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Old 18th April 2017, 09:02
Dan History Dan History is offline
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Re: I have just written a new analysis of Luftwaffe resource distribution - it is on Michael Holm's website

Gentlemen, for I see that no ladies have participated in the discussion until the present time, thank you for a spirited reaction to my work. However, it is disappointing that serious researchers like you are not making an attempt to engage more deeply with my work and are in some cases giving reactions based only on reading the introduction or a small part of the work itself. I am loath to engage in self-aggrandizement, but the research for this work took substantially more than a year and the evidence within it was extracted with great effort from a variety of sources, several if not most of which have not been seen before by the members here. I would be glad if members deployed the information that they had accumulated during their own research in order to provide informed support or criticism of my conclusions. The private opinions of members are of interest in and of themselves, of course, but so far there has been an excess of heat and a deficit of light in the discussion, as happens often on online forums.

Since the working week has begun, I have less time to respond for the time being, so I will seek to respond to the latest postings first, to keep up with the discussion. I would encourage members to respond to each other’s points too, as FalkeEins did with Rémi’s post above. I am very happy to be at the centre of attention, but it would be equally interesting to see what members think of each other’s contributions.

Ed, as you have made the latest contribution for the time being, below is my response:

Quote:
Originally Posted by edwest2 View Post
Thank you very much for bringing more information
First of all, thank you for your words of encouragement in the first of three posts that you wrote. To address the points that you made, I am surprised that you think I took a narrow view. I have very rarely seen anyone in the field attempt to combine an analysis of the Luftwaffe’s flying units with its air defence forces, let alone bring in issues like fuel and ammunition. It would be helpful if you clarified this particular comment here.

I did not ignore the issue of radar, instead I wrote, on page 20: “It is regrettable that information about the distribution of gun-laying radar is unavailable, but sound detectors area good proxy indicator, for these were used as a partial substitute for radar (Westermann: 203).” If you have information on the distribution of Luftwaffe radar between different operational theatres, I would be glad if you shared it. A substantial motivation for my involvement in this discussion is to obtain new information. I trust you will agree that any information about the distribution of radar will support my overall argument, since there is overwhelming indirect evidence that the majority of Germany’s radar network was sited in the West and Mediterranean, for example on http://gyges.dk/ , the excellent website put together by SES. Does the Radarkrieg book by Bukowski contain data about the production of radar and the distribution of radar installations between fronts? I am concerned, based on the title, that it only discusses radar units in the Berlin area.

I have the Neulen book about Luftwaffe allies, which is superficial in places. The issue of Axis allies can be put to one side in a work such as this, because the scale of the operations and losses of these air forces was so much smaller than that of the Luftwaffe. Dénes Bérnad, György Punka, HGabor and so many others have written many interesting pieces about the actions of these air forces, and I will include some of this work in an expanded version of my study. However, these air forces were too small to materially change the balance of forces in the air war. Furthermore, any review of the activities of Axis allies must of necessity devote much attention to the Regia Aeronautica, which fought almost exclusively in the Mediterranean. Therefore, the inclusion of Axis allies will shift the balance of attention further away from events on the Eastern front.

Since you wrote “based on my research”, may I ask for more details of what research you performed, what evidence you presented and the conclusions that you reached? Allied resource superiority did provide the foundation for ultimate Allied victory, but the analysis in my work is deeper than this one observation. I emphasise that Western air power was decisive in the air war, for reasons of its technological superiority as much if not more than its numerical strength. Furthermore, since air power consumed resources far in excess of those allocated to other forms of military power, it is not possible to place air power on the same level as the ground forces. Even well-equipped and well-trained ground forces fared very badly in the face of enemy air superiority, which was the key change from the First World War, although signs of this could already be observed in the campaigns of 1918.

Do you have the Kahn book? I am not sure that it contains information worth a price in excess of $100 . The other two books that you mentioned, Overy’s War and Economy and Uziel’s Arming the Luftwaffe, are useful and interesting, but they focus on issues of resource mobilisation, rather than the distribution of resources and the destruction of these resources at the front. I will add here that I find your various links to book purchase websites slightly frustrating, in the sense that they obscure the point that you are attempting to make. I am grateful for the work that you do in publicising various new books, but what is your view of the matter at hand?

Kind regards,

Dan

Last edited by Dan History; 18th April 2017 at 09:54. Reason: Formatted the post to aid reading
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