Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Although kit manufacturers and modellers seem to prefer the "bubbletop" versions of P-47 and P-51 I have the impression that the fight of air superiority over Western Europe was decided by the earlier models of these aircraft. When the "more cool" bubbletop models of P-47/P-51 appeared at the European sky by mid/late 1944, the sky was already dominated by the Allied air forces.

According to what I have read the decisive breakthrough of Allied air superiority over Western Europe was achieved by February/March 1944 when the backbone of Luftwaffe was actually broken. By the spring 1944 Allied could control the airspace over Western Europe which in turn made it possible to launch the Allied invasion in Normandy by June 1944.

In the process of winning the airwar I think that P-47 D "Razorbacks" and early P-51 models were more important than their later versions. Numerically P-47´s were still more important and shot down more German fighters during the critical period of late 1943/early 1944 than the Mustangs? Luftwaffe was not able to recover of the losses suffered at that period, specially as most of their experienced pilots were lost in combat. Although Mustang pilots are credited with more air victories than P-47 pilots, one should take in account the decisive decline of the training and experience level of Luftwaffe fighter pilots by 1944 which was due to losses in attrition combat against P-47´s.

One could thus claim that the P-47 "Razorback" (with its drop tanks) was actually the most important single Allied fighter to decide the airwar over Western Europe?

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Only you decide beforehand which was the most relevant period, and ignore all the efforts going on elsewhere. Despite all the claims that are made for the preceding period, the Jagdwaffe was still able to field a considerable force in Northern France in the days following the invasion. It was in these skies and these days that the Jagdwaffe was defeated.

In my opinion, of course.

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

I have devoted a lot of time on this subject and have some ideas on the subject.

in the first six months of 1944 the p-47d and p-51 and p-38 achieved the following air victory credits - all during the battle of Germany for control of the air over strategic targets. Source USAF Study 85 for Air Victory Credits - WWII. It includes both 8th and 9th AF VC's and for the 9th AF, all VC's were credited on escort missions - mostly 8th AF support through June 5, 1944.

P-47D 560VC in Q1, 409 in Q2
P-38J 88VC in Q1, 90 in Q2
P-51B/C 389VC in Q1 and 972 in Q2

The notable facet of these engagements is that starting in mid 1943 through early June 1944, the LW started the migration from the Ost and Sud front of 33+ Staffels moved into Lwbh Mitte, then LuftFlotte Reich, which was constituted to defend the Reich against the 8th AF daylight incursions.


What happened during that period is that the Luftwaffe was severely gutted of experienced leaders and wingmen during the daylight battles over Brunswick, Berlin, Leipzig, Halberstadt, Ludwigshafen, Schweinfurt, Munich, Merseburg, Misburg - all east of the P-47 Combat radius (and far east of RAF). Only the P-38J -15 introduced in March (two P-38 FG's in October and December had the shorter range P-38H) and the P-51B introduced in December, 1943 could penetrate the line of Me 110s' and Fw 190s and Bf 109s that retreated out of range of the P-47D.

The Normandy Invasion, as Graham noted, was remarkable in that many of the units in LuftFlotte Reich were deployed to attempt to disrupt the skies over the Invasion Front - and thus subjected to the entire Day fighter strength of RAF, 8th and 9th AF - but IMO, the end of LW effectiveness was closed in May, 1944. There was never a case of more than one 8 % losses in an 8th AF strategic strike after April 29 (May 12) and none more than 5% for the rest of the war.

I would disagree that the Invasion Front battles were decisive in comparison to March-May, 1944 in which the Mustang dominated the skies all over Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and the LuftFlotte Reich was having great difficulty in achieving success even when they could place 300-400 day fighters on one Bomb Division.

As to the question of the P-47D vs P-51B/C vs P-51D comparision? There is no comparison to the effectiveness of the P-51B in the advancement of US Strategic Bombing objectives - namely POINTBLANK - Destruction of the Luftwaffe in the air, on the ground and at the manufacturing centers (including oil).

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Hello drgondog,

Thank you for your very interesting post. I have also been researching these issues, from the perspective of Luftwaffe resource distribution. I would say that the crisis for the Luftwaffe came earlier than 1944. As an illustration, below are percentage losses per quarter for Luftwaffe Befehlshaber Mitte and Luftflotte Reich, from Don Caldwell's Day Fighters:
Q3 43: 21%
Q4 43: 58.4%
Q1 44: 102.8%
Q2 44: 188.2%

The 21% losses in the third quarter of 1943 would have been considered unsustainable by any RAF or USAAF force, including the strategic bomber forces.

I will add a couple more thoughts later, I have also sent you a private message.

Regards,

Paul

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

What you have to keep in mind when looking at LW Day Fighter losses in the west is that until mid to summer 1943, the 8th AF incursions were largely met by LuftFlotte/Jagddivision 3. Until August-September timeframe LBfh Mitte was the defense of Germany responsibility with Jafu-H Ruhr (i.e I.&III. JG 3 plus JG 1) plus Jagddivion was equipped largely with JG 1 plus NZG 3 and ZG 26 plus Jagddivision 5 with elements of JG 27, 50, 51, 106 NZG 101, etc) while JG2 and JG 26 bore the brunt on the coastal battlefield vs RAF and USAAF.

The concentrated losses to fighters began in the September, 1943 range and you can see a steady increase from there. You should keep in mind that two factors were at play, The first is the losses as percentage of available strength and Milch's foresight lead to a shift toward Day fighters and increased production. In concert with this, the fighters were quickly replaced and most of the shot down fighters either crash landed or the pilots bailed out successfully so you really have to look at the KIA/WIA charts for Q3 to Q4 to Q1 1944 and Q2 1944 to see the impact of long range escorts.

Caldwell has good data on that trend including the actuals attributed to Defense of the Reich.

Regards,

Bill

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Hello Bill,

You are right about early to mid 1943, Luftflotte 3 did indeed fly the bulk of the missions against the 8th, partly because many US raids were against targets in its area of responsbiility. Even so even in the second quarter of 1943 LBfh Mitte lost 64 fighters in these engagements to 61 losses by Luftflotte 3 (data is again from Don Caldwell's book). In the third quarter the numers were 207 and 113, respectively. So the pressure of losses switched to the main German defence force quite rapidly.

As a minor quibble, the really heavy losses begin in October 1943, with a total of 185 aircraft destroyed (including both Lfl Reich and Lfl 3) and 116 KIA/MIA. Of course, the numbers rose very sharply thereafter, but the point I would emphasise is that even in July 1943 the fighter losses against the 8th were unsustainable. In the East, the combat losses from February 1943 to the end of the year were only 500 aircraft and 352 pilots in total. When that is taken as the point of reference, it becomes clear that even the early P-47 escorts made the situation impossible for the Luftwaffe.

