Luftwaffe lost

[WalterS]

Jon yes some assumption could be made

odd that the US bomber crew vets that I have interviewed felt very safe with hordes of P-51 escorts about them in summer of 44 till wars end but knew full well and they have admitted it to me, that if the escorts were not in place and a heavy Fw 190 attack was immenent that they all had a good chance of being shot down in a single pass. September 27, 1944 comes to mind with 30 B-24's shot down and only the Yellow Jackets ~ 361st fg came to the rescue late.

what was heart wrenching in 1945 was seeing the Me 262's fly through the formation and if they were lucky enough not to be pounced upon by P-51's would again form up in 3's and attack from the rear. US bomber gunners have stated they could not track the 262 with their .50's/turrets the jet (blow-job) was just too fast ............
(Side Note) have the last three weeks contacted over 15 US Stang pilots that scored a 262 and nearly half of the jet kills of these fine pilots were scored while the jet was in transit slowing down for the landing pattern. 1 pilot who scored 1 kill and 2 damaged on three different dates has said you had to catch the 262 in a turn and with the altitude in your favour or the 262 pilot would just outrun flat and fast...................

E ~

This is silliness and evades the central point of this thread, which is that the Luftwaffe failed in all of its strategic missions. It matters not that in 1945 US fighters were destroying ME 262s on the runway or in a turn. What matters is that the Luftwaffe couldn't even defend its own airfields. What matters is that the Luftwaffe had been reduced to insignificance. Sure, some 262 pilots made great splashes, but it was too little too late. As has been previously pointed out, the Luftwaffe failed in every strategic mission, from support of the U Boat campaign to air supremacy over Germany.

For all of its technological prowess, the Me 262 had little effect on the air war in general. Allied fighters strafed the 262 on the ground, while bombers destroyed the fuel supplies. A 262 wasn't much use if it couldn't get off the ground.

Sure, the 262 did have its moments and inflicted losses on Allied aircraft. But the 262 in no way altered the strategic air war picture of Europe in late 44-45. By then, the Luftwaffe had failed in every major strategic effort, and had been eliminated as an effective fighting force, i.e. one that could affect the strategic battle. The fact that some 262s enjoyed tactical success on a given day is irrelevant. As employed, the 262 had virtually no effect on the strategic air battle over Europe.

[Erich]

no my statements add to what is already a boring and very uninteresting thread........

good bye to all of you

[Huck]

Just to make a few things clear:

Luftwaffe dissapeared in mid 1944, not because USAAF or anyone else destroyed it in fabulous air battles. What happened was that Luftwaffe simply run out of fuel. Luftwaffe Achilles' heel was from the beginning the fuel supply. Because Luftwaffe was a young service, without tradition and strong political support, it was forced to produce its fuel only from imported crude oil. While aviation fuel production rose during the war, this dependency on imported crude oil did not diminish. Fuel supplies were distributed in relatively equal quantities among Heer, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine, yet Luftwaffe had available only half of the fuel quantity it considered necessary (in the summer of 1943 LW consumed approx 190,000 tonnes of aviation fuel per month out of 360,000 tonnes requested per month).

In 1944 serious trouble with fuel supply appeared. Most of Luftwaffe fuel came from Romania, and IIRC Romania was already producing by 1944 only about half of the fuel it produced before the war. It should be noted that Romanians had strong pro Allied feelings, and were allied with Germany only because they feared the Soviets (which took a part of their territory in 1940 after an ultimatum). Romanians justified the ever diminishing oil supply saying that the exploited wells were used up (which was partly true), but also true was that Romanians were not very eager to support Germany's war effort at that point (in all fairness Germany did not show much eagerness to defend Romania from Soviet offensive either).

Then in late spring 1944 the USAAF bombardment of the oil fields began. The oil extraction went as low as 20% at times, but the supply was kept rather constant from the oil stocks in Romania. The monthly fuel quantities available in May went down to 120,000 tonnes, out of which about 40,000 tonnes were used for training (in 1943 only 15,000 tonnes were used monthly for training - the increase to 40-50,000 tonnes monthly was dictated by the massive request of fresh fighter pilots in April, May, June 1944, it went down afterwards). In other words by May 1944, Luftwaffe used only half of the fuel it used for combat the year before. By September, when Romanian oil was lost, fuel supply went to 20,000 tonnes, 10 times less than the year before, with an equal decrease in activity. Basically since then on Luftwaffe had only a pale presence in East (in center sector), some in the home defense and was virtually inexistant everywhere else, including Western Front.

Now, can this be imputed to Luftwaffe? I kind of doubt it, I think they made the most out of the scarce resources they had. The trouble was at the top. They should have negotiated a peace very early, knowing much better than the Allies how limited their means were.

