I think I am misunderstnading this...you are telling me that Germny had technical or numeric superiority on the East front?
Because none of both were true from 1943 onwards (because 190D9s and Me262 were rarely used in the east front)
Germany had air superiority on the eastern front.
"Comment:
The most commonly quoted source on this matter is Ernst Obermaier's Die Ritterkreuztriiger
der Luftwaffe, Band 1 Jagdflieger 1939-1945. According to Obermaier, the German
fighter pilots claimed a total of 70,000 aerial victories during World War 11- 25,000 against the "West" and 45,000 on the Eastern Front. At the same time, the German Flak (AAA
batteries) reported the shooting down of more than 20,000 enemy aircraft.
According to the same source, 16,400 German day fighter aircraft were lost (total
loss, i.e. aircraft with more than 60% damage) as the result of hostile action during the war
years. 8,500 German day fighter pilots were killed, 2, 700 went missing or were taken
prisoners and 9, lOO were injured.
Different total loss figures for the RAF and USAAF are published frequently. Less
known are the loss statistics for the Soviet Air Force. The so far most reliable figures are
given in the book Red Stars, recently published in Finland. According to this, the combat
losses of the Soviet Air Force in the Second World War amounted to 46, lOO aircraft. Over
18,400 Soviet officer pilots were killed in action and another 20,600 went missing in
action or were taken prisoners.
Previously, the German author HeinzAF Schmidt (in Sowjetische Flugzeuge) put the
total number of individual combat missions undertaken by the Soviet Air Force between
June 22, 1941 and YE Day 1945 at 3,223,000, thus giving the total loss rate 1.4% for the
whole war, compared with the loss figures given in Red Star,\,. (As a comparison, the total
loss rate for the RAP Bomber Command between July 1940 and YE Day 1945, was 2.9% )
Not included in the table above are the results of the German night fighters, who
claimed to have downed a total of 5,729 Western Allied aircraft, the true figure probably
being around 5,000.
This leads to the conclusion that on average, eight Western Allied aircraft were shot
down for every ten aerial victories claimed by German day fighter pilots, while the ratio
on the Eastern Front was probably a bit smaller, due to the fact that the major part of the air
combats in this war theater took part over Soviet held territory."
After Bodenplatte most of Germanys airpower in the west, what remained of it, was transferred to the east to try and halt the Soviet advance before they passed the river Oder. Contained most definatly with D9s and later on 262s were used against Soviet ground operations.
BTW What saved USSR was nothing but Hitler stupidity. Had German army's generals let alone to do their work,Moscow would have been overrun in october 1941.
Hitler's genrals did their job as fast as they could, it wasn't Hitlers fault they were 'behind schedule' and couldn't take Moscow, Germany had too little numbers in troops and too long a ways to bring supplies in to reinforce their army.
Also the Russian winter slowed the Germans down but the spring thaw was worse, even checked the Soviets.
p.s. Thats nice toad, and where do you think the US and Soviets got their jet and rocket ideas and space program from? ;p
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Geschwaderkommodore JG 54
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Grünherz"
[This message has been edited by Nath-BDP (edited 08-03-2000).]
