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Old 10th July 2015, 18:32
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Re: Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Thompson View Post
Bill,

I think it needs to be highlighted that the large-scale use of the Mustang was the final stage in the Luftwaffe's destruction and Germany had already lost the air war by early 1943, let alone spring 1944.

Paul - interesting postulation. So, RAF and AAF had free roam and air superiority in early 1943? But Casablanca conference named the "dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic system" , code name POINTBLANK , as the primary goal of the Combined Bomber Offensive' While the conference was in January 1943 POINTBLANK did not begin in earnest until June 1943. The 8th AF tailored POINTBLANK objectives after Schweinfurt -ct 14, 1943, re-organized in December-January, 1944 and issued the focused directive of Destroy the Luftwaffe in the air and on the ground" as an essential pre-cursor to OVERLORD. The Luftwaffe was certainly not 'defeated in the minds of USAAF or RAF as the political pressures almost forced 8th AF to stand down on daylight strategic raids and join the RAF at night. The Luftwaffe brought daylight incursions beyond P-47 range to a halt until a few in January and early February - until Big Week February 20-25, 1944

The reason the 'retreat tactics' that you mentioned were in use is because the Luftwaffe could not hold its own within range of Allied fighters. As you correctly state, the Mustang turned this crisis into a disaster, since it was able to hunt and destroy German aircraft in their final refuge.

I would personally 'fine tune' the comment to - The LW could not afford to trade losses with Allied air and the twin engine fighters simply could not survive - but deadly when unopposed.

When considering the effectiveness of the Lightning, I think it needs to be mentioned that it was by far the highest performance twin-engined fighter of the war. In that sense, it was an incredible technical breakthrough, even the P-38F. I participated in a very interesting recent discussion on the Luftwaffe side of the forum on this topic, see http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/printt...?t=41714&pp=40 . In terms of ZG's being swept from the sky, II and III./ZG 1's experiences in the Mediterranean in early 1943 form a useful example. These units were rendered combat ineffective by superior allied technology before either the Thunderbolt or the Mustang entered combat.

Yet the Zerstroyer Gruppe's remained effective defending eastern, southern and southeastern Reich out of range of the P-38s until the P-51B/C arrived in numbers . The P-38F was not effective in the ETO for at least three reasons. The Intercooler design was incapable of managing power demands in the very cold high altitudes of the ETO. The P-38J-15 and newer solved that (mostly). The P-38 was nearly 2X the size in area as the Bf 109. The 109 and 190 pilots could easily see them and make choices regarding tactics - fight or flee (not so with Mustang)' Last, the instant compressibility issue entering critical Mach from high speed level flight at 20K+ after entering a dive to chase German fighters was severe and while the 38J-25 had both dive flaps and boosted ailerons, the P-38 limit dive speed was still .68M - well below the 109 and 190 (and P-51/P-47). The F7F was superior but entered the war only in the PTO in last months of the war as a night fighter.

I think the impact of the heavy bombers on attrition was quite substantial. It is difficult to separate out the losses caused by gunners for the reasons that you describe, but the Luftwaffe losses against unescorted missions were often quite heavy. This was completely without precedent in all the air battles that went before. The 50 caliber machine guns were particularly dangerous against those among the heavy fighters which weren't armed with stand-off weapons.

I agree - but point back to Luftwaffe adapting tactics to retreat the twin engine day/night fighter interceptions to middle and deep Germany - which only the Mustang truly defeated based on tactical footprint in excess of the P-38 until the J-15 with the extra 110 gallons of fuel.

The numbers of German fighter losses onviously support your argument for 1944, but this is partly a product of increased German fighter deliveries, as you mentioned. It is fair to say that a German aircraft destroyed in 1942 was much more important than one destroyed in 1944, since by 1944 the Wehrmacht had substantially collapsed and lost both the strategic and operational initiative. Can you point to a good source on RAF escort operations? This is a somewhat peripheral point, but I have the impression that RAF escort units were somewhat less effective than USAAF ones, at least when operating over Norway.

The number of German aircraft destroyed was more important only in context of a.) the re-direct priorities which were later increased greatly by Milch in early 1943 - based primarily on Galland's and Speer's warnings concerning the potential threat of AAF Daylight bombing in late 1942, early 1943, and b.) loss of fighter pilots. If you look at TO&E of all Defense of the Reich units there are always a big % (10-20) unavailable for combat based on both damage as well as lack of replacements during the first half of 1944.

