Strategies for defense 1944-45 (1 Viewer)

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

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

True - and irrelevant to local air superiority, is it not?

Goering emasculated his fighter pilots with the stupid orders to 'evade' the fighters. Can you imagine telling the Wermacht to 'only go after armor'?? and ignore the infantry.
 
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.

The LW was able to maintain local superiority at point of attack well into late 1944.

IMO, the major factors were threefold.

1.) the skills balance at wing man level in the Allied Fighter forces were increasingly good from 1942 forward based on the unmolested Air Training Command, combined with selection of top cadets getting Fighters, as well as superb year around training weather.

Many of the LW wingmen KIA in 1943/1944 were replaced by student level pilots and immersed immediately into combat with better trained pilots.

2.) the Mustang had the right attributes of its BEST performance where the LW had to compete, at altitudes which were not THEIR Best. If German fighters wanted to attack bombers they had to accept risk of engaging the P-51 in its best performance envelope.

3.) the LW not only enabled the USAAF 8th and 9th AF FC to gain leisurely experience while ironing out bugs in P-47 and P-51, but they Encouraged an attitude of Flee versus Fight when the reverse approach may have culled a significant percent of future leaders

The inclusion of heavy wing mounted cannon made perhaps 6kts average reduction in speed as well as reduced climb and turn performance - but fighter battles are won by aggressive action and engaging or withdrawing on subsequent tactical situation - not a couple of percent advantage/disadvantage in performance. The LW became accustomed to 'hit the bombers and split ess for the deck' if fighters were in the area - and found they couldn't evade by simply diving away.

If you look at the top scoring Fighter Groups they were led by aggressive 'go kill the Luftwaffe' leaders. The lowest scoring groups(of the ones that were early entries), were led in the most part by commanders who preached 'stick with the bombers'. The ones in the middle of the pack had both types.
 
Lets not forget the contributions of the 15th AF (and to a far lesser extent the 12th AF) to the strategic fight over Germany.

Good point Syscom - but not really forgetting.

The 15th (and 12th was largely opposed by LuftFlotte's 2, parts of 4 and Lw Kdo Sud Ost - all south and SE of Luftflotte Reich. The LW defenses overlapped when the 15th started getting Mustangs to augment 38s in May/June 1944 and missions were sent to attack Linz, Vienna, Munich from Italian bases.

Some of those same forces were deployed against 8th for those same southern GY/CZ targets
 
But you cant be in two places at the same time.

Either you concentrate against the 8th AF or the 15th, but you cant do both.

There were plenty of strategic targets in Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia that had to be defended, and the LW had a hobbs choice in deciding what allied mission(s) were going to be defended against.
 
But you cant be in two places at the same time.

??? true if you have 5 s/e fighters available instead of 500.

Either you concentrate against the 8th AF or the 15th, but you cant do both.

The LW was all about 'point defense' with mobilization to meet different threats from different directions. So, strictly speaking if Oberpfaffenhofen or Augburg was attacked from the south by 15th AF, the same JG3/JG27 units around Munich would be responding on that day as the ones opposing 8th AF at Schweinfurt or Erding or Augsburg or Leipheim the next day. The 8th and 15th did not, to my knowledge coordinate strikes to the same area to split LW defenses. Certainly not on a large scale basis

There were plenty of strategic targets in Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia that had to be defended, and the LW had a hobbs choice in deciding what allied mission(s) were going to be defended against.

True but the only real optional choices was to decide which units they may want to peel from JG 301 units say around Leipzig to head south to meet 15th strike force and augment the Munich/Vienna defenses, or have some JG 51 fighters react to an 8th AF strike on Brux/Posnan strike from the West... etc, etc.

I don't know if I am missing your point - but LuftFlotte Reich was by far the largest concentration of s/e and t/e fighters in 1944/1945 and it's dominant daytime antagonist was 8th AF in Battle over Germany (as well as western CZ and Poland). Having said that it had 100+ s/e fighters ranging from Leipzig to Munich to Memningen which could react to either the south or west or southeast.

The LW forces deployed south and east (of Germany) were less in strength and distributed over a greater area to meet US, RAF and USSR attacks ranging from Italy to Austria, to Rumania and to southern Czechoslovakia... but I honestly don't know if 15th AF ever targeted as far north as Posnan to Brux area or what else really existed in Poland?

The 8th AF had by far the greatest number of sorties on the targets from Prague to Pilzen to Brux to Zwickau through Leipzig and Ruhland and Posnan... so I suspect that LFReich had much less contact with 15th than 8th.
 
