# Strategies for defense 1944-45



## delcyros (Feb 7, 2009)

Following the other thread about bomber killing weapons I would like to discuss it from another perspective.
This thread is specififcally intended NOT to include advanced weapons (SAM, R4M) or fighters (jet and rocket interceptors) or "what if" designs (Fw-187).
Assume that You are given responsibility to develop a defense strategy against the US 8th AAF offensive daylight bombing campaign, circling around the Bf-109G, Fw-190A, Me-410 and other planes historically aviable. With the technological and quantitative ressources aviable in the timeframe 1943 to 1945 You should inflict very heavy losses up to the point when daylight bombing must be reconsidered in the light of raising losses. 
Note that by 1944, the USAAF does field long range escort fighters and increasing sizes of bombing formations.

How do You do?
My personal opinion is that properly defended, the USAAF cannot win the war of attrition. But I might very well be wrong.


----------



## davebender (Feb 7, 2009)

The Luftwaffe should rush either the Fw-190C (DB603 engine) or Fw-190D9 (Jumo213 engine) into production as a high altitude bomber killer. Arm it with 2 x MG-151/20 cannons (1 in each wing root) plus a Mk108 30mm cannon in the prop shaft. Add R4/M rockets under each wing when they become available. Aerial performance is as good or better then the American escort fighters. You have enough firepower to hack down heavy bombers. 

The Me-210 / Me-410 design is skipped. This frees up DB603 engines and airframe production facilities, allowing our Fw-190C to enter service during January 1943. Right on time to blow the American B-17s and their P-47 escorts out of the sky.


----------



## tomo pauk (Feb 7, 2009)

Well, since both the time frame and equipment choices are pretty tight, here are my concepts:

- implant the supercharger from DB-603 to the DB-605 to have a small 2000 HP engine available as early as late 1943 (so, one year before it was historically done). Now install the new engine in both 190 and 109.
- forget about installation of the DB-603 in the planes that require 2 of those, so the Fw-190C could be fielded in time, with wings of slightly increased span
- produce the Bf 109-H in quantity
- copy the N-37 cannon and put it in the new Fw-190s as motor cannon
- install the BMW-801 in Ju-88 or in Me-410 for night fighter role
- perhaps some Fiat G.56 would come in handy?
- the plain vanilla 109Gs and 190As remain in production, with a pressure to the BMW to install a decent supercharger in 801
-design and produce a Do-335-style fighter, but with DB-605 engines


----------



## drgondog (Feb 7, 2009)

Reinforce JG26 and JG2 early with JG3 and elements of JG27 and 11 as second ring.

Deploy 109s first to attack escorts and persistently engage with them to reduce the range, stripping the bombers of P-47s by the time they penetrated to Belgium/Koln regions.

Fw 190s provide first anti bomber engagement in the Ems River area with company front attacks head on. If no fighters present, repeated attacks.

Second batch of 109s from JG3 perform top cover for fist batch of 109s from JG26 as they land and refuel to be ready for the outgoing bombers and Withdrawal support P-47s (and later 38s and 51s)

Central ring is comprised on ZG/NG fighter rings operated from Hannover to Stuttgart - no 109 cover required until P-38s fully operational with early Js and Mustangs first come on scene.

Eastern Germany -Berlin through Ruhland, Leipzig and Munich. ZG/NG units plus early Sturm units for target defense.


Hitler forbade Luftwaffe from central defense strategy as well as enging fighters. This strategy would have been devastaing to daylight bombardment for several reasons. 

First the early engagement of fighter vs fighter forces drop tanks away and high fuel consumption - Spits and Jugs will not penetrate to German border very often. 38s not particularly effective really until the late J's in summer 1944 but forcing drop tanks early restricts them to perhaps Brunswick at the deepest. Ditto the 51s if they have to fight their way to R/V points for Target Escort. Losiing drop tanks over N. Sea puts them on internal wing tanks for rest of mission plus 240 gal/hr consumption rate in a fight.

Second, the ring defense enables more forces to de deployed to bomber track as the bombers first penetrate un escorted. Increasing unit firepower is deployed via ZG/NJG units who are no longer hammered by long range fighter escort.

Third, the losses increase even during the relatively short penetrations following Black Thursday on October 14 - putting enormous political strain on 8th BC to switch from daylight campaign.

Last - independent of this strategy the Me 262 deployment is prioritized, as well as picking the best possible night fighter to concentrate on developing to oppose both the RAF and possible switch of 8th/15th AF to night raids.

For daylight bombing to succeed p-38 units have to be stripped from MTO en Masse as well as PTO during the mid 1943 campaigns to replace P-47s sent to MTO. Spitfire, Tempest and P-38 penetration Support have to be sent out at same time as bombers to fly both high and low altitude sweeps over German airfields and assembly areas to blunt their effectiveness at engaging Penetration and Target Support escort. The first P-38J dive and manuevering flap kits are Not sunk at sea en route to England.

It forces the 8th and 15th AF to double their FC sizes, impacting other Theatre deployments and affecting at least the USAAF campaigns in the Solomons and Phillipines - as well as Ploesti in MTO


----------



## syscom3 (Feb 7, 2009)

Dragondog, removing the P38's from the PTO would have little impact in that theater. Luckily for the allies that the land based Corsairs in New Georgia could provide the fighter escort needs for the 5th and 13th AF's.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 7, 2009)

syscom3 said:


> Dragondog, removing the P38's from the PTO would have little impact in that theater. Luckily for the allies that the land based Corsairs in New Georgia could provide the fighter escort needs for the 5th and 13th AF's.



Sys - technically I agree save one point. I don't believe there were enough Corsairs to backfill the P-38 contribution to the USAAF escort and air superiority Mission throughout 1943 and early 1944, and still have enough F4U-s for the Marine mission. The P-40 would have remained primary USAAF fighter and stay so until the Mustang could free up the 38's in the ETO.


So, whether my strategy makes sense for Germany, and whether the ETO could command the priorities over MTO and PTO is purely speculative. I would just pose that USAAF in PTO less effective through mid 1944 but don't have a feeling one way or another whether the Japanese take longer to die or not. I do feel more losses occur in the PTO as a result of no P-38s.


----------



## Amsel (Feb 7, 2009)

Assasinate Reichsmarshall Goerring! Seriously.


----------



## HellToupee (Feb 7, 2009)

Honstly, ignore the bombers, focus on diversifying industry moving it underground, send all fighters instead to the eastern front.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 7, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> Honstly, ignore the bombers, focus on diversifying industry moving it underground, send all fighters instead to the eastern front.



In the meantime what do you do about refineries and chemical plants, Hydroelectric facilities, rail transportation/Marshalling Yards, barge transportation, etc - how long do you think it would take to move the Ploesti/Misburg/Merseburg/Luna facilites underground?

What about rail transport to Refineries from oil fields? Try to supply with Pipelines from Rumania? 

The key strategic target turned out to be the most vulnerable - the refineries - and the key to repelling the Normandy Invasion was a.) airpower in the west, not the east, b.) daylight road and rail net for men, material and POL, and c.) petroleum reserves for armor, pilot training and airpower.

Producing lots of fighters didn't make sense when the pilots to fly them and the fuel to make them 'go' was restricted, chemicals for fertilizer to feed the people and make munitions was being hammered.

If the heavy manufacturing was decentralized and underground as soon as practible but you couldn't protect the petrochemical facilites the war is lost just as fast... faster if you move fighters away from west and south.


----------



## TheMustangRider (Feb 7, 2009)

Drgondog has made a clear and very important point, allied bombing raids with heavy bombers properly protected by long-range fighters was hurting the German industry and was hurting it fast; one viable option that I find was to bring Focke-wulf to develope and mass produce the FW-190D as soon as possible and Messerschmitt to develope and mass produce the Me-262 (I know I'm stretching the rules a little bit but the Me-262 was fielded and combat proven) as soon as possible as well. By having these two fighters in numbers, it would had bought some time for Nazi Germany.


----------



## HellToupee (Feb 8, 2009)

drgondog said:


> In the meantime what do you do about refineries and chemical plants, Hydroelectric facilities, rail transportation/Marshalling Yards, barge transportation, etc - how long do you think it would take to move the Ploesti/Misburg/Merseburg/Luna facilites underground?
> 
> What about rail transport to Refineries from oil fields? Try to supply with Pipelines from Rumania?
> 
> ...



Wouldn't do alot about those industries but they would be bombed ither way defended or not, trying to fight 3 airforces at once was just futile, throwing everything at the Russians instead just makes more sense. Sources of resources getting bombed wasn't as bad as having them overrun.


----------



## BombTaxi (Feb 8, 2009)

HT, you seem to have entirely missed the point that moving industry underground is useless if the logistical infrastructure to move product and raw material is destroyed. You can't ignore 24 hour bombing, positive efforts need to be made to prevent it.

My 0.02 on improving defences is this: build the 262 as a fighter! Hitler's insistence that the type was developed as a bomber was possibly one of the stupidest mistakes ever made. On a similar note, prioritise development of the Ar234 nightfighter over the strike variant. The Germans had little use for bombers by 1945, better IMHO to use the airframes to shoot down Allied bombers.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 8, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> Wouldn't do alot about those industries but they would be bombed ither way defended or not, trying to fight 3 airforces at once was just futile, throwing everything at the Russians instead just makes more sense. Sources of resources getting bombed wasn't as bad as having them overrun.



Taking your thesis a little farther...

Shift all fighters east. Permit RAF and USAAF unrestricted access to all surface industry including the critical energy and transport/logistic industries, opposed only by flak.

Successfully decentralize and protect smaller footprint industries like airframe and ball bearings and engines and armor - underground... leading Allied planners to focus on the strategic surface (petrochemical, hydroelectric, etc)industries even faster - and focus all your strategic airpower on those.. unopposed.

As you run out of targets, the German war machine is deprived of all POL, surface transport (river, road, rail) by unopposed marauding fighters and attack aircraft by day... no more training reserve or U-Boat fuel reserves or any airpower to oppose Invasion from West.

Maybe this strategy works to slow the USSR down in the early stages, but it accelerates the end of resistance in the West and it accelerates the destruction of all critical surface industry throughout the Reich. 

You could build more a/c - but recognize Germany was successful at producing more fighters than it had pilots - but they ran out of fuel and the air forces reduced effectiveness to point of vanishing as the ETO war concluded in March-May 1945.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 8, 2009)

delcyros said:


> Following the other thread about bomber killing weapons I would like to discuss it from another perspective.
> This thread is specififcally intended NOT to include advanced weapons (SAM, R4M) or fighters (jet and rocket interceptors) or "what if" designs (Fw-187).
> Assume that You are given responsibility to develop a defense strategy against the US 8th AAF offensive daylight bombing campaign, circling around the Bf-109G, Fw-190A, Me-410 and other planes historically aviable. With the technological and quantitative ressources aviable in the timeframe 1943 to 1945 You should inflict very heavy losses up to the point when daylight bombing must be reconsidered in the light of raising losses.
> Note that by 1944, the USAAF does field long range escort fighters and increasing sizes of bombing formations.
> ...



My proposed ring defense would have made the daylight bombing campaign more costly - and reduced the rate of development of skilled fighter pilot reserves for 8th AF FC through December 1943 but the Mustangs would still be the paradigm. 

The benefit to successful and early interception would be to force more early returns for those Mustangs and Lightnings but the industrial strength and shifting of priorities from MTO to ETO continues increasing pressure of 8th FC, RAF and 9th AF TAC on the western ring. 

The US had a lot more pilots and aircraft on the way to not only replace attrition but expand - while the LW, successful at slowing the introduction of long range fighers over Berlin in adequate numbers, can not stop it (IMO) with the historically available fighters, pilots, supply chain of pilot replacements - they too would suffer much higher losses in the outer 'ring'..

The Allies would counter the ring strategy eventually by flooding the Lowlands with fighter Sweeps in advance of the main strike force, as priorities were increased for ETO Fighter strength.

The other strategy the LW failed to commit to was night intruder missions over East Anglia - truly the most target rich environment in the world. Destroying B-17s and B-24s and P-47s and Mustangs on the ground surely would have been worth the cost in Me 410, Ju 88, etc lost to RAF defenses.


----------



## davebender (Feb 8, 2009)

The ability to carry a drop tank or 250kg bomb does not make the Me-262 into a bomber anymore then it makes the Spitfire and P-51 into a bomber.

The real problem was production priorities. Germany could have mass produced the Jumo 004A engine and Me-262 during 1943. That requires the program to receive adequate quantities of nickel and chrome for the production of high temperature steel. Which means some other German production program gets short changed.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 8, 2009)

davebender said:


> The ability to carry a drop tank or 250kg bomb does not make the Me-262 into a bomber anymore then it makes the Spitfire and P-51 into a bomber.
> 
> The real problem was production priorities. Germany could have mass produced the Jumo 004A engine and Me-262 during 1943. That requires the program to receive adequate quantities of nickel and chrome for the production of high temperature steel. Which means some other German production program gets short changed.



All true Dave, and Delcyros postulated from beginning - use what was historically available.. a strategy play with available assets, not a tecnology play to introduce new ones.


----------



## BombTaxi (Feb 8, 2009)

Is there no truth then, in the old story that the Me262 was delayed into service by Hitler's insistence that it was developed primarily for use as a strike aircraft?


----------



## Amsel (Feb 8, 2009)

As soon as the eastern front began to collapse it marked the end for the Third Reich. After the losses in N. Africa and the Med the whole war effort was doomed. But Germany needed to expand to realize its leaderships ambitions. The economic realities of the era put the fast rising Germany right back into a depression if it did not go to war in 1940. That being said the whole war depended on the defeat of the Soviet Union before the Western allies could gain a foothold in France. If the soviets were defeated then I have no doubt in the outcome of the war. The added resources and manpower from russia would stalemate the war and put Great Britain in a "check" position.

Since the war was already lost I think that an offensive minded military would be counter-productive. Most armor production should be halted in 1943 save for a few models of tank killers and flakpanzers. Much of the production in vehicles and tanks should be diverted to building artillery and anti-tank guns. And all the complex manufacturing should have went to the Fw 190 series and the Me-262. The war was already lost but a possible stalemate or "terms" could be reached by causing more casualties in the invasion and bombing forces. Panzer crews could be sent to flight school or artillery school. Much fuel could be saved by building anti-tank belts and focusing on defense.

In the air the added pilots and fuel would be put to good use attacking not only bomber formations but also attacking escorts and fighters, putting a good dent in pilots capable of air to air combat.


----------



## BombTaxi (Feb 8, 2009)

Problem is, Nazi leadership was neither willing or able to think in terms of a war already lost. There is no chance of production priorities being reassigned the way you suggested while Hitler, Goering co were in charge of Germany.


----------



## Amsel (Feb 8, 2009)

BombTaxi said:


> Problem is, Nazi leadership was neither willing or able to think in terms of a war already lost. There is no chance of production priorities being reassigned the way you suggested while Hitler, Goering co were in charge of Germany.


Quite right.


----------



## syscom3 (Feb 8, 2009)

> The other strategy the LW failed to commit to was night intruder missions over East Anglia - truly the most target rich environment in the world. Destroying B-17s and B-24s and P-47s and Mustangs on the ground surely would have been worth the cost in Me 410, Ju 88, etc lost to RAF defenses.



Exactly.

And dont keep putting down the P38. As an escort fighter, all it had to do was keep the -109's and -190's away from the bombers, and it was successful at that. Plus a P38 in the air meant no -110, -410 and Ju88 was safe.


----------



## HellToupee (Feb 8, 2009)

BombTaxi said:


> HT, you seem to have entirely missed the point that moving industry underground is useless if the logistical infrastructure to move product and raw material is destroyed. You can't ignore 24 hour bombing, positive efforts need to be made to prevent it.
> 
> My 0.02 on improving defences is this: build the 262 as a fighter! Hitler's insistence that the type was developed as a bomber was possibly one of the stupidest mistakes ever made. On a similar note, prioritise development of the Ar234 nightfighter over the strike variant. The Germans had little use for bombers by 1945, better IMHO to use the airframes to shoot down Allied bombers.



Stragetic bombers never really put the logistical infrastructure out of action, tracks bombed would just be relayed only tactical use of fighter bombers really shut transportation infrastructure down, as it was even defending against such actions was a futile effort, a war of attrition could not be won by the LW. 

Jet nightfighters were also not much use, their only real use was to shoot down mosquitos, the other NFs had no problems keeping up with the heavies, where a high closer rate would not be ideal.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Feb 8, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> logistical infrastructure Stragetic bombers never really put the logistical infrastructure out of action, tracks bombed would just be relayed only tactical use of fighter bombers really shut transportation infrastructure down, as it was even defending against such actions was a futile effort, a war of attrition could not be won by the LW.


Heavy Strategic Bombing disrupted the "logistical infrastructure" to the point where if could not keep up with the war demand. 


HellToupee said:


> Jet nightfighters were also not much use, their only real use was to shoot down mosquitos, the other NFs had no problems keeping up with the heavies, where a high closer rate would not be ideal.


Do you realize that only one squadron, Nachtjagdgeschwader 11 operated the 2 seat Me 262 version and that only consisted of 7 aircraft? They also accounted for all Mossies shot down over Berlin the last months of the war. Of course they were not of much use, it was too little too late, but had they been around in numbers a year earlier, Bomber Command would of had their hands full.


----------



## parsifal (Feb 8, 2009)

Nazi strategy after they lost the initiative was not a total road to losing. Negotiated settlement was possible, but only if the cost of the advance was made intolerable. This necessarily meant a far more effective defence on the eastern front than was actually achieved, and the trick here was mobility. The germans had to somehow conduct an offensive-defensive to destroy the Soviet manpower reserves, an in particular to destroy the growing pool of lower and middle ranking officers that were steadily improving the capability of the Red Army, this meant the germans had to achieve massively successful encirclements of Soviet offensives. It also meant that the Infantry formations had to be mobile enough to pull back from the front lines in sufficiently good order and with sufficient advance warning so as to dodge the heavy artillery attacks that the Russians were so adept at applying. It meant that the air assets on the east front had to stop being used as fire brigades to assist the struggling Infantry and in the end achieve nothing of decisve importance. the air fleets had to be kept back, rested, mobile, and ready to deploy in a concentrated counterstrike at the point(s) of strategic importance.

Hardware wise, the Germans should never have wasted their resources building the orivate armiers like the SS. In the end these were expensive show ponies that achieved nothing of strategic importance, and were formed at the expense off the truly experienced wehrmacht panzer formations, which were more or less left to wither and die. It meant that truck production had to be maintained at levels that ensured the Infantry could actually move at the right times. It needed tank production to be rationalized....ditch all the Tigers and other fluff and bubble, and concentrate on perhaps two types, MkIv and MkV, with a much greater emphasis on ATGs (not bigger than 75mm).

If a breathing space could be achieved on the eastern front, something meaningful can be achieved on the western front. If realistic terms are put out by a revitalized and reformed Nazi leadership, something meaningful might have been achieved

What chances do i give to all this happening, very low, because firstly it was not in the Nazi creed to reach meaningful negotiation, especially with the Russians, and the german leadership even the professiopnal soldiers, were just not up to this level of thetre management. they were opportunists, basically, and could not grasp the importance of strategic co-ordination to anywhere near the levels achieved by the allies. they were good at winning battles, but not campaigns....

Plus no account ismade of the quid pro quo that might arise if the Germans start this sort of caper. there is no telling how the Russians might react if the pressure is taken off them, as the germans swing from an offensive, to a more pensive stance....


----------



## HellToupee (Feb 8, 2009)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Heavy Strategic Bombing disrupted the "logistical infrastructure" to the point where if could not keep up with the war demand.



War demand when fighting 3 superpowers at exceeds that of an un-bombed infrastructure. As it was heavies could only bomb hubs of activity aka cities, fighter bombers had a much greater effect in targeting logistics movements. 



> Heavy Strategic Bombing disrupted the "logistical infrastructure" to the point where if could not keep up with the war demand.
> Do you realize that only one squadron, Nachtjagdgeschwader 11 operated the 2 seat Me 262 version and that only consisted of 7 aircraft? They also accounted for all Mossies shot down over Berlin the last months of the war. Of course they were not of much use, it was too little too late, but had they been around in numbers a year earlier, Bomber Command would of had their hands full.



Did you not read? the only real use for the jet NFs was shooting down mosquitoes, the high speed of a jet was counterproductive when hunting the slow heavies.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Feb 8, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> Did you not read? the only real use for the jet NFs was shooting down mosquitoes, the high speed of a jet was counterproductive when hunting the slow heavies.


Absolutly false and do you really know what you're talking about??? - the only thing lacking during that period was tactics and the way the NF 262s were deployed - had the NF 262s been around earlier they would of decimated the night bombers just as day 262s would of done against the day bombers - do you honestly think 262s constantly flew at full speed to attack bombers???


