Allied air superiority in 1944: P-47 D Razorback decided it?

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by drgondog

Paul - interesting postulation. So, RAF and AAF had free roam and air superiority in early 1943? But Casablanca conference named the "dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic system" , code name POINTBLANK , as the primary goal of the Combined Bomber Offensive' While the conference was in January 1943 POINTBLANK did not begin in earnest until June 1943. The 8th AF tailored POINTBLANK objectives after Schweinfurt -ct 14, 1943, re-organized in December-January, 1944 and issued the focused directive of Destroy the Luftwaffe in the air and on the ground" as an essential pre-cursor to OVERLORD. The Luftwaffe was certainly not 'defeated in the minds of USAAF or RAF as the political pressures almost forced 8th AF to stand down on daylight strategic raids and join the RAF at night. The Luftwaffe brought daylight incursions beyond P-47 range to a halt until a few in January and early February - until Big Week February 20-25, 1944

The Allies did not yet have complete air superiority at the start of 1943, I may have over-emphasised this point! In the Mediterranean, the RAF did have something close to air dominance over western Libya and the USAAF had air superiority over eastern Algeria. The evolution of the situation over the course of 1943 can be tracked using data on page 143 of Ted Hooton’s ‘The Luftwaffe’ lists the following numbers of Luftwaffe losses to enemy action in the Western Mediterranean:
Q1 1943: 448
Q2 1943: 677
Q3 1943: 1,114
Q4 1943: 261
In short, once Allied air power had an established network of airfields around Tunisia, the Luftwaffe was rapidly obliterated and was to withdraw most of its forces out of Italy.

The Allied tactical operations in the West were largely uncontested even in early 1943. To use Ted Hooton’s book again, the RAF’s fighters flew 80,780 sorties in 1943 for the loss of just 554 aircraft (page 227). Pointblank and the various changes in plans affected mostly the strategic air forces, while the tactical forces were having plenty of success even before the directive was formulated, let alone implemented. There is a significant point about Allied casualty aversion to be made in this context. Eisenhower said that he would never have attempted the D Day landings without complete air dominance, which is best seen as a political, rather than a military requirement. Air dominance guaranteed low Allied casualty rates in all but the most exceptional cases. The body of historical writing does not make this explicit, but it is clear that Allied military and political leaders were not prepared to take the risk of suffering high casualty rates, even if these brought more rapid military success. A comparison of Allied casualties with the German casualties during the Wehrmacht’s offensives in 1940-1942 serves to underline this point. This is a very big topic which needs its own study, so to bring the discussion back to air force matters, the key point is that the RAF and USAAF sought and obtained a margin of superiority far in excess of what was strictly necessary for victory.

Originally Posted by drgondog

I would personally 'fine tune' the comment to - The LW could not afford to trade losses with Allied air and the twin engine fighters simply could not survive - but deadly when unopposed.

I agree. One quibble, the twin engine fighters only became really effective quite late, around the time of Schweinfurt. As a result, they did not have much time to enjoy success, since the Mustangs arrived soon after.

Originally Posted by drgondog

Yet the Zerstroyer Gruppe's remained effective defending eastern, southern and southeastern Reich out of range of the P-38s until the P-51B/C arrived in numbers . The P-38F was not effective in the ETO for at least three reasons. The Intercooler design was incapable of managing power demands in the very cold high altitudes of the ETO. The P-38J-15 and newer solved that (mostly). The P-38 was nearly 2X the size in area as the Bf 109. The 109 and 190 pilots could easily see them and make choices regarding tactics - fight or flee (not so with Mustang)' Last, the instant compressibility issue entering critical Mach from high speed level flight at 20K+ after entering a dive to chase German fighters was severe and while the 38J-25 had both dive flaps and boosted ailerons, the P-38 limit dive speed was still .68M - well below the 109 and 190 (and P-51/P-47). The F7F was superior but entered the war only in the PTO in last months of the war as a night fighter.

I agree here as well. It’s interesting to speculate whether the success of the Zerstorer units delayed the introduction of the Sturmbock concept, which would also prove successful for a time. Your analysis of the P-38’s flaws is very interesting, I would say they weren’t fully solved until the P-38L. As for the F7F, it was much like the de Havilland Hornet, a great aircraft which arrived far too late to be of any use. These two, the Twin Mustang and similar aircraft should be seen as part of the post-war generation of piston-engined designs. They certainly were a little too much for any Luftwaffe fighter to deal with.

