# Best Air Force 1943-1945



## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Mar 31, 2011)

What was the best Air Force from the period of 1943 to 1945?


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## tomo pauk (Apr 1, 2011)

Fighters - Allied forces have better prop planes for the period, but LW introduces jets. 
SE bombers - IL-10 is the bird here.
TE bombers - Axis forces lose badly here, RAF has Mossie (with Bristol offering good ones), USAAF receives A-26, Russians get the Tu-2. 
4-engined bombers - USAAF has the best bird here. Along with nuke.
Transport - USAAF has the lead.
MP - USAAF (Consolidated's planes) - but here we have USN to interfere?
Numbers - USAAF.
Manpower - USAAF.
Radars - RAF USAAF.

The winner is clear.


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## parsifal (Apr 1, 2011)

my opinion, the USAAf is clearly ascendant. LW is in a full nose dive, RAF now subordinated to the US, japan is also in a nosedive. VVS has some really good equipment, but the aircrews still are not quite up to standard


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 1, 2011)

I agree with you completely by this point. By this point the USAAF was the most formidable air force in the world. Combination of equipment, quality, pilots and training as well its world wide projection make it the finest in the world by this point. The Luftwaffe was on a serious decline by 1944. Still had top notch aircraft but either not in the quanitities needed or lack of fuel and trained pilots. The end was obvious by this point.


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## renrich (Apr 1, 2011)

Yep, by January, 1944, the USAAF had to be rated as the most powerful in the world with the RAF next and the LW hanging in there but struggling. As a tactical air force, the VVS was effective.


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## Saetta66 (Apr 7, 2011)

Among the Others there was a bunch of unbeatable losers called Aeronautica nazionale Repubblicana (northern Italy) e Aeronautica Cobelligerante (Southern Italy) who tried to keep on doing their duty even if everything was lost ...


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 7, 2011)

Saetta66 said:


> Among the Others there was a bunch of unbeatable losers called Aeronautica nazionale Repubblicana (northern Italy) e Aeronautica Cobelligerante (Southern Italy) who tried to keep on doing their duty even if everything was lost ...



Certainly commendable, but in your opinion what sets it apart from the other air forces?


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## pbfoot (Apr 7, 2011)

one has no choice but to place the USAAF overall first particularly in numbers and in certain equipment like long range intercepters,B29, transport, logistics and industrial might however I quibble about quality of aircrew . I cannot figure out how aircrew were superior in the USAAF over Commonwealth crew most , from what I've read most USAAF aircrew were not as capable in a bad weather enviroment as their flight training for the most part took place in areas not kmown for inclement weather. The USAAF was also well behind in nightfighting and intruding 
I also ask if you wanted a precision mission performed which would you prefer the Commonwealth or USAAF.


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## buffnut453 (Apr 7, 2011)

I'd also point out that the B-29 only entered operational service halfway through the period in question and it probably took some time to build up sufficient numbers for it to be a viable force. Until that time, the Lanc (IMHO) ruled the roost as the best long-range heavy bomber. Perhaps things aren't so cut and dried in favour of the USAAF?


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## parsifal (Apr 7, 2011)

B-29s were not really effective until very late in 1944, when tthey began flying low, at night and using incendiary packages that had been developed earlier by the brits in their offensive over Germany. High level HE armed raids just couldnt deliver enough tonnage of bombs to destroy Japanese cities. For some reason the US had determined that the japanese population had to be targetted as wel as point targets like factories

Converting to low level incendiary raids added the fuel load of the cities themselves to the fuel load, and hugely increased the leathality of the b-29....and then came THE bomb, of course


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## syscom3 (Apr 8, 2011)

While the USAAF was not #1 in everything, it was at the top in most. And even where it was lacking, it was still good enough to be near the top.

The USAAF had the resources to build what it wanted, in any quantity, and piloted and maintained by competent crews. 

The RAF never had that capability. A very fine organization. But putting out a few great aircraft types manned by a limited number of superb crews, doesn't hold up to the shear industrial and organizational powers the US had at its disposal.


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## parsifal (Apr 8, 2011)

A good summary Sys, and correct of course


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## pbfoot (Apr 8, 2011)

syscom3 said:


> While the USAAF was not #1 in everything, it was at the top in most. And even where it was lacking, it was still good enough to be near the top.
> 
> The USAAF had the resources to build what it wanted, in any quantity, and piloted and maintained by competent crews.
> 
> The RAF never had that capability. A very fine organization. But putting out a few great aircraft types manned by a limited number of superb crews, doesn't hold up to the shear industrial and organizational powers the US had at its disposal.


I disagree with the comment of limited competent crews there was never a shortage of crews in fact it was the reverse . I also would like to mention how much of a jump start the USAAF was given when in Dec 41 when approx 5000 trained aircrew transferred from RCAF to USAAF. I say RCAF rather then RAF as only approx 250 Americans were in the RAF and near 10000 were in RCAF even though many Americans servedd with RAF Squadrons they were RCAF and remained so as the pay was much better


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## Saetta66 (Apr 11, 2011)

It sets apart form the other air forces simply because the ratio aircrafts/number of ennemies was so high that the percentage of comin back safe was probaly almost zero. That's it . The German and the Jap aviations have got this gap only in the last months or weeks of war ....


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## buffnut453 (Apr 11, 2011)

syscom3 said:


> While the USAAF was not #1 in everything, it was at the top in most. And even where it was lacking, it was still good enough to be near the top.
> 
> The USAAF had the resources to build what it wanted, in any quantity, and piloted and maintained by competent crews.
> 
> The RAF never had that capability. A very fine organization. But putting out a few great aircraft types manned by a limited number of superb crews, doesn't hold up to the shear industrial and organizational powers the US had at its disposal.


 
Syscom,

I think we need to be a bit careful here. Whilst the US undoubtedly had amazing manufacturing capacity, it did not have unlimited resources although I fully accept that its full resources were never reached. The comment about Brit limitations must also be placed in context - the RAF was, after all, over 1,100,000 men in uniform in 1944. 

Despite the large scale of the USAAF, there were still some things it didn't do very well, particularly during the early stages of the period in question - integrated air defence, night fighting, massed shipping strikes, precision night bombing (although I accept this was as much doctrinal as technical as the USAAF wanted to persist with daylight attacks), support to resistance operations etc.

I guess it depends on how you define "best". If it's the biggest, then the USAAF easily wins, although again I think that's more the case towards the end of the period rather than in the 1943-early 1944 timeframe.


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## syscom3 (Apr 11, 2011)

pbfoot said:


> I disagree with the comment of limited competent crews there was never a shortage of crews in fact it was the reverse . I also would like to mention how much of a jump start the USAAF was given when in Dec 41 when approx 5000 trained aircrew transferred from RCAF to USAAF. I say RCAF rather then RAF as only approx 250 Americans were in the RAF and near 10000 were in RCAF even though many Americans servedd with RAF Squadrons they were RCAF and remained so as the pay was much better



After the middle of 1943, there was an assembly line of pilots and crews coming out of the training groups as individuals or groups ready to deploy. This correlates squarely with the large numbers of groups (of all kinds) that began to be deployed around the world about that time. By 1945, there were so many available crews, that the training programs was cut back.

In the time frame of this poll, personnel shortages were not an issue, or were being minimized on a weekly basis.


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## syscom3 (Apr 11, 2011)

buffnut453 said:


> Syscom,
> 
> I think we need to be a bit careful here. Whilst the US undoubtedly had amazing manufacturing capacity, it did not have unlimited resources although I fully accept that its full resources were never reached. The comment about Brit limitations must also be placed in context - the RAF was, after all, over 1,100,000 men in uniform in 1944.
> 
> ...



Integrated defense: Agreed. There really was no need for it as North America was never under this type of threat.

night fighting: Agreed. The US was behind the RAF and LW.

massed shipping strikes: No. The 5ht AF and 13th AF was doing that on a daily basis. And ever hear about the Battle of the Bismark Sea?

precision night bombing: No. The B29's had the capabilities of duplicating what the RAF did. The B29's that were equipped with bombing radars did have good success. And f they had been forced into night missions in the ETO, they would have been better than the RAF simply by virtue of the B29 being a generation ahead of the competition.

support to resistance operations: ? 

As for the production capabilities of the USAAF, once the factories were in full production in mid 1944, they were a juggernaut. And throughout 1945, aircraft production was still reaching a peak. Compared to the rest of the world, the US was the only country that could mass produce top notch aircraft in excess of its needs, have regular model updates without interruptions and still continue to develop new models.

Look at it this way: In 1945, moderately damaged B24's in the PTO were scrapped instead of repaired because there were so many newer AC being made available.

What other country could simultaneously build three heavy bomber types (B17, B24 and B29) and have a fourth ready for production (B32)?


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## buffnut453 (Apr 11, 2011)

syscom3 said:


> precision night bombing: No. The B29's had the capabilities of duplicating what the RAF did. The B29's that were equipped with bombing radars did have good success. And f they had been forced into night missions in the ETO, they would have been better than the RAF simply by virtue of the B29 being a generation ahead of the competition.



As already noted, the B-29 only entered service halfway through the period in question and massed raids only started into the last third of the period. Also, the fact that the B-29 was a generation ahead of other heavy bombers does not mean it could perform precision night attacks which had more to do with the airborne radar it carried, radio navigation aids and the procedures for precision target marking in which areas the RAF all were still ahead of the USAAF.



syscom3 said:


> What other country could simultaneously build three heavy bomber types (B17, B24 and B29) and have a fourth ready for production (B32)?



Errr....that'll be the RAF with the Lancaster, the Stirling and the Halifax, and the Lincoln and Canberra in the pipeline with the V-Bombers to start the year following the end of the war.


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## buffnut453 (Apr 12, 2011)

syscom3 said:


> massed shipping strikes: No. The 5ht AF and 13th AF was doing that on a daily basis. And ever hear about the Battle of the Bismark Sea?



Yes, but the USAAF wasn't combining rocket projectiles, heavy cannon and torpedo attacks like the Banff Wing and the other maritime strike wings in the UK.


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## Sydhuey (Apr 12, 2011)

buffnut453 said:


> Yes, but the USAAF wasn't combining rocket projectiles, heavy cannon and torpedo attacks like the Banff Wing and the other maritime strike wings in the UK.


 
Yes the 5th A/F was to an extent, RAAF Beauforts combined with US a/c to do combined torpedo/skip bombing on Japanese shipping but it was soon realised that 1/ the torpedos used by the RAAF and US in the pacific were so unreliable to be next to usless and 2/the japanese navy was probably the best navy in the world at dodging torpedos having trained against there own superlative "Long Lance" torpedoes.
Cannon equipped Beaufighters acted as flak suppressors to skipbombing A-20's and B-25's as they also did in europe and eventualy Austalian built beaufighters started carrying Rockets and 2 x 500lbs on the belly, The RAAF's 9 Operations Group was under the control of US 5th AF from mid 42 till mid 44 (4sqn Wirraway/Boomerang (army co-op/FAC), 5 Sqn Wirraway /Boomerang (army co-op/FAC), 6 Sqn Hudson/Beaufort (light Bomber, gen recon), 100 Sqn Beaufort (Torpedo/light Bomber), 7577 Sqn P-40 Kittyhawk (Fighter), 30 Sqn Beaufighter(long range strike fighter) and 22 Sqn Boston(Attack))

At the end of WW2 the RAAF had the 5th biggest Air Force in the world , USA ,USSR ,UK ,Germany ,Japan, Australia.


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## parsifal (Apr 12, 2011)

_At the end of WW2 the RAAF had the 5th biggest Air Force in the world , USA ,USSR ,UK ,Germany ,Japan, Australia_.

bigger than the RCAF at the conclusion of VE day? seems unlikey


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## pbfoot (Apr 12, 2011)

So the 5000 trained aircrew made little difference just imagine if you hadn't recieved those guys it probably would have set back plans by several months


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## syscom3 (Apr 12, 2011)

> Yes, but the USAAF wasn't combining rocket projectiles, heavy cannon and torpedo attacks like the Banff Wing and the other maritime strike wings in the UK.



B25's with 75mm cannons and rockets. That's enough punch for you. As for torpedo's; that was reserved for the USN.



> Errr....that'll be the RAF with the Lancaster, the Stirling and the Halifax, and the Lincoln and Canberra in the pipeline with the V-Bombers to start the year following the end of the war.



And in what quantities for the first three? Think the UK could have built a factory like Willow Run and churn out a B24 every hour? Or churn out a hundred B29's a week with more production facilities becoming available if required?


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## syscom3 (Apr 12, 2011)

pbfoot said:


> So the 5000 trained aircrew made little difference just imagine if you hadn't recieved those guys it probably would have set back plans by several months



Not in the least. We're talking about 1943 onwards. Even larger numbers were training and would soon join the war. The fact the USAAF expanded so quickly in the later part of 1943 and early 1944 is testimate to that fact.


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## pbfoot (Apr 12, 2011)

syscom3 said:


> Not in the least. We're talking about 1943 onwards. Even larger numbers were training and would soon join the war. The fact the USAAF expanded so quickly in the later part of 1943 and early 1944 is testimate to that fact.


Well I'm going to try and clear up your thinking , if these 5000 trained guys were all instructors with training 4 pilots each twice a year that 40000 pilots you would have lacking in 44. These 5000 guys certainly allowed you to expand at the rate you did


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## syscom3 (Apr 12, 2011)

pbfoot said:


> Well I'm going to try and clear up your thinking , if these 5000 trained guys were all instructors with training 4 pilots each twice a year that 40000 pilots you would have lacking in 44. These 5000 guys certainly allowed you to expand at the rate you did



But they weren't. The USAAF had plenty of instructor pilots (civilian and military) in this time period. Did it help in the first two years of the war? Yes. Was it responsible for all of the trained aircrews for the last three years? No. By that time, there were plenty of experienced AAF pilots rotating back to the states and helping to train the rookies.


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## pbfoot (Apr 12, 2011)

syscom3 said:


> But they weren't. The USAAF had plenty of instructor pilots (civilian and military) in this time period. Did it help in the first two years of the war? Yes. Was it responsible for all of the trained aircrews for the last three years? No. By that time, there were plenty of experienced AAF pilots rotating back to the states and helping to train the rookies.


