Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
Luftwaffe is willing to lose 1,000 light bombers (Ju-88 or Me-410) to accomplish the mission.
Can it be done?
But willing to accept a thousand losses or so ON D-Day might be enough to break the landing if they target the beaches themselves.
How many Allied single engine fighter aircraft could operate effectively at night?
During this stage of the war the German air units had, decreased in strength from 400 early in the year to an average of 100-140 aircraft; losses amounted to 8 to 10. During May the G.A.F. raided Bristol, Portsmouth and neighboring coastal waters, as well as Torquay and Falmouth. The formations showed a further marked decline of between 50 to 100 aircraft.
8.This decline was a clear warning. It showed that the fighting potential of Luftflotte 3 was being sacrificed to retaliation propaganda at a time when the Allies might any day spring the decisive operation of the war. In the place of a planned economy of forces in,attacks on the allied invasion fleet, and instead of building up moans of wireless communication and control, Luftflotte 3 prepared for a possible landing mainly by putting out of action coastal airfields and landing grounds and setting up a "circular system" of defense on other airfields, air force supply depots and ammunition dumps.
The British, on the other hand, made 2-3,000 daily sorties arid kept firmly to their objective. It was hopeless from the outset for Luftflotte 3 to attempt to wrest air supremacy over western France from the Allies with six fighter Gruppen and three night fighter Gruppen as their whole available strength. Towards the end of March, for example, 107 planes were destroyed on the ground in two days. Out of nine railroad bridges between Rouen and Paris only one was fit for use; the junctions in the Paris zone were almost wholly destroyed and the rolling stock had suffered considerable damage; from the end of February to the end of March, 399 railway engines had been totally wrecked. Yet the defense of the Reich would not permit of any change in the allotment of forces in favor of the west.9.From the point of view of the air force there could be only one conclusion, namely, that all the odds were on the side of a successful allied landing operation.
Thus:
a.Allied shipping, air units and troops were assembled and fully prepared for action.
b.G.A.F. striking power was slight, its fighter defense weak and its ground organization badly damaged.
c.German communications in the west and consequently supplies for army, air force and navy, were seriously affected.
d.The Allies possessed absolute air supremacy in the west.
It was therefore extremely probable, given satisfactory weather conditions, that the allies would invade.
Placed under the command of Generalmajor (Major–General) Dietrich Peltz, Luftflotte 3 (Air Fleet 3), the Germans assembled 474 bomber aircraft for the offensive. The operation ran parallel to Bomber Command's campaign against Berlin. The attacks were mainly in and around the Greater London area. In Britain, it was known as the Baby Blitz due to the much smaller scale of operations compared to the Luftwaffe's operations over the British Isles in 1940–41.[2]
The operation achieved very little, and the force suffered a loss of some 329 machines during the five months of operations—an average of 77 per month—before it was abandoned. Other senior Luftwaffe commanders, such as Hugo Sperrle, had intended to use the bomber force against the Western Allied invasion fleet, which he predicted would land in Northern France sometime in the summer of 1944.
Eventually, the revenge attacks gave way to attempts to disrupt preparations for the impending Allied invasion of France, codenamed Operation Overlord, but Steinbock had worn down the offensive power of the Luftwaffe to the extent it could not mount any significant counterattacks when the invasion began in June 1944.
Apart from the numbers of conventional medium and heavy level bombers, the Luftwaffe also employed a number of fast bomber types, such as the Ju 88S (a cleaned up and boosted version of the Ju 88A-4) or the Messerschmitt Me 410 Hornisse and a number of fighter-bombers, known as Jabos in the Luftwaffe. These were more difficult to intercept due to their great speed, but carried limited payload and with less accuracy compared to the conventional bombers.
Hitler was reportedly outraged that the Luftwaffe failed to find London though it was only 150–200 km (93–120 mi) from German ground control stations while the British were hitting German towns, not just city targets, from 1,000 km (620 mi) away in bad weather. Peltz responded that the failures owed as much to the Luftwaffe's lack of interference-free radio and navigational aids as to untrained crews, and that the British with their H2S and Gee systems were technologically ahead of the Germans. The lack of dedicated pathfinder units also caused navigational problems, as the few aircraft employed in this role were more at risk from electronic counter-measures and fighter interception. The heavy British defences forced the Luftwaffe to fly meandering 'dog-leg' courses and inexperienced German crews quickly got lost. Reconnaissance flights over England had also stopped, which prevented the Luftwaffe from gathering intelligence on British radar and radio frequency bands.
Pre-war Luftwaffe multi-engine aircraft crew were all night qualified. Does anyone know what, if anything had changed by late 1943?
Presumably those operations would be cancelled so Germany could assemble enough aircraft, crews and fuel for the large scale spring 1944 effort. Just as fall 1944 Germany husbanded aircraft for Operation Bodenplatte.
The pre-war and early war Luftwaffe crews were very highly qualified, arguably the best trained corps of airmen in the world at that time.
Cheers
Steve
1 April 1936. Enlistment in Luftwaffe. Lehrgant I training.
Recruit training similar to Heer.
7 August 1936.
Lehrgant II training.
Basic and advanced flight training.
7 June 1939.
First flight in Me-110.
25 August 1939.
I./ZG76 (including Helmut Lent) transferred to Ohlau airfield for operations against Poland.
.....Total flight training almost three years (after subtracting time off for motorcycle and automobile accidents).