----------



## Amsel (Feb 8, 2009)

The jet age was at hand.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Feb 8, 2009)

Amsel said:


> The jet age was at hand.


That sums it up...

BTW 5 years later in Korea, an F3Ds killed PO-2, at least a 200 mph difference between the two aircraft during the encounter.


----------



## HellToupee (Feb 8, 2009)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Absolutly false and do you really know what you're talking about??? - the only thing lacking during that period was tactics and the way the NF 262s were deployed - had the NF 262s been around earlier they would of decimated the night bombers just as day 262s would of done against the day bombers - do you honestly think 262s constantly flew at full speed to attack bombers???



Absolutely false! 

Had greater numbers of already proven night fighters been built instead of unreliable jets which had very short engine lifes been built instead they would have been far more effective. The prop night fighters had greater endurance could more easily control their speed relative to the target, jets required slow throttle inputs and could not slow down quickly. 

As it was the only practical benefit a jet NF had was that it could intercept mosquitos, most me262 night kills were using wilde sau tactics.



> BTW 5 years later in Korea, an F3Ds killed PO-2, at least a 200 mph difference between the two aircraft during the encounter.



Yet we also have cases of f16s unable to intercept drug runners flying cessnas.


----------



## syscom3 (Feb 8, 2009)

When it came to bombing the transportation system of Germany, the greatest effect was not the damage to the marshaling yards and engine sheds, but to the rolling stock and engines caught out in the open.

Once the rolling stock was destroyed, or engines incapacitated, then it didnt matter how quickly the rail yards were repaired.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Feb 8, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> Absolutely false!
> 
> Had greater numbers of already proven night fighters been built instead of unreliable jets which had very short engine lifes been built instead they would have been far more effective. The prop night fighters had greater endurance could more easily control their speed relative to the target, jets required slow throttle inputs and could not slow down quickly.


Unreliable jets? As stated earlier the jet age was at hand. While the technology was a new the 262 had the potential to absolutely decimate the entire bomber effort day and night and while I could somewhat agree about reliability and endurance, the bottom line is the jet "would of" been more efficient and dangerous had the war continued another year or two.

As far as speed control - if tracking totally on radar, there is little to do if you get a fix, lock and a firing solution. You could be going 300 or 3000 mph, the end result will be the same.


HellToupee said:


> As it was the only practical benefit a jet NF had was that it could intercept mosquitos, most me262 night kills were using wilde sau tactics.


And that was more situational than anything else.




HellToupee said:


> Yet we also have cases of f16s unable to intercept drug runners flying cessnas.


So controlling speed relative to the target isn't that important after all...


----------



## Amsel (Feb 8, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> Yet we also have cases of f16s unable to intercept drug runners flying cessnas.


F-16's unable to shoot down Cessnas? Or pullover?


----------



## delcyros (Feb 9, 2009)

Thanks for all Your inputs. Particularely thanks to Drdongdog, his suggestions are right on target.

My personal approach would be quite comparable but likely less effective. I would have deployed 2-3 enforced JG compromising very experienced pilots, supplied with C3 fuels and GM-1 augmented Bf-109G (initially, later more modern mounts) in the triangle between Berlin, Prague and Frankfurt. In that region I would also like to lay out hidden (light) Flak traps for special disengage tactics.
These fighter units operating in Gruppe or better Geschwader strength would NOT go after the bombers but exclusively against the escort fighters. Wit pre advance warning they climb to an altitude above the stream and go after the escorts if they can make an attack under favourable conditions. They don´t waste any efforts on the bombers.
If a pilot get´s hunted he trades all altitude and goes to a nearby Flak trap. Any pilot shot down will bail out over friendly terretory, while any USAAF pilot shot down has to bail out over hostile terretory and likely is lost for the war effort.
I would leave the bombers for the target AAA, initially.
Any new aircraft aviable, such as Me-262 and Me-163 would be operationally tested in this theatre while beeing deployed in proximity to the synthetic fuel production centres (better infrastructure and logistic chain).
Fw-190 Gruppen beeing dispersed to different airfields and trained for close approach tactics in dense formations (Sturmjäger/Rammjäger)-I even would have gone suicide by mid 44 latest if other tactics are not up to expectations.
When the attrition does show effect on the escorts, or the esort tactics will be changed to deal with the new situation, the Fw-190 Gruppen will go after the bombers in very concentrated attacks, not under Geschwader strength (100 to 120 planes per wave) better in strength of 300 to 400 planes. Even if I loose out 200 Fw-190 in one day (100 pilots KIA/WIA), I might well end up in the region of ~100 heavy bombers destroyed (1000 crew KIA/MIA). The special Bf-109 Gruppen will continue to deal exclusively with the escorts, making their work even more difficult.


----------



## Valo300 (Feb 10, 2009)

delcyros said:


> This thread is specififcally intended NOT to include advanced weapons (SAM, R4M) or fighters (jet and rocket interceptors) or "what if" designs (Fw-187).
> Assume that You are given responsibility to develop a defense strategy against the US 8th AAF offensive daylight bombing campaign, circling around the Bf-109G, Fw-190A, Me-410 and other planes historically aviable. With the technological and quantitative ressources aviable in the timeframe 1943 to 1945 You should inflict very heavy losses up to the point when daylight bombing must be reconsidered in the light of raising losses.
> Note that by 1944, the USAAF does field long range escort fighters and increasing sizes of bombing formations.
> 
> ...


I totally disagree with this assessment.

The P51D, once it arrived, totally devastated the Luftwaffe in a matter of a few months. You can use any strategy you want, that's just not going to change IMO. Seriously, there was no winning strategy possible by 1944 for the Nazis. The war was already essentially completely lost by that stage.

Prolonging the war only makes things worse for the Nazi's anyway. *Catastrophically* worse.



FLYBOYJ said:


> Unreliable jets? As stated earlier the jet age was at hand. While the technology was a new the 262 had the potential to absolutely decimate the entire bomber effort day and night and while I could somewhat agree about reliability and endurance, the bottom line is the jet "would of" been more efficient and dangerous had the war continued another year or two.


The Nazis couldnt make enough engines for the 262s they did manage to build. And those they built were notoriously unreliable due to high quality metal shortages, etc. What's more, by 1945 Allied jet engine technology had already surpassed that of the Germans anyway- and unlike the Germans the Allies were gearing up to pump out Jets by the *thousands* by the end of the war.

There is no magic bullet for the Nazis to use. WWII was already long since lost by the time frame this discussion is concerned with. That includes the air war. Germany lost WWII the moment they invaded the SU before finishing off the Brits(assuming that was even possible to begin with, which is in itself extremely unlikely).

And again, even if they do manage to slow the offensives in the air and ground, the longer they prolong the war the worse their ultimate fate becomes. If they somehow managed to stretch the war into Aug 1945 then Hiroshima would've been Berlin.


----------



## Valo300 (Feb 10, 2009)

Delete please. double post.


----------



## parsifal (Feb 10, 2009)

Yes, I have to agree, by 1944, ther was nothing the Germans could do to even significantly slow down the process. The critical years were 1942-3 in my opinion, and the critical front had far less apparent importance air wise than the area over the Reich itself. I am referring to the Eastern Front, where the war, in its entirety (virtually, was fought and lost for the Germans. Without a better result in the east, all this other talk about alternative strategies are just froth and bubble IMO


----------



## delcyros (Feb 10, 2009)

> The P51D, once it arrived, totally devastated the Luftwaffe in a matter of a few months. You can use any strategy you want, that's just not going to change IMO. Seriously, there was no winning strategy possible by 1944 for the Nazis. The war was already essentially completely lost by that stage.


I do not suggest a war winning / war prolonging scenario here. I rather suppose historical developments. Change in the aerial war over Germany will not impact the outcome of ww2. This is a rather isolated discussion specifically to avoid the ever tempting "we do use jets, simply!" attitude when the topic appears.

The escort fighters were never priority target and the Luftwaffe (Galland) only once attempted a mass attack in multiple Geschwader strength to hold a bomber stream but this was eventually abandoned by poor weather and the planes were dispersed for other ops. I believe that the same can be done sooner, without requiring new technologies.
orrespondingly, I feel justified that the Escorts cannot win the war of attrition against a strategy where they are the primary target over hostile airspace.


----------



## Valo300 (Feb 10, 2009)

In reality i think one can build an unassailable position that the Nazis lost WWII the day the Germans declared war on the US..._regardless_ of what happened in the East.

But Hitler being Hitler, he'd already managed to lose the war even before that. Turning his back on the still warring Brits to invade the SU was *monumentally* stupid. Then again, so was attacking to begin with and having no actual workable plan to put the Brits out of the fight. As everyone on this board surely knows Sea Lion was an utter pipe dream of a "plan".

Germany was simply *not* ready to fight WWII in 1939, and it cost them everything in the end.



delcyros said:


> I do not suggest a war winning / war prolonging scenario here. I rather suppose historical developments. Change in the aerial war over Germany will not impact the outcome of ww2. This is a rather isolated discussion specifically to avoid the ever tempting "we do use jets, simply!" attitude when the topic appears.
> 
> The escort fighters were never priority target and the Luftwaffe (Galland) only once attempted a mass attack in multiple Geschwader strength to hold a bomber stream but this was eventually abandoned by poor weather and the planes were dispersed for other ops. I believe that the same can be done sooner, without requiring new technologies.
> orrespondingly, I feel justified that the Escorts cannot win the war of attrition against a strategy where they are the primary target over hostile airspace.


If the Luftwaffe focuses on the escorts(which were quite capable of defending themselves on equal or better terms against the Nazi fighters) then the bomber streams attack their targets totally unmolested.
And even assuming a 3:1 kill ratio vs the allied escorts, the Nazi's would've still done little more than prolong their agony, considering that in theater they were outnumbered over 10:1 in operational fighter aircraft(I'm guessing probably a lot more than 10:1, though i do not have the figures). 

That does not strike me as a winning strategy either.


----------



## parsifal (Feb 10, 2009)

The achilles heal for the US, like the British was the shortage of manpower. If the the Germans managed to shut down the eastern front, 80% of their casualties disappear overnight, and the massive drain on materiel falls off dramatically as well. 

Studies by Dunigan and others suggest that on average, each German soldier and airman is worth about 1.5 allied soldiers. Given the sensitivity of the Allies to losses, I can hardly see them paying something in the order of 8-10 million lives for victory (given an assumed German casualty figure of 5 million).

The Russians won the war against the germans, make no mistake, with admittedly a lot of help. Remove the Russians from the equation, and the allies are unable to win IMO, because only the Russians were prepred to pay whatever the cost for victory


----------



## parsifal (Feb 10, 2009)

Valo300 said:


> And even assuming a 3:1 kill ratio vs the allied escorts, the Nazi's would've still done little more than prolong their agony, considering that in theater they were outnumbered over 10:1 in operational fighter aircraft(I'm guessing probably a lot more than 10:1, though i do not have the figures).
> 
> That does not strike me as a winning strategy either.




err no....the US did not outnumber the Luftwaffe to anything like that number in frontline strength. The RAF aircraft could not really engage because of the limits to their range. In fact the Luftwaffe probably had near parity in fighters over the Reich in early 1944.

Its a common fallacy that the Luftwaffe was beaten by numbers.....what the US possessed which the LW did not, was a massive reserve capacity....more than 60% of the US air force remained stationed in the US to provide a ready reserve of aircarft and better trained pilots than the LW could hope to field. If a LW unit took losses, it could expect considerable delays before replacement pilots arrived. Aleeratively (and this is what they did do) untrained pilots would be combed out of the schools to replace the casualties. The untrained pilots were easy meat for the experienced US formations, and so the vicious spiral begins. 

But with the vast steppes of russia at peace, all of a sudden the LW has a safe training ground, vastly improved fuel supplies (meaning the training program can be improved and expanded) and vast resrves of its own to call upon.


----------



## timshatz (Feb 10, 2009)

Read the thread and think Dragondog had it best. Trick was to strip away the escorts early in the raid. Try to get the heavies out there without fighter support. This was an option the Luftwaffe tried in late 43. Not sure how well it worked. 

Will avoid talking about 262s and advanced 190s, it was not in the original question.

In a way, the Luftwaffe in 43-44 and the RAF in 40 had the same problem. But totally different strategic situations. The RAF had to survive to Fall Weather. The Luftwaffe had to develop a successful defense that was sustainable. In that, the Luftwaffe leadership would have to recognize an air war is a war of attrition and technical advance. No doubt plenty of people did in the Luftwaffe, but the chiefs would have to recognize it and shift priorities to fighter production (defensive) and away from Bomber productions (offensive).

However, on a tactical level, the interception of the allied fighter groups over the Dutch and French coast by high performance LW fighters would force them to drop tanks and deal with this threat. The goal of the LW fighters was to engage them, getting one or two here and there. But engagement is crucial. It is the goal to strip away the fighter escort.

I would also attack the 8th AF heavies AFTER crossing the German Border. Make it something of a line of departure. Maybe send the odd pure fighter group to attack them from the coast to the border. But it would have to be units that could protect themselves from Allied Escort fighters when the coastal intercepts failed. 

At the German border, the bomber killers would come out. Twin engined and up gunned FW190/Me109 fighters. Heavy cannon on underwing gondolas and air to air rockets would be used. Air to air bombing was dud and would not be used. They would focus on one group at a time and be fed in sequentially (not in one large group of 150, but in groups of 12-24 at a time) and given 5 minutes of contact time before the next group of LW fighter attacks. The intent is to wipe out totally one American bomber group per raid. I can think of no better morale killing effect than knowing when you were latched onto by the LW, you were gone. That they would just keep coming. I had read that this was one of the things 8th Bomber feared. 

There would also have to be a master fighter controller alongside the bomber stream. He would be sending fighters to attack certain units. Something close to AWACs but with a visual cue. He would get his own fighter escort. 

Fighters would not enter their own flak but would be waiting on the other side after the bombers hit their bomb runs. They would attack from the German border, to the target, and back to the border. One sortie per fighter would be definite, two if possible. At the border, they would pull off. 

On the bombers crossing the border, the only fighters pursuing would be standard LW single engine fighters (tasked specifically to destroy stragglers) and High Performance fighters still seeking Escort Groups. 

The number break down on how many aircraft this would require is a different and more involved question but I think the above plan would do great damage to the allied daylight bomber effort. 

Note- the focus is on allied heavy bombers. Allied medium and light bombers would be ignored wherever possible. For the most part, they did not pose a strategic threat and did not cross the German border.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 10, 2009)

Valo300 said:


> If the Luftwaffe focuses on the escorts(which were quite capable of defending themselves on equal or better terms against the Nazi fighters) then the bomber streams attack their targets totally unmolested.
> And even assuming a 3:1 kill ratio vs the allied escorts, the Nazi's would've still done little more than prolong their agony, considering that in theater they were outnumbered over 10:1 in operational fighter aircraft(I'm guessing probably a lot more than 10:1, though i do not have the figures).
> 
> *The Allies probably had 5:1 total fighter superiority if the LW put Luftflotte Reich in range of RAF, 9th AF, 8th AF FC and engaged over Holland through France in spring 1944. *
> ...



But the Luftflotte Reich had numerical superiority over the fighters reaching Central to Eastern and Souther Germany ~ very high in December 1943, reaching parity when the 8th FC had converted 6 P-47 Groups to Mustangs and had 4 Lightning Groups at same time - Late May 1944... then downhill from there.

The LW could always achieve Local superiority with skilled controllers capitalizing on Bomber/Escort coverage gaps due to mistake or weather right up to March, 1945.

My strategy prolongs and extends bomber losses in 1943 and early 1944 - but while the LW forces early returns of P-47s and then 38s and 51s, as well as inflicting higher fighter losses - they would also lose experinced pilots in the outer ring which would be far more difficult to replace when the Mustangs arrived in force...

The best chance to prolong the war is to inflict such high casualties that the USAAF abandons the daylight effort and transitions to night - which didn't happen - nor was it likely to happen given the defensive capabilities actually in place for LW.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Feb 10, 2009)

Valo300 said:


> by 1945 Allied jet engine technology had already surpassed that of the Germans anyway.


Absolutely False...

Allied jet technology was probably a year at best behind the Germans. The J-33 was just marginally more reliable than the Jumo 004 and was probably due more to its configuration than anything else. There were more advanced versions of the Jumo that would have put it on par with allied engines that were coming off the assembly lines by 1947. By 46/ 47 those allied engines developed during the war years were reaching maturity and the next generation was on the drawing board.


----------



## Amsel (Feb 10, 2009)

The USAAF bomber command was getting near to breaking before the introduction of long range escorts. I am not sure how much more heavy losses could be taken. Attacking the escorts as well as the bombers would have helped Germany. By switching priorities in 1943 to reichs defense might have stopped the daylight bombing altogether. 

Before the daylight bombing campaign began a very carefully prepared study was submitted to the USAAF. Basically it outlined and pinpointed every strategic target in Germany and took into account losses to flak, and fighters as well as weather situations and target hit probabilities. The study surmised that almost 7,000 missions would have to be flown over Germany to destroy its production capability. 
Th major problem at the time was not so much losses to fighters as was losses to flak. A few cases could be the exception such as the RAF Nuremburg raid. Due to weather and flak only 22% of all bombs dropped during the raids over Germany came within 5 miles of the intended targets. This is what led to the area bombing of German cities. The dismal accuracy was noted and target area saturation seemed better then precise targeting. 
So I think if more attention was paid to picking up the escorts after they crossed the channel and engaging them instead of the bombers some sort of small victory could be obtained, short term. It just depends on who was able to win the dogfights. If the escorts could be engaged and kept busy then other fighters could swoop in and hunt the edges of the bombers with more impunity. This would lead to more attrition on both sides, but the object is to make daylight raids too dangerous because the war was already decided in Russia and the Med.


----------



## timshatz (Feb 10, 2009)

Amsel said:


> It just depends on who was able to win the dogfights



Amsel, agree with you the 8th BC was having morale problems in the fall of '43. 

However, strictly from a tactical perspective, the LW didn't need to win the dogfights/engagements on the coast to be effective. They only needed to have the allied escort fighters take them seriously enough to drop their tanks to be effective. Once the allied fighters had done that, they were no longer escorts but simply a fighter sweep. 

Technically, the LW would need to develop a very effective high altitude, fast climbing fighters. Maybe a 109 with specially geared engine (others on this board know far more about the DB605 than I) so it could have a consistent altitude advantage on the escort fighters. Would create a very difficult tactical problem for the allies to solve. Something similar to the Mig15/F86 problem of the Korean War with the Migs flying south of the DMZ at altitude and the F86s shadowing them at a lower altitude.


----------



## Valo300 (Feb 10, 2009)

parsifal said:


> The achilles heal for the US, like the British was the shortage of manpower. If the the Germans managed to shut down the eastern front, 80% of their casualties disappear overnight, and the massive drain on materiel falls off dramatically as well.


This is simply not true. The garrison requirements for the SU alone would've gobbled up hundreds of thousands of germans and all the associated war materiel they would need to stay there. This would be a MASSIVE drain on Nazi resources....even if there was no insurgency after the war in the East ended(Which is highly unlikely).



parsifal said:


> Studies by Dunigan and others suggest that on average, each German soldier and airman is worth about 1.5 allied soldiers.


Depends when in the war you're talking. In 1945 on GI veteran was probably worth 10 German conscripts. In 1942, one hardened SS man is probably worth 10 green US GI's.



parsifal said:


> Given the sensitivity of the Allies to losses, I can hardly see them paying something in the order of 8-10 million lives for victory (given an assumed German casualty figure of 5 million).


How did we even get to a 5 million casualty figure? Even if you triple the LW's kill rate they get nowhere near that figure. 

From my vantage point the allies did whatever it took to win, and never shie'd away from casualties when there was no other choice.



parsifal said:


> The Russians won the war against the germans, make no mistake, with admittedly a lot of help.


Take away LL and there are no massive Soviet counter-offensives. I would say the US won WWII more than any other nation. Without the 300,000 trucks the US sent, and all the thousands of rail cars, and the steel, explosives, yada, yada the soviets, even if they still blunt the German offensive, simply cannot exploit the reversals because they'd lack the transportation, the explosives, the steel, the whole nine yards.

No LL= a standoff in the East, _at best_.



parsifal said:


> Remove the Russians from the equation, and the allies are unable to win IMO, because only the Russians were prepred to pay whatever the cost for victory


No Russians = nuclear Armageddon in 1945-46 for the German populace.

Germany could not win the war once the US joined the fight, not under any realistic scenario. Russians or no Russians. 

