Impact of Fw 190A introduction in the east

[FalkeEins]

David,

interesting assertions...a couple of thoughts

in the West by early-mid 1942 you have an almost unbroken 'chain' of Fw 190 units running from northern Germany down the Channel to the Atlantic coast, with numbers concentrated in a comparatively small area for specific operations ie Donnerkeil, Dieppe etc

Over Russia the Fw 190 was introduced piecemeal with the emphasis firstly on Staffel-size Jabo and then Schlacht units as you point out..

Nowotny’s Kaczmarek Karl “Quax” Schnörrer wrote the following about the northern sector in early 1943;

“ as a fighter pilot I was starting to get the unpleasant feeling that the aerial supremacy we had enjoyed would soon be a thing of the past. Everywhere you looked when flying over Russian lines there were unbroken columns of reinforcements and war materiel rolling towards the front lines. We flew daily Stuka escort sorties, always tangling with large groups of Russian fighters as we strove to clear the skies teeming with enemy aircraft. I recall on one occasion that Nowotny’s Schwarm ran into 50 –60 Russian fighters and we were quickly surrounded..."