The Winning Strategy - WW2 air campaign against Germany

Geoffrey Sinclair said:

Fighters at economic speed in a war zone are either targets or spectators unless they are lucky.

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There are no absolutes. Experience will dictate, as will circumstance. There is already a wealth of targets within 300 mile range. If the target is e.g. Hamburg, economy will rise on the list of priorities.

Geoffrey Sinclair said:

No, the first number is percentage loss of 8th AF mostly B-17 credited with attacking a target in Germany, the second is the cumulative percentage bombers missing to the end of the month for bombers credited with attacking a target in Germany.
Jan-43 / 1.82 / 1.82
Feb-43 / 8.23 / 11.65
Mar-43 / 6.48 / 5.08
Apr-43 / 8.46 / 15.09
May-43 / 7.08 / 5.9
Jun-43 / 7.93 / 9.07
Jul-43 / 8.65 / 10.1
Aug-43 / 9.81 / 15.23
Sep-43 / 9.55 / 7.62
Oct-43 / 9.53 / 9.48
Nov-43 / 7.93 / 3.85
Dec-43 / 6.51 / 3.58

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What is the contribution to this data from missions escorted all the way to the target?

Geoffrey Sinclair said:

Which ones qualify for North West Germany and which ones for deep penetration? Remember to add the bomber write offs, on combat missions in 1943 the 8th Air Force had 866 B-17 missing and another 128 write offs

Name the Luftwaffe airbases in Netherlands/Belgium/France that were catered to the moon in 1942/43, how big a percentage that was of airbases available, and how long the stayed out of action, hint start at around 0.

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I might reiterate that this is an issue of doing things differently than historically was the case.

Geoffrey Sinclair said:

M4 losses in ETO
Percentage of time where the daily losses were 0.01 to 0.24%, First 29%, Third 28.5%, Ninth 38%.
Percentage of time where the daily losses were 0.25 to 0.49%, First 19%, Third 18%, Ninth 16%.
Percentage of time where the daily losses were 0.5 to 0.99%, First 32%, Third 39%, Ninth 19%.
Percentage of time where the daily losses were 1% or more First 13%, Third 12%, Ninth 5%.
Remembering 1st Army had to fight out of Normandy (around 25% of total losses), plus was hit by the Ardennes offensive, over another 15% of total losses

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This is very heartening

MikeMeech said:

by the end of 1942 their stocks of oil were not materially less than they had been at the start of the war, although after this date things would get worse due to the German military getting 'over stretched' due to their expansion of the war.

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While the first claim is technically correct it might obscure the fact that by late summer of 1942 Germany's fuel situation was at a low point for the entire war until the effects of the air campaign against their oil and the Red Army's overrunning the Ploesti oilfields made German fuel supplies plunge.

Your statement regarding things getting worse after the end of 1942 is incorrect, What actually happened was a gradual but significant increase in German fuel stocks until on the eve of D-Day they were at their highest level since pre Barbarossa and the Germans found themselves in a far better fuel position than late 1942. One thing that helped the Germans was the capitulation of Italy which meant they could allocate much less of their fuel production to Italy (British intelligence in 1942 predicted an Italian surrender would benefit the Germans to the tune of 1 million tons of fuel per year and that didn't include the large stocks of Italian fuel they confiscated).

Bergjon12 said:

1. How were you suggesting the LW fighters got behind the bombers to threaten the allied fighters? Not from the north. Not from the east. From the south perhaps, from NE France. That hole is easily plugged with non-drop tank fighters.

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I didn't once write that LW fighters would elide Allied bombers to attack the fighters. You'll need to quote and link the post you're obviously misunderstanding for me to clarify -- but you're clearly having problems reading what I've written.

Bergjon12 said:

2. Such as what countermeasures?

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Me, I'd move more 88s into the targeted zone, make sure I've got plenty of radar up and running, move production away from targeted areas where possible (which Speer actually did later in the war, but he was already thinking about this), set up ambushes, and so forth.

