Eastern vs Western Front (was: La-7 vs ???)

[Don Caldwell]

I'm afraid that this thread is too long and full of prejudiced posters shouting past each other for me to even read it in full. Juha is one of the few who have referred to published data (rather than opinions), but Groehler's table is not readily available from its original DDR source. I've taken his data, added some supplemental material and explanations, and posted it on http://jg26.vze.com. Scroll down the home page and click on the "Luftwaffe Aircraft Losses by Theatre" icon (I don't know why the URLs for the sub-pages don't show up.) This table has nothing whatsoever to do with the performance of the La-7 or Yak-3 (I've given up seeing these data on this thread), but shows the operational strengths and losses of the Luftwaffe on its various fronts in greater detail than found elsewhere, and many useful conclusions can be drawn from it. For example, it goes a long way to show why the few Jagdwaffe pilots who remained on the Ostfront were so "good" compared to their comrades in the RLV -- they survived long enuf to develop their skills!


Don