What if America built De Havilland Mosquitoes instead of the B-17 Flying Fortress? (1 Viewer)

[FLYBOYJ]

I didn't include the biplanes because their performance wasn't high enough

The I-16 was mixed but mostly wood, 10,000 were made almost all before 1942. (270 -300 mph depending on the model)
The Yak 1 was mostly-wood aircraft, with wooden wings. 8,700 made, mostly before 1944. (340-360 mph depending on version)
The Yak 7 also had wooden wings and partly wood fuselage, 6,300 made, also mostly before 1944 (350 mph)
The Yak 9 was 'partly wood' a mix of wood and aluminum (aluminum covered wings) 16,000 built (420 mph)
The LaGG-3 was all wood, 6,500 made, all prior to 1944. (340 mph)
The La 5 and La 5F and FN was all wood, 9,900 made, mostly replaced by La 7 in 1944 (400 mph)
The La 7 was mixed wood and metal, 5,000 made (410 mph)
The MiG-3 was mixed, including mostly wooden wings, 3,400 made (400 mph) (image here gives you an idea what parts were wood and what parts aluminum alloy)

By my count that is 16,000 all-wood (except for engine and guns), 25,000 'mostly' wood, and 24,000 mixed or partly wood aircraft. May of them successful, all in the 300-400 mph range (except some of the earlier I-16s)

OK and my original statement was "depending on the aircraft, they were partially made of wood" So your point?

OK - and my original statement "depending on the aircraft, they were partially made of wood"I think this demonstrates that the Soviets made a very large amount of high performance wooden aircraft. They had some problems with the designs and the manufacturing, but the Mosquito wasn't entirely without problems either, and both England and the US had superior industrial capacity to the Soviet Union.

A a large portion of the aircraft you listed were destroyed on the ground and shot out of the sky, especially during Barbarossa, so again what's your point?

 

[Schweik]

Yeah, I don't think an industrial pivot in the middle of a war is advisable. Even in the best circumstances you'll incur production slowdowns and production conflicts.

OK - now you get a warning! Pull your head out of your butt

That was a joke about rating Soviet industrial capacity above US and British. Soviets were 'commies'. Get it?

Ban me if you think you ought to.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

That was a joke about rating Soviet industrial capacity above US and British. Soviets were 'commies'. Get it?

Ban me if you think you ought to.

OK

 

[wuzak]

Like I said, you could get most of the Merlin engines you needed in say 1943 from Hurricanes which were being taken off the line in many Theaters about then. Work out a swap to the FAA to give them a few more TBFs, Martlets and Hellcats in exchange for the engines that would have gone into Fireflies and Barracudas. Dare I say maybe replace some of those Seafires too. Cancel the Henley a bit earlier and don't make Beaufighters with Merlins. You probably have enough right there.

Hawker Henleys had Merlin IIs - you don't want them in your Mosquito.
Fairey Fireflies had Griffons.

The Beaufighter II was made because of a forecasted shortage of Hercules. Just over 300 Merlin Beaufighters were made. At least they were the right type, though not the reverse coolant flow needed for the Mosquito.

 

[Shortround6]

Like I said, you could get most of the Merlin engines you needed in say 1943 from Hurricanes which were being taken off the line in many Theaters about then. Work out a swap to the FAA to give them a few more TBFs, Martlets and Hellcats in exchange for the engines that would have gone into Fireflies and Barracudas. Dare I say maybe replace some of those Seafires too. Cancel the Henley a bit earlier and don't make Beaufighters with Merlins. You probably have enough right there.

Oh man,

Lets do the time warp again?

Henleys used Merlin I & IIs. Not even Merlin IIIs.

Mosquitoes used Merlins with reversed cooling. Not a big deal if you plan ahead but you can't take a Merlin 20 out out of a crate and shove it in a Mosquito airframe.

Shoving engines into a warehouse in 1938/39 so you can use them in airframes that won't be built until 1942-43 requires a lot more than the retrospectroscope.

Packard built Merlin 28s for the Lancaster, Merlin 29s for the Canadian Hurricanes, Merlin 31s and 33s for Canadian and Australian Mosquitoes and so on.

Mosquitoes started with Merlin 21s with one piece cylinder blocks, went to Merlin 23s with two piece cylinder blocks, then went to Merlin 25s with higher boost limits.

