Drgn I don't exactly know what you mean "by a war the RAF chose to quit"? The RAF didn't quit, just switched priorities as per Casablanca. Granted, they realized with their resources they were getting hit badly during the day and they stopped daylight attcks but with the entrance of the US, the two forces spilt their time.
Maybe coincidence, maybe not that this decision to cease daylight operations came about the same time as US came onboard but I don't think they quit at all. In fact if it wasn't for the British fooling around with the P-51 it might not have progressed much farther or wouldn't have entered combat so quickly with a new engine to be decisive.
and what do you mean by easier to fight? I'm sure the Jagdflieger would disagree with you on that point.
OK - let's debate it.
The RAF quit flying daylight raids to Germany in 1940 before the US was in the war. The GAF quit daylight bombing on Britain in 1940 ~sept for the same reasons. They a.) didn't have escort fighters capable of defending the bombers over the target, and b.) they didn't have a strategic bomber heavily armed enough to even think they could bomb long range undefended.
We will concede that the USAAF found themselves in same situation - but unlike the RAF and LW and USSR, developed escort fighters capable of defeating the LW over their own back yard in daylight.
They both quit daylight bombing over Germany and Britain loooong before we came into the war. Secondly, the back of the Luftwaffe's ability to defend their homeland in daylight was broken between January 1944 and June depending on the historian you want to believe. But the RAF was not engaged in that struggle over Germany - it was the USAAF and the Mustang and the Lightning that were escorting 8th, 12th and 15th AF over Germany during that period and in May and June the P-47s finally got the range to engage deep into Germany.
The fighter force that accomplished that ranged from 150 in January to 300 in April (combined 51s and 38s) and their effectives over target were often 1/2 of the ones that started engines for the mission because of mechanical teething problems. And that was all there was to cover 3 Air Divisions (8th AF) over all the targets attacked deep into Germany - so there were NEVER more than two Fighter wings to meet any German attack - of up to 300 fighters for exampe over Munich on 24 April, 1944
Your comment about Brits mating the Merlin is correct but irrrelevant to what actually happened so what is your point? I am NOT Denigrating the RAF, nor am I downgrading the LW. But it is curious why the Germans seem to always look to numbers as the prime reason for their defeats or studiously avoid giving American fighter pilots their due respect
I am wondering out loud why the Luftwaffe pilots thought that the "second" (or third - maybe they ranked us behind USSR) best pilots brutalized them over Berlin and Schweinfurt and Brunswick and Munich, when they ALWAYS outnumbered the Mustangs and Lightnings over the target.
If our pilots were so dismal, why didn't the Luftwaffe destroy an entire fighter Group when they had the advantage? or at least 10? Go back and look at the records and count on the fingers of one hand how many times the 8th AF FC had a Group lose more than 5 fighters air to air on an escort mission. (Not gonna count the 4th FG on D-Day or 18 August or 353rd on 10 June- when they were low strafing and got clobbered from behind and above.)
Remember we are talking about the 8th AF starting with one operational Mustang and three Lightning groups by end of January 1944 versus more than 400 single engine Me109s and Fw190s available to escort the Ju88s and the Me110/210/410s in their attacks agianst the B-17s and B-24s. The other 200 s/e fighters were based in Holland and France and available to tangle with RAF and 8th and 9th AF P-47 groups doing Penetration and Withdrawl support - but not going past Dummer Lake.
The RAF did a superb job of engaging JG26 and JG2 over France and the lowlands but this was not where the big battles were fought, nor where the Luftwaffe lost 1200 fighter pilots in 3 months
By "easier to fight" I was referring to Night Raids by RAF who did not have an effective 'night escort' capability. The German air force was taking very heavy tolls of RAF Lancasters at Night all the way into April 45 - when the 8th stopped losing big numbers in the April/May timeframe 1944 (Before you get upset with that comment - I do know that July 7, Sept 11-12, Sept 27 and Nove 26 were days in which one or two wings of B-17s/B-24s got mauled by a German force that over whelmed the escorts at the point of attack or evaded them altogether)
The average air to air ratio for the Mustang groups of German a/c shot down versus Mustangs shot down by German Fighters was arond 8 to 1. I'm not counting flak losses, or mechanicqal losses. I am using Kent Miller's Fighter Units and Pilots of 8th AF as the basis for study and I will publish these numbers in my new book).
So, if the USAAF was second or third best against the LW, what does that say about the LW pilots? and what were to corresponding ratios of LW vs RAF in fighter to fighter battles over Europe? They better be awesome in RAF favor to merit the downgrade of the US pilot in the same theatre.
BTW, the best air to air ratio of any USAAF fighter group was the 56th FG in P-47s with 12:1 and the worst was 1:1 with the 55thFG (or 20th - I have to check) before they switched from P-38's to 51's.
Regards,
Bill