This being said i do not mean to minimize the contribution of the Soviets, their bleeding made our job vastly easier than it would have been without them.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 10, 2009)

Amsel said:


> The USAAF bomber command was getting near to breaking before the introduction of long range escorts. I am not sure how much more heavy losses could be taken. Attacking the escorts as well as the bombers would have helped Germany. By switching priorities in 1943 to reichs defense might have stopped the daylight bombing altogether.
> 
> *The October 14 1943 losses had already effectively slowed the 8th AF to point that few deep penetrations were attempted until the introduction of the Mustang. When Big Week occured in 21 Feb timeframe, the 8th and 9th had 3 Mustang and 2 Lightning groups operational. Two weeks later for first Berlin mission there were 4 Mustang plus three Lightning Groups operational for Berlin. Two days later there were 5 Mustang groups fully operational for second maximum effort Berlin mission on March 8 - from this point forward the maximum effort deep penetration attacks multiplied and probably as much to draw out and destroy the LW as any other reason.*
> 
> ...



How was the war 'decided' in MTO? Nobody was exactly racing up Italy's mountain spine - although Ploesti was probably the single most important Axis target of WWII and it was hammered in 1944. What did you have in mind?


----------



## Amsel (Feb 10, 2009)

The war was decided in the MTO as well as the Eastern front before it there was any invasion in Normandy. After Stalingrad and the Afrika Korps getting booted from Africa and then the humiliating defeat at Sicily theb third reich had lost all initiative and had to go on the defensive. Those defeats lost a large swath of experienced and capable troops as well. The vital resources that the third reich was depending on using to sustain the reich were also gone with the wind.


----------



## Valo300 (Feb 10, 2009)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Absolutely False...


Nope, it is not false if the information i have seen is accurate(and i have no reason to believe it's not). By 1945 Allied Jet engines produced more thrust and had much more reliability than contemporary Nazi engines. This is a simple fact. I am sure i can find a chart if you really need proof.



FLYBOYJ said:


> There were more advanced versions of the Jumo that would have put it on par with allied engines that were coming off the assembly lines by 1947.


That the germans lacked the raw materials to make. 

By late war they were facing all kinds of raw material shortages. Historically they could not even build enough engines for Me262s, and those they did build were terribly unreliable. What's more, by 1945 the LW didn't really have any fuel left for any sort of mass operations anyway, and certainly not massive prolonged operations.

Had the war stretched to 1946 the US alone would've _massively_ outpaced the Germans in jet aircraft production. Not to mention that the Germans lacked the ability to man all the planes that they'd need by that stage in the war anyway.

Even if the Germans had thousands of jets, the simple fact is that 16yo boys in _'wunder-weapons"_ are absolutely no match for seasoned vets in top-end legacy designs. 

Germany had already irreversibly lost WWII long, long before the entry into service of Jet powered aircraft.



Amsel said:


> The war was decided in the MTO as well as the Eastern front before it there was any invasion in Normandy.


The war was lost long before that stage as well. Several times over, really.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Feb 10, 2009)

Valo300 said:


> Nope, it is not false if the information i have seen is accurate(and i have no reason to believe it's not). By 1945 Allied Jet engines produced more thrust and had much more reliability than contemporary Nazi engines. This is a simple fact. I am sure i can find a chart if you really need proof.


By the end of 45, sure but what about the beginning of 45, the last months of the war? 

In Jan 45 the best the allies were getting out of the J-33/ Welland was about 3800 pounds and that was in the test cell. 

Yes, I'd like to see this chart and where it came from....



Valo300 said:


> That the germans lacked the raw materials to make.
> 
> By late war they were facing all kinds of raw material shortages. Historically they could not even build enough engines for Me262s, and those they did build were terribly unreliable.



The only thing they lacked was raw material...and time - and they knew that. But during that period 9and it was short) they were producing more advanced turbine engines and considering the conditions, they did an excellent job.

the Jumo 004 had a shelf life up to 10 hours. The Germans were attempting to substitute nickel steels so their engines could be made more reliable. The early J-33s and RR Wellands were just a little better but because of their construction were lasting another 10 hours more. Test pilot Tony Levier had a turbine disk come off an early P-80 south of Muroc in 1945 - it only had 5 hourd on it. 

the 004C was being developed with an afterburner; the 004E was more fuel efficient, put out more thrust (1650 lbs) and was more reliable. When the war ended Junkers was working on the 004H which was capable of over 2,600 pounds thrust. 

Then you had the Heinkel HeS 011 putting out close to 3000 pounds thrust - and this engine was in the test stand in early 1945.

From the HeS 0011 and 004C and on you were looking at power plants that were probably just as advanced as the first J-35s. Yes, early German turbine engines were unreliable, but they were no way behind "technically" allied engines of the same period, quite the opposite.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 10, 2009)

Amsel said:


> The war was decided in the MTO as well as the Eastern front before it there was any invasion in Normandy. After Stalingrad and the Afrika Korps getting booted from Africa and then the humiliating defeat at Sicily theb third reich had lost all initiative and had to go on the defensive. Those defeats lost a large swath of experienced and capable troops as well. The vital resources that the third reich was depending on using to sustain the reich were also gone with the wind.



Until Dragoon - the Allies were floundering around Rome after a long campaign with extremely high casualties - and low resource requirements by Wermacht in the mountains. 

Respectfully, taking Rome and D-Day were basically in same weeek.. While you are correct about Germany being on defensive in MTO, the same could be said about Germany being on the defensive in the East from Stalingrad forward and could say Germany started on the defensive for Channel Ops after the BoB wound down. The only offense conducted by Germany after Dec 1942 was Battle of Atlantic IIRC.

Taken further, the war was decided when Hitler attacked Russia and then declared war on US


----------



## Amsel (Feb 10, 2009)

Sounds good, my only point being that Germany had no chance for a win, stalemate, or terms without Russia being liberated. The shortage of ammunition and fuel was too severe as well as the lack of fresh soldiers. That being this conversation about strategies to counter the strategic bombing can only realistically be put in the context of stoppong the daylight bombing and sueing for peace with the Western allies. Highly unlikely as long as Hitler and Goerring were at the helm.


----------



## Valo300 (Feb 10, 2009)

FLYBOYJ said:


> The only thing they lacked was raw material...and time - and they knew that.
> 
> the Jumo 004 had a shelf life up to 10 hours. The Germans were attempting to substitute nickel steels so their engines could be made more reliable. The early J-33s and RR Wellands were just a little better but because of their construction were lasting another 10 hours more. Test pilot Tony Levier had a turbine disk come off an early P-80 south of Muroc in 1944 - it only had 5 hourd on it.
> 
> ...


Though i do not disagree with your observations regarding their advanced jet engines, again, by 1945 the Allied designs were producing more power with longer service life on average. I should find that chart, it's pretty telling. (i'm still trying to find it)

And again, even if they had plans for a PW F-100, they simply lacked the ability to produce them in sufficient numbers, as well as lacking the fuel to fly the birds even if they did build them in the numbers they needed.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Feb 10, 2009)

Valo300 said:


> Though i do not disagree with your observations regarding their advanced jet engines, again, by 1945 the Allied designs were producing more power with longer service life on average. I should find that chart, it's pretty telling. (i'm still trying to find it)


By the end of 45, I'll agree, but your original quote


Valo300 said:


> by 1945 Allied jet engine *technology* had already surpassed that of the Germans anyway





Valo300 said:


> And again, even if they had plans for a PW F-100, they simply lacked the ability to produce them in sufficient numbers, as well as lacking the fuel to fly the birds even if they did build them in the numbers they needed.


Agree...


----------



## red admiral (Feb 10, 2009)

> When the war ended the best ther allies were getting out of the J-33/ Welland was about 2000 pounds and that was in the test cell.



By 1945 the time of the Welland was over, the first Meteor F3s introduced in 1944 had Derwent engines which were producing up to 2600lbf by the end of the war (Mk IV) and had a life of around 200hours. The Nene, Goblin and Ghost were already running and producing vastly more power. Reliability isn't about engine lifetime. The problem facing the Jumo 004 was compressor stall leading to flameout with rapid throttle changes and vibration in the turbine (which was pretty much solved eventually). The build quality on the 004 can only be described as poor (based on my experience). The centrifugal compressor is much less prone to surging.



> The Germans were attempting to substitute nickel steels so their engines could be made more reliable. The early J-33s and RR Wellands were just a little better but because of their construction were lasting another 10 hours more.



The Germans, even with better raw materials and time available stuck with nickel stainless steels (for the 004A). The allies had nickel superalloys (not steels) with much better creep performance. Simply having nickel available doesn't mean superalloys magically appear - they were in development for ten years previously. By mid 45 the manufacturing issues with air cooled turbine blades had been more or less resolved (probably, but not much information to go on) in the German engines meaning that turbine temperatures could be raised (more thrust) and turbine life improved with the steels used. 

Part of the poor lifetime with German engines was down to the fact that turbine temperatures were already higher than the allied engines. In conjunction with low pressure ratio you get a lot of thrust in exchange for lower lifetime and poorer fuel consumption.

The lifetimes of allied engines was over 150hours and up to about 300 or so. It is easy to get things wrong and so there could be a wide variation in lifetimes, especially with fatigue and vibration problems in the initial engines. But really you're looking at a lifetime an order of magnitude greater.



> the 004C was being developed with an afterburner; the 004E was more fuel efficient, put out more thrust (1650 lbs) and was more reliable.



Its difficult to find information on the later models, mostly because they were built in very small numbers if at all. So far as I can tell the 004E was actually built and had an afterburner. With increased turbine entry temperature (to give more dry thrust) and few other apparent changes, I extremely doubt that the fuel efficiency was better. It should be worse. Lifetime should be better with air cooled blades, but reliability will probably be worse with the afterburner as the engine should be more prone to surging. But its difficult to say with the lack of information available. The US had a great deal of problems with their first generation of afterburning turbojets.



> Yes, early German turbine engines were unreliable, but they were no way behind "technically" allied engines of the same period, quite the opposite.



Thats a challenging point to support. In terms of the engines actually built, the Allied ones were better. Usually the point is made of the better thrust/unit area of the German axial types but the Metrovick F2 also exists. It offers more thrust, much lower fuel consumption, lower weight and greater lifetime. By 1945 you've got the F2/4 offering even more thrust with lower fuel consumption. You've also got in 1945 the F3 and F5 turbofan and UDF running successfully offering 40% lower fuel consumption and 100% more thrust (4600lbf and 4800lbf respectively with sfc 0.66). The 004, 003 and 011 don't come anywhere close to competing on these technical issues - but are easier to produce with the limited resources available.

In terms of more paper engines, design for the Avon and Sapphire is already underway in 1945. Griffith is advocating high bypass ratio turbofans... Bristol has the world's first rate turboprop with heat regenerator... Little information is available on German paper engines but the ideas on both sides are pretty similar.

The one German advantage, that they had been forced into studying air cooled turbine blades which eventually worked so lower amounts of specialised materials could be used. The German engines were suited to the type of war they were fighting and their restrictions. The Allied ones were better optimised for their war and peacetime postwar.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Feb 10, 2009)

red admiral said:


> By 1945 the time of the Welland was over, the first Meteor F3s introduced in 1944 had Derwent engines which were producing up to 2600lbf by the end of the war (Mk IV) and had a life of around 200hours. The Nene, Goblin and Ghost were already running and producing vastly more power.


 Sure, by the end of the war, what were they doing when they were first put on an airframe?



red admiral said:


> Reliability isn't about engine lifetime.


Agree



red admiral said:


> The problem facing the Jumo 004 was compressor stall leading to flameout with rapid throttle changes and vibration in the turbine (which was pretty much solved eventually). The build quality on the 004 can only be described as poor (based on my experience). The centrifugal compressor is much less prone to surging.


Also agree




red admiral said:


> Part of the poor lifetime with German engines was down to the fact that turbine temperatures were already higher than the allied engines. In conjunction with low pressure ratio you get a lot of thrust in exchange for lower lifetime and poorer fuel consumption.


Also agree...


red admiral said:


> The lifetimes of allied engines was over 150hours and up to about 300 or so.


Again, in 1945 and more so toward the later part of the year.




red admiral said:


> The one German advantage, that they had been forced into studying air cooled turbine blades which eventually worked so lower amounts of specialised materials could be used. The German engines were suited to the type of war they were fighting and their restrictions. The Allied ones were better optimised for their war and peacetime postwar.


Agree 100%


----------



## red admiral (Feb 10, 2009)

> Sure, by the end of the war, what were they doing when they were first put on an airframe?



Losses would be minimal given the Meteor's short nacelles so the thrust should be the same. 2000lbf for the Derwent I, 2400lbf for the II and III, rising to 2600lbf for the IV fitted to F3s in 1945.



> Again, in 1945 and more so toward the later part of the year.



No, those lifetimes are true for 1943. Reliability would be a bit worse as the combustion problems had only just been solved but materials remained the same so life shouldn't be appreciably different.

One I forgot before, the LR.1 turbofan under construction by Power Jets (and almost completed according to Whittle) just before it was nationalised and effectively disbanded. 6000lbf with a bypass ratio of 3.0


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Feb 10, 2009)

red admiral said:


> No, those lifetimes are true for 1943. Reliability would be a bit worse as the combustion problems had only just been solved but materials remained the same so life shouldn't be appreciably different.


I believe the J-33 as installed on the P-80 had a 25 hour life.



red admiral said:


> One I forgot before, the LR.1 turbofan under construction by Power Jets (and almost completed according to Whittle) just before it was nationalised and effectively disbanded. 6000lbf with a bypass ratio of 3.0


I have heard about that and it would of been pretty amazing if the potiential was seen.


----------



## delcyros (Feb 10, 2009)

Reliability issues of the Jumo-004 is for a very significant part construction related and not a question of generalisation.
The BMW-003 in late 1944/early 1945 had an avg. service lifetime of over 200 hours and didn´t suffered from rapid throttle changes the way the Jumo-004 did.


----------



## HellToupee (Feb 10, 2009)

timshatz said:


> However, on a tactical level, the interception of the allied fighter groups over the Dutch and French coast by high performance LW fighters would force them to drop tanks and deal with this threat. The goal of the LW fighters was to engage them, getting one or two here and there. But engagement is crucial. It is the goal to strip away the fighter escort.



Bombers on the penetration phase would have spitfire and p47 escorts, getting them to drop their tanks still wouldn't strip away the p51 escort.


----------



## parsifal (Feb 10, 2009)

Valo300 said:


> 1) _This is simply not true. The garrison requirements for the SU alone would've gobbled up hundreds of thousands of germans and all the associated war materiel they would need to stay there. This would be a MASSIVE drain on Nazi resources....even if there was no insurgency after the war in the East ended(Which is highly unlikely)._
> 
> 2) _Depends when in the war you're talking. In 1945 on GI veteran was probably worth 10 German conscripts. In 1942, one hardened SS man is probably worth 10 green US GI's_.
> 
> ...


1) In fact the Wehrmacht estimated that the garrison requirements for the eastern territories would have been about 60 divs. Moreover the partisans in Russia operated on a fundamentally different level to those say in france or other western european countries. they were all tightly controlled and supplied from the central government and were most effective where they could be re-supplied, that is, close to the front....if the central government of the Soviets is defunct, or "on the run", they are not going to be able to mount any effective partisamn effort for some time....they wont even be able to raise the manpower, since the manpower is not motivated by nationalist concerns so much as feart of the regime....if the regime has lost control, it cannot raise the formations.

And in any event partisan warfare would extract only a fraction of the losses that open warfare did. The average monthly losses in 1941-2 for the wehrmacht was about 40000 per month (net). With a partisan effort only to contend with, the partisans might be lucky to inflict 40000 per year. moreover, given the anti-soviet sentiments in the Ukraine and byelorussia, and the baltic states, the garrisoning requirements could eventually be met by indigenous resources 

2) The SS was never the "best" soldiers fielded by the germans, in terms of "soldier efficiency". Its again one of those post war myths that have grown up in the post war era. The SS were tough soldiers, no doubt about it, but they were also some of the most abysmally led formations of any army of the time. The most efficient formations were in fact the regular army panzer divs, who benefitted from a hard core of highly experienced officers leading them. The SS gained its reputation, not from the economy it managed to achieved in lives in taking or defending an objective, rather it achieved its reputation by taking or defending an objective regardless of the cost (which inevitably was much heavier than for an equivalent regular army unit)

The studies i refer to in fact rate "fpf" advantage for the germans over the allies in 1942 as 2.31, that is, on average, the German soldier is equivalent in his effectiveness to 2.31 allied soldiers. By late 1944, this advantage had reduced to 1.31, but given the considerable advantages enjoyed by the allies in such areas as artillery, mobility, and air support, this suggests a german soldier still far superior individually to anything the allies could field 

3) The 5 million figure comes from the actual casualties suffered by the germans....given that they could absorb 5 million casualtiers, and they are worth x1.6 times the allies in terms of the combat effectiveness, the allies are going to need to absorb at least 8 million casualties in order to win the battle

This issue of excessive casulaties never arose in WWII for the allies, because their loss rates were never anywhere near that loss rate. But in WWI it did arise....for example the french came close to mutiny in 1917 after only a million casualties. The british also were showing some signs of shakiness, which fortunately did not manifest itself until after the war. but british strategy during the war was aimed firmly at avoiding paying the "butchers bill" that had been demanded of them during WWI. If the british had taken serious losses in 1944, they would have been forced to the peace table, simply because by 1944 there were no more men to replace losses.

In the case of the Americans, the general board had originally envisioned an army of some 200 divs, but this was pared right back to a frontline strength of just 60 Divs (with about 30 Divs in reserve). For the US to take on the 400 or so german Divs they would need to implement the original mobilzation plan, and more, and be prepred to lose about the equivalent of that 200 Divs in casualties in order to defeat the Germans. This would have massive, and probably catastrophic knock on effects in other areas, including the manufacturing sector, the R&D sector, and in the prosecution of the air war. US manufacturing would suffer significant losses in efficiency, and i would even speculate that the A-Bomb program would be delayed or even curtailed by these losses 


4) That is not a view shared by Russian historians, they are generally dismissive of the effect of LL.

My opinion is more moderate than that, I believe it assisted significantly the Russian efforts, particualrly the massive amounts of food that were delivered thereby releasing huge quantities of manpower for the front. However i do balk at the notion that Lend Lease was decisive for the eastern Front....useful yes, decisve, probably not 

5) Err no, not if the nuclear program is curtailed, Britain forced to the peace table, and the US forced to divert a greater share of her diminshed resources into the regular forces.....
Germany could not win the war once the US joined the fight, not under any realistic scenario. Russians or no Russians. 

6) Extremely patronising...you make it sound as if the russians were a "nice to have" addition to victory, in fact without them victory is probably not attainable. Nearly all the authoritative histories attest to the vital role played by the Russians. The Allies also oplayed a vital role, I am not saying that either component to victory was "expendable"


----------



## syscom3 (Feb 10, 2009)

And if the LW cannot get control of the air over France, then the allied invasion will go as planned. And if contested, the LW will have to fight outnumbered far from its bases in which it will destroyed.

And then factor in the effect of the allies moving closer to Germany on the ground, means the allied fighters are going to be flying deeper and/or longer.


----------



## parsifal (Feb 10, 2009)

In france, in 1944, the allies fought about 40 Divs, and with difficulty managed to get ashore, and then fight their way into germany.

In this "what if" scenario, the Allies are going to be weakened materially, because so many more of the working men are going to be drafted into the army. A much greater effort would have been expended in getting control of the Atlantic, and overcoming the KM. 

The Luftwaffe would be far better trained, and on parity in terms of fighter numbers. a delay of even a few months, means that the Germans have all manner of technology to call upon, including Me 262s and the like, but most importantly they are fighting with a much larger reserve of pilots, far better trained than they were. Given that they are defending over friendly territory, they inher4ently have a lower pilot wastage than the Allies. Almost certainly the allies in that scenario will not achieve the toatal air superiority that they did historically, in fact it is quite likley that the allies wind up fighting defensively themselves, defending the invasion barges frfom German air attacks over britain.

And after all this, instead of fighting against 38 Divs of indeifferent quality, the Allies will be attempting to battle something like 120 divs of the highest quality the wehrmacht can field, with fully adequate reserves, and formidable air defence protecting them.

In short, the allies are at minimum suffer a bloodbath as they battle ashore, and more likely total defeat as they are thrown back into the sea......


----------



## timshatz (Feb 11, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> Bombers on the penetration phase would have spitfire and p47 escorts, getting them to drop their tanks still wouldn't strip away the p51 escort.



True, you are talking about a segmented escort covering various times and locations of the stream. Each one would have to be intercepted. That, admittedly, would be difficult. 

The initital intercepts would be over the coast. Holland and France would be fighter battlegrounds. Hence the reason for keeping heavy fighters behind the German border and leaving the pure fighters to duke it out over France/Belgium/Holland. The fighters working this turf would be High Performance Bomber intercepts and true fighters (mostly ME109 for the HP fighters and FW-190s for the true fighters). As the focus of their attacks would be fighters, I would limit the firepower on the FWs to 2 MG and 2 Cannon and the 109s to standard 2MGs and one Cannon. 