Sorry, stopping production of Beaufighter IIs in the summer of 1941 doesn't do much for trying to make more Mosquitoes in 1943 in any country.


The Merlin 21 was rated at 1280hp for take-off.
The Merlin 23 was rated at 1390hp for take-off.
The Merlin 25 was rated at 1610hp for take-off.

Not even going to count the two stage Merlins.

Fairey Fireflies used Griffons, The Barracuda used single speed superchargers set up for low altitude. Lower gear ratio than a Merlin 45 and a cropped impeller (but not quite as much as a cropped Merlin 45).
BTW some British Merlin factories only built single speed or two speed engines depending on factory. There is a difference in the crankcase, the supercharge was not simply bolted on the back.

Let's not forget that A-26 and B-28 both flew within a few months of the Mosquito doing it's first bombing mission at the end of May 1942.
Without the use of the retrospectroscope which plane would you bet on for use by the USAAC in 1944?

Any ideas that the Americans should have jumped all over the Mosquito in 1941 or early 1942 because of it's performance in 1943/44 requires Rocky and his friends to do their thing.

 

[Stig1207]

Others have mentioned it already, with Mosquitos doing the strategic daylight bombing of Germany instead of B-17 / B-24 's, the Allies are going to have find some other way of luring the Jagdwaffe up to be destroyed in the air, if the Allies want air supremacy over the Normandy beaches.

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

Just a series of notes.

Running the USAAF heavies versus Luftwaffe Fighters the air to air kill ratios were about 2 fighter to 3 bombers in 1943, 1 to 2 in early 1944 after a Luftwaffe upgunning, shown by the holes in the returning bombers, probably worse for the bombers as 1944 went on. The 20mm versus the 0.5 inch was something of a match given the size of the fighter and bomber and number of hits to shoot each down.

In April 1943 the commander of the 306th Bomb Group, Colonel Putnam, wrote a report, problems with aircraft identification, the speeds involved meant only around 10% of gunners who could have fired during the crucial 2 to 3 seconds of a fighter attack did in fact do so. Then there was the problem of the standard of US gunner accuracy, fighter pilots apparently needed 5% hits on the target to pass.

Simply the US formation gunnery was like a flak barrage, it brought down some fighters, damaged a lot more and deterred some. The damage was very useful given the Luftwaffe tended to be short of spare parts.

US definition of length was based on the metric system and so was different to Britain, add all sorts of other standards like screw threads and sizes that were different in Britain and the US. Even aviation terminology. Drawings standards were different too, over and above the variation between companies.

A key limitation of putting bombs on targets in daylight was the smoke and dust kicked up from the intial strikes. You need to space out the formations, keep them as small and low as possible, but that makes the defences more effective. The rise of electronics, the use of target markers, incendiaries, bigger bombs and staying over the target longer meant at the end of 1944 the night raids on oil installations were being considered more damaging on average.

For Bomber Command after dipping below 1% of night heavy bomber sorties to Germany lost in October 1944 it climbs to over 1% in November and December and then hovers at 1.5% give or take through April 1945. For the 8th Air Force the monthly figures move around more 1.9% of airborne and 2.1% of effective sorties in January 1945, versus the lows of 0.65% and 0.75% in December, overall October 1944 to April 1945, 1% of airborne and 1.3% of effective sorties lost. Earlier months requires separating out USAAF German targets sorties and losses.

Bombing campaign against targets in Germany, the half way point for bomb tonnage was end September 1944 for Bomber Command and mid November 1944 for the 8th Air Force. It was a very end weighted campaign.

Also the allies did a very impressive improvement in flyable weather, with reductions in accidents, but there was not a similar improvement for weather effects on accuracy. There was also the problem of being able to accurately forecast the weather, 8th AF 524 forecasts of cloud conditions, up to 5/10, 6 and 7/10, 8 to 10/10, correct 304 times, worse 164 times, better 56 times.

