Best Air Force 1943-1945

Best Air Force 1943-1945

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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.
 

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.
 

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

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

No maritime amphibious units
Click to expand...
Again, the USN had more of those units than the whole UK and Commonwealth countries combined.

No night fighter units
Click to expand...
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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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.
 


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.
 
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.
 
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)
 
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.
 

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.
 
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
 

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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