Bomber offensive vs. Gemany: you are in charge

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The Germans kept track of how their planes were shot down. They assumed that bullet holes in the front came from a bomber's deffencive guns and those with holes from the back were downed by fighters. The bomber gunners "Claimed" they shot down over 28,000 Nazi planes, But German records show that it was closer to 10-11,000, IIRC! The vast majority, 2/3rds, by B-17s!
 

The claims to actual losses ratio look sway too low for defensive gunners to me.

It also sounds a lot like USAAF propoganda being used to defend the self defending bomber concept.
 
We have come to realize that the best thing about the bomber offensive on Germany was that it destroyed the Luftwaffe. The Germans simply did not have the luxury of building an offensive bomber force that was good enough to even put on a decent 4th of July airshow by US standards. While destroying German cities perhaps did not hurt their war effort as much as had been though by airpower advocates, it imposed a huge psychological on the Luftwaffe. While the Luftwaffe might have been used to much better effect attacking Allied ground support aircraft and ground forces, the Jadgewaffe simply could not stand civilains saying to them "1000 bombers hit us yesterday! Where was the Luftwaffe?"

In the Battle of the Bulge this was used to good effect. Want to hit the Panzer armies with P-47's and Typhoons with no interference from the Luftwaffe? Simple! Plan a 8th AF heavy bomber raid on a nearby German city. The Luftwaffe will abandon their ground troops to save their honor!

But of course, this is all true of daylight bombing, but far less so with night bombing.
 
Yes this is true, but also irrealivant! Just because the Nazis chose to send half to a dozen single engined fighters to look for Mossies with little support, what do you think would happen if there were no heavies to chase? RIGHT!
 
The claims to actual losses ratio look sway too low for defensive gunners to me.

It also sounds a lot like USAAF propoganda being used to defend the self defending bomber concept.

What part of "German records" did you fail to understand? in nice round numbers; the Nazis said that they lost ~7,000 to B-17s, 2,500 to B-24s, I was wrong about this before! I thought it was closer to 5,000! They also lost 400 to B-26s and 200 more to B-25s. According to the Nazis, they lost more AC to B-17s than any other type!
 

Shooter, you need to put that attitude in check right now and get back on topic. This is your last warning.
 

A lot of the resources you speak of were twin engined night-fighters which could not hope to catch the Mosquito.

I think you need to look up the He 219. It could not catch the Mosquito bomber at night, unless it was a specially stripped version (A7?) which could barely catch them. The He 219 was also bigger, and was heavier empty than the Mosquito loaded.

I read a report somewhere that on a night raid almost all the available LW NF assets were sent against a diversionary raid by Mosquitos, leaving the main force to bomb relatively unmolested. Not many, if any, Mosquitos were lost, bu tthe LW may have shot down some of their own aircraft.

The evidence is that the LW did spend resources on trying to shoot down Mossies - maybe not as much as per theheavy bombers, but also less successfully.


What chance would the Mossy have if it was the only target in the sky? Right!

More than just about any other bomber in existance at the time.



The Mossie was not "a slow and difficult" plane to build, and did not require large amounts of highly skilled labour. In fact, most of the labour involved in building Mosquitos was not skilled. It is true of the wood that it had to be imported. But that is also true of aluminium.

If each He 219s shot down a Mosquito every other mission I'm sure the LW high comman would be beside themselves with joy. I doubt it would ever happen.


Yes this is true, but also irrealivant! Just because the Nazis chose to send half to a dozen single engined fighters to look for Mossies with little support, what do you think would happen if there were no heavies to chase? RIGHT!

So, because a specially formed squadron couldn't down any Mosquito bombers or recce aircraft even though they were flying specially prepared aircraft has no relevence on how well the rest of the fighter arm would fare against them?
 

I don't believe it unless you show me, or point to where I could find them, the sources.
 
I'd like to see that source(s) as well since 1945 records are lost to oblivion

addition any Mossie could be shot down by any LW NF if given the right angle and height advantage, my cousin shot down a FB in his outdated Do 217 N-1 while the FB's were attacking bases clsoe to Sylt in 1943. He 219A's accounted for a total of 12 Mossies. 10.(N)/JG 300 bf 109G-6AS craft accounted for more with only 3 months in action ..........it's all getting covered in my book....

if guys ask specific questions then I may be able to answer you.
 
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OK.

How many sorties were required to get the 12?

Were 6 or these from the A-0s?


Heinkel He 219 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Were any He 219s victims of Mosquito NFs?
 
Were any He 219s victims of Mosquito NFs?

Mossies made claims for 17.5 He 219s destroyed, the half being a claim shared with Mustangs on a daylight op. That particular He 219 is known to have gone down from LW and Allied (Ultra) records, current discussion over at 12 O'Clock HIgh forum.
 
you can dig deeper in research to find the variants, the dates should help you

28/28 July 42 obviously no HE 219
27/28, May 43
12/13, December 43
6/7 of May 44
27/28 of May 44 - 2 kills
10/11 June 44
10/11 June 44
11/12 June 44
24/25 June 44
1/2 of July 44
10/11 July 44
18/19 of July 1944 by Hptm Strüning

too many He's shot down by Mossie NF's, remember most of the LW variants of the Uhu did not have rear warning radar installed.
 
"Claimed". How many confirmed?

Look on german archive and cheeck for each USAAF bomber mission claim and actually losses of LW


i used claimed maybe not in your sense, this are claimed from usaaf not from bomber's crew
 
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as I said earlier the 1945 claims are not incorporated as they are lost except for the rare technical instance of Flugbuch entries, the German archivs will not help you though manyprivate parties seem to have a growing database of LW losses by A/C type
 

So 12 in a year?

What happened after July 1944? Did the He 219 not encounter any more Mossies?
 

Hi Erich,

27/28 May '43 - Claim by Struening, would have been on a 110 I think? Before the 219 debut with Streib?

12/13 December '43, I have a note that was Meurer, on a Ju 88 R-2.

1/2 July '44, the Mosquito claimed by Fincke was able to RTB.
 

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