P38 vs P47 vs 109 and 190

[pinsog]

If you want the plane that broke the back of the Luftwaffe it was the P51.

Don't forget pinsog the Spitfire did its business in the Battle of Britain and the MET, areas of strategic importance, particularly from the British point of view.

I always seem to forget about the MET and North Africa, I havn't studied those campaigns nearly as much as the others, and yes the Spit was an important aircraft in those theaters.

Some interesting theories being posted here, I agree the P38 would have been at the very least competetive with the 109 maybe even dominant, and I still think it could hold its own against the 190.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Keep in mind that fighter claims from bombers were overclaimed by as much as 60%.

This is, if anything, an under representation of the claims of fighters downed by bomber gunners.

The RAF rule of thumb for large daylight formations was eight claims for every actual kill, and even this could now be considered generous. During the unescorted daylight bombing in 1943, bomber gunner overclaims were typically ran at 10-15:1, sometimes approaching 30:1.

 

[davebender]

I wonder how many of those claims were shot up P-47 escort fighters?

 

[drgondog]

With the company front approach LW units managed to make passes on heavy bombers then brak off without having to engage Lightnings at all. Only really the arrival of the P-51 and the change in US fighter doctrine really countered this.

Sounds easy but didn't work out that way unless the LW was able to be directed to locations where 8th AF fighters were missing. On a clear day with no cloud cover fighters in gaggles were easy to spot many miles away. In cloud cover it was possible to hide and look for an opening but the bombers were connected to their specific escort via C Channel to bring help quickly.

The days of mass successful attacks were few after April 29, 1944.. they occurred but perhaps only 8 or so times after April 29 when 15 or more bombers from one Division were downed by LW. Off hand May 12, July 7, September 12, 27-28, November 2 and 26 come to mind.. probably more but not many.

Lightnings scored very well on July 7 and September 11 but disappeared from 8th AF in mid September.

 

[riacrato]

That was well after the turning point though. Even older P-40s could've had considerable success at that point. Especially if used for strafing airfields.

 

[davebender]

Even older P-40s could've had considerable success at that point.

I would not bet on that. Germany had plenty of operational aircraft right up to 1945. For instance they employed about 1,000 aircraft for Operation Baseplate on 1 January 1945. I would not care to tangle with a Fw-190A8 while flying a P-40.

 

[MikeGazdik]

The P38 was quite successfull in the escort role. The LW had to engage them or they were going to be blasted from the air. And while the LW was busy with the P38, they couldnt concentrate on the bomber formations. Also, untill the AAF implemented the fighter sweep strategy, the escort fighters were tethered to the bomber formations and their true effectiveness was hampered.

The P38 might have been inferior in an air-to-air role against the -109 and -190. But the P38 was far superior to the -110 and any other two engine fighter the LW had going up against bombers. And woe to any -109 or -190 pilot who didnt take the P38 seriously.

Hey, Im a P-38 fan. I would take on anything in a P-38L. All I am saying is that until the later marks, they were problematic in Northern Europe. About the time the J and L were up to speed, they were mostly pulled from duty with the 8th AF.

 

[Hop]

When I said the 47 broke the Luftwaffes back, I have read that more than one place. I guess if I were to define that, I would say it was in the fight when the Luftwaffe was the strongest and still had a well trained experienced group of pilots, took the fight to them(because of longer range) and caused them serious losses. By the time the Mustang arrived on the scene in numbers, the Luftwaffe had been seriously roughed up and had lost alot of experienced people that were being replaced by MUCH less experienced pilots

The Luftwaffe really started losing quality with the losses in the Battle of Britain. A fairly large part of the pre war pilots, who had spent years training, were lost then. From the history of JG 26 by Caldwell:

. But the significance for Germany lay not in the number of casualties, but in their quality. Most of the German pilots lost in 1940 were professional soldiers and airmen, with extensive pre-war training. Men of the calibre of Buerschgens, Ebbighausen, Ebeling, Henrici, and Mueller-Duehe were quite literally irreplaceable. The number and quality of fully trained, professional combat leaders available to the Jagdwaffe began a definite, if at first imperceptible decline that fall, while the British were reinforced by successive waves of highly trained pilots from the occupied countries, the Empire, and finally, America. The seeds of the total defeat of Germany's fighter force in 1944 were thus sown over the fields of Kent in 1940.

