Why did the 56th FG stay with the P-47s?

The P-40 used at the Fighter Training Schools for US pilots is equivalent to the Bf 109Fs and old Fw 190As used at the Luftwaffe 'C Schools'. In 1943 some still had some clapped out old 'Emils' on the books.
The term 'advanced trainer' can mean many things. Miles Master anybody?

When Dieter Kragelow took of in a Fw 190 D-9 on Operation Bodenplatte it was only the fifth flight he had made with JG 26, and his fifth in a D-9. Theo Nibel, who was famously brought down by a bird strike in his Black 12, was on only his third flight, and third in a D-9, since joining JG 54 about two months earlier.
This is absolutely typical for late war Luftwaffe pilots. Not only did they leave the training schools with few hours and poorly trained, they received no further training at their units. Many units seem to have preserved these young men by not allowing them to fly operationally unless absolutely necessary. Fuel shortages were a good excuse.

If you have lost nearly 150% of your fighter pilots in a three month period, followed by another 99% in the next three months then there will be an awful lot of pilots who fall into your '10 or fewer combat missions' category.
In what six month period did the RAF or USAAF lose well over 4,000 fighter pilots? There really is no comparison.

Cheers

Steve

stona said:

The P-40 used at the Fighter Training Schools for US pilots is equivalent to the Bf 109Fs and old Fw 190As used at the Luftwaffe 'C Schools'. In 1943 some still had some clapped out old 'Emils' on the books.
The term 'advanced trainer' can mean many things. Miles Master anybody?

When Dieter Kragelow took of in a Fw 190 D-9 on Operation Bodenplatte it was only the fifth flight he had made with JG 26, and his fifth in a D-9. Theo Nibel, who was famously brought down by a bird strike in his Black 12, was on only his third flight, and third in a D-9, since joining JG 54 about two months earlier.
This is absolutely typical for late war Luftwaffe pilots. Not only did they leave the training schools with few hours and poorly trained, they received no further training at their units. Many units seem to have preserved these young men by not allowing them to fly operationally unless absolutely necessary. Fuel shortages were a good excuse.

If you have lost nearly 150% of your fighter pilots in a three month period, followed by another 99% in the next three months then there will be an awful lot of pilots who fall into your '10 or fewer combat missions' category.
In what six month period did the RAF or USAAF lose well over 4,000 fighter pilots? There really is no comparison.

Cheers

Steve

Click to expand...

Steve - the debate is late 1943 through May 1944 prior to the invasion - not 12 months to 5 months later - particularly after the great losses in September and November, 1944.

And the debate is about the percent of experienced LW staff which came to the Defense of the Reich starting in summer 1943 and reaching a peak in April, 1944 in battle with the few experienced and many stateside replacement/new fighter group influx in late 1943 to form the P-38 and Mustang groups which battled LuftFlotte Reich.

stona said:

The P-40 used at the Fighter Training Schools for US pilots is equivalent to the Bf 109Fs and old Fw 190As used at the Luftwaffe 'C Schools'. In 1943 some still had some clapped out old 'Emils' on the books.
The term 'advanced trainer' can mean many things. Miles Master anybody?

When Dieter Kragelow took of in a Fw 190 D-9 on Operation Bodenplatte it was only the fifth flight he had made with JG 26, and his fifth in a D-9. Theo Nibel, who was famously brought down by a bird strike in his Black 12, was on only his third flight, and third in a D-9, since joining JG 54 about two months earlier.
This is absolutely typical for late war Luftwaffe pilots. Not only did they leave the training schools with few hours and poorly trained, they received no further training at their units. Many units seem to have preserved these young men by not allowing them to fly operationally unless absolutely necessary. Fuel shortages were a good excuse.

If you have lost nearly 150% of your fighter pilots in a three month period, followed by another 99% in the next three months then there will be an awful lot of pilots who fall into your '10 or fewer combat missions' category.
In what six month period did the RAF or USAAF lose well over 4,000 fighter pilots? There really is no comparison.