Bomber Command Mosquito bombs dropped, excluding 100 Group units
H.E. Bombs
4000 HC 776
4000 MC 141
4000 M2 7469
1000 MC 12
1000 GP 2
500 MC 30917
500 GP 11553
500 USA 18
250 GP 758
20 AP 72
Incendiary
1000 TI 347
1000 Ti Puff 6
500 Smoke 15
250 TI 16064
250 Puff 78
250 Spot Fire 359
250 TI Float 41
4000 8
250 36
250 Photoflash 35
100 Smoke 10
30 128
4 4440

Total 26,569.7 long tons, 28,688 sorties sent, 25,009 effective. Add 27 1,500 pound and 99 1,000 pound mines plus some 250 pound TI.

By the looks of things the 100 group Mosquitoes dropped nothing bigger than a 500 pound bomb, but lots more incendiaries, including 6,678 of the 106x4 pound and 3,160 of the 158x4 pound clusters. And Napalm.

Bristol Blenheim, Bristol line shut down in March 1940, Avro in October 1941, Rootes switched to the mark V in December 1941 and continued until June 1943, building 865. Mosquito IV production started in September 1941, finished in July 1943 with 273 built (plus 27 PR IV). Apart from momentum of an established line and for trainers the Blenheim was still needed to keep the numbers up, being used in the Middle East and India.

Mosquito IX produced April to November 1943, with 54 built, mark XVI began production in November 1943, the second mark XVI line at Percival began production in May 1944.

To get rid of the Hurricanes in Britain required the Typhoon and Sabre to work well enough, that took until early 1944. In mid 1943 a number of Typhoon airframes were reduced to spares given the lack of engines.

By the way, note I am pointing out some of the official Marshalling Yard strikes on Ploesti were actually aimed at the refineries. Also how much of the output was available for non Romanian consumers and how spare refining capacity existed to replace the Romanian ones if needed.

 

[Shortround6]

I would further note that Packard built about 17,750 single stage Merlins over and above the initial 9,000 engine contract. These engines were delivered from Feb/March of 1943 to Dec 1944. This is in addition to the just under 2800 two stage engines delivered in 1943 and the just under 15,800 two stage engines delivered in 1944.

As a further note I would suggest reading about operation Oyster, the raid on the Philips radio plant/s in Holland in Dec 1942.
Out of 97 planes used 15 were lost and 57 damaged, many due to bird strikes.

I will let others try to figure out if such operations could have been done as a sustained campaign, especially at longer ranges.

 

[wuzak]

As a further note I would suggest reading about operation Oyster, the raid on the Philips radio plant/s in Holland in Dec 1942.
Out of 97 planes used 15 were lost and 57 damaged, many due to bird strikes.

According to Wiki, the losses were "nine Venturas, four Bostons and a Mosquito".

"Thirty-seven 37 Venturas, 13 Bostons and three Mosquitoes were damaged".

Venturas and Bostons had defensive armament.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

US definition of length was based on the metric system and so was different to Britain, add all sorts of other standards like screw threads and sizes that were different in Britain and the US. Even aviation terminology. Drawings standards were different too, over and above the variation between companies.

Are you speaking in terms of aircraft production because if so this is not true.

 

[drgondog]

Wait a minute. Woah. Hold on padnuh. IIRC the Mosquito bomber wasn't flying in any numbers until 1942.

By then, you have thousands of Soviet aircraft made of wood, many of them with speeds of ~ 350 mph, and in mid 1942 they introduced the 400 mph La 5. All of these made of wood. The Soviets made tens of thousands of aircraft made of laminated plywood and resin during WW2.

If the Soviets could make ~20,000 Yak series fighters, and 9,000 La 5s I am certain the US could make at least that many Mosquitos if they really wanted to.

What USSR produced is otally irrelevant to his debate. The key questions are a.) When is the earliest possible recognition that the Special Mosquito is a plausible alternative to B-17/24 for long range strategic bombing, b.) when can design/configuration be decided - leading to GFE procurement of specific engine variant of Packard Merlin, and c.) how early could a decision be made to prioritize production. If Merlin 61 series is the engine selected, then the A1 Priority for NAA P-51B must be the loser for Super Mosquito to procede. Alternative would be to seek and fund separate source for both.

Time is not your friend. Single point decision is not practical. AAF, War Production Board, stakeholders in Packard Production (by international agreement with BAM/RAF) must all agree on path forward.

