I have just written a new analysis of Luftwaffe resource distribution - it is on Michael Holm's website

[kalender1973]

Originally Posted by Dan History

Kalender, thank you for your praise and let me outline my reasoning:

1. The Luftwaffe suffered considerable losses of aircraft and personnel before the German invasion of the USSR. See Table 10 on Page 23 for details. This materially eased the burden on Soviet defenders in 1941.

On the other hand the Luftwaffe cumulate so huge experience in 1939-40, what allow quite to eliminate the huge soviet air force in first weeks of Barbarossa. E.g. "nobody" Barkhorn has more than 100 mission against France and England.

By the way, the losses are not the problem, the problem is the ability to replace the losses. After some missions of 8 AF in 1944 the some 1500 flying personl was lost. On the next day the new 1500 man were ready for duty.

And the LW was able to replace the losses .

Originally Posted by Dan History

2. Even when the Luftwaffe had concentrated most of its resources in the East, in the second half of 1941, the RAF and Commonwealth air forces inflicted substantial losses on the Luftwaffe. In consequence, the Eastern front accounted for just 25% of total German aircraft losses from the outbreak of the war in Europe until the end of 1941. See Table 11 for the details. Thank you for drawing attention to the fact that the Commonwealth air forces were involved.

25% for so short time interval is outstanding performance in my eyes

Originally Posted by Dan History

3. You made the observation that I wanted people to make, that German losses were quite evenly divided between East and West from mid-1941 to the end of 1943. This is not the whole story, of course. Table 13 shows that three-fifths of the single-engine fighters were destroyed in the West, and almost all night fighters. The German war effort was very precariously balanced and its central component was air superiority, which was maintained by the fighter force. Therefore, the defeat of the German fighter force in the West was of critical importance to the survival of the USSR, relieving the pressure of German air power on the Soviet armed forces.

Why you speak the whole tme about fighters? Fascinateted from air combat? Do you understand the fighters play in german plans more supporting role und main decisive force which have much more attention of LW leadership was bomber fleet? Why do you think, the Kampfflieger in the WW I was the fighter pilot and in the WW II was the bomber pilot? Because the bomber fleet was in the LW definition "Haupträger des Kampfes" - decisive fighting force. which in cooperation with ground forces allow the reach the key target in german offensive operations. Do you think 100-200 figther does play any role, especialy in battle in Moscow or Stalingrad? Do you imagine, what for climatical condition was in november-december 1941, 42? How long is the day light in winter? I would say two hundred more german figthers in Stalingrad and 200 fewer Transport planes would be allowed the end the war may be one year earlier as real happened

Originally Posted by Dan History

Take a look at Table C-2 on page 51 as well, when the non-operational losses are included, the importance of the fighting in the West is drawn into even sharper focus. I believe that this measure of losses, including non-operational ones, is the most useful, because non-operational losses were a consequence of combat. Without the pressure of combat operations, non-operational losses would have been much lower, so it is eminently reasonable to add non-operational losses to operational ones.

Kind regards,
Dan

Why do you believe, the non-operational losses are result of combat?

[Ruy Horta]

Just out of curiosity, did the results of your study lead you to your conclusions, or did you want to proof your point by using statistics?

[Dan History]

Originally Posted by Ruy Horta

Just out of curiosity, did the results of your study lead you to your conclusions

Hello Ruy,

I am happy to see the father of the House contribute to the thread. The motivation for writing my study was to make history as an undertaking scientific and rigorous. The aim of history should be to present systematic information about the course of events, and then to use this information to analyse the causes and consequences of the events described.

What I did in my work is set out how the Luftwaffe's resources were distributed, to the extent that I was able given the limitations of the accessibility of original documents and the problem that only a small proportion has survived. In the introduction on Michael Holm's website, I briefly summarised the conclusions I was able to reach after analysing the information I had collected. It would be most appropriate to collect more information on such subjects as the number of sorties flown by the Luftwaffe in each theatre and the deliveries of aircraft to frontline units, to extend the conclusions reached and add greater specificity to the information available at the moment. I would be very glad if other members contributed to the search for additional information. I plan to write further pieces on the subject in the immediate future.

Kind regards,

Dan

[Dan History]

Originally Posted by kalender1973

On the other hand the Luftwaffe cumulate so huge experience in 1939-40

Hello kalender, I will finally reply to your follow-up message below:

The experience of Luftwaffe aircrew and replacement of losses

As I have commented to Andrey above, it is difficult to sustain the idea that the Luftwaffe did not suffer from losing so many experienced aircrew in the period from 1939 to June 1941. The example of Barkhorn, who was a fighter pilot at the outbreak of war, illustrates the depth of quality personnel in the pre-war Luftwaffe. As Larry de Zeng and Doug Stankey's database shows, he joined the Luftwaffe in March 1937 - http://www.ww2.dk/LwOffz%20%20A-F%202017.pdf . Most pilots who entered the Luftwaffe during the war did not receive nearly as much training. There were exceptions, like Hartmann, who was sent to the Eastern Front only two years after joining the Luftwaffe, but such exceptions prove the rule.

A comparison of the Luftwaffe with the USAAF is inappropriate, especially by 1944, because the USA was the dominant military and industrial power of the Second World War. The Americans could train enormous numbers of aircrew without any restrictions on consumption of aviation fuel and very few limits on flying hours, something which was impossible for the Luftwaffe. What my study shows, on pages 26 and 47, is that once the USAAF effectively employed a large proportion of its strength against the Luftwaffe from April 1943 onwards, German losses became unsustainable. This is can be observed from many other sources, for example the recently published third volume of the excellent Mediterranean Air War series.

Luftwaffe losses in 1941

You correctly observed that the Luftwaffe sustained considerable losses in a short time during Operation Barbarossa, but this was a unique series of events. As the loss data shows, the Luftwaffe did not experience the high daily losses of June-July 1941 again, at least until the end of 1943.

The importance of fighters compared to other types

The issue is that, as I wrote on page 10, "single-engine fighters were the nearly exclusive means of destroying enemy aircraft in air combat and thus attaining air superiority". Therefore, even though you are right to emphasise that the close air support and battlefield interdiction roles were performed by other aircraft, the fighters were the most important element of the force. Given the profound impact that even small numbers of German fighters had on the Eastern front, it is entirely possible that just one or two hundred more fighters could have significantly affected the outcome of the Battle of Moscow or Stalingrad. For example, at Stalingrad, an even greater deficit of transport aircraft would have accelerated the collapse of 6 Army, but strengthened frontline fighter units would have made it much more difficult for the Red Army to conduct an advance westwards into Ukraine. Soviet air force operations, haphazard as they were, did seriously affect German defensive operations, so the presence of more units like the Platzschutzstaffel Pitomnik would have eased the burden on German ground forces considerably.

Non-operational losses

The reason that it is best to treat non-operational losses together with operational losses is that these combined to reduce the strength of units at the front. Strictly speaking, it is difficult to separate the two loss categories, since it was sometimes impossible to determine whether a particular loss was operational or non-operational. Furthermore, some non-operational losses, such as crashes on transfer flights between airfields, could have been caused by combat fatigue or other reasons directly connected to operations. Presenting operational and non-operational losses together gives an overall picture of atrittion in a given theatre of operations.

Kind regards,

Dan