I understand that many of the olders members have much more years of research , Mr Drgondog for example , as they are much older than the younger members, and their opinion is more important but let us the youngers too have an opinion. We too spend A LOT of money in books- ask my angry fiance.
1)German controllers during the deep penetration missions had to deal with a lot of feints attacks , bombers courses changes , weather limitations over german airfields, diferent flight performances of various types of intercepting fighters.
True
So never did the defending fighters attacked at once. p51 faced them in turns.
Definitely not true - particularly for 1st half of 1944 when it was rare for two long range escort groups to even see another one (USAAF P-38/51 Group). Look to Feb 20 South of Hannover, March 6, 1944 around Berlin, March 8 Berlin to Magdeburg, March 18 around Ulm/Augsburg or Mar 29 near Brunswick/Celle, April 8 Celle/Gifhornem or May12 (Rall) near Frankfurt, June 20 near Rugen Islands, July 7 near Halle/Bernburg, - In every case there were at least 2 Gruppe's concentrated in a small airspace defended by no more than one FG of Mustangs
2) The MISSION PROFILE of german fighters was to engage the bombers or face execution so always P51s entered the fight with great altitude advantage. Even 8 P51s versus 30 Fw190, is not equal if p51 are 3000ft higher and the Fw 190s are concentrated to attack the bombers . And one bounce is enough to destroy the attack as every german fighter dived away.It took a lot of time to reorganize a gruppe even in the days of unescorted raids. And only massive attacks were effective.
And 'massive attacks, developed in 1943 were the rule in 1944... hence the opportunity to engage a bomber box combined with fighter escort of one squadron to one Group to defend locally.
The LW developed tactics to place Me 109G-6s at 33000+ plus as high cover escort to Fw 190 forces - and initiated tactics where the Fw 190s entered combat from 28-29000 feet to avoid having an inferior position to the Mustangs which were frequently escorting from 25-28000 feet (depending on whether they were covering B-24s or B-17s. Gunther Rall gives an excellent account of his battles with the 56th FG on May 12.
Fighter pilots resort to attacks from high by climbing and meeting their foe head on - at least US pilots did. Nor did US pilots commonly use a Split-S and dive when confronted by larger numbers from high altitude. The reverse was commonly true for the LW counterparts - who quickly lost the initiative and tried tactics that worked against Spitfires and P-38s but not P-51s or P-47s.
3) German controllers were bad . Never warned german leader formation of approaching alleid fighters . No equal combat took place.
The skills of the Contollers varied as much as the skills of the Fighter leaders - you cannot say that all were bad or all were good. What is your definition of 'equal'? When superior numbers of German fighter constantly dove away from US fighters - they gave awy the initiave and became the hunted, even if attacked by small numbers of American fighters.
Most german formations were attacked from higher altitude approachingbombers or during their attacks . in such conditions not even experience could help. Galland of II/JG26 deid that way 17/8/43 ,Egon Mayers February 44, Philip fall 43 ( excuse me, i write from memory) all the same way , attacked from above without warning during their attacks in bomber formations.
Egon Mayer was killed March 2nd 1944 when he was attacked head on se Charleroiand following the merge he continued toward Fumay. Walter Gresham who no kills chased him, with his two remaining flight members, and shot him down somewhere past Fumay. His wingmen shot down Mayer's wingman. The combat film shows the Fw 190 believed to be Mayer's hit near the 20mm ammo in the left wing blowing off half the wing. Mayer's wingman described the chase and the hit which agrees the Report and film.
In some cases, particularly against P-47s during 1943 and early 1944 - the 47s entered escort space at 30,000 feet where their performance was superior. In early 1944 forward, the escorting fighters were lightnings and Mustangs - and the P-38 G and early J had issues with low ETO temperatures and stayed in the 26,000 foot range - losing altitude initiative to the LW.
As noted above Egon Mayer was shot down in a 3:2 fight with 358FS/355FG
4) Some people insist not to consider the bombers part of the air superiority. Firstly bombers were credited with douzens of german fighters after each missions according to western mythology. Secondly if the bombers were not there P51s would have suffered the fate of the Spitfires over France in 1941/42.
If the German fighters chose to not attack the bombers which will never manuever to attack the fighter when in formation, the initiative belongs to the German fighter leader to attack bomber or fighter escort.
You noted that bomber claims were hugely overstated - true. LW claims as represented in Tony Woods list are consistently ~2:1 when comparing actual 8th AF losses, but I do not know whether that recording experience was relevant only to the battles over Germany. The 8th BC probably averaged 10:1 claim to actual and 8th FC probably overclaimed 10-15%
Given that the Luftwaffe NEVER shot down more than 9 of the USAAF opponent in the ETO (4th FG - August 18, 1944 near Beauvais and Les Andylis for credits of 8 German fighters) it would be hard for you to draw an illustrative example where the LW could punish the P-51s "like Spitfires over France 1941/42" - If you have examples please trot them out and compare against the whippings for each of the missions I named above?
5) Escort fighters were never attacked . It was not nessecary to score kills. Just force them to jettion early the drop tanks and disrupt their randevous programme. It was proposed but was rejected.
Would have helped as a consistent tactic but there are many examples of LW attacking the bombers early near the German border and the tanks were dropped always - so the effect was the same. That would frequently mean that the squadron which dropped its tanks could not fly say to Berlin for that mission but the other two that were not engaged were unaffected.
6) Several of the mentioned units did fought in areas that could not be reached by P47s/ Spitfires but had to take off from airfields within range of medium bombers and sometimes short range fighters.
Most of LuftFlotte Reich were out of range of all fighters except the Mustang and P-38 until after the Invasion... the random odd Mark II Mustang and occasional Intruder Mossies were the exception.
7)bmw 801 was useless at altitude (irrelevant!)
In my country there is a moto. The best way to lei is using the numbers. We all do it more or less. But to claim that LW had numerical superiority ?!?!
Just my opininon , i may be wrong.