But if it hadn't been dor the influx of crews from RAF and RCAF where would the 4th Fg have come from it would have been later and much less skilled. We are only talking about 1yr . The poll does from 43 to 45 even in 43 the USAAF lacked aircrew . In the Aleutian campaign some of the USAAF p40's were crewed by RCAF as they lacked crews for the aircraft


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## syscom3 (Apr 12, 2011)

The 4th FG was only one of many fighter groups that were in existence. Throughout 1942 and 1943, there were plenty of fighter/bomber and transport groups in the USAAF that were in operation without (or a nominal few) allied crews assigned, or had been trained wholly by USAAF personnel.


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## buffnut453 (Apr 12, 2011)

syscom3 said:


> B25's with 75mm cannons and rockets. That's enough punch for you. As for torpedo's; that was reserved for the USN.
> 
> 
> 
> And in what quantities for the first three? Think the UK could have built a factory like Willow Run and churn out a B24 every hour? Or churn out a hundred B29's a week with more production facilities becoming available if required?


 
Syscom,

You keep going back to production capacity not quality of the air force. And you still have not responded to any of my points about the changing situation during the 1943-45 period. You baldly stated that the USAAF was top dog in all respects in the period and I'm simply offering some different perspectives. For some of the points I've made, it's apparent that the USAAF was at least equalled by other air forces and in some (eg integrated air defence) it really didn't place because it didn't have any capability. You just keep going back to production and size whereas I'm looking across the spectrum of capabilities and trying to add a little fidelity to the discussion.


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## buffnut453 (Apr 12, 2011)

For the record, I believe the RAF had the edge in 1943, the RAF and USAAF were broadly equal in 1944 and it was only in 1945 that the USAAF truly became the dominant air force in the world.


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## Sydhuey (Apr 12, 2011)

parsifal,
I can't add up!! at the end of WW2 the RAAF was the 4 th largest Allied Airforce USA,USSR,UK,Australia,Canada. Canada had more personel but the RAAF had more aircraft and Squadrons (78 Canada, 85 Australia), while Canada concentrated more on Bombers and training (European ops), Australia while having two major fronts concentrated on the Pacific, Canada had 35 overseas Sqns(12 Fighter 14 Bomber 9 other) and 43 at home , Australia had 18 overseas (6 fighter 8 bomber 4 other)and 67 sqns in Australia and SW Pacific with a strenth of over 3200 aircraft(more than 500 P-40's,200 P-51's(500 on order) 200+ B-24's etc).


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## parsifal (Apr 12, 2011)

we are dealing in generalities here, but in terms of camparing pure quality, not quantity, my opinion is that the RAF had the lead in the following categories, using the beginning of 1944 as the rough juxtapoint.

1) Night Fighters
2) Electronic Bombing Aids such as navaids etc (eg H2S Oboe and the like) 
3) Night Operations for strat bombers and Naval strike
4) ASW capability
5) PRU technology and equipment
6) Jet engine technology
7) Cannon armament

I would say the US held a clear lead in the following areas
1) carrier based day strike and fighter capability 
2) LR day Strategic escort
3) Day Strat Bombers and bombing techniques
4) Air transport
5) Atomic research 
6) visual bombing aids

As a generalization I would say in other areas the two air forces were more or less equal.

This is of course opinion based. we could spend a month debating the individual items and still not get agreement.


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## pbfoot (Apr 12, 2011)

Sydhuey said:


> parsifal,
> I can't add up!! at the end of WW2 the RAAF was the 4 th largest Allied Airforce USA,USSR,UK,Australia,Canada. Canada had more personel but the RAAF had more aircraft and Squadrons (78 Canada, 85 Australia), while Canada concentrated more on Bombers and training (European ops), Australia while having two major fronts concentrated on the Pacific, Canada had 35 overseas Sqns(12 Fighter 14 Bomber 9 other) and 43 at home , Australia had 18 overseas (6 fighter 8 bomber 4 other)and 67 sqns in Australia and SW Pacific with a strenth of over 3200 aircraft(more than 500 P-40's,200 P-51's(500 on order) 200+ B-24's etc).


me thinks your numbers are incorrect I count 44 sqns overseas


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## buffnut453 (Apr 12, 2011)

parsifal said:


> we are dealing in generalities here, but in terms of camparing pure quality, not quantity, my opinion is that the RAF had the lead in the following categories, using the beginning of 1944 as the rough juxtapoint.
> 
> 1) Night Fighters
> 2) Electronic Bombing Aids such as navaids etc (eg H2S Oboe and the like)
> ...


 
Parsifal,

Once again I find myself in agreement with you. Good post.

Cheers,
BN


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## parsifal (Apr 12, 2011)

we have had some almighty disagreements, but for me its all good. Its nice to agree in this case


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## Sydhuey (Apr 13, 2011)

pbfoot, I got the Canadian numbers from the Canadian Airforce WW2 web site and one of the Canadian sites said they had the 5 th AF on the allied side and the RAAF history site said they were 4th, but who cares Australia,Canada and New Zealand punched well above there weight compared to populations and industrial might in the war anyway.
I think the list by parsifal is a good overall comparison to the US and UK forces , the US was obviously the most powerful but I actualy think the best most bang for there size by the end of the war was the RNZAF by the end of the war they had concertrated on just 4 types, F4U Corsairs, PV1 Venturas,Catalinas and C-47's as there operational types with all others for training and NZ ops , they pooled all there a/c to central a/c depots and issued the Sqn's going to the operational area fresh overhauled a/c able to be flown hard for there tour to be replaced after a couple of months with a fresh sqn with fresh a/c , very efficient


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## syscom3 (Apr 13, 2011)

This is how I view things:

Where the RAF and AAF are equal:
Aircrew quality
Airframe design
Leadership
Weapons
Night bombing in 1945

Where the RAF is best:
Night bombing in 1943/1944
Night fighters
Night fighting tactics
Integrated defense
Jet engines

Where the AAF is best:
*PRODUCTION!!! A magnitude or two better than the UK.*
Global reach
Types of airframes (a type for every niche)
Quantity of personnel for every function of the air force
Transports
B29 as best heavy bomber of WW2
Medium bombers
Long range fighters
Logistics
Daytime heavy bombers

Some things cant be compared due to the USN and AAF being independent of each other and subscribing to different doctrines.

Anyone who underestimates just how overwhelming the US production of airframes and the ability of the US industrial base to keep them flying is not being honest with themselves. Don't forget the huge numbers of airplanes that were supplied to our allies. These did not add to the paper strength of the AAF, but it sure added to the fighting power of the allied countries of WW2. I can sum up it up this way; The AAF had tens of thousands of great aircraft manned by a great many of good and competent aircrews, many of which eventually became great aircrews. And that was far more valuable than having thousands of good aircraft manned by a lesser number of great aircrews.


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## parsifal (Apr 13, 2011)

Not sure about medium bombers being superior. British cutting edge mediums were actually the Mosquitos, even though officially rated as a light bomber. A Mosquito could carry a 4000 bombload which was equal to the practical bombload of a B-25. I will have to check to confirm, but I think it could carry this bombload further, faster, with a lower attrition rate than any US medium bomber. 

Why would you say that US mediums are superior on that basis........


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## drgondog (Apr 13, 2011)

Buffnut - who in your opinion was the dominant AIRPOWER January 1944 - globally?


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## buffnut453 (Apr 13, 2011)

I think my post #30 pretty much sums up my views.


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## syscom3 (Apr 13, 2011)

I can accept views about parity between the AAF and RAF in 1943; but beginning in 1944, the AAF was the best. There cant be much argument about it.


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## buffnut453 (Apr 13, 2011)

I think there can be much argument. In 1944 the USAAF's main heavy bomber carries the same bomb load a similar distance as the RAF's primary light bomber. The USAAF was not unique in having an aircraft for every niche role - mine degaussing Wellingtons anyone? Once again, best doesn't equal biggest and I stand by my evaluation. Given that you're not likely to budge I think we should leave it there.


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## parsifal (Apr 13, 2011)

There also seems to be a slight misalignment in juxtapositions here. If we are talking the end of 1944, I would tend to agree that the US air force was ascendant, both in quality and quantity. 

However at the beginning of 1944, that is far from proven. If you rewind just a couple of months earlier, to Schcweinfurt, the US was typically sending bomber formations over Germany of 2-300 aircraft. In comparison the RAF was sending bomber formations of 700-1000 aircraft. In terms of tonnages dropped, the RAF outstripped the Americans until well into 1944.

Again, in terms of such items as Night fighters and electronics, the US was lagging at the beginning of 1944, but by the end, I think they were probably ahead. The juxtaposition needs to be carefully selected when making these sorts of comparisons


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## syscom3 (Apr 13, 2011)

Parsifal, good points. In Feb 1944, the 8th AF was putting up 600 - 700 heavy bombers, per mission. And month by month, the totals kept increasing. And this doesn't count the 15th AF and Pacific based units which would significantly jack up those totals. 

As for night fighters, by going on what Erich has written, the AAF was behind all the way to the end. As for night bombing; the B29 gave the edge to the AAF (in 1945) by virtue of it's better performance and capability to carry more navaids than the Lanc.


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## parsifal (Apr 13, 2011)

I can agree with all of that, with regard to NFs, one ought not discount the P-61....it was a fantastic aircraft in my view, and by June '44 my opinion is that the AI carried by US aircraft was at least as advanced as any other air force. The AAF was progressing and expanding at a breathtaking pace that no-one could hope to match


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## drgondog (Apr 14, 2011)

buffnut453 said:


> For the record, I believe the RAF had the edge in 1943, the RAF and USAAF were broadly equal in 1944 and it was only in 1945 that the USAAF truly became the dominant air force in the world.



The RAF had a decided edge in heavy bombers, medium/intruder capability with the mosquito, day and night fighter squadrons with their own equipment through mid 1943 in England. The RNAF had several carriers in the Atlantic and several in the Med for naval air assets. Offhand I am unclear on RNAF assets anywhere else such as CBI/PTO. 

From an Airpower standpoint, the USAAF and USN/USMC were collectively deployed everywhere in early 1943 except for USSR. 
The RAF was incapable of carrying and sustaining either tactical or strategic campaigns against the Japanese

From an Airpower standpoint the USAAF exceeded RAF for strategic bombing capabilities - using 'all in' numbers across the globe by mid 1943, including bases from every continent except Asia ('context' USSR), Tactical Air, Naval Air, Air Transport Command. The Commonwealth was shoulder to shoulder in smaller numbers in the PTO but the RAF and RNAF were virtually non existant in the PTO/CBI.

If you count Manufacturing and Distribution of the US as an integral part of airpower (and I do), and you count the volumes of aircraft and spares and aviation gasoline as an integral part of Airpower (and I do) and you mention the numbers of US aircraft distributed to USSR, Britain, Commonwealth (and I do) and the distribution of aviation and diesel fuel to the Allies (and I do)and the flight crew training facilities, aircraft, instructors provided to Allies (and I do) - as an integral part of Airpower -

Then the the US achieved parity in early 1943 and ascended in first half and clearly the most powerful by the of 1943. 

Quality is impossible to measure comparatively between USAAF/USN/USMC and RAF/RNAF by mid 1943 although the RAF had a clear edge in combat hour experience in total and specifically in ETO/MTO... after that timeframe IMO the US exceeded then far outstripped the RAF and Commonwealth in aggragate quality and effectiveness based on numbers of pilots and crews entering operations with high quality training and multiplying that by the numbers of crews in combat ops. 

So, from an Airpower capability as measured by a.) quality and variety of aircraft suited to tactical and strategic combat role (daylight strategic bombing B-17, B-24), Light-medium daylight bombing and attack (A-20, B-25, B-26) , Long Range anti sub (B-24, PBY and USN Carriers), tactical air/close support (P-40, A36, P-47, P-38, F4U), long range escort fighters (ie F4U/P-38), Naval Air (SBD, F4F, F4U, TBF), Air Transport Command (C-47, C-46, C-54), b.) Deployment, c.) Theatres fully engaged, d.) tactical/strategic pressure applied to Axis, d.) inventory of new advanced aircraft (B-29, P-51B, F6F, P-61, A-26, SB2C) being produced and staging for deployment, e.) Huge Inventory of high quality aircrews staging for deployment to all theatres, f.) manufacturing facilities producing not only for US needs but also for Allies (P-39, P-40, P-47. B-24, PBY, F4F, C-47, B-25, A-20, etc) - by mid 1943.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 14, 2011)

I have to agree with Bill here. Just the fact that by that time the US could project its air power anywhere alone sets it above.


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## Milosh (Apr 14, 2011)

Bill, the RNAF is the FAA (Fleet Air Arm).


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## pbfoot (Apr 14, 2011)

Dragondog is correct by 44 the USAAF was the dominant airpower but disagree with his assumption of training being better in the USAAFand think that is a holdover from 1940's propaganda films .One item comes to mind is the commonwealth instructed on the inverted flat spin but the USAAF didn't ( trying to find ref). Commonwealth navigators were trained to a higher standard and most guys that served in both Commowealth and USAAF systems universially agree that instrument flying was of a higher standard in the Commonwealth.


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## parsifal (Apr 14, 2011)

In the ETO US pilots were receiving slightly more hours in training before being sent to the front. 2/3 of the US air force never left the continental US, as opposed to about half the RAF never leaving the british isles. It was theoretically possible for the US to have better trained pilots, but hard to say about the actual front line formations.


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## buffnut453 (Apr 14, 2011)

drgondog said:


> From an Airpower standpoint, the USAAF and USN/USMC were collectively deployed everywhere in early 1943 except for USSR.
> 
> The RAF was incapable of carrying and sustaining either tactical or strategic campaigns against the Japanese



The RAF had operated in the USSR, both fighters and bombers. Your comment about the RAF not sustaining tactical or strategic campaigns against the Japanese is sheer nonsense. The 'I' in CBI stood for India where the RAF had both fighter and bomber assets of all classes and sustained the campaign from the withdrawal out of Burma in 1942 until the reconquest in 1944. In 1944-45, the RN carriers were undertaking extensive operations in the Pacific, including some of the last raids against Japanese targets during the war. The inventory of new aircraft on the RAF side included the Tempest, the Meteor (again, where would the US have been without British jet engine technology?), the Vampire, the Canberra in the stocks etc. The B-17 was not a good strategic bomber - too small a payload for the effort. The Beaufighter and Mosquito were at least as good, if not better, than any near-equivalents in the US inventory. And once again you keep going back to manufacturing when the question was about the best air force. The air force didn't make a single aircraft - the US industrial complex did.


