Why was the Fokker D VII A Good Plane?

WalterM140 wrote in message ...
People note visual bombing of Germany was a minority
of the 8th's strikes even in 1943, visual bombing in good visibility
even less.

Deleted text,

"People note the contradiction between claiming the oil
campaign was so good and the RAF was so bad when the German raid
reports make it clear the RAF raids were more effective. People note
the double standards used when Walter compares the RAF to USAAF."

The first radar assisted bombing by the 8th AF was in November, 1943. The
Germans started returning the day fighters to Germany to deal with the U.S.
bombers in April of that year.

Ah the change of subject, the deletion of area bombing and now onto
return of Luftwaffe fighters.

Firstly when the USAAF started using radar bombing,

Walter will now go look up Mighty 8th War Diary for 27 September 1943,
"Remarks First Pathfinder (PFF) mission lead by H2S equipped B-17s
of 482 BG". Or two months earlier than claimed.

In percentage terms the amount of visual bombing of Germany by the
8th for the last 4 months of 1943 went like

September 47.1, October 72.1, November 27.6 and December 30.4.

The reason the amount of radar bombing is so high in the overall figure
for 1943 is that for the year the 8th dropped some 27,185 tons of bombs
on Germany, 19,554 of these in the last 4 months of the year.

Let us see now, the claim is now all the redeployed to Germany only,
none to France or Holland, correct?

By the end of 1943, one fighter wing was stationed in Eupen, in the
Netherlands.

People might remember the claim that the Luftwaffe concentrated in
Germany when the 8th was flying missions of a "few" dozen bombers,
apparently the USAAF was still using a few dozen bombers on a raid
at the end of 1943.

The Germans generally did not oppose strikes in France in this
time frame.

So we are in December 1943, not April or May 1943, but December.

As much as they could, they concentrated the day fighter force in
Germany, significantly reducing force levels in the Mediteranean and Russia to
do so.

Yes we are at the end of 1943, ignoring a reason the Luftwaffe
shut down the air war over the Mediterranean, extra aircraft sent
upped the loss rates rather than changing the situation.

None of those fighters tried to intercept the escorted missions over
France, nor react to the significant increase in allied day bomber
raids on France and the low countries in 1943 correct?

I never said that. It was shown, however, that the Germans did not generally
defend French targets after 1/1/44.

Now we are in January 1944, when the USAAF was running raids
of a "few" dozen bombers it seems.

Also note Walter is crediting the changes in Luftwaffe deployment
to raids of a "few" dozen 8th air force bombers to Germany, ignoring
the other USAAF raids and the RAF raids.

Last time Walter ran this line his list included the training units as
proof of the concentration.

"All told, the strength of the fighter force in North West Germany, France and
the Low Countries rose from 270 in April, 1943 to 630 by August."

-- "The Mighty Eighth", p. 54 by Roger Freeman.

Ok now we are in August 1943 when the USAAF was running raids of
a "few" dozen bombers, 15 is being defined as few it seems.

"American bombing in the summer of 1943 had limited the planned
expansion of the Luftwaffe's forces. This expansion had begun in
mid-1941 when Goring ordered Milch to increase aircraft production
sufficiently to quadruple front-line strength. Hitler accelerated the
effort with additional demands for greater aircraft production in
1942. Milch merged existing factories into larger complexes in order
to increase production.

By the way, merging plants has a habit of temporarily lowering
production as people adjust to the new way of working.

In June 1941 German aircraft acceptances were 880, down from
1,078 in March, and stayed below 1,000 for the rest of the year.

In June 1942 1,235. In June 1943 2,258. In June 1944 3,597.

USSBS figures.

Though efficiency of scale helped raise
output, it also made the American bombing effort easier by
concentrating production in a few large complexes. Eighth's bombing
efforts in the first half of 1943 were small by later standards, but
they forced the Air Ministry to request the dispersal of Germany's
aircraft manufacturing industry in May 1943.

Forced is an interesting word given there had been one raid on
German production facilities by the end of May 1943, which had
16 bombers lost and 2 written off out of 116 sent. The other raids
the 8th launched were against French and Belgian aircraft industry
and repair facilities.

Little was done until Hitler gave Minister for War Production Albert
Speer power to order plant dispersal in August 1943. This dispersal
and American bombing caused output to lag in the fall of 1943.

This is not surpassing little was done as it was not until July and August
the 8th returned to aircraft industry targets in Germany.

The trouble is with production figures is what is being counted,
rolled out of the factory or being accepted by the Luftwaffe?
Acceptance flights drop off in Winter.

The USSBS figures are acceptances and go like this
9/43 2,214, 10/43 2,372, 11/43 2,077, 12/43 1,702, 1/44 2,410,
2/44 1,988, 3/44 2,640.

