SIGNIFICANT CHANGES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 77, 1 April 1943, Page 5

SIGNIFICANT CHANGES

LUFTWAFFE TACTICS

(Rec. 10 ajn.) LONDON, March 31. Red Army observers in the.recent* battle on the Donets bave noted the* following significant changes in Luft-i waffe tactics which are a clear pointer! to the cumulative exhaustion of the* 1 German air army, says the Moscow;* correspondent of the "Daily Ex< press":—

(1) Mass bombing has disappeared. (2) The Luftwaffe's most successful-' tactic, known as airfield manoeuvre*' has also disappeared. This consisted of packing an airfield which normally mounted 50 bombers with 500 bombers in a few hours before an attack and then throwing in a mass of bombers and fighters over a narrow front. Thla irresistible manoeuvre, which was the heart and sinew of the German offensive strategy last summer and autumn, has disappeared because of the success of fast, mobile Russian mechanised columns in raiding and wrecking German forward bases in which 800 German bombers since last November have been destroyed or captured oa the ground.

(3) Exhaustion of the Luftwaffe's bomber force in the forward areas has compelled the Germans to fall back on a motley selection of planes of all types. The Germans recently have tried to copy the Russian tactics of night-bombing with light planes. - (4) The Red Army's continued advance since November has forced the Germans to shift the weight of their planes to raiding Russian communications and assembly points deep in the rear.

(5) The Germans, in addition to transferring the latest Messerschmitt fighters, have recently brought in th». Focke-Wulf 190 from Western Europe^