Luftwaffe fighter losses in Tunisia

[Six Nifty .50s]

Originally Posted by Christer Bergström

Please, what we are talking about here is the air war in Tunisia in January 1943.

SixNifty tells us that the Luftwaffe had problems with fuel shortage in Egypt on 1 August 1942 - not only 1,350 miles from northern Tunisia, not only half a year before the situation which we are discussing, but in a completely different situation. . . It is common knowledge that the Afrikakorps was completely starved on fuel in the summer and autumn of 1942.

Then Six Nifty tells us that German tanks had problems with fuel shortage in eastern Libya (“area Agheila - El Mugtaa “) on 12 December 1942. Yes, we all knew that too. But that is 850 miles from the place we are talking about. . .That doesn't either have anything to do with the supply situation in northern Tunisia in January 1943.

Then why did you quote fighter losses for the Mediterranean Theatre of operations? Your original statement was:

Due to “Flugzeugbestand und Bewegungsmeldungen” and the daily returns to Generalquartiermeister der Luftwaffe, the Luftwaffe fighter units in the Mediterranean sustained the following aircraft losses in air combat in January 1943:

II./JG 2: 2
JG 27: 0
II./JG 51: 7
JG 53: 8
JG 77: 15

Total sum: 32.

If you wanted to limit the discussion to only the planes based in Northern Tunisia or operating over Northern Tunisia, you should have been more specific. Not everyone has a map available showing all German air bases in the Mediterranean Theatre as of January 1943.