Luftwaffe Myths

[Franek Grabowski]

Originally Posted by Ruy Horta

As for the Jagdwaffe on the Eastern Front, the pickings might have been relatively easy in the first half of the conflict, but the gap was soon filled as quality of Russian aircraft and tactics improved, achieving parity in 1943 and to some extend superiority in 1944/45. That's without the numbers game, which adds another dimension. The only luxury that the Jagdwaffe maintained for almost the entire duration of the fighting over the Eastern Front was tactical initiative.

Very risky thesis. Jagdwaffe still had an edge on the eastern front, but most of the units were withdrawn for air defence. Most engagements over Poland were against ground attack Focke Wulfs.

In the ETO this initiative was generally lost during the latter half of 1943 and thus changed the manner in which the Jagdwaffe could operate significantly.

Since 1941 in ETO the initiative was British (Allied) and Jagdwaffe did not took opportunity to learn to achieve goals and not kills.

Originally Posted by Csaba Becze

In my humble opinion, calling the Luftwaffe's bomber arm as 'medicore' only because they were not able to retaliate in 1943/44 with the same strength as the British did is entirely wrong, since these were pointless raids and just waste of resources and crews+aircraft.
Or if we are talking about Bomber Command (I assume, you suggest, that if German bomber arm was 'medicore', they fared much better?) In the first half of the war their night accuracy was especially bad and after they noticed their continuous fails, they had turned against larger area targets.
What did Bomber Command achieve with ruining the German cities? Did they destroy the German industry? No, they didn't. Did they cut back the German industrial performance considerably? No, they didn't. Did they broke the morale of the German citizens? No, they didn't. What they had destroyed were mostly not industrial or military targets, but residential areas with their owners (i.e. mass killing civilians) Was it a great military success? I wouldn't say that... And they paid a very high price for it (very high personnel and aircraft losses and the British economy partly crippled because of this very expensive 'experiment')

Csaba
I suggest you to visit Nordhausen or SW Poland and inspect underground factories. They were bloody expensive and time consuming. You would not tell me they were build not because of Allied raids, would you? How about involvement of dosens of thousands Flak soldiers, but also fire fighters, medicians and all other people needed to provide help and support. Even if not all of them were fit for frontline service, it was still a 'waste' of human resources, so badly needed elsewhere. Last but not least, BC campaign was directly based on very own experience from the Blitz. Do not be blinded by propaganda.