Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
Thats exactly it, it takes much more then the Allied airforces combined. Take a unit like say JG 52, they didn't follow Oberkommando Der Luftwaffe 'doctrine' as outline, and were very sucessful, even right to the very end. Others, mostly in the west mind you, followed OKL and were much less sucessful.
Now if they had the proper fighter pilot training, and dedicated night fighter force, and enough pilots dedicated to home defence, before the BOB, I shutter to think of what the results may have been.
Even with all that lacking, they did on hell of a job, you must admit.
Cheers.
The document Stona suggested at the start of this thread is very clear: Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe 1933-1945
I also would like to say that some people, including myself, objected the idea that the Eastern Front proved to be the decisive theater of WWII. However, this is a fact. And as a matter of fact, Hitler's strategy to deal with Britain and the US necessarily needed the USSR conquered and it's resources obtained - which as everybody knows, failed..
The other way around. Germany needed Britain out of the war,before the US entered it,in order to turn her attention to her true objectives in the East. Defeat France,force Britain to terms and have a quick and decisive war in the East. It nearly worked.
No,they stopped with Britain.
Germany may have defeated the USSR had help not been available,but the Anglo-American alliance would have been a step too far. Ultimately Germany would have been out muscled by the USA.
Isn't it amazimg how two people can draw entirely different conclusions from the same information!
It was Britain's stubborn survival that forced the Germans to fight a war on two fronts,the very thing all their pre-war "diplomacy" was aimed at preventing.
The German force fighting the British was a mere 30 000 men of Rommel, two JGs in the West, and submarines. None of that was missed in the East - 30 000 men was a drop in the ocean of 3 million Axis troop, the LW enjoyed clear air superiority until about the mid 1943, and subs are not very good on the steppe.. it was anything like the actual two front war of WW1.
And about the submarines again, someone can confirm me this, from a discussion in other forum:
each U-boat cost 5 million marks to build. The Germans built over 1000. A panther tank cost 117 thousand marks. That means about 40,000 german tanks were not built so that the Germans could wage the war of the atlantic.
I do not think the resources can be straight converted to make a comparison. For example, could about 1 million tons of lower grade steel for 1000 subs be converted into 1,8 million tons of armor grade steel (alloys.. industrial capacity etc.) for 40 000 Panthers? Could the diesel fuel required by sub converted to petrol to fuel tanks? Could 1000 high velocity gun of 8,8-10,5 cm calibre, large radio sets of subs, a couple of thousend large MAN diesel production converted into 40000 long 7,5cm tank guns, and 40 0000 smaller Maybach petrol engines..? Could 50 000 submariners for 1000 subs become 200 000 tank crews..? You get picture..
What 'two fronts'? The British left the continent in 1940. They did not come back. They could not..
Jenisch, why do you lament about some people that may claim that Soviets single-handedly defeated Germans in WW2? At least in this forum the Allied victory/ Axis defeat is always pictured as a result of joint effort (rightly so).
For me, it's just knocking on the open doors.
It's impossible (and offensive) to say the Western Allies didn't also played a pivotal role in WWII.