One should also take into account the severe mental and physical strain on the experienced pilots of the reich. In the late winter of 1944 the eastern front had slowed down enough to be able to amass a little over 1600 fighters in Germany and the west. But this did little to help the strain of the pilots, especially in the west where the attrition of good pilots was high. JG2 lost two Kommodores in less the two months. From January to May 1944 around 1,850 Lw pilots had been killed. It was then that the order to ignore the fighters was issued leaving the alled fighters to fly with almost impunity to any corner of the reich.
 
One should also take into account the severe mental and physical strain on the experienced pilots of the reich. In the late winter of 1944 the eastern front had slowed down enough to be able to amass a little over 1600 fighters in Germany and the west. But this did little to help the strain of the pilots, especially in the west where the attrition of good pilots was high. JG2 lost two Kommodores in less the two months. From January to May 1944 around 1,850 Lw pilots had been killed. It was then that the order to ignore the fighters was issued leaving the alled fighters to fly with almost impunity to any corner of the reich.

All true. Another major factor for both sides was crappy weather - a real issue for inexperienced pilots with rudimentary instruments. The Alled fighters had an advantage in being able to assemble and climb out on a planned basis - not a scramble... and once at altitude were often able to spot LW 'popping into view' below with a decided altitude advantage.
 
What was the effective strength of the Luftwaffe, though?

Hooton gives figures for Jagdkorps 1 sorties as 3315 in Jan 1944, 4242 in Feb, 3672 in March and 4505 in April.

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

Even earlier than that.

From Strategy For Defeat by Williamson Murray:
The increasing losses, in turn, forced the training establishments to produce pilots even more rapidly. Once they had begun this vicious cycle, the Germans found no escape. One of the surest indicators of the declining skill of German pilots after the 1940 air battles was the rising level of noncombat losses. By the first half of 1943, they had reached the point where the fighter force suffered as many losses due to noncombat causes as it did to the efforts of its opponents. Thereafter, the percentage of noncombat losses began to drop. The probable cause of this was due less to an awakening on the part of the Luftwaffe to the need for better flying safety than to the probability that Allied flyers, in their overwhelming numbers, were shooting down German pilots before they could crash their aircraft.

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 lo lower their standards for a fully operational pilot as the war continued.

One of the USAF historical studies of the Luftwaffe says the same thing. Technical Training in the German Air Force http://afhra.maxwell.af.mil/numbered_studies/468178.pdf says that the quality of pilots declined, and gives as evidence aircraft losses for February 1944:

1,791 aircraft "lost" (see below)
1,319 (more than 70%) lost to other than enemy action, including

39.4% takeoff and landing accidents
7.4% other operational errors
9.7% taxiing accidents
6.1% collisions on the ground
9.9% accidents in bad weather areas despite previous weather warning
6.8% running out of fuel or losing orientation

(it says of "losses": the German Luftwaffe lost 21,288 aircraft during the course of the war due to reasons other than enemy action, of this total, only 11,411 were damaged so slightly that repair was possible.)

The study continues:

There is no doubt a large percentage of these errors could have been avoided if it had been possible to improve the training program. The reasons why improvement was not feasible have already been discussed here. We must bear in mind, though, that inadequate training was responsible not only for numerous losses occurring during flights which were totally unaffected by enemy action, but also for a good part of the losses sustained during operations carried out against the enemy


It takes a year to train a fighter pilot. Any improvement in the Luftwaffe's performance later in the war therefore required a vast expansion of the training programme in 1942 at the latest. But the Luftwaffe were always behind the curve, they could not afford to reduce front line strength in 1940, 1941 or 1942 to strengthen the training programmes.
 
What was the effective strength of the Luftwaffe, though?

Hooton gives figures for Jagdkorps 1 sorties as 3315 in Jan 1944, 4242 in Feb, 3672 in March and 4505 in April.

Hop - that concurs with data that I have gleaned from other sources... but the sorties, while interesting, only reflect the attempts by the LW to intercept - not necessarily the actual 'effective' strength?

One of the USAF historical studies of the Luftwaffe says the same thing. Technical Training in the German Air Force http://afhra.maxwell.af.mil/numbered_studies/468178.pdf says that the quality of pilots declined, and gives as evidence aircraft losses for February 1944:

1,791 aircraft "lost" (see below)
1,319 (more than 70%) lost to other than enemy action, including

39.4% takeoff and landing accidents
7.4% other operational errors
9.7% taxiing accidents
6.1% collisions on the ground
9.9% accidents in bad weather areas despite previous weather warning
6.8% running out of fuel or losing orientation

(it says of "losses": the German Luftwaffe lost 21,288 aircraft during the course of the war due to reasons other than enemy action, of this total, only 11,411 were damaged so slightly that repair was possible.)

