Dog fights on the History channel

Kruska said:

Hello Soren,



Missing In Action - JG 11

This list actually only accounts for 6 pilots from JG 11 killed on that day; however I wouldn't know if this list is reliable or complete.

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Kruska - that list is all about MIA, not KIA/WIA or POW or Evade.. for example, Rall was GruppenKomandeur of II/JG11 when he was shot down on 12 May by Joe Powers and WIA - but not on that list.

I have had a really tough time finding sources other than the usual group of Prien, etc with fairly good lists based on a lot of contacts - but LW records are virtually nil from Fall 1944 - forward... and almost non-existant on a/c damaged or written off, say after a belly landing.

Soren
"23 German a/c shot down for no losses is pure fantasy."


JG 11 lost 26 KIA, MIA and PoW plus two a/c from which pilots survived unhurt. Source Manrho's and Pütz's Bodenplatte, most thorough and the best book on the subject.

Juha

Soren said:

That sounds a lot more reasonable. 23 German a/c shot down for no losses is pure fantasy.

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Fantasies can be strange.

There were more than one or two examples of that kind of lopsided battle between 8th FC and LW. The much discussed 26 November mission was a 26-0 day for the 355th engaging JG1, JG6 and JG301. Here are a few more that I picked out.

357Fg only lost 3 on the 54+ destroyed day on 14 January,1945 - the 20th bagged 20 for no losses on the same day and the 55th also bagged 20 for no losses (air) and one to flak.

the 354th FG was attacked on the deck on 23 March, 1945 and scored 20 for no losses

352nd bagged 23 for no losses on 1 January, 1945

364th bagged 25 for loss of 1 on 31 December, 1944

357th destroyed 31 for loss of 2 on 24 December, 1944

56th destroyed 36 for loss of 3 on 23 December, 1944

357th destroyed 22 for loss of 1 on December 5, 1944

339th destroyed 29 for loss of 2 on November 26, 1944

355th destroyed 26 for no losses on 26 Nov

361st destroyed 22 for no losses on 26 Nov

352nd destroyed 21 for no losses and 339th destroyed 20 for no losses - air, three to flak- on 21 Nov

352nd destroyed 42 for two losses on 2 November..On the same day the 20th scored 28-0 and the 55th did 18-1

Note - in non of these engagements did the attacking 8th AF fighters 'greatly' outnumber the LW...in most cases they were out numbered in the engagement area.

We also know the awards were probably overstated and the skill of the LW pilots had greatly diminished from the first six months of 1944

I've tried to cite just the days that approached or exceeded 20 awards in a day for a specific group.. but here are some earlier days running up to September, 1944.

4th 18-1 on 16 August, 1943

56FG 22-0 on November 26, 1943 and 18-0 on December 11, 1943 and 16-0 on Januray 20, 1944 and 27-3 on March 8

The 357th scored 19-0 on 6 March but half of those were Me 110's

The 56th scored 24-1 on 15 March 1944

The 355th scored 18-0 on 16 March, 1944

The 357th scored 27-2 on 11 April, 1944

The 4th scored 18-0 on 22 April, 1944

The 352nd scored 25-1 on 8 May, 1944

The 357th scored 23-3 on 27 May

The 357th scored 17-0 on 30 may

The 357th scored 22-0 on 29 June

The 56th scored 21-1 on July 4

The 55th scored 19-0 on July but 7 were Me 410s, and 25-1 on 11 September

The 357th scored 26-1 on 18 September the 25 for loss of 5 the next day - all on the deck

The 479th scored 28-0 on 26 September - then 13-0 the next day.

A quick look in Manrho's et al book shows that JG 11 managed to shoot down one P-47 from 366 FG and one other was so badly damaged that it was forced to belly-land on Asch. One other P-47 and one P-51 were also substantially damaged but both managed to land on Asch
According to the book 2./Lt. Dofel J. Brunetti from 366 FS/358 FG was shot down during the combat with III/JG 53 and became PoW.
Juha

Soren said:

23 German a/c shot down for no losses is pure fantasy.

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JG 11 losses during Bodenplatte from Prein and Rodeike - Jagdeschwader 1 und 11:

Well if I recall my uncle's situation reports from mid 44 to the end of the war, I find these kill/loss claims by the USAAF quite reasonable.