So assuming the 10/43 and 1/44 figures are the "correct" level of
production the production loss is around 1,000 aircraft in November
and December 1943.

The other point is Bomber Command's two strikes on Kassel
in October 1943, the first started large fires at both the Henschel
and Fieseler works, the second started a firestorm, with all 3
Henschel plants badly damaged, they were making V-1s at
the time, the Fieseler works were making Fw190. So another
reason to disperse in November and December 1943. The
Fieseler works Fw190 acceptances were 62 in August, 58 in
September, 40 in October and 26 in both November and
December, back up to 64 in January.

Looking at the USSBS Fw190 acceptances by plant, the 1943 peak
in July was 325 , production was between 263 and 325 January to
October 1943 inclusive, then 242 in November, 203 in December,
then 383 in January.

It would be nice to say there was only one reason for a given
effect but there rarely is.

Speer and Milch planned to reach a production level of 2000 fighters
per month by the summer of 1944, but the intensity of the Blitz Week
attacks of late July 1943 convinced Milch to try to reach a production
level of 2,000 per month by the end of 1943. Continued bombing
frustrated Milch's venture and he reduced his production goals to
1,000 Bf 1O9s per month by December 1943 and 1,000 FW 190s per month
by March or April 1944."

-- "To Command the Sky" pp. 121-22 by Stephen McFarland and Wesley
Newton

The USSBS notes 932 Bf109 acceptances in January 1943,
it had peaked at 725 in July 1943 and then went down, Fw190
acceptances made it to 944 in June 1944.

May 1944 single engined fighters 1,907, so the program did
make it in summer of 1944, despite the increased weight of
attack. March 1944 single engined fighters 1,377, April 1,696.

In 1942 the FW190 production was 150 per month
on average, Bf109 230 per month.

In 1943 FW190 average monthly production for the year
was 250 per month, so Milch wanted this quadrupled, and
up 7 fold on 1942. Bf109 production in 1943 averaged 530
per month in 1943, so this had to be doubled from 1943
levels, or quadrupled from 1942 levels.

So the problem is Milch wanted to change the fighter mix,
as well as accelerate production. So I suspect the "good
result" being claimed has more to do with Milch overestimating
what could be done. The use of the above quote has the initial
problem, how realistic were Milch's targets? How many aircraft
production plans of any country were met?

Simply put the "continued bombing" of aircraft plants by the 8th
stopped on 9 October 1943, resuming on 11 January 1944, so a
gap of 3 months. So it is more the industrial and weather problems
that stopped the Milch program in November and December 1943.

It is not a bad result for 1943, the air threat forced a downgrade
of production. It meant the industry was able to withstand the
direct attacks of early 1944 better, even as it continued to
disperse, but not the loss of transport links in late 1944 and
early 1945.

Note he keeps telling us about these
moves but does not provide a list of units and dates. He will
eventually define few dozen as well, it seems to be at least 8,
or just under 100 bombers.

How about several dozen, instead of a few?

Still no mention of the units withdrawn and when, nor a definition
of several or few.

"Perhaps the best measure of the Eighth's success through the early summer
[1943] was its impact on the Luftwaffe. Eighth Air Force had forced the German
high command both to withdraw fighter units from other theaters to defend the
Reich and to form larger formations with more heavily armed fighters, thus
reducing their efficiency against U.S. fighters...On July 28, 1943, during a
meeting to evaluate the damage Germay had suffered Goring ordered Milch to give
the defence of the Reich the "main emphasis" in Luftwaffe planning. This order
was less significant than at frst apparent because in actual experience, if not
policy the defense of the Reich had been receiving priority since the Spring."

-- Ibid, pp. 100-109.

So daylight precison bombing -- and only by visual means -- caused the Germans
both to disperse their factories and also to concentrate the German day
fighters against them.

Note the little dots between "U.S. fighters...On July 28, 1943, " the
truncation of the quote.

On the night of July 27/28 the RAF created the firestorm in Hamburg.

Walter will now fill in the missing text, the bits he does not like to mention.
It is a simple situation to obtain the books Walter uses and see how he
truncates quotes and ignores anything he does not like.

It was the firestorm at Hamburg that caused Goering to have the
conversation that produced the quote mentioned above. Defense
of the Reich day and night was on the table.

And MacFarlane and Newton appear incorrect when they claim the
priority in the early spring was home defence, when the priority was
stopping the allies taking North Africa and the build up for the summer
offensive in the east.

Finally the USAAF heavy bomber forces were flying 200 sorties in
a day in June 1943, the start of summer and 300 a day in late July.

Amd I remind you again that in this time frame, the 8th was only sending
several dozen B-17's out on its raids, usually less than 100.

