From mid-1941 to mid-1944, JG 26 and JG 2 were the only Luftwaffe day fighter units defending France. For the first two of those years, JG 1 was the only day fighter unit defending the Reich.
Most Luftwaffe losses between mid-1941 and mid-1943 incurred on the Eastern Front. Starting in late 1943 the number of losses in the West increased sharply. Half of these losses were day fighters.
This is when the western allies escalated their bombing campaign. At the end of 1943 and the beginning of 1944, the new P-51B's began arriving in England in force. For the first few months of the year, the Mustangs were settling in and having their systems perfected. But by March, the Mustangs had decisively taken control.
The P-47 and Spitfire, neither of which had a very long range. The rule-of-thumb for fighter ranges was that they could go as far as Aachen, which was about 250 miles from their bases in England, before they had to turn around. Most of the bombers' targets were between 400 and 700 miles from England. This meant that bombers could only be escorted into northern France, and the very western fringe of Germany.
The P-51B had a 425 gallons internal gasoline tank capacity. Its engine used about half the gasoline of other American fighters. Its range was 1080 miles and could be extended to 2600 miles with drop-tanks. The p51b was superior to all other allied aircraft at the time. .
Most important was the p51bs superiority over the German fighters, the most important of which were the FW-190 and the Me-109. The Mustang was 50 mph faster than the Germans up to 28,000 ft., beyond which it was much faster than the FW-190 and still substantially faster than the Me-109.
Before the beginning of 1944, the bombers had no escort to targets deep in german territory. The P-51 changed this. For example, on January 11, 1944, the Eighth Air Force launched its first deep penetration of Germany with P-51 coverage. The bombers' targets were the cities of Oschersleben and Halberstadt. There were only 49 Mustangs covering a force of around 220 bombers. The bombers suffered heavy casualties but they were able to inflict substantial damage the factories.
The most significant thing about the battle was the performance of the P-51's. The bombers were attacking two different cities and the Mustang force had to divide into two groups. The Luftwaffe came out in force to defend their factories. During the ensuing battle, the 49 P-51's shot down 15 enemy planes without suffering a single loss. Major Howard, the group's leader, was credited with four kills within minutes.
Air superiority had been won not by bombing the enemy's factories into oblivion; instead, it was won by the long-range fighter, using the bomber formations as bait to entice the Luftwaffe to fight.
With the greater numbers of the P-51 , the German fighters that came up to attack the bombers quickly met their match.
Sturmbock unit losses increased dratically. They reached a point where 3 190s were lost to every 1 b17 they killed. And no it wasnt bomber gunners getting those kills. It was the escort fighters.
The p47 and p38 just didnt have the effect on the lw that the p51 did. You may have yourfavorite ac but the p51 as shown by any measure was the aircraft that took it to the lw.
The 38 btw the way was hardly a plane feared by the the lw. Its effect on the eto was minimal. Well behind that of the 51 the jug and the typhoon.
On Black Thursday (second schweinfurt raid) the bombers lost near 27% of its force to the lw.
