveness of their air strikes. In addition, when a target was taken out, this method allowed aircraft to switch rapidly to new targets.
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Post by Doktor Krollspell »

Hello again Gentlemen!

First of all, thanks Lorenz, for the interesting reply about the Flivo's and the tactical advantage/disadvantage they posed on the front lines...
The Western Allies "loved" the German Flivos for a little-known reason. The Flivos used low and intermediate grade code systems to transmit and receive signals calling for direct air support. The British "Y" Service teams, and later their U.S. counterparts, were able to decode these signals almost instantly and thereby compile excellent battlefield intelligence on an hour-by-hour basis. This ability paid off big time in North Africa, Italy and in northwest Europe (i.e., Normandy) by saving the lives of Allied soldiers and by knowing exactly what the Germans were up to along the front.
This was new information for me! I've always thought that the close tactical co-operation between spearheading Heer units and Luftwaffe dive bombers where a winning combination, especially in the Blitzkrieg's between 1939 and 1942, with no, or minimal drawbacks, then mainly risking in bombing german units. Little did I know... :shock:

Now to a question... How effective, and immediate, where the Allied's counter-measures once they decoded the Flivo's transmissions regarding a specific tactical situation? Does the books by Bennet give any examples of this? And where the Germans never able to discover or analyze this Allied ability of snapping up Flivo transmissions and thus, trying to oppose the german combined air and ground tactical assaults?


Thanks Michate for the qoute on Luftwaffe tactical support on the Eastern Front. Did the western allies never share their ability, or knowledge of how to tap into Flivo transmissions? Or did the average russian frontline units not have the radio equipment available? Sharing or not, I think that the russians lacked the ability, and equipment for doing that.

An interesting thread!


Regards,

Krollspell
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Post by Lorenz »

Dr. Krollspell wrote:
Now to a question... How effective, and immediate, where the Allied's counter-measures once they decoded the Flivo's transmissions regarding a specific tactical situation? Does the books by Bennet give any examples of this? And where the Germans never able to discover or analyze this Allied ability of snapping up Flivo transmissions and thus, trying to oppose the german combined air and ground tactical assaults?
An outstanding and perceptive question, good Doktor. Bennett covers this in his ULTRA in the West book. It has been quite a while since I read it, but IIRC he emphasized that the Allies had to treat their reactions to the information very, very carefully to avoid tipping off the Germans that they were reading these signals almost currently. He gives several examples of Allied measures taken based on these intercepted signals, but I can no longer remember them other than the fact that they happened in Normandy during late June, July and early August 1944. As to the second part of your question, the Germans were well aware that their tactical Flivo codes were being broken from time-to-time, and they changed them daily. What the Allies successfully concealed from the Germans was that they were being broken continuously each day and within an hour of two of each code change. They knew that if the Germans had discovered that, they would have discontinued using the codes altogether and relied exclusively on signal panels, Morse flashers, etc.

--Lorenz
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Post by PaulJ »

Lorenz, Michate,

I am intrigued. I am willing to be proven wrong (as I said, my area of expertise is Allied, not German, tactical air power), but I cannot agree with your assertions that Flivos amounted to what could fairly be described as FACs.

The critical points I come back to are whether the missions were planned and briefed on the ground prior to take-off, and whether the Flivos were in direct radio comms with the aircraft overhead.

As to the later, I will honestly defer to anyone who can say with authority what the radio links were with the aircraft in flight, but I do not believe that Flivos could talk to them. As to the former point, my references (all secondary sources by English speaking historians to be sure) uniformly describe the German system as utilizing missions planned and briefed prior to take-off, even if the targets were "within 100m of their own forward troops" and based upon immediate tactical targets that Flivos had radioed directly back to the airfield.

This is a critical distinction. The essence of being a FAC is not so much to request airstrikes or pick out targets, even if doing so from the very forward-most elements from an armoured vehicle. The essence of being a FAC is to control aircraft, not merely request them. That is to say, to be in direct radio comms with them and to direct them onto a target, probably one that the controller actually has under observation.

As I said, by everything I have seen (in particular Richard Hallion's and Williamson Murray's work), describe the Germans as planning their missions on the ground (albeit within admirably responsive time-lines), briefing the crews before take-off, and then flying to that target location and executing the strike without being in radio comms to the forward elements on the ground from in flight.

Thus, the Flivos were not controlling the aircraft -- they were liaising with the forward troops so that the launching Luftwaffe units back at the airfields could most expeditiously determine what missions to plan and execute. In other words, I cannot agree with Lorenz that "although it translates as Air Force Liaison Officer, it actually means Forward Air Controller." On the contrary, it means exactly what it says -- they were indeed liaison officers and not controllers.

