Dog fights on the History channel

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Bill,

You mean avoid the fighters and concentrate on the bombers I would presume ? This I am well aware of, and it hurt the LW esp. in the beginning of 44, while in the end it didn't matter as much as they had to go right after their attack because of fuel shortages.

However there was good merit to the decision as knocking down a bomber was a far more costly loss to the Allies than a fighter, and it also meant one less large load of bombs dropped on German cities production plants.
 
Bill,

You mean avoid the fighters and concentrate on the bombers I would presume ? This I am well aware of, and it hurt the LW esp. in the beginning of 44, while in the end it didn't matter as much as they had to go right after their attack because of fuel shortages.

However there was good merit to the decision as knocking down a bomber was a far more costly loss to the Allies than a fighter, and it also meant one less large load of bombs dropped on German cities production plants.

Bombers after January were important but also as 'bait'. The LW lost the initiative, then control by not being aggressive about control of the airspace.

The outcome would not have been much different, but they lost control of the air sooner in my opinion.
 
Bill

yes but parts of JG 11 were based out of Denmark like at Husum, a member, really a friend of a friend of the family served in JG 11 and shot down 10 US heavies, he followed of all things a Fort on it's way back over the north Sea in July of 43 and was shot down
 
Bill

yes but parts of JG 11 were based out of Denmark like at Husum, a member, really a friend of a friend of the family served in JG 11 and shot down 10 US heavies, he followed of all things a Fort on it's way back over the north Sea in July of 43 and was shot down

Erich - which units were still at Husum in April, 1945? Dad got all of his ground scores there on April 13, including a 190D that had just landed (not very sporting)..but he didn't shoot the pilot who was last seen diving into a ditch.

Hopefully he made it through the next couple of weeks.

Roger on the distinction, as Husum and Schleswig are definitey not Germany..
 
There is a new show on Sunday nights called "Showdown: Air Combat". It is similar but uses real aircraft to illustrate technical features and computer graphics. I suspect the real aircraft are from Chino. Next Sunday is F4F vs. Zero over Guadalcanal.

The techinical stuff is pretty interesting, sitting in the cockpit of the aircrafts, showing how the guns are cocked on the Zero, etc.
 
Bill

I am going to have to dig for that, many of the LW gruppen were being stationed far north even into Denmark and surrendering even in Norway by wars end.

E ~
 
Bill

I am going to have to dig for that, many of the LW gruppen were being stationed far north even into Denmark and surrendering even in Norway by wars end.

E ~

You have higher priorities.. when you stumble on it let me know but don't waste cycles

BTW I got a complete list of the aircraft and pilots and units from Joerg on April 24 plus a German translation of the battle from one of the sources he uses.
 
There is a new show on Sunday nights called "Showdown: Air Combat". It is similar but uses real aircraft to illustrate technical features and computer graphics. I suspect the real aircraft are from Chino. Next Sunday is F4F vs. Zero over Guadalcanal.

The techinical stuff is pretty interesting, sitting in the cockpit of the aircrafts, showing how the guns are cocked on the Zero, etc.
Does anyone know if it is done by a produced or filmed by Japanese . The show sure has a crappy selection of the top 10 aces 6 american :shock:
 
i would like to see some stuff from the russian front too, and some specifc programs about the luftwaffe aces. dogfights and HC are fine, but a bit nationalist sometimes...
 
Bombers after January were important but also as 'bait'. The LW lost the initiative, then control by not being aggressive about control of the airspace.

The outcome would not have been much different, but they lost control of the air sooner in my opinion.

Hmmm.. perhaps, IMO it might actually have shortened it a little.

If German was to have any hope of winning or atleast stalling the entire war from June 44 it would require that Hitler allowed the Me-262's the role of fighter interceptors for which they were designed and built. Furthermore production of Me-262's should've been prioritized, as should work on jet engines.

Hitler also wasted a huge amount of money on projects which were completely ridiculous, one of them being the MAUS. The money spend on this project alone could've, if directed towards the development of jet engines, meant Jumo 004D equipped Me-262's mid 44. If that had happened the Allied bombers couldn't feel safe from the very moment they took off from England.
 
Hitler also wasted a huge amount of money on projects which were completely ridiculous

I believe that his most ridiculous project was the invasion of russia, the guy wanted to be greater than napoleon, eventually falling in the same hole !
 