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## parsifal (Apr 14, 2011)

For the Pacific, you would also have to add the RAAF and the RNZAF, both of wich retained strong links to the RAF, despite some later war afiliations to the US. They remained more "british" than "US" in terms of their thinking, training, and equipment. The RAAF remained the dominant land based air force in the South Pacific zone until well into 1943. USAAF was dominant in the SWPac and Central Pac. Dont know about the North pacific, since this could arguably include western Canada.

Saying that the RAF (and its dominion subsidiaries) was a force without global projection capabilities (or even limited capabilities) is a nonsense. Saying that the USAAF in late 1943 dominated this area in late '43 is also highly debateable. it depends on the criteria that you want to make that assumption by. Saying that the USAAF was dominant by the latter half of 1944 I can entirely agree with. By then, it was a true statement.


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## drgondog (Apr 14, 2011)

buffnut453 said:


> The RAF had operated in the USSR, both fighters and bombers.
> 
> *Total force deployment in squadrons from Jan 1943 through Jan 1944? Operating where and in what capacity?*
> 
> ...



The question I posed was about AIRPOWER and the footprint of the US across all theatres, which was not materialized out of thin air...


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 14, 2011)

OK - I have to throw in a few comments here....

Fist off the Commonwealth training program (and we'll talk Canada) by necessity had to have an expanded instrument training program based on location and weather conditions or I don't think you could have rapidly graduated any primary student without having them building flight time unless they flew purposely in the soup. With that said the expanded nature of this training can only benefit so far as IMC flying in that day was limited and basically crude. The biggest in this scenario was introducing instrument flying at an earlier part of the allied training curriculum which might and I repeat might have gotten some pilots more proficient in this type of flying earlier in their career, and this was stated by some US pilots who did learn to fly in Canada. In the end however what was introduced early in flight training was generally learned and made proficient by learning the skill "in country," or by "do or die."


I don't know where some of these numbers mentioned on this thread are coming from but I'd like to see sources. To say for example that there were 5,000 trained aircrew coming out of Canada by Dec 41 might be an accurate statement, but I'd like to know how many of them were combat ready as many of those who got their wings had to spend some time in an OTU before they saw combat. While comparing what the commonwealth was doing at the same period one should look to the south as there were hundreds of schools in the US pumping out hordes of fresh pilots, who were in various levels of proficiency. In my old home in Southern California you had Polaris Academy (mention on this site in many older threads) were assisting the commonwealth within their own ranks.

War Eagle Field - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I can tell you that there are "dozens" of auxiliary fields peppered through out this area of Southern California that still can be seen today and supported this training effort.

Bottom line I'd like to see sources on some of these numeric claims and would also see where some of these fresh recruits were within their training when they hit the European Continent. Additionally I'd like to see data that supported the IMC proficiency of the typical combat pilot being introduced to IMC flying earlier in their career rather than later.


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## parsifal (Apr 14, 2011)

With regard to the comments about how effective the B-17 was and the impact of the offensive on oil installations, I think it a a bit of a stretch to say the B-17 was inneffective as a bomber. Perhaps what this is alluding to though are comments made by Speer to the effect that the British bombs, by reason of them generally being bigger in explosive capability, caused more lasting damage than the generally lighter weight bombs carried by the US heavies

With regard to the Oil offensive, it is true that this was the eventual focus of the 8th AF from the beginning of 1944. However from a point just after the US commencement of this offensive, BC also diverted an increasing, and effective proportion of its efforts to this goal. There were many BC raids on oil installtions, in fact oil was identified as one of the targets to be attacked fro the very beginning of the war, however it was not until the early part of 1944 that concerted efforts were made to target that complex. After the failure of the battle of berlin, and after the diversion to the Normandy invasion, BC tended to concentrate on transport and communications, in the latter part of 1944, which was at least as effective in dislocating the german war effort as the offensive on oil. Because the US made it the focus of their 1944 campaign (until June) they are generally given all the credit, however this is just as innaccurate as saying the b-17 was not an effective bomber. The truth lies somewhere in between....For the record, the last big raid on the petrochemical complex was by the RAF, in late April 1945, when 107 lancasters attacked a plant in Norway. 

USAAF can rightly claim taking the lions share of destroying the Luftwaffe day fighter force, however, BCs efforts at neutralising German industry are not generally adequately acknowledged. This arises not because the campaign was inneffective (many will disagree, i know), but because the USSBS on which most post war histories of the subject are based, gives only scant attention to the issue. According to a short summary given in the survey, the efforts of BC accounted for about 17% of german industrial potential in 1944. Other studies have put the RAFs efforts as high as 46%. Others say that less than 1% of productive effort was lost to bombing. What is clear, is that the germans were forced to divert over 85% of their artillery production to flak defence, and divert over 1 million men to aerial defence. If one accepts that it was a lack of manpower, more than anything, that led to the demise of the third Reich, and that the critical moments for the regime occurred on the eastern front sometime before the commencement of the US offensive, then the contribution of the RAF to this moment becomes readily apparent. As Speer said after the wqar, BC in its efforts opened a second front, long before there actually was a second front. The efforts of BC in contributing to that defeat start to move into focus.....add to that the heavier casulties suffered by the german civilian population, and the case becaomes much stronger as to the importance of the contribution made by BC in achieving victory. 

According to wiki, incidentally, the RAF continued to drop higher tonnages of bombs over germany than the USAAF until the very end, despite being outnumbered by the Americans by that stage. I make no claim as to the veracity of that statistic. I have stated previously that tonnages dropped by the RAF greatly exceeeded the USAAC on amonth by month basis until at least the spring of 1944....thereafter the case become a lot less believable


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## pbfoot (Apr 14, 2011)

FLYBOYJ said:


> OK - I have to throw in a few comments here....
> 
> Fist off the Commonwealth training program (and we'll talk Canada) by necessity had to have an expanded instrument training program based on location and weather conditions or I don't think you could have rapidly graduated any primary student without having them building flight time unless they flew purposely in the soup. With that said the expanded nature of this training can only benefit so far as IMC flying in that day was limited and basically crude. The biggest in this scenario was introducing instrument flying at an earlier part of the allied training curriculum which might and I repeat might have gotten some pilots more proficient in this type of flying earlier in their career, and this was stated by some US pilots who did learn to fly in Canada. In the end however what was introduced early in flight training was generally learned and made proficient by learning the skill "in country," or by "do or die."
> 
> ...


I've been reading alot about the subject of military training in Canada one of my main source was called "Immigrants of War" and the sunject is about the 9000+ US citizens that joined the RCAF it consists mainly of interviews with the US guys ,I don't own the book but I have gotten it several times from the library, here is a fairly good piece on the book with interviews , I believe the Blakesee interview in the following link might help explain my position on the IMC training as he was very upset with the quality and grounded some guys when he went to 4th FG
http://immigrantsofwar.blogspot.com/


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 14, 2011)

pbfoot said:


> I've been reading alot about the subject of military training in Canada one of my main source was called "Immigrants of War" and the sunject is about the 9000+ US citizens that joined the RCAF it consists mainly of interviews with the US guys ,I don't own the book but I have gotten it several times from the library, here is a fairly good piece on the book with interviews , I believe the Blakesee interview in the following link might help explain my position on the IMC training as he was very upset with the quality and grounded some guys when he went to 4th FG
> IMMIGRANTS OF WAR -


 
Blakesee complained lack of training with regards to some pilots coming into his command and he wanted to expand in country training, especially flying IMC, this has been well documented in many books. Brass at a higher level sometimes over ruled him (Jablonski, Target Germany 1971). Like the training in Canada, the environment dictated what you trained and flew in. There definitely needed to be some in-country training that provided IMC flight training but that didn't mean that green pilots arriving in country were "poorly" trained or incompetent - they just lacked "specific" training that was needed for the theater. It's obvious that pilots going to the Pacific didn't have the same problem and you heard little of poorly trained "green" pilots reaching the Pacific.

Blakesee was a premier combat leader and probably a perfectionist and I wonder how many of those he "grounded" would have done fine in the groups - or at the same time would have run into a granite cloud the first time they were sent over the channel. That's why I'd like to see numbers to support all of this (if available).


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## buffnut453 (Apr 15, 2011)

drgondog said:


> The question I posed was about AIRPOWER and the footprint of the US across all theatres, which was not materialized out of thin air...


 
To answer the question about units in the Burma/India theatre (ORBAT as of 1 Jul 44 - source "Burma Air War" by Chris Shores):

221 Gp, Imphal
7 sqns of Hurricanes
3 sqns of Sptfires
1 sqn of Vengeances

224 Gp, Chittagong
2 sqns of Spitfires
4 sqns of Hurricanes
1 sqn of Vengeances
1 sqn of Beaufighters

231 Gp, Calcutta
3 sqns of Liberators
1 sqn of Wellingtons
1 sqn of Warwicks (ASR role)

222 Gp, Colombo
2 sqns Spitfires
3 sqns Beaufighters
1 sqn Liberators
1 sqn Thunderbolts
1 sqn Sunderlands
3 sqns Catalinas

225 Gp, Bangalore
2 sqns Beaufighters
2 sqns Liberators
1 sqn Hurricanes
1 sqn Wellingtons
3 sqns Catalinas

229 Gp
1 sqn of Hudsons/Dakotas


Troop Carrier Command
4 sqns of Dakotas

PR Group, Comilla
1 sqn Spitfires
1 sqn Mosquitos



By 12 Dec, the ORBAT had grown to the following:

221 Gp, Imphal
6 sqns of Hurricanes
4 sqns of Spitfires
3 sqns of Thunderbolts
1 sqn of Mosquitos

224 Gp, Cox's Bazaar
4 sqns of Thunderbolts
3 sqns of Beaufighters
3 sqns of Hurricanes
2 sqns of Spitfires

231 Gp
6 sqns of Liberators

PR Force
1 sqn Spitfires
1 sqn Mosquitos

293 Wg
1 sqn of Beaufighters
1 sqn of Spitfires

222 Gp, Colombo
2 sqns of Spitfires
3 sqns of Beaufighters
2 sqns of Liberators
3 sqns of Catalinas
1 sqn of Sunderlands

225 Gp, Bangalore
1 sqn of Hurricanes
2 sqns of Liberators
2 sqns of Catalinas

Additional Units Working Up for Operations
2 sqns of Thunderbolts
4 sqns of Mosquitos
2 sqns of Hurricanes
1 sqn each of Liberators, Wellingtons, Dakotas and Spitfires

Combat Cargo Task Force
4 sqns of Dakotas

As I keep banging on, I accept the USAAF was bigger but the RAF was just as widely dispersed, and if you take the Commonwealth air forces into account (which I haven't until now but is not an unreasonable thing to do), were operating pretty much everywhere the USAAF was operating and at a pretty large scale and in pretty much all the roles the USAAF had at that time.


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## drgondog (Apr 15, 2011)

Buffnut - you may keep banging on. The point I was making was about Airpower deployed globally by the US versus any other nation. You are free to add the Commonwealth if you choose, but please consider subtracting the pilots trained, aircraft supplied or aviation gasoline provided by the US (to derive the 'effective Commonwealth strength) - Ditto USSR

1.) the Commonwealth is not the RAF, but if it was it probably still doesn't total up the the combined assets of USAAF/USN/USMC - and definitely could not if you include assets in US, Canal Zone, Brazil, Greenland, etc

The USAAF alone had constituted as full Air Forces the following:
1. 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th AF - Continental US
2. 5th, 7th. 11th and 13th AF - PTO including northern, southwest and central Pacific.
3. 6th AF -Canal Zone and South America
5. 10th AF - India/Burma
6. 14th AF - China
7. 9th, 12F - Afica/Italy (not counting 15th until Jan, 1943)
8. 8th AF - England
9. Anti Submarine Command

The USAAF alone had 1.9 Million Officers and Enlisted men active Dec 1942. I would have to dig but the assets of the USN and USMC in PTO by Jan 1943 was far larger in early 1943 than Commonwealth and growing exponentially. 

Source - The Official Guide to the Army Air Forces, published May 1944.


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## pbfoot (Apr 15, 2011)

I'm not denying your statement but I am disagreeing that the USAAF training was the be all end all that much of this thread is stating. What I am am trying to state although maybe poorly is that the training was probably very comparable. One point I have neglected to make was the number of trained pilots that came north to become part of the pointy end that because of age or ability were streamed into instructing much to their chagrin . IMO the quality of the aircrew that went overseas in late 40-41 from canada was probably not great but were needed to fill aircraft I'm going to suggest the same was taking place in 42 for the USAAF and as time went on quality for both increased


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## buffnut453 (Apr 15, 2011)

And I'm not arguing about the size. I'm arguing with the statements that the USAAF was substantially, quantitatively better in terms of overall capability (ie roles, aircraft, training, theatres of operations) than the RAF in 1944 and, I'm afraid, I don't see a substantial difference. Both AFs had strategic capabilities globally dispersed across the entire globe. Again, I accept that the USAAF was larger and hence had more stuff but in terms of capability to deliver, that was in part offset by generally lower bomb load capacities until the B-29 entered service. The one stand-out advantage the USAAF did have was long-range fighters but otherwise the forces were pretty well matched at the capability level.


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## drgondog (Apr 15, 2011)

parsifal said:


> With regard to the comments about how effective the B-17 was and the impact of the offensive on oil installations, I think it a a bit of a stretch to say the B-17 was inneffective as a bomber. Perhaps what this is alluding to though are comments made by Speer to the effect that the British bombs, by reason of them generally being bigger in explosive capability, caused more lasting damage than the generally lighter weight bombs carried by the US heavies
> 
> *USSBS agreed that the 500/1000 ppounders were less effective than 2,000 and 4,000 pound bombs. This was a doctrine flaw on the B-17/B-24 not capability to carry 2000 pounders. Speer also noted that when May 12, 1944 hit his calender he knew the technology war was lost - and it got worse. The specific point is that even 500 and 1000 pounders brought the petrochem industry to its knees and Harris could not be bothered to cntribute to the Oil Campaign until threatened with Dismissal.*
> 
> ...