You seem to pass and wave at serious milestones for both available technology (Merlin 61 or equivilant for combined high/low altitude options) and priority production allocations - for engines, raw material sourcing, labor training, tooling and critical materials. It is boring when you declare victory and state with zippo that some persuasive alien parasite infects AAF top command, R-R and DeHaviland senior officers, with a compulsion to forecast the specifications for a wooden two engine/zero defensive armament bomber as the highest probability successful daylight strategic bomber to go to War against Germany -

In or before 1940.

That would be about right block of time to drain funding for wartime expansion, from investment capital to be unleashed in the US and build the production facility, and hire and tain labor force, develop sourcing for balsa supply, engage with DeHaviland for rights to license intellecual property for Mosquito, engage with R-R for parallel production license other than Packard, build prototype with Merlin XX, with full knowledge that R-R has the 2S/2S Merlin 61 emerging from R&D in 1941 and so perform design study and plans for upgraded cooling system requirements to minimize transition to new, high performance engine.

The second point you overlook is that extremely early foresight and recognition that a Special Mosquito, undefended, without escort, was a better solution for AWPD-2 than heavily defended B-17s/B-24s attacking long range strategic targets. To the hard nosed advocates of Strategic Airpower I mentioned earlier, how do you a.) identify the recently introduced Mosquito as the basis for Super Mosquito which will Clearly be able to strike targets at very long range, undefended, when ONLY heavily defended bomber were considered feasible - and long range escorts were not considered 'possible' by AAF, and b.) excite them and the War Production Board to assign the highest priority to your Special Mosquito project?

From a technology perspective the Merlin 61 (IMO) was on critical path, leading to best possible earliest delivery of Special Mosquito as mid 1943 for early (and few Packard 1650-3 engines @2 each per ship). For that to happen the P-51B must be delayed for a significant length of time for the 'new' Packard plant to build 1650-3 for Mustangs. The decision to produce the Merlin by license must go to a US based, bigger Packard type company. This project was never going to be high enough priority in Britain for R-R to produce for American Mosquito, as the demand for Spitfire and Lancaster exceeded supply.

With the chain of earliest possible start in 1940 for 100% buy in on Special Mosquito, the elapsed time to complete the design changes to initial Mosquito airframe for Special Mosquitio, execute technolgy (enginering/production Processes/QA) transfer from DeHaviland, execute technolgy transfer from R-R to new engine company for parallel operations to Packard, it is not conceivable that first flight of American built Special Mosquito is any earlier than for XP-51B November 30, 1942. Same critical path for ironing out cooling issues of Merlin 61 for the XP-51B drives production solution to say March 1943. That said, not even Packard had producton 1650-3 delivered to NAA until late April, 1943 and NAA had as many as 40 completed, save engines, P-51Bs in June 1943. ThwT The Packard union was on strike in June, causing delay to approximately 1000 engines by more than 30 more days. Project Training Command ramp up to allocate training centers, organize syllabus and trainers for Flight Ops, Maintainers, pilots and begin training for the projected mission profile. As a parallel comparison, recognize that the Allison Mustang (P-51-NA) had been in AAF inventory in summer 1942 - but organized and trained and start of operation required a year for 30+ to see action in MTO in June 1943.

Question - how in hell does USSR experience in building with wood assist in speeding up American made Special Mosquito to improve the above project initiation to delivery cycle?

This is all based on crystal ball concept of seeding the ultimate plan for attack operations in Group force strength by January 1944, into presuming that all the key figures required to make it happen in 1940 would be infected with the Special Mosquito religious fervor, far earlier than AAF-HQ Planning could be convinced that a Special Mosquito attack vehicle could improve target destruction efficiency over large formations of B-17/B-24. Even under the rosiest circumstances the initial dribble of Mosquitos would be equivalent to perhaps the same for P-51B and C, but Mosquito only 1/2 the airframes based on 2 engine delivery requirements compared to P-51B.

So, the Special Mosquito could never start ops until early 1944 - based on impssible assumptions.

Now, how about experience based disgruntlement on part of AAF-HQ and 8th/12th AF in combat from summer/fall 1942.

Remember specifically that the results expected for precision were very high for B-17/Norden bombsight through 1942, although results varied from 'good to abysmal'. The doctrine of "The bomber will always get through' was irrefutable from start of 8th AF ops through Blitz Week at end of July 1943. So, no possibility of convincing AAF High Command that a change was remotely feasible until after August 17th raid to Regensburg and Schweinfurt. No ' aha moment yet for 4-engine mission.

