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Oh gosh ratsel, I see another difference of opinion raising its head. My view is that from 41-44 the LW was generally never at a numerical disadvantage. Thats because it chose its attacks, and only chose to fight where it held a local advantage. Over france in 41, they nearly always would decline engagement, unless they could see a local advantage. Over Germany in '44, DG has conclusively shown time and again that despite a numerical advantage for the allies frontwise, in terms of total aircraft, in terms of fighters protecting bombers over the target, the LW nearly always massively outnumbered the allied escort forces.
In the east, as a generalization, and excepting the first summer campaign of 1941, VVS was nearly always outnumbered in a local sense. Germany was on the offensive, and was adept at concentrating its forces over the Schwerpunkt. VVS were pretty much incapable of doing this in a cordinated way until Kuban. Even after Kuban, VVS strategic concepts always emphasised broad front strategy in the air, so that even after mid '43 LW would hold the advantage locally in the battles it chose to fight (in terms of fighters), but overall, suffered an increasing numbers imbalance on a frontwise basis.
North Africa, which I assume you would include Malta, the LW rarely fought at any local disadvantage. They would choose their fights, and in those fights would achieve significant local superiorities. This continued right up until Alamein. Its about the strategic priorities of the opponents. allies and Soviets knew they were at a disadvantage individually against a technically superior foe, so they "decentralised", to maximise their numeric advantages. They would be fighting and inflicting losses on the Germans on a wide scale, whereas the germans took a much more restricted approach to the usage of their airpower. Both allies were fighting for a long term strategic vioctory....german theory was about quick and opportunistic uses of air power. one gave short term, battle specific advantages, the other was a long term invesment in winning an overwhelming strategic advatage....the longer this battle went on, the more pronounced the victory became.
German approach and application of air assets worked well until they lost the initiative in that theatre. once on the defensive, they would lose the initiative, and be forced to disperse their effort. once that that happened, the numerical imbalances at a theatre level rapidly showed the weakness of the german strategy....qulaity without numbers in an unconcentrated environment, is going to lead to an inneffective force, unable to hit targets with sufficient weight to make a difference.
Oh gosh ratsel, I see another difference of opinion raising its head. My view is that from 41-44 the LW was generally never at a numerical disadvantage.
This is interesting view, because German memoire all say disadvantage in numbers was very important in Africa, Eastern Front, Western Front. Perhaps they all know wrong. Also we know from strenght numbers this to be true.
Can you show some "general" example when LW actually outnumbered foe in these ttheatres you mention, oppose to common perception?
then whats the point? but I think I see what your saying. one can ask 1000 luftwaffe pilots what the situation was.. but 1, 2, 10 USAAF docs say about the 365th reporting they engaged 287 Me 109's with there 10 P-51's automatically means the entire ETO/MTO was like that. most likely they were counting the same plane 3 times. the number of COMBAT ready luftwaffe a/c just wasn't there.We can agree to disagree
nobody's arguing that the Germans were not masters of warfare. but to counter your points, the LW launched 986 a/c on 1.1.45 to attack allied airfields. does that mean they had superior #'s in 1945? I don't think so. what about local superiority? well almost 1/2 of the aircraft shot down were hit by flak/AAA on 1.1.45. still think they had local superiority? you seem to underestimate the allied strengths my friend. I'll say again, Rall expressed time and time again, along with may other LW pilots, along with unit diaries that they were outnumbered.
the LW were locally superior on the Ost front becouse of superior #'s? again, I don't think so.. russians kept sending waves after waves of a/c. and the same LW pilots were shooting them down wave after wave. JG 52 for example.
don't get me wrong, I understand what your saying. some local areas were very well covered by the LW. but as a whole, not by a long shot.
mmm I see another thread duel brewiing/fermenting.. both Parsifal Ratsel are thrusting and parrying with near identical logics, true enough points, and minor heartfelt differences of opinion.
The same way Leonidas defended the pass against numerically superior Persians. The VVS flew predicatably, always to the same locations, with a single mindset. The German were in a perfect position to take advantage of that tactic.This is mixing strategic superiority with local superiority. The Germans on the eastern front were technically outnumbered, and therefore should have lost air superiority from the first day of the war. There were far more Russian aircraft in the VVS inventory than there were Axis aircraft. yet no-one can seriously argue that on the 22 June 1941, the Russians held air superiority.
So if the germans didnt have the numbers, how is it that in every offensive engagement up to and including Kursk they managed to dominate the airspaces over their battlefields (in the east, but we will examine allied situations a bit later I expect).
clearly the Allied AAA had been the real menace for the German attack force. Almost half of the total losses can be directly attributed to Allied AAA. The other major factor was Allied fighter aircraft, which in several cases were already in the air or in the process of taking off.Fixing the time of attack at 09.20 hrs. for all units simultaneously resulted in the fact that several Allied fighter units were already airborne. Furthermore, when these Allied units were able to engage the attackers, they were in better position than the German attackers flying low on the deck. Added to this should be the general poor training standard of the young inexperienced German fighter pilots, which gave them literally no chance. This resulted in particularly heavy losses among JG 1,JG 3,JG 6,JG 11 andJG 53. In some cases Allied units had taken off at 08.00 hrs. This was approximately 20 minutes earlier than their German attackers, although their airfields were further east so daybreak would have been earlier. It is believed that several Jagdgeschwader were in position to take off 45 to 60 minutes earlier than they actually did.The problem with it is that it can never be independantly decisive....only a portion of the defenders will ever be destroyed, and unless the land campaign to which the air op is being flown is 100% successful and forces the surrender of the opposing force, the friendly efforts are bound to fail. This is precisely what happened to the bodenplatte operation. At the moment and the point that the remaining German airpower was released, it possessed air supeiority, but it was bound to fail, because the land operations that the force was designed to support had long since been decimated. It was only a matter of time before the front wide allied forces, so obviously superior would grind such a pathetic effort paste....