IIRC the crossover for ETO tonnage was late 1944 but recall that the 15th AF was counted in MTO statistics while an enormous amount of their focus was also oil in the Brux/Lepzig axis and airframe in Schweinfurt to Augsburg and Munich areas.

I have a lot of respect for RAF and am under no illusion that US 'won the war'. Having said that, Speer was equally clear in his writings that US daylight precision bombing was his greatest fear with respect to his own personal objectives of keeping the German war machine running.


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## drgondog (Apr 15, 2011)

buffnut453 said:


> And I'm not arguing about the size. I'm arguing with the statements that the USAAF was substantially, quantitatively better in terms of overall capability (ie roles, aircraft, training, theatres of operations) than the RAF in 1944 and, I'm afraid, I don't see a substantial difference. Both AFs had strategic capabilities globally dispersed across the entire globe. Again, I accept that the USAAF was larger and hence had more stuff but in terms of capability to deliver, that was in part offset by generally lower bomb load capacities until the B-29 entered service. The one stand-out advantage the USAAF did have was long-range fighters but otherwise the forces were pretty well matched at the capability level.


 
Buffnut - you are missing my point that US Airpower assets exceeded the British Airpower assets in early to mid 1943 and grew exponentially after that point. The contrast between UK and US total combat operations assets is near dead even ~ Jan-Mar 1943 and I totally agree RAF/RN assets combined from 1939 through 1942 were clearly superior relative to a.) capability in operations, and b.) combat experience in both the ETO and MTO. When one considers that while RAF and USAAF were important assets in PTO/CBI in 1942, the war in the PTO quickly took on USN/USMC major importance - one that in 1942 and 1943 completely overshadowed both USAAF and RAF (and Commonwealth) in the campaigns that led straight toward Tokyo.

We may argue all day long that while the RAF continued to lead in throw weight over the 8th AF in the ETO well into late 1944 that better metrics are a.) tonnage on critical industry vs civilian populations, b.) that the daylight doctrine of precision bombing yielded a greater impact on Germany's ability to wage war than killing 600,000 civilians, c.) the USAAF (8th AF) made the single most important contribution to achieving air supremacy over Germany 

and d.) that the Argument has been changed to include Airpower assets (naval and ground based) and ability to project strategic and tactical operations globally. It is silly to restrict US Airpower to solely USAAF and make comparisons in 1943 to just RAF vs USAAF


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## drgondog (Apr 15, 2011)

I know for a fact that the Opinion that USAAF ETO bound pilots, while well skilled in art of VFR pilotage, were woefully short of IFR training when they arrived in ETO... my father, arriving as late (D-Day) in combat ops quickly instituted significant Link training in the 354FS as a green combat pilot but one with 2200 hours including a LOT of IFR time. By the time he became squadron CO six weeks later the Group adopted his process and forced all pilots into a monthly minimum. The 355th FG had the lowest fatal accident rate in the 8th AF FC.

Each Group had their own methods but all instituted additional training because they recognized that the kids coming from western training facilities in the US had restrictions on weather flying, trying to keep accident rates down.


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## Shortround6 (Apr 15, 2011)

Something to consider in the B-17 vs Mosquito debate is that while the Mosquito could carry 4,000lbs to Berlin it appears to have been in the form of the 4,000lb "cookie" bomb, which, due to it's shape is going to have a rather difficult trajectory to predict if dropped from altitude. It appears that the Mosquito could not carry four 1,000 regular bombs or eight 500lb bombs to Berlin. 

If we want to figure out was going on in WW II at various times and why certain decisions were made, we have to try to look at the true capabilities of the aircraft and crew and not just pick figures that make our side of the argument look better. 

This is not a slam against the Mosquito, it was a remarkable plane that could do remarkable things. But it did have limitations.


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## parsifal (Apr 15, 2011)

Hi SR

have a look at my post 60 in the thread http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/dive-bomber-1940-how-would-you-do-28544-4.html I explained that this was only true for a number of the bomber types. Other subtypes in the mosquito family could carry the a wide range of HE explosives.

The main problem with the bomb carrying versions of the mossie was that it was based on a PR aircraft, in which the bombay was added later. It was not until a bIv (series II) that a bigger bombay was fitted, and even then the capacity was limited, pretty much as you are describing. However a number of series II BIV and the BXVI subtypes were able to carry a wide range of bombs.


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 15, 2011)

pbfoot said:


> I'm not denying your statement but I* am disagreeing that the USAAF training was the be all end all that much of this thread is stating.* What I am am trying to state although maybe poorly is that the training was probably very comparable. One point I have neglected to make was the number of trained pilots that came north to become part of the pointy end that because of age or ability were streamed into instructing much to their chagrin . IMO the quality of the aircrew that went overseas in late 40-41 from canada was probably not great but were needed to fill aircraft I'm going to suggest the same was taking place in 42 for the USAAF and as time went on quality for both increased


 Agree - Additionally I think we can find many pilots who were rejected by the USAAF or "washed out" finding themselves attaining their wings in Canada and becoming very successful


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## pbfoot (Apr 15, 2011)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Agree - Additionally I think we can find many pilots who were rejected by the USAAF or "washed out" finding themselves attaining their wings in Canada and becoming very successful


Can't recall the name but one sucessful pilot was rejected by USN because he gad broken his hand as a child


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## syscom3 (Apr 15, 2011)

Using Buffnuts figures for RAF strength in Burma and India

July 1944
33% of squadrons are of obsolescent or 2nd rate airframes.
43% of squadrons are of US supply.
100% of the transport squadrons are US supplied.
86% of the heavy bomber squadrons are of US supply.

Dec 1944
18% of squadrons are of obsolescent or 2nd rate airframes.
37% of squadrons are of US supply.
100% of the transport squadrons are US supplied.
92% of the heavy bomber squadrons are of US supply.

For the AAF, by mid summer 1944, the few remaining 2nd rate designs (the P-39 and P-40) were being removed from service, to be replaced by newer types. By the end of 1944, every US group had the latest designs.


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## parsifal (Apr 15, 2011)

there is a lot of debate about the effectiveness of the bomber campaigns versus losses, and in particular the effectiveness of the night bombing campaign undertaken by the RAF. people will have to determine for themselves whether in the end it was all worth it, and whether it actually achieved anything, but a few myths do need to be dispelled in order to have a correct starting point. obviously my position is that it was effective and it was worth it, so peopple can take my comments as they see fit.

Firstly, Harris never believed in the morale cracking claims attributed to him. This was official British government dogma, designed mostly for propaganda purposes, but harris is on contemporary record as not supporting it. he did believe however that german war production could be significantly affected by bombing, and the jury is still out on that one. people in making their decision need to be very careful of nearly all accounts, because they can all be traced back to two or three sources which never really addressed the issue properly or fairly. I believe the best way to assess the effects of the bombing campaigns is by comparing actual production of munitions to those actually projected....what the germans thought they could build before the bombing campaigns hit. people also need to look at how much manpower was diverted to defending air defence of Germany. I believe the majority of air defence manpower was allocated from 1942, with only relatively small increases occurring in 1944, after the American daylight offensive began to bite. I am not saying the Americans were not inflicting damage, or that manpower was not needed to address that effect. what i am saying is that the majority of manpower allocations occurred whilst the RAF was pretty much the only force attacking. Same can be said about the production diversions to flak and fighters....most of this diversion of effort as a proportion of the productive capacity occurred before the Americans arrived....if the BC offensive was so inneffective, why did the germans divert so much resources to countering it???? It doesnt add up, unless the bombers were having an effect....

With regard to accuracy there is certainly a case to be made prior to 1942. After the introduction of the blind bombing aids (beginning in 1942) this becomes much harder to sustain, when the performance of these devices are actually looked at, and the operational results are actually studied. There were two main types of aid (and a lot of othe supporting gizmos), OBOE and H2S. OBOE was essentially a beam rider, that delivered a very high degree of accuracy....at least as good as any onboard visual aid in fact, but it was a short ranged device....early versions were about 200 mile range, later versions extended this out to about 400 miles (from memory). It was a passive device, which did not give the bombers position away in the sky. H2S was a terrain following radar, and active device that gave the bombers position away in the sky, and led to some very heavy losses. It gave mixed results. where there were obvious terrain features like coast or mountains or rivers, the device was accurate, as evidenced by the results over Hamburg....but in other situations it performed poorly. This is what generally happened over berlin, which was the focus of british bombing after july '43 through to the beginning of '44, and the camapaign that led to the heaviest losses for the RAF.......this was all harris's fault. he chose berlin against all advice, and against the known technical limitations of the equipment.

harris did resist committment to the campaign on the oil industry until September, but then the british actually shouldered the majority share of the campaign. I did not know this until recently, but from september through to the end of the war, the RAF was dropping roughly twice as much tonnage on petro chemical targets as the US was...and thats both the US european airforces incidentally according to my sources. 

this is getting off topic, but ive seen this sort of debate before...it inevitably devolves into a debate about the alleged inneffectiveness of the british effort and the far more accurate US daylight offensive, or as a variation to that theme, how inneffective strategic bombing generally was on the outcome of the war.


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## buffnut453 (Apr 15, 2011)

syscom3 said:


> Using Buffnuts figures for RAF strength in Burma and India
> 
> July 1944
> 33% of squadrons are of obsolescent or 2nd rate airframes.
> ...


 
Or some more statistics:

Mid-1944 the USAAF in Burma has, in comparison to the RAF:

Fewer heavy bomber units
Half the number of dive bomber units
No maritime amphibious units
No night fighter units
Less than one third of the single-engined fighters (and most are P-40s)

By the end of the year the ratio is even worse - and, sorry, but the P-47 wasn't the "latest design" by the end of 1944 and yet it was the USAAF's primary fighter in Burma. And yet previous arguments were about how the USAAF could provide any size of force anywhere in the world. For the hundredth time, production = industry but delivery of air power = air force. In 1944 the RAF was far superior to the USAAF in Burma, was larger in the UK, and was still providing substantial forces in Italy and other theatres. The 2 forces were, give or take, broadly equivalent at this timeframe. In 1945, the situation was different and the USAAF really did take a pronounced lead.


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## syscom3 (Apr 16, 2011)

After the summer of 1944, the CBI theater was increasingly irrelevant. By Dec 1944, it didn't matter at all. 

And then, you never factored in the 5th, 7th, 13th and 20th air forces, which when combined with the 10th and 14th, still was superior quantitatively and qualitatively to the RAF in that theater.



> Half the number of dive bomber units


The USN had more dive bombers than the the whole of the RAF in Burma.



> No maritime amphibious units


Again, the USN had more of those units than the whole UK and Commonwealth countries combined.



> No night fighter units


10 Night fighter squadrons were stationed in the PTO and CBI.

As for the P47 being an inferior product? The D models and later, when used as fighter bombers were still excellent front line AC in Europe and the Pacific. 

You still haven't grasped a fundamental truth about the AAF ..... The US aircraft manufacturing capacity was immense in 1944. Not only was the production lines supplying the AAF needs, but it also provided a large huge number of airframes for allied use. And many (if not most) of those aircraft were first rate types. The fact the US provided 40% of the RAF strength in Burma is indicative of just how powerful the AAF was and the relative gulf between the capabilities of the RAF and AAF.


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## Shortround6 (Apr 16, 2011)

buffnut453 said:


> Mid-1944 the USAAF in Burma has, in comparison to the RAF:
> 
> Fewer heavy bomber units
> Half the number of dive bomber units
> ...



I suppose the 12 squadrons of Hurricanes were the "latest design"?

How about the Spitfires? MK XIIs or MK XIVs were they?

The Vultee Vengeances seem to have disappeared between mid 1944 and the end of the year, must have been real important in the last half of 1944. 

I don't think the war was fought as a race with the "winner" being the ally that had the biggest number of planes in every theater. If the British commonwealth had more in one or two particular theaters it may have been because more force wasn't needed there and more force was needed some were else. And every squadron in the more remote theaters suck up a lot of logistic support. Trying to support more squadrons/groups than is needed just to support a "numbers game" would have been foolish.


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## drgondog (Apr 16, 2011)

parsifal said:


> there is a lot of debate about the effectiveness of the bomber campaigns versus losses, and in particular the effectiveness of the night bombing campaign undertaken by the RAF. people will have to determine for themselves whether in the end it was all worth it, and whether it actually achieved anything, but a few myths do need to be dispelled in order to have a correct starting point. obviously my position is that it was effective and it was worth it, so peopple can take my comments as they see fit.
> 
> Firstly, Harris never believed in the morale cracking claims attributed to him. This was official British government dogma, designed mostly for propaganda purposes, but harris is on contemporary record as not supporting it. he did believe however that german war production could be significantly affected by bombing, and the jury is still out on that one.
> 
> ...


*

There is truth in both statements to the extent that significant lessons were learned - that until 1944 the German industrial capacity had not peaked despite all the bombing, that critical resources were diverted to attempt the defeat of both daylight and night bombing, that the LW had to be defeated over Germany to execute a strategic campaign, that Ball bearings were in fact critical but 8th AF unable to continue the campaign due to losses, giving Speer time to disperse, etc 

It is not true regarding lack of importance of strategic bombing. It had at least two major contributions to shortening the war and reducing overall casualties on all fronts. 1.) Denying Germany the fuel to drive motorized vehicles ranging from armor to diesel drivel locomotives to fighters and bombers on all fronts - denying their armies and airforces the flexibility and options to achive more effective offense and defense., 2.) Denying the LW the freedom to attack daylight operations(airpower and the invasion forces) in strength and quality (pilot replacement and training) by virtue of killing the experienced pilots poured into LuftReich to defend against daylight bombing.

These were the two most important results that were largely and effectively accomplished by the USAAF over Germany, Rumania, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland.

It is also useful to note that had BC switched entirely to daylight attacks utilizing both RAF Mustangs and the 8th and 9th AF assets that they probably would have dramatically reduced their casualtied from mid 1944 through the end of the war - as the LW NZG forces remained effective until the end.*


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## syscom3 (Apr 16, 2011)

The Hurrricanes, as well as the P-39's and P-40's were 2nd rate AC by mid 1944. Aside from the P-39's that the Soviets seemed to like, those two aircraft were wasted production.