Further - There was zero inclination by RAF for placing a large force of Mosquitos to join RAF BC attacking Berlin and other deep targets to achieve pin point target destruction. Why not? RAF had very clever planners and leaders. Just because they got their nose bloodied by LW in 1940 performing daylight bombing, would not preclude RAF from capitalizing on a Mosquito Plan and try it out - Before 8th started deep penetrations in July 1943. The 'why not' is that in-theatre leaders with operational experience of Mosquito caability for long range strategic strikes were Silent on the subject.

So, historically and factually, the Mosquito was not projected into the Strategic Bombing Plan as the long range precsion bomber - day or night.

Note: To this critical point, not even the very knowledgable contrbutors on this forum have presented a clear aircraft model, mission profile (presumably by daylight given precision delivery requirements, presumably low level at point of attack) that actual combat results demonstrate before 1943 - point to a solid plan for USAAF to duplicate for 8th AF. But to your constant 'we could do this, we could do that - your words are meaningless until the 'why and how and when' can be nailed down as a basis for review, you can not expect folks to take your dream seriously. It might just be me, but if you can't present logic and facts to support how USAAF leaders could see - and agree- your vision, then you can't baffle them with a blizzard of non correlated examples such as 'what the USSR did'

To Continue: It is at this moment ('aha' perhaps after October 1943 Schweinfurt bloody nose), super salesman must begin Convincing AAF/War Production Board) that a.) you must quickly obtain RAF/BAM and DeHaviland agreement to license Super Mosquito, b.) otain agreement to override R-R, Packard/RF/AAF agreement for Merlin production allocations to 'other Mosquitos, Hurricanes, Lancasters, etc and re-direct to Super Mosquito. Equally urgent is obtaining agreement for technology transfer to obtain all raw material procurement, engineering and production support persnnel, training processes etc.

Then, at this moment, when the performance envelope of the P-51B is more widely shared, and deliveries have commenced before Schweinfurt, you must argue for future priority of Packard 1650-3 and -7 engines at expense of slowing or closing P-51B/C/D to all operational AAF theatres (as well as RAF).

Pause here. One last point regarding earlier possible decision in 1943.

What possible proof points, even given foreknowledge of potential large force 1945 Super Mosquito capabilities, can you propose to Generals Arnold, Spaaz and Eaker (and Churchill and Portal) at Casablanca to compel the 'aha' to take back to US and state 'forget about long range strategic airpower conducted during daylight' - then give highest Priority to Special Mosquito.

Recall that POINTBLANK was all about destroying German industrial capability and render Germany incapable of resisting invasion projected for spring 1944 - and that the 'Bomb them by Day and Night' theme by Eaker to Churchill was said to be the turning point after which Churchill no loger actively resisted US notion that Germany could be successfully attacked in daylight.

The Priority decision to commit to Mosquito 'bomber' could only follow several time based milestones, the first and most important being a recognition that the Mosquito would serve the POINTBANK objectives for RAF and USAAF crafted at Casablanca - spring 1943.

But if RAF recognized that the proposed strategic capability of the Super Mosquito was better for daylight role- and deemed suitable to attack power grids, refineries, ball bearings, etc. with low losses - why would RAF not take the mission as its own? There would be no replacement of 8th AF B-17s, just a change in RAF doctrine.

Last point, arguably introduction of P-51B and resultant destruction of LW Day Fighter ability to resist Overlord - was more important than improving daylight bombing target destruction efficiency. There is no scenario (realistic, fact based) that projects Super Mosquito as more important than P-51B and thus unrealistic that Mosquito could divert NAA committed Merlin 61 based engines from Packard to achieve eary 1944 delivery.

 

[GrauGeist]

From the Royal Australian Air Force website:
"In 1942, the Australian de Havilland factory at Bankstown commenced production of a fighter-bomber Mosquito, the DHA 98 FB Mk 40. Initial delays were caused by the unavailability of Canadian birchwood, and Australian coachwood had to be substituted.

