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

[Andrey Kuznetsov]

Thank you, Art!

Originally Posted by ArtieBob

Think about it, there was no production output for Me 262s early in 1944, so those are the blank months.

Sure, but there were doubts about the right border.

Best regards,
Andrey

[Dan History]

Originally Posted by lritger

a very, VERY curious document from the Hauptausschuß Flugzeugbau found in a collection of Speer's notes at R 3/1926, page 0088.

...

Link to the aforementioned document (scroll to page 0088):

https://invenio.bundesarchiv.de/inve...-eb1e853a2ad4/

Best regards,

Lynn

Lynn,

First, it is great to see you here and read of your book plans. I am sure I am not the only forum member who likes your work!

As for the document you mentioned, R 3/1926 things are simpler than they appear. With any document, it is always useful to read the header, and so it is in this case. For convenience, I have typed up the most important information, as it appears on image 74:

"Oberkommando des Heeres Generalstab des Heeres / Generalquartiermeister [GenStdH / Gen. Qu.]
Abteilung III - Nachschub [Abt. III] / Gruppe Planung
Nr. I/014 364/44 geheime Kommandosache [g. Kdos.]

Hauptquartier des Oberkommando des Heeres [H. Qu. OKH], 9. November 1944

30. Ausfertigungen
26. Ausfertigung

Betreff: Rüstungs-Notprogramm
An
Chef der Heeres-Rüstung und Befehlshaber des Ersatzheeres [Chef H. Rüst. u. BdE]
…

im Auftrag [I. A.]

Guderian

Generaloberst und Chef des Generalstabes des Heeres"


Translated into English, that reads:

"Army High Command General Staff of the Army / Quartermaster general
3rd Section - Supply / Planning Group
Document number I/014 364/44 Most Secret

Headquarters of the Army High Command, 9 November 1944

30 Copies
26th Copy

Subject: Emergency Armaments Programme
To
Chief of Army Armaments and Commander of the Replacement Army.
[following the failed assassination attempt against Hitler on 20 July and Fromm’s equally unsuccessful attempt to murder enough people to escape the Gestapo’s attention, this post was held by Heinrich Himmler]
…

on behalf of

Guderian

Colonel-General and Chief of the Army General Staff"


It is also helpful to look at the Verteiler (Distribution) list, which appears partly on image 74 and partly on image 75. This particular copy, which we see in scanned form, is the first of a Vorrat (Reserve) set, 26.-30.


Where does the above lead us? To an understanding that this is an army equipment supply planning document, sent by Guderian's office to Himmler as part of emergency planning discussions during Nazi Germany's final months. Saur's secretariat, in charge of armaments production, was sent a reserve copy, presumably so that Saur or his staff could comment, if they saw the need.

The General Staff wanted a workable armaments plan put together, however delusional such a desire was in early November 1944, and I read this document as the General Quartermaster's provisional judgement of what might be possible with the remaining resources at hand, pending responses from Himmler and others.

Looking further, at image 78, we see a reasonably detailed breakdown of aircraft output for September, with the planning focus on sharply reducing the final programme target for Focke-Wulf Ta 152 production, and thereby reducing material requirements. In image 83, the figures are repeated, with the reductions in planned monthly output (Neues Soll) underlined. A comparison with image 88 is instructive. The latter image lists the superseded, uncorrected final monthly production targets, including 2,960 Ta 152s instead of 1,460, as in images 78 and 83.

The figures for October, November and December 1944 in image 88 are planning figures only, note that almost all of them are rounded to 5 or 10. It is also possible to see, if relatively faintly on this monochrome scan, that the line dividing the September and October 1944 columns has been emphasised with pen or pencil on all the images from 84 through 90. That was intended to make it obvious that the figures for the later months were planning assumptions only, nothing more.

The production figures for July to September 1944 in image 88 should be understood as "total of new production aircraft taken over from industry (accepted) at the factories". These figures included aircraft which were destroyed or damaged by Allied bombing before they could be despatched from the factories, other aircraft which needed to be sent for upgrades (Umbau) before they could be allocated to operational units, etc. So these totals were entirely accurate in the sense that they reflected acceptances at factories, and significantly inflated in the sense that the number of new production aircraft actually made available to the Luftwaffe in any given month was significantly lower than the number accepted at factories. The Luftwaffe had serious problems despatching aircraft from factories to operational units throughout the war, often due to weather conditions. Of course, Allied air attacks would have made the situation even worse in the final months of the war.