As for your second comment; by mid 1944, the AAF had deployed all of its groups it wanted to, in the ETO and MTO. Now it was the turn for the Pacific air forces. At that point, the AAF decided to reequip with the latest models rather than expand even more.

Do not forget that in June 1944, there were 20 B-29 groups in the US and they were being prepared for movement to the PTO and China. And that's exclusive of the eleven B24 groups the US had already in action against the Japanese. Its irrelevant that the 10th and 14th AF's were inferior in size to what the RAF had in Burma. The sum total of all AAF groups and squadrons was far in excess of the RAF at any point during 1944.


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## parsifal (Apr 16, 2011)

Hi DG

Interesting debate, hope you are okay with this.

With regard to this statement

_Total disagreement here relative to fighters. Neither day fighters nor active squadrons flowed into the defense of the Reich until mid 1943. Further much of the night fighter strength was placed to defend against both day and night attacks -resulting in very high attrition versus the 8th and 12th and 15th AF. Day fighter production increased in 1944, not because daylight bombing was not effective, but because Speer was forced to divert other resources into production of FW 190 and Me 109s_

On the face of it you are totally correct, however there are some things to note. In 1941-2, the RAF fought a costly and seemingly one sided battle with the two JGs charged with the defence of the coastal zones in france. Many commentators believe this to be a victory for the LW, but there are also a lot who see it a a defeat, and i agree. The LW, whilst its losses were a lot less (in 1941 the exchange rate was roughly 4:1 in favour of the LW), these losses were still unsustainable for the LW, and they finished up retreating from their forward defence positions. They retained only a light presence in france after that, and then only out of range of the SE fighters of the RAF. Pushing the LW back like that greatly reduced losses for the mediums operating over france thereafter, and made safe the heavy bomber bases in england.

With regard to direct reich defences, the deployment according to my sources was as follows, at selected dates (figures in brackets are night fighters, where known and are a fraction of the total). The second bracketed figure is that total as a percentage of the total LW fighter force structure, and the last figure is the percentage of the committment as a percentage of the total force structure for all front line types. 

12/40: 164 (97){15.3}[4.96] 
9/41: 263 (174){19.1}[6.38]
2/42: 265 (159){21.35}[7.35]
6/42: 355 (247){21.75}[7.99] 
12/42: 395 (244){21.3}[9.38]
2/43: 635(477){32.7}[13.26]
10/43: c1150(438){47.3}[24.8]
2/44: c1195(332){61.4}[24.1]
6-7/44: c1831(849){91.7}[36.3]
9/44: c2219(959){95.6}[48.5]

I havent presented the figures for the late war, but generally the percentage of day fighters drops, whilst the numbers of night fighters climbs sharply. This is probably due to the heavy losses to the day fighter force, but it also underlines the continuing threat posed by the night bombing campaign, since significant resources were being poured into the NJGs even at that late time

The two entries for 1943, prior to US day fighters having a significant effect, the Luftwaffe was allocating about 31% of its reich defences to night Fighters. The NJGs seemed to have taken a hit between July and december of 1943, which i attribute to two factors. the first was that the night fighters were forced to deploy by day, in support of the Day Fighter groups, who despite their apparent victories over the americans had taken heavy losses from the b-17 gunners. Night fighters against heavy bombers by day was a costly exercise however. The second source of attrition was from the RAF night fighters, who by this time were being embedded into the bomber streams, and using a mixture of serrate and their onboard AI radars, as well as simply hanging around german Night Fighter fields, were also inflicting heavy casulaties on the germans. The RAFs "big push" occurred more gradually than for the americans, and was mostly against the night fighters. unfortunately for the Brits, the night fighters appeared to have recovered in 1944, though their ability to inflict losses on BC stedily decreased, from an operational loss rate of about 5.5% per raid in january, it dropped to less than 1.5% by the end of the year. A lot of this was due to fuel shortages, admitedly, but the NJGs were also still suffering very heavy attrition rates as well....around 20% of their force structure each month, which had to be affecting proficiency levels for the crews. 


Whilst these figures undeniably underscore the impact of the USAAF on the battle...the proportion of forces shoots up markedly after january 1944, and the proportion of fighters committed to the defence of the reich was near total after 1944, it is nevertheles untrue that the RAF did not have a part to play in this. In february 1943, fully 32% of fighters were acting in defence, and this had to be as a direct result of RAF activities, and nothing else. After that, it becomes impossible to determine the extent of RAF contribution on the basis of this committment, since the LW day fighters were taking a big hit, you cannot look at proportion of day/night fighter to try and gauge the impact of the RAF. Further, by 1944 the RAF was also allocating a significant proportion of its effort to Daylight operations. perhaps the best surrogate measure therefore would be to look at the percentage of forces committed to reich defence as a proportion of total LW forces after 1943. from this standpoint, LW committment grew from 9.38% to 48.5%, with the peak quater that can be more or less fully claimed by the RAF as 13.26%. thereafter the RAF can only claim a proportion of the effort being put in by the LW...my guess, and thats all it is, is about 20% of Luftwaffe strength was being used to counter the RAF, about 24% to counter the USAAF strategic forces, and the rest was being used to support tactical operations at the front, (but with little or no fighter protection)


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## fastmongrel (Apr 17, 2011)

If best is measured by bang for your buck the best airforce by a long way from the beginning to the end has to be the Finnish airforce. I dont have the figures but the Finnish airforce has to be the best value, most cost effective and most succesful in terms of casualty exchange of any fighting force of WWII.


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## drgondog (Apr 17, 2011)

parsifal said:


> Hi DG
> 
> Interesting debate, hope you are okay with this.
> 
> ...



The use of NJG and mix of Training units against daylight operations in Germany during all of 1943 and first half of 1944 make it difficult to separate NJG losses versus RAF and US, as well as application % between US and RAF. Daylight strafing operations against bases around Berlin, Oberphaffenhofen/Munich, Brunswick, Stuttgart are also a wild card relative to 'operation versus authorized strengths'. They would also certainly create consternation for Speer in planning requirements against capacity.


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## Readie (Apr 19, 2011)

Hello,
My take is this :
1) The Mustang gave the allies the long range fighter they needed to defend the bombers over Germany.
2) The Typhoon Thunderbolt gave the allies the low level fire power in the ground attack role.
3) The Lancaster was the most versatile heavy bomber of WW2
4) The Tempest and late mark Spitfires had the speed to catch the V2 flying bombs.
5) The US Naval fighters were top drawer. Powerful and tough as old boots.
6) The Mosquito was without equal.

We could argue about 'who was best' till the cows come home the point ,to me anyway,is that together the UK US aircraft had the measure of any nation.

US industrial strength GB ingenuity. Unbeatable 

Cheers
John


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## drgondog (Apr 19, 2011)

Readie said:


> Hello,
> My take is this :
> 1) The Mustang gave the allies the long range fighter they needed to defend the bombers over Germany.
> 2) The Typhoon Thunderbolt gave the allies the low level fire power in the ground attack role.
> ...


 
John - nothing to disagree with but here is a question:

If the best airforce in 1943 boiled down to one aircraft each instead of the necessay tens of thousands (plus crews and logistics)
wouldn't the luftwaffe with
Me 262, Ta 152, Ar 234, He 277, FW 190F-8, Ju 88 (plus all the necessary variants) and Ju 52 (plus throw in whatever you wish)
be the 'best'?


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## Readie (Apr 20, 2011)

drgondog said:


> John - nothing to disagree with but here is a question:
> 
> If the best airforce in 1943 boiled down to one aircraft each instead of the necessay tens of thousands (plus crews and logistics)
> wouldn't the luftwaffe with
> ...


 
Hi,
The German technical advances were incredible, even more so given the raw material shortages.
My Dad was a POW in Germany and he used to say how amazing the ME262 was, quiet and fast compared to the piston engined fighters when they flew over his camp.

The Dornier Do 335 Pfeil was another German idea that was advanced , maybe too much for the work it would have to do?

Then again we have the Soviet Yak 9 which was the most mass-produced Soviet fighter of all time. It remained in production from 1942 to 1948, with 16,769 built (14,579 during the war). It was the first Soviet aircraft to shoot down a Messerschmitt Me 262 jet.
Does this make the Yak9 the best fighter?

We have overlooked the Italian Macchi C205V Veltro too. Another beautifull aeroplane.

So hard to say one way or the other !

Cheers
John


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## parsifal (Apr 20, 2011)

clearly, technology is not the only determinant of "best". Your questiuon DG puts the issue more succinctly than any amount of debate ever could.

Technological achievement is not a measure of "best". But then, neither is quantity. In the same line of reasoning that it cannot be argued the Luftwafe was the best by reason of its technology, neither can it be argued that the VVS was the best by reason of its quantity. Both have a role to play in determining "best".

But even if you combine technology and quantity, do you still have the full ingredients to determine the best air force? My opinion is that you dont. How an air force uses its technology and its numbers is also a factor. "How" in my opinion covers doctrine and pilot training, perhaps even serviceability issues.

Each one of these factors are what are called force multipliers. If you have numbers, then in combat you have the ability to gang up on enemy fighters in the air, sustain operations for longer, put a heavier tonnage of bombs over the target. If you have the qualitative edge you have the ability to absorb a greater proportion of enemy resources to bring your force under control....and theoretically, if your force is sufficiently advanced in technology, the enemy simply will not be able to contain you. If you have the technique, you may be able to maintain a high serviciability rate, or have pilots that can fly rings around your opponent, or hit targets on the ground with deadly accuracy.

The question is, which one of these elements are needed to achieve "best"? I think you need elements of all of them. Who had the best balance of these ingredients. I think the USAAF had the best mix, but not by as much as I believed when this thread was started....,


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## Readie (Apr 20, 2011)

Good point.
Another measure would be resiliance. 
How robust the aircraft were,firepower, how determined the pilots and everyone else involved were,the will to fight, effective tactics and leadership, effective planning, technology....etc. The best non thread example would be the Battle of Britain.
Back on thread May I suggest :-

- Mosquito bomber attacks by the RAF. An example of the tremendous accuracy achieved by Mosquitos can be shown by comparing figures for the attacks on the V-weapons sites. The average tonnage of bombs required to destroy one of these sites by B-17 Flying Fortresses was 165; for B26 Marauders it was 182 tons and for B25 Mitchells 219 tons. The average for the Mosquito was just under 40 tons! 

My 'best'

Cheers
John


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## syscom3 (Apr 20, 2011)

Readie said:


> 3) The Lancaster was the most versatile heavy bomber of WW2



And the B-29 wasnt?





> US industrial strength GB ingenuity.



Quantity has a quality all of its own.


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## Readie (Apr 21, 2011)

1) The B17 was a close match.
The Lancaster pips it though due to the variety and size of bomb load it could carry.
Both aircraft were excellent and I may be accused of splitting hairs...

2) Maybe, but when you have less you have to be more ingenious.


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## drgondog (Apr 22, 2011)

parsifal said:


> clearly, technology is not the only determinant of "best". Your questiuon DG puts the issue more succinctly than any amount of debate ever could.
> 
> Technological achievement is not a measure of "best". But then, neither is quantity. In the same line of reasoning that it cannot be argued the Luftwafe was the best by reason of its technology, neither can it be argued that the VVS was the best by reason of its quantity. Both have a role to play in determining "best".
> 
> ...


 
I think your pargraphs above have been the best to date to parse the question.. and I agree including the qualifier at the very end.


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## syscom3 (Apr 23, 2011)

parsifal said:


> ..... I think the USAAF had the best mix, but not by as much .....



If we look at April 1944 and onwards, the AAF had the right mix of everything and as the months went by, it just got stronger and stronger relative to the RAF.

If we jump to the spring of 1945, the gulf between the RAF and AAF in every category, (except night fighters and aircrew training) was staggering.


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## buffnut453 (Apr 23, 2011)

syscom3 said:


> If we look at April 1944 and onwards, the AAF had the right mix of everything and as the months went by, it just got stronger and stronger relative to the RAF.
> 
> If we jump to the spring of 1945, the gulf between the RAF and AAF in every category, (except night fighters and aircrew training) was staggering.



Which is precisely the point I've been making since the beginning - that 1944 was the transition period where the USAAF was in the ascendent relative to the RAF. In 1943, I believe the RAF had the edge over the USAAF - not by a huge margin but it was there. The next year marked the transition, although the RAF was still able to project force on a global scale as exemplified by the build-up in Burma (a 50% increase between mid-43 and mid-44 despite preparations in Europe for D-Day). By the end of 1944, the USAAF certainly was bigger and better, and the gap continued to grow from that point forward. The years 1943-1945 were a period of transition and hence greater fidelity is probably required. The key question is why did I get so much flak for stating this exact position several pages ago 'cos it sounds to me like we're all in agreement!


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## drgondog (Apr 23, 2011)

'We' aren't in agreement. 

I made my argument based on early 1943 as the transition period during which USAAF/USN and USMC were delployed every where except Russia - and by mid 1943 deployed in strength total greater than RAF across ETO, MTO, PTO, US, Central and South America, Iceland, etc. Remember the assets in the continental US approached the combined assets of all of the Brits

What clearly separated RAF from US in 1943 was combat experience - not strength or quality of personnel, equipment, assets, logistics, aircraft, bases, aviation gasoline and 1943 was the year of ascendancy - not either the start of, and certainly not at the end of 1944. 

Your example of assets in Burma for example, was a small fraction of assets the US had deployed in the Pacific, and the RAF had virtually nothing major to contribute to reversing the Japanese from previously conquered territory throughout the PTO. Having said this, the RAF was very important in helping prevent further Japanese incursions through Burma and into China or India. 

The US (as a nation) was the primary arsenal/manufacturing base by early 1943 (including Russia - but Russia mafg quickly multiplied for themselves) and the key supplier to most of the RAF (and Commonwealth) in context of light and medium bomber, armed recce, long range patrol bombers (yes the Brits made and flew the Sunderland alongside the PBY and B-24s in the N.Atlantic) and ground support aircraft in every theatre - 

What the US did not supply in any measure were the RAF heavy bomber, interceptor, or night fighter assets or 'intruder'(catch word for virtually every other role well perfromed by the Mosquito and Beaufighter) a/c 

I do not know what the relative deployment strength of Brit naval air was in MTO and N.Atlantic in 1943 but suspect that Britain had more - but in the pacific, very, very little.


