Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan History
Kalender, thank you for your praise and let me outline my reasoning:
1. The Luftwaffe suffered considerable losses of aircraft and personnel before the German invasion of the USSR. See Table 10 on Page 23 for details. This materially eased the burden on Soviet defenders in 1941.
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On the other hand the Luftwaffe cumulate so huge experience in 1939-40, what allow quite to eliminate the huge soviet air force in first weeks of Barbarossa. E.g. "nobody" Barkhorn has more than 100 mission against France and England.
By the way, the losses are not the problem, the problem is the ability to replace the losses. After some missions of 8 AF in 1944 the some 1500 flying personl was lost. On the next day the new 1500 man were ready for duty.
And the LW was able to replace the losses .
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan History
2. Even when the Luftwaffe had concentrated most of its resources in the East, in the second half of 1941, the RAF and Commonwealth air forces inflicted substantial losses on the Luftwaffe. In consequence, the Eastern front accounted for just 25% of total German aircraft losses from the outbreak of the war in Europe until the end of 1941. See Table 11 for the details. Thank you for drawing attention to the fact that the Commonwealth air forces were involved.
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25% for so short time interval is outstanding performance in my eyes
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan History
3. You made the observation that I wanted people to make, that German losses were quite evenly divided between East and West from mid-1941 to the end of 1943. This is not the whole story, of course. Table 13 shows that three-fifths of the single-engine fighters were destroyed in the West, and almost all night fighters. The German war effort was very precariously balanced and its central component was air superiority, which was maintained by the fighter force. Therefore, the defeat of the German fighter force in the West was of critical importance to the survival of the USSR, relieving the pressure of German air power on the Soviet armed forces.
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Why you speak the whole tme about fighters? Fascinateted from air combat? Do you understand the fighters play in german plans more supporting role und main decisive force which have much more attention of LW leadership was bomber fleet? Why do you think, the Kampfflieger in the WW I was the fighter pilot and in the WW II was the bomber pilot? Because the bomber fleet was in the LW definition "Haupträger des Kampfes" - decisive fighting force. which in cooperation with ground forces allow the reach the key target in german offensive operations. Do you think 100-200 figther does play any role, especialy in battle in Moscow or Stalingrad? Do you imagine, what for climatical condition was in november-december 1941, 42? How long is the day light in winter? I would say two hundred more german figthers in Stalingrad and 200 fewer Transport planes would be allowed the end the war may be one year earlier as real happened
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan History
Take a look at Table C-2 on page 51 as well, when the non-operational losses are included, the importance of the fighting in the West is drawn into even sharper focus. I believe that this measure of losses, including non-operational ones, is the most useful, because non-operational losses were a consequence of combat. Without the pressure of combat operations, non-operational losses would have been much lower, so it is eminently reasonable to add non-operational losses to operational ones.
Kind regards,
Dan
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Why do you believe, the non-operational losses are result of combat?