JG26's VERY late war performance...

[NickM]

Originally Posted by FalkeEins

..ie JG 26 wins the propaganda war by default....
but for the period after Bodenplatte there's only one JG worth talking about, only one JG putting numbers of aircraft in the air approaching their theoretical strength ...and that's JG 300 of course..
after all for the period you wish to consider the war in west was effectively over ...the Soviets were on the Oder by mid-end January 45 and even sortieing against USAAF bomber raids was to take a back seat to throwing everything east...

Yes but I was specifically speaking of JGs who lent what support they could to the Army---and I TOTALLY forgot that MOST JGs (Presumably: 1,3,4,5,6,11 & 77)were transferred to the East to do what they could THERE---as I recall all that remained in the West flying the 'tactical war' were JGs 2, 26, 27 & 53;

NM

[Don Caldwell]

Nick --

Your question as you have refined it (the relative 1945 performance of the Jagdgruppen on the Westen Front) is a very interesting one, one that can ALMOST be answered with published data. IMHO, the performance of fighter units as pure fighters (offensive or defensive) in a given theater during a given period of the war can be compared using four metrics: combat sorties, claims/sortie, losses/sortie, and the claim/loss ratio. I don't think adequate sortie data exist, but a table of claim and loss totals for the Gruppen of JG 2, JG 26, JG 27, JG 53, and III/JG 54 would be useful. Losses are tabulated in the UHs of Federl, Caldwell, Prien, Prien, and Urbanke respectively. Claims are available in the same sources for all units but JG 2. I'm sure the JG 2 claim data exist in Germany, probably with Jochen Prien's team and most likely with Winfried Bock. I know Jochen reads this forum from time to time. If someone will get me a list of 1945 JG 2 claims, I'll prepare a table comparing all of the Western Front Jagdgruppen and post it on the JG 26 website. And no, I have no preconceived idea of what the data will show.

Horrido!

Don