Originally Posted by drgondog

I agree - but point back to Luftwaffe adapting tactics to retreat the twin engine day/night fighter interceptions to middle and deep Germany - which only the Mustang truly defeated based on tactical footprint in excess of the P-38 until the J-15 with the extra 110 gallons of fuel.

That’s right, of course. The other side of the coin is that once the Luftwaffe withdrew, it had no ability to come back and defend north-west Europe, so in that sense largely uncontested Allied landings were possible even in mid-1943.

Originally Posted by drgondog

The number of German aircraft destroyed was more important only in context of a.) the re-direct priorities which were later increased greatly by Milch in early 1943 - based primarily on Galland's and Speer's warnings concerning the potential threat of AAF Daylight bombing in late 1942, early 1943, and b.) loss of fighter pilots. If you look at TO&E of all Defense of the Reich units there are always a big % (10-20) unavailable for combat based on both damage as well as lack of replacements during the first half of 1944.

What I do agree on relative to 1940 through 1942 is that attrition of the talented core of the pre-war LW was heavily assaulted on all fronts. Ditto RAF and VVS but the replacement and training program for LW was inferior. Having said that, the squadrons diverted from OST and SUD from late summer 1943 through May 1944 were from experienced units. The Americans by contrast had superior flight training and conditions relative to new LW replacements but less combat experience.

I would put the emphasis slightly differently here. Having lost the ability to contest Allied strength almost everywhere, Milch and company finally decided to concentrate on fighters. This gave them an impressive numerical strength over Germany, for a while. However, this was a strictly limited achievement because the quality of these units was low.

The Luftwaffe’s attrition became unsustainable in late September 1940, because formation leaders had largely come from the pre-war air force. The RAF was in a considerably better position, at least in Fighter Command, because it stood on the defensive. In the 1940-1942 period, the RAF emphasised training and new technology, while the Soviet air force simply focused on production. As a result, the Luftwaffe could cope successfully with the large numbers of badly trained Il-2 and Yak pilots on the Eastern front, at least for a time. In the West, the combination of improved Spitfires and well-trained pilots was much more dangerous. In my judgement, by 1943 no German unit could truly be considered experienced, because of the effects of accumulated attrition. I would go so far as to say that Lincoln’s comment before Bull Run can be applied here to the early USAAF-Luftwaffe contest, “you are all green alike”.

Originally Posted by drgondog

Agreed - though I would characterize that more as withdrawal rather than destroyed - as the Allies captured ground.

That’s true to an extent, but for example on Sicily and in southern Italy hundreds of aircraft were lost or abandoned, with very being withdrawn intact.

Originally Posted by drgondog

Also agreed. IMO another huge issue is that the LW high command emasculated LW units in the West by demanding that they 'only attack the bombers' That resulted in conserving Some LW pilots in a battle of attrition but the unforeseen, unplanned consequences were that raw US pilots with good flying skills gained rapid combat experience without extraordinary losses and encouraged incredible aggressiveness to attack, attack, attack.

This issue is very important, thank you for mentioning it. Part of the reason is that they did not know what to do with the heavy bombers. Galland and Goering’s reaction to the B-17s over Sicily in 1943 is instructive, neither one had any idea what to do about these bomber formations.

Originally Posted by drgondog

It has been good to debate Paul - we remain with differences of opinion but the actual metrics are hard to arrange given the fluidity of the air war.

My last closing point to emphasize the first one above about POINTBLANK. If the LW was destroyed by early to mid 1943 - why didn't RAF discontinue night raids, or US continue deep penetrations after the cumulative losses from Late July through October 14, 1943.

It has indeed been a pleasure to discuss this! I will try to dig out some of the metrics when I write my own work.

The Luftwaffe night success against Bomber Command was extraordinary, even more so than Schweinfurt-Regensburg. There is a long set of issues about RAF and USAAF policy to discuss here, but to summarise my view, the Allies managed to find the only strong point the Luftwaffe had! If Allied strategic air power was melded with the tactical forces more effectively, the results could well have been different.

Regards,

Paul

[NickM]

Dog this quote of yours got my attention:

" or Dr. Prien's extensive LW staffel histories..."

I am aware of his Geschwader histories, but I am not familiar with these. Can you enlighten?