From Strategy for Defeat by Williamson Murray:

By the beginning of 1942, the Germans had lost the equivalent of two entire air
forces . The result was that the Germans had to curtail their training programs to
meet the demands of the front for new pilots . By January 1942, of the pilots
available for duty in the fighter force, only 60 percent were fully operational, while
the number in the bomber force was down to 47 percent. For the
remainder of the war, the percentage of fully operational fighter and bomber pilots
available, with few exceptions, remained below, and at many times substantially
below, the 70 percent level . Further exacerbating this situation was the fact that the
Germans were forced to lower their standards for a fully operational pilot as the war
continued . There was, one must note, no decisive moment in this decline in
expertise . Rather as Winston Churchill has suggested in another context, the
Luftwaffe had entered the descent from 1940 "incontinently, fecklessly . . . . It is a
fine broad stairway at the beginning but after a bit the carpet ends . A little further
on, there are only flagstones ; and a little further on, these break beneath your
feet".

The Luftwaffe lost 200% of it's force strength by the end of 1941. In 1942 they lost 150% of the fighter force. In the first 6 months of 1943 they lost another 120%, then another 150% in the second half of 1943.

And it's worth pointing out it wasn't just the USAAF inflicting those losses in the second half of 1943. The Luftwaffe lost 5 100+ aces in the second half of 1943, 2 were killed by the USAAF, 1 in an accident and 2 by Spitfires.

 

[drgondog]

Hop is correct.

On the other hand the Luftwaffe defeated 8th BC in fall of 1943 and was inflicting even heavier losses on RAF BC because the LW had control of the air over Germany - which the RAF FC (plus 8th/9th) could not dent until Mustang.

 

[riacrato]

You can't fight a war without casualties can you? The problem were not the losses, more RAF pilots were killed over France in 1941-42 than LW. The problem was the decline in training quality.

 

[Kurfürst]

The Luftwaffe lost 200% of it's force strength by the end of 1941. In 1942 they lost 150% of the fighter force. In the first 6 months of 1943 they lost another 120%, then another 150% in the second half of 1943.

And...?

Fighter Command lost some 50%+ of its force in a one and a half month period in May-June 1940, and then they lost some 200% of the force again in next the four months during the BoB. The Luftwaffe, in contrast, didn't loose more than the half the fighter force during the same period, nor did the losses prevented the Luftwaffe from expanding its size through the war. One of the reasons why Fighter Command largely became a non-issue for the rest of the war - apart from the lack any coherent and meaningful offensive strategy, or long range fighters - was that it lost virtually all of its highly trained pilots during the spring summer of 1940. The ranks could be filled up with hastily trained replacements, but they had neither the skill, the military background or the combat experience of the professional pre-war RAF pilots. And it showed in 1941 and 1942 over France.

Murray is simply demagogue in this case anyway. 'Lost 200% of it's force strength by the end of 1941' - yup, pick a long enough period and you will eventually come up with 100%, 200%, 300% and even higher numbers.It is meaningless the same without a context, and in this case, the context was that
a, Allied air forces suffered this kind of attrition much sooner, see RAF FC in BoB
b, the LW, despitite these losses, continued to expand

 

[JoeB]

Battle of Britain or 1941 is ridiculously early to talk about 'breaking the back' of the LW fighter arm. The fact is the BoB *was* a sobering experience for that fighter arm, but LW fighters generally improved their performance v British fighters for the next at least 2 years (perhaps 3). In many cases that was helped by the tactical situations prevailing: the Bf109 was at its best in quite short ranged operations, so were most British fighters. When either one was on escort or fighter sweep duty at the edge of its range and the other defending, the defending one had a natural advantage, a situation which doesn't apply as much to later matchups of the Bf109 or 190 with much longer ranged fighters. But including that effect, British fighters were generally at a serious disadvantage to LW ones in kill ratio terms until at least 1943; well they had been even in the BoB, but a lot more so in campaigns like 1941-2 over France, Western Desert in same period, etc. The German fighter arm was sustaining itself in quality terms in that period, perhaps even improving relative to the Allies. That only changed considerably later.