Regards,

Paul

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Paul - the P-47D was very important - having said that, critical German industry was well beyond the ability of P-47s to escort beyond Dummer Lake, west of Kassel, Stuttgart. Fighter Sweeps unencumbered by the bombers could take the P-47D (through D-22 series) only to Hamburg, Hannover and nearly Friedrichshafen - but well short of Brunswick, Berlin, Magdeburg, Leipzig, Merseburg, Schwienfurt - much less Brux, Politz, Stettin or Munich. So, as Mustangs arrived in February to convert 4th FG, 355th, then 352nd - the Mustangs prevented the Luftwaffe from formerly successful 'retreat tactics' and forced them to engage despite presence of US long range escort.

I don't discount the P-38 as it ranged farther than the P-47 but the combination of mechanical issues prior to the P-38J-15 and lack of 100 gallons in leading edge of the wing relegated it to mostly intermediate range target escort like Brunswick and Halberstadt and Aschersleben. P-47s were relegated to Penetration escort and Withdrawal escort until replaced by P-51's. The P-51 first swept the effective twin engine ZG's in February and March from being operationally useful, then the Me 410s in June and July. The P-51s had such a large footprint that they also ranged east of Berlin to strafe airfields all the way through Czechoslovakia and nearly Austria east of Munich.

Additionally , not all the LW day fighter losses in 1943 can be attributed to US or even fighters alone. Both RAF and US fighters were engaging LF3 and while the B-17/B-24 'credits' were outrageous, they did have an impact on attrition.

I maintain that the combination of the Mustangs quickly getting traction on long range escort first by 354FG in December, then 357, 4, 363, 355FG's between Big Week and early March, followed by 353, 339, 361, 359FG's in a 30 day span of mid April to Mid May is THE force that engaged and destroyed more German aircraft by D-Day than all the 8th and 9th AF P-47s and P-38s and Spitfires from commencement of 8th AF operations. Spitfires. It was not all 8th and 9th AF Mustangs as the RAF quickly got Mustang III's and participated in US daylight escort missions in the Spring of 1944.

One can quibble about the number of VC's credited by AAF (ditto LW VCs and RAF VC's when comparing opposition records), but the process was the same for all US fighters and so the relative disparity between the P-47 and P-51 should scale in magnitude either way. The one aspect of the Mustang that was unmatched by the P-47 was unparalleled performance Combined with long range. There was no place for Day Fighters to hide and rest when the Mustang began long range escort in December 1943.

A point you raised about relatively low losses in the East during that same time frame should be expanded upon. Namely the East and the Sud fronts were seriously drained of experienced pilots and crews in late 1943 through spring 1944 to reinforce LuftFlotte Reich as it was being dominantly being chewed up by the Mustangs - until D-Day when the LW tried to augment the Invasion Front and was chewed up by RAF, 8th and 9th AF combined.

In general, the LW units tangling most with the Mustangs prior to D-Day were JG1, JG5, JG3, JG 11, JG 27, JG 53 with JG 51 periodically engaging to the east, JG 300, JG 301 plus ZG 26 and ZG 76. Overlap during Penetration and Withdrawal also included JG 2 and JG 26.

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Bill,

Thank you for a very interesting post! Some of my thoughts follow below:

I entirely agree, and indeed defer to your superior knowledge, on the subject of the P-51's importance. I think it needs to be highlighted that the large-scale use of the Mustang was the final stage in the Luftwaffe's destruction and Germany had already lost the air war by early 1943, let alone spring 1944. The reason the 'retreat tactics' that you mentioned were in use is because the Luftwaffe could not hold its own within range of Allied fighters. As you correctly state, the Mustang turned this crisis into a disaster, since it was able to hunt and destroy German aircraft in their final refuge.

When considering the effectiveness of the Lightning, I think it needs to be mentioned that it was by far the highest performance twin-engined fighter of the war. In that sense, it was an incredible technical breakthrough, even the P-38F. I participated in a very interesting recent discussion on the Luftwaffe side of the forum on this topic, see http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/printt...?t=41714&pp=40 . In terms of ZG's being swept from the sky, II and III./ZG 1's experiences in the Mediterranean in early 1943 form a useful example. These units were rendered combat ineffective by superior allied technology before either the Thunderbolt or the Mustang entered combat.

I think the impact of the heavy bombers on attrition was quite substantial. It is difficult to separate out the losses caused by gunners for the reasons that you describe, but the Luftwaffe losses against unescorted missions were often quite heavy. This was completely without precedent in all the air battles that went before. The 50 caliber machine guns were particularly dangerous against those among the heavy fighters which weren't armed with stand-off weapons.

The numbers of German fighter losses onviously support your argument for 1944, but this is partly a product of increased German fighter deliveries, as you mentioned. It is fair to say that a German aircraft destroyed in 1942 was much more important than one destroyed in 1944, since by 1944 the Wehrmacht had substantially collapsed and lost both the strategic and operational initiative. Can you point to a good source on RAF escort operations? This is a somewhat peripheral point, but I have the impression that RAF escort units were somewhat less effective than USAAF ones, at least when operating over Norway.

I wholeheartedly agree on the question of the P-51's performance. I've never read a clear exposition on the vexed question of drag numbers, but it's obvious that the Mustang design was a breakthrough in this area. It wouldn't have been a very succesful fighter otherwise, because it had the same engine as the Spitfire and was very heavy compared to most fighters of the time. Another interesting side issue is why the Spitfire was never equipped with drop tanks in large numbers. Even the Luftwaffe used Bf 109Gs with tanks on a large scale, so the RAF was really quite far behind by the time the war ended.

The issue of fighter units draining away from the fighting fronts is extremely important. The process started on the Eastern Front in 1941, with the withdrawal of JG 27 to the Mediterranean. It then accelerated with the formation of new units in the West, for JG 1. By the time of operation Torch, the Mediterranean front was consuming parts of core Eastern Front Jagdgeschwader, like II./JG 51. Another important factor was that the West and later also the Mediterranean were the theatres where most of the higher-performance fighter types were concentrated, whether the Fw 190 or the higher-altitude sub-types of the Bf 109G. To summarise, the Eastern Front very quickly became a backwater after Torch, while the Mediterranean followed suit in late spring and summer 1943, with the destruction of German air power in Tunisia, Sicily and southern Italy.

To touch on the subject of the specific Luftwaffe units fighting the Mustangs, it is worth mentioning that some Jagdgeschwader, usually those with little experience in the West, suffered particularly heavy losses. I am thinking especially of JG3, but this was a wider phenomenon.

Regards,

Paul

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

It has been good to debate Paul - we remain with differences of opinion but the actual metrics are hard to arrange given the fluidity of the air war.

My last closing point to emphasize the first one above about POINTBLANK. If the LW was destroyed by early to mid 1943 - why didn't RAF discontinue night raids, or US continue deep penetrations after the cumulative losses from Late July through October 14, 1943.

The US top commanders including Marshall, Arnold and Eisenhower bought into the logic posed by Eaker at Casablanca - because the ultimate objective was a successful OVERLORD, and as late as January 1944 the intelligence coming from Brit sources including ULTRA was that the LW strength was growing 'alarmingly' - hence Big Week combined with introduction of the new operational Mustang groups to augment 20th and 55th FG Lightning's.

