Strategies for defense 1944-45 (1 Viewer)

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Thats a challenging point to support. In terms of the engines actually built, the Allied ones were better. Usually the point is made of the better thrust/unit area of the German axial types but the Metrovick F2 also exists. It offers more thrust, much lower fuel consumption, lower weight and greater lifetime. By 1945 you've got the F2/4 offering even more thrust with lower fuel consumption.
When would you have mass production of the F2/4 available? 1946?
You've also got in 1945 the F3 and F5 turbofan and UDF running successfully offering 40% lower fuel consumption and 100% more thrust (4600lbf and 4800lbf respectively with sfc 0.66). The 004, 003 and 011 don't come anywhere close to competing on these technical issues - but are easier to produce with the limited resources available.
Because you are comparing apples and oranges. Turboprops and -jets. Besides that, turboprops are not all that practical for fighter aircraft.
The one German advantage, that they had been forced into studying air cooled turbine blades which eventually worked so lower amounts of specialised materials could be used. The German engines were suited to the type of war they were fighting and their restrictions. The Allied ones were better optimised for their war and peacetime postwar.
The main German advantage was choosing two engine categories early on, developing a set number for each and (more or less) killing all the other programs. If they chose the right ones is very debatable, but this way, they were able to actually field them. Imo British and German jet engine development was about on par in terms of being technically advanced. However the choices made by the Germans allowed them to field comparably cheap turbojets, which additionally could've been easily scaled up for more power. That never really came to pass though.
 
When would you have mass production of the F2/4 available? 1946?

Difficult to say as the axial jets had low priority compared to the centrifugal types. The F2 was running in 1941 and in the air in 1943. With some more problems in productionising than the centrifugal types likely, I'd guess at a similar timescale to the Derwent. Add a zero stage compressor for greater pr and mass flow and you've got the Beryl. Productionising takes funding away from development though, and the centrifugal types are more reliable and easier to build.

Because you are comparing apples and oranges. Turboprops and -jets. Besides that, turboprops are not all that practical for fighter aircraft.

Which turboprops?. The F3 was a turbofan, the F5 an unducted fan. No gearbox involved. Both give large increases in thrust and large decreases in fuel consumption for this flight regime. Easiest to fit into the Meteor nacelles and a whole bunch of other designs used the F3, usually buried or semi-buried wing installations.

which additionally could've been easily scaled up for more power.

Thats debateable. With a single spool you've got limited scaling options (even more so with the mixed flow compressor of the 011) besides building bigger, but its a lot more complicated than that. If more power is needed, increase rpm for greater mass flow (but not possible with the 004 due to vibration) or increase TET (which just happened before the end of war, up to 870°C). Increasing rpm means lower efficiency and higher stress but greater mass flow rate and higher pr and lower fuel consumption. Increasing TET means reduced life and higher fuel consumption but more thrust.
 
DD, don't think we disagree on this point, but by reading your post I see I might not've explained part of the focus for the LW with their fighter intercept.

I was thinking the escort would be broken down into four stages.

Short Range Inbound (Base to German Border)
Long Range Inbound (German Border to Target)
Long Range Outbound (Target to German Border)
Short Range Outbound (German Border to Base)

My focus of the true destruction of the bombers would be from the German border to the target and back to the border. The fighters I am considering for interecept are fighters in that realm, not the fighters covering up to the German Border. To my mind, there really isn't much you can do about them.

I do not think the LW had much chance against the Allies over the low countries and up to the Border. Too many fighters and too much raw power (Fighters, light, medium and heavy bombers). But by focusing on the Long Range Escort, a smaller population of fighters, the LW could've held off the fighters long enough for the heavy fighters to destroy the bombers in numbers enough to make Strategic Bombing ineffective.

To my mind, the weakness of the Allies was the long range fighter. Even after the Mustang showed up, it was still a relatively small population of fighters for the most part. It grew quickly, but was not focused on by the LW. However, I may be mistaken in that the LW did recognize the weakness but just found themselves with a tactical problem that they could not solve.
 
Which turboprops?. The F3 was a turbofan, the F5 an unducted fan. No gearbox involved. Both give large increases in thrust and large decreases in fuel consumption for this flight regime. Easiest to fit into the Meteor nacelles and a whole bunch of other designs used the F3, usually buried or semi-buried wing installations.
I'm sorry, I just noticed my mistake, I meant turbofan. The point remains the same though. Unless the bypass ratio is rather small, like for example with an EJ200, turbofans are not practical for a fighter. The decrease in specific fuel consumption you mentioned indicates a large bypass ratio and thus large frontal area. How large a frontal area and how much weight did the F3 have? I have no info at hand and don't know much about the MetroVicks.



