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For example on 31.5.43 there were 547 Jagdflugzeuge against SU and 1,077 Jagdflugzeuge against Western Allies
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In all humility, this is an example of what happens when one approaches history from the viewpoint of a medium-level matematician, who tries to understand history by watching selected statistical figures.
The reality - which always is more complicated than a few statistical figures - looked like this on 31 May 1943:
The more than one thousand Luftwaffe fighters in action against the Western Allies broke down into these forces:
The West (France, Belgium): 328 fighters (mainly JG 2 and JG 26) - opposed to an overwhelming Allied numerical superiority, including approximately fifteen hundred RAF fighters. (RAF Fighter Command carried out 15,447 sorties in June 1943.)
Home defence (Luftwaffenbefehlshaber Mitte): 296 fighters - opposed mainly to the heavy bombers of US 8th Air Force (mustering 705 heavy bombers on 31 May 1943).
Sicily and Sardinia (Luftflotte 2): 290 fighters (of which only 160 were serviceable) - opposed to 4,900 Allied aircraft, including 2,100 fighters.
Western Norway: 76 fighters, which saw very little action.
Southeastern Europe: 90 fighters, mainly assigned to protect the Rumanian oil fields, also saw very little action by this time.
Before I go any further, I will make one reservation. Regarding the air war at night, the situation is the opposite to that in daytime: At night time, it is absolutely clear that the Western Allies (or more precisely, the RAF Bomber Command) encountered a level of opposition in the air which the Soviets were lucky to be saved from. I would say that the RAF Bomber Command and the Soviet Air Force were those two Allied air forces which faced the strongest opposition from the Luftwaffe. That said, let’s return to the day fighting:
Let us now study the Eastern Front on 31 May 1943. Indeed, there were “only” 547 Luftwaffe fighters on the Eastern Front on 31 May 1943. But that's only one part of the story.
By 31 May 1943, the huge Air Battle at Kuban (the German Kuban Bridgehead in northwestern Caucasus) had just ended. At the climax of this battle, the Luftwaffe mounted Fliegerkorps I with around 1,000 aircraft (including 200 fighters) against 800 Soviet aircraft (including 270 fighters). This German concentration of aviation assets was made at the expense of other sectors of the Eastern Front (e.g. the Ukraine had to do more or less without any German fighters during one period during the Air Battle over the Kuban), but this could be tolerated because spring thaws prevented any major operation by the Red Army by that time.
If we subtract all German aircraft apart from the fighters - as has been done above - the Eastern Front appears to be given a fairly low priority. But of course the Soviet airmen faced not only fighters, but many other aircraft. If not, their task would have been much easier.
If we exclude transport planes, liaison aircraft, etc, plus the aircraft in western Norway and the Balkans which saw only limited action, and instead focus on the actual first-line force of combat aircraft which saw regular daylight combat, we will find the following for 31 May 1943:
Opposed to the Soviets: 2,500 Luftwaffe combat aircraft (night fighters excluded).
Opposed to the Western Allies: 1,700 Luftwaffe combat aircraft (night fighters excluded).
Interestingly, the date chosen above - 31 May 1943 - is just between two major air battles on the Eastern Front. One, at Kuban, has already been described. The other one was “Operation Zitadelle” at Kursk.
For “Operation Zitadelle” the Luftwaffe gathered a force of over 2,000 aircraft (including 630 fighters and Zerstörer) at Kharkov and Orel - opposed to a Soviet force of 2,400 aircraft (including 1,000 fighters). (Khazanov & Gorbach, “Aviatsiya v bitve nad Orlovsko - Kurskoy dugoy”, p. 11.)
Imagine this formidable Luftwaffe force - which included the top elite among the Luftwaffe fliers as far as experience and combat skills is concerned - assembled in Sicily, instead of the badly depleted remnants of Luftflotte 2 which were in place to meet the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943. Then imagine the Western Allied aviation in Tunisia cut in half from 4,900 aircraft (2,100 fighters) to a numerical similar to the Soviet at “Zitadelle” - 2,400 aircraft (including 1,000 fighters). Then you would have the Western Allies facing the same kind of opposition as the Soviets were up against. Wouldn’t that have brought the Western Allies into greater difficulties?
Finally this:
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simple count of JGs engaged show that most of them were engaged on the Western Front and the situation changed only in April when both Fronts were so close, that there was no distinction between the units.
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I don’t know what Franek means here. However, it is a fact that immediately following the Soviet breakthrough on 12 January 1945, almost the entire Luftwaffe -including most of the Home Defence Jagdgeschwader – were rapidly transferred to the Eastern Front. These units included JG 1, JG 3, JG 4, JG 6, JG 11, and JG 77. Already in January 1945, the number of Bf 109s and Fw 190s assigned explicitly and exclusively to the Eastern Front reached fifteen hundred. In fact, the bulk of the air fighting in Europe in 1945 would take place on the Eastern Front. The Wehrmachtführungsstab noted on 19 January 1945 that all available reserves of aircraft fuel was to be concentrated to air operations on the Eastern Front: “Air operations on all other war theatres are in comparison [to the Eastern Front] of absolutely negligible importance.” This would not change during the remainder of the war - to the benefit of the airmen in the USAAF and the RAF.
Just before that, there actually had been a couple of isolated incidents when the Western Allies had been unfortunate to encounter at least a numerical opposition in the air of the same magnitude as the Soviets had to face all the time from 22 June 1941 to late April 1945. That took place during the German Ardennes offensive in December 1944, when Göring concentrated a uniquely strong force of Luftwaffe aircraft against the Western Allies. (Unique after 22 June 1941.) No less than 2,300 German aircraft were stationed along the Western Front to support the Ardennes offensive. (In other words, a number which is comparable to the force which was available for Operation “Zitadelle”, although the Western Allies could muster 5,000 aircraft against the Ardennes offensive - i.e. twice the numbers the Soviets dispatched at the eve of “Zitadelle”.)
The first days of the Ardennes offensive, air activity was hampered through bad weather, but on 23 and 24 December the RAF and the USAAF faced the onslaught by the whole Luftwaffe force which had been concentrated in the West. On 23 December 1944, the Americans alone lost 67 aircraft in the West. One Jagdgruppe, IV./JG 3, claimed to have shot down 31 B-26 bombers and three Thunderbolts. The next day, no less than 94 US and British aircraft were shot down in the West.
The Luftwaffe made 800 sorties in the West on 23 December 1944, and 1,088 on 24 December. It should be kept in mind that these sorties were carried out by “Western units” which had been badly depleted after twelve months of terrible attrition in a fight against a growing Allied numerical superiority. The bulk of the pilots in these units were inadequately trained rookies. As I have showed in a previous post, the situation in the “Eastern units” was dramatically different. One can imagine what the outcome had been if the RAF and the USAAF had faced the “super veterans” of JG 51, JG 52 and JG 54 over the Ardennes, instead of the rookies of JG 1, JG 11 and JG 4.
As mentioned, I advice against drawing too many conclusions form statistical numbers, but the statistics from two days of Luftwaffe operations during the last period of the year show some interesting relations. On both days, the Luftwaffe was assigned to carry out tactical support at the frontline, and on both days losses were due to both air combat and ground fire.
23 December 1944: 800 Luftwaffe sorties in the West, leading to 115 German victory claims and 135 German aircraft lost.
8 February 1945: 1,654 Luftwaffe sorties in the East, leading to 8 (eight) German victory claims and 43 German aircraft lost (mainly Bf 109s and Fw 190s).
All best,
Christer Bergström
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