Could the Luftwaffe survive against Allied attacks if the USSR had been defeated?

Could the Luftwaffe survive after 1943 if it faced only the US/UK airforces?

  • The Allies could still eliminate most of the LW strength within a year

    Votes: 24 28.6%

  • The Luftwaffe could maintain air superiority over Europe if the USSR is eliminated.

    Votes: 17 20.2%

  • It would be a long battle with neither side prevailing for several years.

    Votes: 27 32.1%

  • German technical advances would cancel the Allies strength in numbers.

    Votes: 6 7.1%

  • The Allied bomber casualties would force them to give up on bombing Germany

    Votes: 12 14.3%

  • Other?

    Votes: 8 9.5%
  • Total voters
    84

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Why the P-51D?

The B/C models were quite capable (moreso performance wise -particularly in climb and turn ability). The increased(and, more importantly) more reliable armament was a plus, as was the increased visibility, but the 4x .40's were generally adequate fr Fvs.F combat and the visibility with the malcolm hood was decent. If you're talking range wise, there were variants of the B/C with the fuselage tank as well.
 

All early P-51B-3 and B-5's were retrofitted and, IIRC, the -7 forward had the 85 gallon tank installed as production variant. The -7 was the first 51 to have the 1650-7 installed also for better low and medium altitude perfromance
 
kool kitty89 said:
Gennerally true in the case of the US fighters (though at low level some P-40's and P-39's could probably have been able to out-turn contemporary Fw-190's)

For the many British and Russian planes though, a different story.
Click to expand...

Getting into a turning fight against a "Curtiss" type fighter was not a good idea for 109 drivers.

If considering just the original question which revolved around Russia's defeat in 43, with other factors not being substantially changed, I would think Hitler would have sent the bulk of the available airpower to Tunisia vs. the Reich given his track record.
 
If the USSR had fallen the Western Allies could've kissed goodbye any chance of a successful invasion of France.

First of all with no fuel shortages there'd be more LW a/c in the air and better trained pilots in them = Huge and unacceptable Allied a/c losses. Secondly with all the fuel needed the German Panzers could then roll along when needed, which means the Allies would've been completely incapable of pulling off any invasion of France.

Had the USSR fallen then Germany would be in complete control on the ground, it was then only in the air that the Allies were a problem.

If Germany wanted complete air superiority right away and not have to struggle for it for a great deal of time, despite no lack fuel or trained pilots, then they'd have to press the Me-262 into service when it was ready. The Me-262 was the only a/c which, if properly fueled and piloted, could negate the Allied superiority in numbers.

Anyway the way I see it is that if the USSR had fallen then the war would've progessed with the Allies bombing Germany and Germany bombing the Allies (Britain) until finally the A-bomb would settle the matter in some way. Any attempt at a landased invasion of france would've resulted in tragedy for the Allies, and so the war would've went on in the air over Europe until the A-bomb came along.

The important thing for the LW was the fuel trained pilots, this is what it lacked.
 
Bill,

I'm sure you'll agree that the Hurricane was definitely a better turn fighter than both the Bf-109, Spitfire, P-40, Fw-190, P-51 etc etc.. The only a/c I think of which beats the Hurricane in turn performance is the A6M Zero.

As for the Yak-9, it didn't turn quite as well as the Bf-109G. According to German 109 pilots the Yak-9 was no match in tight turning fights against a clean Bf-109G (Clean refers to no gunpods as many had these equipped). Are you sure you didn't mean the Yak-3 ?
 
I still say that the skies in NW Europe would be ruled by the 9AF and 2TAF with a large superiority in air power ,the Strategic component would have to be scaled back as I think lossed over the Reich proper would have been prohibitive . The U boats would have been neutralized in the same manner with the advent of proper ASW aircraft and naval tactics which were lacking pre 42 . Seeing how IMHO a invasion of France would have been too costly so maybe an Invasion of Norway in which the Allied control of the sea would have made it impossible for the Germans to resupply
 

Without air superiority I don't think an invasion would be successful


If you count only the long range Allied aircraft available in mid 1943 {P-47 C P -38 H} how do they compare with the German Me109G FW 190? {Is it still mostly the FW 190 "A" in the summer of 1943?