Essentially, there are two fights going on. One between the coast and the German border between fighters and one after the German border with heavy fighters and heavy bombers. Doubtless, the fights will overlap. But the majority of the pure HP Fighters would be working the coast to Germany territory and the Heavy Fighters would be working the Heavy Bombers over Germany.


----------



## tomo pauk (Feb 11, 2009)

The strategy to send LW fighters over France and low countries has one weak point: it would allow to W. Allies to deploy Spits, P-47 and Typhoon to the battle. So, instead of meeting P-51 and P-47, LW will meet much larger number of fighter opposition.

On the somewhat unrelated issue (but still very much on-topic):
I don't to see people saying that Germans should've built more AAA.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 11, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> Bombers on the penetration phase would have spitfire and p47 escorts, getting them to drop their tanks still wouldn't strip away the p51 escort.



Attacking the inbound P-51s is the basic strategy - and it would cause at least part of a group to drop tanks and repel the bounce. Stalking the Mustangs under controller and spotter direction causes a large percentage of inbound Mustangs to turn back well short of target escort for deep targets.

The logical counter is to prioritize a percentage of long range escort capacity to Sweeps well out in front under type 16 control to go after the interceptors.

But in the early Mustang deployment, there weren't really enough Mustangs in combined RAF (III) and USAAF (9th and 8th) until April - leaving another three months of severe casualties to deep penetration attacks beyond what actually happened.

If your strategy is to punish bombers beyond the Ems/Rhine, then you don't care as much whether Spits and Jugs drop tanks as they aren't a factor in central Germany and beyond. Only the P-38s and Mustangs should be your intercept targets.


----------



## Amsel (Feb 11, 2009)

tomo pauk said:


> On the somewhat unrelated issue (but still very much on-topic):
> I don't to see people saying that Germans should've built more AAA.


I believe the Germans had around 1,000,000 men, women and boys and girls involved in AA defense.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 11, 2009)

timshatz said:


> True, you are talking about a segmented escort covering various times and locations of the stream. Each one would have to be intercepted. That, admittedly, would be difficult.
> 
> *If I were running the show I would put low level Fw 190s, Ju 88s and Me 110/410s on the deck (risking barrage ballons) and attack bases all over East Anglia from 3am through 5am as bomber bases were fueling and bombing up - the fighter bases would be as vulnerable because SOP was to refuel after every mission and each Fighter would be full of fuel - until the attacks made it too risky. It would be very difficult to maintain perfect blckout over the bases.
> 
> ...



Those are the only differences we have Tim.


----------



## tomo pauk (Feb 11, 2009)

drgondog said:


> Attacking the inbound P-51s is the basic strategy - and it would cause at least part of a group to drop tanks and repel the bounce. Stalking the Mustangs under controller and spotter direction causes a large percentage of inbound Mustangs to turn back well short of target escort for deep targets.
> 
> *It is unlikely to me that Germans could pick adversaries at will when a plethora of Allied planes confronts them. Plus the Allies would have the benefit of GCI, what they lacked over Germany proper.*
> 
> ...



I'm not familiar with 'type 16 control' term, what is that?


----------



## parsifal (Feb 11, 2009)

tomo pauk said:


> On the somewhat unrelated issue (but still very much on-topic):
> I don't to see people saying that Germans should've built more AAA.



If the Russians are out of the picture, the very best flak crews, the regs, can return to germany to protect German cities, at least an additional 35 battalions are added to the defence. more importantly the crews dont have to rely on barrage fire to attack the bombers. if the germans are smart, they will distribute the seasoned regular veterans, so that the overall flak units improve in quality. 

If the crews are up to it, they can use aimed fire instead of the more easily delivered, but less effective barrage fire. The number of rounds per kill should start to drop from 16000 rounds per kill, back toward the 4000 that were needed in 1942, when these regular LW crews were first detached from the AD role. This means that with the greatly enhanced number, the flak is likley to shoot down 3 to 4 times the number they actually did.

in addition, the Germans can build additional 128 mm heavys, which have a kill ration roughly five times that of the standard 88s and 105s that are normal issue


----------



## tomo pauk (Feb 11, 2009)

Sure enough, with Russians defeated many things would change, with _Jagdgeschvadern_ being 'the firstest with the mostest'. The additional Flak would be welcomed of course.

But perhaps the most positive issue would be the cease of loosing the lives of German soldiers have the Russians plummeted.


----------



## timshatz (Feb 11, 2009)

"If I were running the show I would put low level Fw 190s, Ju 88s and Me 110/410s on the deck (risking barrage ballons) and attack bases all over East Anglia from 3am through 5am as bomber bases were fueling and bombing up - the fighter bases would be as vulnerable because SOP was to refuel after every mission and each Fighter would be full of fuel - until the attacks made it too risky. It would be very difficult to maintain perfect blckout over the bases.

Then I would put the first line of fighter interceptors and plan to hit escorts as early as possible while climbing to altitude - basically over the Channel until the RAF/USAAF could develop a strategy to make that too expensive."


Dragondog, I see your point and it is a valid one. It is a difference in strategies. But, just to be a nitpicker, I think Delc's request was for a defensive strategy. While you could qualify your ideas as an "active defense" as there was no intent for a follow on invasion of the British Isles, I'm going with the perspective that it crosses the line and becomes an attack strategy. However, given your due, the arguement on this point is 6 to one, half a dozen to the other. An active defense can easily become an offensive or it can draw back. That is a the beauty of an air war! Very flexible. 

But, getting back to the tactical ramifications, I would be inclined to keep my fighters over friendly turf and not venture out to meet the USAF over it's home bases. This is for several reasons:

1. Over home turf, loses are lower. A damaged aircraft can belly in or be salvaged. A bailed out pilot is not a prisoner. 

2. Losses to operational reasons (fuel exhaustion, getting lost, ect) are lower. 

3. You will be fighting in your back yard, not theirs. Your AAA, Your Radar, Your local conditions. All that stuff adds up. 

4. Fewer defenses to deal with. Over England, you're up against 8th Fighter, 9th Fighter (if needed and in business at this time) and RAF Fighter Command. In their backyard with all the attendent advantages, experience and improvements since the BOB. Your odds start getting very long.

In short, any sustained effort over England would be playing into the Allies (especially the USAAF) hands. The Americans could afford to get into a long war of attrition with technically advanced machinery (an Air War), it was the war they wanted. It was not the war Germany wanted or could win. 

All that said, I think the occasional raid taking advantage of local conditions (possible sneaking back tailing a bombing raid or using speed/low level conditions or high altitude hunting Allied escorts) would be effective in making the RAF and USAAF treat their home turf as a battleground, increasing wear and tear and using up aircraft tasked for other duties, could work. But it would be a limited thing.


----------



## HellToupee (Feb 11, 2009)

drgondog said:


> If your strategy is to punish bombers beyond the Ems/Rhine, then you don't care as much whether Spits and Jugs drop tanks as they aren't a factor in central Germany and beyond. Only the P-38s and Mustangs should be your intercept targets.



Yes but they can hardly just go picking and choosing p51s when they try to intercept them within range of p47s and spitfires, they will just get overwhelmed by the far superior numbers. They would not have a way to locate the p51s among all the other airborne fighters either.


----------



## Clay_Allison (Feb 11, 2009)

delcyros said:


> Following the other thread about bomber killing weapons I would like to discuss it from another perspective.
> This thread is specififcally intended NOT to include advanced weapons (SAM, R4M) or fighters (jet and rocket interceptors) or "what if" designs (Fw-187).
> Assume that You are given responsibility to develop a defense strategy against the US 8th AAF offensive daylight bombing campaign, circling around the Bf-109G, Fw-190A, Me-410 and other planes historically aviable. With the technological and quantitative ressources aviable in the timeframe 1943 to 1945 You should inflict very heavy losses up to the point when daylight bombing must be reconsidered in the light of raising losses.
> Note that by 1944, the USAAF does field long range escort fighters and increasing sizes of bombing formations.
> ...


Rocket-propelled "suicide" aircraft with a bomb in the nose and a crude gunpowder ejection seat so the poor pilot can punch out and have a chance to survive the experience.

Call it the V-5 Höðr


----------



## timshatz (Feb 12, 2009)

tomo pauk said:


> The strategy to send LW fighters over France and low countries has one weak point: it would allow to W. Allies to deploy Spits, P-47 and Typhoon to the battle. So, instead of meeting P-51 and P-47, LW will meet much larger number of fighter opposition.



Tomo, you raise a good point. One counter the Allies could use to combat the intercepts would be to send fighter sweeps out in front of the escort fighters to catch the LW fighters climbing to altitude or just to engage them. It is impossible for the LW to tell the difference between an escort fighter and a fighter sweep. With the excess of short range fighters that adding the Fighter Command to the battle would give, the Allies have more options. There is also the option of sending light and medium bombers after LW bases, thereby reducing the serviceability rates. 

There is no simple solution to this problem that I can see. Given the numerical superiority the Allies can bring to this battle, the LW is once again in a losing position. What happens is actually what did happen. The LW loses the ability to run the show over France and the Low Countries and is reduced to hit and run attacks on the Allied aircraft or local, temporary, air superiority. 

The numbers consistently drift the Allies way.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 12, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> Yes but they can hardly just go picking and choosing p51s when they try to intercept them within range of p47s and spitfires, they will just get overwhelmed by the far superior numbers. They would not have a way to locate the p51s among all the other airborne fighters either.



Actually they do HT. The Target escorts ALWAYS took off well after the Penetration Escorts who had to meet the bombers on the coast (i.e Borkhum Is) and proceed at same speed as bombers.

Target Escort Mustangs took off at least 1-2 hours after say, 91st BG at Bassingbourn, if the target was deep - would up form and fly straight (more or less) to R/V point somewhere in Western/Central GY.

If the target was Berlin and the Trolley route was used, the 51's might pick up the bombers past Denmark... Their cruise speed depended on fuel conservation requirements but they would burn the fuselage tanks, then start on drop tanks, hoping to use all of it by the target,


----------



## drgondog (Feb 12, 2009)

timshatz said:


> Tomo, you raise a good point. One counter the Allies could use to combat the intercepts would be to send fighter sweeps out in front of the escort fighters to catch the LW fighters climbing to altitude or just to engage them. It is impossible for the LW to tell the difference between an escort fighter and a fighter sweep.
> 
> *Actually, they could distinguish between the escort and sweep fighters.*
> 
> ...



I also agree that fighter sweeps are the counter to LW intercepts early as I mentioned earlier. But fighter sweeps are detectable simply because the task force is at least 70-100 mph faster as they are not required to 'ess' over the bombers.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 12, 2009)

tomo pauk said:


> I'm not familiar with 'type 16 control' term, what is that?



Type 16 Control went operational in December 1943. Two high definition radars which had a range of 120+ miles. The radar signatures were plotted at a central control plot room manned by RAF and used to direct up to two Allied Fighter Groups (usually escort fighters into the Dummer Lake (max) range intercepts.)

In July it was replaced by the MEWS system which had a range of 200 plus miles. In November the MEWS system was moved to the continent and two more joined the first installation in December.

Both of these systems were developed by the Brits and manned by USAAF and RAF teams. Used heavily during Normandy Campaign to detect LW and direct Allied Fighters to intercept.


----------



## timshatz (Feb 12, 2009)

drgondog said:


> I also agree that fighter sweeps are the counter to LW intercepts early as I mentioned earlier. But fighter sweeps are detectable simply because the task force is at least 70-100 mph faster as they are not required to 'ess' over the bombers.



DD, I was thinking a fighter sweep or inbound escort mission would be inpossible to discern due to speed. Both would probably cruise around 200mph. However, it is possible the inbound escort would be a tad bit slower as they would be on a more economical setting. That point is debateable. 

As for the SSSing over the bomber stream, I would consider that to be a failure of the intercept from the LW to catch the fighters before they got there. My idea is to intercept them early enough to make them dump tanks. Not so much for destroying the allied fighters (although that would be a good thing as well) but to wreck the mission profile by taking the fuel they would need out of the equation and shortening their range. 

As to the intercepts of the inbound allied escorts, the intent is to interrupt their mission profile and not allow them the freedom of action beyond the German border due to fuel constraints. The twin engine heavy fighters of the LW would not be effective against the escorts, too heavy, too loaded down with ordinance. That is the specific intent of the intercepts over the coast. To spare the twins. 

Was aware of the light and medium attacks on Airfields. In truth, most of the ideas we've tossed around on this thread were tried by both sides during the '43 to '45 time period. In some cases earlier during the RAF's raids in 1941-42. Goes to show there is a logical way to handle these things and, after kicking it around, we generally end up in the same spot!


----------



## drgondog (Feb 12, 2009)

timshatz said:


> DD, I was thinking a fighter sweep or inbound escort mission would be inpossible to discern due to speed. Both would probably cruise around 200mph. However, it is possible the inbound escort would be a tad bit slower as they would be on a more economical setting. That point is debateable.
> 
> 
> *Tim - debatable but only has one answer for penetration support. As fast as the slowest bomber and moving with same vector/course. The settings would be close to optimal for fuel consumption but the fighters would be 'essing' across the bomber track at perhaps 220TAS while the B-17s are moving at 150 in a straight line... but the combined radar signature is a 'cloud' moving at 150 for the escorted bombers and 220-240 for the free cruising target escort en route to R/V.*
> ...



*As near as I can tell we haven't disagreed - except on different flight profile of target escort en route to R/V and those already in escort position*


----------



## KrazyKraut (Feb 12, 2009)

red admiral said:


> Thats a challenging point to support. In terms of the engines actually built, the Allied ones were better. Usually the point is made of the better thrust/unit area of the German axial types but the Metrovick F2 also exists. It offers more thrust, much lower fuel consumption, lower weight and greater lifetime. By 1945 you've got the F2/4 offering even more thrust with lower fuel consumption.


When would you have mass production of the F2/4 available? 1946?


> You've also got in 1945 the F3 and F5 turbofan and UDF running successfully offering 40% lower fuel consumption and 100% more thrust (4600lbf and 4800lbf respectively with sfc 0.66). The 004, 003 and 011 don't come anywhere close to competing on these technical issues - but are easier to produce with the limited resources available.


Because you are comparing apples and oranges. Turboprops and -jets. Besides that, turboprops are not all that practical for fighter aircraft. 


> The one German advantage, that they had been forced into studying air cooled turbine blades which eventually worked so lower amounts of specialised materials could be used. The German engines were suited to the type of war they were fighting and their restrictions. The Allied ones were better optimised for their war and peacetime postwar.


The main German advantage was choosing two engine categories early on, developing a set number for each and (more or less) killing all the other programs. If they chose the right ones is very debatable, but this way, they were able to actually field them. Imo British and German jet engine development was about on par in terms of being technically advanced. However the choices made by the Germans allowed them to field comparably cheap turbojets, which additionally could've been easily scaled up for more power. That never really came to pass though.


----------



## red admiral (Feb 12, 2009)

> When would you have mass production of the F2/4 available? 1946?



Difficult to say as the axial jets had low priority compared to the centrifugal types. The F2 was running in 1941 and in the air in 1943. With some more problems in productionising than the centrifugal types likely, I'd guess at a similar timescale to the Derwent. Add a zero stage compressor for greater pr and mass flow and you've got the Beryl. Productionising takes funding away from development though, and the centrifugal types are more reliable and easier to build.



> Because you are comparing apples and oranges. Turboprops and -jets. Besides that, turboprops are not all that practical for fighter aircraft.



Which turboprops?. The F3 was a turbofan, the F5 an unducted fan. No gearbox involved. Both give large increases in thrust and large decreases in fuel consumption for this flight regime. Easiest to fit into the Meteor nacelles and a whole bunch of other designs used the F3, usually buried or semi-buried wing installations.



> which additionally could've been easily scaled up for more power.



Thats debateable. With a single spool you've got limited scaling options (even more so with the mixed flow compressor of the 011) besides building bigger, but its a lot more complicated than that. If more power is needed, increase rpm for greater mass flow (but not possible with the 004 due to vibration) or increase TET (which just happened before the end of war, up to 870°C). Increasing rpm means lower efficiency and higher stress but greater mass flow rate and higher pr and lower fuel consumption. Increasing TET means reduced life and higher fuel consumption but more thrust.


----------



## timshatz (Feb 12, 2009)

DD, don't think we disagree on this point, but by reading your post I see I might not've explained part of the focus for the LW with their fighter intercept. 

I was thinking the escort would be broken down into four stages.

Short Range Inbound (Base to German Border)
Long Range Inbound (German Border to Target)
Long Range Outbound (Target to German Border)
Short Range Outbound (German Border to Base)

My focus of the true destruction of the bombers would be from the German border to the target and back to the border. The fighters I am considering for interecept are fighters in that realm, not the fighters covering up to the German Border. To my mind, there really isn't much you can do about them. 

I do not think the LW had much chance against the Allies over the low countries and up to the Border. Too many fighters and too much raw power (Fighters, light, medium and heavy bombers). But by focusing on the Long Range Escort, a smaller population of fighters, the LW could've held off the fighters long enough for the heavy fighters to destroy the bombers in numbers enough to make Strategic Bombing ineffective. 

To my mind, the weakness of the Allies was the long range fighter. Even after the Mustang showed up, it was still a relatively small population of fighters for the most part. It grew quickly, but was not focused on by the LW. However, I may be mistaken in that the LW did recognize the weakness but just found themselves with a tactical problem that they could not solve.


----------



## KrazyKraut (Feb 12, 2009)

red admiral said:


> Which turboprops?. The F3 was a turbofan, the F5 an unducted fan. No gearbox involved. Both give large increases in thrust and large decreases in fuel consumption for this flight regime. Easiest to fit into the Meteor nacelles and a whole bunch of other designs used the F3, usually buried or semi-buried wing installations.


I'm sorry, I just noticed my mistake, I meant turbofan. The point remains the same though. Unless the bypass ratio is rather small, like for example with an EJ200, turbofans are not practical for a fighter. The decrease in specific fuel consumption you mentioned indicates a large bypass ratio and thus large frontal area. How large a frontal area and how much weight did the F3 have? I have no info at hand and don't know much about the MetroVicks.





> Thats debateable. With a single spool you've got limited scaling options (even more so with the mixed flow compressor of the 011) besides building bigger, but its a lot more complicated than that. If more power is needed, increase rpm for greater mass flow (but not possible with the 004 due to vibration) or increase TET (which just happened before the end of war, up to 870°C). Increasing rpm means lower efficiency and higher stress but greater mass flow rate and higher pr and lower fuel consumption. Increasing TET means reduced life and higher fuel consumption but more thrust.


What's TET? turbine exit temperature (T4.5)? I assume spool is what we would call Welle in German? If so then many later jet engines, like J79, still did fine with a single spool and the 004H already would've had 2.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but with a radial compressor, if you want to increase surge, you sooner or later have to either add another impeller stage (not feasable with the whittle desingn iirc) or increase diametre of the existing significantly. Which in turn will lead to a larger frontal area and more importantly will result in a redesign of larger parts of the engine.
The Jumo 004 could be (and was) relatively economically scaled up by simply adding a few compressor stages and scaling diameter up by a few cm. Theoretically, you could do this ad infinitum. If you take the 004H (2 stage compressor, 2 stage turbine) plus air-cooled turbine blades you basically have the basic features of many engines that are still running.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 12, 2009)

timshatz said:


> DD, don't think we disagree on this point, but by reading your post I see I might not've explained part of the focus for the LW with their fighter intercept.
> 
> I was thinking the escort would be broken down into four stages.
> 
> ...



Actually, they recognized the problem at the Galland level and below but Goering specifically forbade the LW to do anything but attack the bombers.

The issue in 1943 was far too few fighters in ETO. The issue in early 1944 was far too few Mustangs and too many P-38's (given its current high altitude performance and easy recognition issues)... and the early 51-1 and -3's had nagging problems with radios - then guns jamming, then wheel uplock issues and a couple of engine mount bolt failures - each slowing full deployment - not to mention none of the replacement pilots had any experience in 51s (all the stateside training would have been P-40/39 and 47)

The advantage of attacking the early 4th, 56th and 78th and 353rd - in force and focused - would have been to cull several to many of the future combat leaders like Gabreski, Zemke, Blakeslee, Schilling, Duncan, Meyer, Preddy, etc BEFORE they acquired steady experience and honed instinctive skills against the 109 and 190. These leaders were the force multipliers and very, very few were ever shot down in air to air combat.

The lack of focus in this area made it far easier to get their (8th AF FC) feet wet, gain confidence and develop successful tactics - all major factors in turning the tide from November 1943 through May 1944.