I think people might say the P-47 'broke the back' of the LW because a famous book said so, but I agree it's oversimplification at best. And similar to the situation in Pacific I often mention, the tendency based on war time accounts from Allied side is to accelerate the qualtiative decline of the Axis fighter arms to before it really occurred. In LW case sharp decline did not happen before 1944. And then stuff like lack of fuel and safe training areas to properly train replacements were becoming factors, not just combat losses.

Joe

 

[DAVIDICUS]

I have read in more than one place that the Luftwaffe had lost a good many of its experienced pilots by the time the Mustang was commonplace in the theater.

Anyone have any stats on that or any thoughts about that claim?

 

[claidemore]

And...?

Fighter Command lost some 50%+ of its force in a one and a half month period in May-June 1940, and then they lost some 200% of the force again in next the four months during the BoB. The Luftwaffe, in contrast, didn't loose more than the half the fighter force during the same period, nor did the losses prevented the Luftwaffe from expanding its size through the war. One of the reasons why Fighter Command largely became a non-issue for the rest of the war - apart from the lack any coherent and meaningful offensive strategy, or long range fighters - was that it lost virtually all of its highly trained pilots during the spring summer of 1940. The ranks could be filled up with hastily trained replacements, but they had neither the skill, the military background or the combat experience of the professional pre-war RAF pilots. And it showed in 1941 and 1942 over France.

Murray is simply demagogue in this case anyway. 'Lost 200% of it's force strength by the end of 1941' - yup, pick a long enough period and you will eventually come up with 100%, 200%, 300% and even higher numbers.It is meaningless the same without a context, and in this case, the context was that
a, Allied air forces suffered this kind of attrition much sooner, see RAF FC in BoB
b, the LW, despitite these losses, continued to expand

Luftwaffe fighter and fighter pilot losses during BoB are lower than RAF fighter and fighter pilot losses, because the RAF was primarily after the bombers. But then we all know that.

Exactly where did the pre-war RAF professional fighter pilots get their combat experience?

RAF losses in 1941/42 were not due to poor pilots skills on the part of the RAF, they were due to a disasterous policy of cross channel raids and escorts for little or no tactical or strategic value. A stupid and wasteful strategy that brings to mind the mentality of the never ending 'over the top' charges of the Great War.

The "non-issue for the rest of the war" Fighter Command certainly seemed to be a bit of an issue when it became 2TAF. They did ok in the MTO too, as I recall.

 

[JoeB]

RAF losses in 1941/42 were not due to poor pilots skills on the part of the RAF...

"Poor" skills is a loaded term that would tend to turn the discussion more nationalistic and less rational than it already, often, tends to be. But it's hard to escape the conclusion that LW fighters were more effective plane for plane than British in that period. Also look at North Africa where neither side was operating at the edge of range, but just a typical support/opposition of recon and bombing a/c over a land battlefront, like WWI Western front air combat (where the Germans also had large kill ratio advantage for extended periods) or that on Eastern front in WWII. The Germans had a commanding kill ratio advantage over the Western Desert (and in Tunisia later as well), despite consistently inferior numbers. A particularly large ratio against Hurricanes and P-40 types, but it not by any means reversed in '42 when Spitfires V's were used there. The German fighter arm was not declining that early in the war: combat results just don't support that thesis.