According to his estimation only about 2-3 Luftwaffe pilots with a 3-4 year history were matched by about 50-70children just arriving from flying school or having served less then 2 month and 5-10 pilots with more then 1 year experience. Almost half of those accompanying missions went already missing on the first day. Sometimes losses were so high that even after 2-3 weeks more than 70% of the aircrafts and pilots were lost.

The squadrons remained without action for several weeks until new aircrafts and children arrived partially with their new machines. What worsened the situation according to him was the fact that those pilots who had managed to survive the past 4-8 month usually had engine troubles or reported sick, making way for these hothead kids wanting to save the fatherland and blindly believed in German superiority that had been taught to them in school for the previous 10 years and wasn't corrected at the flight schools.

Regards
Kruska

someone should look into the 14 Janaur 45 mission for the LW it was terrible

the operation is being translated right now by a friend for a French magazine in the near future. it was a horror story and the losses were to be worse than ever for the LW after Bodenplatte. Kruska is so very right during late44 but definately 45 what were the future pilots of the LW Schulen going to do ? they had to get out in the a/c and practice manuevers and tactics but how could they possibly do this during daylight hours and so close to their airfields with being pickep up by Allied escorts dropping down on them..........well after the terrible bombing raids and the Fighters had gone back to escort returning bombers, but of course tis did not happen each and every time

Well I thought we were refering to one action, not the totals for an entire day. There's no doubt that by late 44 to 45 most LW pilots were young untrained hotheads, standing little chance against the well trained experienced Allied pilots.

Like Erich pointed out, the new pilots barely got room to learn to fly without getting shot down in the process.

Soren said:

Well I thought we were refering to one action, not the totals for an entire day. There's no doubt that by late 44 to 45 most LW pilots were young untrained hotheads, standing little chance against the well trained experienced Allied pilots.

Like Erich pointed out, the new pilots barely got room to learn to fly without getting shot down in the process.

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You are right as is Kruska.. but for the award/losses I just threw up the 'loss' side of the 8th AF ledger is very accurate - the difference of course is when a US pilot went down in Germany, he truly was a 'loss' even if he escaped or became POW. But there were quite a few 10-15 score, 1-3 loss battles between 8th AF and LW from July, 1943 forward when the skills were still high in the LW.

The Awards are reductions from claims but seem to be substantiated in the 80-90% range, particularly when a bellied in 109 was counted as a kill - not knowing that it might be repaired and go on the LW books as Damaged.

Having said this Soren, all of the above tallies are one unit 8/9th AF against one or more (usually more than one) LW Gruppes in the same space on one mission.

I also remember one of the conversations with Galland at the Aces Tucson reunion some 30 years ago - and the topic was my relatively low time in the 51 and he exclaimed "I would have only dreamed of a student pilot with your experience in 1945" - which was a shock to me at the time.

Erich said:

someone should look into the 14 Janaur 45 mission for the LW it was terrible

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From Girbig:



357th FG claimed 56½ in their battle of January 14 1945 for the loss of 3 pilots and aircraft. JG 300 and 301 admitted 69 casualties stemming from this battle. Aircraft lost where pilots crash landed or bailed successfully without injury are, as usual, not listed. The 20th FG may have got some kills in this fight too.

Couple of interesting links:
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mustang/357-mission-summary-14jan45.pdf
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mustang/357-unit-history-jan45.pdf

The LW achieved quite a high Kill/loss ratio against the Allies in 43 though, despite the introduction of the P-51B. The reason for this was in part that the engagements were at that point mostly at medium alts and not at 25-28kft, but also because the German pilot training program had at that point not been drastically shortened as it would be in 44.

Soren said:

The LW achieved quite a high Kill/loss ratio against the Allies in 43 though, despite the introduction of the P-51B. The reason for this was in part that the engagements were at that point mostly at medium alts and not at 25-28kft, but also because the German pilot training program had at that point not been drastically shortened as it would be in 44.