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

I forgot to address RAF Mustang escort sources. The most important references to the combat units in occasional support to 8th AF ops can be found in the high level Mission Summary published as a roll up from Intelligence reports prepared by each squadron, incorporated into Group, then Division, then Summary following every mission.

I don't know of an RAF Fighter Command history that details RAF operations like Kent Miller performed in his two volumes... or Dr. Prien's extensive LW staffel histories.

I know Frank Olynyk is WIP studying RAF VC's for various Mustang squadrons.

One comment on effectiveness of RAF Mustang escort support to RAF BC. The Brits, IIRC the bomber commanders, had far more say on the escort tactics, mostly demanding very close and tethered escort. The US Fighter commanders had more latitude in the operational execution of close air support as well as planning and executing Sweeps and Area patrols over the target regions to intercept and attack LW formation assemblies.

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

The Allies did not yet have complete air superiority at the start of 1943, I may have over-emphasised this point! In the Mediterranean, the RAF did have something close to air dominance over western Libya and the USAAF had air superiority over eastern Algeria. The evolution of the situation over the course of 1943 can be tracked using data on page 143 of Ted Hooton’s ‘The Luftwaffe’ lists the following numbers of Luftwaffe losses to enemy action in the Western Mediterranean:
Q1 1943: 448
Q2 1943: 677
Q3 1943: 1,114
Q4 1943: 261
In short, once Allied air power had an established network of airfields around Tunisia, the Luftwaffe was rapidly obliterated and was to withdraw most of its forces out of Italy.

The Allied tactical operations in the West were largely uncontested even in early 1943. To use Ted Hooton’s book again, the RAF’s fighters flew 80,780 sorties in 1943 for the loss of just 554 aircraft (page 227). Pointblank and the various changes in plans affected mostly the strategic air forces, while the tactical forces were having plenty of success even before the directive was formulated, let alone implemented. There is a significant point about Allied casualty aversion to be made in this context. Eisenhower said that he would never have attempted the D Day landings without complete air dominance, which is best seen as a political, rather than a military requirement. Air dominance guaranteed low Allied casualty rates in all but the most exceptional cases. The body of historical writing does not make this explicit, but it is clear that Allied military and political leaders were not prepared to take the risk of suffering high casualty rates, even if these brought more rapid military success. A comparison of Allied casualties with the German casualties during the Wehrmacht’s offensives in 1940-1942 serves to underline this point. This is a very big topic which needs its own study, so to bring the discussion back to air force matters, the key point is that the RAF and USAAF sought and obtained a margin of superiority far in excess of what was strictly necessary for victory.

I agree. One quibble, the twin engine fighters only became really effective quite late, around the time of Schweinfurt. As a result, they did not have much time to enjoy success, since the Mustangs arrived soon after.

I agree here as well. It’s interesting to speculate whether the success of the Zerstorer units delayed the introduction of the Sturmbock concept, which would also prove successful for a time. Your analysis of the P-38’s flaws is very interesting, I would say they weren’t fully solved until the P-38L. As for the F7F, it was much like the de Havilland Hornet, a great aircraft which arrived far too late to be of any use. These two, the Twin Mustang and similar aircraft should be seen as part of the post-war generation of piston-engined designs. They certainly were a little too much for any Luftwaffe fighter to deal with.

That’s right, of course. The other side of the coin is that once the Luftwaffe withdrew, it had no ability to come back and defend north-west Europe, so in that sense largely uncontested Allied landings were possible even in mid-1943.

I would put the emphasis slightly differently here. Having lost the ability to contest Allied strength almost everywhere, Milch and company finally decided to concentrate on fighters. This gave them an impressive numerical strength over Germany, for a while. However, this was a strictly limited achievement because the quality of these units was low.

The Luftwaffe’s attrition became unsustainable in late September 1940, because formation leaders had largely come from the pre-war air force. The RAF was in a considerably better position, at least in Fighter Command, because it stood on the defensive. In the 1940-1942 period, the RAF emphasised training and new technology, while the Soviet air force simply focused on production. As a result, the Luftwaffe could cope successfully with the large numbers of badly trained Il-2 and Yak pilots on the Eastern front, at least for a time. In the West, the combination of improved Spitfires and well-trained pilots was much more dangerous. In my judgement, by 1943 no German unit could truly be considered experienced, because of the effects of accumulated attrition. I would go so far as to say that Lincoln’s comment before Bull Run can be applied here to the early USAAF-Luftwaffe contest, “you are all green alike”.

That’s true to an extent, but for example on Sicily and in southern Italy hundreds of aircraft were lost or abandoned, with very being withdrawn intact.

This issue is very important, thank you for mentioning it. Part of the reason is that they did not know what to do with the heavy bombers. Galland and Goering’s reaction to the B-17s over Sicily in 1943 is instructive, neither one had any idea what to do about these bomber formations.

It has indeed been a pleasure to discuss this! I will try to dig out some of the metrics when I write my own work.

The Luftwaffe night success against Bomber Command was extraordinary, even more so than Schweinfurt-Regensburg. There is a long set of issues about RAF and USAAF policy to discuss here, but to summarise my view, the Allies managed to find the only strong point the Luftwaffe had! If Allied strategic air power was melded with the tactical forces more effectively, the results could well have been different.

Regards,

Paul

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Dog this quote of yours got my attention:

" or Dr. Prien's extensive LW staffel histories..."

I am aware of his Geschwader histories, but I am not familiar with these. Can you enlighten?

Thanks ahead of time.

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Hello Nick,

I think I can legitimately intervene here. Prien's Jagdfliegerverbände is the work Bill referred to. Jastas or Jagdstaffeln is the First World War terminology, as in the following book - http://www.amazon.com/The-Jasta-Pilo.../dp/1898697477 . I apologise if all of the foregoing is self-evident.

Regards,

Paul

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Has there been studies of at what point LW dayfighter losses started to be clearly bigger than the number of downed Allied planes in the West? I think that the crucial point was achieved latest by early 1944 when Luftwaffe´s dayfighter losses were bigger than the combined losses by Allied daybombers and their escort fighters.

For example the verified combat records of 20.2.1944 in West (Reich Defence) show that Germans lost in that day 78 dayfighters (of which 53 single-engined) whereas Allied day losses were 21 heavy bombers and only 4 fighters. Things were only little better at the same air front on 24.2.1944 when Germans lost 53 dayfighters and Allied 44 heavy bombers and 10 fighters. The numbers show that Germans were losing the sky of Western Europe in daylight - the trend was already decisively toward bigger air combat losses of Germans and diminishing losses of Allied.

By January/February 1944 the German dayfighters had already abandoned the "finger four" formations in West (Defence of Reich) because there were not enough experienced pilots to keep "finger four" working and "schwarm" leaders had to keep more eye on unexperienced wingmen. This reduced to considerable degree the combat efficiency of German dayfighter formations.

