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It will be very busy week for me , so only a couple short comments
Don't underestimate Italians. Their torpedo-aircraft hit for example battleship Nelson, their fighter-bombers hit fleet carrier Victorious etc... so don't ignore them so lightly. They accomplished something after all, and in mid-1943 they began to get their 5-series fighters (M.205, G.55 and R. 2005 plus some 110 Bf 109Gs) which gave more effectiveness to their fighter arm, which at last had equal equipment to their opponents. In 1943 in Med Heer accused LW and the Italians, LW probably accused the Italians (who else?). Defeat is always orphan and the fingers are pointing to others. So I'd not put too much weight on German oppinion on this.
On the losses, according to Molony et al book, during a few periods which loss figures I came across when I was looking for the strenght figures the Allied losses were not very much higher, You might have different figures or are you comparing LW claims to LW losses. The LW losses 1.1. - 31.5.43 in Med were appr. 1700 a/c according to Murray's Luftwaffe and above that came the Italian losses. Do You have the Allied losses, which were "much higher" according to You? I know that because of the bad accounting habits of the USAAF in North Africa it is probably impossible to discover the exact USAAF loss figures.
On JGruppen, where You got the achieved victories, or are they claimed victories?
Maybe the Allies had better escort tactics, clearier operational plan etc at least for. example in the Mareth battle their fighter bombers and bombers worked with good effect even if in fighters the Allies didn't have overwhelming superiority. I don't claim that the LW wasn't very good in Tunisia but the Allies were also good and handled their operations well. And I'm not sure that the Germans enjoyed qualitative advantage for exp. in bomber force in Tunisia.
The point of my rather extreme example was that the Germans didn't have more tanks but better operational doctrine for them and better tank generals, and of course better operational plan, that of French played to hands of Germans. So, even if there is many reasons to French defeat the main reason was that the Allies were outgeneraled. BTW the 530 French FT17, FT18 tanks were rather unimportant, being WWI wintage.
At least Allied high command understood that in the total war one needs lot of planes, argued against their political leaders' decisions, which they saw wrong, which is more than could say on the CoS of LW.
Quote: Tähe British AF commanders wasted thousands of aircraft sorties and airmen on virtually useless operations over France in daylight in 1941 and against German population centres. The Western Allies could sure have made use of a more competent air force high command!
One of the reasons of daylight operations in later part of 41 was to attempt to help SU with those meager ways they had. British knew that the achilles heel of Germany was the oil but when they found out that the night bombers didn't find the specific targets they switched to area bombing. I think it was understandable that they tried to hit at least something but freely admit that after the BC got better navigational aids and got the ability to hit specific target, IMHO is that they should have switch away from area bombing. But if You look LW bomber leaders, they got the idea to hit SU's powerplants so late that when they got they aircrews trained to long range navigation the frontline was retreated so far to west that most of the targets were outside the range of their main bomber, He 111. So the plan was scrapped. And here one see the other main problem of LW High Command, that of production planning. Bomber B program was a fiasco to which LW didn't have afford. And in general LW lost one generation of warplanes because of bad procurement system. And if the USAAF lacked escort doctrine the LW doctrine based on Bf 110 wasn't flawless either, even if I had a gut feeling that Bf 110 wasn't so bad than usually claimed.
Perseverance, I meant that even if they had great difficulties in 1941 and 42 against LW and they knew it because of Ultra, they continued to "lean towards France". The problem with qualative edge is that it erose easily under constant stress. Much the same with aggressiveness, this was shown on lower level. I may even say that there were too many over-agressive USAAF pilots, meaning too many attacks on own side a/c. Were they more agressive than Germans, difficult to say but at least CinC of LW seemed to think so. And he should knew that, shouldn't he.
Quote: äPrior to that [Feb. 43], the bulk of the Luftwaffe’s losses were sustained on the Eastern Front
As I have shown earlier, the LW losses in Med in Oct and Nov. 42 were so big that cumulatively it losses in later half of 42 were more severe against Western Allies than against SU. And before 22.6.41 the bulk of LW losses were suffered on other fronts than Eastern. The last sentence is a bad joke, I admit.
Quote: äThe reason is simple - although the British enjoyed a significant numerical superiority against the Luftwaffe in both the Wets and the Mediterranean from mid-1941 and throughout 1942, it was not until the Americans arrived to add their huge numbers to those of the British that the Western Allies achieved such a numerical superiority that they could start wearing down the Luftwaffe.
I really don't agree, IMHO You miss the qualitative progress of British AFs.
After all more than a couple comments.
Tyvärr I'm very busy in this week, maybe we can continue this argument later.
Juha
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