Then my other suggestion was to strike the 8th AF airfields in early morning. A few successes forces the RAF and 8th and 9th to divert resources to defense, taking away from the strategic role.


----------



## red admiral (Feb 13, 2009)

> I'm sorry, I just noticed my mistake, I meant turbofan. The point remains the same though. Unless the bypass ratio is rather small, like for example with an EJ200, turbofans are not practical for a fighter.



The bypass ratio was fairly small, the fan is only a couple of inches in height. For subsonic aircraft, the greater thrust and propulsive efficiency more than makes up for the increase in drag due to greater size. With greater speed this decreases so you have low bypass jets pure jets optimised for M1+ and M2+

I don't have a figure for the diameter but judging from my photos, the F3 is about 45" diameter, pretty similar to the centrifugal types which had no real problems fitting in Meteor nacelles. Weight was 2300lb and gave 4600lbf.



> What's TET? turbine exit temperature (T4.5)? I assume spool is what we would call Welle in German? If so then many later jet engines, like J79, still did fine with a single spool and the 004H already would've had 2.



Turbine Entry Temperature or TIT, turbine inlet temperature. Things are more complicated than they seem. The J79 had variable angle stator vanes so you could adjust the pr and ease starting problems. Its not simple though. The 004H had two spools, like a lot of other paper engines. Power Jets were building the LR1 turbofan with two spools. Realistically you're creating something that is more complicated and requires more maintenance, for which its probably not worth it. 



> Correct me if I'm wrong, but with a radial compressor, if you want to increase surge, you sooner or later have to either add another impeller stage



Do you mean pressure ratio, not surge? Peak efficiency for a centrifugal single stage compressor is around 4.0 and 80%, which was achieved with these early engines. The Dart with a higher pr of 5.5ish went to two stage because its more efficient for that pr. For increased performance, the axial types can be better. The advantage the centrifugals have is simplicity and reliability.



> The Jumo 004 could be (and was) relatively economically scaled up by simply adding a few compressor stages and scaling diameter up by a few cm.



You run into problems with the blade stress increases, being more prone to surge with the increased pr, greater Mach number reducing efficiency. Its not a matter of "simply" at all.



> If you take the 004H (2 stage compressor, 2 stage turbine) plus air-cooled turbine blades you basically have the basic features of many engines that are still running.



Was it best for what was needed at the time? No, which is why single spool turbojets and centrifugal types still dominate the low end of the market. Its only when you need greater thrust and lower fuel consumption (other factors as well) that more spools are useful. For the long range big jets the three spool Trent reigns supreme in terms of performance, but its not designed and built in the US so only has 40% of the market.

Lots of people had the same ideas, but Whittle's simple engine worked reliably despite offering lower performance. The most advanced engine would be Griffith's CR.1 contrafan with a high bypass ratio fan, high pr and novel 32 individual spool design for maximum off peak performance, but it didn't work with the technology of the time.


----------



## timshatz (Feb 13, 2009)

"To inflict more casualties on the bombers, IMO, you must attempt to force the hand of the Long Range Escort before the German Border is reached. For the Mustang that was critical point where the internal fuselage fuel tank was low and the drop tanks were initiated. It is at this point that the 51 has its highest vulnerability (climbing, 80+ % full internal fuel). Half the range is in the drop tank."

Right, that was my point. Somewhere over the coast of France or Holland would be good. Trick is avoiding the shorter legged escorts, spotting the deep penetration escorts and getting them to commit. That, to my mind, is going to make France and the Low Country fighter pilot heaven. Lots of engagements all over the place between fighters with all sorts of missions. 

It is interesting in that the defense we have cooked up has some of the characteristics of the BOB defense, with the Spits going after the fighters and the Hurris going after the bombers. However, the difference is our plan uses France and the Low Countries as something of a buffer to strip away the fighter escort before the German border. Intercepts of bombers aren't supposed to occur before that point. Up to then, it is strictly (in theory anyway) a fighter on fighter enterprise. 

Also, the initiative lies with the LW on the attacks. As such, the attacks take something of a "raiding" characteristic. Attacking the enemy quickly and effectively then taking off. Slashing attacks for the most part (again, up to the German border, after that, in an escort free environment, the heavy fighters could take their time and chew on the heavy bombers for a while) against the fighter escorts with the intent of causing them to react. 

I have doubts the strategy could be effectively employed 100% of the time. There will be plenty of instances of the Escorts catching the Heavy Fighters attacking the stream and slaughtering them (and event we want to avoid). But the general plan seems to be viable, especially as the raids go deeper into Germany.


----------



## Amsel (Feb 13, 2009)

I have been reading Eric Mombeeks, Defenders of the Reich. It is a history of JG1. It seems that at the beginning of 1944 the main problem facing the Lw was the heavy presence of allied fighters. The Geshwaders were outnumbered heavily. There were times when P-38's and P-51's would patrol right over the Lw airfields making takeoff almost impossible. As soon as a FW or Me would take off an allied fighter would swoop in and shoot it down. Much of the time a Luftwaffe fighter pilot would have to try to disengage from a melee being outnumbered 5-1. The Lw still had their victories but the good ol days were gone for good.
How could this be countered, or could it even be countered in 1944?


----------



## timshatz (Feb 13, 2009)

Amsel said:


> I have been reading Eric Mombeeks, Defenders of the Reich. It is a history of JG1. It seems that at the beginning of 1944 the main problem facing the Lw was the heavy presence of allied fighters. The Geshwaders were outnumbered heavily. There were times when P-38's and P-51's would patrol right over the Lw airfields making takeoff almost impossible. As soon as a FW or Me would take off an allied fighter would swoop in and shoot it down. Much of the time a Luftwaffe fighter pilot would have to try to disengage from a melee being outnumbered 5-1. The Lw still had their victories but the good ol days were gone for good.
> How could this be countered, or could it even be countered in 1944?



I think you might've hit the nail on the head Amsel. Air wars are numbers games. Add in technology, declining pilot quality, interruptions of fuel and you could almost predict the date of the collapse of the LW. 

The problem by '44 was the pressure against Germany was constant and no real pressure existed against the Allied bases. The Allies were well on the way to air supremecy. 

Decisions made years before came home to roost in 1944.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 13, 2009)

Amsel said:


> I have been reading Eric Mombeeks, Defenders of the Reich. It is a history of JG1. It seems that at the beginning of 1944 the main problem facing the Lw was the heavy presence of allied fighters. The Geshwaders were outnumbered heavily. There were times when P-38's and P-51's would patrol right over the Lw airfields making takeoff almost impossible. As soon as a FW or Me would take off an allied fighter would swoop in and shoot it down. Much of the time a Luftwaffe fighter pilot would have to try to disengage from a melee being outnumbered 5-1. The Lw still had their victories but the good ol days were gone for good.
> How could this be countered, or could it even be countered in 1944?



*Amsel - there are many threads on this forum which beat this topic to death. 

First - at the beginning of 1944 there were two P-38 Groups (20th and 55th) operational - with sortie effectiveness around 50%. There was one Mustang Group (354th). The rest of 8th FC and 9th FC were all P-47's (9 and 4 Groups respectively)*

Against the inbound Allied Fighters the LW placed JG2 and JG26 in Luftflotte 3in Holland/Belgium and France. JG1 and JG11 were part of Luftflotte Reich and positioned from the Schwerin to Munster to Phorzheim 'line' in western Germany all the way back to Czechoslovakia/Austria/Southern Germany line.

LuftFlotte 3 had ~ 150 s/e fighters plus 80 t/e ZG and ~100 NJG majority Me 110's plus Ju 88's and Do 217s. The actual number effective at any one time may have been in 70% range.

LuftFlotte Reich had ~ 700 s/e fighters available, most drawn from East in December through Feb, 1944 timeframe to reinforce against 8th AF attacks.

Approx 160 t/e ZG plus another 400+ NJG available in different percentages to defend different targets.

Again ~ 70% of that number was effective at any one time in early to mid 1944.

So, once the German border had been reached in the first three months of 1944 - all the P-47s had to turn back anywhere from Munster/Koln/Frankfurt line. 

At that point in time (Jan) only three long range escort groups were avaialble for 'mass air superiority' over the attacking Luftwaffe and distributed among 35 8th AF Heavy Bomb Groups... at ~ 50% effective due to bugs in the Mustangs and engine problems in the P-38s... so maybe 75 available to 'protect' a 100 mile stream.

Fast forward to March 6 - Berlin attack. 5 operational P-51 Wings with the last one getting OJT en route to target (4th FG).. two days later the 355th FG gets operational.

At the end of March there are now 6 Mustang and 3 P-38 Groups operational - leaving approximately 3 FG per Bomb Division for coverage between R/V and target and back to Withdrawal support R/V.

Hardly 'overwhelming' with 5:1 local superiority.

It was EXTREMELY rare for two fighter groups (US) to be in same volume of space to meet very large gaggles of German Fighters vectored by skilled controllers to find 'gaps' in coverage... so the rule was basically one Fighter Group to meet an attack anywhere along the route.

So for 5:1 superiority (US versus German) for 50+ Mustangs say in 357th FG, only 10 LW fighters must be available for that local attack.

Is that what you believe?


----------



## parsifal (Feb 13, 2009)

Have to agree DG, its a very common misconception that the LW was outnumbered. It was not. Or not to the extent of 5:1 in fighters. When you look at the available LR escorts vs LW fighters I believe it was the Americans were actually heavily outnumbered 

However to be fair, the US did possess vastly superior reserves to the germans. They could replace losses more or less immediately, the LW could not


----------



## drgondog (Feb 13, 2009)

parsifal said:


> Have to agree DG, its a very common misconception that the LW was outnumbered. It was not. Or not to the extent of 5:1 in fighters. When you look at the available LR escorts vs LW fighters I believe it was the Americans were actually heavily outnumbered
> 
> *Right up to Mid January the LW could and did put up local superiority - but as you pointed out below the real issue was dramatic difference in numbers of skilled pilots remaining for LW by mid to late 1944*
> 
> However to be fair, the US did possess vastly superior reserves to the germans. They could replace losses more or less immediately, the LW could not



Parsifal - you are so right about reserves and replacements. 

The 8th and 9th AF FC were losing relatively few skilled fighter pilots and the replacements all had much better training than the 1944 era LW replacements. This was the attrition battle the LW could not win.


----------



## timshatz (Feb 13, 2009)

I read an interesting comment by a German fighter pilot after the war. He said something to the affect of, "The safest flying in the world was to be an allied escort fighter pilot flying over Germany in 1944". Doubtless, he exaggerated it for effect but there is merit to his point. The LW fighters were almost exclusively tasked with attacking the heavy bombers, often told to ignore the escorting fighters ("no problem with me ignoring them, but will they ignore me!").


----------



## Amsel (Feb 13, 2009)

I can only go by personal accounts of the superiority of the allied fighters and the heavy attrition of Lw fighters in 1944. If this is not true then please forgive my ignorance, I was reading personal accounts and sometimes the big picture is not there. From what I read from the pilots accounts in JG1; allied fighters vulched their fields, strafed their fields and sometimes outnumbered the Luftwaffe greatly. The heavy bombers were sometimes escorted by 800 plus fighters.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 13, 2009)

Amsel said:


> I can only go by personal accounts of the superiority of the allied fighters and the heavy attrition of Lw fighters in 1944. If this is not true then please forgive my ignorance, I was reading personal accounts and sometimes the big picture is not there. From what I read from the pilots accounts in JG1; allied fighters vulched their fields, strafed their fields and sometimes outnumbered the Luftwaffe greatly. The heavy bombers were sometimes escorted by 800 plus fighters.



Amsel - I wasn't jumping all over you. If it came across that way I apologise.

All of what you just wrote is true in context. It is a commonly held belief that when one comments on the statistics of 1500 bombers and 700 fighters and reflect that LuftFlotte Reich had about the same number of s/e an t/e 'all in' - its is easy to lose granularity in a 2 cubic mile airspace over land the size of Texas.

But back to reality for say April 1944. 13 8th AF Fighter Groups were operational - of which three were P-38, and four were P-51. Lets use a Stateside analogy for perspective

Forget the other 8 Groups of say 50 P-47's each - they were in "Oklahoma" and New Mexico. Five of them escorted their 1st, 2nd and 3rd BD bombers on Penetration escort and encountered scattered pockets of JG 26 and JG2.

The other three P-47 Groups plus two from 9th AF and two from RAF will pick them up over the Red River on the way home as Withdrawal support.

The Long Rang escorts will be flying directly to R/V points. Two to Gainesville north of Dalls, two more to Amarillo and one to Wichita Falls

The battles will be somewhere in Texas and usually directed skillfully by the LW controllers. 

Two of the P-38 groups were sheparding 10-12 Bomb Groups attacking Texarkana, one P-51 and one P-38 groups was protecting 10-12 more bomb groups near Dallas and the last strike force of 10-12 Bomb groups was escorted by two Mustang groups but this one splits into four bomb groups each - each striking San Antonio, Brownsville and Houston - one of which will be unescorted.

Now the Luftwaffe controller spots the unprotected strike heading for San Antonio. He directs JG 11 and JG 3 and JG 27 to attack this bomb group from bases in Fort Worth, San Angelo and Waco.

Maybe the bomb groups spot them before the attack and call for help on C channel to the escort fighters near Austin heading for Houston and one group comes running... maybe there is an engagement or the fighters hit and run.

At any rate when the escort fighters Break Escort on return leg, half of them head for the deck to look for targets of opportunity and find rail traffic near Dallas and a fighter squadron on the ground readying for a second attack on the returning bombers - and catch them taking off - near Wichita Falls.

This is what it was like in the Battle of Germany in the Spring of 1944.

Of course if you don't know Texas I wasted a lot of your time with this silly analogy.

Finally, this may be unkind but true. Nobody wants to admit they were outfought or defeated in a fair fight but the LW was defeated exactly this way against a force with considerably more resources - but not applied in this timeframe.


----------



## HellToupee (Feb 14, 2009)

parsifal said:


> Have to agree DG, its a very common misconception that the LW was outnumbered. It was not. Or not to the extent of 5:1 in fighters. When you look at the available LR escorts vs LW fighters I believe it was the Americans were actually heavily outnumbered



Thing is most of those LW fighters had to engage the bombers only a few would engage the escorts.


----------



## parsifal (Feb 14, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> Thing is most of those LW fighters had to engage the bombers only a few would engage the escorts.



This is where I lose understanding of the situatio.....I think the Luftwaffe was being ordered to do that (go for the bombers) however, even if they had gone for thefighters, one wonders if they would come off okay. This is where it gets a bit sticky. I believe that even in early 1944, your average LW pilot was less well trained than your average USAAAF pilot. I base that on the number of flying hours being spent per pilot before joining a frontline squadron. For the US pilot, by early 1944 it was around 500 hours....whereas for the LW pilots I believe it was around 150 hours. The LW was being forced to throw pilots in early because of the very high wastage rates in the aircrew. They were being forced to put pilots into the air before they were ready. as the year 1944 wore on, this situation just got worse and worse

The allies from a very early part of the war had devoted massive amounts of energy into her training regimes. For example, the US trained about 233000 pilots I believe, to something like 65000 (I think....not sure) German pilots. There just was not the infrastructure, the fuel the trainers, for the Germans to be competitive in the training war.

The reason this is "sticky", is that is pretty strong opposition to that notion by many supporters of the LW....so that when asked "why then did they lose?" the manifestly incorrect notion that their frontline strength was overwhelmed is used as the reason....it kinda looks better on the LWs resume to say "we were overwhlemed by the decadent wests hordes of planes. I dont know why this is felt necessary, since the LW has a reputation that it can be rightly proud of anyway......


----------



## parsifal (Feb 14, 2009)

which brings me to a further two cents worth I guess....if you are going to send elements of the German fighter force after the escorts, shouldnt those elements be the most experienced pilots doing that very hazardous job, leving the bombers to the less experienced Jagdgruppen...rather than dividing the two forces on the basis of types.....


----------



## KrazyKraut (Feb 14, 2009)

parsifal said:


> This is where I lose understanding of the situatio.....I think the Luftwaffe was being ordered to do that (go for the bombers) however, even if they had gone for thefighters, one wonders if they would come off okay.


If the strenght ratio was 1:1 or close to that (as you suggest), they stand a certain chance (up until d-day, from then on things change rapidly). Seeing as how as much as 35-45% of all Fw 190 pilots downed over France in 1942 managed to either crash land or eject, even a hypothetical superiority in quality (which I would agree on for maybe march/april 1944 onwards) could've been overcome.



> The reason this is "sticky", is that is pretty strong opposition to that notion by many supporters of the LW....so that when asked "why then did they lose?" the manifestly incorrect notion that their frontline strength was overwhelmed is used as the reason....it kinda looks better on the LWs resume to say "we were overwhlemed by the decadent wests hordes of planes.  I dont know why this is felt necessary, since the LW has a reputation that it can be rightly proud of anyway......


Frontline strength doesn't really tell you an aweful lot though. The situation in the air at a certain time and point is where you are either outnumbered or not.


----------



## HellToupee (Feb 14, 2009)

parsifal said:


> This is where I lose understanding of the situatio.....I think the Luftwaffe was being ordered to do that (go for the bombers) however, even if they had gone for thefighters, one wonders if they would come off okay. This is where it gets a bit sticky. I believe that even in early 1944, your average LW pilot was less well trained than your average USAAAF pilot. I base that on the number of flying hours being spent per pilot before joining a frontline squadron. For the US pilot, by early 1944 it was around 500 hours....whereas for the LW pilots I believe it was around 150 hours. The LW was being forced to throw pilots in early because of the very high wastage rates in the aircrew. They were being forced to put pilots into the air before they were ready. as the year 1944 wore on, this situation just got worse and worse



They still would have many well trained pilots early 44, the issue was more the equipment was also focused on engaging bombers, loaded with extra armor guns, 109s mounting 108s not suitable for engaging fighters. 190s lacked performance up high to really tangle with the escorts. 

Even then if they succeed they still fail the fighters were easier to replace than a heavy, its an even worse battle of attrition to mount for their perspective. 



> The allies from a very early part of the war had devoted massive amounts of energy into her training regimes. For example, the US trained about 233000 pilots I believe, to something like 65000 (I think....not sure) German pilots. There just was not the infrastructure, the fuel the trainers, for the Germans to be competitive in the training war.



Yes they did, but we had the manpower and the resources to do it, population wise the US alone was far greater than germany.



> The reason this is "sticky", is that is pretty strong opposition to that notion by many supporters of the LW....so that when asked "why then did they lose?" the manifestly incorrect notion that their frontline strength was overwhelmed is used as the reason....it kinda looks better on the LWs resume to say "we were overwhlemed by the decadent wests hordes of planes. I dont know why this is felt necessary, since the LW has a reputation that it can be rightly proud of anyway......



Its generally because it was overwhelmed, you simply needed to overwhelm an air force to destroy it.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 14, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> Thing is most of those LW fighters had to engage the bombers only a few would engage the escorts.



True - and irrelevant to local air superiority, is it not?

Goering emasculated his fighter pilots with the stupid orders to 'evade' the fighters. Can you imagine telling the Wermacht to 'only go after armor'?? and ignore the infantry.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 14, 2009)

KrazyKraut said:


> Frontline strength doesn't really tell you an aweful lot though. The situation in the air at a certain time and point is where you are either outnumbered or not.



The LW was able to maintain local superiority at point of attack well into late 1944.

IMO, the major factors were threefold.

1.) the skills balance at wing man level in the Allied Fighter forces were increasingly good from 1942 forward based on the unmolested Air Training Command, combined with selection of top cadets getting Fighters, as well as superb year around training weather. 

Many of the LW wingmen KIA in 1943/1944 were replaced by student level pilots and immersed immediately into combat with better trained pilots.

2.) the Mustang had the right attributes of its BEST performance where the LW had to compete, at altitudes which were not THEIR Best. If German fighters wanted to attack bombers they had to accept risk of engaging the P-51 in its best performance envelope.

3.) the LW not only enabled the USAAF 8th and 9th AF FC to gain leisurely experience while ironing out bugs in P-47 and P-51, but they Encouraged an attitude of Flee versus Fight when the reverse approach may have culled a significant percent of future leaders

The inclusion of heavy wing mounted cannon made perhaps 6kts average reduction in speed as well as reduced climb and turn performance - but fighter battles are won by aggressive action and engaging or withdrawing on subsequent tactical situation - not a couple of percent advantage/disadvantage in performance. The LW became accustomed to 'hit the bombers and split ess for the deck' if fighters were in the area - and found they couldn't evade by simply diving away.

If you look at the top scoring Fighter Groups they were led by aggressive 'go kill the Luftwaffe' leaders. The lowest scoring groups(of the ones that were early entries), were led in the most part by commanders who preached 'stick with the bombers'. The ones in the middle of the pack had both types.