My impression is that P-47´s were still more numerous dayfighter force in 8th USAAF by February 1944 and with drop tanks Thunderbolts could penetrate quite deeply over Germany. The P-51 B was of course even better as it could practically make "free hunt" almost overall of Germany but by Feb/March 1944 it was probably still the P-47 with drop tanks that made most of the job. The decisive defeat trend of Luftwaffe´s dayfighter force had been already settled before large numbers of P-51´s appeared to make things even worse for the Germans.

The P-47 started the downfall of Luftwaffe dayfighter force and P-51 finished the job. P-38, Spitfire and some other types contributed also but perhaps in lesser extent (limited numbers and Spitfire having the limitation of short range).

Of course the big picture was that Luftwaffe was hopelessly overstreched already by late 1942/early 1943 - just too many fronts to be handled effectively with limited resources: Defence of Reich, Mediterranean front, Eastern front. With more limited resources than the global Allied effort the Germans were destined to lose the war at all fronts.

Also the technological race was against Germans once Allied catched up. The Bf 109 F and FW 190 A were in late 1941/early 1942 the best fighters in the world, but by late 1942/early 1943 they were already catched by the Allied who could put in combat at all fronts equally good types (Spitfire IX, P-47, La 5) and develop even superior ones (P-51). The Bf 109 G and later A-models of FW 190 were not good enough to meet the challenge of improved Allied fighters.

Still in 1943 the sky over Northwestern Europe was quite effectively controlled by Luftwaffe and by that time it was yet able to inflict more aircraft losses to enemy than it suffered. For example the famous JG 26 made in Western front 380 air victory claims with the price of 158 pilots lost and even in 1944 it was still able to claim 668 air victories (the highest annual score of the unit during the war) for the loss of 300 pilots.

If the Defence of Reich would have been the only front where large numbers of German dayfighters were needed, it would have taken much more time from US/British combined efforts to achieve air dominance and win the war.

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Eh how those figures showed that LW or even JG 26 inflicted more a/c losses to enemy than it suffered? Fighting over areas controlled by Germany means that LW lost many more fighters than pilots and victory claims were just claims, i.e enemy losses were in reality smaller than the claimed number.

Juha

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

I think the math is a little more complicated than that. you also need to look at the ability of each air force to replace losses, both airframes and air crew, and the ability to operate their forces (fuel for example). By 1942 Churchill was quite happy to trade plane for plane with the Luftwaffe in daylight fighter sweeps over the continent, because he believed the UK could replace losses faster than the Luftwaffe.

The German industry showed amazing resilience late in the war in terms of numbers of airframes built. There is much information on the lack of fuel for the Luftwaffe late in the war, but I would like to hear any information on Germany's ability to replace air crews in the times being discussed. From the other side, the BCATP was turning out too many pilots by mid 1944, and schools in Canada were being shut down in the last half of 1944.

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Luftwaffe could win big air battles in West yet in 1943 and up to early 1943 I think it could replace more or less its losses. The combat skills of average LW fighter were still decent which can be seen by numerical "kill/loss" -stats. For example the following have been verified by the loss records of both sides (AFAIK):
- the bombing of Münster on 10.10.1943: USAAF losses 37 heavy bombers and 1 fighter, LW losses 25 fighters.
- the bombing of Schweinfurt on 14.10.1943: USAAF losses 60 heavy bombers, LW losses 33 fighters. Admittedly these figures were possible due to limited range of P-47 fighter escorts at the time.

One could argue that a loss of heavy bomber was a bigger loss for USAAF than a loss of single fighter for Luftwaffe. If heavy bomber was lost over German controlled area, its whole aircrew was usually lost whereas LW fighter pilots could parachute in safety or make forced landing at own territory.

Fighter vs. fighter -combats in 1943 went not so badly for Germans when verifying the claims comparing the loss records of both sides of same combat - just few examples (Caldwell 1991: Top Guns of Luftwaffe):
- 15.4.1943 JG 1 vs. USAAF 4 PG: 2 lost Thunderbolts, German losses nil
- 13.6.1943 JG 26 vs. USAAF 78 PG: 2 lost Thunderbolts, German losses nil
- 26.6.1943 JG 26 vs. USAAF 56 PG: 5 lost Thunderbolts, German losses nil.

Perhaps the best recognition of Luftwaffe´s fighter force ability in early 1943 is given by enemy - Johnie Johnson in his book "Wing Leader" states that by that time the Luftwaffe units JG 26 and JG 2 with their Focke-Wulf fighters had still the upper hand in air combat at the "Channel front" (specially if RAF pilots flew with the outdated Spitfire Mk V).

The skill standard of LW fighter pilots was relatively good by mid 1943 and pilots who were trained and entered to frontline units during the years 1941-1942 were not much less qualified than those trained before the war. Many of these pilots were able to achieve respectable air victory scores of 20 - 25 in Western front.

The common belief is that Battle of Britain caused "irreplaceble" person losses to Luftwaffe but I would disagree. Luftwaffe was defeated in BoB but not "fatally wounded". The few verified combat records of Luftwaffe fighter units against Western Allies in 1942-1943 show that the combat skills of German fighter pilots were still very decent. Take for example the verified combat records of air battles over Dieppe on 19.8.1942: RAF/Allied losses 106, LW losses 48.

However by late 1942/early 1943 the attrition of too many fronts started to take its toll. The losses of North African campaign and growing attrition also at the Eastern front caused a crisis which Luftwaffe was not able to solve when it had to face the new American threat at West. It had a shortage of experienced pilots at the moment when they were most needed. The cutting of training program was only way to get enough pilots to fill the gaps. The shortage of gasoline also forced to cut the number of training flights. LW fighter pilots graduated from training programs in late 1943/early 1944 were thus usually of lower calibre with much less training flying hours than their predecessors.

Perhaps the growing accident loss rate tells best about the downgrading of pilot training and lowering of skill standards in Luftwaffe by 1944. For example in February 1944 over 1300 German aircraft were destroyed or damaged in accidents with more than 600 of flying personnel killed or injured.

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

I agree that the change happened during the later part of 1943. I once checked July and Nov 43 from Caldwell’s The JG 26 War Diary and it seems that during July 43 it was rather even, LW had a slight advance but in Nov 43 Spitfires seemed to have won all the bigger combats. I was a little bit surprised myself on that. Of course only 2 months but I had not more time then. IMHO there were several reasons for that development, for RAF part e.g. RAF pilots had learned from past errors, they got Spitfire IX with Merlin 63s and 66s which were better than those with Merlin 61s and more and more reliable Typhoons for lower altitude combats. Also during the early part of 43 RAF got new, longer range radars for fighter control over France which meant better situation awareness to RAF formation leaders over France.

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

The LW, technically inflicted more casualties as each bomber lost to US meant 10 MIA. What they lost was the ability to deny the US the ability to strike anywhere with acceptable losses under 5% (max) after May 1944.

Another note: using JG 26 as an example, losses in pilots KIA is not reflective of operational losses for the same reason. More than 50% of JG 26 pilots shot down survived, bailed out and continued the fight - whereas a loss by an 8th/9th FC pilot was a loss for the war.