And I also don't think that air combat results in general support the theory that fighters escorting bombers are at a big advantage in fighter combat to fighters intercepting escorted bombers. The escorting fighters typically have to worry more about fuel (depending the fighter types and range of the operation, but the Bf109 had to worry about it a lot raiding UK from France or Malta from Siciily) and morale wise the escort pilots have to worry more what happens to them if they survive a downing: it's more difficult psychologically to fly agressively. But again for RAF v LW in 41-42 we can look at a variety of tactical situations and the result was fairly consistent, German advantage. In bigger picture terms the war had by then a reached a point where Allied (including Soviet) air arms had more potential to absorb losses, but 41-42 is way too early to talk about German fighter quality declining, not relative to their opponents anyway.

Joe

 

[drgondog]

"
And I also don't think that air combat results in general support the theory that fighters escorting bombers are at a big advantage in fighter combat to fighters intercepting escorted bombers. The escorting fighters typically have to worry more about fuel (depending the fighter types and range of the operation, but the Bf109 had to worry about it a lot raiding UK from France or Malta from Siciily) and morale wise the escort pilots have to worry more what happens to them if they survive a downing: it's more difficult psychologically to fly agressively. But again for RAF v LW in 41-42 we can look at a variety of tactical situations and the result was fairly consistent, German advantage. In bigger picture terms the war had by then a reached a point where Allied (including Soviet) air arms had more potential to absorb losses, but 41-42 is way too early to talk about German fighter quality declining, not relative to their opponents anyway.

Joe

Joe - good summary IMO -

The German high command emasculated the LW Fighter Arm by insisting, under penalty of court martial, that the LW interceptors NOT engage US excorts - solely attack the bombers. Those orders gave the new US pilots a great deal of time to refine operational skills and all weather skills out of the UK - so that by the time the Mustang was available, the 'in flight housekeeping' was routine and the experience gained in 1943 blended with aggressive tactics when Doolittle turned the 8th FC loose on the LW in January 1944.

 

[drgondog]

I have read in more than one place that the Luftwaffe had lost a good many of its experienced pilots by the time the Mustang was commonplace in the theater.

Anyone have any stats on that or any thoughts about that claim?

Anecdotally, the LW had lost many experienced pilots from West based units in 1943. These losses hit JG26 and JG2 as well as units in the south such as JG27 and 77.

However, staring in late 1943 the LW transferred more than 20 squadrons from the East and South into LuftFlotte Reich for the defense of Germany. These are the forces that were arrayed against the Mustang for the battles over Central, East and Southeast Germany where the refineries and aircraft plants were located. Additionally, the fighter forces based in western Germany did not suffer the same attrition because the Jugs didn't go past Koln and Koblenze so the s/e and t/e day fighters simply waited until the Jugs turned back.

The few P-38s that were available starting in Oct 43 (55th) and Dec 43 (20th) were simply too few and ineffectual to escort 36+ bomb wings into Germany.

The effect was to transfer many experienced fighter pilots from the Russian Front to the cauldron that was the Battle of Germany for control of the air in the February, 1944. At that timeframe the max reach of the P-47s was Dummer Lake and only two Mustang Groups and two Lightning Groups were available to cover the same three Bomb Divisions from England.

There was actually better coverage from 12th and the new 15th AF from the south as 3 very experienced P-38 Groups could go to Munich.

 

[DAVIDICUS]

Thanks. You are always a wealth of good information Bill.

 

[drgondog]

Thanks. You are always a wealth of good information Bill.

Thank you. I'm still digging.

I have all the totals for all the 8th FC by a/c type (and losses) and now triaging the daily scores.

I just wish someone on the 'other' side would do the same for the LW.

 

[syscom3]

"breaking the back ..." might be one of those myths that everyone likes to quote, but no one has pondered what facts are involved in that assertion.

First of all, just what is the definition of "breaking the back of the LW"? Killing enough LW pilots so that their efficiency goes way down? Forcing a change in tactics from an aggressive daily challange to the bombers, to one of avoiding the escorts and only attacking on a periodic basis?

I seriously doubt the P47's broke the back of the LW. They were continually being on the sidelines as P38's and P51's were the ones that went deep into Germany. And through out the first 1/2 of 1944, the P47 groups were converted to P51's on a monthly basis.