Unless they both get it at about the same time...


Soren do you have an approximate idea of the size of the LW in western Europe vs. the Allies? Was it 2/1 for the Allies?


Suppose {as some have said} that the USSR has not fallen, but is much weakened {due to lack of lend-lease etc}. The Germans cannot withdraw ALL of the LW rom the East, but enough to increase the fighters in the West to 150% of historical in summer 1943. Fuel supply from the captured Russia is not total, but say double historical. Is that enough to contest the Air superiority?
 
Soren said:
If the USSR had fallen the Western Allies could've kissed goodbye any chance of a successful invasion of France.
Click to expand...
Would this then maybe change the point for the invasion to, I don't know, Norway and work from there? Don't know much of the strength and importance of Luftwaffe in Norway, when it comes to get fresh pilots and aircraft. Also, would this scenario have prolonged the war much further and maybe in one way or another dragged Sweden into it?
 
Hello Lucky13,

"IF' Russia had fallen, or let's rather say armistice in early-middle 1943. Allied troops already had their grips on North Africa and were on route towards Italy and would have expanded their offence into the Balkans, taking Tito's support into account and the close proximity to Austria/Germany.

Having to face the freed up divisions from the Wehrmacht coming from Russia, the Balkan operation would have ended in disaster for the Allies, leaving them with the Italian front fighting for their lives. Therefore I do not think that any additional troops or ships would have been available to forward an occupation of Norway and at the same time to keep a lifeline to Italy.

Regards
Kruska
 

I wouldn't say a defeat of Russia sometime in 43 completely negates the success factor of an Overlord type operation. Much would depend on the air superiority question which the Allies are still more than capable of achieiving even against an augmented Luftwaffe.

I'm still unsure why defeat of Russia (or as one poster put it more accurately, a suppression of Russian resistance) suddenly means more fuel and pilots trained for the Luftwaffe. (outside of the existing JG's that could be tapped of course) Germany's fuel plants remain where they are. Its questionable how much fuel resource she can pull from deep inside Russia and Russia's defeat won't change the problem of attrition that will ramp up with the arrival of long range fighter escorts for the Allies. The sheer level of attrition, which by many accounts was not a huge issue for the German fighter pilots till late in the war in the East, overtaxed the pilot replacement program in similar vein to that of the Japanese. The decline in skill as pilots were rushed through training, + fuel shortages only served to increase attrition against the swarms of Allied fighters. Does Russia's suppression in 43 really change that so radically?

As for the Me-262.....its technical issues remain....and with Russia's defeat i'd wager the inertia and interference revolving around the program would be increased.
 
I think there are some additional areas which need consideration,,,

There are issues about the hidden history of wWII which are just now seeing the light of day. For example;
1. It would appear the first nuke was tested near Lubeck in Oct 1944 (NARA/RG 38 Box 9-13 Entry 98c TS Naval Atache Repaorts 1944-47.
2. German U-234 which surendered to the USN after VE day on its way to Japan had a very interesting shipment onboard..lest of which was a gross quanity of U235 and nuke scientists.
3. Near the end of the war in the west Hitler gave te orders that an area in southern Bavaria and an airfield in Norway (with 40 LR bombers on it) were to have all of german's last defenses. WHY?
4. Patton was diverted from his drive on germany to this area of southern Bavaria.
5. Japan set off a Nuke on Korea after Nakasaki. (looking for copy of USN intel report)
6. Enola Gay probally dropped nuke material and detonators found aboard U234 which were bound for Japan, just got there by a different route.
7. The weapon dropped from the Enola Gay was untested by the US..the trinty site weapon was the type used for Nakasaki...Hiroshima was like the Lubeck weapon....why would you drop an untested weapon?
8. Reports and Docs of German and Japanese nuke status are still classified until late 2040's.

