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I'm with TEC, it all comes down to production and manpower availability. You can shoot down 10 of my planes and i make 20 during the same period. Same with German tanks, some of the best ever produced but they sit back let the Russians surprise then with the T-34 then try to play catchup. And the US makes 20 Shermans to every Tiger. Goering didn't help matter either as he also watched the Lutwaffe go from the most advanced AF with the best planes ever downward. So who killed the luftwaffe, simple: Hitler and his meglomania
I know they did but I was thinking more strategically. If the RAF threat hadn't been there then how many more 109's and 190's could have been built. How many more ( or how much better trained) would the Luftwaffe pilots because as you rightly say, a NF pilot takes a lot more training than others. How many scientists and engineers who works on the many radar and other electronic warfare devices would have been freed up to help with other hi tech developmentsThe Luftwaffe DID divert its night fighters to oppose the 8th Air Force during the day, that's a measure of German desperation in the face of the onslaught. It had exactly the effect you suggest it would, and left Bomber Command almost unopposed by night fighters in the latter stages of its campaign. Harris noted that by late 1944 (post September),
"...the efficiency of the German fighter defence was seriously reduced. In spite of the reduced area which they now had to defend, they were unable, except on rare occasions, to carry out route interception and could only send fighters to the target area at the last moment."
Again, there were many factors reducing the effectiveness of the German night fighter force, but the frittering away of highly qualified crews (as all night fighter crews were compared to most of their day time contemporaries) in day time operations against the USAAF was certainly one of them.
Cheers
Steve
The Luftwaffe DID divert its night fighters to oppose the 8th Air Force during the day, that's a measure of German desperation in the face of the onslaught. It had exactly the effect you suggest it would, and left Bomber Command almost unopposed by night fighters in the latter stages of its campaign.
JG301 claimed 87 kills for the death or serious injury of 58 pilots between September 1943 and March 1944. JG 302 lost 43 pilots killed for only 70 claims between November 1943 and March 1944. On 16th March 1944, after suffering an estimated 45% losses (according to LW itself) on Wild Boar operations against Bomber Command, the three Wild Boar
fighter units were disbanded due to the crushing weight of attrition they faced on operations against Bomber Command, and were instead transferred to face the USAAF day raids.
Equally, between 15 September 1943 and 31 January 1944, the night-fighter strength of 1 Jagdkorps in Germany declined from 339 aircraft and crews to 179 aircraft and crews.
Normally, the claim is made that the USAAF daylight raids inflicted a punishing rate of attrition on the LW nightfighter force. Well, not if we study the LW records. For example, 11./NJG.2 lost 72 aircraft on operations during the war - 37 to accident, weather, flak, etc; 14 to return fire from RAF bombers, 13 to RAF intruders, 2 in close proximity to exploding bombers they had attacked, but only 3 to allied fighters in daylight and 3 to return fire from USAAF bombers . Coupling these two facts together, we can see that the RAF night offensive was actually performing more complimentary attrition of day fighter resources than the USAAF daylight offensive was performing on night fighter resources.