I have sent you a PM (private message)

Best regards,

Dan

[ArtieBob]

Dan,
"In summary, German attempts to maintain air superiority on the Eastern front were
compromised by the fact that most German fighters were concentrated in the West from an early stage of the war." As the war progressed, the number of Ju 87 dive bomber and ground attack a/c were reinforced by Schlacht versions of the Fw 190. Were these also used in a air to air fighter role , thereby reducing the need for BF 109s and Fw 190 in a primary fighter role? I do not have data on this, but it would seem that the number of air to air victories by the ground attack units would be a primary indicator. I also have data that the per sortie loss rates of LW a/c were significantly lower in the East than in the West. This would seem to indicate that the needed replacement rate would also be lower in the East. Please comment.


ArtieBob

[Dan History]

Originally Posted by ArtieBob

As the war progressed, the number of Ju 87 dive bomber and ground attack a/c were reinforced by Schlacht versions of the Fw 190. Were these also used in a air to air fighter role , thereby reducing the need for BF 109s and Fw 190 in a primary fighter role? I do not have data on this, but it would seem that the number of air to air victories by the ground attack units would be a primary indicator. I also have data that the per sortie loss rates of LW a/c were significantly lower in the East than in the West. This would seem to indicate that the needed replacement rate would also be lower in the East. Please comment.

Hello Art,

Good to be able to exchange thoughts with you again. I am glad my study from 2016 still attracts keen interest!

The Schlacht versions of the Fw 190 were not used in particularly great quantities until late into the war, something which is not easy to understand when reading the published literature. Some primary source statistics for February 1944, a month of heavy battles in the East:

Average Fw 190 strength for the month, in all operational units: 674
Average Fw 190 strength for the month, in Schlacht units only: 162 (hence, 24% of total Fw 190 strength)

The breakdown of the Schlacht arm by aircraft type during the month, the figures are again monthly averages:
Ju 87: 455
Fw 190: 162
Hs 129: 52
Hs 123: 10
Total (sum of above): 679


The total number of known aerial victory claims by Schlacht units on the Eastern front is less than 900 - Johannes may have an exact figure readily to hand, though of course not all Schlacht claims are known. Remember that ground-attack pilots were not trained for air combat, so even though the ground-attack Fw 190s were relatively high-performance types, compared to very inferior Soviet fighter aircraft, they could not routinely engage hostile aircraft.

The career of August Lambert, the ground-attack pilot with by far the highest number of aerial victory claims, illustrates the point very well. He claimed 97 of his 103 victories within less than a month over the Crimea - claims which should be regarded with considerable suspicion, both because they were submitted during such a short time period, and because they abruptly came to an end. When Lambert met USAAF Mustangs on 17 April 1945, he was rapidly shot down and killed.

There were not enough Schlacht Fw 190s in the East to make much of a difference until late in the war, and they were in any case only rarely used as fighters. To cite some more February 1944 figures, the Luftwaffe's average frontline single-engine fighter strength for the month was 1,725, of which only 362 were in the East. Even if all the 162 Schlacht Fw 190s had been in the East (41 were in fact in Italy), and even if they were all capable of being used as fighters, this would have changed the strategic situation very little.

You are right that, broadly speaking, German loss rates per sortie on the Eastern front were much lower than against the Western Allies, though this was not a universal phenomenon. As a percentage of strength, rather than sorties flown, losses in the East also became catastrophic in the later months of the war - the Luftwaffe was badly outnumbered and its pilots barely trained.

More broadly, the air war on the Eastern front has been grossly misinterpreted, along with many other aspects of the history of the World Wars, because it has been rarely analysed in full context - as a part of a multi-front, global war. The air war in the East was peripheral to the course of the First World War, and it became so at a relatively early stage of the Second. I have discussed some of these issues in an article available for free, online, see historynet.com/battle-of-kursk-nazis-no-air-power/

Best regards,


Dan

[Dan History]

Those who might wish to take the discussion further with Andrey should note that he is Andrey Yaroslavovich Kuznetsov (Андрей Ярославович Кузнецов), a Russian naval historian from Nizhny Novgorod.

He is the author of "The Big Landings. The Kerch'-El'tigen operation" (Большой десант. Керченско-Эльтигенская операция). This is a history of the Soviet Union's largest amphibious operation of the war, the bloody and failed attempt to rapidly seize the Kerch peninsula in late 1943.

He also co-wrote "The Black Sea Fleet during the Great Patriotic War. Short course of combat operations" (Черноморский флот в Великой Отечественной войне. Краткий курс боевых действий). As a gauge of the level of insanity already prevalent in Russia in 2015, when the latter book was published, seven years before Russia's invasion of all of Ukraine in 2022, the "short course" in the title is a clear allusion to the "History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks): Short Course", the central text of Stalinist party propaganda, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union _(Bolsheviks)

I do not know whether the authors or the publisher chose the title, but little more needs to be said, in either case.

