Luftwaffe shared victories (was: Hartmann ....352 victories or 80?)

[Kapper]

Drgndog

I'll give you another thought on the slow start of some of the Luftwaffe experten.

During the early years of the war the new luftwaffe pilots flew wingman to the experienced pilots. As there was not much of a rotation system (some NCO's did 6 months tours of the ErgJagdgruppes) they had to wait their turn to lead a Kette thus little opportunity to make claims while protecting their leader. Therefore by the time they gained this opportunity they were very experienced pilots with 100+ mission but few claims. On the other hand, in the allied system the pilots were rotated thus a wingman became and element leader earlier in his carreer as the longer serving pilots were rested.

The Luftwaffe mentoring system produced a number of highly skilled pilots but these were not enough in number to cover the losses. Thus overall by 1944, apart from a few exceptions, I believe the allies were more experienced, better trained, better equipped and numerically superior.

I see the rotation system having one big advantage to the allies. When they expanded the size of their forces they had numerous pilots in training establishment, resting etc. with the relevant combat experience that could man the leader positions in the new squadrons. In 1944, when the Germans expanded their Gruppes from 3 to 4 Staffeln and increased the number of pilots in their Staffeln, they lacked the leaders to lead the units often transferring these from units on the Russian Front. A bit like the old saying 'robbing Peter to pay Paul'.

There are a 1000 issues that could be discusses. As you said entirely different eras and tactical environments.

Regards,

Craig...