German aces-post 1944

[Erich]

sorry have been away and must leave again due to some urgency.

there were a total of 35 LW a/c lost on 27. 09. 44 due to a multitude of causes, this does not mean there were 35 pilots lost in action. this is from official German documentation via the logbooks of JG's 3, 4 and 300

E

 

[drgondog]

uh oh more flys in the ointment my friend...........for July 28,44, there were 32 Bf 109G-6's flying from JG 302 and JG 27. they were soon vectored south while the SturmFw's of JG 300 stayed on course protected by 15 109G-6's of I./JG 300 flying a 1000 ft higher. In fact the only recognized kill for JG 300 this date was from a Bf 109G-6 pilot who shot down a B-17 north of Naumburg at 10.12hrs.
As you said ace Hirschfeld was shot down and bailed out but his chute did not open and also ace Gerhard Bärsdorf who had 10 kills to his credit.

I./JG 3 lost 6 Bf 109G-6/AS in aerial combat but places are unknown and no times. I./JG 302 shot down B-17's and B-24's plus a P-51 between Hof and Neustadt in Bavaria. It appears that 2 Bf 109G-6's from 1st and 2./JG 302 were lost to P-51's.

and yes thanks for the note about Don, etc.........

Erich - what time and location for Barsdorf? and what was he flying?

 

[parsifal]

Cant compete with you guys in terms of knowing the details of specific missions, but neither do I think this clarifies the issue of comparative losses. What I do know is that the ETO and MTO became an increasingly safer place for the USAAF to fly as the year progressed. Just looking at fighter losses for the USAAF, to understand the statistical chance of being shot down, IMO one has to look at the total number of ftr sorties per month (A), and divide this by the number of fighters lost to enemy air action (B), to obtain the number of sorties flown per loss (c)
A/B = C
Appying this formula on a monthly bases, one arrives at the following

Jan: 208
Feb: 184
Mar: 336
Apr: 159
May: 251
Jun: 334
Jul: 525
Aug: 466
Sep: 369
Oct: 391
Nov: 557
Dec : 441

The higher the number, the more missions are being flown before a loss is sustained. There are a number of conclusions that can be drawn from this, starting with the fact that the Luftwaffe was continuing to resist in the air, from the beginning to the end of the year. however, there is also a clear trend that shows that the USAAF was suffering less and less losses as a percentage of it forces structure as the year progressed. The Luftwaffe, for whatever reasons, was becoming less and less able to resist effectively as the battle progressed.

My source for this analysis was the USAAF Statistical Digest for WWII

 

[Njaco]

The loss of airfields to the LW I would think would also contribute. The Allies were taking forward airfields on the mainland and didn't have to fly the Channel so much IMHO.

 

[parsifal]

someone also submitted a post that suggested along the lines that the sole reason that for the USAAFs victory over the Jagd waffe was numbers. But at the risk of drawing the ire of certain elements in this forum, i have to say that I dont see it that way. I'll start by saying its partly true. The sortie rate in the USAAF was much hiher than in the LW. In the battles in January, Allied fighters flew something like 17000 to just 3500 by the LW (roughly). Clearly, the US was doing a lot more flying than the germans. However, the suggestion that the total number of American fighters was increasing is a false one. The proof is in the number of combat groups attached to the theatre. The USAAF started the year with 33 combat fighter groups, and it finished the year with exactly the same number. LW strengths fluctuated a lot more, At the beginning of the year, there were something like 2300 pilots in the LW fighter force. Of these, according to Prof Murray ("Luftwaffe Attrition 1943-45", University of Oklahoma), about 1690 could be considered "operationally ready". By November the strength of the Jagdgruppen had risen again to about 1900 pilots, having reached its nadir in September. However, the huge difference was a qualitative one. Whereas up to the end of 1943, the Germans were able to give on average 166 hours of flying time to its pilots (compared to 225 hours for the Allies), by September this figure was down to an average of 112, with only 10-20 hours on actual combat types. By comparison, the average experiance of the USAAF fighter pilots was soaring at about 500 hours. Small wonder then that in the big battles of November, the losses were so lop sided in favour the allies. My figures show that in fighter versus fighter engagements, the Germans were losing about 6-8 fighters for ewvery one US Fighter they managed to bring down. Even the overall numbers a horrible. For every Allied aircraft being shot down, the Germans in daylight combats were losing about 5 of their own. I should concede however, that these figures are approximate, because not all of the Luftwaffe records survived the war