Thats debateable. With a single spool you've got limited scaling options (even more so with the mixed flow compressor of the 011) besides building bigger, but its a lot more complicated than that. If more power is needed, increase rpm for greater mass flow (but not possible with the 004 due to vibration) or increase TET (which just happened before the end of war, up to 870°C). Increasing rpm means lower efficiency and higher stress but greater mass flow rate and higher pr and lower fuel consumption. Increasing TET means reduced life and higher fuel consumption but more thrust.
What's TET? turbine exit temperature (T4.5)? I assume spool is what we would call Welle in German? If so then many later jet engines, like J79, still did fine with a single spool and the 004H already would've had 2.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but with a radial compressor, if you want to increase surge, you sooner or later have to either add another impeller stage (not feasable with the whittle desingn iirc) or increase diametre of the existing significantly. Which in turn will lead to a larger frontal area and more importantly will result in a redesign of larger parts of the engine.
The Jumo 004 could be (and was) relatively economically scaled up by simply adding a few compressor stages and scaling diameter up by a few cm. Theoretically, you could do this ad infinitum. If you take the 004H (2 stage compressor, 2 stage turbine) plus air-cooled turbine blades you basically have the basic features of many engines that are still running.
 
DD, don't think we disagree on this point, but by reading your post I see I might not've explained part of the focus for the LW with their fighter intercept.

I was thinking the escort would be broken down into four stages.

Short Range Inbound (Base to German Border) Penetration
Long Range Inbound (German Border to Target) Target
Long Range Outbound (Target to German Border) Target then Withdrawal
Short Range Outbound (German Border to Base) Withdrawal

My focus of the true destruction of the bombers would be from the German border to the target and back to the border. The fighters I am considering for interecept are fighters in that realm, not the fighters covering up to the German Border. To my mind, there really isn't much you can do about them.

To inflict more casualties on the bombers, IMO, you must attempt to force the hand of the Long Range Escort before the German Border is reached. For the Mustang that was critical point where the internal fuselage fuel tank was low and the drop tanks were initiated. It is at this point that the 51 has its highest vulnerability (climbing, 80+ % full internal fuel). Half the range is in the drop tank.



To my mind, the weakness of the Allies was the long range fighter. Even after the Mustang showed up, it was still a relatively small population of fighters for the most part. It grew quickly, but was not focused on by the LW. However, I may be mistaken in that the LW did recognize the weakness but just found themselves with a tactical problem that they could not solve.

Actually, they recognized the problem at the Galland level and below but Goering specifically forbade the LW to do anything but attack the bombers.

The issue in 1943 was far too few fighters in ETO. The issue in early 1944 was far too few Mustangs and too many P-38's (given its current high altitude performance and easy recognition issues)... and the early 51-1 and -3's had nagging problems with radios - then guns jamming, then wheel uplock issues and a couple of engine mount bolt failures - each slowing full deployment - not to mention none of the replacement pilots had any experience in 51s (all the stateside training would have been P-40/39 and 47)

The advantage of attacking the early 4th, 56th and 78th and 353rd - in force and focused - would have been to cull several to many of the future combat leaders like Gabreski, Zemke, Blakeslee, Schilling, Duncan, Meyer, Preddy, etc BEFORE they acquired steady experience and honed instinctive skills against the 109 and 190. These leaders were the force multipliers and very, very few were ever shot down in air to air combat.

The lack of focus in this area made it far easier to get their (8th AF FC) feet wet, gain confidence and develop successful tactics - all major factors in turning the tide from November 1943 through May 1944.

Then my other suggestion was to strike the 8th AF airfields in early morning. A few successes forces the RAF and 8th and 9th to divert resources to defense, taking away from the strategic role.
 
I'm sorry, I just noticed my mistake, I meant turbofan. The point remains the same though. Unless the bypass ratio is rather small, like for example with an EJ200, turbofans are not practical for a fighter.

The bypass ratio was fairly small, the fan is only a couple of inches in height. For subsonic aircraft, the greater thrust and propulsive efficiency more than makes up for the increase in drag due to greater size. With greater speed this decreases so you have low bypass jets pure jets optimised for M1+ and M2+

I don't have a figure for the diameter but judging from my photos, the F3 is about 45" diameter, pretty similar to the centrifugal types which had no real problems fitting in Meteor nacelles. Weight was 2300lb and gave 4600lbf.