If the USSR capitulated would the Axis Nuke timetable been realized?
 

High grade fuels (C3) are essential for high performance fighter engines such as BMW-801 (requiring C3) and the overpowered Bf-109 variants. One of the prime issues taken away with Russia´s "hypothetical" demise in mid 43 is that high grade fuels required transportation capacity. Fuel had to be produced from either central german synthetic fuel raffineries according to the Fischer-Tropsch process or via oil fields from Rumania and the smaller ones aviable in Germany and Austria, which had to be moved to Germany for refining and then from Germany towards the russian plains for it´s consumers situated at the remotest end of the logistic lines. These operations were overstraining the logistical chain of transportation aviable by then due in part to the less developed, less redundent infrastructures aviable in Russia and in return required a lot of fuel to make it possible in the first place.
Had the 547 servicable day fighters of the Lufwaffe on the Eastern Fronts (state: 31.05.1943, without all auxilaries) been deployed to the Reichsverteidigung instead, distribution and aviablility of high grade fuels would have been greatly enhanced immideately. Furtherly, more low grade fuels would have been aviable because much of the transportation was direct, quicker, redundant and didn´t even required that much oil fuels due to coal firing, shipping and the shorter distances involved.
Furtherly, the kaukasian oil fields at Baku were a prime supplier to Germanys oil reserves before operation Barbarossa. The fields had been builded with help of german firms in the late 19th century and was run with a german-russian joint venture over decades until 1921.
Transportation via Black Sea towards Rumania is easy and comparably safe (only Russia could project airpower over the Black Sea as long as Turkey remains neutral). All this contributes to change the logistic picture drastically.
 

Thanks......reasonable views. I still have serious doubts though. First off, as previously mentioned, Germany's primary fuel generator and synth plants remain where they are and since nothing occurs in a vaccum it could be argued that the push for Big Oil (as Arnold IIRC championed) might be implemented all the sooner, dependant in part on the arrival of the long range fighters. Damage to these plants would still IMO create a fuel issue for the Luftwaffe.

I'm also of serious doubt that the Germans would be able to make immediate and/or full use of the Baku fields. The Russians after all were champions of Scorched Earth policy and it was standard for them to leave the Germans nothing of use if it could be helped. Combined with the distance and theoretical continued Russian partisan/civilian resistance I don't see Russia becoming a major fuel source for the Reich in such a short time frame with a war still ongoing.

The issue of the redeployment of the JG's from the east is also still one that can be debated. I don't think they would all be immediately re-deployed and once begun there are other theaters i am sure Hitler would like to send a good chunk of them too that are [currently] much hotter than over the Homeland which really didn't become ramped up till 44.

Finally, there's still the question of attrition which didn't really start hitting the Luft where it hurt prior to 44. While theoretically a bloodier one with the preposed reinforcement JG's, I still don't see this going all the Luft's way. The USAAF after all "wanted" a bloody fight to the finish with Goering's creation. They felt they had the assets/resources to win a brutal hands-down contest even in the face of bloody losses, something the Eighth was by 44 no stranger too. Such a clash would be one quite different from the target rich environment the "Experten" from the East were used too. (with a massive alleged stilted kill ratio) Inevitably these "experts" would continue to die off from such a clash to be replaced by lesser pilots, which would, like the Japanese example, accelerate the ruin of an armed forces that even before this theoretical Russian defeat, suffered serious manpower shortages.

It kind of harkens back to the argument of more planes vs. more flak. The more planes champions seemingly kept ignoring the simple facet that they couldn't train enough pilots quickly enough to keep pace with such a ramp up in production.
 

Norway was a potential disaster for the Allies Lucky, it's terrain heavily favours the defender, the availabilty of LW to attack RN ships combined with the RAF too far to provide cover is perilous to say the least. Why do you think the Allies attacked at the Normandy beaches and not at some less heavily defended place like Gascony or Brittany? Because Normandy was the practical limits of the fighter "unbrella" from the UK.