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## buffnut453 (Apr 23, 2011)

Drgondog,

And here we are back at the "we could build more therefore we're the best" argument. It's truly amazing how rapidly the reset button gets hit. Almost as quickly as people forget that one of the significant factors in the expansion of US military production prior to 1941 was armaments bought and paid for by Britain. One of the main reasons for the UK securing US manufacturing was because of the latter's geographic isolation - the US was free from attack and hence could maintain production at levels that were unsustainable by powers that were within shooting range of the Axis powers. Like production capacity, geographic location of the mother country is no measure of an Air Force's superiority!

As for some of your other comments, Burma may have been a backwater compared to US operations in the Pacific or the ongoing European theatre but it was vital to Japan. If Burma fell, China would surely follow and so Burma became the meat grinder that ate up large numbers of Japanese Army formations. My comments about Burma were to counter the assertion that the US had "unlimited" resources whereas the UK was somehow incapable of expanding, neither of which statements are correct.

Were there really more US-built light/medium bombers in the RAF than there were Mosquitos? I don't think so. Nor was the US the key supplier of most ground support aircraft in every UK theatre - the Hurricanes that were so disparaged in my previous posts were primarily used for ground support in Burma during 1944 as the air defence role was given to the growing number of Spitfires in that theatre and were extensively used (indeed were the primary asset) for close air support in North Africa, although that's outside the time frame of this thread).

I think Parsifal's thread neatly defined some of the parameters of "best air force". All I've done since my first post in this thread is point out some solid examples. As Parsifal notes, the biggest isn't necessarily the best and so perhaps we need to add to his list the concept of efficiency. Tons of bombs on target per sortie is one potential measure for bombers, or we could also compare the cumulative effect (perhaps number of front-line units) delivered per head of population. However we quantify it, it may be a useful measure to consider.


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## drgondog (Apr 23, 2011)

Then make your case why the British assets and force structure and footprint globally exceeds the US in 1943? And do not ignore the assets in the US for the four separate USAAF Air Forces plus Training Command plus NAVAIR just in the Continental US.


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## buffnut453 (Apr 24, 2011)

I'm not making that case. Once again, for the thousandth time, size does not equal "best". Am I talking to myself here? I think I'm writing in English so why is this simple concept so hard to understand?


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## parsifal (Apr 25, 2011)

The huge size of the air assets kept in the US gave the US a massive base on which to draw replacement aircrew and to train the various ground echelons of their ront line forces. However, in point of fact, there was very litle difference between the support capabilities of the two air forces. The RAF organised its EATS schemes which providedd well over 200000 trained aircrew from 1940-45. By comparison, the US effort was slightly smaller, with approximately 160000 passing through their training schools.

The RAF, and its dominion subsidiaries, were a mobile force, with no difficulties in force projection. Buffnut is justified in claiming that. It had elments that were relatively static, like Bomber Command, but it also had elements that were highly mobile as well, like the RAAF Tactical air wings that provided the lions share of tactical support to Macs island hopping campaigns that ended in Borneo and on Moratai. The RAF was providing similar levels of mobility in the ETO.

If we are now talking 1943, I would have to say that in terms of both quality and quantity (front line strengths) the British air forces at that time still held the the advatage over the AAF, in just about any theatre of operations that active operations were occurring. The lions share of frontline ops by the allies were being shouldered by British and British Commonwealth forces in the ETO, in the MTO, in the CBI, and the SPac TO. US probably held dominance in in the PTO, and the SWPac, as well as the North Pac, but these later TOs were really sideshows compared to what was being undertaken in the British dominated TOs. In terms of quality/effectiveness, that is a much more subjective argument, and my own personal observations are probably les accurate than many others in this place. however, for the record, my opinion is that again the US air forces in 1943 cannot quite claim to be on par with the British air forces, though the gap was rapidly narrowing. There will be many who disagree with that, and really, if we want to be honest about this issue, its all but impossible to argue either case forcefully


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## drgondog (Apr 25, 2011)

Parsifal - all pretty true when Commonwealth assets and forces are combined with Great Britain. 

Strip the Commonwealth from the equation and just deal with RAF/FAA deployed assets compared to the US and point to Jan 1943, then July 1943. Discuss the Commonwealth pilot training in the US as part of the Training Command structure in 1943.

My thesis is that the cross over was mid 1943 by what ever objective and subjective criteria you want to use - including the rapid transfer of LW assets from Ost and Sud fronts to fortify first LuftMitte, then create LuftReich - which was a dominant and massive re-inforcement of single engine and twin engine day fighter forces to defend against USAAF daylight strategic operations in the ETO and MTO.

I have not claimed that the US airpower was superior to British airpower in ETO or MTO - I stated that is was superior by mid 1943 in force projection Globally - combined in assets deployed and fighting as well as strategic reserve able to rapidly project and execute operations anywhere required.

And yes Buffnut, capacity is a HUGE part of the quality of airpower during WWII. When one tries to compare capability you have to consider a.) size and relative assets to the strategic mission, b.) quality and skills of the individuals and teams, c.) the amount of time (less is better) required to identify an opportunity and deploy forces to secure the objective, and d.) the assets and wherewithal to support the multiple missions and infrastructure as required. 

The US was clearly ahead of Great Britain in every aspect except heavy bomber capacity and at or close to par on quality and skills.. and heavy bomber assets rapidly closed with RAF when you consider the many different USAAF's Bomber Commands deployed world wide from China to SWP, to Aleutians to MTO, to ETO, etc

One could also consider Cost - it is important but difficult to compare unless details regarding labor and capital costs are available... but try to imagine any single production line turning out a B-24 every hour or a shipbuilding infrastructure producing a Liberty ship every four days (which BTW was an important factor in survival of Britain when U-Boats were sinking all the respective 'old inventory' merchant fleets of both Britain and US.


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## buffnut453 (Apr 25, 2011)

If we take Parsifal's well-reasoned case as being valid for 1943 and accept that the USAAF was superior in 1945, we are left with 1944 as the year of transition. During that year, aside from changes to their relative sizes, what were the major capability enhancements implemented by both forces? I can start the list but I'm happy for others to add items:

USAAF
1. Availability of long-range escort for its day bomber force, which was primarily centred (at least in ETO) on the Mustang. 
2. Introduction of the B-29 during the second half of the year. 

RAF
1. Formation of 2 TAF which provided outstanding close air support during the advance through Europe.
2. Introduction of the Meteor during the second half of the year.

Overall, the increase in USAAF combat experience, coupled with the 2 main force capability enhancements introduced in 1944 means that, certainly, by the middle of the year USAAF superiority can be argued but, as Parsifal points out, much of this is subjective.


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## drgondog (Apr 25, 2011)

Buffnut - two points you strive to make are invalid. The first is ignoring USN Fleet and NAVAIR as well as USMC as well as Continental US assets - as if they are irrelevant to a Global Airpower discussion. The second point is that you continually try to bring the comparison to Europe.

In the context of JUST the USAAF.
The number of combat groups grew from 171 in Jan 1943 to 238 in July 1943 to *218* in Jan 1944 and then to 235+- for the remainder of the war.

United States Army Air Forces in World War II

You will note that July 1943 was the high water mark for combat group strength, not 1944, not 1945.

Further in July 1943 the USSAF had 3 VHBG (1st B-29s in US), 76 HBG(34 in ETO/MTO), 35 M/LBG (20 in ETO/MTO), 79 FG (37 in ETO/MTO), 23 ATC Transport Gp (11 ETO/MTO), 23 Recce Gp (6 ETO/MTO). 

The July 1943 combined combat groups represented a growth from 171/(0 in MTO/ETO) in Jan 1943 to a near PEAK 238 (69 in MTO/ETO) in July 1943

Contrast that with Jan 1944 (218/103 in ETO/MTO) to July 1944 (235/(149 in ETO/MTO) It wasn't until January 1945 that the USAAF peaked at 242 Combat Groups - 18 months after July 1943 and only 4 combined Combat Groups.

Throughout the war from July 1943 to April 1945 the USAAF allocated from 30% (July 43) to MTO/ETO to 58% (Apr 1945) for ETO/MTO. 

So comparing RAF/FAA to just ETO/MTO USAAF combat Groups is ridiculous and I contend that in July 1943 that US Airpower assets were far in access of Britain and remained so for the rest of the war


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## drgondog (Apr 25, 2011)

buffnut453 said:


> If we take Parsifal's well-reasoned case as being valid for 1943 and accept that the USAAF was superior in 1945, we are left with 1944 as the year of transition. During that year, aside from changes to their relative sizes, what were the major capability enhancements implemented by both forces? I can start the list but I'm happy for others to add items:
> 
> USAAF
> 1. Availability of long-range escort(*the P-38 started combat operations in 1942 and was the principal USAAF long range fighter in ETO/MTO in Dec 1943. It was complimented by F4U in PTO both of which had far more range capability than any RAF fighter* for its day bomber force, which was primarily centred (at least in ETO) on the Mustang.
> ...



Then stick to quantitative?


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## parsifal (Apr 25, 2011)

_Parsifal - all pretty true when Commonwealth assets and forces are combined with Great Britain. 

Strip the Commonwealth from the equation and just deal with RAF/FAA deployed assets compared to the US and point to Jan 1943, then July 1943. Discuss the Commonwealth pilot training in the US as part of the Training Command structure in 1943._

Its an almost impossible task to strip the Commonwealth forces away from the RAF. Something like 80 squadrons were embedded directly into the ETO commands, where squadrons possessed more than 50% colonial components they were judged to be foreign, but there were many other squadrons with less than 50% foreign manpower but still a significant proportion of foreigners, flying as RAF squadrons. I dont think you can strip the Commonwealth forces away from the RAF equation at all easily. They need to be considered as a single entity. 

The RAAF in the Pacific raises some tricky challenges to this rather cosy assumption, however. Increasingly it was equipped with American equipment, co-operated less with the RAF and more with the USAAC which it was fighting alongside to a much greater extent than it was the RAF. In this regard I would have to concede my demarcation of Commonwalth = RAF becomes a little hard to accept. But neither does it mean RAAF = USAAF. And I would say the RAAF, which was probably the least influenced by the RAF at that time, would still have considered itself having greater commonality to RAF methods than to USAAC. 


_I have not claimed that the US airpower was superior to British airpower in ETO or MTO - I stated that is was superior by mid 1943 in force projection Globally - combined in assets deployed and fighting as well as strategic reserve able to rapidly project and execute operations anywhere required_.

Are you saying the USAAC was more mobile as a force than the Commonwealth forces? I am not sure if you are, but if you are, then I would say that for the areas outside of Europe that may be true, but for areas within Europe (which for me includes the MTO) I would say it is untrue. And given that the ETO and MTO was soaking up 70% of allied airpower at that time (excluding the US home commands) then the relative importance of that Pacific advantage gets drawn into focus 

_The US was clearly ahead of Great Britain in every aspect except heavy bomber capacity and at or close to par on quality and skills.. and heavy bomber assets rapidly closed with RAF when you consider the many different USAAF's Bomber Commands deployed world wide from China to SWP, to Aleutians to MTO, to ETO, etc_

In the numbers game, the USAAF was at best, only about equal to the RAF (and its subsidiaries) throughout most of 1943. The following figures only include combat front line strengths I have not included the various training commands, which does tip the balance in favour of the US at this time (mid 1943). 

The US was still getting into full stride in 1943. In 1942, for example, the Commonwealth managed to churn out over 40000 aircrew, compared to a still impressive 29000 in the US forces. In terms of force structures, the USAAC fielded 8586 combat aircraft in June 1943 for its overseas commands, compared to 6026 in the RAF (including those forces in the UK that can be termed "front line"), organised into 384 Sdns. However, to this total needs to be added the various minor air forces that were either partially or wholly manned by foreigners serving under RAF control (very nominally in the case of the pacific deployments). In terms of front line squadrons at least, the breakdown is something like as follows (numbers of sqns)

RAF: 384
RNZAF:16 (7 ETO)
RNorwegianAF: 5 (after 1940)
Poland (RAF): 14
RSAAF: 14 (MTO only)
RAAF: 17 (ETO) + 38 (PTO)
RCAF: 41 (ETO)
Czech: 4
Belgian: 2
India: 7 (CBI)
Netherlands 3 (ETO) + 2(PTO)
Yugoslavia: 2

I dont know if I have all the exiles that fought under RAF control, but just on the basis of these figures, and assuming an average squadron strength equivalent to the RAF, one needs to add about 2635 additional aircraft to the RAF totals. That means the Commonwealth and its exiled allies, all with clear links to the RAF had a force structure of about 8600 aircraft. 

_One could also consider Cost - it is important but difficult to compare unless details regarding labor and capital costs are available... but try to imagine any single production line turning out a B-24 every hour or a shipbuilding infrastructure producing a Liberty ship every four days (which BTW was an important factor in survival of Britain when U-Boats were sinking all the respective 'old inventory' merchant fleets of both Britain and US._

I would agree with all the points you are making here, but a few words of caution. The battle being fought in the Atlantic was almost as impportant to the US as it was to the British. If Hitlers U-Boats had been successful in severing the Atlantic and Carribean routes, the US economy would have been decimated almost as badly as the British. Roughly speaking it would have been halved in output. Moreover whilst the US output of merchant shipping was undeniably prodigious,. it spent much of its first two years of production simply replacing losses to the US merchant fleet that had been suffered in that first year of the US entry. Moreover, the US copuld never claim self sufficiency in ASW escort capability in the Atlantic. It was always short of an adequate number of escorts, and was always to an extent dependant on the RN and RCN to make up that deficit.


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## buffnut453 (Apr 25, 2011)

How does one stick to quantitative for a subjective evaluation of "best"? If the underdog beats the favourite in the Superbowl final, does that make the underdog the best all-round team? Of course not, it just means on that day, under those conditions, it was better than the adversary. It's even harder to determine which is the better of the 2 teams if they never actually faced each other in competition, which is precisely the situation here with the USAAF and the RAF. If you want quantitative measures then remove the term "best", replace it with a plethora of other alternative terms (biggest, most technically advanced in airframes, most technically advanced in aircraft systems, most mobile etc) and start a new thread for each.