On 28 July 1943 the 8th despatched 302 bombers, on 26 July 303
bombers, on 25 July 323, on 24 July 305 and so on. It had been
despatching 200 at a time since May.

Walter is into relativity, "this time frame" is being defined as much earlier
than July 1943 now, but the quote above is used as proof of the effects
of the earlier date.

The 8th
activated 5 new groups in Mid-May, 1943, pretty much doubling its strength. By
by May, the Germans had, as Galland says, begun putting more emphasis on
opposing the B-17's than they were against the night bombers.

So far Walter has not mentioned a single thing about what the
night bombers were doing, or the strength of the nightfighter
defences and how that changed in 1943.

Simply Walter has taken quotes applying to July and August 1943
and used them to "prove" his claims for April and May 1943.

The claim, by another poster, that it was all "area bombing" is just false.

The majority was non visual, the majority of non visual strikes were
around as accurate as the night strikes the RAF called area attacks.

Daylight precision bombing had a definite affect on the Germans, and they
preceived it as a greater threat than the night bombing. And this was well
before the first bomb was dropped by the USAAF using radar or other non-visual
targeting.

As can be seen from above Walter will simply erase the RAF if
he has to and give all the "good" effects to the USAAF.

And, yes we are now back in May 1943.

Walter has supplied fighter figures for August 1943, fighter locations for
December 1943, the note the Luftwaffe stopped heavily contesting
French airspace in 1944, all to show how the Luftwaffe deployed against
USAAF bombers in early to mid 1943. Anyone else see the disconnect?

E R Hooton, Eagle in Flames, reports the following day fighter dispositions,
(Based on the figures in K Gunderlach Die Deutsche Luftwaffe in Mittelmeer
1940-45. Band I 1940-1942. Band 2 1943-1945, page 716).

All for the year 1943, table is date, Luftflotte Mitte (Reich) / Luftflotte 3 /
total Mitte + Reich / total fighters / % in west.

20 Jan / 163 / 241 / 404 / 1,090 / 37.1
20 Apr / 188 / 232 / 420 / 1,328 / 31.6
20 Jun / 343 / 353 / 696 / 1,704 / 40.1
20 Sep / 677 / 222 / 899 / 1,500 / 59.9
20 Dec / 572 / 312 / 884 / 1,588 / 55.7.

Alfred Price in his survey says Mitte had 309 and Luftflotte three 250
day fighters on 17 May 1943.

Galland is on record as stating in February 1943 the defences had
solved the problem of the 4 engined day bomber, he later changed
his mind.

So looking at the above we can see the Luftwaffe increased the fighter
force in the west throughout 1943. The increase was slow at first and
was slower than the increases on other fronts, that is until June/July 1943,
the other fronts had not suffered any "denuding" of fighters. This is not
surprising given the attempts to support the Kursk offensive and also
resist the invasion of Sicily.

According to the Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe by the British Air
Ministry the Luftwaffe in the Mediterranean received over 40%
of new fighter production in the period 1 May to 15 July 1943,
plus additional units.

It can also be seen above the Luftwaffe tried to defend non German
airspace with the way the number of fighters in Luftflotte 3 increased
by June 1943. There was more going on than raids by a "few" dozen
USAAF bombers on Germany.

In July, after the battles over Sicily and Kursk, you can really see the
shift in fighter deployments. In July 1943 the first USAAF light and
medium bomber sorties were flown, as opposed to some flown with
RAF units. In day operations in July 1943 the allies managed 10,412
fighter, 451 light and medium bomber and 777 heavy bomber sorties
over France and the low countries, plus another 839 heavy bomber
sorties over Germany.

For the whole of the year 1942 the figures were 44,727 fighter, 1,794
light and medium bomber and 1,394 heavy bomber sorties over France
and the low countries. So you can see the increase, and the tempo
kept going up,

In September 1943 the USAAF mediums and lights alone flew 2,009 sorties.

Under this sort of pressure the results are clear, in terms of both numbers
and percentage allocations, the Luftwaffe was forced into redeploying
in the west. But this happened when the USAAF was flying 300 aircraft
missions to Germany, as well as many more missions to France and
the low countries, not when "a few dozen" bombers were flying during
the first few months of 1943.

It is a strong achievement, mainly by the USAAF, to force the Luftwaffe
to make such a change, the cheap shot here is trying to claim the
change occurred much earlier.

G Aders in The History of the German night fighter force gives the night
fighter strength as

10 December 1942, 375, 10 February 1943 477, 26 August 1943 627.

Note this is all nightfighters on all fronts, the majority were in the west.
Again not surprising given the effects of raids like Hamburg. The
Germans reacted to the allied challenges by strengthening the day
and night defences, holding off as long as possible as usual.

