- Thread starter
- #21
tbfighterpilot
Airman
- 36
- Jun 11, 2011
The same book claims that time of attack was set at 9:20. It also states that many (most?) of the losses inflicted by Allied fighters occurred after 9:30, mostly around the bases they were defending.
Another fail of the planning was that quite a few of front-line crossing routes chosen were just above the areas of bitter ground battles, where Allies have had decent amount of AAA assets. And by 9:30 the AAA guarding Allied airfields was ready to harm the attackers.
Another thing that was going against LW fighter units was that many of young pilots were having hardly any experience of ground strafing, not to mention strafing of a target defended by AAA. Hence they've inflicted less damage, while experiencing greater losses.
The German fighters also had to face some of their own AAA, along with the AAA defending the bases.