----------



## syscom3 (Feb 14, 2009)

Lets not forget the contributions of the 15th AF (and to a far lesser extent the 12th AF) to the strategic fight over Germany.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 14, 2009)

syscom3 said:


> Lets not forget the contributions of the 15th AF (and to a far lesser extent the 12th AF) to the strategic fight over Germany.



Good point Syscom - but not really forgetting. 

The 15th (and 12th was largely opposed by LuftFlotte's 2, parts of 4 and Lw Kdo Sud Ost - all south and SE of Luftflotte Reich. The LW defenses overlapped when the 15th started getting Mustangs to augment 38s in May/June 1944 and missions were sent to attack Linz, Vienna, Munich from Italian bases.

Some of those same forces were deployed against 8th for those same southern GY/CZ targets


----------



## syscom3 (Feb 14, 2009)

But you cant be in two places at the same time.

Either you concentrate against the 8th AF or the 15th, but you cant do both.

There were plenty of strategic targets in Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia that had to be defended, and the LW had a hobbs choice in deciding what allied mission(s) were going to be defended against.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 14, 2009)

syscom3 said:


> But you cant be in two places at the same time.
> 
> *??? true if you have 5 s/e fighters available instead of 500.*
> 
> ...



True but the only real optional choices was to decide which units they may want to peel from JG 301 units say around Leipzig to head south to meet 15th strike force and augment the Munich/Vienna defenses, or have some JG 51 fighters react to an 8th AF strike on Brux/Posnan strike from the West... etc, etc.

I don't know if I am missing your point - but LuftFlotte Reich was by far the largest concentration of s/e and t/e fighters in 1944/1945 and it's dominant daytime antagonist was 8th AF in Battle over Germany (as well as western CZ and Poland). Having said that it had 100+ s/e fighters ranging from Leipzig to Munich to Memningen which could react to either the south or west or southeast.

The LW forces deployed south and east (of Germany) were less in strength and distributed over a greater area to meet US, RAF and USSR attacks ranging from Italy to Austria, to Rumania and to southern Czechoslovakia... but I honestly don't know if 15th AF ever targeted as far north as Posnan to Brux area or what else really existed in Poland?

The 8th AF had by far the greatest number of sorties on the targets from Prague to Pilzen to Brux to Zwickau through Leipzig and Ruhland and Posnan... so I suspect that LFReich had much less contact with 15th than 8th.


----------



## Amsel (Feb 14, 2009)

One should also take into account the severe mental and physical strain on the experienced pilots of the reich. In the late winter of 1944 the eastern front had slowed down enough to be able to amass a little over 1600 fighters in Germany and the west. But this did little to help the strain of the pilots, especially in the west where the attrition of good pilots was high. JG2 lost two Kommodores in less the two months. From January to May 1944 around 1,850 Lw pilots had been killed. It was then that the order to ignore the fighters was issued leaving the alled fighters to fly with almost impunity to any corner of the reich.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 14, 2009)

Amsel said:


> One should also take into account the severe mental and physical strain on the experienced pilots of the reich. In the late winter of 1944 the eastern front had slowed down enough to be able to amass a little over 1600 fighters in Germany and the west. But this did little to help the strain of the pilots, especially in the west where the attrition of good pilots was high. JG2 lost two Kommodores in less the two months. From January to May 1944 around 1,850 Lw pilots had been killed. It was then that the order to ignore the fighters was issued leaving the alled fighters to fly with almost impunity to any corner of the reich.



All true. Another major factor for both sides was crappy weather - a real issue for inexperienced pilots with rudimentary instruments. The Alled fighters had an advantage in being able to assemble and climb out on a planned basis - not a scramble... and once at altitude were often able to spot LW 'popping into view' below with a decided altitude advantage.


----------



## Hop (Feb 14, 2009)

What was the effective strength of the Luftwaffe, though? 

Hooton gives figures for Jagdkorps 1 sorties as 3315 in Jan 1944, 4242 in Feb, 3672 in March and 4505 in April.



> Right up to Mid January the LW could and did put up local superiority - but as you pointed out below the real issue was dramatic difference in numbers of skilled pilots remaining for LW by mid to late 1944



Even earlier than that.

From Strategy For Defeat by Williamson Murray:


> The increasing losses, in turn, forced the training establishments to produce pilots even more rapidly. Once they had begun this vicious cycle, the Germans found no escape. One of the surest indicators of the declining skill of German pilots after the 1940 air battles was the rising level of noncombat losses. By the first half of 1943, they had reached the point where the fighter force suffered as many losses due to noncombat causes as it did to the efforts of its opponents. Thereafter, the percentage of noncombat losses began to drop. The probable cause of this was due less to an awakening on the part of the Luftwaffe to the need for better flying safety than to the probability that Allied flyers, in their overwhelming numbers, were shooting down German pilots before they could crash their aircraft.
> 
> By the beginning of 1942, the Germans had lost the equivalent of two entire air forces. The result was that the Germans had to curtail their training programs to meet the demands of the front for new pilots. By January 1942, of the pilots available for duty in the fighter force, only 60 percent were fully operational, while the number in the bomber force was down to 47 percent. For the remainder of the war, the percentage of fully operational fighter and bomber pilots available, with few exceptions, remained below, and at many times substantially below, the 70 percent level. Further exacerbating this situation was the fact that the Germans were forced lo lower their standards for a fully operational pilot as the war continued.



One of the USAF historical studies of the Luftwaffe says the same thing. Technical Training in the German Air Force http://afhra.maxwell.af.mil/numbered_studies/468178.pdf says that the quality of pilots declined, and gives as evidence aircraft losses for February 1944:

1,791 aircraft "lost" (see below)
1,319 (more than 70%) lost to other than enemy action, including 

39.4% takeoff and landing accidents
7.4% other operational errors
9.7% taxiing accidents
6.1% collisions on the ground
9.9% accidents in bad weather areas despite previous weather warning
6.8% running out of fuel or losing orientation

(it says of "losses": the German Luftwaffe lost 21,288 aircraft during the course of the war due to reasons other than enemy action, of this total, only 11,411 were damaged so slightly that repair was possible.)

The study continues:



> There is no doubt a large percentage of these errors could have been avoided if it had been possible to improve the training program. The reasons why improvement was not feasible have already been discussed here. We must bear in mind, though, that inadequate training was responsible not only for numerous losses occurring during flights which were totally unaffected by enemy action, but also for a good part of the losses sustained during operations carried out against the enemy




It takes a year to train a fighter pilot. Any improvement in the Luftwaffe's performance later in the war therefore required a vast expansion of the training programme in 1942 at the latest. But the Luftwaffe were always behind the curve, they could not afford to reduce front line strength in 1940, 1941 or 1942 to strengthen the training programmes.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 14, 2009)

Hop said:


> What was the effective strength of the Luftwaffe, though?
> 
> Hooton gives figures for Jagdkorps 1 sorties as 3315 in Jan 1944, 4242 in Feb, 3672 in March and 4505 in April.
> 
> ...



*I think we all agree the points re: attrition of average LW fighter pilots skills. What we don't know about the accidents from the above presentation is how many pilots were Killed or disabled due to the accidents. It was a pretty low figure for Allied pilots as a percentage of sorties - though higher in winter for sure.

What we also don't know from the above analysis is to what extent the LW converted multi engine pilots to s/e in contrast to raw cadets. Our Primary/Basic/Advanced cycle was close to a year to yield 250 hour level 2nd Lieutenants with no prior experience.*

As to a/c losses, we found out after the war that while our strategic assault on aircraft industry produced a lot of damage, it never achieved a strategic chokepoint on actual number of fighters delivered to front lines until perhaps March/April 1945.

As you re-emphasized, the critical choke point was fuel and training of replacement pilots.


----------



## Hop (Feb 14, 2009)

> What we don't know about the accidents from the above presentation is how many pilots were Killed or disabled due to the accidents.



There's no indication of how many pilots were lost, but with almost half the losses not to combat resulting in the destruction of the aircraft, the totals must have been fairly high.



> As to a/c losses, we found out after the war that while our strategic assault on aircraft industry produced a lot of damage, it never achieved a strategic chokepoint on actual number of fighters delivered to front lines until perhaps March/April 1945.
> 
> As you re-emphasized, the critical choke point was fuel and training of replacement pilots.



Until some time in 1944 aircraft were also a choke point for the Luftwaffe. 

Murray gives figures for Luftwaffe fighter strength in 1943, in each case the figures are for the last day of the month:

Month - Authorised - Present - Percent
Feb - 1,660 - 1,336 - 80.5
Mar - 1,712 - 1,535 - 89.7
Apr - 1,848 - 1,582 - 85.6
May - 2,016 - 1,786 - 88.6
Jun - 2,172 - 1,849 - 85.1 
Jul - 2,172 - 1,528 - 70.3
Aug - 2,228 - 1,581 - 71

Hooton gives figures for the 20th each month, fighters present and serviceable:

Month - Present - Serviceable
Apr - 1,328 - 980 
Jun - 1,704 - 1,261
Sep - 1,500 - 1,055 

Compare those serviceable figures with the authorised strength for the same periods. 

The USAF report on technical training also points out that whilst the Luftwaffe had enough fighter pilots with the front line units, they had too few aircraft, and the quality of those pilots was not up to scratch. It goes on:



> It was a vicious circle, in which each factor was automatically followed by the next - inadequate training led to high losses in aircraft;these losses resulted in a lack of aircraft at the front and because of the need for aircraft at the front, there were none available for assignment to the training program. There was little use in the training program's meeting its established goals in terms of numbers of students, ao long as these students lacked the very thing which might have enabled the German air units to hold their own against the numerical superiority of the Allied air forces - the training required to mold then into good-quality crews.


----------



## Kurfürst (Feb 14, 2009)

Hop said:


> Until some time in 1944 aircraft were also a choke point for the Luftwaffe.
> 
> Murray gives figures for Luftwaffe fighter strength in 1943, in each case the figures are for the last day of the month:
> 
> ...



The figures seem a bit odd to me, but I am quite sure that cause for variation in fighter strenght was not production - see the monthly production below, it seems to me unlikely that in mid-1943, when production was at peak at 1000+ 109s/190s a month, they would be loosing more and production was not covering the losses.

Ie. in June 1943 234 daylight fighters were withdrawn from units to enemy action, 297 without enemy action, 219 for overhauls, a total of 750. 

In the same month 507 aircraft were received from factories, 218 from repair centres, a net gain of 44 aircraft (263 received to, 219 sent away from DLF units) were received from other units a total of 769. 

Total production of FW 190 and Bf 109 was 847 in May 1943, 957 in June, and peaking at 1050 in July. So for example in June, with roughly 950 produced, 500 issued, some 450 new fighters would go into storage and reserve.

Number of aircraft present with 1st line units and 2nd line OTU-like _Ergänzsungseinheiten_ was 2036 at the start of the month, 1968 at the end of the month.


----------



## tomo pauk (Feb 15, 2009)

Looking at the graph, seems like the Allies drop more bombs, the Germans produce more planes.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 15, 2009)

tomo pauk said:


> Looking at the graph, seems like the Allies drop more bombs, the Germans produce more planes.



True - Speer decentralized much of the industry and re-priorited fighter production to higher priority.

The biggest single advantage for Allies in spring 1944 is that Luftwaffe defended those targets and made them 'available' for long range escorts to shoot down. IIRC in March-May the LW lost ~ 800-1000 pilots per month


----------



## tomo pauk (Feb 15, 2009)

Is there a comprehensive breakdown of attacking and defending forces, sortie rates, AAA involved etc. online for Germany in WWII, strategic bombing as a topic?


----------



## Glider (Feb 15, 2009)

Kurfürst said:


> The figures seem a bit odd to me, but I am quite sure that cause for variation in fighter strenght was not production - see the monthly production below, it seems to me unlikely that in mid-1943, when production was at peak at 1000+ 109s/190s a month, they would be loosing more and production was not covering the losses.
> 
> Ie. in June 1943 234 daylight fighters were withdrawn from units to enemy action, 297 without enemy action, 219 for overhauls, a total of 750.
> 
> In the same month 507 aircraft were received from factories, 218 from repair centres, a net gain of 44 aircraft (263 received to, 219 sent away from DLF units) were received from other units a total of 769.



Kurfurst
I must be missing something but I have German losses for June 1943 at around 320 fighters. Can I ask if the 234 you are quoting as being withdrawn from units due to enemy action damaged aircraft, or destroyed in which case there is something wrong at my end.


----------



## HellToupee (Feb 15, 2009)

drgondog said:


> True - and irrelevant to local air superiority, is it not?
> 
> Goering emasculated his fighter pilots with the stupid orders to 'evade' the fighters. Can you imagine telling the Wermacht to 'only go after armor'?? and ignore the infantry.



No not irrelevant, because they might attain local superiority over escorts the escorts will not be the focus, interceptors tasked with intercepting the bombers are easy prey for the escorts. 

It was more sensible evading the fighters than fighting them, that was precisely what the allies wanted. This is what the advantage of the jets was, they could ignore the escorts with near impunity and down bombers.


----------



## Kurfürst (Feb 15, 2009)

re: source,

German reports from The Luftwaffe, 1933-45, compiled into database for daylight fighter and Erg. units.


----------



## syscom3 (Feb 15, 2009)

If the LW fighters engage the escorts, then they are not engaging the bombers. And they might inflict losses on the allied fighters, but the vast industrial base of the US will replace them (pilot and aircraft) quickly.

The LW would take its losses too, but they could not replace the pilots, so the battle of attrition continues.

I see no advantage to the LW by going after the escorts or evading them to concentrate on the bombers. One way or another, they're going to be in terminal decline. The only way to inflict huge losses on the US bombers would to husband their forces and attack when they can have several hundred fighters in the air at one time. And that means being grounded for weeks at a time, till the its time to strike.


----------



## Hop (Feb 15, 2009)

> Ie. in June 1943 234 daylight fighters were withdrawn from units to enemy action, 297 without enemy action, 219 for overhauls, a total of 750.
> 
> In the same month 507 aircraft were received from factories, 218 from repair centres, a net gain of 44 aircraft (263 received to, 219 sent away from DLF units) were received from other units a total of 769.



Yes, and the figures show an increase in strength for June.

But June was a quiet month. Murray gives German fighter losses on the East, West and Mediterranean fronts as 373.

In July the losses soared to 782. In August 531 and September 542.

Compare those with the strength figures and you'll see there was a huge drop in July, a slight improvement in August and a slight drop again in September.

Every source I have seen agrees on this, that German aircraft production was inadequate to meet the needs of the Luftwaffe for most of the war. From Murray:



> Jeschonnek and his staff had ignored the mess that Udet made
> of production and had as a result voiced no alarm about continued production
> stagnation as the Luftwaffe prepared to attack Russia. The growing gap between
> German and Allied production began to emerge in devastating form in the attrition
> ...



It wasn't until late in the war that production was adequate for the Luftwaffe's needs, and even then I suspect production was inadequate, it's just that lack of fuel and pilots meant the Luftwaffe couldn't use all the fighters that were being produced.


----------



## parsifal (Feb 15, 2009)

syscom3 said:


> If the LW fighters engage the escorts, then they are not engaging the bombers. And they might inflict losses on the allied fighters, but the vast industrial base of the US will replace them (pilot and aircraft) quickly.
> 
> The LW would take its losses too, but they could not replace the pilots, so the battle of attrition continues.
> 
> I see no advantage to the LW by going after the escorts or evading them to concentrate on the bombers. One way or another, they're going to be in terminal decline. The only way to inflict huge losses on the US bombers would to husband their forces and attack when they can have several hundred fighters in the air at one time. And that means being grounded for weeks at a time, till the its time to strike.



The reason why going after the fighters might be better than going after the bombers is because the bombers will take longer to have any effect on the German war effort, whilst the US fighters were having a more immediate impact by shooting the flying elements of the LW out of the sky. Also, by not attacking the fighters, the skills base of the US fighters was improving, whilst the skills base of the German fighter forces was shrinking.

The weakness of this theory is that ther is no telling just how catastrophic an unimpeded bomber attack might be. The german economy in 1944 lurched from one near crisis to the next, as the cumulative effects of bombing took their toll.....eg, a hydogentaion plant might be repaired, and back on line, but much of the infrastructure that makes up the plant might be leaky and not very effieicnt as a result of the bombing. If the bombers are left unnaddressed, because the fighters are going after the escorts, one cant be sure that the better results by the bombers isnt enough to cause catastrophic effects on the targets


----------



## drgondog (Feb 15, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> No not irrelevant, because they might attain local superiority over escorts the escorts will not be the focus, interceptors tasked with intercepting the bombers are easy prey for the escorts.
> 
> *Interceptors who have numerical superiority have a choice - engage or evade. The LW controllers vectored superior forces to a weak spot to a.) overwhelm the escorts to enable a strong force at attack the bombers.
> 
> ...



Actually Doolittle was described by more than one or two of his wing commanders as a 'murderer' for unleashing 8th AF FC to aggressively pursue the Luftwaffe in air or on the ground. Spaatz and Doolittle WANTED to Luftwaffe to stay and fight the fighters and the 8th BC assumed the role of aggressive bait.

'Stay away and we will proceed unmolested, stay and fight and we will grind away and win the attrition battle"

This thread is about strategies in which the LW could have had better results in 1943 and 1944 with the assets on hand. Taking away aggressive and flexible tactics from their fighter commanders was STUPID. 

It is a lot easier to survive making head on attacks than it is to dive away and put a faster fighter on your tail in a tactically superior position - namely your six.

'Running and hiding' did no real good. The 109s and 190s were out dived, and shot up from behind when their best chance of survival was manuevering engagement.

maybe the average LW pilot lived longer by evading - but a.) they shot down fewer bombers that way, and b.) they gave up all initiative - giving USAAF fighter pilots the complete stage to attack, attack, attack.

If you believe the LW made the right decisions to flee in late 1943 up to the Invasion you are free to hold that opinion but I disagree! The LW remained the equal to near equal of USSR in the east with far fewer resources. They didn't 'run' there. The same super successful fighter pilots in the East struggled in the west. Why?


----------



## HellToupee (Feb 15, 2009)

> Spaatz and Doolittle WANTED to Luftwaffe to stay and fight the fighters and the 8th BC assumed the role of aggressive bait.



Thats want i said, allies wanted them to stay and fight interceptors.



> If you believe the LW made the right decisions to flee in late 1943 up to the Invasion you are free to hold that opinion but I disagree! The LW remained the equal to near equal of USSR in the east with far fewer resources. They didn't 'run' there. The same super successful fighter pilots in the East struggled in the west. Why?



Ild say it was down more to the completely different tactics employed, training of soviet pilots was also not improved on until after kursk. They were not fighting a strategic bomber campaign but a tactical one and they were reduced to being able to only deal with hot spots of activity where VVS could operate on the whole front. 

Most these bomber interceptors were just not fit to deal with fighters, loaded with weapons armor rockets, gun gondolas etc, their best option was just to evade and only untill much later did the escorts actually start following their back to their bases.

Escorts always held initiative over bomber interceptors.


----------



## syscom3 (Feb 15, 2009)

Parsifal, the USSBS indicated that the 8th AF didn't have much of an impact on the German war economy until summer 1944 when the oil offensive began in earnest.

Until then, the major contribution of the heavy bombers was to attract the attention of the LW fighters so as they could be shot down by the P51's and P38's.


----------



## parsifal (Feb 16, 2009)

syscom3 said:


> Parsifal, the USSBS indicated that the 8th AF didn't have much of an impact on the German war economy until summer 1944 when the oil offensive began in earnest.
> 
> Until then, the major contribution of the heavy bombers was to attract the attention of the LW fighters so as they could be shot down by the P51's and P38's.




The Bomber offensive is estimated o have affected german war production by about 10% in 1943, and somewhere between 30-40% in 1944. As you say the main impact was in the oil sector, but there were also impacts in the transport and rolling stock sectors as well.

But perhaps the greates impact was the mere fact that the germans were forced to divert increasingly large proportions of their military budgets to home defences. For example in 1944, about 25% of the total Reich defence budget was being spent on flak and its ammunition supply, another 25% was being spent on fighters, nearly all of which was being spent on Reich Fighter Defences. thats a massive proportion of the total budget.

So too was the budget being poured into the Allied Bomber offensive, but they could afford it, whereas the LW could not. Ample reserves existed in the Allied air assets to amply support the Allied armies tactically, which was not the case for the Germans.....their air force at the front was virtually disappeared by 1944 (except perhaps on the eastern Front), moreover the allies still had enough resource capacity to build a sizable naval air arm and coastal patrol force, as well as a massive transport fleet, AND a huge training establishment


----------



## Kurfürst (Feb 16, 2009)

Hop said:


> Yes, and the figures show an increase in strength for June.
> 
> But June was a quiet month. Murray gives German fighter losses on the East, West and Mediterranean fronts as 373.
> 
> ...



