Given the numeric advantage of the VVS as well as the battles being fought in their best altitude bands, and normally not that far from home bases, - the LW is suffering 4 to 1 on the western front vs the eastern front in 1944, and with the more numbers of experts as well as the top performers devoted to the west.
What I am saying is basically that the VVS should have done much better, if everything was okay. So where was the flaw? My bet is that the bulk of the aircraft were not up to speed and performance, the bulk of pilots were not up to the training etc, and the tactics and commands were not up to scratch.
The superiority was won, or "won" by sheer numbers.
By 1944, with the appointment of Major General Doolittle, the USAAF 8th AF had switched to a relayed escort doctrine which provided a wider range of escort coverage to the bomber stream, and also emphasized aggressive engagements to the purpose of specifically luring out enemy fighters and destroying them. Prior to this switch, Operation Pont Blank (which put German fighter industries at the top of its target list) was on the verge of collapse, with 8th AF monthly attrition rates for bomber crews crawling upto 30%, while German pilot losses were less than half of that.
This tactical change in the 8th AF almost immediately produced noticeable results which sounded alarm for the OKL. With each passing moment fighter/pilot losses steadily went up, while interception rates against ever increasing numbers of Allied bomber streams steadily went down. Both parties realized 1944 would be a crucial moment which would decide whether Allied air power would dominate, or the LW would emerge victorious in its defense over the skies of the Third Reich. This meant the highest priority for the LW would shift to the Western Front, with its fighter strength allocated to a grim task to stop Allied bombers at
all costs.
In comparison, while the VVS also employed some range of bombing tactics against German forces in the East, the highlight of the battle was always at the ground level where (unlike the Western Front) the Heer was already fighting the Red Army, which by now had fully shifted to the offensive after the decisive victories won at Kursk. Therefore, to an extent, it may be said the 'traditional' role of primary importance for the VVS always remained at the CAS level.
With more and more squadrons being relocated to the Western Front, the remaining LW in the East were pitted against superior numbers of enemies which by now, were starting to be equipped with fighters that performed either as well as, or superior to, their own. The only saving grace was that due to the reasons mentioned above, VVS fighters typically operated at a limited altitude range with priorities that tied them at those altitudes. This meant that LW fighters, which still held considerable numbers of experten and elite squadrons, had a chance to utilize some of their relative advantages by limiting their own engagement altitudes to higher than typical VVS zone of control. One such example would be the JG52, which both Erich Hartmann and Gerhard Barkhorn (the #1 and #2 highest-scoring pilots of the LW, as well as the entire WW2 AND the history of aerial warfare) was a part of, as well as Gunther Rall(transfered to JG11 in April, '44) and many other famous pilots. Hartmann's strict discipline of engaging only in an advantage that is well secured, would be a prime example of the tactics LW fighter pilots had to resort to, in this particular situation.
However, while such limited engagements would allow LW fighters to successfully retain a positive attrition rate against the VVS, it also meant that its effectiveness and importance as an air force declined dramatically. (In Aces High terms, it would be somewhat like a situation where one or two veteran pilots at high altitudes would be very successful in achieving a good numbers of kills against hordes of enemies down low, but would be basically helpless in the bigger picture, since they have no way of stopping the horde itself)
While this might seem to suggest VVS "numbers superiority" as a key factor in their success against the LW, frontline experiences of LW pilots decidedly note that the VVS after 1943, was "nothing like what they've faced in 1941" - as most vividly portrayed by Alfred Grislawski, as he remembers his friend. In the operations which actually required the LW to take a full-stance against the VVS, the LW did suffer critical losses, just as they would in the Western Front. For example, in the Soviet Yassy-Kishnev Offensive of August, 1944, the LW suffered a disastrous 1 : 3.3 attrition rate which nearly decimated the Luftflotte 4 defending Romnia.
Surely. number advantage is indeed a key factor which the Soviets would wield without any shame or remorse to its maximum effect, but as with the Red Army, there is more to the VVS than just numbers. By the end of the war, the Red Army was the most powerful land army in the world, and the VVS was only second to the USAAF.