The advantages of a Norway invasion would be minimal {except to Norway's govt in exile! }, as it does not take away much in the way of resources, and there is no way to advance into Germany afterwards.

Kruska, the hypothesis for the German "defeat" or severe weakening of USSR is that a stronger U-boat offensive had cut off lend-lease AND collapsed the British position in North Africa Indian Ocean. So in early - mid 1943 the Desert army is probably in Northern Sudan and Rommel is in control of Egypt. I don't think the Allies would risk attacking the Vichy French by launching "Torch", more likely the US will be trying to stop Japanese from over-running India.


Yes, air superiority is key. I still have not seen an accurate estimate of Allied long-range fighter strength in Europe in mid 1943.

Delcyros was the LW day fighter strength in the West about 600 in mid 1943? So if the LW left about 200 - 250 fighters in the east against a much weaker USSR, they could transfer about 300 to the west which would be about 150% of historical correct?


Yes indeed, many factors to consider.

Remember that with the Allied positioned collapsing in the Indian Ocean, the USSR will not get any "Avgas" by rail from the British plant in Abadan, {Persia} which was cetainly a significant factor in Russian efforts to fight the Luftwaffe.
 
Norway is very stategic look who they border on the north and look what body of water is to the south... closing the Baltic to the germans would be a diasaster as well as limiting the shipment of oil and raw materials from Sweden.
 

This is plausible but wouldn´t effect the ability of the fighter forces. The historical shortages cancelled effectively all offensive LW-operations (with whole Bomber Geschwader beeing grounded due to inaviability of fuels) and even reduced the degree of training operations. The LW fighter forces received fuel with priority until well into early 1945. And much more low grade fuel will be in reserves.So the effects noted by Yourselve will take longer to have any effect, assuming that the targets could be bombed with histroical effect, which in turn is arguable, judging from the more stout AAA and LW-fighter opposition the 8th USAAF is going to face in this scenario.

This basically depends on the conditions of armistice / occupation or surrender and whether or not oil supply is part of the agreement. Scorched earth works well on oil fields but usually is of limited effect when intimate knowledge of the site is aviable, which here likely is the case.

I agree. Likely You would see some kind of split up. Depending on the conditions of Russia´s state by then. Most of the auxilary airforces may still be used in anti partisan or air controll capacity (perhaps with the exception of Rumania which would be relocated to their oil fields for strategic reasons). And certainly not all of the LW-strength would be taken away but I can hardly see more than 4 Gruppen / 1 Geschwader max. (144 fighter planes legend strength) beeing useful in the east, augmented by italian, slovenian, slovakian, bulgarian and finnish fighter forces. For comparison: Norway: 76 and the whole Balkan (territories of the former Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria, Rumania and Moldavia): 90 day fighters (as of 31.05.1943).
The LW had a nasty habit to avoid spray pray habits with their strength relocations and likely would try to establish somewhere a local aerial superiorty accompanied with related offensive actions.
The (dayfighter) strengths of the Luftwaffe day fighters (only) as of 31.05.1943 were (according to Gröner, p.376, tab.):
east: 547. Reichsverteidigung: 296. France, Belgium and the Netherlands: 328. Norway: 76. Italy: 287. Balkan: 90.
Total: 1.724 (servicable)
east: 547 -to be reduced to ca. 144.
west (France Reich): 624 -high density of fighting, strategic tactical
south: (italy Balkan): 377 -high density of fighting, mostly tactical
North: 76 - very low density of fighting

Assume You have to choose to shift ca. 400 freed up day fighters somewhere. What do You choose?


N^2 rule. The historical high degree of attrition was greatly enhanced by numerical overpowering in skillfully achieveing local superiorities on a tactical base. Much more difficult to achieve with more enemies around. Those conditions now are greatly favouring the defender. A shot down LW pilot may return to the base, a shot down US pilot will face prisonship.