What's TET? turbine exit temperature (T4.5)? I assume spool is what we would call Welle in German? If so then many later jet engines, like J79, still did fine with a single spool and the 004H already would've had 2.

Turbine Entry Temperature or TIT, turbine inlet temperature. Things are more complicated than they seem. The J79 had variable angle stator vanes so you could adjust the pr and ease starting problems. Its not simple though. The 004H had two spools, like a lot of other paper engines. Power Jets were building the LR1 turbofan with two spools. Realistically you're creating something that is more complicated and requires more maintenance, for which its probably not worth it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but with a radial compressor, if you want to increase surge, you sooner or later have to either add another impeller stage

Do you mean pressure ratio, not surge? Peak efficiency for a centrifugal single stage compressor is around 4.0 and 80%, which was achieved with these early engines. The Dart with a higher pr of 5.5ish went to two stage because its more efficient for that pr. For increased performance, the axial types can be better. The advantage the centrifugals have is simplicity and reliability.

The Jumo 004 could be (and was) relatively economically scaled up by simply adding a few compressor stages and scaling diameter up by a few cm.

You run into problems with the blade stress increases, being more prone to surge with the increased pr, greater Mach number reducing efficiency. Its not a matter of "simply" at all.

If you take the 004H (2 stage compressor, 2 stage turbine) plus air-cooled turbine blades you basically have the basic features of many engines that are still running.

Was it best for what was needed at the time? No, which is why single spool turbojets and centrifugal types still dominate the low end of the market. Its only when you need greater thrust and lower fuel consumption (other factors as well) that more spools are useful. For the long range big jets the three spool Trent reigns supreme in terms of performance, but its not designed and built in the US so only has 40% of the market.

Lots of people had the same ideas, but Whittle's simple engine worked reliably despite offering lower performance. The most advanced engine would be Griffith's CR.1 contrafan with a high bypass ratio fan, high pr and novel 32 individual spool design for maximum off peak performance, but it didn't work with the technology of the time.
 
"To inflict more casualties on the bombers, IMO, you must attempt to force the hand of the Long Range Escort before the German Border is reached. For the Mustang that was critical point where the internal fuselage fuel tank was low and the drop tanks were initiated. It is at this point that the 51 has its highest vulnerability (climbing, 80+ % full internal fuel). Half the range is in the drop tank."

Right, that was my point. Somewhere over the coast of France or Holland would be good. Trick is avoiding the shorter legged escorts, spotting the deep penetration escorts and getting them to commit. That, to my mind, is going to make France and the Low Country fighter pilot heaven. Lots of engagements all over the place between fighters with all sorts of missions.

It is interesting in that the defense we have cooked up has some of the characteristics of the BOB defense, with the Spits going after the fighters and the Hurris going after the bombers. However, the difference is our plan uses France and the Low Countries as something of a buffer to strip away the fighter escort before the German border. Intercepts of bombers aren't supposed to occur before that point. Up to then, it is strictly (in theory anyway) a fighter on fighter enterprise.

Also, the initiative lies with the LW on the attacks. As such, the attacks take something of a "raiding" characteristic. Attacking the enemy quickly and effectively then taking off. Slashing attacks for the most part (again, up to the German border, after that, in an escort free environment, the heavy fighters could take their time and chew on the heavy bombers for a while) against the fighter escorts with the intent of causing them to react.

I have doubts the strategy could be effectively employed 100% of the time. There will be plenty of instances of the Escorts catching the Heavy Fighters attacking the stream and slaughtering them (and event we want to avoid). But the general plan seems to be viable, especially as the raids go deeper into Germany.
 
I have been reading Eric Mombeeks, Defenders of the Reich. It is a history of JG1. It seems that at the beginning of 1944 the main problem facing the Lw was the heavy presence of allied fighters. The Geshwaders were outnumbered heavily. There were times when P-38's and P-51's would patrol right over the Lw airfields making takeoff almost impossible. As soon as a FW or Me would take off an allied fighter would swoop in and shoot it down. Much of the time a Luftwaffe fighter pilot would have to try to disengage from a melee being outnumbered 5-1. The Lw still had their victories but the good ol days were gone for good.
How could this be countered, or could it even be countered in 1944?
 
