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I also do not believe the claims of people who SAY they have investigated and found the claims to be 3 : 1, 5 : 1. or whatever.
Anyone want to clarify Chuck Yeagers' first claim to a jet, which he strafed while it was landing? Smith and Creeks' book cast some doubt on it, as the plane ran off the runway, and ended up in a barn. Yeager broke off the attack prior to witnessing this due to AA fire. It's just that the cover painting on one of Hess's book depicts a crashed Me 262, with Yeagers P51 overhead.
I've often wondered if planes destroyed/damaged on the ground are used in these tallies?
No. If the VCB determined that Yeager hit the 262 before it landed it would be an air combat victory however amusing it might be - and it was to Yeager who freely admits to 'poaching'
The most accurate claims, by any side, of the entire war was the Luftwaffe night fighters. Helped of course by the fact that the actual wrecks of downed bombers could be counted. Even RAF night fighters were not that good because some went down in the Channel, some got home after diving though clouds (though they were still very accurate by any day standards).
RV Jones recounts that when he interviewed Kammhuber he congratulated him on the accuracy of his night fighters claims.
He has got a point there..........RG Lunatic:
Sometimes after reading some of your postings i do think you honor your nickname, especially the Lunatic part.
So German people were convinced New York was being bombed?
That is very great information. I will take that as something you actually meant. Aftermath: i will put into doubt everything you have said when participating in all threads.
As Erich correctly put it, many USAAF veterans will speak fluently on the issue of " how easy" were late war German pilots. They will be glad to appear in some crappy history channel documental, speaking with a big smile on their faces: "You have to understand German pilots in 1944 where totally different from those of 1940 or 1941..."
It appeared more a process of catharsis to me rather than an honest and straight presentation of their experiences.
The big smile on the face of one of those veterans appeared being one of relief even 40 or 45 or 50 years after the termination of world war II.
I wonder if those veterans could ever explain their very high losses in Europe. What kind of stuff would they display in attempting to come up with any rational argument?
They really want to implant the notion the war the USA waged against Japan and Germany had identical patterns.
Absolutely flat and plain illiterate hogwash.
The only identical thing about fighting in both Europe and the Pacific was one: the outcome, total victory.
The path followed to gain victory was not identical though. Fighting Germany in the air was an extremely tough and vicious thing.
Unlike you and your veteran friends i do not care about the opinions of the all of you. Unlike you and your friends, I am not to repeat the same stuff over and over again wondering if it ever might become the truth.
If you continue to believe all this things it is absolutely great for me.
You apparently need some memory refreshing: throughout mid-late 1944 a bunch of "undertrained" kids became experts in digesting USAAF heavy bombers. Sturmbock.
Perhaps the propaganda of your country has never informed you of the big number of psychiatric cases amongst USA aircrews after meeting with the Luftwaffe throughout the "easy" year of 1944.
I will close this posting by reminding of you of some facts:
(i) The first nation to put a jet fighter in operation was Germany -not the USA-,
(ii) The very first jet aces in the history of this planet are guys of the Luftwaffe -meaning not from the USA-.
(iii) Several of those jet aces -Germans, not from the USA- shot down more planes than the bulk of the aces of your country.
Glider or Stona - OT but which RAF agency is the repository for the LW KE reports, and how does one research them?
Thanks in advance
Bill
Not with you, probably being dimWhich reports are you looking for?
Steve
Steve, the LW made a distinction between reporting on RAF crashes and site reports by prefacing the report number with "KE" whereas the USAAF crash site reports were "KJ" or "KU".
NARA was the physical site for the latter combined as attachments to our MACRs, and I believe the Brits have a similar place for such Luftwaffe records on RAF crash sites.
Hey Udet,
With reference to your point # 3 above, I think you are exaggerating quite a bit. The top German jet ace was
Kurt Welter with 20 jet victories. He had 63 total but only 20 in jets, perhaps 21 depending on who you believe. The second leading jet ace was Heinrich Bar with 16 victories in jets. He had 220 total but only 16 in jets.
So if you are talking kills while flying just jets, you are way off base.
If you are talking total kills, the top German aces shot down a lot more than we did but were flying in a very target-rich sky against largely poor opposition, as most people know. They also flew until they won, lost or died and didn't rotate home. The top three German aces didn't fly against the British or Americans at all ... they flew against the Soviets only.
So what is your point? That they shot down more? We know that but don't know how many since there is no vetted list of Luftwaffe victories. We KNOW they claimed about 68,000 planes destroyed in WWII, but we also know about overclaiming and don't know the real number. I would not suspect the Luftwaffe of either more or less overclaiming that anyone else, so their victories can be estimated about like the rest of the counties claims can be.
For reference, from the USAAF Statistical Digest and from the US Navy OpNav—P-23V report, we had a total of 49,730 aircraft losses in WWII counting both the USAAF and US Navy/Marines. 26,362 of those losses were combat losses and 23,.068 were operational losses. That is for the entire war, not the ETO. It includes the PTO, FEAF, CBI, Alaska, and 20th AF. I seriously doubt more than about 15,000 were in the ETO alone.
On our side, the P-51 is credited with 9,081 kills and the P-47m the bulk of which were in the ETO was credited with 6,284 kills. So we weren't all that far apart. The vast bulk of the German claims were on the Soviet Front and were largely scored early in the war. By mid 1944, the German fighter pilot on the Soviet Front wasn't doing even half as well as the German fighter pilot on the Soviet Front did in 1941.
That says nothing about the courage and training of the German fighter pilot. It says more about the training and new equipment of the Soviet Air Force relative to the Soviet pilots and planes in the early war years. It might also say a lot about the weather and who knew how to operate in it.