[JonS]

LOL. Hi Huck Still peddling the myth of an invincible GAF that was only defeated by being 'stabbed in the back' by meddling bureaucrats, huh?

The shortage of fuel did have have a pernicious effect, but there is no escaping that the GAF were, to all intents and purposes, "shot out of the sky" in early 1944.

[JonS]

Source for graphs: Murray

If it were true that the absence of the GAF over Europe was simply due to fuel shortages, one would expect to see rapidly climbing numbers for a/c availability, pilots, etc, and conversely rapidly falling numbers for pilots and a/c lost in the second half of 1944. What we see is, in fact, the opposite.

[Huck]

LOL. Hi Huck Still peddling the myth of an invincible GAF that was only defeated by being 'stabbed in the back' by meddling bureaucrats, huh?

The shortage of fuel did have have a pernicious effect, but there is no escaping that the GAF were, to all intents and purposes, "shot out of the sky" in early 1944.

Why don't you prove that ambitious statement? The graphs you posted do not support your view:

1. authorized strength decline of fighter units was due to new requirements that asked for larger number of aircraft in units. This happened simultaneously with the large training program for fighter pilots that lasted from April to June 1944. You should know by now that in 1944 despite of a production of almost 40,000 aircraft Luftwaffe accepted less than 15,000 aircraft. They could easily replace losses if needed, in fact Luftwaffe was larger in 1945 than in 1944 or 1943. But it flew 10 times less. Why? because it did not have planes or pilots?

2. losses of fighter planes and fighter pilots out as percentage of normal strength; obviously during the invasion these percentages rose, because the combat was intense; perhaps it is useful to know in order to get a better picture that during the invasion period USAAF was loosing in a couple of months as many aircraft as Luftwaffe lost that entire year. Obviously this was not the normal loss rate. Another point here: percentages may look high but you have to consider that Luftwafffe was a small service. If they adopted the whole production into service, like USAAF did, then these percentages would shows reductions as high as 3 times. Once you look at the absolute numbers then it is clear that these losses were rather small.

[Huck]

By then, the Luftwaffe had failed in every major strategic effort, and had been eliminated as an effective fighting force, i.e. one that could affect the strategic battle.

What were the major strategic efforts in which Luftwaffe failed? Skip BoB, that was a failure from the onset, not because of the Luftwaffe.

Who eliminated Luftwaffe as an effective fighting force?

[JonS]

LOL I'd guessed you'd try that approach

The massive expansion you refer to would explain why total numbers of fighter a/c available in the GAF remained the essentially same throughout 1944 :roll: Combining the graph below with the % Authorised Strength graph above we can derive the following table:

. . . . . . . # Actual . . . % Auth . . . # Auth
Jan 44. . 1561 . . . . . . 72 . . . . . . . 2168
Mar 44 . .1747 . . . . . . 73 . . . . . . . 2393
May 44 . .1650 . . . . . .60 . . . . . . .. 2750
Jul 44 . . .1523 . . . . . . 55 . . . . . . . 2769
Sep 44 . . 1610 . . . . . . 45 . . . . . . . 3578

So, you tell me ... If the GAF weren't flying due to a lack of fuel (and therefore weren't being shot down in droves), why weren't they able to easily acheive their new authorised strength of ~3,600 in September? I mean, it should have only required less than three weeks production to 'catch up'. But they didn't, or couldn't. Heck, they barely even grew from the year-start position. Why?

You should know by now that in 1944 despite of a production of almost 40,000 aircraft Luftwaffe accepted less than 15,000 aircraft. They could easily replace losses if needed, in fact Luftwaffe was larger in 1945 than in 1944 or 1943. But it flew 10 times less. Why? because it did not have planes or pilots?

Leaving your 10% inflation of the number of airframes produced aside, you manage to bring up an interesting point: "it did not have ... pilots". Well, d'uh. Where had the pilots gone, I wonder? Shot out of the sky, perhaps?

[thor-jg51]

suppose hitler had died before d-day, and germany worked out a peace,

which reverted all the borders to their original positions before the war.

everything else being the same, would the luftwaffe still be (in your opinion) a failure.

you are trying to separate a cord from a net(from which a fish escaped) and blame it on the performance

of that single cord(which was still working at least as well as all the other cords that made up the net)

giving no consideration to the other cords, the conception/design/production of the net itself,

or the quality of its operators. a cord in a net depends on the design of the net, the construction of the net,

the operation of the net, and all the other cords in that net to be successful. trying to isolate a single cord in a

net for the nets failure is pointless, especially since until the final failure, that particular cord was the strongest

cord in the net.