Day bombing will become more difficult. As a matter of fact, Regensburg Schweinfurt would be more disastreous than they were historically with a single LW Gruppe more involved. The US 8th Bombers would be the first to suffer from excessive attrition. Each bomber lost over enemy terretory means ten crewmen lost.
 

If one includes factoring in redeployment of the East JG's to other Theaters first, with the resultant decision, I'm not sure the numbers would make the substantial change that is being postulated against the growing strength of the Eighth Air Force. The training issue was one of the other facets I was touching upon in regards to fuel. With the inevitable attrition of 44, The Luftwaffe pilot cadre will still feel the strain thus putting more greenies in the cockpit in a very hostile environment against an aggressive and numerically potent force. A couple hundred more fighters in Home Defense might prolong the struggle, depending on the losses for both sides, or it just be be bloodier and not too much longer. Its certainly debatable but then thats the fun of "what if's"


I don't see much possibility of Russia agreeing to an armistice similar to WWI. This was a fight to the death. Giving up the oilfields would pretty much make Russia a rump state coupled with the loss of Ukraine and so much Industry. A more likely scenario is a retreat even further into the Russian hinterland. If the Germans drive on the oil fields as per 1942, most likely Stalin would order their demolition.

Assume You have to choose to shift ca. 400 freed up day fighters somewhere. What do You choose?
Click to expand...

Good Question! The scenario I'm postulating only goes along with a Russian defeat per the original post in 1943 so my best guess would be the bulk of them would be redeployed or rotated into Tunisia. While I think they would do well there, based on what they historically acheived, the scale of the fighting along with the inevitable Allied reinforcement to compensatep would make a good number of the Jager less available for the upgraded offensive in 44 over Germany. One would have to scratch off (wounded or killed) a number of the Experten too to the fortunes of War.



True, but I think the attrition will work both way and not just the way the Luftwaffe plans it. They have to choose between the bombers and the fighters…..historically they chose the bombers which will allow the fighters to mix it up with them as they did. In such a scenario I see the attrition war playing out very much the way it did, only with greater intensity. This is a battle the Luftwaffe, even with a couple hundred reinforcements, can't win in the end. 1943 I don't see changing that much if one goes along with a more historical time line in other theaters. With the Home Front not so critical yet, the forces in France/Germany would most likely remain as is so Regansburg/Schwein might occur much as they did......bloody enough to make the USAAF back off for months while they continue to await a long range fighter.
 
Nikademus said:
With the inevitable attrition of 44, The Luftwaffe pilot cadre will still feel the strain thus putting more greenies in the cockpit in a very hostile environment against an aggressive and numerically potent force.
Click to expand...

Would the attrition be "inevitable" in 1944? If Germany keeps control of the air in Western Europe, it might be the Allies that have this problem.

Consider: The US has to build aircraft and train pilots to send to Europe for BOTH fighters bombers, plus any pilots shot down become POW's, while most German fighter pilots that are shot down can fly again {if not KIA}


I think you are right, the remnants of the USSR would retreat east of the Urals. with a stronger drive into the Caucusas in fall 1942 {no "Stalingrad!} they have a chance to cut off the Russians before the oilfields are completely destroyed. Much like the situation in Burma Indonesia, the Aliies tried to destroy the oilfields, but were only partially successful.


Sorry, I wasn't clear enough in the original question, I expanded on it in post # 16. The most likely way for a defeated or much weaker USSR is if the Allies suffer a heavy defeat in the U-boat war.

Without Monty's Desert Army in Egypt in fall '42, I can't see the Allies launching "Torch", I think both sides will avoid fighting in French North Africa. The Allied objectives in winter 42/43 would probably be to hold on to Australia East Africa {Sudan/Kenya}, if they were to launch an offensive it would be to regain control of India China.

The Med will not not see any combat in 1943 unless the Allies can gain air superiority in Western Europe, IMO

 
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