Thanks ahead of time.

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by NickM

Dog this quote of yours got my attention:

" or Dr. Prien's extensive LW staffel histories..."

I am aware of his Geschwader histories, but I am not familiar with these...

Hello Nick,

I think I can legitimately intervene here. Prien's Jagdfliegerverbände is the work Bill referred to. Jastas or Jagdstaffeln is the First World War terminology, as in the following book - http://www.amazon.com/The-Jasta-Pilo.../dp/1898697477 . I apologise if all of the foregoing is self-evident.

Regards,

Paul

[GuerraCivil]

Has there been studies of at what point LW dayfighter losses started to be clearly bigger than the number of downed Allied planes in the West? I think that the crucial point was achieved latest by early 1944 when Luftwaffe´s dayfighter losses were bigger than the combined losses by Allied daybombers and their escort fighters.

For example the verified combat records of 20.2.1944 in West (Reich Defence) show that Germans lost in that day 78 dayfighters (of which 53 single-engined) whereas Allied day losses were 21 heavy bombers and only 4 fighters. Things were only little better at the same air front on 24.2.1944 when Germans lost 53 dayfighters and Allied 44 heavy bombers and 10 fighters. The numbers show that Germans were losing the sky of Western Europe in daylight - the trend was already decisively toward bigger air combat losses of Germans and diminishing losses of Allied.

By January/February 1944 the German dayfighters had already abandoned the "finger four" formations in West (Defence of Reich) because there were not enough experienced pilots to keep "finger four" working and "schwarm" leaders had to keep more eye on unexperienced wingmen. This reduced to considerable degree the combat efficiency of German dayfighter formations.

My impression is that P-47´s were still more numerous dayfighter force in 8th USAAF by February 1944 and with drop tanks Thunderbolts could penetrate quite deeply over Germany. The P-51 B was of course even better as it could practically make "free hunt" almost overall of Germany but by Feb/March 1944 it was probably still the P-47 with drop tanks that made most of the job. The decisive defeat trend of Luftwaffe´s dayfighter force had been already settled before large numbers of P-51´s appeared to make things even worse for the Germans.

The P-47 started the downfall of Luftwaffe dayfighter force and P-51 finished the job. P-38, Spitfire and some other types contributed also but perhaps in lesser extent (limited numbers and Spitfire having the limitation of short range).

Of course the big picture was that Luftwaffe was hopelessly overstreched already by late 1942/early 1943 - just too many fronts to be handled effectively with limited resources: Defence of Reich, Mediterranean front, Eastern front. With more limited resources than the global Allied effort the Germans were destined to lose the war at all fronts.

Also the technological race was against Germans once Allied catched up. The Bf 109 F and FW 190 A were in late 1941/early 1942 the best fighters in the world, but by late 1942/early 1943 they were already catched by the Allied who could put in combat at all fronts equally good types (Spitfire IX, P-47, La 5) and develop even superior ones (P-51). The Bf 109 G and later A-models of FW 190 were not good enough to meet the challenge of improved Allied fighters.

Still in 1943 the sky over Northwestern Europe was quite effectively controlled by Luftwaffe and by that time it was yet able to inflict more aircraft losses to enemy than it suffered. For example the famous JG 26 made in Western front 380 air victory claims with the price of 158 pilots lost and even in 1944 it was still able to claim 668 air victories (the highest annual score of the unit during the war) for the loss of 300 pilots.

If the Defence of Reich would have been the only front where large numbers of German dayfighters were needed, it would have taken much more time from US/British combined efforts to achieve air dominance and win the war.

[Juha]

Originally Posted by GuerraCivil

...Still in 1943 the sky over Northwestern Europe was quite effectively controlled by Luftwaffe and by that time it was yet able to inflict more aircraft losses to enemy than it suffered. For example the famous JG 26 made in Western front 380 air victory claims with the price of 158 pilots lost and even in 1944 it was still able to claim 668 air victories (the highest annual score of the unit during the war) for the loss of 300 pilots. ...

Eh how those figures showed that LW or even JG 26 inflicted more a/c losses to enemy than it suffered? Fighting over areas controlled by Germany means that LW lost many more fighters than pilots and victory claims were just claims, i.e enemy losses were in reality smaller than the claimed number.