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## pbfoot (Apr 25, 2011)

Without Commonwealth Forces the RAF would be a very hard pressed service, maybe on par with the Italians .


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## drgondog (Apr 25, 2011)

Parsifal - you are eloquent in the demacation/discriminant issues but both you and Buffnut slide away from US Airpower versus Brit (non Commonwealth) Airpower, including explicitly USAAF, USN, USMC vs RAF and FAA.

For clarity, focusing on only upon skills and ability to project power independent upon which nation provides the aircraft and fuel, stick strictly with organized squadrons if you choose and make your first cut on just the RAF and USAAF. I was actually surprised that USAAF group level (similar to US Army Division sanctity of organization) strength in July 1943 was only several groups below mid 1945 - a distinct highlight to how fast the US mobilized to planned strength after being in direct conflict for only 18 months.

US Bomber squadrons TOE were four squadrons (12 plus per operational mission) per bomb (VH, H. M/L) group, three squadrons(16 plus per operational mission) per Recce and Fighter Group and four squadrons per ATC group. The USAAF statistics only discusses 'Groups' not operation aircraft per Group. In July 1943 the B-17 and B-24 Groups were 36 Core Strength and 48 TO&E. In July 1944 the Core strength was 48 heavy/medium bombers and 72 TOE - the Fighter groups were 48 Core/66 TOE growing to 72 TOE in July 1944. That will help in comparing squadron discriminant RAF with USAAF Group displacement.

In mid 1943 I believe the USN and USMC had a combined 200+ Squadrons by mid 1943 ---- equating to ~ 200/3 = 66 'Groups' to add to USAAF 235+ groups ------------> 235x3 + 66x3 = 903 - 980 squadrons based on mixed TO&E of 3-4 sqdn/group


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## buffnut453 (Apr 25, 2011)

No, Drgondog, you're the one who expanded the discussion to include USN and USMC to suit your agenda. This thread was about "Best AF" not "Best overall capability across all air arms". 

As for the rest of your post, once again, you're just summing up a numbers game - surprise, surprise, the larger nation with the stronger economy that hasn't been at war for so long (and hence had more time to prepare) and whose homeland isn't under regular attack is able to produce a larger air force. That's not rocket science but neither is it a valid assessment of ability. As already noted, we're not arguing about the Soviet air force even though that was very large. To take a modern example, how would you compare the air forces of Russia, China, India, Israel and the UK? They vary greatly in size and in capability, part of which is technical, and part is training and doctrine. Pick the "best" out of those?


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## parsifal (Apr 25, 2011)

DG

I accept your superior knowledge in this area of debate, but I do have some knowledge concerning mobilization rates and deployments, and really am trying to avoid "argument" for arguments sake. Really what I am trying to do is pool knowledge to arrive at a better understanding.

Just for clarity, incidentally, I was relying on Ellis statistical summaries in my posts. he doesnt give summaries of US squadrons, which is frustrating, but he does give summaries of frontline strengths for both the RAF and the USAAC. I had to do a squadron based calculation for the CW units, because their frontline strengths were not listed, just the numbers of squadrons. 

With regard to the US naval air forces, I will explain in a minute why I did not consider them, but for clarity I have not included them in the RAF totals. If they were you need to add another 1194 to that land based total. The FAA at that time had 84 front line squadrons on establishment 

That all said, I would simply draw your attention to an issue that will draw this rapid expansion of the USAAC into focus. It was a similar expansion to that which was occurring for the US army field formations at the time. The US army upon mobilization was expanded from about 12 divs to about 70 divs in less than a year, but this did not mean that at the end of 1942 the Americans had 70 Divs combat ready. Far from it. In fact by the end of 1942, they were able to field about 1 corps of troops for front line combat, so in reality, depite all the expansion that was going on, the abilities of the US forces was still quite limited. The US was hard pressed to put into the field the forces they did at Torch, and this was essentially a Corps level operation. By the time they got to Sicily, they were able to field an army level operation. by the time they got to Normandy, the Americans were fielding the equivalent of an army group, and by the time of the Ardennes this had expanded to two army groups, plus of course a single army in Italy.

My opinion is that the expansion of the AAC mirrored this expansion. In 1942, despite all the mnassive expansions in personnel and equipment, the US forces in the ETO were extremely limited in their ability to put frontline forces into the field. The first bombiong operations were at Squadron strength, and IIRC were in July 1942. Fighter operations over the continent were not implemented until the end of the year, in miniscule proportions. Fast forward to six months later and the situation had changed considerably, but compared to RAF/CW ops was still extremely modest. The massive expansions that you are referring to are correct....but in June 1943 they were still not having any effect on the battle per se, because most of these formations were simply not ready. Within 6 months that situation had changed dramatically, I will grant you that. 

The problem for the US was in the relatively small size of its starting force, and the need to continually break up formations to act as cadres for the next crop of new formations. This was as true for the AAC as it was for the ground formations. 

So even though the AAC was as big as the RAF, if not bigger, in June 1943 it was still a force that needed to time to build up its experience and consolidate its expansion. I was aware that the AAC reached its peak strength oin July 1943, but this raw figure is somewhat misleading IMO, because it fails to take stock of the massive expansion the AAC had undergone so recently. You cannot do that and expect your forces to be immedialtey ready for heavy duty combat.

With regard to the Naval aviation issue, I am not ignoring it, but the the initial brief given for this thread was that we were to exclude Naval Air Arms in our discussions. For this reason we cannot consider the IJN air force, neither can we consider the FAA or the USN air coprs or, I guess, the USMC air formations. If that were the case, I thik the equation would change as you say. We are simply restricted to assessing the land based air forces


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## parsifal (Apr 25, 2011)

pbfoot said:


> Without Commonwealth Forces the RAF would be a very hard pressed service, maybe on par with the Italians .



I'd have to disagree with that. We can look at the frontline strengths and capabilities of the italians at any period, and they will always be inferior to the RAF excluding the effects of the dominions and the exiles at any period. The only proviso I would put on that is that the the RAF sent the majority of its training establishments overseas, to Austrlia, Canada, the US and South Africa mainly, though the personnel remained predominantly British until after 1943. 

I admit , as I did to DG, that I wouild not know how to separate colonial manpower from British manpower for the RAF, so in these respects, if you have information to claify, I would be most grateful.

However, on those formations badged as "RAF", your position simply does not stack up to closer scrutiny. If we look at December (I do have figures for September 1943 for the italians, but I think this would be unrepresentative to do that) we find the RAF with a front line strength of 5257 aircraft, whilst the Italian air force had a front line strength of 1416, of which just 597 were serviceable. Many of the fighters were biplanes, many of the bombers unarmoured trimotor aircraft fast approaching obsolesence. Ther is no possibility of the Italian air force being even remotely comparable to the RAF, even with the Commonwealth component being excluded 

The Italians were training less than 2000 repolacement aircrew per year, at a time that the RAF and the Commonwealth were training over 40000. If we assume (unreasonably IMO) that the Commonwealth were training about half of that 40000, that still leaves 20000 that can be attributed to the RAF personnel. You cannot seriously raise the italian air force as a cdreible challenge to the RAF with those numbers infront of us.


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## pbfoot (Apr 25, 2011)

parsifal said:


> I admit , as I did to DG, that I wouild not know how to separate colonial manpower from British manpower for the RAF, so in these respects, if you have information to claify, I would be most grateful.
> QUOTE]


The number tossed around here is 25% of RAF squadrons were Canadian I would not feel bad about knocking this down to 20+% , I would assume the numbers for other Commonwealth countries would not be far off proportionally giving the Commonwealth between 40-45% of RAF aircrew. 
I would also disagree with the year that you state of 1944 , I would concede up to 42


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## drgondog (Apr 26, 2011)

parsifal said:


> DG
> 
> I accept your superior knowledge in this area of debate, but I do have some knowledge concerning mobilization rates and deployments, and really am trying to avoid "argument" for arguments sake. Really what I am trying to do is pool knowledge to arrive at a better understanding.
> 
> ...


 
Parsifal - all your points are well reasoned. 

First I would like to say that this poll started out comparing 'Air Force' vs airforce and I pointed out, correctly in my opinion, that the question was not 'land based airforce' but 'airpower' and the ability to project strategic and tactical footprint globally... and if I recall coreectly Chris came to the same conclusion and expanded the discussion 

So, here we are. 

Second, I arbitrarily pointed to July 1943 because I knew that USAAF was at its near maximum strength on paper, with each of those Combat groups organized and staffed - knowing full well that the total did NOT represent actual combat deployment. Having said that it is entirely reasonable to point to front line and reserves as a tangible 'strength' and then further reference by cnversation that the US Navy, while smaller, had a very significant front line strength as well as a soon to be overwhelming reserve force - and the carriers either at sea or in final stages of construction.

July 1943 represented a point in which US forces were in combat in North Afrika, the Sicily invasion was beginning, the 8th AF started combat ops w/A-20's and B-17s didn't hit first target until 17 August. The US forces were battling in the Aleutians, Australia and the Solomons. The Net is that US Airpower in July 1943 was very short of actual combat experienced aircrews in cntrast to the RAF. I absolutely do NOT argue that the US on July 1, 1943 had the depth of combat skills of the RAF.

A loose analogy is that combat operations were the tip of the iceberg but that no single country equaled the US from that approximate date going forward in the ability project overwhelming airpower across all theatres 

- one can debate 'when' the actual delivery of that force crosses over the RAF/FAA. One can correctly state that the RAF was singularly stronger and of higher experience in ETO, one may debate MTO, and probably debate the Degree of superiority that combined USAAF/USN operations had over RAF in PTO - but remember that the Commonwealth forces constitued the greater contributions over the actual RAF in the PTO and a significant proportion in MTO and to a lesser degree in the ETO.

My thesis is, arbitrarily, this is a point where you can point to US Airpower and state "that these forces, in uniform, trained, in combat or in stages of deployment, with a manufacturing base and training and logistics system' were the most powerful air Power in the world but had yet to prove it by experience, applied weight of firepower and destructive results in the ETO.


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## parsifal (Apr 26, 2011)

With the US Naval air arms in the equation, I would agree with you, the qualitative edge shifts in favour of the Us somewhat earlier. I would still argue that it was after July, but then perhaps thats being a little too precious about the issue...

Mind you, with the IJN also thrown into the equation, the world leader in the 41-42 bracket also chnages IMO. My vote under those conditions would change to the Japanese, with the Brits in a close second and the US in third position


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## drgondog (Apr 26, 2011)

parsifal said:


> With the US Naval air arms in the equation, I would agree with you, the qualitative edge shifts in favour of the Us somewhat earlier. I would still argue that it was after July, but then perhaps thats being a little too precious about the issue...
> 
> *It is clearly debatable (re:July 1943) but to me that is the start of the debate period - not 1944 or mid 1944. So I agree with the caveats re: RAF dominant ETO position at that time*
> 
> Mind you, with the IJN also thrown into the equation, the world leader in the 41-42 bracket also chnages IMO. My vote under those conditions would change to the Japanese, with the Brits in a close second and the US in third position



I definitely agree Japan 1942 (pre Midway), with Brits number 1 (in late 1942), but my choice is LW over US..


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 26, 2011)

drgondog said:


> Parsifal - all your points are well reasoned.
> 
> First I would like to say that this poll started out comparing 'Air Force' vs airforce and I pointed out, correctly in my opinion, that the question was not 'land based airforce' but 'airpower' and the ability to project strategic and tactical footprint globally... and if I recall coreectly Chris came to the same conclusion and expanded the discussion



That I did...

I will however say that I still would prefer different threads as I had thought it would be. One discussing Air Forces, one discussing Naval Air Forces and one discussing overall Air Powers. The reason I caved in was because of popular demand...

In all actuality it would be best to have a poll with multiple questions in it. Then one could vote for best land based, best naval based, and then overall air power during that specific time period. Then it would just be one thread to discuss all of this with multiple poll questions and options. Will have to see about setting this up.


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## Saetta66 (Apr 26, 2011)

parsifal said:


> I'd have to disagree with that. We can look at the frontline strengths and capabilities of the italians at any period, and they will always be inferior to the RAF excluding the effects of the dominions and the exiles at any period.
> 
> 
> I wouldn't be so sure about this. We should check confronting datas. And we should agree on which datas using.


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## drgondog (Apr 26, 2011)

I agree Japan - pre July 1942 when Midway carved a huge part of IJN ability to project power and secure their holdings - was close to RAF/FAA - This period of 1939 through 1942 is one of changing fortunes. LW definitely the strongest in my opinion through 1940 qnd into 1941. Japan very strong with their Navy but 'hidden' until December 7. Whether they achieved an equal level to Germany and Great Britain? I tend to think not. They couldn't subjugate China, they swept through RAF/USAAF/USN in five months then were crushed at Midway in mid 1942 - re: their ability to project power globally.

I still tend to rank RAF, LW as one and two, with US reaching parity to Japan in mid to late 1942 and start to go offensive during Guadalcanal, into the Solomons and New Guinea. The LW question is a difficult one for me for 1942. They were stretched but still remained a very powerful force but had no ability to weaken either Russia or even Britain strategically so I rank RAF/FAA the strongest in 1942 through mid to late 1943.


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## pbfoot (Apr 26, 2011)

drgondog said:


> .
> 
> I still tend to rank RAF, LW as one and two, with US reaching parity to Japan in mid to late 1942 and start to go offensive during Guadalcanal, into the Solomons and New Guinea. The LW question is a difficult one for me for 1942. They were stretched but still remained a very powerful force but had no ability to weaken either Russia or even Britain strategically so I rank RAF/FAA the strongest in 1942 through mid to late 1943.


agree 95% except IMHO (not that my opinion means squat) I give the US parity with RAF beginning 44


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## drgondog (Apr 26, 2011)

pbfoot said:


> agree 95% except IMHO (not that my opinion means squat) I give the US parity with RAF beginning 44



A key fact to recall is that by January 1944 the 8th AF and 9th AF in the UK represented only 32% of ALL US deployed combat groups and still had not achieved parity with the MTO with respect to either the number of aircraft or personnel, or in tons of bombs dropped. 