It appears that the same author has dabbled in fiction, of a particular kind. His novel, "Death at the Victory Parade" (Смерть на Параде Победы), features officers of the NKGB (People's Commissariat of State Security, the Soviet equivalent of the Nazi Reich Security Main Office (RSHA)) saving Dear Comrade Stalin from an Abwehr assassination plot, set at the post-war victory parade in Moscow. The text of this book, along with the others mentioned above, is available at flibusta.info/a/77274

Mr. Kuznetsov is also a blogger, see akuznetz.livejournal.com He has written a multi-part analysis of the various different types of Luftwaffe loss reports. Part four in this series, writing which led to his interest in USSBS Report 59, "The Defeat of the German Air Force", can be read at akuznetz.livejournal.com/5195.html

Beware! Livejournal is Russian-owned, and its servers are in Russia. Discretion is strongly advised when viewing any Livejournal page. For some very basic details, see:

"In December of 2016, practically overnight and without any word, the LiveJournal servers were relocated from California to Russia. Which has quite a few far-reaching effects. For instance, LiveJournal would now be compelled to hand over data when requested by the state, a request it could refuse (and did) while in California. Many users understandably feared the worse."

thehistoryoftheweb.com/postscript/whatever-happened-livejournal/


As an aside, the man with whom Andrey Kuznetsov co-wrote the history of the wartime Black Sea Fleet is one Miroslav Eduardovich Morozov (Мирослав Эдуардович Морозов), a former political officer in the Soviet / Russian RVSN (Strategic Missile Force) and then long-time official historian at the Red Banner Institute of Military History of the Russian Ministry of Defence (Ордена Красной Звезды Институт военной истории Министерства обороны). That does not make Mr. Kuznetsov himself an official historian, but the two gentlemen worked together on at least one other occasion, when they helped the Russian Northern Fleet's search for Soviet submarines lost during the Second World War. As reported by Russia's official newspaper, see rg.ru/2016/05/20/reg-szfo/gidrografy-severnogo-flota-otpraviatsia-na-poiski-pogibshih-submarin.html

[Andrey Kuznetsov]

Originally Posted by Dan History

the "short course" in the title is a clear allusion to the "History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks): Short Course", the central text of Stalinist party propaganda

This is as clear allusion as the "Short Course in Physics", "Short Course in Theoretical Mechanics" etc. Thanks to the pirates, the book is publicly available for free, and anyone can try to find "Stalinist party propaganda" or other kinds of propaganda there.

Originally Posted by Dan History

It appears that the same author has dabbled in fiction, of a particular kind. His novel, "Death at the Victory Parade" (Смерть на Параде Победы), features officers of the NKGB (People's Commissariat of State Security, the Soviet equivalent of the Nazi Reich Security Main Office (RSHA)) saving Dear Comrade Stalin from an Abwehr assassination plot, set at the post-war victory parade in Moscow.

I'm not the author, and haven't read this book.
I don't write pulp fiction.

Originally Posted by Dan History

Beware! Livejournal is Russian-owned, and its servers are in Russia. Discretion is strongly advised when viewing any Livejournal page.

I still haven't thought about where the server is located. It is impressive that you, knowing about the great danger of visiting livejournal, still took the risk to do so.
"Beware!" ... oh my god!

Miroslav Eduardovich Morozov is my friend and an excellent historian, the real historian.

You have written a long text that draws a vague negative background, but haven't written what conclusion should be drawn from this.

[Andrey Kuznetsov]

The air war in the East was peripheral to the course of the First World War, and it became so at a relatively early stage of the Second.

According to Koller's papers, in 1944 the combat sorties ratio East vs all other theaters was roughly 2:1 (it should also be taken into account that in the Northern and Southern Theater some part of the sorties (sometimes perhaps the largest) were also directed against the Soviet Union, but compared with the main figures, this is not very important).

In January 1945 this ratio was more than 3.5:1, in February 5:1, in the following months undoubtedly even more so.

22.6.41-1942 most of the sorties were also in the East, for obvious reasons.

The number of sorties in 1943 is unknown, but given that even in 1944 most of the sorties were in the East, it is logical to assume that in 1943 the ratio was far more than 2:1.

So why did the Luftwaffe do most of their combat sorties in the "peripheral theater"? What a tragic mistake for them!

And this is not to mention the fact that the air war was an integral part of the war as a whole, and not the most important one.