Checking Freeman, "Mighty Eighth War Dairy", I see the following numbers of
bombers dispatched:

3/18/43: 103
3/22/43: 102
3/31/43: 102
4/4/43: 97
4/17/43: 115
5/13/43: 97

So when the Germans were deploying their fighter units to fight the 8th AF and
deciding to disperse their aircraft industry, the Americans were penetrating
occupied Europe with several dozen bombers, on average.

So several dozen is being defined as 8 to 9.

People can go back and note the quotes used say things like,

"in the summer of 1943"

People can then note the list of missions kindly provided by Walter
for the spring of 1943.

Not for him to note the second strike on 13 May 1943, another 72
bombers, or 14 May with 217 bombers sent, or 15 May with 193
bombers sent, 17 May with 239 bombers sent. Perhaps to slide
forward to the first raid in June 1943, the 11th, with 252 bombers sent.
Now we are in summer.

It is quite simple, take the USAAF strength from spring, the results
from the summer, the Luftwaffe reaction from the summer and then
claim it all happened in spring so the USAAF looks like a bunch of
super airmen.

Checking "The Hardest Victory" p. 126, shows that Bomber Command had @ 600
aircraft available, with @ 350 available on any given night, by the summer of
--1942--.

Now we are in 1942 for some reason. In the summer of 1942 Bomber
Command managed to drop 18,208 tons of bombs, in the summer of
1943 the 8th managed 9,860 tons of bombs.

So even though the RAF had 3 times the striking power, the Germans were giving
the lion's share of the effort to defending against the USAAF. This coinfirms
what Galland said.

Actually the ratio Bomber Command to the 8th, using the figures above
is 1.85 to 1, throw in the 950 or so tons of bombs by the USAAF
mediums and heavies and it becomes 1.68 to 1.

On 30 June 1942, according to Aders there were 255 nightfighters.

Note by the way Walter has not bothered to give nightfighter numbers
and deployments.

More later.

This rarely happens.

The rest of my post is most of the stuff in my last post Walter decided
to ignore,

By the way when the 8th air force was running raids of hundreds
of aircraft the Luftwaffe was using day fighter assets, the JG300
series units, as night fighters. Under Walter's rules of logic it
shows bad things about the USAAF, as opposed to everyone
else's rules of logic which state it shows bad things about Walter.

To most people the night fighter use in daylight and day fighter use
at night show improvisation and a Luftwaffe high command largely
misusing its assets, for Walter night fighters in daylight is the only
part considered, it fits the fiction.

At the end of 1942 the night fighter force was 5 Geschwader controlling
15 gruppen, except some of the gruppen were still staffel size, by the
middle of 1942 there were 6 operational Geschwader plus 1 training
unit controlling 22 gruppen, 18 of which were in the Reich.

The Germans reacted to the increasing pressure by day and night,
by beefing up the defences then firstly defeating the unescorted day
raids and then defeating the night raids. The allies then struck back.
The way the air war fluctuated, no absolutes.


After the early death of an expert pilot the rules were changed to have
the inexperienced crews used. The fact 20% of night fighters did not
have radar in mid 1943 was a factor in using them. So was the heavy
armament on the Do217 night fighter version.

As people can see Walter simply refuses to actually look at the history,
the fact the 1,000 plane raids were special one offs using training and
other command's aircraft to obtain the numbers. A proof of concept,
one the USAAF was happy to share in. Walter is now going to show us
all the Bomber Command 1,000 plane raids done before 1944, that is
using the aircraft assigned to the operational units only. Otherwise he
can start telling us how bad the USAAF was for having over 800 heavy
bombers in Britain in July 1943 but only using a maximum of around 300
at a time. (In October 1944 the heavy bombers on hand topped 1,100).
The rest of us understand the concept of reserves, training units and
serviceability levels. Harris used all three to put together his three 1,000
bomber raids in 1942, if this is to be considered normal then the 8th
stands condemned for not sending 1,000 bombers to Schweinfurt in
October 1943. Silly isn't it?


Translation Walter has convicted Harris, the messy evidence side of
things is irrelevant.

In the last 4 months of 1944, according to the USSBS the 8th air force
dropped 50% of its bombs through 8/10 or thicker cloud (15% in 8 or
9/10, 35% in 10/10), in the same period Harris says 46% of Bomber
Command bombs went on "towns". Walter condemns Harris even
though he was doing (just) slightly less area bombing than the 8th.

In case you are wondering in 8 and 9/10 cloud the 8th managed 1% of
bombs within 1,000 feet, in 10/10 cloud 0.2% in these 4 months, the
within 0.5 mile figures are 7.3% and 1.2% respectively.

This was during the time period the USSBS found the RAF was more
accurate on average when dropping bombs on three large oil plants it
examined in detail.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.