What I do agree on relative to 1940 through 1942 is that attrition of the talented core of the pre-war LW was heavily assaulted on all fronts. Ditto RAF and VVS but the replacement and training program for LW was inferior. Having said that, the squadrons diverted from OST and SUD from late summer 1943 through May 1944 were from experienced units. The Americans by contrast had superior flight training and conditions relative to new LW replacements but less combat experience.


I wholeheartedly agree on the question of the P-51's performance. I've never read a clear exposition on the vexed question of drag numbers, but it's obvious that the Mustang design was a breakthrough in this area. It wouldn't have been a very succesful fighter otherwise, because it had the same engine as the Spitfire and was very heavy compared to most fighters of the time. Another interesting side issue is why the Spitfire was never equipped with drop tanks in large numbers. Even the Luftwaffe used Bf 109Gs with tanks on a large scale, so the RAF was really quite far behind by the time the war ended.

[b]The Mustang began life with several advantages leading to an outstanding all purpose fighter . First the extremely low drag 45-100 laminar flow airfoil. It had only a slight increase in laminar flow boundary layer but the separation profile remained 'thin' to the maximum T/C at 45% (vs ~25% for conventional) and it had delayed shock wave formation and subsequent movement of center of pressure - it never really had much of a 'mach tuck pitching moment like the P-38 and P-47. Second - it Began life with all the fuel in the wings - and a Lot of it at 180 Gallons US, then 182, then 85 more in the aft fuselage for the P-51B/C/D/K after November 1943. The A-36 introduced bomb racks which also served as fuel link for external fuel tanks and adopted on P-51A/B/C/D/K/H. Last, the airframe design in context of second order curves[ for lines and the placement and design of the radiator/oil cooler intake to cause a rapid opening to slow the airflow down before hitting radiator, pass through the radiator to obtain heat energy and exit through a variable opening (i.e so called Meridith effect) dramatically reduced the drag compared to say the Spit or Bf 109 designs. The intro of the Merlin 1650-3 and -7 further added to the capability by maximizing performance at bomber altitudes wher the opponents were rapidly degrading/B]

The issue of fighter units draining away from the fighting fronts is extremely important. The process started on the Eastern Front in 1941, with the withdrawal of JG 27 to the Mediterranean. It then accelerated with the formation of new units in the West, for JG 1. By the time of operation Torch, the Mediterranean front was consuming parts of core Eastern Front Jagdgeschwader, like II./JG 51. Another important factor was that the West and later also the Mediterranean were the theatres where most of the higher-performance fighter types were concentrated, whether the Fw 190 or the higher-altitude sub-types of the Bf 109G. To summarise, the Eastern Front very quickly became a backwater after Torch, while the Mediterranean followed suit in late spring and summer 1943, with the destruction of German air power in Tunisia, Sicily and southern Italy.

Agreed - though I would characterize that more as withdrawal rather than destroyed - as the Allies captured ground.

To touch on the subject of the specific Luftwaffe units fighting the Mustangs, it is worth mentioning that some Jagdgeschwader, usually those with little experience in the West, suffered particularly heavy losses. I am thinking especially of JG3, but this was a wider phenomenon.

Also agreed. IMO another huge issue is that the LW high command emasculated LW units in the West by demanding that they 'only attack the bombers' That resulted in conserving Some LW pilots in a battle of attrition but the unforeseen, unplanned consequences were that raw US pilots with good flying skills gained rapid combat experience without extraordinary losses and encouraged incredible aggressiveness to attack, attack, attack.

Regards,

Paul
It has been good to debate Paul - we remain with differences of opinion but the actual metrics are hard to arrange given the fluidity of the air war.

My last closing point to emphasize the first one above about POINTBLANK. If the LW was destroyed by early to mid 1943 - why didn't RAF discontinue night raids, or US continue deep penetrations after the cumulative losses from Late July through October 14, 1943.

The US top commanders including Marshall, Arnold and Eisenhower bought into the logic posed by Eaker at Casablanca - because the ultimate objective was a successful OVERLORD, and as late as January 1944 the intelligence coming from Brit sources including ULTRA was that the LW strength was growing 'alarmingly' - hence Big Week combined with introduction of the new operational Mustang groups to augment 20th and 55th FG Lightning's.
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