You talk about Allied escort fighters. Up until the end of 1943, they had to head back to England around Eupen, about 10 miles from Germany. So your escorted bombers will be flattening captive nations and not Germany itself.

Bergjon12 said:

3. You said in essence that the allies didn't have the planes for city-destroying raids before June 1944. That is obviously false.

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You clearly misunderstood what I wrote. In context, I was, and am, talking about attrition. Of course the Allies had plenty of airplanes for meh, three 1000-plane raids in a month in the middle of 1942. But between combat losses, operational losses, maintenance periods, and so on, keeping up that pace of operations with 300 or so Lancasters, a few hundred Wellingtons, and then a bunch of Whitleys and Hampdens cadged from Coastal Command, along with three hundred or so USAAF heavies with relatively inexperienced crew, that's a big ask.

You could always quote and link where I wrote that the Allies didn't have the planes for city-busting raids. Well, you could, except that you cannot, because I never wrote that.

Please stop misrepresenting my points. I'm doing my level best to be polite.

Bergjon12 said:

4. What is your basis for saying this?

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Saying what? You should quote the phrase you have a problem with. I got no idea what you're asking about here.

Bergjon12 said:

5. Perhaps we are at cross purposes here. The basis of this discussion is about what could be done differently than what actually happened.

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We're certainly at cross-purposes here, because I think your suggestion is unlikely to achieve much of anything.

If I were in charge of Allied air ops over Germany from 1941-45, I'd focus on longer-ranged fighters, bigger bombers, and better jamming against German radar. This whole "we just pave western Germany with bombs" is not doable for a number of reasons.

I get it, no one likes disagreement. But this is a "what-if" scenario and you're going to get that.

As has been mentioned, beginning an anti-oil campaign earlier would have been useful (if practical).

In line with Bergjon 12's ideas of hitting the NW Germany and the Lowlands, what are the problems with hitting the Ruhr area hydro-electric dams earlier? When I look at the map it appears that a significant number of targets are within ~300 miles of the bomber airbases in the UK.

I do not know how practical it would be to attempt near total physical destruction of the dams, but maybe shoot for near total reduction of electricity output over a sustained period of time. Obviously not a death blow, but perhaps significantly useful?

There is also the knock on effect of hitting the Ruhr in 1943 in getting tactics put into practise and refined before hitting the longer ranged targets in '44

Merlin 60 series Spitfires began production in June 1942, Supermarine were trying to build the mark VIII, switched its mark V to mark IX, stopping V in September 1942 and then IX in June 1943, Castle Bromwich began mark IX production in February 1943 getting to over 100 per month in June. This means by end 1942 a total of 402 mark VII and IX had been built, 1,176 by end June, 2,966 by end December 1943, deduct losses, reserves etc. On 30 June 1943 the RAF had 242 mark VIII in Britain, along with 602 mark IX, another 113 IX overseas, while 205 were on the water, 2 VIII and 207 IX had been lost. Fighter Command had 156 Spitfire IX and 587 Spitfire V in operational units. Another count says 48 Spitfire squadrons, including 2 non operational, had 718 operational aircraft. Authorised squadron strength 18 aircraft. Fighter Command remained mostly operating mark V during 1943 as the overseas VIII and IX population grew, around 1,200 overseas out of 1,500.

Over in the 8th Air Force, serviceable P-47 serviceable strength went above 150 end May 1943, over 200 mid July, 300 mid September, and finished the year nudging 600, 21 P-38 end September, rising to 83 end year, 5 P-51 on 12 November, 52 by end year. It means the 8th Air Force June to August 1943 had 2 to 3 bombers available per fighter. Averaged over the year the weekly reports say 65% or under B-17, B-24 and P-47 were operational on a given day. Do the same calculation for the first 6 months and it is 42 to 51%, final 3 months 83 to 85%, the spare parts and maintenance systems took a while to catch up. On 23 June 1943 the 8th Air Force had 403 serviceable bombers and 179 P-47.