[varjag]

Christ - I am impressed by the learned opinions and graphs in this thread. Wasn't the simple fact - that the American 'bombing policy' ran into a severe crisis in 1943 which lasted until the Brunswick-raid of January 1944. A crisis that put the entire effort of 'The Mighty Eigth' into doubt due to the losses incurred? 'Bomber Harris'es' Battle of Berlin almost broke the back of Bomber Command. But in the first six months of 1944 the
Mustangs broke the back of German Jagdwaffe and the fuel crisis accounted for 'the rest'. With a few notable exceptions - the Luftwaffe was 'done for'' after that, Varjag

[LWD]

suppose hitler had died before d-day, and germany worked out a peace,
which reverted all the borders to their original positions before the war.
everything else being the same, would the luftwaffe still be (in your opinion) a failure.

Yes

you are trying to separate a cord from a net(from which a fish escaped) and blame it on the performance
of that single cord

No

.... trying to isolate a single cord in a net for the nets failure is pointless, especially since until the final failure, that particular cord was the strongest cord in the net.

I don't see any one here trying to do that at least in the last hlaf dozen or so pages. I admit to being uncertain however how you can call it the strongest cord in the net however.

[thor-jg51]

ok i must just "misunderstand" the initial premise of this entire thread.

I'm sorry

from the title post in this thread:

">>>

Post subject: Luftwaffe lost
[Split from "Most dramatic Luftwaffe moments in WW2"]


I hate to burst Panzermahn's bubble, but the Luftwaffe lost. It lost big time. It was a failure. While it provided valuable tactical assistance to German ground units, the Luftwaffe was a miserable failure in what should have been its primary mission, air supremacy over Europe. The Luftwaffe failed to achieve air supremacy over the Med and North Africa, failed to achieve air supremacy over Italy and failed to achieve air supremacy over Central Europe. These failures led to cataclysmic consequences for German ground forces.


The story of the Luftwaffe is one of total failure, despite Panzermahn's feeble attempts to instill glory and nobility. Did the Luftwaffe have its moments? Of course it did. It dominated the battlefields over Poland and France and Russia through 1942. Luftwaffe nachtjaegers exacted a fearful toll of RAF bombers, most notably in the Nuremberg raid of March, 1944. Nevertheless the Luftwaffe failed miserably in its primary mission to protect the German homeland and provide cover for German troops. The Luftwaffe could not prevent the Hamburg raids, nor forestall the D-Day landings, nor provide cover for troop movements in France in 1944.

For all its supposed heroism, handsome pilots, shiny aircraft, the Luftwaffe was a miserable failure.

<<<"

I don't see any one here trying to do that at least in the last hlaf dozen or so pages. I admit to being uncertain however how you can call it the strongest cord in the net however.

[LWD]

ok i must just "misunderstand" the initial premise of this entire thread.

I'm sorry

from the title post in this thread:
...

Indeed. Even though the initial post was a "bit" extreme I don't see it stating anywhere that the LW was responsible for the failure of Nazi Germany. I suspect if you were to take that post and put it in the appropriate section after replacing referances to the LW with Heer, Kriegsmarine, SS, Gestapo, German high command, or any other such institution of the Reich that the intial poster would agree.

The fact remains that Nazi Germany in whole and all her component military institutions were defeated thoroughly and completly by wars end. This is as clear a case of failure as you can get. Since this is the LW forum people are concentrating on the LW that does not absolve the rest of the German armed services from their respective failures or imply that the LW failure was greater or responsible for the failure of the others.

[tonyh]

Mustangs broke the back of German Jagdwaffe and the fuel crisis accounted for 'the rest'. With a few notable exceptions - the Luftwaffe was 'done for'' after that

Too simple and not too accurate either and simply ignores the years of attrition the Luftwaffe suffered before the mustang was even invented.

Tony

[Huck]

Mustangs broke the back of German Jagdwaffe and the fuel crisis accounted for 'the rest'. With a few notable exceptions - the Luftwaffe was 'done for'' after that

Too simple and not too accurate either and simply ignores the years of attrition the Luftwaffe suffered before the mustang was even invented.

Tony

This statement "Mustangs broke the back of German Jagdwaffe" has nothing to do with reality. At no point Luftwaffe suffered losses of planes or air crews that could not be replaced the following month (in fact Luftwaffe was slowly increasing in size even in the last year). The decrease in Luftwaffe's activity was caused solely by lack of fuel - they flew as much fuel they had, and that meant that in Sept 1944 they flew 10 times less than the year before (I gave the source for Luftwaffe's fuel consumption earlier). This fuel shortage was caused by Romanians who were unable/unwilling to keep the supply at the same level, and then by the Soviets who in August 1944 overrun Romania.