The first Australian Mosquito was delivered on 23 July 1943, and accepted by the RAAF on 5 March 1944. The FB Mk 40 was equivalent to the RAF FB Mk VI and, although 212 were built at Bankstown (A52-1/212), only 209 served with the RAAF because A52-12, 18 and 24 crashed before acceptance. Six of the FB Mk 40s were converted for photo-reconnaissance as PR Mk 40s, and these aircraft operated so effectively that a further 28 FB Mk 40s were converted to PR Mk 41s. Previously, A52-90 had been re-engined with Packard Merlin 69s and became the sole FB Mk 42: however, this marque was superseded and A52-90 was used as the prototype for the PR Mk 41 and re-serialled A52-300."

Note both the supply issue and the length of time from start to delivery.

The whole article (including a great history of the Mossie) can be read here:
RAAF Museum: DH 98 Mosquito History

 

[Reluctant Poster]

It should be noted that the Canadian built B. XXs and B. 25s used by the LNSF (in addition to B.XVIs) used single stage Merlins. Bomber Command did not consider 60 Series Merlins to be essential for missions over Germany. Obviously the faster, higher flying XVIs would be better, but war is nothing if not a series of compromises.

 

[pbehn]

Are you speaking in terms of aircraft production because if so this is not true.

I think this is referring to the US survey foot, it only actually matters if rulers and tape measures start disagreeing with each other and you have to refer back to a reference standard.

Foot (unit) - Wikipedia
In the United States, the foot was defined as 12 inches, with the inch being defined by the Mendenhall Order of 1893 as 39.37 inches = 1 m (making a US foot exactly 1200​⁄3937​ meters, approximately 0.30480061 m).[27]​[28]​ Out of 50 states and six other jurisdictions, 40 have legislated that surveying measures should be based on the U.S. survey foot, six have legislated that they be made on the basis of the international foot, and ten have not specified the conversion factor from metric units.[29]​

 

[SaparotRob]

The things one learns here.

 

[EwenS]

It should be noted that the Canadian built B. XXs and B. 25s used by the LNSF used single stage Merlins (in addition to B.XVIs) Used single stage Merlin Bomber Command did not consider 60 Series Merlins to be essential for missions over Germany. Obviously the faster, higher flying XVIs would be better, but war is nothing if not a series of compromises.

Plans were formulated in late 1944 to convert Canadian built B.25 aircraft arriving in Britain to two stage Merlins and bulged bomb bays. IIRC Marshalls of Cambridge produced one conversion before the plans were cancelled as the was expected that they would not be ready in time to make a difference.

AIRCRAFT OF THE ROYAL AIR FORCE 1939-1945: DE HAVILLAND DH 98 MOSQUITO.

Mosquito B Mark 25, KB471, at Boscombe Down, Wiltshire. A Canadian-built production version modified to carry the 4,000lb bomb in a deepened bay.

www.iwm.org.uk

 

[pbehn]

I think this is referring to the US survey foot, it only actually matters if rulers and tape measures start disagreeing with each other and you have to refer back to a reference standard.

Foot (unit) - Wikipedia
In the United States, the foot was defined as 12 inches, with the inch being defined by the Mendenhall Order of 1893 as 39.37 inches = 1 m (making a US foot exactly 1200​⁄3937​ meters, approximately 0.30480061 m).[27]​[28]​ Out of 50 states and six other jurisdictions, 40 have legislated that surveying measures should be based on the U.S. survey foot, six have legislated that they be made on the basis of the international foot, and ten have not specified the conversion factor from metric units.[29]​

The link to the Mendenhall order gives the background to it. Spending many evenings in Germany and France the subject of weights measures and driving on the wrong side frequently comes up. The dimensions of a football (soccer) field are good for a two hour 5 beer discussion.

 

[EwenS]

Like I said, you could get most of the Merlin engines you needed in say 1943 from Hurricanes which were being taken off the line in many Theaters about then. Work out a swap to the FAA to give them a few more TBFs, Martlets and Hellcats in exchange for the engines that would have gone into Fireflies and Barracudas. Dare I say maybe replace some of those Seafires too. Cancel the Henley a bit earlier and don't make Beaufighters with Merlins. You probably have enough right there.