The USAAF first attacked Germany in January 1943 then took to 27 September to use radar bombing. In the period 15 October to 15 December 1943 the 8th Air force blind bombing operations resulted in 6 out of 151 groups bombing within 1 mile of the aiming point, 17 within 2 miles and 30 within 5 miles. This was about the accuracy seen by the RAF night bombers in 1941, via the Butt report. In December 1943 the estimate was 5% of bombs were within 5 miles of the aiming point, worse than the RAF 1941 night bombers. Around half the USAAF 1943 tonnage was dropped using blind bombing. After August 1944 the USAAF relaxed its blind bombing guidelines for attacking Germany, this was the major reason weather aborts in the 8th Air Force promptly dropped from 14.4% to 5.6%. Craven and Cate (US official history), in mid November 1944, that is a year on from the initial results, slightly more that 1/2 of the 8th Air Force blind bombing missions "near failures or worse".

The USSBS notes out of 524 target weather forecasts, 304 were accurate, in 1943 without radar bombing the USAAF had to wait for good weather, forecasts of which were accurate 155 out of 236 occasions, it could try poorer weather where 31 out of 182 occasions saw visual bombing weather, or launch in bad weather, 9 out of 106 ended up with visual weather. For the war 7% of 8th Air force B-17 and 11% of B-24 sorties became weather aborts. For most of 1943 the 8th Air Force was a good weather air force dropping modest amounts of bombs, this reinforced the beliefs precision strikes on key targets would work really well, otherwise why run most raids?

In 1943, depending on the month, 12 to 27% of 8th Air Force bombs dropped in good to fair visibility landed within 1,000 feet of the aiming point, in 1944 it was 25 to 45%. In 1943 each bomber generated 2 to 6 sorties per month, in 1944 6 to 12 sorties per month, fighters in 1943, 4 to 11 sorties per month, 1944, 7 to 23 sorties per month. In 1943 225,618 hours of combat flying time, in 1944 2,020,285 hours (training 202,829 versus 830,259 hours) with the note flying times for early 1943 are partially estimated. Overall 84% of bomber sorties attacked a target, in 1943 it was 78%.

Bomber Command first use of H2S in major raid was 30 January 1943. For the its the dams raid was very destructive, but it was a one only, the RAF needed to form 617 wing and do a night, at best two nights of raids, after that the defences would be too strong and changed to cope with bouncing bombs. The dams were repaired as a priority. In 1942 the average Lancaster bomb load for a night operation was around 6,200 pounds, in 1943, 9,000 pounds, in 1944 10,000 pounds.

Bomber Command day operations 1942, 2,386 despatched, 1,617 attacking, 1,713.7 tons of bombs dropped, 115 aircraft missing, 14 write offs, 29 personnel killed, 452 missing. January to May 1943 1,797 despatched, 1,209 attacking, 1,229.7 tons of bombs, 63 aircraft missing, 13 write offs, 219 personnel killed or missing.

Allied air force capacities were much smaller in early 1943 compared with late 1943 in just about every aspect and dwarfed capacity in January 1942.

RAF bombers came equipped with flare chutes, also used to drop leaflets and later disperse window.

German fuel stocks were boosted in mid 1940 by the captures in western Europe, operation Barbarossa reduced stocks back to early war levels where the stayed until the final quarter of 1943, despite fuel production going from 5.5 million tonnes in 1941 to 7.5 million in 1943. Aviation fuel output about doubled 1941 to 1943, accounting for nearly half the increase in output, the army in the east was being supplied directly from Romania at least which helps explain almost no increase in German motor fuel production.

Bergjon12 said:

T: Each major city is a candidate for a firestorm. For this reason, no minor attacks should be directed at any such city, so as to preserve all combustible materials within that city.