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Hello GuerraCivil,

Thank you for taking the discussion further. Since this is a very interesting subject for me and I would like to respond to the points made by other members as well, I will focus on the two main themes in your post. I have also sent you a PM.
You are correct in the sense that in February 1944 the Luftwaffe fighter losses exceeded total USAAF losses by 397 to 387 (from Caldwell’s Day Fighters). I do not agree that this was in any sense a critical point. The Luftwaffe fighter loss rate in missions against the Eighth had already reached 5% by May 1943, which was intolerably high in view of other commitments. The point of crisis was reached in spring and summer 1943, not any later.

You have slightly mis-stated the differences in fighter performance. In 1941 and into 1942, the 109 and 190 were superior to the Spitfire, but not overwhelmingly so. It was only in defensive operations conducted over Europe that the best Luftwaffe pilots were able to achieve the highly favourable victory-to-loss ratio against the Spitfire V that has provoked so much comment. This success was bought at the cost of restricting 190 deliveries exclusively to the Western Front for far too long, with negative effects on the Mediterranean and Eastern theatres. A good comparison would be the long delay by the RAF in sending Spitfires to the Middle East and India.

The Spitfire IX and P-47 were both fundamentally superior to both the 109 and 190, because the Spitfire had a two-stage supercharger, while the P-47 had a turbocharger. As a result, the Allied types had a decisive advantage in high-altitude performance, while the P-47 also possessed superior range compared with Luftwaffe fighters. As a result, both the Spitfire IX and the P-47 had an immediate effect on Luftwaffe operations once they entered operational service, out of proportion to the small number of these aircraft that were initially deployed.

As to the tactical air combat over Western Europe in 1943, I have to disagree with your assessment. JG 26 had 171 pilots on strength on 31 December 1942, so the 158 casualties during the year were almost 100% of initial strength (figures taken from Caldwell’s JG 26: Top Guns). This was a catastrophic loss rate, especially in view of the fact that many of those lost were amongst the most experienced fighter pilots in the Luftwaffe. An example of the difficulties JG 26 was experiencing is provided by the combat on 3 September 1943, when it lost 3 190s and 2 pilots in the process of shooting down just 3 B-17s, before Zemke’s 56 FG arrived and shot down 2 more 190s with their pilots for the loss a single Thunderbolt. This is the sort of case that you were looking for, when the total number of Luftwaffe losses exceeded those of the USAAF, and this shows that the situation was catastrophic for the Germans even in autumn 1943.

The counter-factual concentration of all available German fighters against the Allies might not have changed the situation significantly, because of the issue of Allied technological superiority described above.

Regards,

Paul

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

While I agree Paul's general comments, one has to be careful regarding the loss statistics vs the readiness status to 'compete'. If I used that analysis and applied it to say, the 355th or 4th FG's over a period of time - one would judge both to be ineffective based on losses.

Typical AAF ETO fighter pilot strength ranged from 80 in September 1943 to 100 in December 1944 to 110 in April 1945.

In all three cases (4th, 355th and JG 26), the measurable have to include the percentage of experienced combat pilots versus the newer replacements. In all three cases, the ewer guys (in case of 355th for example) with 10 combat missions or less comprised more than 60% of the MIA/POW/KIA. Of the 190 355th FG/2SF pilots from Steeple Morden MIA.
144 were KIA/POW. 28 Evaded, 5 were rescued. Then 13 were KIFA.

During the 1st 12 months September 14, 1943 through September 1944 the 355th loss of pilots was 138 KIA/POW or more than 137% of its operational strength in 1944 and 171% of 1943 strength. More than JG 26's % totals for 1943. The loss of skilled flight and squadron leaders to rotation assignments after Tour of Duty was another 32 pilots in reduction of combat effectiveness - another factor Not in comparison with JG 26 statistics but weighing heavily on potential 355th FG statistics.

Of the top 5 8th AF Victory credit achievers, the average of the 56th, 357th and 352nd FG's were lower - but still higher than the JG 26 statistics quoted above - and dominantly strafing losses, except for 56FG and 357FG. High experience/high scoring pilots in 8th AF were lost far more to flak than German fighters after February 1944.

The US practices (because they could afford to do so) was to rotate key experience back to train the rookies and better prepare them. It 'hurt' the individual combat Fighter Groups, but made the new replacements better for the practice. The LW practice, however force the TO&E to have a high level of skill at leadership positions through the Spring of 1944 - at the expense of cannon fodder coming from flight schools or bomber re-assignments.

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Excellent points, Drgondog
It is nowadays easy to forget how bloody WWII was and that when facing competent, well equipped opponent, losses tended to be heavy in those days. In 1943 Germans still had mostly well trained pilots flying good fighters even if the Allied planes had catch up in quality and partly even overtaken the German ones plus competent fighter controllers operating with help of radar.


Juha

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Juha - you also touched on a VERY important tactical advantage the Allies developed in 1944. For the 8th AF there were two very important communications development which proved to be a force multiplier.

The first was the excellent co-ordination between bomber task force leaders and 8th/9th AF escort Group and Fighter Squadron commanders via C Channel. This enabled US fighters the ability to hear and respond to cries for help from various bomb groups under attack where the fighter escort was not locally positioned. There are countless examples where a Fighter Group leader heard the call, then dispatched a squadron to go forward or backward to help out.

The second was Type 16 or Beachyhead, etc, ground based radar searching for unidentified swarms of aircraft and directing US/RAF fighters on Sweeps or Area Patrols to intercept.

The other subtlety, often missed, is that the overall practice and precision of organizing the 8th BC over East Anglia - per plan and timing - along with discipline from 8th FC to pick up their assigned bombers, by position, as identified by Tail code, much more often than not placed the fighters in effective escort position.

Neither the RAF, nor the LW ever demonstrated the ability to place 500 to 2000 bombers in the right place and time for a small (relatively) force of fighters to escort the bombers in relays. The RAF doctrine of night attacks made the requirement non important - but the LW had great difficulty in organizing many units from disparate locations into a large attacking force -

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

About LW having abandoned the "finger four" at the western front by the beginning of 1944 my source is Caldwell: JG 26, Top Guns of the Luftwaffe. (page 224 in my Finnish edition).

Caldwell also gave me the idea to think that P-47 achieved aereal domination over Western Europe before the P-51 with longer range replaced it (page 396 in my edition of "Top Guns"). To make it more precise: P-47 Razorback achieved air superiority for the Allied in the areas of its range before P-51 B extended the airwar even further into German airspace. Probably also the Spitfire IX was able to turn the balance at the areas of its limited range.

When it comes to German dayfighter losses of Big Week (Feb. 1944) and the role of 8th USAAF fighters in it, I guess that ten Fighter Groups of P-47´s still shot down more German fighters than two Fighter Groups of P-51´s (+ 2 Fighter Groups of P-38) despite the more limited range of P-47´s? Even the bombing targets in the limited range of P-47´s had to be defended by Germans and thus they had to accept to facing P-47 escorts and subsequent losses in fighter vs. fighter -combat when defending the targets inside the range of P-47.

