Originally posted by MiloMorai
Well it seems I am not the only one to see this arrogance.
LW claims
See the JaFu II section
http://tonywood.cjb.net/
On June 7 the Allies lost 50 a/c in and around the beachhead, mostly P-51s and P-47s, many by the LuftReich units. That is alot for an AF that had air superiority.
Fighter losses - USAAF ETO
J - 111, F - 129, M - 272, A - 358, M - 475, J - 698, J - 469, A - 627, S - 418, O - 517, N - 382, D - 481
So the LW was down and out after Big Week???
Milo,
Do you have the number of sorties flown by Allied AC during that time? How many German a/c were flying in relation to that?
I don't think the argument is that the LW didn't fly, but for the most part the Allies were dictating where the airwar was fought and not fought.
In terms of air support for the ground troops, it just wasn't there for the German troops on the ground. The Falaise Gap being a prime example of this.
There were an estimated 11,000 Allied sorties flown on D-Day alone. How many German sorties? You are stating that 698 USAAF fighters were lost during June of 44. How many to flak? And what percentage was this of total USAAF Fighter Sorties flown? Did it even make a dent?
Going through Roger Freeman's "Mighty Eighth War Diary" I added up the 8th AF fighter sorties for June 44. They totalled 23,500+. That means if we count those 698 LW fighter claims against just the 8th AF fighter sorties, it's a 2.9 percent loss.
Now add in the 30,863 Fighter sorties flown by the 9th AF during that same time frame(From Kenn Rust's book "9th Air Force in World War II".
You are talking about 698 Fighters lost in over 53,000 sorties. Roughly a 1.3 percent loss. Not much of a loss in the numbers game.
That's the point. The Allies could afford those kind of losses and fill the gaps with qualified pilots and aircraft.
No one is saying that the LW quit. They just didn't have the resources to combat that amount of Allied sorties. Yes I know aircraft production numbers certainly put the aircraft out there available, but pilots and fuel was also a major and larger consideration.
Allied pilot training had come a long way from the dark days of the Battle of Britain where those RAF fighter pilots were being thrown into combat with 10 hours on a Spit or a Hurri.
And it had come a long way for the LW in the other direction where the vets had been getting killed because they never got a break. And this was because they couldn't afford to be given a rest because the replacement pilots just weren't there.
The LW had to at times let the bombers come just so they could martial their resources for one good hit, in hopes of slowing the tide. They stayed down in any kind of numbers for much of in September and October 44 hoping for a big strike in November which was attempted on the 2nd when the LW got roughly 300 fighters in the air to oppose 1200 8th AF heavies escorted by 900 fighters. Makes the odds the RAF faced in the Battle of Britain look small doesn't it?
Bottom line is not that the LW lacked the desire or the courage, but they lacked the resources, and ability to combat those kind of odds.
Dan/Slack