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Another it will be all right on the night, not much need for rehearsals, the training and actual experience to get the bomb concentrations in time and space to have a chance of creating major lasting damage.

Bergjon12 said:

Air assets should be preserved through winter months by reduced tempo, so that a maximum effort can be made in summer, for the best chance for a firestorm.

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Interesting as the 8th Air Force operations 1943/44 meant the Luftwaffe day fighter force was denied its usual rest period, setting it up for the losses later in 1944.

Bergjon12 said:

(There's a lot to unpack, as the man said.)

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Which explains why the luggage was promptly handed back to the porter with orders to remove it. Still no idea whether it will be a day and night campaign or only a day one.

Bergjon12 said:

No they don't. Deeper penetration gives the defence more options, not more obligations. All of Germany can be defended on a given line running NNE.

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Yes they do, Germany can be defended Kammhuber style, push through/saturate that and no more interceptions. The size of Germany meant defending fighters started to carry drop tanks in order to have the range to intercept.

Spitfire I economic cruise range 575 miles, or 395 miles deducting combat allowance, fast cruise range (often needed to catch bombers moving at 200+mph), 415 miles, then deduct combat allowance. The larger the target area the more dispersed the defences have to be and the larger the number of fighters out of range of a given attack.

Bergjon12 said:

Fighter bases WILL be placed as far forward as possible. Just how far forward IS possible in a given case is another matter. Note that Norwich is not on the coast.

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Every seen a map of 8th Air Force fighter bases? Anyway just add more airfields to the construction list in 1942/43 as the system tries to cope with expansion of existing bases for larger aircraft and the arrivals of the 8th then 9th Air Forces.

In reply to Fighters at economic speed in a war zone are either targets or spectators unless they are lucky.

Bergjon12 said:

There are no absolutes. Experience will dictate, as will circumstance. There is already a wealth of targets within 300 mile range. If the target is e.g. Hamburg, economy will rise on the list of priorities.

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Bomber Command used distances from Lincoln UK to target,
Hamburg 435 miles
Bremen 394 miles
Cologne 356 miles
Emden 320 miles
In the period to 31 August 1944 some 2.7% of 8th Air Force B-17s listed as lost to fighters made it back to allied territory, versus 6.4% of those listed as lost to flak. For the period 1 September 1944 to the end of the war the figures become 5.8% and 16.6%. The penalty for long range fighting.

Bergjon12 said:

What is the contribution to this data from missions escorted all the way to the target?

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You mean you do not know that? Your whole idea is you can arrange escorted missions with low enough loss rates to enable continual operations. So what are the numbers? What does escorted all the way to target mean in terms of numbers of fighters to number of bombers? All we are being given is a bunch of assumptions about a force that will be initially outnumbered and generally flying fighters with lower performance than the defenders will do great things but only when the European weather is clear enough for visual bombing, concentrating on a sub section of enemy territory, which by the way is another limit, Germany is big enough to have visual weather in parts and non visual in others.

In reply to Name the Luftwaffe airbases in Netherlands/Belgium/France that were catered to the moon in 1942/43, how big a percentage that was of airbases available, and how long the stayed out of action, hint start at around 0.

Bergjon12 said:

I might reiterate that this is an issue of doing things differently than historically was the case.

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To put it another way, if allied airpower could do as much in 1942/43 as being claimed, we would all be talking about how in 1940 the Luftwaffe destroyed Fighter Command and caused so much destruction in South East England there was a surrender before any German soldier came ashore.

However we are really talking about a fixed conclusion, one that near totally ignores reality.