From the book of David Isby (The Decisive Duel Spitfire vs. 109, p. 362-363) about the situation of Luftwaffe by the end of March 1944: during first three months of 1944 Luftwaffe lost 3091 fighters of which 70,5 % in the defence of Germany and in the west: "For the fighter units (of LW) this was like losing Battle of Britain every month repeated without ceasing".

Fom the posts above one can conclude that the decisive change happened already in 1943 although Luftwaffe could still win big single battles against 8th USAAF bombers. Although well armed, even the heavy bombers could not be flown unescorted into well-defended enemy airspace in daylight with acceptable losses - this was what the Germans were yet able to demonstrate convincingly. Although the exaggerated air victory claims of the gunners of US bombers were taken granted at their time (at least in the official Allied propaganda) even they were not enough to make the loss rates of unescorted bombers acceptable.

From the book of Isby I found out also that Germans were still in late 1943 able to win battles at some secondary fronts like the East Aegean (the Dodecanese Campaign). Bf 109´s were still able to achieve air superiority over Spitfires there in autumn 1943. (Isby 2012, p. 300-301)

Although the eastern front was considered "easy" or at least easier than west by LW fighter pilots, it may have contributed to the downgrading of pilot training in late 1942. According to sources referred by Isby many German fighter schools were closed/downgraded by then and lots of instructors sent to help in east. During late 1942/beginning of early 1943 the Stalingrad battle caused a loss of 1000 trained aircrews to Luftwaffe, including many "irreplacebale" instructors. Isby: Future Bf 109 pilots would not learn to fly on instruments because their instructors had died in Stalingrad (campaign). (Isby 2012, p. 286).

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Hello Bill,

Thank you very much for providing a great degree of higly relevant detail! I agree that comparing losses to initial unit strength can be deceptive, depending on the volume of pilot flow compared to the initial stock. As you noted, the comparative statistics don't seem to be readily available, but in general terms JG 26 would have had a far smaller flow of pilots being rotated or reassigned. The USAAF fighter groups should have had significantly more pilots than JG 26 over the course of the year, relative to average unit stength.

You are right to highlight that the rate of attrition of less experienced pilots was far higher, the same conclusion was reached by the Red Baron studies of the Vietnam War and this seems to be an established general rule for most types of combat. I was able to briefly look through Top Guns just now for the losses of JG 26 commanders and I can say that they were high, 2 Gruppe COs (Galland and Seifert) and 4 Staffel COs (Ebersberger, Keller, Ruppert and Zink). That's only looking at those killed and only out of those who held commands at the end of 1942. I don't know the relevant data for the 355th, but I imagine the loss of commanders were considerably smaller and hence the overall effect on unit cohesion lower.

Regards,

Paul

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Absolutely true, The 355th lost a Deputy Group CO in November 1943 (evaded) and another Deputy Group CO in June 1944 plus one 357FS CO in May 1944 plus another 358FS CO in March 1945. All flak related except first one. An anomaly for the 355th is that of 21 air aces, none were shot down by LW fighter - six were downed related to strafing (one rescued behind enemy lines, one WIA/evaded, three were POW and one was KIA).

The experience levels of the lost aces were much higher - the one rescued was my father, a major and 354FS CO, one evaded/WIA (Captain Cullerton-flight leader and second highest strafer), one POW was top ace (Capt Henry Brown - flight leader), one POW (major Lenfest- 354FS Ops Officer -stuck in mud trying to rescue Brown) the first 355th ace (Capt Norm Olson 357FS Ops Officer) and one high altitude flak (Capt Koraleski - 354 Ops officer.)

Regards,

Bill

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Bill, you and Juha are right to emphasise the development of electronic warfare. May I ask for a good source for USAAF EW developments? There is some data on Luftwaffe radio interception in a November 1944 AMWIS posted by David Isby on his excellent website, http://spitfirevsbf109.com/files/Rad...ioTracking.pdf .

Radar was important, but I doubt it had much strategic significance for the bombing campaign. Judging by this link - http://www.qsl.net/p/pe1ngz//airforc...radar-old.html - AMES Type 16 was broadly similar to a Würzburg-Riese, so it couldn't provide GCI support for missions deep into occupied territory. Quite possibly the USAAF tactics that you talked about, Bill, were more important than any radar support. In Vietnam, the EC-121Ts provided very advanced radar technology, but they did not lead to a decisive change in the air war, because of rigid tactics and political constraints.

The Eighth and the broader USAAF in Europe were very impressive organisations once they had reached peak efficiency, that is indisputable. This was partly because of their enormous size. On 2 November 1944, the day of the famous defeat for the Luftwaffe, the Eighth put up 1,100 effective heavy bomber sorties and 873 escort sorties. I. Jagdkorps could only launch 490 sorties in response. With that kind of US numerical superiority reinforcing the organisational advantages that you described, the Luftwaffe could not fight effectively. In fact, the Eighth was huge even when compared with Bomber Command. The 11 March 1945 record-breaking RAF attack on Essen was flown by 1,079 aircraft, including 36 Mosquitoes (data from Middlebrook's War Diaries). The Eighth not only had more aircraft, but they were also higher-performance, with the B-17s especially having a higher practical ceiling on operations than the Lancaster and Halifax, as well as a much heavier armament.

I am expanding the post because I've just seen your reply above, took too long to type up my own message!

Of course, the German JGs were much bigger. I would caveat your correction with the observation that USAAF groups fought as a whole unit quite often,
while the Jagdgeschwader concentrated very rarely. The Luftwaffe was very late in forming the multi-Gruppe Gefechtsverbande, in my opinion.

Very interesting, thank you yet again! Do you think the absence of losses in air combat was because the 355 FG pilots were especially skilled, or because the Luftwaffe skills happened to be eroding? A broader question that arises from this is why P-51 aces were permitted to strafe so often. It did cause damage to the Luftwaffe, but it also seems an unecessary gamble with the vulnerability of the Merlin cooling system to be taken into account.

Regards,

Paul

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Recall that of the 3091 fighters lost in Q1 ( or whatever the number was) that a considerable number of strafing losses to Mustangs occurred in that March and succeeding months. Those are also operational losses due to all causes.

If we pick on March/April 1944 to parse Defense of Reich losses against 8th and AF ---- from Caldwell's Day Fighters in Defense of the Reich
MAR, 1944 LF-Reich
sorties=2464 Losses=354, KIA/WIA=202 (Dominantly Mustang)
MAR LF-3
sorties =1094 Losses =70, KIA/WIA=43 (Dominantly P-47/Spitfire)

APR, 1944 LF-Reich
sorties =3487 Losses =370, KIA/WIA=206 (Dominantly Mustang)
APR LF-3
sorties =1100 Losses =48, KIA/WIA=19 (Dominantly P-47/Spitfire)

1943 Total LF_Reich or Mitte
sorties =13,377 Losses =703, KIA/WIA=396 (Dominantly P-47/Spitfire)
1943 Total LF-3
sorties =7294, Losses =278, KIA/WIA=134 (Dominantly P-47/Spitfire)

Observation - the Mustang did not get all the aircraft destroyed against the LF-Reich, some were due the bombers, some were due the P-38, a few P-47. Similarly not all the VC's against LF-3 were P-47s and Spits, some were by Mustangs and P-38s over lowlands and France.