Invading Russia was by no means a ridiculous decision, however declaring war on the US before having even half completed his quests in the east was a VERY big mistake, and what undoubtedly cost him the war.
 
Invading Russia was by no means a ridiculous decision, however declaring war on the US before having even half completed his quests in the east was a VERY big mistake, and what undoubtedly cost him the war.

i belive after invaded russia, declaring war against usa was redundant lollll

hitler put almost all of his chips on these front, i believe afrika korps should have only thwo divisions or something like that. the great effort was to reach moscow quick as possible.

freaky hitler, was in paris but didnt learned nothing with napoleon. fall in the same old russian trick, the "wasted lands" tatics. isnt that true ?

the invasion of normandy opens a new front, liberates the western countries wich was a great deal, because otherwise they could be part of soviet conquests, like poland, the balkans and east germany. stalinism, gulags, repression, etc...

thanx god he declared war against usa lollll
 
No JugBR, the Soviet Union would've fallen had the US not stepped in, there's no doubt about it. The western front took up much needed material and manpower.

As for the tactic you're talking about, it is called the 'scorched earth' tactic, and it did work to some extend but it wasn't this which hurt the Germans the most, that was the harsh winter they had to endure without winterclothes (Again a stupid decision by Hitler to withhold much needed winterclothes and send ammo instead), and the shortage of antifreeze which meant the fuel in their tanks froze up. Furthermore the deprivation of manpower material to the west was equally hurtful.
 
yes, in portuguese is called "terra devastada" so i translated it to english.

how damaged was the luftwaffe and the wehrmarch after russia failure ?
 
Failure ?

The Russian VVS was litterally being slaughtered in air right untill the end of WW2, the reason being that they were flying at low alt, in inferior a/c and against the most experienced German pilots in the LW. It wasn't the eastern front which proved esp. challenging for the LW (despite the bad weather ofcourse) it was the west during 1944 where they had to go up high to both fight off hundreds of bombers and then have to deal with escorting fighters as-well that they were having a really hard time.
 
yeah thats true soren, the score of the best german pilots always is something like 200 rusians + 20 american/english. the germans are the pilots with largest number of kills, mostly of those kills was russian planes !

but russians have a large number of german kills also, piloting migs and yaks, mostly airacobras. btw the airacobra is a true legend for the russians.

should be the weather conditions of russian front also a barrier for the luftwaffe ?

if you dont mind to translate some brazilian portuguese thats a nice site about luftwaffe, i think you should like to see:

Ases
 
No JugBR, the Soviet Union would've fallen had the US not stepped in, there's no doubt about it. The western front took up much needed material and manpower.

I think your wrong on this ...They would of come back in time ..They would of moved east as they did ..Got all there ducks in a row..And came back...The German were way to spread out ..The Germans did not have anuff men or weapons and never should have tried to take the amount of land they tried to take ..One of the tactics of the Russians is to fall back into the next line of troops and get the enemy strung out ... They have so much land they can afford to loose it ...I two front war is a no no for a small country like Germany.. Countrys like the US and Russia can do it ..More man power and weapons ..To start a war with no natural resources and think you can raid the countrys you take over is a bad move ...It did not work with the Japanese or Germans..

Don't kid your self Soren ..The Russians drug them east until the Germans ran out of steam ...There's no way in hell the Germans would of beat the Russians .. Maybe the Germans would of won some land short time ...But not won the war agains the Russians ..After the Germans ez run of western Europe ..They were thinking that no one could stop them.. And why would they ..But were fools to think no one would ever stop them ..
 
The only one kidding oneself here is you Hazytoys. You're totally disregarding the amount of men material assigned to fighting the western allies and ho far the Germans actually came even without it. The mere addition of winterclothes would've secured Stalingrad, preventing some 300,000 men dying of cold.

The USSR would've fallen had it not been for the huge amount of men material needed on the western front, there's no doubt about it.

As noted had the German troops in Stalingrad merely had winterclothes then the city would've fallen, from which point on the German would have a strong foothold in the USSR from which to combat the remaining Soviet forces. And with the taking of Stalingrad the caucasus region was soon to follow, fueling the German army for the rest of the way through the USSR.

Stalin knew this, hence him being only a day away from negotiating truce terms with Hitler, being sure he would soon lose the city and the war with it.

The Germans did not have anuff men or weapons and never should have tried to take the amount of land they tried to take

Because of the western front.
 

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