US Strategic Bombing Survey No59 - a questionable statement about 1-seat fighters production

[lritger]

Good morning gents,

Well, the more I look at other production planning and delivery documents from late 44/early 45, the less I understand about the Nov/Dec 1944 figures in R 3/1926, pg 88. Andrey's suggestion that they could possibly be projected delivery figures is probably the best assumption, but in order for that to be true, we would have to ignore all previous precedent in how Luftwaffe production targets were documented.

The entire report deals with the potential impact of a 25% cut in production targets across the entire German armaments industry for the Rüstungs-Notprogramm of Nov 1944, as a result of material shortages; a header sheet for the report and subsequent Anlagen is found on page 72, dated 9 Nov 44. On page 83 we find a line concerning the Bf 109; it lists the production deliveries in July, Aug, and Sept and they all match perfectly with the report on page 88. So far, so good. It also notes the decreased monthly delivery target from 450 (Altes Soll) to 300 (Neues Soll) monthly... the intent was to run out production of the 109 in favor of the 262 and Ta 152.

However, a separate report dated 30 Nov 1944 which projected fuel needs for 1945 lists something entirely different (see attached). This document, found in NARA T77-0032, lists a monthly "Ausbringung" (output or delivery) for all Luftwaffe types still in service as of that date, and the projected delivery totals in that document seem to be much more in line with previous monthly deliveries; Dec 44 shows an original projected count of 1426 Bf 109s, and a 25% reduction changes that target to 1070. January 45 went from 1850 to 1388, Feb 45 went from 1860 to 1395, etc. All of those numbers fit with the production numbers from the first half of 1944, and also show a gradual decrease through 1945 as 109 production is wound down in favor of more effective aircraft.



So I don't know if the projected figures in R 3/1926 were intended simply as a "trial balloon" or what... nothing seems to fit. The numbers for other aircraft in Nov and Dec 44 are entirely reasonable - 35 Ar 234s each month, 325 Me 262s in Nov and 500 in Dec (this makes sense in the context of what they were hoping to achieve), 17 Ju 388s in Nov and 20 in Dec... those all seem reasonable. So why in the world would the 109 and 190 counts be so wildly out of line with everything else? I don't know that we will ever get a good answer to this, but there are enough other documents out there to state that R 3/1926's projections for 109s in Nov/Dec 44 would have to be considered outliers.



But we have to at least consider whether the info in this doc somehow made it down to the troops, even in the vaguest of terms. (Yes, I know it says "Geheime Reichssache"). If we look at the distribution list for this report, no one from the Luftwaffe is on it! Look at R 3/1926 pg 74 and 75... the distribution list goes to OKW (Oberkommando Wehrmacht), GenStdH (Generalstab des Heeres), and so on. Seems like we can't entirely discount the possibility that Army leadership said "Hey guys, just hang on, we're going to be seeing thousands of Messerschmitts and Focke Wulfs ANY DAY NOW", setting an expectation which could never be met. (Again, this is merely a hypothesis based on the facts we know)

Anyways, it's a very interesting topic- Andrey, I appreciate you bringing this up!

Cheers,

Lynn