Summary - an extraordinary total of KIA/WIA losses by the LW in March and April 1944 were primarily due to Mustangs - and Nearly as many as all of 1943

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Just a small note of the above list of combat casualties of JG 26 in 1943:

Is the list of KIA and MIA airmen or including also WIA? Or in general when they were shot down?

Karl Borris and Klaus Mietusch were not killed in combat in 1943 to my knowledge. Borris survived the war and Mietusch was KIA in 17.9.1944. Both were pretty active pilots in late 1943 and in 1944 so I would not consider them to be "knock-out" of action in 1943.

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Hello GuerraCivil,

I know the formatting was a little troublesome at first, but I did edit it :) The abbreviation WIA appears 8 times in the above list, so it should have been hard to miss. I assume the list is of known aircraft losses involving these pilots, since Leykauf's incident and the first of two incidents involving Zink carry the "no" remark instead of KIA/WIA. This would suggest that they suffered no injuries in these two cases.

I have sent you a PM this time, I forgot the first time that I mentioned it, in one of the above posts.

Regards,

Paul

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Paul - I will respond to various questions after I get back from a day trip.

My only point in favor of JG 26 is that comparing losses based on pilot staffing and aircraft availability suggests comparing one JG (i.e. JG 2 or JG 26) losses against three US Fighter Groups. The three US Fighter Group loss comparison for 1943 through August means looking to all the losses of the 4th, 56th and 78th FG then factor RAF losses to the JG 26 also to try to normalize loss per sortie comparison.

Having said that, when a US or Brit pilot escapes the cockpit - he is 99% POW or DOW whereas the JG 26 pilot returns to fight again.

Other comments
Briefly the Type 16 and Beachyhead Control was limited in range - extremely useful during the Normandy campaign, Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge, but not at all useful in the Battle of Germany. The aircraft to aircraft communications from bomber leaders to fighter leaders was extremely important.

To the question of 'low air to air losses for the 355th'.. The 355th finished fifth in air combat victory credits with 355 air, 508 ground for losses of 41 air/90 strafing credits.

The 4th FG by contrast had 549 air/461 ground for losses of 86 air/92 strafing

The 56th had 665 air/320 ground for losses of 54 air/84 strafing

The 352nd had 504 air/275 ground for losses of 41 air/41 strafing

The 357th had 595 air/107 ground for losses of 55 air/36 strafing

These are the four ahead of 355th in air to air totals - all except the 4th FG had superior air to air statistics but all also had several aces downed in air combat. Why? I have no answer but will observe that all were more aggressive about leaving escort to pursue German fighters - that is a leadership trait based on "stick with the bombers' versus "Pursue and destroy" (IMO).

That doesn't, statistically, explain why the 355th had no air to air losses of aces as they had more air victory credits than the trailing nine Fighter Groups and had a better ratio than say the 78th, the 353rd, the 20th, the 55th, the 359th and 364th FG's.

As well as the 4th FG, which is more explainable as they had more engagements by a significant margin.

There were more 355th Flight, Squadron and HQ leaders lost than I named in the previous post but all except three (non aces but one had 4.5 VC's) were downed by flak.

I have no real explanations for the anomaly

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Bill,

Thank you for the great comparative data about the USAAF fighter groups. I look forward to your post when you come back with considerable interest. The research task that you outlined would be very worthwhile, in my opinion. My hypothesis is that the RAF and especially the USAAF loss rates would be far lower than the JG 26 rate, both for the entire units concerned and for their various commanders.

Your point about the dominant important of radio reinforces what many other sources say. The SCR-522 and related sets were probably the best available to any combatant air force at the time, so this was another important measure where US technological superiority affected the operational and strategic level of the air war.

Your explanation for the 355th as a statistical outlier sounds right to me in view of the fact that we discussed earlier, that Luftwaffe fighters had orders to attack the bombers above all else. That was a self-defeating approach, to my mind, but the Luftwaffe did not have another reasonable alternative. It is thus possible that those groups which stuck more closely to the bombers would meet German fighters less often, as the German formations would have been broken up by other units. I'll try to look up data on the 332nd, that may shed some light on this specific hypothesis.

I don't think that the absence of ace losses in air combat is necessarily such an extraordinary anomaly. Ace losses across the Eighth were fairly low, at least in air combat, certainly by the standards of the Soviet and German equivalents. It could be that if a statistical distribution is constructed, it would suggest that more fighter groups 'should' not have lost aces!

Regards,

Paul

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Paul - by the very nature of a very high population of 'aces', the Attack attitude against German fighters in any concentration was prevalent. So, by the very nature of the beast he is constantly engaging and thereby places himself at greater risk than those pilots at flight lead (or even squadron and Group lead) that were more content to hold escort positions rather than engage. So, I do expect more air to air losses in aces due to the increased combat probability and the very real possibility of being hit from behind while concentrating on someone in front of you. Frequently, the wingman was hit first... but once that type of fight has been engaged the ods of being shot down yourself are higher.

I agree that Goering's orders severely impacted the well tuned aggressiveness of the experienced LW day fighter pilots. The Split Ess and dive to obey orders and try to avoid combat killed a lot of German fighter pilots caught in the dive - rather than respond with a turn into the US fighter and engage in a tactically neutral position.

The other unintended consequences included letting US pilots hone advanced training skills by not attacking early and aggressively to kill the newly arrived pilots, thereby permitting a more paced exposure in many case to refine tactics and gain better awareness of relative strengths and weaknesses of the P-47 and Bf 109 and FW 190.

I don't have the statistics on air to air losses for the 332nd so can't comment other than to say that for Mustang groups that are compared to the 332nd from the June Ops date have far more air to air VC's in the same period as well as pilots that achieved ace status since the 332nd had zero despite having four squadrons in the group and two with significant experience in P-40s and P-47s before converting to P-51's.

IIRC the 332nd had ~ 100 air to air scores credited by USAF 85 from June through May 1945, but recall that all other FG's had only three squadrons?

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Hello Bill,

My appologies for not getting back earlier, had my schedule disrupted by travel in the last couple of days. I see the force of your point that aces are by nature aggressive and so should be at higher risk than other pilots. I probably can't say anything useful on this specific subject without doing a lot more research, but I can offer a hypothesis that perhaps the aggressiveness of the aces in the 355th was somewhat restrained by the attitude of the group's leadership, is there any truth in that suggestion?

With regard to the point about Luftwaffe fighters diving away, the technical issue that we discussed above was of critical importance. In a sense, Göring was ordering what had been good Luftwaffe practice for years, but it was not much use against the Thunderbolt and Mustang. There must also have been a problem of skill erosion on the German side. Many aces of all the various wartime air forces record being able to defend themselves when diving to disengage, even against higher-performance aircraft. This required good aerobatic skills and a high level of situational awareness, so inexperienced pilots would have had particular problems in these situations.