I wonder what 'damage severity class' was used as irrepairable - from most documentation ~ 60% was the threshold. Ours would have been Cat E or Cat 5)

The study continues:

It takes a year to train a fighter pilot. Any improvement in the Luftwaffe's performance later in the war therefore required a vast expansion of the training programme in 1942 at the latest. But the Luftwaffe were always behind the curve, they could not afford to reduce front line strength in 1940, 1941 or 1942 to strengthen the training programmes.

I think we all agree the points re: attrition of average LW fighter pilots skills. What we don't know about the accidents from the above presentation is how many pilots were Killed or disabled due to the accidents. It was a pretty low figure for Allied pilots as a percentage of sorties - though higher in winter for sure.

What we also don't know from the above analysis is to what extent the LW converted multi engine pilots to s/e in contrast to raw cadets. Our Primary/Basic/Advanced cycle was close to a year to yield 250 hour level 2nd Lieutenants with no prior experience.


As to a/c losses, we found out after the war that while our strategic assault on aircraft industry produced a lot of damage, it never achieved a strategic chokepoint on actual number of fighters delivered to front lines until perhaps March/April 1945.

As you re-emphasized, the critical choke point was fuel and training of replacement pilots.
 
What we don't know about the accidents from the above presentation is how many pilots were Killed or disabled due to the accidents.

There's no indication of how many pilots were lost, but with almost half the losses not to combat resulting in the destruction of the aircraft, the totals must have been fairly high.

As to a/c losses, we found out after the war that while our strategic assault on aircraft industry produced a lot of damage, it never achieved a strategic chokepoint on actual number of fighters delivered to front lines until perhaps March/April 1945.

As you re-emphasized, the critical choke point was fuel and training of replacement pilots.

Until some time in 1944 aircraft were also a choke point for the Luftwaffe.

Murray gives figures for Luftwaffe fighter strength in 1943, in each case the figures are for the last day of the month:

Month - Authorised - Present - Percent
Feb - 1,660 - 1,336 - 80.5
Mar - 1,712 - 1,535 - 89.7
Apr - 1,848 - 1,582 - 85.6
May - 2,016 - 1,786 - 88.6
Jun - 2,172 - 1,849 - 85.1
Jul - 2,172 - 1,528 - 70.3
Aug - 2,228 - 1,581 - 71

Hooton gives figures for the 20th each month, fighters present and serviceable:

Month - Present - Serviceable
Apr - 1,328 - 980
Jun - 1,704 - 1,261
Sep - 1,500 - 1,055

Compare those serviceable figures with the authorised strength for the same periods.

The USAF report on technical training also points out that whilst the Luftwaffe had enough fighter pilots with the front line units, they had too few aircraft, and the quality of those pilots was not up to scratch. It goes on:

It was a vicious circle, in which each factor was automatically followed by the next - inadequate training led to high losses in aircraft;these losses resulted in a lack of aircraft at the front and because of the need for aircraft at the front, there were none available for assignment to the training program. There was little use in the training program's meeting its established goals in terms of numbers of students, ao long as these students lacked the very thing which might have enabled the German air units to hold their own against the numerical superiority of the Allied air forces - the training required to mold then into good-quality crews.
 
Until some time in 1944 aircraft were also a choke point for the Luftwaffe.

Murray gives figures for Luftwaffe fighter strength in 1943, in each case the figures are for the last day of the month:

Month - Authorised - Present - Percent
Feb - 1,660 - 1,336 - 80.5
Mar - 1,712 - 1,535 - 89.7
Apr - 1,848 - 1,582 - 85.6
May - 2,016 - 1,786 - 88.6
Jun - 2,172 - 1,849 - 85.1
Jul - 2,172 - 1,528 - 70.3
Aug - 2,228 - 1,581 - 71

The figures seem a bit odd to me, but I am quite sure that cause for variation in fighter strenght was not production - see the monthly production below, it seems to me unlikely that in mid-1943, when production was at peak at 1000+ 109s/190s a month, they would be loosing more and production was not covering the losses.

Ie. in June 1943 234 daylight fighters were withdrawn from units to enemy action, 297 without enemy action, 219 for overhauls, a total of 750.

In the same month 507 aircraft were received from factories, 218 from repair centres, a net gain of 44 aircraft (263 received to, 219 sent away from DLF units) were received from other units a total of 769.

Total production of FW 190 and Bf 109 was 847 in May 1943, 957 in June, and peaking at 1050 in July. So for example in June, with roughly 950 produced, 500 issued, some 450 new fighters would go into storage and reserve.