Cheers

Steve

Click to expand...

Steve - the debate is late 1943 through May 1944 prior to the invasion - not 12 months to 5 months later - particularly after the great losses in September and November, 1944.

And the debate is about the percent of experienced LW staff which came to the Defense of the Reich starting in summer 1943 and reaching a peak in April, 1944 in battle with the few experienced and many stateside replacement/new fighter group influx in late 1943 to form the P-38 and Mustang groups which battled LuftFlotte Reich.

drgondog said:

Steve - the debate is late 1943 through May 1944 prior to the invasion - not 12 months to 5 months later.

Click to expand...

Between September 1943 and May 1944 the Luftwaffe lost 4,368 pilots. That's a loss of nearly 200% the average strength (2,194) for this period. If you've had to replace all your pilots twice (statistically, not literally) then obviously there will be a preponderance of replacement and inexperienced pilots.

Cheers

Steve

Would the 56th (or any other outfit escorting bombers with P-47's) have had better results with the F6F or the F4U?
The salient feature being range.

How did F6F and F4U range compare to P-47's in use during the period when the P-38 was suffering and the P-51 had either not arrived on the scene or was available only in low numbers?

We have been over this in other threads. The F6F and the F4U do not:

1, Have the needed range at the altitudes and speeds that the missions in Europe required.

A. Mission radius is dependent on fuel in the internal tanks after the drop tanks (however many are used) and both the F6F and F4U had less internal protected fuel than the early P-47s.
B. The P-47 needed less fuel to cruise at the high speeds (just over 300mph true) at over 20,000ft that were common for escort missions in Europe. This was the advantage of the turbo-charger.

stona said:

Between September 1943 and May 1944 the Luftwaffe lost 4,368 pilots. That's a loss of nearly 200% the average strength (2,194) for this period. If you've had to replace all your pilots twice (statistically, not literally) then obviously there will be a preponderance of replacement and inexperienced pilots.

Cheers

Steve

Click to expand...

Steve - I understand that.

My thesis is that despite the losses incurred by the LW in that period that the Defense of the Reich was infused by experienced squadrons inbound from the other theatres - not the fighter training schools or bomber crew infusion as a high percentage until the newly arrived experienced pilots were crunched in the February through April timeframe.

If you have proof that the 'experienced' staffel from JG 3, 5, 27, 53, 51, 54 flowing from Sud and Ost were more 'newbies' than experienced pilots - trot 'em out. You might be able to better parse JG 2 and JG 26 losess thusly as they were entrenched in LuftFlotte 3 on the Channel coastline and except for III./JG 54 they were largely infused with pilots from training schools to replace losses during that period.

Why would the units coming from elsewhere be unscathed?

In the preceding period in the MTO the Luftwaffe lost 888 single engine fighters (63% of its force structure) and presumably a proportionate number of pilots. For the first few months of 1943 aircrew losses ran at about 6% to 9% per month. This rose to 12% in May and 16% in June as a direct result of heavy fighting in North Africa.

Between January and November 1943 it lost 1,176 single engine fighter on the Eastern Front, again with corresponding pilot losses.

This was the very time that 'experienced' pilots were supposed to move to the west. It was in June that Milch wanted to quadruple the fighter forces in the west and wanted one full month's production of Bf 109s and Fw 190s to go to the west.
This is hardly surprising given that in early 1943 Luftflotte 3 fielded less than 300 fighters spread along the North Sea and Channel coasts of continental Europe. Like their counterparts in other theatres they were getting badly mauled by mid 1943.

A good indication of the use of poorly trained pilots is the increase in non operational losses seen from around June 1943 onwards. Pilots who can hardly fly or navigate properly were much more accident prone. I have some figures for this somewhere but can I find them? can I f*ck!

The attrition was not solely in the west but had a debilitating effect on the Luftwaffe everywhere from 1942 onwards. To me the really remarkable thing is that the Luftwaffe was able to mount any kind of coherent defence at all in the period leading up to the invasion.

Cheers

Steve