[Dan History]

Oh, the wonders of the Internet! It makes it possible to read a historian writing from Russia, the modern-day equivalent of Nazi Germany, calling an official Russian military historian "my friend and an excellent historian". This on day 675 of Russia's invasion of the entirety of Ukraine.

For those with a knowledge of spoken Russian, here is a link to a video of Mr. Morozov, the "excellent" official historian, now retired from direct employment by the Russian Defence Ministry, giving a talk on the subject of "the components of America's missile defence: prospects and capabilities" (Об элементах американской ПРО: перспективы и возможности.) March 15, 2022. youtube.com/watch?v=PUFXtGLGuUk

This chat took place three weeks into Russia's invasion, long before American Patriots and other NATO air defence systems were delivered to Ukraine, so Mr. Morozov was anticipating events. He was not quite anticipating just how many Russian missiles would be shot down by these systems, but then Russia's entire invasion has been beset by a rather difficult relationship with objective reality.

Enough of this Russian nonsense and bilious hatred of Ukraine and the West, back to the subject at hand.

A rather more useful wonder of the modern Web is the accessibility of primary sources. A three-volume series of documents covering the Luftwaffe's strength and losses from September 1943 through to the end of October 1944 is now available for download. I used these documents in my study, and they contain much more information than just summary loss data, as the series title would suggest. See the links below:

Materialverluste.- Flugzeuge.- Einsatz alle Fronten.- Monatsmeldungen. Bd. 1. Sept. - Dez. 1943. RL 2-III/944.
invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/direktlink/00025cbd-a067-430c-b54a-8973c83a1a89/

Bd. 2. Jan. - Mai 1944. RL 2-III/945
invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/direktlink/18a7407a-8409-4cb4-8088-d94a6d7a0ad7/

Bd. 3. Juni - Okt. 1944. RL 2-III/946
invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/direktlink/02d0744e-fc07-4b39-b941-65774ee10af9/

These document were also used by Olaf Groehler in an old East German article, which Mr. Kuznetsov recently mentioned on this forum. With the original documents to hand, the article is of little interest, but some of the data from it was presented in summary form by Don Caldwell on his website dedicated to Jagdgeschwader 26, see "Luftwaffe Aircraft Losses By Theatre September 1943 - October 1944"
don-caldwell.we.bs/jg26/thtrlosses.htm


Lynn, you might find another document to be particularly useful. A breakdown of Luftwaffe flight hours by type and sub-type for the January to September 1944 time-frame:
Flugzeuge: Flugzeugbestand, Flugbetrieb.- Betriebsmeldungen und Statistiken. Jan. - Sept. 1944. RL 2-III/974. invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/direktlink/dcaf1a27-6209-4d2a-92a8-54eae6ea38ea/


The Koller statistics of Luftwaffe sorties in 1944 and early 1945, which Mr. Kuznetsov referred to above, have not yet been digitised, but will be available in the future at the following link:
Einsatz fliegende Verbände Deutschland, Feindeinflüge Reichsgebiet, alle Fronten.- Erfolge, Verluste personell und materiell.- Zahlenmäßige statistische Übersichten - Handakte Major Büchs. Dez. 1944 - Febr. 1945, gesamt 1944. RL 2-III/1198.
invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/direktlink/edad4f51-a972-46d6-a934-3844cbc2e5e9/

It would be most interesting to see such information on Luftwaffe sorties for other periods of the war, but I have never encountered it, with the exception of small fragments. Have other forum members seen it? Of course, Mr. Kuznetsov will not acknowledge that the Luftwaffe flew more sorties in the East than elsewhere in 1944-45 because it was largely suppressed by Allied air power in the West and Mediterranean. This general pattern was established significantly earlier than 1944, of course. We all know why the Luftwaffe stopped almost all daylight bomber sorties over Britain in 1940.

By now, Russia's inability to acknowledge, let alone honestly analyse, much of the history of the Second World War surprises nobody. Much more interesting is how people in the free world understand the subject. A great deal of rather low-quality literature has been published emphasising the supposed inefficiency and even ineffectiveness of Allied air power during the war, particularly strategic bombing. A sober analysis tells a very different story, which is something I will soon write about, provided a break from other work will be forthcoming!

[Nick Beale]

Anyone who wants to air their views on any present-day nation’s ideological shortcomings or the objectivity of perspectives on its history is welcome to do so away from this forum. But while you’re here, please stick to the original topic.

[edwest2]

Perhaps the following book will shed additional light on the air war in the East. It will be out in a month or two depending on your location.

https://www.casematepublishers.com/9...alins-falcons/

Usual disclaimer,
Ed