I have been reading Eric Mombeeks, Defenders of the Reich. It is a history of JG1. It seems that at the beginning of 1944 the main problem facing the Lw was the heavy presence of allied fighters. The Geshwaders were outnumbered heavily. There were times when P-38's and P-51's would patrol right over the Lw airfields making takeoff almost impossible. As soon as a FW or Me would take off an allied fighter would swoop in and shoot it down. Much of the time a Luftwaffe fighter pilot would have to try to disengage from a melee being outnumbered 5-1. The Lw still had their victories but the good ol days were gone for good.
How could this be countered, or could it even be countered in 1944?

I think you might've hit the nail on the head Amsel. Air wars are numbers games. Add in technology, declining pilot quality, interruptions of fuel and you could almost predict the date of the collapse of the LW.

The problem by '44 was the pressure against Germany was constant and no real pressure existed against the Allied bases. The Allies were well on the way to air supremecy.

Decisions made years before came home to roost in 1944.
 
I have been reading Eric Mombeeks, Defenders of the Reich. It is a history of JG1. It seems that at the beginning of 1944 the main problem facing the Lw was the heavy presence of allied fighters. The Geshwaders were outnumbered heavily. There were times when P-38's and P-51's would patrol right over the Lw airfields making takeoff almost impossible. As soon as a FW or Me would take off an allied fighter would swoop in and shoot it down. Much of the time a Luftwaffe fighter pilot would have to try to disengage from a melee being outnumbered 5-1. The Lw still had their victories but the good ol days were gone for good.
How could this be countered, or could it even be countered in 1944?

Amsel - there are many threads on this forum which beat this topic to death.

First - at the beginning of 1944 there were two P-38 Groups (20th and 55th) operational - with sortie effectiveness around 50%. There was one Mustang Group (354th). The rest of 8th FC and 9th FC were all P-47's (9 and 4 Groups respectively)


Against the inbound Allied Fighters the LW placed JG2 and JG26 in Luftflotte 3in Holland/Belgium and France. JG1 and JG11 were part of Luftflotte Reich and positioned from the Schwerin to Munster to Phorzheim 'line' in western Germany all the way back to Czechoslovakia/Austria/Southern Germany line.

LuftFlotte 3 had ~ 150 s/e fighters plus 80 t/e ZG and ~100 NJG majority Me 110's plus Ju 88's and Do 217s. The actual number effective at any one time may have been in 70% range.

LuftFlotte Reich had ~ 700 s/e fighters available, most drawn from East in December through Feb, 1944 timeframe to reinforce against 8th AF attacks.

Approx 160 t/e ZG plus another 400+ NJG available in different percentages to defend different targets.

Again ~ 70% of that number was effective at any one time in early to mid 1944.

So, once the German border had been reached in the first three months of 1944 - all the P-47s had to turn back anywhere from Munster/Koln/Frankfurt line.

At that point in time (Jan) only three long range escort groups were avaialble for 'mass air superiority' over the attacking Luftwaffe and distributed among 35 8th AF Heavy Bomb Groups... at ~ 50% effective due to bugs in the Mustangs and engine problems in the P-38s... so maybe 75 available to 'protect' a 100 mile stream.

Fast forward to March 6 - Berlin attack. 5 operational P-51 Wings with the last one getting OJT en route to target (4th FG).. two days later the 355th FG gets operational.

At the end of March there are now 6 Mustang and 3 P-38 Groups operational - leaving approximately 3 FG per Bomb Division for coverage between R/V and target and back to Withdrawal support R/V.

Hardly 'overwhelming' with 5:1 local superiority.

It was EXTREMELY rare for two fighter groups (US) to be in same volume of space to meet very large gaggles of German Fighters vectored by skilled controllers to find 'gaps' in coverage... so the rule was basically one Fighter Group to meet an attack anywhere along the route.

So for 5:1 superiority (US versus German) for 50+ Mustangs say in 357th FG, only 10 LW fighters must be available for that local attack.

Is that what you believe?
 
Have to agree DG, its a very common misconception that the LW was outnumbered. It was not. Or not to the extent of 5:1 in fighters. When you look at the available LR escorts vs LW fighters I believe it was the Americans were actually heavily outnumbered

However to be fair, the US did possess vastly superior reserves to the germans. They could replace losses more or less immediately, the LW could not
 
Have to agree DG, its a very common misconception that the LW was outnumbered. It was not. Or not to the extent of 5:1 in fighters. When you look at the available LR escorts vs LW fighters I believe it was the Americans were actually heavily outnumbered

Right up to Mid January the LW could and did put up local superiority - but as you pointed out below the real issue was dramatic difference in numbers of skilled pilots remaining for LW by mid to late 1944

However to be fair, the US did possess vastly superior reserves to the germans. They could replace losses more or less immediately, the LW could not

Parsifal - you are so right about reserves and replacements.

