Bf-109 increased production - effects?

[33k in the air]

Of course, you can only operate as many fighters as you have fuel. So you'd need to pump more out of the ground in Austria and increase the synthetic fuel-production.

More importantly, you can only operate as many fighters as you have trained pilots to fly them. And training matters a lot, as an untrained pilot is pretty much a flying target.

 

[Howard Gibson]

Playing with various scenarios recently, i just realized this: if the germans somehow don't get into the whole destroyer thing and drift toward a more soviet style rationalization of aircraft production (concentrating on fewer and most useful types), which destroyer obsession overall did a lot more harm than good (even if the Me-110 was a fairly useful night-fighter), and use those resources to just build more Bf-109s instead, and assuming engine production is similar, replacing the over 6000 Me-110, 700 Me-210 (but the whole debacle cost another potential 1500 airframes) and 1200 Me-410 will give us no less than roughly 15,000 (!) Bf-109s and roughly 2500 FW-190C normaljagers (which is an ATL in itself, as i understand the FW-190C could face the P-51 and P-47 at least on equal terms). PLUS if those 1500 potential zestrorers production is not lost, we have ANOTHER 3000 Bf-109s.

And if we really go the whole hog, scrapping the He-177 debacle gives us enough engines for another say 4500 Bf-109s easily.

Were the Germans short of fighter aircraft?

They ran out of fuel, and trained pilots.

 

[tomo pauk]

Were the Germans short of fighter aircraft?

Yes, starting from mid BoB.
Germany was also supplying fighters for their allies, not that they did some stellar job doing it.

They ran out of fuel, and trained pilots.

Agreed.

 

[Snautzer01]

trained pilots.

I am wondering for ages why the germans used any and i mean any flyable captured frame to train their pilots. Most being a bit over the hill.
I can only think that all resources were directed to 1st line bombers and fighters. Must have been a job to get those foreign planes working an maintained.
Just another strain on the luftwaffe.

 

[machine shop tom]

".......You also have to get around the conventional thinking of the time. Only the US failed to field twin engine multi-seat general purpose fighter. They built the P-61 night fighter and they fooled around with some other prototypes but they did not field a twin engine multi-seat general purpose fighter. They tried to use converted bombers and used reverse-lend lease British Beaufighters and Mosquito night fighters. French, Italians, Japanese and the Soviets all at least designed and put into production (some times in small numbers) that class of of aircraft. Soviets may be a bit debatable with the PE-2. They started with a high altitude, twin engine multi seat interceptor, turned it into a dive bomber/attack plane and then turned it back into a heavy fighter (PE-3) and also built recon versions."


Ignoring, of course, the war-winning "Gabelschwanzteufel".

 

[Deleted member 68059]

Yes, starting from mid BoB.
Germany was also supplying fighters for their allies, not that they did some stellar job doing it.



Agreed.

They had a lot of area to cover, so the massive production in 1944 didnt really materialise into a big force to attack the Allied bombers.

If you can believe it, Luftflotte Reich was allocated just 20% of German fighter production in early 1944 !

On the 8th August 1944 Milch wrote to Kriepe, and demanded it be increased to 50%

There were also definetly a lot of "missing" aircraft, US investigators in 1945 post-war concluded after interviewing various senior
Germans that Speer had been including repaired/refitted/upgraded airframes in the "new aircraft" production figures,
there was also some discussion that due to poor build quality in 1944, together with problems in distribution, that
a very large portion of "new" aircraft never made it to the operational units, for example because some were
so bad they ended up getting cannibalised for parts to repair other planes, and lots being damaged in delivery
to airfields with bomb damage to runways and lots of "ferry pilots" not being up to the job and fluffing the landings and so on,
all leading to tremendous wastage.

German aircraft production early war was (as has been stated already) also quite low.

 

[tomo pauk]

German aircraft production early war was (as has been stated already) also quite low.

They were outproduced by UK, and then again by Soviet Union. Better performing fighters were able to cater for the deficit somewhat, but still.
Italy, Finland, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia and later NDH etc. were all depending on Germany to supply them with modern A/C - not a task where Germany excelled. Germany was also delivering hardware to Turkey, Bulgaria, Sweden, Switzerland.

 

[Howard Gibson]

I am wondering for ages why the germans used any and i mean any flyable captured frame to train their pilots. Most being a bit over the hill.
I can only think that all resources were directed to 1st line bombers and fighters. Must have been a job to get those foreign planes working an maintained.
Just another strain on the luftwaffe.

I was under the impression they did. They could also use their old Bf109Cs and Ds, as well as He51s as fighter trainers. They planned on a quick, successful war.

This does not solve the problem of lack of fuel.

 

[Deleted member 68059]

Putting 100% into turbojets as early as possible does help the fuel situation somewhat, as they can operate on very low grade fuels compared to a top spec piston fighter engine. This isnt just a question of being able to use a portion of the same allocation of the "family" of fuels as things like diesels, its that if you dont need to make high anti knock fuels, you can adjust the synthetic plants processing to increase the yields quite significantly, meaning there would be MORE overall liquid fuel produced per ton of coal/shale/tars.

<oops wrong thread !>

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

The war wasn't popular in the US, and the US wars of the last 70 years have shown us that the American public doesn't have a lot of staying power.

1) There is a qualitative difference between both the wars of the last seventy years, and the outlook of the typical American today as compared to one of 70 years ago, such that either comparison strikes me as pretty inapt.

2) While American isolationism in the lead-up to our entry in Dec 41 was strong, it was wiped out by the attack on Pearl Harbor. Hitler's gratuitous declaration of war four days later further angered the American public, and support for the war thereafter remained strong, even into 1944 when the ground casualties were rising. It's true that by 1945, after the Battle of the Ardennes, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and other bloody battles, the American public was tiring of the war, but that's a different statement than saying "the war wasn't popular"; it was still largely seen as necessary.

