Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by drgondog

Paul - the P-47D was very important - having said that, critical German industry was well beyond the ability of P-47s to escort beyond Dummer Lake, west of Kassel, Stuttgart. ...

A point you raised about relatively low losses in the East during that same time frame should be expanded upon. Namely the East and the Sud fronts were seriously drained of experienced pilots and crews in late 1943 through spring 1944 to reinforce LuftFlotte Reich as it was being dominantly being chewed up by the Mustangs - until D-Day when the LW tried to augment the Invasion Front and was chewed up by RAF, 8th and 9th AF combined.

In general, the LW units tangling most with the Mustangs prior to D-Day were JG1, JG5, JG3, JG 11, JG 27, JG 53 with JG 51 periodically engaging to the east, JG 300, JG 301 plus ZG 26 and ZG 76. Overlap during Penetration and Withdrawal also included JG 2 and JG 26.

Bill,

Thank you for a very interesting post! Some of my thoughts follow below:

I entirely agree, and indeed defer to your superior knowledge, on the subject of the P-51's importance. I think it needs to be highlighted that the large-scale use of the Mustang was the final stage in the Luftwaffe's destruction and Germany had already lost the air war by early 1943, let alone spring 1944. The reason the 'retreat tactics' that you mentioned were in use is because the Luftwaffe could not hold its own within range of Allied fighters. As you correctly state, the Mustang turned this crisis into a disaster, since it was able to hunt and destroy German aircraft in their final refuge.

When considering the effectiveness of the Lightning, I think it needs to be mentioned that it was by far the highest performance twin-engined fighter of the war. In that sense, it was an incredible technical breakthrough, even the P-38F. I participated in a very interesting recent discussion on the Luftwaffe side of the forum on this topic, see http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/printt...?t=41714&pp=40 . In terms of ZG's being swept from the sky, II and III./ZG 1's experiences in the Mediterranean in early 1943 form a useful example. These units were rendered combat ineffective by superior allied technology before either the Thunderbolt or the Mustang entered combat.

I think the impact of the heavy bombers on attrition was quite substantial. It is difficult to separate out the losses caused by gunners for the reasons that you describe, but the Luftwaffe losses against unescorted missions were often quite heavy. This was completely without precedent in all the air battles that went before. The 50 caliber machine guns were particularly dangerous against those among the heavy fighters which weren't armed with stand-off weapons.

The numbers of German fighter losses onviously support your argument for 1944, but this is partly a product of increased German fighter deliveries, as you mentioned. It is fair to say that a German aircraft destroyed in 1942 was much more important than one destroyed in 1944, since by 1944 the Wehrmacht had substantially collapsed and lost both the strategic and operational initiative. Can you point to a good source on RAF escort operations? This is a somewhat peripheral point, but I have the impression that RAF escort units were somewhat less effective than USAAF ones, at least when operating over Norway.

I wholeheartedly agree on the question of the P-51's performance. I've never read a clear exposition on the vexed question of drag numbers, but it's obvious that the Mustang design was a breakthrough in this area. It wouldn't have been a very succesful fighter otherwise, because it had the same engine as the Spitfire and was very heavy compared to most fighters of the time. Another interesting side issue is why the Spitfire was never equipped with drop tanks in large numbers. Even the Luftwaffe used Bf 109Gs with tanks on a large scale, so the RAF was really quite far behind by the time the war ended.

The issue of fighter units draining away from the fighting fronts is extremely important. The process started on the Eastern Front in 1941, with the withdrawal of JG 27 to the Mediterranean. It then accelerated with the formation of new units in the West, for JG 1. By the time of operation Torch, the Mediterranean front was consuming parts of core Eastern Front Jagdgeschwader, like II./JG 51. Another important factor was that the West and later also the Mediterranean were the theatres where most of the higher-performance fighter types were concentrated, whether the Fw 190 or the higher-altitude sub-types of the Bf 109G. To summarise, the Eastern Front very quickly became a backwater after Torch, while the Mediterranean followed suit in late spring and summer 1943, with the destruction of German air power in Tunisia, Sicily and southern Italy.

To touch on the subject of the specific Luftwaffe units fighting the Mustangs, it is worth mentioning that some Jagdgeschwader, usually those with little experience in the West, suffered particularly heavy losses. I am thinking especially of JG3, but this was a wider phenomenon.

Regards,

Paul