Quoting Murray yet again, on average monthly Luftwaffe combat losses to its fighter forces were running at between 20 and 30% (depending on which month). Thats an average loss rate of between 400 and 700 pilots per month. Whether or not people choose to accept those figures, I really dont care, the facts are that the Luftwaffe was not able to keep pace with the losses it was sustaining throughout 1944, and as a result was forced to constantly raid its training cadres to comb out trainee pilots to maintain its strength. The less well trained the pilots, the higher the attrition rate, the higher the attrition rate, the more that training regimes had to be cut. It was a vicious, inescapable cycle. And given that the numbers game argument just doesnt add up, it is the only way that the massive losses of November can be explained IMO.

 

[KrazyKraut]

someone also submitted a post that suggested along the lines that the sole reason that for the USAAFs victory over the Jagd waffe was numbers.
...
Clearly, the US was doing a lot more flying than the germans. However, the suggestion that the total number of American fighters was increasing is a false one. The proof is in the number of combat groups attached to the theatre.

I don't see how this contradicts with the above simplification "the US won by numbers", though. Certainly you would agree that the number of planes in the air is what matters and to my understanding the best indicator for this is the number of combat sorties. Your figures only show that the number of Allied fighter groups wasn't increasing in 1944 and that is because it was very high from the beginning and there was obviously no need to do so. The allied pilot force was far from running at maximum capacity and the increase of (novice) LW pilots could be countered "out of the box", with the pilot force that was already available.

Small wonder then that in the big battles of November, the losses were so lop sided in favour the allies. My figures show that in fighter versus fighter engagements, the Germans were losing about 6-8 fighters for ewvery one US Fighter they managed to bring down.

I kind of doubt there is any possible way to isolate enough incidents to make a fair comparison. I have no doubt that average pilot quality in the Luftwaffe was sub-par from mid '44 on but these X losses for Y planes shot down simply contain many variables (e.g. relative strength of the opposing forces on that occasion, individual objectives of the opponents) and I doubt you will find a lot of incidents where they were meeting on completely equal terms. So yeah, while pilot quality was detoriating badly, these statistics will not give you a good picture.

And overall, this does not disprove the statement of your first paragraph. If 100 P-51s jump on 40 Bf-109s/Fw-190s who are tasked with shooting down 60 B-24s I have little doubt the outcome will be devastating. The truth is in between. I personally think the vast numerical advantage was the enabler for allied air supremacy. It enabled them to shoot down enough human capital during the first half of 1944, that they could rule in both numbers and quality from then on.

 

[lesofprimus]

I agree with both u guys... Very well thought out and pretty much on the money....

 

[Vincenzo]

My figures show that in fighter versus fighter engagements, the Germans were losing about 6-8 fighters for ewvery one US Fighter they managed to bring down. Even the overall numbers a horrible. For every Allied aircraft being shot down, the Germans in daylight combats were losing about 5 of their own.

I've many doubt over actually of this figure if i remember right the total loss in europe of us and uk is like a 30000 aircraft and luftwaffe loss are less (and it fight also the soviet union). if lw loss so many, how you tell, aircraft in late 44 and 45, what's the rate in 41/43 10 allied for a lw aircraft???

 

[Vincenzo]

see on usaaf digest i find this number for ETO
1945 fighters loss (from enemy aircraft) 227, fighters in the air claims (they call it enemy loss we know this are only claims) 1362

so this a 1:6 rate (and this is not a fighter vs fighter) and this are claims not real lw loss

add info
for 1944
1293:5602
for 43
161:451

 

[parsifal]

My point for making my earlier posts was this....you cannot understand the full extent of the forest, by looking at each individual tree. The individual tree analysis comes later, after the general trend is observed and understood. In this case, the "forest" is what happened to the LW overall. The first thing is that the LW lost. The second is that it suffered a lot of losses to get there. On this point it cannot be pinned down exactly, because the primary records are not complete any more. However, it is a lot (I will try and get back to that point later).

