Quote:
Originally Posted by kalender1973
Generally I am confidence, that LW in the west was not destroyed during strategic bomber operation in jan-may 1944. It suffers high losses but was still able to fight back. And only landing in the Normandy (and opening of 4rd major air front) bring LW to death. And in tactical air war was the role of P-51 no more significant as Spitfire or P-47
|
You certainly have a point if we consider the night battle. Not a little part of the strategic (bomber) offensive. The major factor in the shift of balance was the loss of France and its forward airspace.
Not sure if you have a point regarding the P-51 though. Although I tend to agree that its impact is sometimes overstated, it was nonetheless the increase in numbers of (strategic / long range) escort fighters that shifted the balance in the West during the day. This also allowed for a massive increase in tactical fighters, or fighter-bombers. Perhaps the increase in tactical air power was more significant in defeating the Germans in the West than the Strategic element etc.
The air war is unfortunately more complex in terms of events than for instance the U-boat offensive in the Atlantic, where May 1943 can be clearly pointed as a turning point. But even this event is the culmination of many factors, including numbers, type of, weapons and tactics used by the allied escorts.
In the air war we don't have this clear cut situation. Day vs Night, East vs West. Tactical vs Strategic etc.
Of course there is an abundance of figures, but even hard data is prone to interpretation that suits the argument.
A good example is how the early fighting in the West in 1940 is not taken into the Battle of Britain equation. Whereas the first of the few did include the French (or like some may argue Poles), we barely regard them as such.
Instead of growing for a strategic offensive against Britain, the Jagdwaffe barely managed to regain the number it started the war with (an error to repeated in 1941 against the Soviet Union). There wasn't any significant growth until it was already too late to turn the combined Allied tidal wave, culminating in the huge discrepancy in numbers by 1944.
The most significant early turning point was of course the day the Third Reich invaded the Soviet Union, spreading its Jagdwaffe to the point where it operated beyond its capacity to
maintain an offensive on any front: the western front, the Atlantic, North Africa, the Mediterranean and Eastern Front. The Western Allies would of course profit most from this early phase since they could concentrate significant forces on the periphery whereas the Reich could not. Even the main western front was a peripheral air front in the eyes of the Luftwaffe (until mid 1943).
The role of the Soviet Union, or Russia, in absorbing the main fighting strength in the critical 1941-42 years, in the air, but most importantly on land and the industrial output that had to go with it, can't be overstated enough.
Without Barbarossa however the chances of Britain standing alone to widthstand a continued and concentrated German effort were IMHO bleak, let alone the chance of any offensive posture on the periphery.
In short the Third Reich, like the Luftwaffe, chewed off more than it could ever hope to swallow.
All IMHO, of course.