Quote:
Originally Posted by kalender1973
On the other hand the Luftwaffe cumulate so huge experience in 1939-40
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Hello kalender, I will finally reply to your follow-up message below:
The experience of Luftwaffe aircrew and replacement of losses
As I have commented to Andrey above, it is difficult to sustain the idea that the Luftwaffe did not suffer from losing so many experienced aircrew in the period from 1939 to June 1941. The example of Barkhorn, who was a fighter pilot at the outbreak of war, illustrates the depth of quality personnel in the pre-war Luftwaffe. As Larry de Zeng and Doug Stankey's database shows, he joined the Luftwaffe in March 1937 -
http://www.ww2.dk/LwOffz%20%20A-F%202017.pdf . Most pilots who entered the Luftwaffe during the war did not receive nearly as much training. There were exceptions, like Hartmann, who was sent to the Eastern Front only two years after joining the Luftwaffe, but such exceptions prove the rule.
A comparison of the Luftwaffe with the USAAF is inappropriate, especially by 1944, because the USA was the dominant military and industrial power of the Second World War. The Americans could train enormous numbers of aircrew without any restrictions on consumption of aviation fuel and very few limits on flying hours, something which was impossible for the Luftwaffe. What my study shows, on pages 26 and 47, is that once the USAAF effectively employed a large proportion of its strength against the Luftwaffe from April 1943 onwards, German losses became unsustainable. This is can be observed from many other sources, for example the recently published third volume of the excellent
Mediterranean Air War series.
Luftwaffe losses in 1941
You correctly observed that the Luftwaffe sustained considerable losses in a short time during Operation Barbarossa, but this was a unique series of events. As the loss data shows, the Luftwaffe did not experience the high daily losses of June-July 1941 again, at least until the end of 1943.
The importance of fighters compared to other types
The issue is that, as I wrote on page 10, "single-engine fighters were the nearly exclusive means of destroying enemy aircraft in air combat and thus attaining air superiority". Therefore, even though you are right to emphasise that the close air support and battlefield interdiction roles were performed by other aircraft, the fighters were the most important element of the force. Given the profound impact that even small numbers of German fighters had on the Eastern front, it is entirely possible that just one or two hundred more fighters could have significantly affected the outcome of the Battle of Moscow or Stalingrad. For example, at Stalingrad, an even greater deficit of transport aircraft would have accelerated the collapse of 6 Army, but strengthened frontline fighter units would have made it much more difficult for the Red Army to conduct an advance westwards into Ukraine. Soviet air force operations, haphazard as they were, did seriously affect German defensive operations, so the presence of more units like the Platzschutzstaffel Pitomnik would have eased the burden on German ground forces considerably.
Non-operational losses
The reason that it is best to treat non-operational losses together with operational losses is that these combined to reduce the strength of units at the front. Strictly speaking, it is difficult to separate the two loss categories, since it was sometimes impossible to determine whether a particular loss was operational or non-operational. Furthermore, some non-operational losses, such as crashes on transfer flights between airfields, could have been caused by combat fatigue or other reasons directly connected to operations. Presenting operational and non-operational losses together gives an overall picture of atrittion in a given theatre of operations.
Kind regards,
Dan