Now getting back to the USAAF, the first thing that one can observe is that they won, and by a very wide margin. The second thing is that whilst the USAAF achieved local superiority again and again (per KKs post, which I pretty much agree with), the overall superiority in numbers is largely a furphy. The USAAF started 1944 with 33 combat groups and finished it with the same number. And the combat experience of its flyers increased from somethng like 300 hours at the beginning of 1944, to well over 500 hours by the end of the year.

By contrast, the German experience dropped dramatically, from around 166 flight hours at the beginning of the year, to about 100 hours at the end of the year. The reason for this was because the training schools just could not keep up with demand, and when you look at the output of the schools, this means that German losses for each month have to be running at above an average of 500 pilots per month. Actually I strongly suspect that the number is closer to 700 per month. So whereas the aircrew losses for germany must be running at around 6-8000 for the crucial year of 1944, those of the USAAF are 1734 (ETO MTO, fighters only). Now, when the numbers are pretty close to evenly matched (in late 1944, the germans still had roughly 1900 fighters in the reich defences) and the germans are still flying aircraft that are competitive in performance, and the sortie rate is climbing again (indicating that they found fuel from somewhere), but they still lose something like 28% of their fighters in a single month (November) then the only explanation can be that German pilot quality had fallen through the floor. Add to that the fact that the number of sorties flown for every fighter loss in the USAAF had more than doubled in the year, and the conclusion becomes inescapable, by late 1944, the experience pool of the LW had collapsed. As far as I can tell, there just isnt any other explanation that is plausible

 

[drgondog]

My point for making my earlier posts was this....you cannot understand the full extent of the forest, by looking at each individual tree. The individual tree analysis comes later, after the general trend is observed and understood. In this case, the "forest" is what happened to the LW overall. The first thing is that the LW lost. The second is that it suffered a lot of losses to get there. On this point it cannot be pinned down exactly, because the primary records are not complete any more. However, it is a lot (I will try and get back to that point later).

Now getting back to the USAAF, the first thing that one can observe is that they won, and by a very wide margin. The second thing is that whilst the USAAF achieved local superiority again and again (per KKs post, which I pretty much agree with), the overall superiority in numbers is largely a furphy. The USAAF started 1944 with 33 combat groups and finished it with the same number. And the combat experience of its flyers increased from somethng like 300 hours at the beginning of 1944, to well over 500 hours by the end of the year.

By contrast, the German experience dropped dramatically, from around 166 flight hours at the beginning of the year, to about 100 hours at the end of the year. The reason for this was because the training schools just could not keep up with demand, and when you look at the output of the schools, this means that German losses for each month have to be running at above an average of 500 pilots per month. Actually I strongly suspect that the number is closer to 700 per month. So whereas the aircrew losses for germany must be running at around 6-8000 for the crucial year of 1944, those of the USAAF are 1734 (ETO MTO, fighters only). Now, when the numbers are pretty close to evenly matched (in late 1944, the germans still had roughly 1900 fighters in the reich defences) and the germans are still flying aircraft that are competitive in performance, and the sortie rate is climbing again (indicating that they found fuel from somewhere), but they still lose something like 28% of their fighters in a single month (November) then the only explanation can be that German pilot quality had fallen through the floor. Add to that the fact that the number of sorties flown for every fighter loss in the USAAF had more than doubled in the year, and the conclusion becomes inescapable, by late 1944, the experience pool of the LW had collapsed. As far as I can tell, there just isnt any other explanation that is plausible

Certainly one of my favorite areas of study.

Prior to Allies occupying France and Belgium, the air battles in the ETO had two dimensions - Cross Channel/Coastal Countries and Germany/Beyond.