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Also because the LW picked and chose when to fight

Soren said:

The LW achieved quite a high Kill/loss ratio against the Allies in 43 though, despite the introduction of the P-51B. The reason for this was in part that the engagements were at that point mostly at medium alts and not at 25-28kft, but also because the German pilot training program had at that point not been drastically shortened as it would be in 44.

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Soren - the LW should have scored very well from mid to late 1943 - but in general did not - because of the orders imposed on rules of engagement with fighters.

The P-38's in general took the highest losses until the Normandy Campaign where the LW was able to catch 8th and 9th AF fighters (particularly P-47s) on the deck in CAS.

What did you have in mind re" quite highkill/loss ratios?

in part to Bill's answer in 43 till wars end the LW in it's air capacity still did not have effective workings with it's own Flak ground defensive force, there was still too much competition and this occurred time and again over the larger German cities esepcially at night when the Lw night fighters had to fly through their own AA to attack the heavies

BTW Soren - there are numerous examples of superior ratios of victories to losses air to air over USAAF fighters ranging from North Afrika and MTO to ETO in the 1943 period.. I certainly not implying otherwise.

I did do some study on the subject and believe the highest number of fighter losses from one Group was 14 P-38's (one 9th AF, one 15th) and some of those were from flak.

And huge ratios of LW fighter to 8th AF/RAF bombers until summer of 1944.

The two worst days for USAAF 8th AF in 1942 and 1943

26 Sep 1942 4th FG, Spit V's, escort.

1-11 in which 4 shot down in air, 2 lost to flak and 5 running out of fuel.


13 Nov and 29 Nov, 55th FG, P-38's, escort

7-7 all air, and 2-6 all air

For 1944, the following represent the highest single day losses for 8th AF

11 Feb, 20th FG, P-38's, escort

2-8, 7 air one flak

6 June, 4th FG, Mustangs, caught on deck

0-7 all air.

18 August, 4th FG, Mustangs, caught on the deck

7-9 all air (Worst Mustang loss - air to air)

10 June, 78th FG, P-47s, caught on the deck

7-10 (worst air to air loss for P-47s)

12 June, 353rd FG, P-47s, caught on the deck

14-8 all air (second worst loss - p-47s)

4 March, 363rd FG/9th AF, Mustangs

0-11 all weather over N.Sea (worst Mustang Loss in ETO)

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Whoa Udet you've got the book and the authors all wrong. Ron is deceased and John knows quite abit about Allied/LW coverage; his next venture is with A. U. on completing the book covering JG 6.

lets face reality here, 01.01.45 was a death trap for the LW in ALL respects there was absolutely nothing good that came from it, no-one on this board or any other forum can argue to affirm that it helped the LW. The casualties for the LW were terrible as the authors admit, if anything the LW was not prepared at all for this mission the only guys that got it half right were the German crews operating Ju 88G-1 and G-6's and when they were shot down the Kommandeurs of the S/E in some cases got lost, and you are incorrect to assume that most LW records are lost, they are covered quite well in the Prien and privately published books on the units such as JG 4 and 26.................it was a disaster

Soren - the LW should have scored very well from mid to late 1943 - but in general did not - because of the orders imposed on rules of engagement with fighters.

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Rules ? What rules ?

Soren said:

Rules ? What rules ?

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Avoid the fighters.

Only JG2 and JG26 were within Fighter range of all of the 8th AF, 9th AF and RAF for inbound bombers. LuftFlotte Reich was built up at the outer ring of P-47 range and attacked the bombers with bot s/e t/e day fighters and t/e night fighters as the escorts turned back.

Goering expressly 'forbade' the LW to go after the fighters - effectively neutering an aggressive LW when the USAAF fighter pilots were new and inexperienced.

In my opinion it was a very stupid decision - many of the those same LW pilots that didn't get much initial combat experience as replacements versus USAAF or RAF fighters were later crucified when the Mustangs went all the way.

Bill

do not forget JG's 1 and 11, the four were the upper crust of the Reich defense in 1943