Can anyone speak to this authoritatively?
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Post by Michate »

Paul,

it may well be, as you describe it.

I do know little of tha actual procedures and the link I gave actually does not discriminate whether the Flivos were in radio contact with a ground based air force command post or directly with the aircraft crews in the air.

Lorenz seems to have some real knowledge on all Luftwaffe things, maybe he can give a qualified answer.
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Post by Lorenz »

PaulJ -

I don't think I said the Flivo team was in direct radio contact with the aircraft. The request for air support came from the responsible Heeres authorities to which the team was attached. They encoded the request with coordinates in a very brief message and radioed it back to the Fliegerkorps Gefechtsstand, Fliegerdivision Gefechtsstand or the appropriate unit's Gefechtsstand (Stuka, Schlacht- or whatever). The air unit assigned the mission then performed it.

As for the name, Fliegerverbindungsoffizier was defined by the Allies as follows:

Fliegerverbindungsoffizier m air support officer (air force liaison officer between Luftwaffe and Army; abbr. Flivo).

[Source: U.S. War Department. German Military Dictionary. TM 30-506. WashDC: May 1944. p.27.]

Fliegerverbindungsoffizier - GAF liaison officer (with Army) (formerly Verbindungsoffizier der Luftwaffe).

[Source: Directorate of Air Intelligence/British Air Ministry. Manual of German Air Force Terminology: German - English. Restricted. London: 1945. Part I - Administrative and General Terms. p.28.]

As you can see, the exact term "Forward Air Controller" was not used as such. However, in the postwar literature authored since roughly the late 'sixties, World War II Luftwaffe Flivos are general referred to as forward air controllers in the broad sense that they were embedded with forward Army units, took their requests for direct air support, initiated and encoded a message for said air support and radioed that message on their Luftwaffe-owned radios using Luftwaffe radio frequencies to the appropriate Luftwaffe authorities noted above. "Forward Air Controller" is the current term that most closely approximates their job description at that time and, concurrently, is generally understood by the non-specialist reader.

--Lorenz
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Post by PaulJ »

Lorenz wrote:As you can see, the exact term "Forward Air Controller" was not used as such. However, in the postwar literature authored since roughly the late 'sixties, World War II Luftwaffe Flivos are general referred to as forward air controllers ... "Forward Air Controller" is the current term that ... is generally understood by the non-specialist reader.
I'll give you that -- FAC is a modern term people are familiar with and is loosely used to describe them. But in actual fact, no-one -- German or Allied -- used the term Forward Air Controller, although the terms like "forward control" were in Anglo-American use.

More to the point, by Normandy the Anglo-Americans did have the real equivalent of modern "FACs" -- that is, forward controllers with radio comms to the aircraft overhead, and the ability to direct them straight onto targets.

I may seem to be banging on about this a bit much, but there is a real difference here. The difference in timeliness (and flexibility) is orders of magnitude between missions:

- planned, briefed and then launched from an airfield to the rear; versus

- aircraft overhead simply being vectored straight onto a target via direct radio link.

In fact, the latter approach is the only way to achieve truly responsive on-call air support (then or now). The British had CABRANKs and the Americans Armored Column Cover. To come back to the original question that started this thread, I do not believe that the Germans ever had any equivalent. (Anyone have info different?)

Another pet peeve of mine is lax use of the term "Close Air Support", which was not a term in use at the time.

But doubtless I am being anal-rentative about all of this.

Cheers,
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Post by Lorenz »

PaulJ wrote:
Another pet peeve of mine is lax use of the term "Close Air Support", which was not a term in use at the time.
The British Air Ministry Manual cited above has the following definitions on page 57:
Nahkampfführer - officer commanding close support.
Nahkampfgruppe - close support Gruppe.
In the German Luftwaffe of World War II, the concept of close air support of advancing ground troops by Sturzkampfflugzeug (dive bombers) and Schlachtflugzeug (ground attack aircraft) was very well developed right from the beginning of the war, and so was the term "close air support" in common use within the Wehrmacht. There are a number of books on the subject of how Luftwaffe air doctrine and tactics were developed in the 'thirties and then improved upon during the war. The Luftwaffe's obsession with close air support at the expense of a strategic air doctrine has been the principal thing the Luftwaffe has been criticized for since the end of the war.

Like you, PaulJ, I'm not trying to nit-pick here, and this is getting a little off-topic, so I will bring my participation in this thread to a close.

Cheers,

--Lorenz
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