I don't know of ANY US veterans who claim the war in the Pacific was anything like the war in Europe. Where do you come up with this? There were very few battles in the Pacific over land and relatively few planes destroyed on the ground when compared with Europe or other non-ocean theaters. There were relatively few land battles at all. Can't think of one, single tank battle.
About your point that the undertrained youngsters learned to digest heavy US bombers, maybe the facts will help out. From Jane's Fighting Aircraft of WWII, 1946/1947 and 1989, the highest bomber losses on a loss per sortie basis were in were in 1939 (.068), 1942 (.043), 1943 (.038), and 1941 (.031). The lowest loss per sorties rates were in 1944 (.017) and 1945 (.010), with 1940 sliding in at (.023). The average loss per sorties rate for the war for allied bombers was .023, and 1945 / 1945 were the safest years of the war for bomber crews.
Sure we had 2,904 bomber losses in 1944, the highest losses of any year, but we also flew 166,844 sorties that year (252,518 long tons of bombs dropped), with the next highest yearly sortie rate being 1944 with 67,483 sorties flown and 708 losses (181,740 long tons of bombs dropped). Flying 100,000 more sorties usually guarantees more losses but, statistically speaking, it was a safe year relative to other war years. In fact, we dropped more tons of bombs in 1944 than in any other three years combined, so I'd expect some losses.
So, I don't get your point … 1944 and 1945 saw the lowest loss rates of the war. The numbers come from the amount of sorties flown, not from higher danger per sortie. And a LARGE portion were from flak.
The numbers above are for the Allies, not specifically the USA or the UK. For the USA alone, the loss rate per sortie for the B-17 and B-24 were almost identical at .0161 and .0160 respectively, but I don't have a year breakout.
For the entire war, the loss rate for the B-29 was .0132, a significant portion of which were operational losses. That is from the USAAF Statistical Digest. They weren't fond of the early R-3350 engines.
Hey Udet,
With reference to your point # 3 above, I think you are exaggerating quite a bit. The top German jet ace was
Kurt Welter with 20 jet victories. He had 63 total but only 20 in jets, perhaps 21 depending on who you believe. The second leading jet ace was Heinrich Bar with 16 victories in jets. He had 220 total but only 16 in jets.
So if you are talking kills while flying just jets, you are way off base.
If you are talking total kills, the top German aces shot down a lot more than we did but were flying in a very target-rich sky against largely poor opposition, as most people know. They also flew until they won, lost or died and didn't rotate home. The top three German aces didn't fly against the British or Americans at all ... they flew against the Soviets only.
Hartmann and Rall did fly against US. Both shot down or forced to bail out in very few sorties.
On our side, the P-51 is credited with 9,081 kills and the P-47m the bulk of which were in the ETO was credited with 6,284 kills. So we weren't all that far apart.
Greg - that has to include all P-51 and all P-47 credits for aircraft destroyed in all theatres including air And Ground - hardly a 'close' comparison.
The vast bulk of the German claims wuere on the Soviet Front and were largely scored early in the war. By mid 1944, the German fighter pilot on the Soviet Front wasn't doing even half as well as the German fighter pilot on the Soviet Front did in 1941.
That says nothing about the courage and training of the German fighter pilot. It says more about the training and new equipment of the Soviet Air Force relative to the Soviet pilots and planes in the early war years. It might also say a lot about the weather and who knew how to operate in it.
About your point that the undertrained youngsters learned to digest heavy US bombers, maybe the facts will help out. From Jane's Fighting Aircraft of WWII, 1946/1947 and 1989, the highest bomber losses on a loss per sortie basis were in were in 1939 (.068), 1942 (.043), 1943 (.038), and 1941 (.031). The lowest loss per sorties rates were in 1944 (.017) and 1945 (.010), with 1940 sliding in at (.023). The average loss per sorties rate for the war for allied bombers was .023, and 1945 / 1945 were the safest years of the war for bomber crews.
Greg. while Udet was exaggerating slightly about the Strum's effectiveness they were responsible for some huge Group level losses, notably July 7, September 27 and November 26. Additionally, the pre Sturm Luftwaffe shut the 8th AF down from long range strategic strikes for four months while the 8th rebuilt the crew strength from August-October 1943.
Sure we had 2,904 bomber losses in 1944, the highest losses of any year, but we also flew 166,844 sorties that year (252,518 long tons of bombs dropped), with the next highest yearly sortie rate being 1944 with 67,483 sorties flown and 708 losses (181,740 long tons of bombs dropped). Flying 100,000 more sorties usually guarantees more losses but, statistically speaking, it was a safe year relative to other war years. In fact, we dropped more tons of bombs in 1944 than in any other three years combined, so I'd expect some losses.
So, I don't get your point … 1944 and 1945 saw the lowest loss rates of the war. The numbers come from the amount of sorties flown, not from higher danger per sortie. And a LARGE portion were from flak.
See above - we got our asses handed to us in the August 1943 - October 1943 when losses ran near 10-25% on every mission. We had huge losses during Big Week, the March and April 1944 missions to Big B although lower percentages - but losing 700 skilled bomber crewman in one day was Not trivial.
The numbers above are for the Allies, not specifically the USA or the UK. For the USA alone, the loss rate per sortie for the B-17 and B-24 were almost identical at .0161 and .0160 respectively, but I don't have a year breakout.
For the entire war, the loss rate for the B-29 was .0132, a significant portion of which were operational losses. That is from the USAAF Statistical Digest. They weren't fond of the early R-3350 engines.