Who Really Destroyed the Luftwaffe?

If the americans were solely responsible for the destruction of the LW, I think the war would have panned out completely differently.

we have to do some navel gazing here, but one scenario is continued co-operation between the soviets and a bowing out of the war by the british and the commonwealth, probably after the fall of france. Japan and the US lock horns as historical in the far east, and general war breaks out between the Axis and the US in early 1942.......

No US build up in the UK, but the US does implement a variant of its rainbow war plans. First, occupation of Iceland and Greenland., followed by an invasion of Vichy by mid 1943.

What then from there. in that scenario and what is likely to follow, my money is on the LW and Germany. the US lacks the manpower, the means and the experience to pull this off by themselves.

You guys get the general idea I think

Claiming the US won this single handedly is a total crock .

Its fair to say that without the RAF bomber offensive Germany whould have been able to divert huge technical and personnel resources from night fighting to the daytime air war, and without the Russian front ditto.

The 8th Airforce coampaign was effectively beaten in 1943 and it wasn't until 1944 that they really started to take control. Had the Luftwaffe been strengthened by the additional resources outlined above the task would have been much harder and taken longer. Maybe time enough to get the 262's available in numbers and then life would have got interesting.

I concur with Parsifal, all air arms played their part in the victory.

The destruction of the Luftwaffe was very much a joint effort, and I'm not sure that it's possible to separate strategic bombing, ground forces, naval blockade, and tactical air power. It's also insultingly jingoistic and completely false to assign the defeat to any single service, be it the USAAF, the RAF, or VVS.

However, without strategic bombing it's likely that German production would have been greater, and that the Luftwaffe could have placed almost its entire effort on tactical air support and its strategic bombing campaign, which would have meant that the Soviets would have had more difficulties in their ground war against the Germany and its allies in Eastern Europe. Field and anti-tank artillery would have been produced instead of heavy flak guns, Germany had finite resources. Every aircraft and flak gun used for defense against bombers meant fewer tactical aircraft and field guns at the battlefront. And every dead factory worker was unavailable for anything. Every extra firefighter to put out fires, every EOD person, every tonne of concrete and steel used for shelters, meant that something wasn't available at the battlefront.

I think it needs to be acknowledged that the lions share of the killing was done by USAAF in 1944, but the circumstances that made that bonanza possible was beyond the means of the US forces acting alone, to successfully achieve. The LW lost in 1944 because of a vicious and sustained campaign of attrition that had been waged prior to that often with one sided losses against those who opposed them. The forces able to be put into the sky by the LW in 1944 over Germany were forces that had been bled white of experience, reserves, fuel and spares in the years leading up to that point. the of 1944..

Also, the actual numbers shot down by the 8th AF by US fighter forces is quite limited, and not of itself capable of causing the collapse of the LW per se. Something like 3500 air victories by the USAAF in 1944, is not enough to seriously challenge the LW on its own, which received something in the order of 35000 new deliveries in that year. Counting a/c caught on the ground because they lacked the fuel to fly cannot be solely, or even mostly assigned to US forces. Counting LW a/c on the ground due to lack of spares fails to appreciate the absolute sink hole the east front was for spare parts due to the harsh operating conditions is still not giving a realistic understanding to the reasons behind the US victory


Take away the supporting elements that preceded the killing days and you take away the advantages held by the US that made it all possible.

not acknowledging the huge efforts poured into the flak arm, more than 80% of which was brought about by the efforts of the RAF before the USAAC was even on the scene is another failure of logic that escapes me. Resourcs not spent on the flak arm are resources that could have been spent elsewhere

The original question was 'Who destroyed the Luftwaffe?' The answer, supported by a lot of data, is the US 8th Air Force. Of course it could not have done it alone, numerous campaigns by several nations all combined in helping to bleed Germany to death. Many factors led to the situation in which the Luftwaffe was found ripe for destruction, but it was the USAAF that did the destroying.
Cheers
Steve

mikewint said:

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

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I was thinking the same thing. The Luftwaffe had to deal with too much political in-fighting and various entities vying for prestige within the regime. None of their leaders fully understood airpower theory and application, or if they did, didn't implement it. Hitler demonstrated a two dimensional thought process with ill defined goals and objectives (that's a polite way to say he was a moody bitch.). The German thought process seemed to revolve around pride and prestige over objective based doctrine. Refusal to allow a retreat from untenable positions or reposition forces to obtain greater mass, just to save face, was very counter productive. The miss-allocation of resources to build wonder and vengeance weapons caused proven weapons systems to suffer shortages. They beat themselves as much as the Allies did.