 

[Shortround6]

Back in the 1970s some friends of mine had a housemate that had grown up in Germany during the war. He was about 10 at the end of the war if I remember right. He was away from the major cities and in a small village. One of his stories (and it could be a local legend, he was not there to witness it) was that at the end of the war or few days before, an SS officer came into town had wanted to blow up the local dam. The local Army officer threatened to shoot him because the Army officer said the people would need it when the war was over. The SS officer left.
If this story is true somebody was trying to carry out a scorched earth policy.
He also told of playing with or finding discarded guns and ammunition in the woods.

 

[33k in the air]

2) While American isolationism in the lead-up to our entry in Dec 41 was strong, it was wiped out by the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Gallup polling from the period shows the American population was less isolationist than is commonly thought. While most of the American public did not want to go to war, many understood it was likely inevitable that the U.S. would enter the conflict at some point.

I've posted some of the polling results before.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I've posted some of the polling results before.

I have as well, yes. It's not that the war was "popular", in my opinion, it's that the war was a job that had to be done.

I wish I still had my copy of Terkel's oral history The Good War, a series of interviews taken from a broad swathe of the American public, who mostly seem to echo that view -- and a willingness to see it through.

 

[33k in the air]

I have as well, yes. It's not that the war was "popular", in my opinion, it's that the war was a job that had to be done.

Yes, that's how it seems to me also.

 

[wiking85]

Agreed, add to that the dearth of fuel, and the lack of trained pilots and the increased production really wouldn't have mattered much.

Trucks though, just imagine if the German Army was even half as mobilized as the Russians were, thanks to us....

Huh German forces were more motorized and mechanized than Soviet forces were until 1945.

 

[pbehn]

Huh German forces were more motorized and mechanized than Soviet forces were until 1945.

Were they? the Germans used 800,000 horses invading Russia, then they ate them. The USA provided massive numbers of trucks on lend lease.

 

[tomo pauk]

Huh German forces were more motorized and mechanized than Soviet forces were until 1945.

Care to post some numbers?

 

[wiking85]

Were they? the Germans used 800,000 horses invading Russia, then they ate them. The USA provided massive numbers of trucks on lend lease.

Check out Askey's Barbarossa books where he gets into major detail on all of these issues. The horses had a small fraction of the overall truck lift capacity. Horses were mainly for internal infantry division transportation, not major hauling for corps, army, or army groups. They were used for the stuff that wasn't worth wasting motor vehicles on.
Also the Germans didn't eat them, certainly not in 1941. Many died from overwork, disease, climate, etc. Also keep in mind that the Soviets used many more horses than the Germans.

Care to post some numbers?

Sure it will take me a little while to dig through my books though. And I'm going to be headed to work shortly.

Edit:
found a bit on Soviet and German production via the CIA:

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000258356.pdf

They make the point about low Soviet vehicle servicability, which the raw production output hides.
Lots of info about the Soviets here:

Soviet Army's automobile stocks, losses and deliveries - Axis History Forum

The USSBS has production numbers for German vehicles, just not actual truck stocks IIRC. It is actually surprisingly difficult to find Wehrmacht stocks of vehicle numbers and I don't have Askey's book with me.

Though this is just during the war, not what was captured (not all documented BTW) or made pre-war that served during the war OR was taking from civilians (or locomotives):

German armored fighting vehicle production during World War II - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

During WWII, Germany also produced:[2]

• 3,024 reconnaissance vehicles
• 2,450 other armoured vehicles
• 21,880 armoured personnel carriers
• 36,703 semi-tracked tractors
• 87,329 semi-tracked trucks
• 347,490 military trucks and lorries
• 226,337 military cars
• 97,470 military motorcycles
• 245,389 train waggons

Notes:

• Figures include tank production and chassis production used for other variants (for example, Panzer III figures include StuG III assault gun production, etc.).
• Panzer III figures for 1942 and 1943 excludes 700 Panzer III Ausf N models converted from older variants.
• Germany also produced 44,259 armored half-tracks and 3,607 armored cars during the war.

 

[pbehn]

Check out Askey's Barbarossa books where he gets into major detail on all of these issues. The horses had a small fraction of the overall truck lift capacity. Horses were mainly for internal infantry division transportation, not major hauling for corps, army, or army groups. They were used for the stuff that wasn't worth wasting motor vehicles on.
Also the Germans didn't eat them, certainly not in 1941. Many died from overwork, disease, climate, etc. Also keep in mind that the Soviets used many more horses than the Germans.

Ate them is a metaphor for they died. 800,000 horses is 400,000 carts which have to be replaced by trucks when the horses die. Also when you take horses into a city you need a supply chain of feed and water for your transport even in open countryside a few thousand horses eat all the grass that is around them. The Soviets may well have used more horses, but they live there, Germany only ever captured a fraction of their territory and not much stored feed.

 

[wiking85]

Ate them is a metaphor for they died. 800,000 horses is 400,000 carts which have to be replaced by trucks when the horses die. Also when you take horses into a city you need a supply chain of feed and water for your transport even in open countryside a few thousand horses eat all the grass that is around them. The Soviets may well have used more horses, but they live there, Germany only ever captured a fraction of their territory and not much stored feed.

Not really, they were replaced by more horses. Including captured Russian ones. And yes I am aware of the limitations of horse supply. Funny that most of the armies of WW1 managed to use them without major issues and the Germans were able to march to the gates of Moscow, while the Wallies were logistically hamstrung at the German border with their trucks supply system.