Juha

[Bill Walker]

Originally Posted by GuerraCivil

Has there been studies of at what point LW dayfighter losses started to be clearly bigger than the number of downed Allied planes in the West? I think that the crucial point was achieved latest by early 1944 when Luftwaffe´s dayfighter losses were bigger than the combined losses by Allied daybombers and their escort fighters.

I think the math is a little more complicated than that. you also need to look at the ability of each air force to replace losses, both airframes and air crew, and the ability to operate their forces (fuel for example). By 1942 Churchill was quite happy to trade plane for plane with the Luftwaffe in daylight fighter sweeps over the continent, because he believed the UK could replace losses faster than the Luftwaffe.

The German industry showed amazing resilience late in the war in terms of numbers of airframes built. There is much information on the lack of fuel for the Luftwaffe late in the war, but I would like to hear any information on Germany's ability to replace air crews in the times being discussed. From the other side, the BCATP was turning out too many pilots by mid 1944, and schools in Canada were being shut down in the last half of 1944.

[GuerraCivil]

Luftwaffe could win big air battles in West yet in 1943 and up to early 1943 I think it could replace more or less its losses. The combat skills of average LW fighter were still decent which can be seen by numerical "kill/loss" -stats. For example the following have been verified by the loss records of both sides (AFAIK):
- the bombing of Münster on 10.10.1943: USAAF losses 37 heavy bombers and 1 fighter, LW losses 25 fighters.
- the bombing of Schweinfurt on 14.10.1943: USAAF losses 60 heavy bombers, LW losses 33 fighters. Admittedly these figures were possible due to limited range of P-47 fighter escorts at the time.

One could argue that a loss of heavy bomber was a bigger loss for USAAF than a loss of single fighter for Luftwaffe. If heavy bomber was lost over German controlled area, its whole aircrew was usually lost whereas LW fighter pilots could parachute in safety or make forced landing at own territory.

Fighter vs. fighter -combats in 1943 went not so badly for Germans when verifying the claims comparing the loss records of both sides of same combat - just few examples (Caldwell 1991: Top Guns of Luftwaffe):
- 15.4.1943 JG 1 vs. USAAF 4 PG: 2 lost Thunderbolts, German losses nil
- 13.6.1943 JG 26 vs. USAAF 78 PG: 2 lost Thunderbolts, German losses nil
- 26.6.1943 JG 26 vs. USAAF 56 PG: 5 lost Thunderbolts, German losses nil.

Perhaps the best recognition of Luftwaffe´s fighter force ability in early 1943 is given by enemy - Johnie Johnson in his book "Wing Leader" states that by that time the Luftwaffe units JG 26 and JG 2 with their Focke-Wulf fighters had still the upper hand in air combat at the "Channel front" (specially if RAF pilots flew with the outdated Spitfire Mk V).

The skill standard of LW fighter pilots was relatively good by mid 1943 and pilots who were trained and entered to frontline units during the years 1941-1942 were not much less qualified than those trained before the war. Many of these pilots were able to achieve respectable air victory scores of 20 - 25 in Western front.

The common belief is that Battle of Britain caused "irreplaceble" person losses to Luftwaffe but I would disagree. Luftwaffe was defeated in BoB but not "fatally wounded". The few verified combat records of Luftwaffe fighter units against Western Allies in 1942-1943 show that the combat skills of German fighter pilots were still very decent. Take for example the verified combat records of air battles over Dieppe on 19.8.1942: RAF/Allied losses 106, LW losses 48.

However by late 1942/early 1943 the attrition of too many fronts started to take its toll. The losses of North African campaign and growing attrition also at the Eastern front caused a crisis which Luftwaffe was not able to solve when it had to face the new American threat at West. It had a shortage of experienced pilots at the moment when they were most needed. The cutting of training program was only way to get enough pilots to fill the gaps. The shortage of gasoline also forced to cut the number of training flights. LW fighter pilots graduated from training programs in late 1943/early 1944 were thus usually of lower calibre with much less training flying hours than their predecessors.

Perhaps the growing accident loss rate tells best about the downgrading of pilot training and lowering of skill standards in Luftwaffe by 1944. For example in February 1944 over 1300 German aircraft were destroyed or damaged in accidents with more than 600 of flying personnel killed or injured.