Bombing oil facilities was and is an important strategic target. But hard to do. Up till the end of the war it proved to be very difficult to hit any specific target. Even from low altitude and in daylight Bomber Command wasn't able to destroy German army positions in Normandy without destroying the city of Caen. In earlier years it was virtually impossible to hit targets of any kind far into occupied territory. Oboe was probably the most precise aiming method, but over the Ruhr only useable by Mosquito's flying at 25.000 feet or more. And that was the farthest they could reach. After D-Day and the liberation of France and Belgium mobile Oboe transmitters were closer by and made precision bombing somewhat easier. From the return of BC from the tactical operations around the landings in France in august 1944 one sees that synthetic oil plants were very often targeted by BC. And the USAAF was very active as well. But that only could happen after the air superiority was achieved. And even then the precision was in general very low. By day and by night. Consider also the weatherconditions over continental Europe. In the ORB's the mentioning of seven-tenth overcast or more are so numerous.
Apart from the oil campaign it is often overlooked what stress on the German war production was administered bij the bombing campaign during the entire war. the replacement of production to remote areas and the extra strain on transportation that came with it cost great amounts of labour, energy and manpower. Not to mention the organisational stress involved. Google for instance the Ziemestal railroad bridge in Thuringia. It was part of a local railroad never meant to be part of the main transport network. As you can see from prewar photo's it had a fairly simple construction. Modern pictures show a much stronger construction. The reinforcement took place in 1943. Hundreds of tons of steel girders were made and transported and built into this bridge involving also a lot of manpower and engineering. One bridge in an off the track railroad. How many more projects as this were undertaken elswhere in Germany?

A Strategic Bombing Campaign can't reduce Axis industrial output to any significant degree, unless massive numbers of escorted bombers are available. However, a SBC can force the enemy to permanently site massive amounts of AA in their territory and force permanent deployment of fighters in the same territory. Therefore the the strategy of the SBC should be a series of area bombing missions and pin-point precision missions to force the Axis to increase AA and fighter defence to the maximum possible and doing so using the minimum Allied cost and force allocation.

Unused strategic bomber production would then be allocated to tactical support roles and to VLR ASW and naval recon/strike missions which would minimize Allied shipping losses to increase ground force build up and industrial output.

Geoffrey Sinclair said:

Merlin 60 series Spitfires began production in June 1942, Supermarine were trying to build the mark VIII, switched its mark V to mark IX, stopping V in September 1942 and then IX in June 1943, Castle Bromwich began mark IX production in February 1943 getting to over 100 per month in June. This means by end 1942 a total of 402 mark VII and IX had been built, 1,176 by end June, 2,966 by end December 1943, deduct losses, reserves etc. On 30 June 1943 the RAF had 242 mark VIII in Britain, along with 602 mark IX, another 113 IX overseas, while 205 were on the water, 2 VIII and 207 IX had been lost. Fighter Command had 156 Spitfire IX and 587 Spitfire V in operational units. Another count says 48 Spitfire squadrons, including 2 non operational, had 718 operational aircraft. Authorised squadron strength 18 aircraft. Fighter Command remained mostly operating mark V during 1943 as the overseas VIII and IX population grew, around 1,200 overseas out of 1,500.

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Hello,
just to be pedant here:
Mk-IX-M61 Start prod June42 End Oct43-475 airframes
Mk-IX-M63 Start prod Feb43 End Oct43-698 Airframes
Mk-IX-M66 (LFIX) Start prod Feb43 End Jun45-3981 Airframes
Mk-IX-M70 (HF-IX) Start prod March44 End June45-398 Airframes
MK-Va Start prod Mar41 End Jun41-94 Airframes
Mk-Vb Start prod Mar41 End Dec42-3600 Airframes
Mk-Vc Start prod Oct41 End Oct43-1542 Airframes
Mk-VII Start prod Aug43 End May44-140 Airframes
Mk-VIII-M63 Start prod Nov42 End Nov43-272 airframes
Mk-VIII-M70(HF) Start prod Jun44 End Nov44-160 airframes
Mk-VIII-M66(LF) Start prod Apr43 End Mar44-1226 airframes

MK-VII operational availability assignment.

bada said:

Mk-IX-M61 Start prod June42 End Oct43-475 airframes
Mk-IX-M63 Start prod Feb43 End Oct43-698 Airframes
Mk-IX-M66 (LFIX) Start prod Feb43 End Jun45-3981 Airframes
Mk-IX-M70 (HF-IX) Start prod March44 End June45-398 Airframes
MK-Va Start prod Mar41 End Jun41-94 Airframes
Mk-Vb Start prod Mar41 End Dec42-3600 Airframes
Mk-Vc Start prod Oct41 End Oct43-1542 Airframes
Mk-VII Start prod Aug43 End May44-140 Airframes
Mk-VIII-M63 Start prod Nov42 End Nov43-272 airframes
Mk-VIII-M70(HF) Start prod Jun44 End Nov44-160 airframes
Mk-VIII-M66(LF) Start prod Apr43 End Mar44-1226 airframes

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Interesting, where to the numbers come from?
BS253 and 427 in contract cards as VII but are VI, AB450 VII p/type counted as V

Mark XVI notes MJ556 was the first fitted with US built Merlin, in around December 1943, it was not officially taken on charge by the RAF until May 1945, essentially it was a prototype. The first production XVI was built in July 1944 before the decision had been taken about what mark number, if any, to give to the US built engined version. As a result the aircraft was called a mark IX at the time, and counted as such. The correction was made to the production figures in January 1945, reducing the IX total by 1 and adding 1 to the XVI total. Sorting out mark XVI serials has the problem of cancellations and missing aircraft history cards. Peter Moss thinks there were 1,055, Morgan and Shacklady total says 1,053 but there are 1,054 serials in their list, Andrew Pentland, web site says 1,053. Both MAP and Vickers/Supermarine think 1,054 mk XVI built which is the total reported here, with MJ556 counted as mark XVI.

Geoffrey Sinclair said:

Interesting, where to the numbers come from?

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From the "Spitfire Production List"

Trop Versions and very small series not accounted in my numbers.

bada said:

From the "Spitfire Production List"

Trop Versions and very small series not accounted in my numbers.

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I'm sorry, what is the "Spitfire Production List"? A book, a document, a website? The numbers look right to me, but I'm just wanting to know the actual source.

Also, when you say the trop versions are "not accounted for" do you mean they are not broken out separately (so they are included in the overall figures) or that trop production would have to be added back in to see the true totals for the types listed? I can see how the quantities of the very small series wouldn't amount to much but I would think trop production numbers would be considerable, especially in 1942-43.

ggiumarra said:

I'm sorry, what is the "Spitfire Production List"? A book, a document, a website? The numbers look right to me, but I'm just wanting to know the actual source.

Also, when you say the trop versions are "not accounted for" do you mean they are not broken out separately (so they are included in the overall figures) or that trop production would have to be added back in to see the true totals for the types listed? I can see how the quantities of the very small series wouldn't amount to much but I would think trop production numbers would be considerable, especially in 1942-43.

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See EwenS's link. That where i retreived the data a long-long time ago. The whole listing was offered in .csv format and i imported it into excel and started filtering.

The MkV's TROP are not included in the numbers , this would account for +/- 1250 airframes more for the Mk-V series
Here the list with the basic filtering, you can play with it by yourself and check the numbers (personally, production numbers aren't important for me, but the operational assignments and the distrubution numbers) :

Another it will be all right on the night, not much need for rehearsals, the training and actual experience to get the bomb concentrations in time and space to have a chance of creating major lasting damage.

There are other targets as well.

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Interesting as the 8th Air Force operations 1943/44 meant the Luftwaffe day fighter force was denied its usual rest period, setting it up for the losses later in 1944.

I'm sorry, but I reject this logic, that to keep attacking with unfavorable prospects is a sound strategy. It was unsound on the western front in WW1 and it was unsound in WW2.

