[Ruy Horta]

Bill,

Thanks for reviving this older thread.

Your post is most constructive.

Incidentally I just finished Caldwell's and Muller's Defense of the Reich book (more on that still to come).

The combat entry of the Mustang (with the 8th AF) certainly marked a new point in the strategic air war, but I don't think it nor Big Week mark the real turning point. That seems to have come after Normandy.

The Jagdwaffe was always overstretched, after 1942 seldom capable of bringing up sufficient numbers to attain air superiority at any front. During the early phase of the Reichs defense (day) it was capable of waging a war of attrition, but it soon dropped behind losing qualified (pre-43) pilots faster than could be replaced.

There is a point during the battle over the Reich when the Jagdwaffe still knocks down a decent number of enemy heavies, but as a precentage of the increased air armadas their impact is shrinking fast. The Jagdwaffe at this stage has lost the production and training war. It can't bring up the number needed to maintain the same kind of pressure on the ever growing bomber fleet.

The Mustang certainly shrank the available airspace that the Jagdwaffe could control. It extended the range of escorted bomber sorties covering the all important oil targets. But I am still unconvinced that it was the key to this victory.

Arguably without the Mustang the 8th AF would have faced a more difficult struggle, but it could have absorbed the losses and the Thunderbolt was playing catch up. More Lightnings might eventually have done the job as well.

As long as the (numerically limited) Jagdwaffe kept concentrating on fighting the expanding US strategic (8th and 15th)bomber force, the expending US strategic fighter force was practically left to grow unchecked. Where they showed up (even when inferior in number) they basically held the initiative.

If the Jagdwaffe unit was lucky they still had light fighters (or even escorts) in their formation, if not they were handicapped by their specialized anti bomber equipment. As the nachwuchs Jagdwaffe pilots became more specialized in combatting bombers the easier they seem to have fallen to the escorts, like so many plums for the picking.

I'd venture as far as saying that the Jagdwaffe might have sustained a battle of attrition against unescorted US heavies, like they did against the RAF heavies in the night. But it could not fight the escorts as well, it was simply over stretching its limited numbers to the breaking point. However sustaining the battle and stopping the bombers from reaching and destroying their targets is not the same.

Der grosse Schlag might have worked in 1943 (at worst forcing them to join the RAF's night battle), but after that the US numbers were simply too overwhelming.

Although the qualitative breaking point is Normandy, the critical point is fall 1943, the strategic mistake 1940/41 (when the Jagdwaffe failed to grow and even shrunk!!). 1940 also the year of the "project" limitation.

Just some rambling from the ol' armchair ...