Nonsense. 

If, according to your loss figures, fighter losses were 782 in July, and production production was 1050, 531 in August while production was 914, 542 in September while production was 853, then how on Earth was the aircraft production 'inadequate'..?

In these three months 1855 fighter losses would occur, while production amounted to 2817.. 

Not only the production was more than sufficient to outweight losses, it would also enable 1000 fighter aircraft to be put in reserve or to other uses (training for example, or ceded to Axis allies).



> From Murray:
> 
> ... SNIP ...



The problem is, that neither Murray's (he is wishful and sometimes purely rhetoric anyway) nor your conclusions is supported by the actual loss vs production data. Production far exceeded losses in every month, and was even sufficient to create sizeable reserves. This is a simple fact that cannot be argued or contested.

I guess the logical error both on you and Murray's side is that the conclusion is drawn while ignoring the relation of loss and production numbers, and solely concentrating on the fluctuation of reported strenght, (wrongly) assuming it occured because there were not enough aircraft in storage to make it up, ignoring that there was a myriad of other reasons while this strenght could change up and down, especially if the analysis is limited to a single arm (daylight fighters), while the strenght reports of other related units to which aircraft could be transferred (for example FW 190s were widely used by ground attack units, Bf 109s by recce units) are ignored, as well any other possibilities for the phenomenon.

But, as shown, the notion that production was inadequate to make for losses is not supported by the production and loss figures. Production far exceeded losses. 

The reason for the fluctuation of aircraft need to be found elsewhere. 



> It wasn't until late in the war that production was adequate for the Luftwaffe's needs, and even then I suspect production was inadequate, it's just that lack of fuel and pilots meant the Luftwaffe couldn't use all the fighters that were being produced.



I wonder on what this suspicion is based on; for example, on 1st December 1943 the LW daylight fighters and associated OTUs report 1936 fighter aircraft; six months later, on 1st June 1944 - after some very heavy fighting in the air - they still report 1957; 1st of September this falls to 1832, but begins a massive expansion during the month, and 30 days later there are 2274 fighters with 1st and 2nd line fighter units; on 1st December 1944, they report 3715 (yes, almost four thousend).

Note and disclaimer: this post was written in pre-coffeine state.


----------



## KrazyKraut (Feb 16, 2009)

red admiral said:


> The bypass ratio was fairly small, the fan is only a couple of inches in height. For subsonic aircraft, the greater thrust and propulsive efficiency more than makes up for the increase in drag due to greater size. With greater speed this decreases so you have low bypass jets pure jets optimised for M1+ and M2+
> 
> I don't have a figure for the diameter but judging from my photos, the F3 is about 45" diameter, pretty similar to the centrifugal types which had no real problems fitting in Meteor nacelles. Weight was 2300lb and gave 4600lbf.


Interesting. I have found very little information about these early turbofans, what eventually happened with them?.





> Turbine Entry Temperature or TIT, turbine inlet temperature.


Ah okay that makes sense now. 


> Things are more complicated than they seem. The J79 had variable angle stator vanes so you could adjust the pr and ease starting problems. Its not simple though. The 004H had two spools, like a lot of other paper engines. Power Jets were building the LR1 turbofan with two spools. Realistically you're creating something that is more complicated and requires more maintenance, for which its probably not worth it.


Disagree here. The 004H would've been the best and fastest solution for the next generation of single engined jet fighters like the Messerschmitt prototype or the Ta 183.



> Do you mean pressure ratio, not surge?


I guess i do, when it comes to these technical terms, my English sucks.



> Peak efficiency for a centrifugal single stage compressor is around 4.0 and 80%, which was achieved with these early engines. The Dart with a higher pr of 5.5ish went to two stage because its more efficient for that pr. For increased performance, the axial types can be better. The advantage the centrifugals have is simplicity and reliability.


No argument here.



> You run into problems with the blade stress increases, being more prone to surge with the increased pr, greater Mach number reducing efficiency. Its not a matter of "simply" at all.


You run into problems no matter what. That's part of development. It certainly is a lot easier though to keep the basic layout and a certain percentage of components than it is to built and entirely new engine.



> Was it best for what was needed at the time? No, which is why single spool turbojets and centrifugal types still dominate the low end of the market. Its only when you need greater thrust and lower fuel consumption (other factors as well) that more spools are useful. For the long range big jets the three spool Trent reigns supreme in terms of performance, but its not designed and built in the US so only has 40% of the market.


Which is why the Jumo 004 or BMW 003 were the best choices for a twin engined fighter at that time. Once you went to single engined fighters, things change. And with the Jumo 004H you could get a sufficiently powerful jet with relative (again relative is the keyword here) ease.



> Lots of people had the same ideas, but Whittle's simple engine worked reliably despite offering lower performance. The most advanced engine would be Griffith's CR.1 contrafan with a high bypass ratio fan, high pr and novel 32 individual spool design for maximum off peak performance, but it didn't work with the technology of the time.


If advanced means overly complex, yes. Not even practical today.


----------



## HellToupee (Feb 16, 2009)

KrazyKraut said:


> Which is why the Jumo 004 or BMW 003 were the best choices for a twin engined fighter at that time. Once you went to single engined fighters, things change. And with the Jumo 004H you could get a sufficiently powerful jet with relative (again relative is the keyword here) ease.



They never got the Jumo 004a working all that well, ild hate to see a 004h, the Russians persued developing the jumo post war and ultimately gave up.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Feb 16, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> They never got the Jumo 004a working all that well, ild hate to see a 004h, the Russians persued developing the jumo post war and ultimately gave up.


The only reason why there were "problems" with the 004a was because of raw materials and the condition some of these engines were assembled in, and credit to the Germans, they were coming up with "workarounds" to get these engines produced and made more reliable. As far as the Russians "giving up" on this engine, can you explain where the RD-10 came from? It powered the Yak-15 and -17, and while neither one of them were raging successes it did give the Soviet Union the platform to eventually develop more successful centrifugal engines (RD-9).

Then in the middle of this they (the Russians) were handed a Nene, so where do you think the focus went to, at least for a short period?

BTW the 004 was also used by the French to power some of their first jets after the war, right now their names escapes me.


----------



## Juha (Feb 16, 2009)

Hello Kurfürst
in fact it’s you who made the biggest logical error, you compared 109 and 190 production to fighter losses and drew conclusion that production was more than adequate while you acknowledged that also ground attack and recon units used the types. Until you added losses of those units to equation you will draw too optimistic conclusion. 

Was German fighter production adequate? At least in 1943 and first half of 44, no. If the quantity and quality of planes and/or pilots had been adequate, fighter arm of LW would has been capable to give reasonable protection to Heer and would has been able to protect German industry and especially factories which produced essential war materials and fuel production plants. Because it could not there was something fundamentally wrong in Jagdwaffe, in quantity and/or in quality.

I can also claim that this message was written in pre-coffeine state, I didn’t have time any coffee-brake today.

Juha


----------



## Kurfürst (Feb 16, 2009)

Hi Juha,

Thank you for the usual uninformative partisan post, it is nothing new from you. Keep repeating the same biased preconceptions of yours, without any evidence offered. 
It is what you do best, after all.


----------



## parsifal (Feb 16, 2009)

I think its arguable either way as to whether the supply of aircraft was adequate to keep up with losses. But what is definately the case is that this was not the major constraint affecting the frontline, operational strength of the Luftwaffe. The two major issues were, firstly the numbers of properly trained pilots, and secondly the supply of fuel.

In the first instance (pilot supply) the Germans were only able to keep their frontline strength up by increasingly vicious combouts of the training schools. This was so bad that by the end of 1944, the average training time had fallen to below 100 hours for you garden variety LW pilot. By comparison the US pilot training was powering on, I believe the average training time was by that time something like 600-700 hours.

Small wonder then that the US fighters were shooting down 5 o6 LW fighters for every escort lost by the end of the war. 

The second issue that affected the German readiness rates was fuel. This I believe managed to keep large slabs of the LW fighter forces grounded as the war progressed. For example, at the very end of the war, I believe there were about 2000 fighters on the eastern front, but during the Soviet offensive across the oder, the germans were only able to keep about 100 of these operational, due to fuel and logistical problems.

What I dont get though is that as far as I know, there was not a vast stash of fighters captured at the end of the war....or was there. If I am correct, what happened to all this alleged excess production???


----------



## Juha (Feb 16, 2009)

Hello Kurfürst
now it’s funny to see you blaiming that others are biased. Now on evidence, 109 and 190 losses of ground attack units can be find from Michael’s pages, you already gave the link.

On the inadequate of Jagdwaffe was clearly seen during in spring 43 over Tunisia and over supply routes there, during summer 43 over Sicily, then over Italy and then over ETO, in summer 44 over both Western and Eastern front. And in 43 it was mainly on question of inadequate numbers, later on the most important single factor IMHO was too hasty trained new pilots.

Juha


----------



## red admiral (Feb 16, 2009)

> I have found very little information about these early turbofans, what eventually happened with them?



There isn't a great deal available. The Metrovick F3 survives in the Rolls Royce Heritage trust at Derby. I'm told the open fan section of the F5 is around somewhere, I think it might be Manchester Museum of Science and Industry or maybe Cranwell.



> The 004H would've been the best and fastest solution for the next generation of single engined jet fighters



Probably a step too long with first engines unlikely to be around for a few years. Easier to try and make HeS011 work well (maybe another 6months+) or improve existing 003 and 004.



> It certainly is a lot easier though to keep the basic layout and a certain percentage of components than it is to built and entirely new engine.



Today when development takes so long and cost so much yes (e.g. RR Trent's 3-spool adaptability) but when you can hammer out a new engine like the Nene in 5 months... The new technology was progressing so fast that it was much more beneficial to design from new. Still you can build on previous research e.g. the AS Sapphire coming from the RAE's extensive research in the 30s and early 40s with the Metrovick engines and AS's own gas turbines.



> Which is why the Jumo 004 or BMW 003 were the best choices for a twin engined fighter at that time. Once you went to single engined fighters, things change. And with the Jumo 004H you could get a sufficiently powerful jet with relative (again relative is the keyword here) ease.



Personally I think the centrifugal was a better choice for the time period. Lots of the research already done so the focus is on productionising and improvements. Easy to scale each way from a successful design. e.g. Nene scaled down to give Derwent V and scaled up to give VK-1.



> If advanced means overly complex, yes. Not even practical today.



Its more the search for the ultimate in performance, which is relatively easy in a jet engine as you can calculate performance better than measuring it. The simplicity and reliability of the centrifugal won the day. It would be interesting to reexamine Griffith's contrafan today and see if it could be made to work better. Tighter tolerances possible with ECM would probably make quite a jump.



> The only reason why there were "problems" with the 004a was because of raw materials and the condition some of these engines were assembled in



Raw materials weren't really a problem for the 004A and get a lot of unjust stick. Better heat resistant alloys improve turbine lifetime they don't magically make all the other problems disappear. Compressor surging, combustion problems and harmonic excitation won't magically disappear are are far greater problems. Build quality is rather poor on the 004B engine at RAF Cosford compared to the Derwent and Goblin on display.

The French and Russian's used the 004 as is because it was available. As soon as better engines were available it was discarded. The design of the 004 itself died and didn't really lead to anything. The Russian axial program was already extant and the Atar took a very long, convoluted path from the 003.


----------



## davebender (Feb 16, 2009)

There was nothing wrong with the Luftwaffe pilot training program per se. There simply wasn't enough fuel to go around.


----------



## Kurfürst (Feb 16, 2009)

Juha said:


> Hello Kurfürst
> now it’s funny to see you blaiming that others are biased. Now on evidence, 109 and 190 losses of ground attack units can be find from Michael’s pages, you already gave the link.



I see. If you are claiming that German fighter production was insufficient to make up for losses, then prove it, with some actual facts.

As shown with loss and production figures already, German fighter production greatly exceeded German fighter losses in 1943. There was never any shortage of fighters planes or _modern _fighter planes. This sizeable excess of fighter production also enabled the Germans to build sizeable reserves of fighter aircraft, and even export some of them to their allies.

You are welcome to come up with your own production and loss sources to challenge that. 

Of course, a true partisan should never offer any evidence, and would not require any either to convince himself - he knows, feels, lives and breaths the truth from the very beginning. For him, it is a kind of biological, and not rational process. A true partisan, when asked support his claims, never lowers himself to provide them, but jumps on the next claim in a most elegant manner. A true partisan is certain in the righteousness of his way - therefore, it would seem improper for him to do anything else but to repeat the same over and over again. For this reason, with firm of the knowledge that he is right, he cares little that he keeps ending up on more and more people's ignore lists, or to examine evidence himself at all - what a redundant activity, when he already _knows_ it could only prove him right...!

But you are not such an entity, are you, Juha? Of course you are not. That is why we will see tons and tons of nice objective loss and production data in your next post, highlighting your position.



Juha said:


> On the inadequate of Jagdwaffe was clearly seen blah blah blah blah blah....



Ah, 'clearly', I see. A bit vague isn't it..? Any particulars of your newest claims or are you merely changing your arguement, jumping to the next claim and that sort of stuff?


----------



## KrazyKraut (Feb 16, 2009)

red admiral said:


> Probably a step too long with first engines unlikely to be around for a few years. Easier to try and make HeS011 work well (maybe another 6months+) or improve existing 003 and 004.


IIRC the HeS011 was a two spool aswell and certainly more complex overall. The 004H would've been a much more practical solution. Of course, the HeS011 was more developed when the war ended. And well, to my understanding the 004H did just that, improve on the 004.



> Today when development takes so long and cost so much yes (e.g. RR Trent's 3-spool adaptability) but when you can hammer out a new engine like the Nene in 5 months... The new technology was progressing so fast that it was much more beneficial to design from new.


This line of thought is one reason why so many British developments never became operational in time. Sure the basic concept was established in short time and early prototypes follow, but the substantial time it takes to iron out bugs and set up large scale production is another story. The Jumo is a prime example for this.



> Personally I think the centrifugal was a better choice for the time period. Lots of the research already done so the focus is on productionising and improvements. Easy to scale each way from a successful design. e.g. Nene scaled down to give Derwent V and scaled up to give VK-1.


I understand your point of view but disagree. As the first generation was to be driven by two engines, frontal area was an important aspect and the centrifugal compressor looses here, especially the Whittle design. Another thing that bothers me about the layout are the strict requirements to the nacelles: You easily end up with a too long air intake and lose thrust (something that is often overlooked when raw performance of the engine is compared). Other than that both designs were valid choices.



> Its more the search for the ultimate in performance, which is relatively easy in a jet engine as you can calculate performance better than measuring it. The simplicity and reliability of the centrifugal won the day. It would be interesting to reexamine Griffith's contrafan today and see if it could be made to work better. Tighter tolerances possible with ECM would probably make quite a jump.


Oh contrafans are being worked on by P&W for example, though cerainly geared turbofans are the next thing. Not far away actually , I think they will enter service 2013. The multi-spool thing though, that's not going to come in another decade if ever.



> Raw materials weren't really a problem for the 004A and get a lot of unjust stick. Better heat resistant alloys improve turbine lifetime they don't magically make all the other problems disappear. Compressor surging, combustion problems and harmonic excitation won't magically disappear are are far greater problems. Build quality is rather poor on the 004B engine at RAF Cosford compared to the Derwent and Goblin on display.


Build quality will be poor on any German engine that was built in 1945, no matter if jet or piston. The other "problems" were manageable. For a first-of-its-kind production engine the Jumo 004 was pretty reliable. 



> The French and Russian's used the 004 as is because it was available. As soon as better engines were available it was discarded. The design of the 004 itself died and didn't really lead to anything. The Russian axial program was already extant and the Atar took a very long, convoluted path from the 003.


The Russians were far behind ALL other WW2 nations at the time. That's why they were not able to significantly improve on the Jumo 004 for some time and then someone drops the fully developed Nene in their lap including all knowledge how to built them... what do you think they're going to use? To take this as an example that the Jumo was at the end of its road is wrong as the design progess essentially ended with WW2. It was rather to the luck of Oestrich that the French were able to collect the astonishing number 200 BMW + subcontractor employees so he could continue the 003 development into what became the Atar.


----------



## Kurfürst (Feb 16, 2009)

parsifal said:


> I think its arguable either way as to whether the supply of aircraft was adequate to keep up with losses. But what is definately the case is that this was not the major constraint affecting the frontline, operational strength of the Luftwaffe. The two major issues were, firstly the numbers of properly trained pilots, and secondly the supply of fuel.



Agreed. Fuel was certainly a major limitation, as shown by the consumption-production curves of avgas. It defined the maximum number of aircraft the Germans could still supply with fuel. I pretty sure this - and pilot training programmes - was the major limitation for all other combatants as well, looking at the RAF fighter strengths, despite seeing far less intense combat than the Luftwaffe on its three fronts, it would appear that they too hit some sort of invisible barrier, otherwise the number of aircraft would far exceed that of the Luftwaffe, but from the statistics I've seen, this doesn't appear to be the case. Given that the UK was largely dependent on US supplies of high octane aviation gasoline during the war - much of it was required by Bomber Command - I suppose it was the fuel limit, again. The average monthly consumption figures for 100/130 octane avgas in the UK in 1943 for example was 115 000 tons - quite similiar to the German consumption actually, if we allow a bit for the other, less active theatres.

And then of course, there's the US, producing an unbelievable 300 000 or so aircraft during the war - but having but a fraction of that operational at any time. I guess the reasons were similiar - even US fuel reserves and shipping capacity was not bottomless.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Feb 16, 2009)

KrazyKraut said:


> The Russians were far behind ALL other WW2 nations at the time. That's why they were not able to significantly improve on the Jumo 004 for some time and then someone drops the fully developed Nene in their lap including all knowledge how to built them... what do you think they're going to use? To take this as an example that the Jumo was at the end of its road is wrong as the design progess essentially ended with WW2. It was rather to the luck of Oestrich that the French were able to collect the astonishing number 200 BMW + subcontractor employees so he could continue the 003 development into what became the Atar.


Agree and also consider that considering the Soivets "gave up" on the Jumo, they shoved them into 280 Yak-15s and 430 Yak-17s.


----------



## Amsel (Feb 16, 2009)

davebender said:


> There was nothing wrong with the Luftwaffe pilot training program per se. There simply wasn't enough fuel to go around.


There wasn't a very good program after 1943. Many of the replacements were killed before they even knew how to properly fly their fighter. Some showing up with only a few hours in a Focke-wulf. It was very bad times for the Lw starting in 44'.


----------



## davebender (Feb 16, 2009)

How can you have a good pilot training program without plenty of fuel? It was already in short supply during 1941 to 1942 when Erich Hartmann took his flight training. I imagine things were a lot worse during 1943 to 1945.


----------



## delcyros (Feb 16, 2009)

KrazyKraut said:


> IIRC the HeS011 was a two spool aswell and certainly more complex overall. The 004H would've been a much more practical solution. Of course, the HeS011 was more developed when the war ended. And well, to my understanding the 004H did just that, improve on the 004.



To my knowledge and Anthony Keys expertise, the Jumo-004H was no evolutionary step coming from the Jumo-004 but instead a resizied project directly deriving from the Jumo-012 jet engine. Comparable to the Nene-Dervent V relationship.

The soviets somehow continued to build BMW-003 and Jumo-004. It at least drove all of the first generation jet fighters (including the MiG-9). They even adopted the afterburner technology of the Jumo-004E and BMW-003D. They also did the best they could in continuing the Jumo-012 program but canceled the program when the RR NENE became aviable. The Nene was significantly lighter and less complicated but produced comparable thrust ratings.
(to be fair, the PTL-022 was a turboprop engine development of the Jumo-012 and Jumo-022, which eventually was produced for decades in the SU).
I think that Red Admiral has a reasonable position. For the ww2 timeframe, the radial engine simply offered more advantages. The axial driven ones were to heavy and produced less thrust at a higher degree of mechanical complexity. From my personal opinion, it took until the 5000 lbs thrust level that the axial became the technically preferable solution.

There is also evidence suggesting that Karl Prestel (BMW- jet engine development, BMW-works at Berlin-Spandau) was tasked by the soviets with the reengineering of remaining BMW-003C documentation. After completition of those, the soviets tasked Pretsel with works on the BMW-018 engine. They build a single prototype in 1946 under supervision of A.I.Issajew and tested the prototype in oct. and november 1946.


Production of RD-10 and RD-20 aircraft was quite extensive, beside other projects (Suchoi)
280 Yak-15 with Jumo-004B
480 Yak-17 with Jumo-004D/E
590 MiG-9 with BMW-003A/D.
were produced. A minimum of 1.350 Jumo / BMW- driven jetfighter were build in the SU before 1949.


