Quote:
Originally Posted by kalender1973
Hi Bill,
thanks for the link. It is very intresting statistic. But with this statistic we risk the loss focus of the discussion: if the few Mustangs was key factor for the success of 8th air force.
First of all I suggest to narrow the time slice that we take in account. Our discussion focus on the first half 1944 until the landing in Normandy. As I already wrote, it was a turning point in air war. It were two different Luftwaffe, in spring and late autumn 1944. The german pilots reach there units only with 10-20 flying hours in their Bf109 or FW190. It is clear that the succeses of US fighter dramatically increased and in that time the P-51 was key US figther. And if you write about german losses on the ground, we must recall that most of them was suffered at two last week of the war, where the german put open there planes on their fields.
Igor - You are correct for many of the US Fighter Groups such as 356th and 78th and 353rd - late converters from the P-47 to the P-51 plus the 56th (all P-47), but not the 4th and 355th and 352nd etc which started destruction of German aircraft in remote reaches of Germany in March 1944 and continued through rest of war.
Further, while a lot of the a/c that were concentrated (with little fuel) on airfields in April 1945, they were there because the perimeter was shrinking and they had no fuel and few pilots making them essentially non-critical.
But if we look at the spring of 1944 the picture is something different. You write that P-47 reach only Dummer lake. But in my eyes it was enough. Due the decision of perephery defence the most german figther units were deployed even in the north and north-west Germany and Netherland: JG1, 11, I,II/JG3...
The German controllers were very clever and while P-47s (and Spitfires) engaged the JG2 and JG26 over the Occupied countries during Penetration and Withdrawal Support, the bulk of the air defense was calculated to engage beyond the range of Escorts.
March 6 was a good example. The LuftFlotte Reich defense engaged prematurely at Dummer Lake and was hurt by the 56th FG but the Mustangs were engaging from that point all the way to Berlin. From that day, there was no place that the LW controllers could have confidence that they could assemble the ZG Gruppen without suffering heavy losses - for any targets at Bremen-Stuttgart line and beyond.
The Mustangs completely changed the air superiority situation over central Germany to Poland - opening up all the Synthetic Fuel/Oil and Chemical plants to attack.
And after the fight with the P-47, the germans with their short range planes must be refuelled and come rare to second concentrate attack. Therefore a few P-51 of direct escort was enough. But it is not fair to minimize role of other 8th air force fighters.
I am not minimizing contribution of P-47 or P-38 but there is a fundamental reason that the P-51 replaced both in the ETO. Better air superiority fighter and the bombers were 'bait' to draw the Luftwaffe into fighting. The 8th AF FC mission was to kill the Luftwaffe in the air and on the ground and they performed very well in those 5 months precceding Overlord. The Mustang was the most important Allied fighter in killing the experienced fighter pilots during January to June deep over Germany.
If you look at 6th march, than you must agree that it was not the best mission of USAAF. From 730 bomber was lost 69. And the main targed was not attacked. From 100 P-51 was lost 5 (5%) and from 615 P-47 was lost also 5 (0,8%). The P-51 claims only 43:36=1,2 more german planes as P-47. The numbers are not really fantastic.
And I would like to see the plane types of the P-51 claims, IIRC many of the were two engines from NJG's.
I will dig into it but IIRC the distribution was about 65% s/e and 35% t/e. Many of the Me 110 and 210's fell to the 4th and 357th past the Dummer Lake area (where they were assembled out of range from the P-47). So a high percentage of the Mustang scores on 6 March WAS t/e. This was the beginning of the end for NJG resistance for daylight attacks and severly hurt NJG effectiveness against night RAF attacks
Best regards
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The LW pilots were still receiving 'adequate' training in the first 5 months, but could not keep pace with the attrition inflicted by the Mustangs.
The Oil campaign starting on May12 was the beginning of the dramatic reduction in new pilot training and significant movement of KG and SG pilots to backfill the losses of Feb-May, 1944.
The 25-50 hour pilots were showing up in September and peaked in November when they simply should not have been in the sky. JG301 in late November was a classic example of the low time pilot in Fw 190A8's
I had a detailed conversation with Galland in 1983 before publishing my book and he permitted me to reprint a letter about the impact of the Mustang on LW Operations. Essentially the Mustang interdicted formation assembly, killed many German pilots taking off and landing, shot up airfields and reduced 'effectives' at strategic points (munich/Berlin for example) for days - shot up rail and barge traffic when Speer decentralized plants and needed to move subassemblies from one factory to another.. and put up a fighter with equal performance (or greater at bomber altitudes) over HIS cities...
If the LW have Mustangs during BoB, we might be speaking German.
Just a few of his observations about the Strategic footprint of the Mustang.
Regards,
Bill