DerAdler:
I am fully aware of what you just said.
Of course during 1944 the Luftwaffe fighter force was on the defensive. I know it very well.
My point is: the historians and veterans of the USAAF use the "unlimited" number of missions of the German pilots, as one of their main arguments to minimize and to explain their amazing scores!
If a Luftwaffe pilot was able to fly several missions on a single day because they were flying over their own territory defending the German cities and industries, how does that take away any substance to the fact the long range P-51´s would fly just ONE very long range mission on the same day, staying in the air MORE time than the German pilot?
The P-51s when escorting the boxes of heavy bombers were not flying right alongside the bombers, like a sheperd watching after his sheep.
Many many times the escorts were allowed a big freedom of action and there were also many mistakes; there were many times in 1944 -the P-51 long range escort era- where the venerable P-51s were not there to defend their bombers. Need examples of this? The Kassel bombing raid in Sept 27, 1944, when a 38 heavy bomber formation got massacred by the Sturmböck Fw190s. Of 380 USAAF men comprising such formation, 340 did not return.
As 1944 passed by, the long range escort P-51s gained more and more autonomy and devoted a good deal of their time (during one sole mission lasting about 8 1/2 hours) to search for enemy targets.
However, I will put into serious doubt most Luftwaffe pilots flew several missions on a single day in 1944 to intercept USAAF formations; the fuel crisis was just about to become a nightmare on that year.
The days when Luftwaffe pilots flew multiple missions on a single day were then in the past.
Please do not me wrong here: I am convinced the P-51 made one of the greatest planes of the war; not the best of the war, but one among several others.
Its verry long range was precisely the "Plus" strategic value the USAAF needed if they wanted to continue their bombing missions deep into Germany.
Still, and I digress, the arguments of the allies to make it appear Hartmann, Barkhorrn, Rall, Batz, Kittel, Priller, Marseille and company shot down as many enemies as it is known was the consequence of their very high number of missions flown is incorrect and misleading.