[QUOTE="Fighterguy, post: 1307896, member: 71364" None of their leaders fully understood airpower theory and application, or if they did, didn't implement it. .[/QUOTE]

Tell that to the air forces that were destroyed in the successful Blitzkriegs of 1939/40 !

Cheers

Steve

It is clearly not plausible to suggest the USAAF independently 'destroyed the LW'. It is plausible that the USAAF was the meat grinder that inflicted the greatest damage (by far) in 1944 in both aircraft destroyed, pilots killed and critical industry crippled (Oil/Chemicals to be specific). The secondary impact was to cause the diversion of critical artillery and crews to AAA instead of anti-tank capability in the East.

The Mission of the 8th AF in early 1944 was to destroy the aircraft, pilots and industrial capability to support the LW, as part of Pointblank. It is arguable that the industrial capability to support aviation assets was not a complete success but it is a fact that Germany was only able to maintain and actually grow aircraft deliveries during 1944 only by diverting critical resources to aircraft production in the attempt to blunt the Combined Bomber Offensive - at the expense of other critical needs for those resources.

It was successful at systematically killing the experienced day fighter capability to inflict unacceptable losses on USSAFE, kill the experienced pilots and crews diverted from OST and SUD fronts into the Defense of the Reich, reduce the effective capability of the LW below critical mass to oppose Normandy Campaign. Defense of the Invasion front was an ALLIED effort but LW incapable of breaking through day or night to attack shipping, or for all intents and purposes, inflict CAS damage to Allied ground forces.

To an earlier point that had the RAF not been engaged in the Combined Bomber Offensive, the LW would have been able to divert the night fighting assets to attack the 8th during the day... Actually, IMO it would have just hastened to complete destruction of conventional twin engine fighter assets. The introduction of the P-51 and P-38 with 55 gallon Leading edge fuel tanks removed a.) capability of t/e fighters to assemble and attack B-17s and B-24s beyond escort range and b.) seek sanctuary beyond range of airfield suppression by the Mustangs. Effectively March 1944 was the end of sending t/e fighters anywhere without top cover by Bf 109 escort and that proved wholly unsatisfactory as there was no 'top cover' for the top cover. June/July was the end of Me 410s and 110s and Ju 88s use as daylight bomber Destroyers.

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. 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

stona said:

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. 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

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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 developments

I think only fair to mention that the Luftwaffe lost a lot of aeroplanes in the East without USAAF and only rare RAF involvement.

Another point is that day fighters are more likely to have to face defensive fire and/or escorting fighter fire and so get shot down. Night fighters, until late in the war, were more at the mercy of darkness and gravity than defensive fire but are much more expensive to make and need better trained air crews.

The Luftwaffe was destroyed by sheer numbers of all opponents and short term planning that failed to invest in quality training and finally joint bombing and Soviet advances cutting off fuel. Like most accidents it was not just one thing that was the cause but the whole combination without one of which the result would have greatly differed. Had the Luftwaffe been able to concentrate only upon day fighters the USAAF would have lost their air war. Had they concentrated only upon night fighters the same would apply to the RAF. Had they been able to concentrate only upon the East then they could have held their own over Soviet air power. But not all three. Possibly not even two of three and once they concentrated on quality air frames and not quality air crew it was doomed.

Stona wrote:

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.

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That's completely wrong. Relatively few night-fighters were shot down during the day, while the Wilde Sau units suffered cataclysmic losses against Bomber Command at night. This was posted long ago on Google Groups (I think by Gavin Bailey).

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.

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