Number of aircraft present with 1st line units and 2nd line OTU-like Ergänzsungseinheiten was 2036 at the start of the month, 1968 at the end of the month.
 

Attachments

  • LW_Fighter_production.JPG
    LW_Fighter_production.JPG
    76.7 KB · Views: 46
Looking at the graph, seems like the Allies drop more bombs, the Germans produce more planes.
 
Looking at the graph, seems like the Allies drop more bombs, the Germans produce more planes.

True - Speer decentralized much of the industry and re-priorited fighter production to higher priority.

The biggest single advantage for Allies in spring 1944 is that Luftwaffe defended those targets and made them 'available' for long range escorts to shoot down. IIRC in March-May the LW lost ~ 800-1000 pilots per month
 
Is there a comprehensive breakdown of attacking and defending forces, sortie rates, AAA involved etc. online for Germany in WWII, strategic bombing as a topic?
 
The figures seem a bit odd to me, but I am quite sure that cause for variation in fighter strenght was not production - see the monthly production below, it seems to me unlikely that in mid-1943, when production was at peak at 1000+ 109s/190s a month, they would be loosing more and production was not covering the losses.

Ie. in June 1943 234 daylight fighters were withdrawn from units to enemy action, 297 without enemy action, 219 for overhauls, a total of 750.

In the same month 507 aircraft were received from factories, 218 from repair centres, a net gain of 44 aircraft (263 received to, 219 sent away from DLF units) were received from other units a total of 769.

Kurfurst
I must be missing something but I have German losses for June 1943 at around 320 fighters. Can I ask if the 234 you are quoting as being withdrawn from units due to enemy action damaged aircraft, or destroyed in which case there is something wrong at my end.
 
True - and irrelevant to local air superiority, is it not?

Goering emasculated his fighter pilots with the stupid orders to 'evade' the fighters. Can you imagine telling the Wermacht to 'only go after armor'?? and ignore the infantry.

No not irrelevant, because they might attain local superiority over escorts the escorts will not be the focus, interceptors tasked with intercepting the bombers are easy prey for the escorts.

It was more sensible evading the fighters than fighting them, that was precisely what the allies wanted. This is what the advantage of the jets was, they could ignore the escorts with near impunity and down bombers.
 
If the LW fighters engage the escorts, then they are not engaging the bombers. And they might inflict losses on the allied fighters, but the vast industrial base of the US will replace them (pilot and aircraft) quickly.

The LW would take its losses too, but they could not replace the pilots, so the battle of attrition continues.

I see no advantage to the LW by going after the escorts or evading them to concentrate on the bombers. One way or another, they're going to be in terminal decline. The only way to inflict huge losses on the US bombers would to husband their forces and attack when they can have several hundred fighters in the air at one time. And that means being grounded for weeks at a time, till the its time to strike.
 
Ie. in June 1943 234 daylight fighters were withdrawn from units to enemy action, 297 without enemy action, 219 for overhauls, a total of 750.

In the same month 507 aircraft were received from factories, 218 from repair centres, a net gain of 44 aircraft (263 received to, 219 sent away from DLF units) were received from other units a total of 769.

Yes, and the figures show an increase in strength for June.

But June was a quiet month. Murray gives German fighter losses on the East, West and Mediterranean fronts as 373.

In July the losses soared to 782. In August 531 and September 542.

Compare those with the strength figures and you'll see there was a huge drop in July, a slight improvement in August and a slight drop again in September.

Every source I have seen agrees on this, that German aircraft production was inadequate to meet the needs of the Luftwaffe for most of the war. From Murray:

Jeschonnek and his staff had ignored the mess that Udet made
of production and had as a result voiced no alarm about continued production
stagnation as the Luftwaffe prepared to attack Russia. The growing gap between
German and Allied production began to emerge in devastating form in the attrition
battles of summer 1943. Since late 1942, Milch had indeed done wonders with
German production. In 1943, the aircraft industry produced 64 percent more aircraft
than in 1942, with a dramatic increase of 125.2 percent in fighter production and
31.4 percent in bombers. By May 1943, industry produced 1,000 fighters for the
first time; by July, production reached 1,263 . It was not enough . The attrition
was such that for the first half of the year, there was a slow but steady increase in
fighter and bomber strength . However, in July and August, despite production
efforts, the number of aircraft in frontline units began to decline noticeably. In
addition, the percentage of authorized aircraft also began to fall.

As had happened in 1942, increased production made little difference ; losses at the
front swallowed what industry produced .

It wasn't until late in the war that production was adequate for the Luftwaffe's needs, and even then I suspect production was inadequate, it's just that lack of fuel and pilots meant the Luftwaffe couldn't use all the fighters that were being produced.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back