Wild_Bill_Kelso
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,231
- Mar 18, 2022
Interesting points.
The Luftwaffe in North Africa did (very generally speaking) prefer to attack fighters, but they also did initially shoot down a lot of bombers and fighter-bombers (which were pretty effective for the Allies as battlefield CAS and operational interdiction). I think what you saw in North Africa was a kind of similar arc to what happened in Russia in some ways, but also different in some important ways. The initial phase was similarly, kind of a slaughter by the Germans, though it was on a smaller scale with many 'rallies' and small corrections as each side sent in new units to kind of up the ante. In the early (or middle-early, after the first period which was Italian vs. British biplanes etc.) days the Germans were certainly wiping out a lot of Allied bombers, Blenheims and so on. More importantly, their I think simultaneously overhyped and under-rated Stuka was able to perform CAS strikes and operational / logistics interdiction (including devastating attacks on shipping) very effectively. To a lesser extent, also their Ju 88s. I believe this contributed substantially to many of their land victories.
Over time though, the Allies shifted to more effective tactics. They switched to using fast light bombers (Bostons, and Martin 167 and 187) and to fighter-bombers, with Kittyhawks and later Spitfire MkVs as escorts. As one Luftwaffe pilot put it, they still felt the Bf 109F or G had an advantage overall, but closely engaging these fighters in escort mode was "without prospects", so the Germans gradually switched to almost exclusively hit and run attacks from above, to pick off the escorts, and swoop down on stragglers. This had some attrition and morale effect on the DAF, but was not effective for them in terms of the ground war. Simultaneously and more ominously for the Germans, the Ju 88 and then finally the Ju 87 became so vulnerable to Allied fighters by the end of 1942 that they had to replace it. That eliminated an important advantage they had in the tank and infantry battles on the desert.
The biggest difference between say, Malta and North Africa vs. Russia, was that to win, the Luftwaffe together with their (I think highly underrated) Italian allies in the Regia Aerontautica, really needed to have near-parity in numbers, because their advantage in tactics and aircraft performance was narrowing rapidly toward a vanishing point (reached, arguably, by 2nd El Alamein). So the Axis forces were something like 2 for every 3 Allied planes, or even close to 1 for 1 before key battles. They still had a slight edge in outcomes in air to air combat, because their fighters had better high altitude performance and could attack from above, but they couldn't afford the near parity in attrition.
In Russia by contrast the Luftwaffe were initially able to control the sky over the battlefield with a local numerical ratio of something like 1 to 2 or 1 to 3. And still win air combat at extraordinary rates. The I-153 and I-16s, once fairly modern fighters say in the Spanish Civil War, were just too far behind for 1941-42, as was VVS pilot training, tactics, logistics etc. This is why clapped out Hurricanes and Tomahawks (often sent directly from the Middle East) were still very helpful, because they gave Soviet pilots a chance, and forced the Luftwaffe to increase their numbers. The Luftwaffe went from around 30% of their aircraft on the Russian front to closer to 50% by the time of Stalingrad, and took much higher losses of these.
When you go from "The Hardening" as I called it, into "The Pivot" circa late 1942 and early 1943, the Germans could no longer maintain a major advantage in the vast expanse of battlefields in the East with just half of their air force. But by this time, increasing fighting in the Med, especially with the invasion of Sicily in Summer 1943, and at the same time, the beginning of the USAAF daytime bombing campaign, meant that the Germans could not afford to send more planes to Russia. They needed them for home defense and the tactical war in the south. So this is one of the ways in which the many crises for the Axis started to dovetail together into a mounting catastrophe.
(Edited to reflect the ratios in the paper linked below)
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