Which Units clashed with US. 4th FG in April 8. 1944?

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by Christer Bergström

Why? At this stage, the quality of the Luftwaffe was being worn down to a mere shadow of what it had once been.

In March 1944, the German Luftflotte Reich performed 3,672 combat sorties and lost 349 fighters. That equals a loss ratio of 9.4 %. (Prien, “JG 1/11”, p. 821)

These 3,672 combat sorties were flown against approximately 18,000 sorties by US 8th Air Force (including 8,773 heavy bomber missions; I don’t have totals for fighter escort missions, but usually by this time there were more escort fighters than heavy bombers on each mission), plus several thousand sorties over Germany and the Netherlands by the 15th AF and the RAF.

Christer - on March 1, 1944 there were two 9th AF (354 and 363) Mustang groups plus two 8th AF Mustang groups (357 and 4) that had two weeks and 2 days respectively of combat ops. These four groups were the only Allied escorts capable of going to Berlin and Munich areas. The two P-38 groups were capable of flying straight to Berlin and back but not while flying escort.

Over the next 30 days the 355th became operational and the 352nd started converting to P-51s.

That was the complete 8th/9th AF capability to protect 36 bomb groups from central Germany to Poland and Austria.

Net - there were Never more than two fighter groups to protect ALL the bombers within each Bomb Division (250-400 launched depending on mission), until after D-Day for a Berlin length mission.

Even if the Americans lost more aircraft than the number of Luftwaffe aircraft they were able to shoot down, the sheer numbers made the US losses have a less serious impact. Because of the large numbers of aircraft deployed on each mission by the Americans, the loss ratio in 8th AF heavy bombers was 3.3 % in March 1944, and in the US fighter units it was even lower. Such a loss ratio can be sustained by any air force without having any negative effect on the quality of the crews.

Luftwaffe fighter pilot losses in March 1944 alone reached nearly 22 % of pilots present on 29 February 1944. In February 1944, nearly 18 % of the pilots present on 31 January 1944 had been lost. The losses surpassed the replacements, so rookies had to leave their pilot training schools before their training was completed and were sent into action - against numerically superior Allied air forces. What you see when you read about 8 April 1944 is the effect of all of this.

BTW - read 4 FG's story here - the book is online:

http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrlove...ed/frames.html

On April 8, 1944 the 4th, 357th and 355th were the groups engaging the LW from Celle to Uelzen to Gifhorn. The 4th was in the largest of the battles focused primarily at Celle to Brunswick.

BTW the LW controllers were smart enough to NOT engage in force within range of the P-47 groups of the 9th and 8th AF - all of which basically constrained to Penetration and Withdrawal escort to and from the Stuttgart to Hannover radius. That number of 8th AF P-47 FG's was 6 1/2 (352nd converting in late March/mid April.

Net - the LW could direct 200-250 s/e fighters to any 100 square mile area they chose to be able to find undefended bomb groups, or lightly defended groups and could count on not having to engage more than one Mustang or Lightning group - worst case two - until summer of 1944.