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Yes they do, Germany can be defended Kammhuber style, push through/saturate that and no more interceptions. The size of Germany meant defending fighters started to carry drop tanks in order to have the range to intercept.

I think your logic is backwards. What you are describing is the LW exploiting the chances for second bites at the apple offered by deep penetration missions, opportunities which would not exist under a short range strategy.

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Spitfire I economic cruise range 575 miles, or 395 miles deducting combat allowance, fast cruise range (often needed to catch bombers moving at 200+mph), 415 miles, then deduct combat allowance.

Thank you for this information. This opens up a lot of opportunities.

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The larger the target area the more dispersed the defences have to be and the larger the number of fighters out of range of a given attack.

No they don't. They offer the defense multiple chances to oppose an attack.

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Every seen a map of 8th Air Force fighter bases? Anyway just add more airfields to the construction list in 1942/43 as the system tries to cope with expansion of existing bases for larger aircraft and the arrivals of the 8th then 9th Air Forces.

Let's not forget that shorter missions means bomber bases can be moved further back, creating space for more forward fighter bases.

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You mean you do not know that? Your whole idea is you can arrange escorted missions with low enough loss rates to enable continual operations. So what are the numbers? What does escorted all the way to target mean in terms of numbers of fighters to number of bombers? All we are being given is a bunch of assumptions about a force that will be initially outnumbered and generally flying fighters with lower performance than the defenders will do great things but only when the European weather is clear enough for visual bombing, concentrating on a sub section of enemy territory, which by the way is another limit, Germany is big enough to have visual weather in parts and non visual in others.

Those numbers are on the way, for sure. I'm just waiting for my promised staff numbers.

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To put it another way, if allied airpower could do as much in 1942/43 as being claimed,

What exactly has been claimed?

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However we are really talking about a fixed conclusion, one that near totally ignores reality.

What conclusion is that?

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There is another point to be made. Deep, unescorted missions result in high bomber losses, which is a gift of scrap aluminum to Germany.

Short, fully escorted missions would result in much fewer bomber losses, and presumably moderate fighter losses, which leaves less metal behind.

Does anyone know how many 109s can be produced from a single B-17 wreck?

And yes, I forgot to mention: day and night missions both, of course.

Intruder missions should be performed by Mosquitoes mostly or exclusively. They are less vulnerable than heavy bombers and give no metal to the enemy if lost.

Top of the target list for deep missions should be aluminum smelters.

I didn't once write that LW fighters would elide Allied bombers to attack the fighters. You'll need to quote and link the post you're obviously misunderstanding for me to clarify -- but you're clearly having problems reading what I've written.

I must have misunderstood something, for that I apologize.

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Me, I'd move more 88s into the targeted zone, make sure I've got plenty of radar up and running, move production away from targeted areas where possible (which Speer actually did later in the war, but he was already thinking about this), set up ambushes, and so forth.

These are all sound options. There is every chance to incorporate the AAA component into a comprehensive air battle. During Market-Garden, extremely vulnerable transports moved through contested airspace with relatively few losses. Escorting fighters aggressively engaged AA batteries to achieve this result.

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You talk about Allied escort fighters. Up until the end of 1943, they had to head back to England around Eupen, about 10 miles from Germany. So your escorted bombers will be flattening captive nations and not Germany itself.

Now this is clearly false. Spitfires with drop tanks were fielded as early as March 1942.

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You clearly misunderstood what I wrote. In context, I was, and am, talking about attrition. Of course the Allies had plenty of airplanes for meh, three 1000-plane raids in a month in the middle of 1942. But between combat losses, operational losses, maintenance periods, and so on, keeping up that pace of operations with 300 or so Lancasters, a few hundred Wellingtons, and then a bunch of Whitleys and Hampdens cadged from Coastal Command, along with three hundred or so USAAF heavies with relatively inexperienced crew, that's a big ask.

It is a big ask. I'm only asking for one or two firestorms in 1942. Anything more is gravy.

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