[Juha]

I agree that the change happened during the later part of 1943. I once checked July and Nov 43 from Caldwell’s The JG 26 War Diary and it seems that during July 43 it was rather even, LW had a slight advance but in Nov 43 Spitfires seemed to have won all the bigger combats. I was a little bit surprised myself on that. Of course only 2 months but I had not more time then. IMHO there were several reasons for that development, for RAF part e.g. RAF pilots had learned from past errors, they got Spitfire IX with Merlin 63s and 66s which were better than those with Merlin 61s and more and more reliable Typhoons for lower altitude combats. Also during the early part of 43 RAF got new, longer range radars for fighter control over France which meant better situation awareness to RAF formation leaders over France.

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by GuerraCivil

Has there been studies of at what point LW dayfighter losses started to be clearly bigger than the number of downed Allied planes in the West? I think that the crucial point was achieved latest by early 1944 when Luftwaffe´s dayfighter losses were bigger than the combined losses by Allied daybombers and their escort fighters.

Big Week did mark the first period during which the 8th AF lost fewer combined bomber/fighter MIA (not including written off or badly damaged after return. Using Caldwell's "Day Fighter in Defense of Reich" The 8th lost 157, (15th - 90) bombers; 33, 10 fighters vs LW 326 a/c, 170 KIA, 112 WIA.

Of that total of LW losses the following victory credits were assigned to 8th, 9th and 15th AF FC. P-38 (43), P-47 (80), P-51 (64.5) --- Extracted from USAF Study 85 by me..

By January/February 1944 the German dayfighters had already abandoned the "finger four" formations in West (Defence of Reich) because there were not enough experienced pilots to keep "finger four" working and "schwarm" leaders had to keep more eye on unexperienced wingmen. This reduced to considerable degree the combat efficiency of German dayfighter formations.

Interesting, but what is the source.

My impression is that P-47´s were still more numerous dayfighter force in 8th USAAF by February 1944 and with drop tanks Thunderbolts could penetrate quite deeply over Germany.

Both the 9th and 8th AF P-47 FG's were flying escort to the 8th AF. As of February 20, 1944 there were 10 P-47 FG's, two P-51 FG's and two P-38FG's. The 15th had several more P-47 FG's but only the four P-38 FG's had the range to escort to Austria/Southern Germany.

The P-47s, at this time could only fly Penetration and Withdrawal escorts perhaps as far as Stuttgart to Dummer Lake radius during Big Week, leaving deep penetrations of three Bomb Divisions of approximately 10BG's each to the two P-38 and two P-51FG's to the target from intermediate range.

The P-51 B was of course even better as it could practically make "free hunt" almost overall of Germany but by Feb/March 1944 it was probably still the P-47 with drop tanks that made most of the job. The decisive defeat trend of Luftwaffe´s dayfighter force had been already settled before large numbers of P-51´s appeared to make things even worse for the Germans.

I would assert that the P-47's effectiveness as bomber escort ended from Dummer Lake to Stuttgart. During the period October 15, 1943 through mid January the 8th AF did not penetrate much beyond the effective radius of the P-47D. Further, during that specific period the Lwbh Mitte was replaced by LuftFlotte Reich and massively reinforced from East and South. They also carefully avoided clashes until the bombers reached Hamburg, Kiel, Kassel, Hannover at the far reach of the P-47. The effective numerical strength of the 8th and 9th AF P-47 groups was ~ 500 operationally and ~750 On Hand

The P-47 started the downfall of Luftwaffe dayfighter force and P-51 finished the job. P-38, Spitfire and some other types contributed also but perhaps in lesser extent (limited numbers and Spitfire having the limitation of short range).

I agree the statement. The question discussed is which fighter had the capability to fly and fight wherever the LW operated in the West - all the way to Poland and Czechoslovakia as contrast to 'all the way to Stuttgart or Dummer Lake?"

Of course the big picture was that Luftwaffe was hopelessly overstreched already by late 1942/early 1943 - just too many fronts to be handled effectively with limited resources: Defence of Reich, Mediterranean front, Eastern front. With more limited resources than the global Allied effort the Germans were destined to lose the war at all fronts.


Still in 1943 the sky over Northwestern Europe was quite effectively controlled by Luftwaffe and by that time it was yet able to inflict more aircraft losses to enemy than it suffered. For example the famous JG 26 made in Western front 380 air victory claims with the price of 158 pilots lost and even in 1944 it was still able to claim 668 air victories (the highest annual score of the unit during the war) for the loss of 300 pilots.