For Cross Channel the Allies had RAF TAC, 9th AF P-47 and P-38 and 8th AF P-47 Fighter Groups. The 9th did not use the P-38 for Escort into Germany but did use the 354th FG Mustangs from Dec 1, 1943 through mid August 1944 and the 363rd FG from late Feb 1944 to May 1944.

So, Target germany was the sole domain of the 8th and two 9th AF Mustang Groups plus two, then three 8th AF P-38 Groups through May 1944.

I've discussed this more than enough times to bore the crap out of everybody but the facts are pretty clear. The Mustang groups did the major damage to LuftFlotte Reich. JG 2 and JG 26 engaged but dominantly they resisted RAF, plus 8th and 9th AF P-47s over Holland, France and far west GY. LuftFlotte Reich was arrayed against one, then two, then 5, then 6 Mustang Groups from Dec 1, through May 1, 1944 plus two P-38 groups until March 6, 1944 going to three until Mid May when 479th appeared.

LW heart was cut out in those five months with respect to many leaders and experienced wingmen..over Germany, not Lowlands.

The descriptions of "700" escorts for "1000" bombers meant "500" P-47s that stopped and turned back at the German Border and "200" Mustangs/Lightnings escorting the 1000 over three to 7 different targets... against whatever concentration of 500 operational single engine fighters and 150 t/e fighters that LW controllers decided would attack that day, and where..

That is why the description of hordes of Mustangs in one area attacking is so much hyperbole until the 8th AF had completely converted its 15 FG to Mustangs and by god, 750 Mustnags could be covering 1500 bombers.

The latter made it more difficult for the LW to get 4:1 local superiority at one location in the bomber stream - and by late October/November the overall skills of the LW had deteriorated to point where far fewer Mustangs could carve up the attackers.

 

[parsifal]

I agreee with just about all of your points. Now I am going to display my ignorance, so i apologize in advance....But I did think the P-47s and the P-38s had their extended ranges increased gradually throughout 1944 by the use of biger and bigger drop tanks. They never had the legs of the Mustangs, but theeir range did increase enough to provide fighter cover over a significant proportion of germany, didnt they...or is this an urban myth.....

 

[drgondog]

I agreee with just about all of your points. Now I am going to display my ignorance, so i apologize in advance....But I did think the P-47s and the P-38s had their extended ranges increased gradually throughout 1944 by the use of biger and bigger drop tanks. They never had the legs of the Mustangs, but theeir range did increase enough to provide fighter cover over a significant proportion of germany, didnt they...or is this an urban myth.....

The P-38s had the range.. they just didn't contibute much to the destruction of the LW in contrast to the P-47 and far less than the P-51. The P-51 had roughly the equivalent of the P-47 and P-38 Combined in air to air scores in the ETO.

My theory of the relatively poor success of the P-38 is twofold. One the dive brake kits didn't arrive for the P-38J's until May 1944 - by that time the 364th FG, the 20th and 55th were starting to convert and the new 479th had the factory mod dive brakes. So, until the dive brake mod was available the 109 and 190 could escape with a simple split S and dive.

The second factor is in my opinion, is that the BIG P-38 was distinctive, easy to see first, and either avoid or stalk.

The later P-47s had more fuel but not enough until the P-47M to get to central germany. IIRC the 56th FG made its FIRST berlin mission in early 1945, after all the other P-47Ds were turned in for Mustangs.

8th AF planners could have mixed more P-47s into missions beyond Kassel, Hannover, Stuttgart but still needed Penetration and Withdrawal forces to cover the Bombers all the way from the Coast to P-51 R/V points to and from the deep targets. That way the 51 could cruise at much higher speeds to conserve fuel to say Munster or Marburg, then start the "ess" process for close escort - all the way to and from the target to Withdrawal R/V where Jug or even RAF escorts would carry them back to the Channel.


When the Invasion Prep started in May and continued through the Break out, there were Many Medium/Light Bomber missions that drew escort from 9th AF and RAF TAC that pretty well saturated the Invasion forces and that included diverting strategic 8th AF attacks (along with normal deep escort Mustangs) to Marshalling yards, etc all over France and Belgium and German border - making that area very crowded indeed.