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Hello Christer
I see Your point, but quality is always rather dificult object to value objectively and anyway IMHO you overestimate the influence of some exeptional individuals in "Materialschlacht". I think that Your "Super-veteran" theory is an interesting hypotesh but I haven't see anything that would proven it in the sense that it would have historical importance.
I can recall only one very clear test case, that was the Tunisian campaign. JG 77 and II/JG 51, both of which had their fair share of top Experten, were transferred from East to Tunisia as were a Gruppe from JG 2 and 2? Gruppen of JG 53 (I have not checked the units). One of their major opponents (USAAF) was inexperienced, used fighter a/c that You don't value much (P-39 and -40) or that was still a bit inmature (early P-38s with insufficent intercoolers and w/o dive recovery flaps) and some Spit Vs. The other main opponents main fighter was Spit V, which IIRC You thing was not as good as the Bf 109G-2 which was the a/c with which the Eastern Gruppen were equipped. The end result was that the remaints of the LW Gruppen fleeing at wave-top height with schwartzemann or two in rear fuselage towards Sicily hoping that the marauding Allied fighters didn't catch them. I don't know if JG 77 and II/JG 51 were more efficient than the other Gruppen. Have to wait until the new edition of Shore's et al. book hits the shelves. I know that they gave a good account on themselves but that didn't change the way the things went. It doesn't matter historically if the Allied lost 50 - 100 a/c more or if the campaign took a few weeks longer because of the alleged higher quality of Eastern Front Jagdgruppen. In most that would be only a detail in greater story. This test case makes me very sceptical on "super-veteran" theory. Later the "super-veterans" would have met much more experienced USAAF equipped with better a/c, I think that there were a bigger qualitative leap from P-40F to P-51D than from G-2 to G-6/G-10. And same for RAF ( from Spit V to Spit IX/XIV or to Tempest).
My knowledge on Tunisia campaign is limited on a couple of articles by Shores and on few articles on USAAF actions there plus what the JG 51 unit history tells and something else. But Reinert's and Bär's actions are familiar to me. I have no fixed oppinion on it or on anything else on air war. Before reading first time Williamson Murray's LW I thought that the Eastern Front was more important in air war than what I think now. After reading Murray some 20 years ago I began to think that the impact of Med theatre has been underestimated, at least outside the British Commonwealth. Another thing that surprised me was that the famous Kuban actions (known through Progress Publishing) didn't show more clearly in the loss tables.
äGraham Boak mentioned the other fronts Western Allies fought. I only want to add that with the resources put on
a battleship or an aircraft carrier with its air group or an destroyer division one could manufacture lots of a/c, tanks guns etc. So the Pacific was a significant drain to Allied economies. Same goes to night fighters. Yes, night air war was different but it also drained resources from day air war. A Bf 110 in a NJG was away from a ZG or means at least a couple fewer Bf 109s in a JG, in that sense I feel that they should be taken to equation.
"...When the Soviets came across a German aircraft over Kuban, there was a big probability that it would be a non-fighter - and with a numerical superiority."
Of course that is true, but in 1943 only in Jan the LW losses were bigger at Eastern Front than against the Western Allies and during the Kuban air campaign the losses for all a/c were (Murray again, same page)
East April 43 238, May 331 or 333 (the losses in all fronts are so same that it's impossible to say for sure)
West Apr 255, May 331 or 333
Med Apr 572, May 331 or 333
And IMHO this should have made the air victories easier, I mean that I think it was easier to shoot down a couple of Ju 87s than a Bf 109. And IMHO that shows that the Germans thought that the Med was a more dangerous theathre than the Eastern Front and made their air forces there more fighter heavy. There were of course also other factors in action. IIRC the LW at beginning tried to manage without fighters in Africa, relying to Italian fighters, but that didn't work.
On one earlier point. I don't think that the wartime propaganda had a big influence on the opinions of Eastern Front veterans. They might have believed it first but usually if the propaganda differ from one's personal experiences one began to doubt the propaganda, not his personal experiences. If one fought against a good pilot in a good a/c he probably stop thinking his opponents as untermenschen or monkeys. Same happened to the Aussie pilots in Malaya in 41-42.
But I agree with You that there at least were a tendency to underestimate the impact of Eastern Front in some parts of the air war enthusiasts in USA and in British Commonwealth and also the skills of Soviet pilots and the quality of Soviet a/c. But as I had wrote before, for example AE/AI articles gave truthful appraissals on Soviet a/c rather early on. But of course there are room to more books on Eastern Front Air war.
Juha
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