If the Defence of Reich would have been the only front where large numbers of German dayfighters were needed, it would have taken much more time from US/British combined efforts to achieve air dominance and win the war.

The LW, technically inflicted more casualties as each bomber lost to US meant 10 MIA. What they lost was the ability to deny the US the ability to strike anywhere with acceptable losses under 5% (max) after May 1944.

Another note: using JG 26 as an example, losses in pilots KIA is not reflective of operational losses for the same reason. More than 50% of JG 26 pilots shot down survived, bailed out and continued the fight - whereas a loss by an 8th/9th FC pilot was a loss for the war.

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by GuerraCivil

Has there been studies of at what point LW dayfighter losses started to be clearly bigger than the number of downed Allied planes in the West? I think that the crucial point was achieved latest by early 1944 when Luftwaffe´s dayfighter losses were bigger than the combined losses by Allied daybombers and their escort fighters.

Hello GuerraCivil,

Thank you for taking the discussion further. Since this is a very interesting subject for me and I would like to respond to the points made by other members as well, I will focus on the two main themes in your post. I have also sent you a PM.
You are correct in the sense that in February 1944 the Luftwaffe fighter losses exceeded total USAAF losses by 397 to 387 (from Caldwell’s Day Fighters). I do not agree that this was in any sense a critical point. The Luftwaffe fighter loss rate in missions against the Eighth had already reached 5% by May 1943, which was intolerably high in view of other commitments. The point of crisis was reached in spring and summer 1943, not any later.

Originally Posted by GuerraCivil

Also the technological race was against Germans once Allied catched up. The Bf 109 F and FW 190 A were in late 1941/early 1942 the best fighters in the world, but by late 1942/early 1943 they were already catched by the Allied who could put in combat at all fronts equally good types (Spitfire IX, P-47, La 5) and develop even superior ones (P-51). The Bf 109 G and later A-models of FW 190 were not good enough to meet the challenge of improved Allied fighters.

Still in 1943 the sky over Northwestern Europe was quite effectively controlled by Luftwaffe and by that time it was yet able to inflict more aircraft losses to enemy than it suffered. For example the famous JG 26 made in Western front 380 air victory claims with the price of 158 pilots lost and even in 1944 it was still able to claim 668 air victories (the highest annual score of the unit during the war) for the loss of 300 pilots.

You have slightly mis-stated the differences in fighter performance. In 1941 and into 1942, the 109 and 190 were superior to the Spitfire, but not overwhelmingly so. It was only in defensive operations conducted over Europe that the best Luftwaffe pilots were able to achieve the highly favourable victory-to-loss ratio against the Spitfire V that has provoked so much comment. This success was bought at the cost of restricting 190 deliveries exclusively to the Western Front for far too long, with negative effects on the Mediterranean and Eastern theatres. A good comparison would be the long delay by the RAF in sending Spitfires to the Middle East and India.

The Spitfire IX and P-47 were both fundamentally superior to both the 109 and 190, because the Spitfire had a two-stage supercharger, while the P-47 had a turbocharger. As a result, the Allied types had a decisive advantage in high-altitude performance, while the P-47 also possessed superior range compared with Luftwaffe fighters. As a result, both the Spitfire IX and the P-47 had an immediate effect on Luftwaffe operations once they entered operational service, out of proportion to the small number of these aircraft that were initially deployed.

As to the tactical air combat over Western Europe in 1943, I have to disagree with your assessment. JG 26 had 171 pilots on strength on 31 December 1942, so the 158 casualties during the year were almost 100% of initial strength (figures taken from Caldwell’s JG 26: Top Guns). This was a catastrophic loss rate, especially in view of the fact that many of those lost were amongst the most experienced fighter pilots in the Luftwaffe. An example of the difficulties JG 26 was experiencing is provided by the combat on 3 September 1943, when it lost 3 190s and 2 pilots in the process of shooting down just 3 B-17s, before Zemke’s 56 FG arrived and shot down 2 more 190s with their pilots for the loss a single Thunderbolt. This is the sort of case that you were looking for, when the total number of Luftwaffe losses exceeded those of the USAAF, and this shows that the situation was catastrophic for the Germans even in autumn 1943.

The counter-factual concentration of all available German fighters against the Allies might not have changed the situation significantly, because of the issue of Allied technological superiority described above.

Regards,

Paul