----------



## HellToupee (Feb 16, 2009)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Agree and also consider that considering the Soivets "gave up" on the Jumo, they shoved them into 280 Yak-15s and 430 Yak-17s.



Yes their first generation jet fighters, they didn't really have an alternative engine to choose from, development didn't really lead anywhere, later axial engines they produced were new designs.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Feb 16, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> Yes their first generation jet fighters, they didn't really have an alternative engine to choose from, development didn't really lead anywhere, later axial engines they produced were new designs.


But they did use the 003 and 004, far from giving up on it if it was fitted to over 700 aircraft.

Although new designs, their later engines were loosely tied to the 003 and 4


----------



## HellToupee (Feb 16, 2009)

FLYBOYJ said:


> But they did use the 003 and 004, far from giving up on it if it was fitted to over 700 aircraft.



No its not far from giving up, they gave up on the design as soon as an alternative was sourced aka the nene. Give up does not mean never used it just means they did not develop it further beyond german efforts, in some cases they were using captured engines on production fighters.


----------



## Glider (Feb 16, 2009)

Would it be fair to say that the key questions are

A) If you are comparing all the production of 109's and 190's then you should be looking at all the losses of the same types including GA, night fighting, recce etc losses including non operational losses.
I don't know what the Luftwaffe GA losses were, but every airforce found this to be a very dangerous type of mission and losses tended to be high. A good example being that RAF Typhoon losses, were significantly higher than fighter units.
B) There is a tendency in some quarters to look at the aircraft at the squadrons and not the servicable aircraft at the squadrons which are the ones that count. 
A load of hanger queens will not do anyone any good.
C) There seems to be little doubt that the Luftwaffe servicable aircraft strength was not directly related to aircraft production. If all these aircraft were being built in excess of the attrition, then where did they go? 
If anyone could help with this question a number of points may well be better understood.


----------



## parsifal (Feb 17, 2009)

Previously I have theorised that the LW tended to produce "whole units", at the expense of producing spares. this arose at the behest of goring,who wanted to impress hitler with the numbers of fighters rolling off the production lines, rather than manage the LW in a respopnsible way. This in turn tended to keep LW serviceability rates low, and meant a lot of complete airframes had to be cannibalised in order to keep others flying. Also aircraft were not classified as "lost" in the LW until the end of each quarter, and it could be shown that the airframe had suffered more that 60% (IIRC) damage. That suggests to me lots of permanently grounded birds were left on the "aircraft available" lists, despite never having the slightest chance of ever flying again.

I should say that most of the people here did not accept that opinion all that well


----------



## Glider (Feb 17, 2009)

I don't know if you are right or wrong but I do know that at the start of the war Germany had 
1,125 single engined fighters on strength, of which 870 were servicable
At 28th March 1942 Germany had
1,257 single engined fighters on strength, of which 752 were servicable

So it could well be a contributing factor.


----------



## davebender (Feb 17, 2009)

For the Me-109 this strategy makes sense as the aircraft was dirt cheap to manufacture. It was probably less expensive to produce replacement aircraft then to provide each airfield with extensive maintenance facilities.


----------



## Juha (Feb 17, 2009)

Dear Kurfürst
I only noticed that while you accused others making logical error you yourself made IMHO a bigger one. If the fact that one needs to compare all 109/190 losses to all 109/190 production if one wants to know was the production sufficient to cover losses is beyond your comprehension, its your problem.

On those campaigns you called blah blah…. Because IMO a historical adequacy of a fighter arm can be measured from how well it was capable to carry out its principal missions, for ex. protect the ground forces of the nation, to create environment where other a/c types of one’s airforce (bombers, transport planes etc) could perform their missions without unduly losses etc. I don’t need to reinvent wheel I can only say that read a decent book on for ex. Spring 43 battles in Tunisia or on Summer 44 in Normandy and draw your own conclusions on how well Jagdwaffe succeeded.

Absolute numbers doesn’t mean much. Jagdwaffe was adequate to the tasks asked from it from Sept 39 to June 40 and again from Spring 41 onwards up to sometimes in 42 even if overburdened when time went by. Even if late summer 42 it could not give adequate protection to Afrika Korps it could in Nov-Dec 42 combat effectively over Tunisia.

Juha


----------



## Kurfürst (Feb 17, 2009)

I am afraid it is time to stop wasting any more time on you, Juha. You simply keep repeating yourself, as I predicted.

Please be aware that from now on, I won't bother reading your posts.


----------



## Juha (Feb 18, 2009)

Hello Glider, if you want more info on a/c moving in and out of units.
Go to The Luftwaffe, 1933-45, select Air units, then Ground-attack units and then unit you want, scroll down and click Flugzeugbestand und Bewegungsmeldungen
for ex I./Sch.G. 1
Istbestand Monatserster	Zugang	Abgang	Istbestand Monatsletzer
Datum	Anzahl	Muster	Insgesamt	Neufertigung	Reparatur	von andere Verbände	Insgesamt	durch Feindeinw.	ohne Feindeinw.	Überholung	an andere Verbände	Anzahl

7.43	52	Fw 190A-5	19	19	-	-	43	16	14	8	5	28*
8.43	11	Fw 190A-5/U3	8	4	4	-	10	2	4	4	-	9
17	Fw 190F-3	18	16	2	-	19	8	6	5	-	16
0	Fw 190A-6	2	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2

On recon units, you ought to go through at least NAGrs and x.(F)/AufkGrs.

But even counting those wastages doesn’t give the whole picture because you still ought to find the losses caused by bombing of factories, losses during test and acceptance flights, and even in early 43 there were in addition of universal risks the risk of sabotage, Hermann Buchner tells in his memoirs that while he was doing his stint as a factory test pilot at Erla (it built Bf 109s ) he was badly injured when an explosive charge exploded in the engine compartment of the 109G-6 he was testing and tells also that he wasn’t only Erla test pilot who experienced that on that day. Later there were those a/c lost in strafing attacks before they were accepted by units. Also there were losses during delivery flights, which in times were rather heavy. Helmut Lipfert tells in his memoirs that from his group of green pilots who where transferring new 109G-2s from Germany to near Stalingrad only 3 got there by the end of 1942, 10 more arrived by March 43 and 4 didn’t arrive at all. That was most probably extreme case; Soviet winter, snow covered steppe and green pilots wasn’t very promising combination. here was most probably other losses outside day fighter units and OTUs but those came first into my mind.

Juha

OK the table didn't came out well but go to the site.


----------



## Glider (Feb 18, 2009)

Thanks Juha, but first I need to get an English / German dictionary.


----------



## Juha (Feb 18, 2009)

Hello Glider
it’s rather simple, first is the month, then what the unit had at the beginning of the month (how many per type, for ex in Aug 43 I./Sch.G. 1 had 3 190 subtypes). Then incomes (altogether, new, from overhaul/repairs, from other units); then outgoing (altogether, because of enemy action, without enemy action, to overhauls, to other units); the last column gives what the unit had at the end of the month.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 18, 2009)

Juha said:


> Hello Glider, if you want more info on a/c moving in and out of units.
> Go to The Luftwaffe, 1933-45, select Air units, then Ground-attack units and then unit you want, scroll down and click Flugzeugbestand und Bewegungsmeldungen
> for ex I./Sch.G. 1
> Istbestand Monatserster	Zugang	Abgang	Istbestand Monatsletzer
> ...



Juha - like you I have found rationalizing LW Operational/In Service versus "In various stage of repair" with respect to LW inventories is extremely difficult to rationalize.

Dr Price's statistics as well as those published by Prien and recomposed say by Caldwell and Mueller imply pretty low In Service numbers but doesn't shed light on how many were in comparable local Service Groups (like USAAF) for wing replacement etc, or in some other form of damage - capable of sheet metal repair or new engine repair or replacing a main gear...

The actual "IN Service" versus Available statistics for the total number accounted for in the Inventory seems lower than USAAF/RAF Operational experiences in 1944.


----------



## Kurfürst (Feb 18, 2009)

drgondog said:


> The actual "IN Service" versus Available statistics for the total number accounted for in the Inventory seems lower than USAAF/RAF Operational experiences in 1944.



Hi Bill,

Do you have any figures perhaps? There seems to be plenty of servicibilty data to go around in the literature and also in primary sources when it comes to LW units, but I have found very little about USAAF/RAF units. 

One tidbit that may prove useful as a comparison, I have found that the 2nd TAF aircraft in December 1944 had apprx. 77-78% servicibilty rate. 

At the same time IIRC Luftwaffe units possessed a servicibility rate of something like 70-75%, but I would have to re-check with Price. Still, the difference does not seem to me as Earth shattering. Naturally, some units had very low servicibilities at times on both sides, Typhoon units come to mind just before December, with a only 2-3 aircraft out of the establishment of twenty being ready for operations.


----------



## drgondog (Feb 18, 2009)

Kurfürst said:


> Hi Bill,
> 
> Do you have any figures perhaps? There seems to be plenty of servicibilty data to go around in the literature and also in primary sources when it comes to LW units, but I have found very little about USAAF/RAF units.
> 
> ...



Hi Kurfurst - I suspect the devil is in definitions. Most of my recollections from Prien/Caldwell/Price were in high 60's to mid 70's - but one has to have serious operational statistics from all units. I suspect the completeness of historical records was more easily maintained say in 8th AF where the units were located on one base with Service Gropus and Depots close by. When a/c were emergency landed at other locations an not returned within 72 hours, 'ownership' transferred

For example in my 355th data I have developed a "Beginning Inventory - Changes to Beginning Inventory by category (MIA, Cat 3, Cat 5/E write offs, Return to Service from Prior month, Replacement aircraft during the month) to arrive at Beginning Inventory for final month.

This is the best I can do and arrives at different % month by month - ditto pilot status but more difficult to pin down (pilot on 48 hour pass, WIA, MIA, RTD after Evasion, Replacement but not yet completed indoctrination training).

So, the 355th looks like a sine wave around an average 'line' of 64 (Authorized Sep 1943) growing to 80 (max inventory April 30, 1945) for maximum total authorized and on hand versus Available for Ops.

The 8th was pretty good at keeping the inflow of a/c to match Authorized totals every month unless a greoup was particularly hard hit near the end of the month.

The biggest spikes in Ops/Avail occurred in Nov 1943, August 1944 when the group took hard losses near the end of the month.

I haven't finished final touches cross checking but the low was around 77% and the high was about 89%.

This subject requires SERIOUS details and data to be available on a month by month basis.

I have found a fair amount of errors in 8th AF daily summaries - not in aggragate but in category.


----------



## Juha (Feb 19, 2009)

Hello Drgondog
yes, the serviceability rate tended to be a problem to LW at least during 1942 and also among KG 40 Fw 200 Condors at least from 1940 long into 1942. LW lived much “from hand to mouth” in 1942, it could get the serviceability rate reasonable level before a great offensive, for ex. at the beginning of the Operation Blau (Caucasus/Stalingrad) Luftflotte 4 had 1610 a/c of which 71% were combat ready. But long campaigns tended to cause a marked drop in a/c in hand and also serviceability rates tended to drop. On 31 Jan 43, when Paulus surrendered, Luftflotte 4 had only 624 a/c of which only 38% were combat ready. Of course LFl 4 was at the end of a long and difficult supply line, as Lipfert’s experience shows.

Juha


----------



## Juha (Feb 20, 2009)

As Delcyros’ original question. IIRC at late 1942 OKH stopped all strategic long term planning because studies had showed that the war had became unwinnable. But how Germany would have been able to fight longer. If for ex. Herr Hitler had seen light after the Stalingrad catastrophe and decided that it would be better to leave military decisions to soldiers and decided that it would be better to give Göring a couple attractive helferinnen, a good stock of morphine, some very pompous titles and an area to loot and to make Milch as the head of LW, then LW would have given priority to fighter production much earlier and had been able to produce clearly more fighters in 43.
Other decisions, scrap Me 410 as a heavy fighter, use some fighters to attack escorts near the coast so at least some of them had to drop their droptanks early, more time to fighter pilots training, include blind flying to single-engine fighter pilots training.

Juha


----------



## parsifal (Feb 20, 2009)

Juha said:


> OKH stopped all strategic long term planning because studies had showed that the war had became unwinnable. But how Germany would have been able to fight longer. If for ex. Herr Hitler had seen light after the Stalingrad catastrophe and decided that it would be better to leave military decisions to soldiers and decided that it would be better to give Göring a couple attractive helferinnen, a good stock of morphine, some very pompous titles and an area to loot and to make Milch as the head of LW, then LW would have given priority to fighter production much earlier and had been able to produce clearly more fighters in 43.
> Other decisions, scrap Me 410 as a heavy fighter, use some fighters to attack escorts near the coast so at least some of them had to drop their droptanks early, more time to fighter pilots training, include blind flying to single-engine fighter pilots training.
> 
> Juha



Hi Juha 

As far as I know, Germany did not abandon the idea of offensive action until after Kursk, and even then the idea was to recommence offensive operations in 1945 or so. guderain was given the job of overhaulling the Panzerwaffe, new submarines were being worked on, artillery was being developed. 

What did happen was that medium bomber production was curtailed. Even this was not a recognition of Germany's defensive position so much as more a bi-product of the Stalingrad debacle. So many of the advanced flying instructors for the bombers had been killed flying the transports, which also happened to be the airframes on which all blind flying and other flying instruction was carried out, that it would be many months before the schools could be put back into action again. By the time this had occurred, the Germans had indeed taken the decision to scale back medium bomber production, not least of which was the failure of their replacement programs for aircraft like the He 111.

Germany never really abandoned the idea of taking offensive action. The replacement army had eliminated retreat training (yes it existed) in 1936, on Hitlers direct orders, and it was never re-instated, why, because the wehrmacht as a whole (not just Hitler) was imbued with the idea of attack.

People often get the tenacious defensive efforts of the germans mixed up with good defensive planning. The germans were extremely well disciplined, and many soldiers were cross trained in various roles. this allowed cooks and pay clerks to fulfil the role of Infantry and the like in an emergency, however, this is not undertaken a strategic or tactical withdrawal in good order, its fighting fanatically to the last man. This is heroic, and honourable, but it is also wasteful in some situations. Hitler is often blamed for the "no retreat" policy, but in reality it was one manouvre that the Germans were not so good at , because of the lack of trainng in that area......compare it for example with Macs masterly withdrawal to bataan in 1942


----------



## Juha (Feb 20, 2009)

Hello Parsifal
I didn’t write that Germany abandoned offensive operations. OKH stopped, IIRC, long term strategic studies. Kursk wasn’t an offensive of strategic portitions, it was a limited offensive, which aim were to shorten front, so that it would have been possible create reserves and cut off sizeable Soviet forces inside the bulge. A spoiling attack of massive scale, so to speak. And Zitadelle wasn’t Germany’s last big offensive, again however limited. The last one was mounted in early 1945 in Hungary. Aims were liberate besieged troops in Budapest and recapture some minor Hungarian oil wells.

But those were not offensives with aims to win the war.

And Germany carried also skillful retreats, Operation Buffel for ex. The emptying of Rzev bulge.

Juha


----------



## parsifal (Feb 21, 2009)

Rzhev salient wasnt a reteat as such, it was a withdrawal, wasnt it. a straightening of the line to free troops for fall blau IIRC. What I am talking about is a retreat whilst under fire. The retreat to Bataan was just that, and it was done in a near perfect manner by Mac, once he finally realized he was losing the battle at Lingayen

I agree from the position that we can view things Kursk was not a war winner, but neither was the offensive in '42, more importantly, the Kursk offensive at the time WAS seen as the decisive battle. The Germans were convinced that the battles of 1941, 42 and early 43 had sucked the USSR dry of all excess manpower and materiel. They knew that they themselves were starting to hit bottom manpower wise, and that the russians had taken so many more casualties than themselves. On that basis they believed that one more push would break their back of resistance. Whilst it is true that there were some mutterings of protest about attacking for the third year, these were largely quashed by the promise of the new technology being introduced...the tanks, the aircraft and so on. The majority of German officers, as usual supported Hitlers decisions, though this was the period postwar when most of them cried foul and tried to say "I told him not to....i told him not to"


----------



## Juha (Feb 21, 2009)

Hello Parsifal
IMHO we should continue this on WWII General section but a couple short comments
Retreats, to Panther-Stellung early 44 after collapse of the siege of Leningrad, through swampy terrain with many partisans around and under heavy enemy pressure.
retreat up to Rhône valley after Dragoon/Anvil Aug 44 under heavy enemy pressure and under total enemy air superiority.

On Kursk, was it? Haven't see that claim in German books only in one old Soviet one. So have you German source/sources of the widespread German beliefs that Kursk offensive would turn the course of war. I mean other than Orders of the Day because they were meant to inspire to common soldiers to make "one more superhuman effort and then the victory will be ours!"

IIRC von Manstien had a reserve of only one PzD (23rd) and one SSPzGrD (5th Wiking) and they were not so lavisly equipped and powerful than the attacking divs. Not much when one remembers that the Soviet reserves , if we counted only those East of bulge consisted one Front (Army Group), incl 5th Tank Army and Germans have at least some idea of that.

Juha


----------



## delcyros (Feb 22, 2009)

Something I found wrt to bombing effects on production of single seat fighters. It was investigated to show a reasonable drop in production. On both graphs (US intellegence forecast of german single seater production and german production charts) You can compare how far the projections differ:


----------



## alejandro_ (Dec 19, 2009)

*Kurfurst*



> The figures seem a bit odd to me, but I am quite sure that cause for variation in fighter strenght was not production - see the monthly production below, it seems to me unlikely that in mid-1943, when production was at peak at 1000+ 109s/190s a month, they would be loosing more and production was not covering the losses.



Can you give the source/more detail on the graph you posted with Fw-190/Bf-109 production? the data are different to the one I saw in _Luftwaffe combat aircraft, Development, Production, Operations, 1935-1945_, from Griel and Dressel. See below:



 



Note mistake in December, production being 16 Bf-109!

*Delycros*



> both graphs (US intellegence forecast of german single seater production and german production charts) You can compare how far the projections differ:



Do you have the title of the report? looks interesting.


----------



## Milosh (Dec 19, 2009)

Glider said:


> Thanks Juha, but first I need to get an English / German dictionary.



Had them translated for me once

intbestand monatserster - total strength, month start
anzahl - number
muster - type
zugang - received
insgesamt - sum total
neufertigung - newly completed
reparatur - in repair
von andere verbande - from other units
abgang - sent out
durch feindeinw - (loss) due to enemy action
ohne - feindeinw. - (loss) not due to enemy action
uberholung - overhaul
istabestand monatstletzer - total, month end


----------



## Milosh (Dec 19, 2009)

Only because JG 1 is the first unit.

Flugzeugbestand und Bewegungsmeldungen, I./JG1

On Dec 1 I./JG 1 had 27 Fw190A-8s. During Dec they received 64 190A-8s but at month end only had 25 190A-8s.

If a Gruppe had an establishment strength of 48 a/c, then they are only at ~54% establishment strength. Not hard to get high serviceability percentage then.


----------



## Vincenzo (Dec 19, 2009)

i don't think that four staffeln gruppe was standard, i think common 3 staffeln so 36 plane + HQ unit (3?)


----------



## Erich (Dec 19, 2009)

4 staffeln was standard in August of 44 onward for the day fighters, not so for the Nachtjagd. Also it was a 3 staffeln in JG 7 in it's I. and III. gruppen as II. gruppe was in paper name only and used for propaganda purposes to confuse Allied intel.


----------



## Vincenzo (Dec 19, 2009)

Erich said:


> 4 staffeln was standard in August of 44 onward for the day fighters, not so for the Nachtjagd. Also it was a 3 staffeln in JG 7 in it's I. and III. gruppen as II. gruppe was in paper name only and used for propaganda purposes to confuse Allied intel.



ty for clear


----------



## drgondog (Dec 19, 2009)

Vincenzo said:


> i don't think that four staffeln gruppe was standard, i think common 3 staffeln so 36 plane + HQ unit (3?)



It slowly changed from about mid 1944 forward .. not all Jagdgeschader did so but most of the 'old core' went from 3 staffeln Gruppe's to four staffeln's per Gruppe.

Erich was JG3 the first when IV./JG3 Strum) added in April 1944? Or JG26 when IV./JG54 added?


----------



## Erich (Dec 19, 2009)

it was written order for first-second week of August 1944.

the Sturm unit came into being in JG 3 in on May 16th 44. the rest of the 109 gruppen were in fact suppose to protect the SturmFw's upon their missions in July 44 onward if and only if they were in operational closeness. this of course changed as units from the Eastern front were brought back and re-strengthened then of course the Normandie battels really put a total hit on the LW day fighter units and the changes were then in effect to stabilize, build and re-new. .............. Ha ! that was the thought.


----------