The 8th and 9th AF FC were losing relatively few skilled fighter pilots and the replacements all had much better training than the 1944 era LW replacements. This was the attrition battle the LW could not win.
 
I read an interesting comment by a German fighter pilot after the war. He said something to the affect of, "The safest flying in the world was to be an allied escort fighter pilot flying over Germany in 1944". Doubtless, he exaggerated it for effect but there is merit to his point. The LW fighters were almost exclusively tasked with attacking the heavy bombers, often told to ignore the escorting fighters ("no problem with me ignoring them, but will they ignore me!").
 
I can only go by personal accounts of the superiority of the allied fighters and the heavy attrition of Lw fighters in 1944. If this is not true then please forgive my ignorance, I was reading personal accounts and sometimes the big picture is not there. From what I read from the pilots accounts in JG1; allied fighters vulched their fields, strafed their fields and sometimes outnumbered the Luftwaffe greatly. The heavy bombers were sometimes escorted by 800 plus fighters.
 
I can only go by personal accounts of the superiority of the allied fighters and the heavy attrition of Lw fighters in 1944. If this is not true then please forgive my ignorance, I was reading personal accounts and sometimes the big picture is not there. From what I read from the pilots accounts in JG1; allied fighters vulched their fields, strafed their fields and sometimes outnumbered the Luftwaffe greatly. The heavy bombers were sometimes escorted by 800 plus fighters.

Amsel - I wasn't jumping all over you. If it came across that way I apologise.

All of what you just wrote is true in context. It is a commonly held belief that when one comments on the statistics of 1500 bombers and 700 fighters and reflect that LuftFlotte Reich had about the same number of s/e an t/e 'all in' - its is easy to lose granularity in a 2 cubic mile airspace over land the size of Texas.

But back to reality for say April 1944. 13 8th AF Fighter Groups were operational - of which three were P-38, and four were P-51. Lets use a Stateside analogy for perspective

Forget the other 8 Groups of say 50 P-47's each - they were in "Oklahoma" and New Mexico. Five of them escorted their 1st, 2nd and 3rd BD bombers on Penetration escort and encountered scattered pockets of JG 26 and JG2.

The other three P-47 Groups plus two from 9th AF and two from RAF will pick them up over the Red River on the way home as Withdrawal support.

The Long Rang escorts will be flying directly to R/V points. Two to Gainesville north of Dalls, two more to Amarillo and one to Wichita Falls

The battles will be somewhere in Texas and usually directed skillfully by the LW controllers.

Two of the P-38 groups were sheparding 10-12 Bomb Groups attacking Texarkana, one P-51 and one P-38 groups was protecting 10-12 more bomb groups near Dallas and the last strike force of 10-12 Bomb groups was escorted by two Mustang groups but this one splits into four bomb groups each - each striking San Antonio, Brownsville and Houston - one of which will be unescorted.

Now the Luftwaffe controller spots the unprotected strike heading for San Antonio. He directs JG 11 and JG 3 and JG 27 to attack this bomb group from bases in Fort Worth, San Angelo and Waco.

Maybe the bomb groups spot them before the attack and call for help on C channel to the escort fighters near Austin heading for Houston and one group comes running... maybe there is an engagement or the fighters hit and run.

At any rate when the escort fighters Break Escort on return leg, half of them head for the deck to look for targets of opportunity and find rail traffic near Dallas and a fighter squadron on the ground readying for a second attack on the returning bombers - and catch them taking off - near Wichita Falls.

This is what it was like in the Battle of Germany in the Spring of 1944.

Of course if you don't know Texas I wasted a lot of your time with this silly analogy.

Finally, this may be unkind but true. Nobody wants to admit they were outfought or defeated in a fair fight but the LW was defeated exactly this way against a force with considerably more resources - but not applied in this timeframe.
 
Have to agree DG, its a very common misconception that the LW was outnumbered. It was not. Or not to the extent of 5:1 in fighters. When you look at the available LR escorts vs LW fighters I believe it was the Americans were actually heavily outnumbered

Thing is most of those LW fighters had to engage the bombers only a few would engage the escorts.
 
Thing is most of those LW fighters had to engage the bombers only a few would engage the escorts.

