[Juha]

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.