parsifal
Colonel
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.
The reason why going after the fighters might be better than going after the bombers is because the bombers will take longer to have any effect on the German war effort, whilst the US fighters were having a more immediate impact by shooting the flying elements of the LW out of the sky. Also, by not attacking the fighters, the skills base of the US fighters was improving, whilst the skills base of the German fighter forces was shrinking.
The weakness of this theory is that ther is no telling just how catastrophic an unimpeded bomber attack might be. The german economy in 1944 lurched from one near crisis to the next, as the cumulative effects of bombing took their toll.....eg, a hydogentaion plant might be repaired, and back on line, but much of the infrastructure that makes up the plant might be leaky and not very effieicnt as a result of the bombing. If the bombers are left unnaddressed, because the fighters are going after the escorts, one cant be sure that the better results by the bombers isnt enough to cause catastrophic effects on the targets