This is where I lose understanding of the situatio.....I think the Luftwaffe was being ordered to do that (go for the bombers) however, even if they had gone for thefighters, one wonders if they would come off okay. This is where it gets a bit sticky. I believe that even in early 1944, your average LW pilot was less well trained than your average USAAAF pilot. I base that on the number of flying hours being spent per pilot before joining a frontline squadron. For the US pilot, by early 1944 it was around 500 hours....whereas for the LW pilots I believe it was around 150 hours. The LW was being forced to throw pilots in early because of the very high wastage rates in the aircrew. They were being forced to put pilots into the air before they were ready. as the year 1944 wore on, this situation just got worse and worse

The allies from a very early part of the war had devoted massive amounts of energy into her training regimes. For example, the US trained about 233000 pilots I believe, to something like 65000 (I think....not sure) German pilots. There just was not the infrastructure, the fuel the trainers, for the Germans to be competitive in the training war.

The reason this is "sticky", is that is pretty strong opposition to that notion by many supporters of the LW....so that when asked "why then did they lose?" the manifestly incorrect notion that their frontline strength was overwhelmed is used as the reason....it kinda looks better on the LWs resume to say "we were overwhlemed by the decadent wests hordes of planes. I dont know why this is felt necessary, since the LW has a reputation that it can be rightly proud of anyway......
 
which brings me to a further two cents worth I guess....if you are going to send elements of the German fighter force after the escorts, shouldnt those elements be the most experienced pilots doing that very hazardous job, leving the bombers to the less experienced Jagdgruppen...rather than dividing the two forces on the basis of types.....
 
This is where I lose understanding of the situatio.....I think the Luftwaffe was being ordered to do that (go for the bombers) however, even if they had gone for thefighters, one wonders if they would come off okay.
If the strenght ratio was 1:1 or close to that (as you suggest), they stand a certain chance (up until d-day, from then on things change rapidly). Seeing as how as much as 35-45% of all Fw 190 pilots downed over France in 1942 managed to either crash land or eject, even a hypothetical superiority in quality (which I would agree on for maybe march/april 1944 onwards) could've been overcome.

The reason this is "sticky", is that is pretty strong opposition to that notion by many supporters of the LW....so that when asked "why then did they lose?" the manifestly incorrect notion that their frontline strength was overwhelmed is used as the reason....it kinda looks better on the LWs resume to say "we were overwhlemed by the decadent wests hordes of planes. I dont know why this is felt necessary, since the LW has a reputation that it can be rightly proud of anyway......
Frontline strength doesn't really tell you an aweful lot though. The situation in the air at a certain time and point is where you are either outnumbered or not.
 
This is where I lose understanding of the situatio.....I think the Luftwaffe was being ordered to do that (go for the bombers) however, even if they had gone for thefighters, one wonders if they would come off okay. This is where it gets a bit sticky. I believe that even in early 1944, your average LW pilot was less well trained than your average USAAAF pilot. I base that on the number of flying hours being spent per pilot before joining a frontline squadron. For the US pilot, by early 1944 it was around 500 hours....whereas for the LW pilots I believe it was around 150 hours. The LW was being forced to throw pilots in early because of the very high wastage rates in the aircrew. They were being forced to put pilots into the air before they were ready. as the year 1944 wore on, this situation just got worse and worse

They still would have many well trained pilots early 44, the issue was more the equipment was also focused on engaging bombers, loaded with extra armor guns, 109s mounting 108s not suitable for engaging fighters. 190s lacked performance up high to really tangle with the escorts.

Even then if they succeed they still fail the fighters were easier to replace than a heavy, its an even worse battle of attrition to mount for their perspective.

The allies from a very early part of the war had devoted massive amounts of energy into her training regimes. For example, the US trained about 233000 pilots I believe, to something like 65000 (I think....not sure) German pilots. There just was not the infrastructure, the fuel the trainers, for the Germans to be competitive in the training war.

Yes they did, but we had the manpower and the resources to do it, population wise the US alone was far greater than germany.

The reason this is "sticky", is that is pretty strong opposition to that notion by many supporters of the LW....so that when asked "why then did they lose?" the manifestly incorrect notion that their frontline strength was overwhelmed is used as the reason....it kinda looks better on the LWs resume to say "we were overwhlemed by the decadent wests hordes of planes. I dont know why this is felt necessary, since the LW has a reputation that it can be rightly proud of anyway......

Its generally because it was overwhelmed, you simply needed to overwhelm an air force to destroy it.
 

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