Which Country Produced the Best Fighter Pilots?

[Crumpp]

"I doubt this tells anything except than the US had vastly larger resources than Germany."

Good point about the resources, Angus.  However it takes time to develop and exploit those resources.  Time the axis just did not have at their disposal.

It is a fact that in 1944 the USAAF alone is able to launch raids which the numbers of escorting fighters match the total serviceable strength of the Luftwaffe in the West.  The USAAF bomber formations on these raids outnumbered the entire Luftwaffe fighter force.

Factor in the RAF, VVS, RCAF, and all the other allied forces and it is easy to see that the Luftwaffe was no place for amateurs.

Crumpp

[Angus]

Hyas Crumpp.
I may be able to dig up some of Germanys sources, such as oil and steel at some stages of the war.
In 1942 those were staggering, in 1944 very little.
BTW, the population of Germany and Italia with the conquered nations added was close to the one of USA.
And then there were the Brits with their colonies....
Anyway, this is something to look into.
Oil: Romania and the best part of the USSR wells
Food, textiles,timber, workshops, steel, Most of Euroland, and even buying from the rest.

The Brits had to cross the atlantic, or go all the way to the far east to get some of those. And until 1942, much for money...

[MiloMorai]

When did Germany finally go into all out war production? Sometime around 1943-44, iirc. The Allies went into full war production from the get-go.

Angus, the Swedes supplied top quality iron ore to Germany.

[Crumpp]

Here is the Avgas.  

such as oil and steel at some stages of the war.

Exactly.  These are strategic resources.  It takes years to exploit them in an economy.  It is not feasible that in a few years the Axis powers were able to establish new mines, refineries, transportation systems, and other infrastructure needed to fully exploit these resources in conquered territories.

Basically if it was not already in place and up and running it was not useful to the Axis in the war years.  As Milo points out, especially with Adolf Hitlers "Ostrich" policy of not putting the German economy on a war footing until mid-war.  There simply was not time.


If it was damaged or destroyed during the conquest then it was an outlay of resources instead of incoming resources to get it running again.  Depending on the damage, this could be months to years out of commission.

Crumpp

[Angus]

Good graph, thanks.
BTW
Just read in my home newspaper that Hitler was a bigtime taxcheater from '26 onwards!
will post after milking, lol.

regards

Angus

[-MZ-]

Originally posted by Kurfürst
I wonder how training could be compared, really.

Some good points, but consider that as the war went on many of the US trainers had completed a tour and had flown 25, 50 combat missions.   Experience counts.

As you know, German pilots who had lots of combat missions didn't get rotated back to train new pilots, they flew until they were unable to.

[MiloMorai]

Originally posted by -MZ-

As you know, German pilots who had lots of combat missions didn't get rotated back to train new pilots, they flew until they were unable to.

Not entirely true, but for the most part yes.

[Kurfürst]

Originally posted by -MZ-
As you know, German pilots who had lots of combat missions didn't get rotated back to train new pilots, they flew until they were unable to.

75% true... In Germany combat pilots weren`t called back like in the US after flying a specific number of missions. However combat pilots who become unfit for frontline duty because of injuries etc. DID become trainers in the 'hinterland' and passed on their experience, ie. in Tobak`s book he mentioned he got his training for 109G from one such ex-combat pilot in Germany. These 'unfits' also did lighter duties, like test/transfer flying newly produced aircraft to their locations etc.

Only the USAAF (fighters&bombers) and the RAF (bombers only afaik) followed this policy because of the public moral. Statistically, an avarage bomber pilot would be dead anyway just the time he finished his 'tour' (ie. with 4% loss rate and 25 sorties needed to be completed...). I think it was more useful for the morale of the pilots; a hotshot ace, who seen some combat but had relatively small flying experience wasn`t neccesarily the best trainer to teach the basics of flight to embryo pilots. He could pass on some real experience, but I firmly believe that regardless of nation, the combat training prepping them  for Real World Air Combat was received at the 1st line units, under the wings of experienced flight and section leaders, on their initial combat missions. The loss rate was unproportionally high among these 'greens', and the rotation among them was high, the vets only falling occasionally to the quirk of fate.

[MiloMorai]

They did not go back and train new pilots. The went to the Advanced  schools for the Americans and OTUs for the CW where air combat was taught.

A good book to read is,

Wings for Victory by Spencer Dunmore, ISBN 0-7710-2918-7

about the BCATP in Canada.

[Crumpp]

but I firmly believe that regardless of nation, the combat training prepping them for Real World Air Combat was received at the 1st line units, under the wings of experienced flight and section leaders, on their initial combat missions. The loss rate was unproportionally high among these 'greens', and the rotation among them was high, the vets only falling occasionally to the quirk of fate.

Very true.  By mid-war the Luftwaffe's OTU's just became Operational Units with no training mission.

Even early war, fledgling pilots were "trained" on operational missions stewarded by experienced instructors.  As the war progressed it became untenable to "train" on an operational mission for the Luftwaffe.

Had an interesting comment from a P51 pilot who served in the 8th Fighter Group about training.  He says their motto was "finish 5 to stay alive".  Seems it took at least 5 operational missions for a new pilot to develop some SA among the USAAF.  Thought it was very interesting as the 6 mission cut off for the post 1943 trained pilots was very close to that mark.

[Angus]

Interesting.
What I know from the RAF is that by 1941 summer or so, they were pumping out quite decently trained pilots, the final training done by combat veterans. Newbies by autumn 1941 had up to hundreds of hours on the clock.
Then it was the hard road to stay alive for one TOD anly to be either sent to officer's school or to a OTU as an instuctor.
But a clever move really. Train pilots with a snowball effect, morex2x2 etc, - builds up quickly.

BTW, somewhere I read that the US had trained something like 1 million pilots from 1941 to 1945. Do you know if that is true?

[MiloMorai]

Originally posted by Angus

BTW, somewhere I read that the US had trained something like 1 million pilots from 1941 to 1945. Do you know if that is true?

How does aircrew sound?

The BCATP in Canada trained 131,553 aircrew of which 49,808 were pilots.

[Angus]

Sweet Jeezus!!!

Multiply that number!

[MiloMorai]

Angus, I should have added that schools were closing down from mid 1944 because there was too many aircrew.

Just to describe how large was the program there was:

32 Elementary Flight schools
29 Service Flying Training schools
10 Air Observer schools
5 Air navigation schools
2 General Recon schools
11 Bomber and Gunnery schools
4 Wireless schools
1 Flight Engineers' school
7 OTU
3 Flight Instructors' schools

plus a few more various schools.

[Crumpp]

There were Canadians in World War II??

Crumpp