RG:
I am glad to realize you and me can sometimes agree, at least in some points!
Remember i have not suggested gentleman Yeager was a bad pilot, at all. Simply the remarks i´ve commented here. He was indeed arrogant but also contradictory; all i can say is I found him amusing.
I also agree with you on the incompetence and disorganization in the German high command which contributed to their final defeat.
They simply had too many private designers working independently, each pursuing his very own interest and aircraft models. When they saw what was coming, say, by mid 1943, the German high command should perhaps have brought all designers together into a very close coordination in order to establish a more efficient program for distributing raw materials, labor force and spare parts programs.
That is, they should have implemented, maintained and assure adherence of aircraft desginers to the Reich´s designing and production policies. They simply did not.
Germany did not have access to large natural resources, therefore a coherent production program was necessary.
Example: many say the Bf109 should have been phased out, say, by the end of 1943, in order to let the Fw190 be the mainstay fighter of the Luftwaffe alone.
I disagree there. The Bf109 Gs and Ks were superb fighters (yes, i know manouverability got somewhat affected; likewise the superb Spitfire did not evolve seeing its manouverability unscathed). The Fw190As and Ds, not to mention the Ta152 were also superb fighters.
One single fighter could not have covered absolutely all roles being always a marvel. The Bf109 could do things the Fw190 couldn´t and viceversa. So i see both types necessary.
But why to continue producing as late as 1944 -and in the cases of some types to the very end of the war- the Bf110 (great as nightfighter though), the flunked the Me 210 and the Me410? The Me 410 was a great plane, but it came to life too late and its chances against single engine enemy fighters were little, so perhaps it should not have been produced beyond protoype models.
Furthermore, why continue to produce bombers?
Perhaps not a single bomber should have been produced when 1944 commenced. I know bombers were necessary in some theathers by such date, but if the resources -material and laborforce- devoted to produce bombers had been used to produce more fighters, who knows what could have happened.
Keeping the fearsome and superb Ju88 for nightfighting duties and perhaps working further -in accordance with the Reich´s policies- to solve the problems of a plane with great potential such as the He219, why did they continue to produce the He111, the later Dorniers, the several prototypes of heavy bombers and the Stuka? (The Stuka was a great plane, but the conditions for its deployment in significant numbers had ceased to exist).
Let´s see, roughly 1,200 Me 410s were produced. We are talking about some 2,400 engines. What if 2,400 Fw190s had been produced instead?
There were many other factors which played a role as well. The fuel crisis which struck the Reich by mid 1944 grounded a good deal of the Luftwaffe.
I simply attempted to mention one aspect that you mentioned and that is very true. The Germans failed to put their stuff together and even if they had superb planes and many superb pilots, they simply wasted it.