Good luck getting more aircraft for the FAA from the USA. British Lend Lease allocations were being cut back in 1943 to allow expansion of the USN to fill all the new carriers coming out of the shipyards. Britain was getting F4U-1 Corsairs instead of F6F Hellcats as the USN Pacific Fleet decided to standardise on the F6F. Lack of Hellcats meant the squadrons destined for the new fleet carriers Implacable and Indefatigable had to keep Seafires due to their hangars not having headroom for Corsairs for example.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

Others have mentioned it already, with Mosquitos doing the strategic daylight bombing of Germany instead of B-17 / B-24 's, the Allies are going to have find some other way of luring the Jagdwaffe up to be destroyed in the air, if the Allies want air supremacy over the Normandy beaches.

The attrition of the Luftwaffe was a long drawn out affair for which the 8th AF get a a disproportionate share of the credit. Frank W. Heilenday sums it up in a Rand paper entitled "Daylight Raids by the Eighth Air Force : Lingering Myths From World War II"
" Eighth Air Force has a special interest for the author since he was chief of Operations Analysis at Headquarters (HQ) 8th AF. He later was chief of Applied Research with the parent Strategic Sir Command (SAC) and served a total of 29 years in SAC."
"Myth F. 8th AF aircraft shot down a large fraction of all Luftwaffe fighters lost in combat. About 20,000 German fighters were lost in combat in 1944, the peak year of the air war. Eighth AF fighters and bombers
were credited with downing some 4000 of these, or about 20%. The Luftwaffe lost most of their fighters while performing their primary role — close air support of the German Army."
The Luftwaffe had largely withdrawn from France before the 8th AF showed up. A case in point was the effort made by the Luftwaffe at Dieppe. Despite having fighter aircraft that were superior in performance to the Spitfire Vs that formed the bulk of the fighters they were facing, the Luftwaffe made almost no impression on the invading force. Jabos did sink the small destroyer Berkley. On the other hand, the Luftwaffe bombers were more than decimated, losing 25 bombers, more than 17% of sorties.(source Eagle in Flames by E. R. Hooton)
The RAF flew 2,640 sorties (including 120 by the USAAF) vs 945 by the Luftwaffe. To put that in perspective the RAF and USAAF flew somewhere around 14,000 sorties on D Day. It is difficult to imagine even a thousand more fighters making a difference.
The record of the Luftwaffe in stopping anything Was extremely poor. They never stopped the invasion of Italy, the invasion of Sicily, the invasion of North Africa. They never stopped the evacuation of Dunkirk, they never stopped the evacuation of Crete, At Crete they had absolute air supremacy yet still could stop it.

 

[GrauGeist]

The attrition of the Luftwaffe was a long drawn out affair for which the 8th AF get a a disproportionate share of the credit. Frank W. Heilenday sums it up in a Rand paper entitled "Daylight Raids by the Eighth Air Force : Lingering Myths From World War II"
" Eighth Air Force has a special interest for the author since he was chief of Operations Analysis at Headquarters (HQ) 8th AF. He later was chief of Applied Research with the parent Strategic Sir Command (SAC) and served a total of 29 years in SAC."
"Myth F. 8th AF aircraft shot down a large fraction of all Luftwaffe fighters lost in combat. About 20,000 German fighters were lost in combat in 1944, the peak year of the air war. Eighth AF fighters and bombers
were credited with downing some 4000 of these, or about 20%. The Luftwaffe lost most of their fighters while performing their primary role — close air support of the German Army."
The Luftwaffe had largely withdrawn from France before the 8th AF showed up. A case in point was the effort made by the Luftwaffe at Dieppe. Despite having fighter aircraft that were superior in performance to the Spitfire Vs that formed the bulk of the fighters they were facing, the Luftwaffe made almost no impression on the invading force. Jabos did sink the small destroyer Berkley. On the other hand, the Luftwaffe bombers were more than decimated, losing 25 bombers, more than 17% of sorties.(source Eagle in Flames by E. R. Hooton)
The RAF flew 2,640 sorties (including 120 by the USAAF) vs 945 by the Luftwaffe. To put that in perspective the RAF and USAAF flew somewhere around 14,000 sorties on D Day. It is difficult to imagine even a thousand more fighters making a difference.
The record of the Luftwaffe in stopping anything Was extremely poor. They never stopped the invasion of Italy, the invasion of Sicily, the invasion of North Africa. They never stopped the evacuation of Dunkirk, they never stopped the evacuation of Crete, At Crete they had absolute air supremacy yet still could stop it.

Ok...so, if the 8th AF wasn't responsible for high attrition to the Luftwaffe, then what was?