I wonder whether more aggressive German tactics could have actually killed many new USAAF fighter pilots. Since the USAAF did suspend deep penetration raids after Second Schweinfurt, I think it is likely they would have done the same if German tactics suddenly improved and caused a high loss rate among the escorts. The USAAF and RAF had the numbers by 1943 to maintain air dominance over the Benelux and northern France in virtually any circumstances, unless Speer’s ministry would have somehow managed to produce thousands of Me 262s and get them in service before it was too late. As it was, you are entirely correct to point out that the USAAF fighter groups rapidly accumulated experience because of their comparatively low loss rates.

I haven’t been able to find the 332nd air-to-air loss statistics in books, but I found the VC totals in the Osprey Aviation Elite title for this group. The total is 119 kills, 8.5 probables, 27 damaged . There were nine pilots with 3 or more confirmed kills. The most important reason for the comparatively low claim total of the 332nd was probably the weakness of the Luftwaffe in southern Europe after June and especially autumn 1944.

Regards,

Paul

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Regarding German tactics and fighter strategy it seems reasonable that they wanted to concentrate in heavy bombers - these were the primary targets. Germans had cities and other vulnerable targets to defend from the terrible rain of bombs. Germans had less fighters and pilots than Allied so it made sense to try to avoid to lose them in fighter vs. fighter engagement.


Germans had a problem to deal with both heavy bomber campaign and their fighter escorts at the same time. It was easier for the Allied fighter forces - they could concentrate almost solely on the destroying of enemy fighters and thus seek fighter vs. fighter situations more aggresively. They had also planes (P-51, P-47, Spitfire IX) equal and in some respects superior to German standard fighters. The combat skills and tactics of the Allied fighter pilots were also updated - the Allied had learned their lessons and incorporated the German inventions in their combat training and tactics.

Germans had not anymore their earlier advantages (technical superiority and superior tactics) which did contribute so much to their earlier success against Allied fighters up to 1942. At the Eastern Front they could hold more time in air with their superior tactics compared to Soviets but even there the sheer enemy numbers were too much at the end.

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Paul - the Mustang equipped 52nd, 31st, 325th FG's continued at a solid pace, far outstripping the 332nd.. but the 332nd Did outscore (slightly) the P-38 equipped 1st, 14th and 82nd FG's in the same time the 332nd got Mustangs.

I think you are correct about nine with 3 or more air VC's but recall that only one (Archer) got four. Another point must be made about the 332nd reputation for not losing many of their escorted bombers to the LW. Recall that four squadrons to provide escort is 33% more fighters to escort them and provide cover.

To get to the ratio of Victory Credits to Perceived Cause of Losses due to Air Combat, somebody will have to pull all the MACRs and make some judgments regarding Cause. Personally I looked at more that 13000 ETO Macrs and read every one to parse "Definitely shot down" to "Last seen in combat with enemy air" to 'Last seen in vicinity of reported enemy air" to 'Unknown". When developing my statistics for my book "Our Might Always - History of the 355th FG", I assigned each of the first three categories to "Loss to air to air combat".

There were relatively few "unknown" and when I encountered that category in the Macr along with time and location, I searched Tony Woods lists to try for a match. When it was 'close' then that record made the Loss-Air category.

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Of all USAAF fighter units in Europe the most efficient to my knowledge was 56th FG and they flew with P-47 until the end of war. Perhaps speaks something for the merit of P-47 that 56 FG kept flying with it although "better" P-51 would have been available.

Although Mustang was somewhat better technically (specially longer range) the P-47 Razorback was essential in building up the self-confidence and combat experience of USAAF fighter units during 1943 and early 1944 (when big numbers of efficient fighter version of P-51 were not yet available).

P-47 airframe could also take lots of punishment of enemy fire and still bring the pilot home. This probably saved the life of many less experienced USAAF fighter pilots and increased their survival chances from their first combats. The famous episode of Robert Johnson surviving with totally holed-up P-47 on 17.6.1943 is perhaps the best example of the strength of P-47 airframe.

Later the same abilities made P-47 ideal fighter-bomber which was able to deal with intercepting enemy fighters if necessary. The P-51 was perhaps the best piston-engined fighter of WW2 but USAAF had to have P-47 also!

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Hello Bill,

That’s a valuable sketch of Cummings’ command style. I would think it shows that he was something of a by-the-book officer and focused on the primary mission assigned to him, namely protecting the bombers. The overall statistics that you describe are a firm testament to his success, in my view, since the group still performed very well in air combat, despite his deliberately restrained tactics.

The successful adoption of the laminar flow wing on the Mustang was one of many ways in which the US exploited its overwhelming technological superiority in the closing years of the war. The RAF did use the laminar flow wing on the Spitfire XIV, but this was a compromise modification of an old design, rather than a new product like the Mustang. The biggest problem that the USAAF had, and which persists to this day, is the grotesquely extended time it took to get any version of the Mustang to the battlefield. Even the A-36 made it to the MTO only in mid-1943, which was far too long. In short, the Mustang was half a generation ahead of its contemporaries and could have had an even greater impact if it was developed more quickly.
The first Thunderbolt sub-type with the dive flaps might be the P-47D-30-RA/RE, but the sources I have are contradictory. I would point out that all late Bf 109s had even worse problems with stick forces than the Thunderbolt, so in comparative terms the USAAF was well off even with the early P-47s.

It is difficult to assess this, it was certainly a possibility. The one thing that makes me believe that this would be unlikely is the USAAF attitude to loss rates. Apart from heavy bombers and even then in a relatively limited set of cases, the USAAF did not accept high casualties and would go far to avoid them. The Ploesti raid is an extreme example, where a single high-risk raid was only followed up when the operational conditions were completely transformed.

You are correct, the other Mustang groups of the 15th were more successful, possibly due to their superior experience. The comparison with the Lightning groups might be a little inappropriate, since they were used as dive-bombers fairly regularly after June 1944. I don’t know much about the effective strength of various fighter groups in combat, but the following tidbits from Mahoney’s book on the 15th are interesting. On 17 July, the 332nd flew escort with 46 P-51s, while the 325 flew 47 Mustangs on 5 September and 58 on 14 October. I draw the tentative conclusion that the 332nd may not have put more aircraft in the air than other groups, at least in the routine cases.

The volume of information you sorted through is incredible! How long did the MACR project take you to complete?

Regards,

Paul

Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?
 

Hello GuerraCivil,

I think the 56th is an exception that proves the rule. The 56th was extremely experienced in the use of dive attack tactics which made best use of the Thunderbolt's high service ceiling and high diving speed, its two primary performance advantages.

The Mustang was not somewhat better than the P-47, but decisively so. It had lower drag and higher acceleration, contribution to substantially better overall manoeuvrability. Bill has discussed above the P-51s advantage in the dive.

I would strongly suggest that the USAAF did not, strictly speaking, need either the P-47 or P-51. The Lightning did encounter serious problems over Europe, but any long-range escort fighter was an insurmountable problem for the Luftwaffe, as the Tunisian campaign demonstrated.

Regards,

Paul