Eastern vs Western Front (was: La-7 vs ???)

[Christer Bergström]

It was apparently enough three weeks to decimate Luftwaffe in Normandy.

Luftflotte 3 fighter strength (source: Prien, “JG 1/11”, p. 1004):

10 June 1944: 475 (290 serviceable)
26 June 1944: 529 (251)
20 July 1944: 509 (302)
20 August 1944: 581 (344)

“I suppose that by the end of the year Allied numerical superiority in France was tremendous.”

Actually, in December 1944, in sheer numbers the Allied numerical superiority was less strong that it had been in June 1944. That had two major reasons:

a) The Western Allied failure to bring the German aircraft production to a halt through their bombing raids.

b) The German scrapping of the B flight schools and the radically shortened flight training schemes, which allowed the Germans to bring a very large number of inadequately trained pilots into first-line service.

It also is a fact that in the main battle days in December 1944 the Western Allied air forces sustained a loss rate in the West which was worse than ever encountered at Normandy the previous summer. These are the figures for the 9th AF on 23 December 1944: 58 medium bombers and fighter-bombers were shot down while 624 sorties were flown - a 9.3 % loss rate! On 24 December 1944, the Allies performed 5,000 sorties in the West and lost 94 aircraft - almost a 2 % loss rate.

The Allied loss rate on D Day was 1.1 %, and the average loss rate was 0.6 % during the whole air war over France June - August 1944.

However, In January 1945, the Allied numerical superiority in the West suddenly exploded into astronomical proportions - when the vast majority of the Luftwaffe was shifted to the Eastern Front, leaving only a fuel-starved tiny number tasked to operate against the RAF and the USAAF.

All best,

Christer Bergström