You don't fall into this category but many folks gain a sense for the strength of the RAF in England (its center of Gravity) and compare only to 8th and 9th AF in late 1943 but the 12th AF had been in major operations from Afrika to Sicily to Italy at the expense of growth of the 8th AF in England, and the FEAF/CBI, etc had been in combat for more than 8 months before the 8th AF flew its first mission.

That said, the combined 8th, 9th, 12th and 15th AF comprised 1/3 of all USAAF combat units, the CONUS had 1/3 prepared and deploying into combat and the rest (FEAF/CBI/Aleutians/Atlantic-SA) had 1/3. The USN/MC had approximately 1/3 of the USAAF with a lighter mix of aircraft.

I have no problem stretching the discussion of 'parity' from mid through late 1943... for one definition of combat a/c deployed the US will cross over in latter 1943, in context of bomb tonnage the RAF has an edge (I suspect) through summer 1944, in context of medium bomber, anti shipping, CAS/tactical carrier operations, long range fighter escort squadrons (P-38/F4U), air transport, the US edges Britain somewhere in 1943.

I don't have the actual statistics for RAF ops but by mid 1944 the US had far more heavy and now very heavy bomb groups in operations (B-29) so the RAF statistically is competing against all the US heavy/very heavy bomb groups across all theatres - with fewer bombers/but much heavier bomb loads.


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## renrich (Apr 26, 2011)

An interesting point is that quite a few Allied pilots other than Americans were trained in the US during the war. Number Five British Flying Training School opened for business in September of 1941 in Clewiston, Florida. I don't know how many Brits were trained there but it was still open in February of 1945. 5924 American and French pilots were trained during 1941-45, at Hawthorne School of Aeronautics, Orangeburg, South Carolina.


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## pbfoot (Apr 26, 2011)

renrich said:


> An interesting point is that quite a few Allied pilots other than Americans were trained in the US during the war. Number Five British Flying Training School opened for business in September of 1941 in Clewiston, Florida. I don't know how many Brits were trained there but it was still open in February of 1945. 5924 American and French pilots were trained during 1941-45, at Hawthorne School of Aeronautics, Orangeburg, South Carolina.


about 16000 Brits were flight trained in US and 45000 in Canada


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## Glider (Apr 26, 2011)

Just a couple of observations

a) Six British Flight Training Schools (BFTS) were set up in the USA and between June and August 1941 they started training their first students. About 1000 US pilots were trained in these schools and the training was slightly more extensive than in the USAAF schools

b) During the war approx 18,000 RAF pilots were trained in the USA at both the RAF training schools and under the Arnold Scheme at USAAF training schools.


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## Milosh (Apr 27, 2011)

The BCATP aircrew graduates numbered 131,553 from Oct. 1940 to March 1945. Does not include 5,296 RAF/FAA prior to July 1942 in Canada.

RCAF - 72,835
RAF/FAA - 42,110
RAAF - 9,606
RNZAF - 7,002


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## parsifal (Apr 27, 2011)

The figures quoted appear to only include those aircrew that trained at some time in Canada. In fact the scheme included many other smaller locations and some countries undertook training programs outside the scheme, so this figure is somewhat less than the numbers trained worldwide under the BCATP and its various derivatives as well as the national programs undertaken by countries of the Commonwealth.

According to Alan Stephens (“The Royal Australian Air Force”), under the scheme, the UK was to recruit and train four-ninths of the RAF's annual aircrew requirements. The remaining five-ninths was to be apportioned across the Dominions as follows:-
Australia 36% 
Canada 56% 
New Zealand 8% 

The Royal Australian Air Force trained 27,899 men through the Empire Air Training Scheme, and a further 11000 or so outside of that scheme. If Miloshes figure of 9606 is correct for the RAAF contribution to the Canadian program, then a substantial amount of training was completed outside of Canada (though his figures dont seem to gel completely with my understanding of the proportions) Prior to the scheme the RAAF had trained about 50 pilots per year, plus there were 450 Australian pilots serving in the RAF directly from 1939. Seven-ninths of the RAAF's intake were trained in Australia (all Elementary and some Advanced) with the remaining two-ninths trained in Canada (Advanced). The RAAF had to provide airfields, aircraft, instructors etc to allow this all to happen

In Australia the scheme was simply known as the EATS scheme. By 1945, more than 37,500 Australian aircrew had completed training either within or outside of the EATS; a majority of these, over 27,300, graduated from schools in Australia directly under the EATS, with some of that number receiving advanced training in Canada. Many others were also were trained under article 15, the majority of the European deployed personnel received their training directly in Europe, presumably in England. The duration of World War II saw 15,746 RAAF pilots, navigators, wireless operators, gunners and engineers sent to British squadrons and 11,641 to Australian squadrons from the EATS, and a further 11000 or so trained outside of EATS for direct use by the RAAF

Perhaps some of the confusion arises because schemes outside Canada were not actually known as BCATP with a number of countries retaining some home based training outside of the EATS schemes as indicated in the Australian experience that I have outlined above. In South Africa, the scheme was termed the Joint Air Training Scheme (JATS). Under this scheme, 38 South African–based air schools would be employed to train Royal Air Force, SAAF and other allied air and ground crews. This scheme during its five year existence, was ultimately to turn out a total of 33,347 aircrew, including 12,221 SAAF personnel. Not all of this number were trained under the BCATP. 

The Rhodesian Air Training Group (RATG), operating 1940–1945, was set up as part of the overall Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Again, some of its numbers need to be considered as a separate subtotal to the Canadian based schools principally because some personnel completed their advanced training outside of Canada, and also because some personnel were trained outside the BCATP scheme. The trainees came mainly from Great Britain but also from Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, USA, Yugoslavia, Greece, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Fiji and Malta. There were also pupils from the Royal Hellenic Air Force in training. Over 7,600 pilots and 2,300 navigators were trained by the RATG during the war.

In the case of Canada, at the conclusion of the war, over 167,000 students, including over 50,000 pilots, trained in Canada under the program from May 1940 to March 1945. While the majority of those who successfully completed the program went on to serve in the RAF, over half (72,835) of the 131,553 graduates were Canadians. I do not have figures on how many Canadians were trained outside of the BCATP. 

In the US CATPs were set up after so many US citizens crossed the border prior to December 1941, to undergo training. This was a cause for considerable embarrassment for both the Canadians and the Roosevelt administration. Prior to Pearl Harbor, training centres were made available for the RAF; by war's end, 16,000 RAF aircrew were trained in the United States. After Pearl Harbor, 1,759 American members of the RCAF transferred to the armed forces of the United States, another 2,000 transferred later on, and about 5,000 completed their service with the RCAF

I don’t have final figures for training undertaken directly in the UK, but it may be as high as 22000 aircrew every year. 

During the war, the RNZAF contributed 6940 personnel to the BCATP, including 2,743 fully trained pilots to serve with the RAF in Europe, the Middle East, and Far East. More than 2,700 wireless operator/air-gunners, 1,800 navigators, and 500 bombardiers passed through the Initial Training Wing before proceeding to Canada. Of the 131,000 trainees who graduated in Canada under the Commonwealth Air Training Plan, New Zealanders formed 5.3%. 

Another 1,521 pilots and an unknown number of other aircrew completed their training in New Zealand outside the BCATP, and were retained in country; either as instructors, staff pilots, or manning operational squadrons formed during the latter half of the war. My best estimate is that about 3800 personnel were given some form of aircrew training outside the EATS scheme in New Zealand. 

In 1940, before the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan was fully developed, New Zealand also trained 183 observers and 395 air gunners for the RAF. From 1943 onwards, the training of wireless operator/air gunners, and navigators was carried on in New Zealand for Pacific operations. 

Clearly therefore, the figures quoted for the BCATP, whilst representing a substantial portion of the Commonwealth air training shemes does not represent the total training program.


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## renrich (Apr 27, 2011)

There are some interesting anecdotes about the language barrier when training French student pilots in the Stearman. One instructor reversed the ususal seating position, with the instructor sitting in the aft cockpit so he could beat the student over the head with a rolled up newspaper when he did something wrong.


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## Milosh (Apr 27, 2011)

parsifal, those numbers were for Canada.
from 'Wings of Victory' Spencer Dunmore


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## parsifal (Apr 27, 2011)

Thanks for clarifying the source. I dont think what you and i are saying is that different, its just that i wanted to make clear that the BCATP was not the only source of fully trained aircrews available to the British Commonwealth Air Forces. My estimate of 200000 aircrew is not really in conflict with your number of 131000, because the 131000 is a fraction of the larger number....


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## Readie (Jun 22, 2011)

syscom3 said:


> While the USAAF was not #1 in everything, it was at the top in most. And even where it was lacking, it was still good enough to be near the top.
> 
> The USAAF had the resources to build what it wanted, in any quantity, and piloted and maintained by competent crews.
> 
> The RAF never had that capability. A very fine organization. But putting out a few great aircraft types manned by a limited number of superb crews, doesn't hold up to the shear industrial and organizational powers the US had at its disposal.


 
Very good syscom3 and thank for posting it.
Of course the RAF could never be as big as the USAAF but, we made a few things our own like Dam Busters etc.
Cheers
John


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## MaximusGR (Jun 25, 2011)

The best air force is without question the USAAF both because of the huge resources in man power and materials, but also because of the effectibe strategies developed and applied in cutting off supplies, weakening the Luftwaffe and destroying German infrastructure.

Voted Luftwaffe myself because the use of jet aircraft, stand off weapons(V-1 and V-2) and guided A2A and A2G weapons paved the way for future conflicts. something like an "a for effort" i guess 

RAF played an important part throughout the period discussed, the size of it compared to USAAF was rather small but at the same time the Brits had the flexibility to adapt to special needs, like the destruction of dams, dealing with battleships, night bombing, etc.. Aircraft like the Tempest, the Mosquito and late Spitfires were among the best of the war, so credit for that as well 

My picture of VVS is rather unclear as i havent got the sources to examine its effectiveness, if any other member has knowledge of soviet air tactics and doctrines i d be more than happy to get a picture


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## Readie (Jul 1, 2011)

Hi Max,
The biggest is not always best and just size doesn't make the USAAF the best. Look at sheer ingenuity and use of a smaller resource and you'll get a different answer.
Cheers
John


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## drgondog (Jul 1, 2011)

Readie said:


> Hi Max,
> The biggest is not always best and just size doesn't make the USAAF the best. Look at sheer ingenuity and use of a smaller resource and you'll get a different answer.
> Cheers
> John


John - the US wasn't 'just the biggest'. It was simply the only Air Power that could go any place in the world (simultaneously)and deliver integrated Logistic, Tactical, and Strategic land based airpower as well as gobal sea based airpower - in overwhelming numbers and qualitative capability to any adversary. 

The RAF and LW and VVS had niche superiority for some possible missions - unquestioned.

For the simplest of examples, while the RAF certainly had equivalency in Strategic capability in the ETO and MTO through 1944, where was it in comparable strength in the Far East? What was the delivery capacity of the RAF (absent US aircraft) to provide logistics support to bases loacated away from England? What distribution of airpower assets from GB occurred in the Pacific Theatre, or compare delivery of all aircraft types to the Soviets and Chinese and Commonwealth by the US. 

The short answer is that natural resources, financial resources, skilled labor, manufacturing processes and floor space and tooling plus pilot/crew training capacity - combined with a full range of 'nearly the same to clearly better' products capable of attacking and supporting attacks on the Axis - directly or via proxy - anywhere in the world is what made US Airpower 'the most powerful'. If you wish to make your case that 'best' is not analogous to 'most powerful', explain away..


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jul 1, 2011)

drgondog said:


> John - the US wasn't 'just the biggest'. It was simply the only Air Power that could go any place in the world (simultaneously)and deliver integrated Logistic, Tactical, and Strategic land based airpower as well as gobal sea based airpower - in overwhelming numbers and qualitative capability to any adversary.



Beat me to the punch.


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## vikingBerserker (Jul 2, 2011)

Well put.


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## Readie (Jul 2, 2011)

drgondog said:


> John - the US wasn't 'just the biggest'. It was simply the only Air Power that could go any place in the world (simultaneously)and deliver integrated Logistic, Tactical, and Strategic land based airpower as well as gobal sea based airpower - in overwhelming numbers and qualitative capability to any adversary.
> 
> The RAF and LW and VVS had niche superiority for some possible missions - unquestioned.
> 
> ...


 
Well put and I accept your points about the power of the USAAF.
Anyone who knows anything about WW2 would have to concede.
Maybe the word 'best' is not the most appropriate word for this thread.
I am immensely proud of the niche specialism that the RAF achieved and of the aircraft used.
Sometimes that can colour a chaps judgement a tad
Cheers
John


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## parsifal (Jul 2, 2011)

You are doing okay readie, dont bust your chops. These rebs need to be kept in line by someone after all


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## drgondog (Jul 2, 2011)

Readie said:


> Well put and I accept your points about the power of the USAAF.
> Anyone who knows anything about WW2 would have to concede.
> Maybe the word 'best' is not the most appropriate word for this thread.
> I am immensely proud of the niche specialism that the RAF achieved and of the aircraft used.
> ...


 I respect the RAF (and the Fleet) tremendously as you do. Defeating the Axis during WWII required all the Allies could bring to bear.

Please do not take my remarks as an example of being a 'homer'. I believ I am being objective in my remarks

Bill


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## Readie (Jul 2, 2011)

drgondog said:


> I respect the RAF (and the Fleet) tremendously as you do. Defeating the Axis during WWII required all the Allies could bring to bear.
> 
> Please do not take my remarks as an example of being a 'homer'. I believ I am being objective in my remarks
> 
> Bill



Bill, I never thought of you as Homer. Quite the opposite, I respect your views as they balanced informative.
Cheers
John


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## Sagittario64 (Nov 22, 2011)

The ANR had some pretty good success for their time. plus they were modernly equipped with C.205s, G.55s, Re.2005s, Bf.109(Gs and Ks), and some Do.217 night-fighters(quite unsuccessful though). for 1944, i think the ANR at least deserves a spot on the poll, in addition to the Bulgarian air force, the Hungarian air force, and the Romanian air force. so many times i see polls without these german allies in them


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