Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944

WalterM140 wrote:

It would have been quite easy to stop P-38 escorts in 1943, just attack
them early, and force them to jettison their external tanks, they were
carrying about as much or more fuel externally than internally.

It was -shown- that even a few dozen P-38's had a very delerious effect on the
tactics of the German day fighters.

There's no "it would have been quite easy to..." to it. What you suggest was
not a factor.

Only because the Germans rarely did so. U.S. fighter commanders were surprised
that they didn't try it more often, because it was so obviously a good idea.
Indeed, the Luftwaffe had tried to do so for a while, but heavy singl-engine
fighter losses (against P-47s) had resulted in an order from either Goring or
Schmidt (I forget which) sometime in the late-43 early '44 period (I forget) to
cease such attacks and move the fighters back. A bad decision.

BTW, ISTR for Geoffrey's info that the early J models were all retrofitted with
leading edge tanks either shortly before or shortly after achieving IOC in the ETO.

Also P-38 numbers grew from 302 in December 1942 to 567 in
May 1943 then declined to 372 in October 1943 before rapidly
expanding to 1,063 in April 1944. The numbers are for the USAAF
deployed against Germany and include reserves etc.

Thanks for the minutia.

Not minutia in this case, but very germane, as the lack of P-38 numbers was a
factor. Production was very limited at the time. Then there's the extra training
time for multi-engine, which would add some additional delay to getting units
operational/providing replacement pilots.

The point is that Eaker and Hunter, 8th BC and 8th FC CGs respectively could
have stressed long range escorts and pushed P-38 enhancements, stressed
solving the technical problems, and so forth in 1942. P-38's were available in
England in 1942.

Eaker and Hunter didn't do that.

While Eaker and Hunter were doctrinally blind to the need for far too long, the
need for a long-range fighter in the ETO in 1942 was hardly obvious given the
shallow penetrations we were making at the time. Arnold ordered Giles to increase
the internal fuel of the fighters around June '43 IIRR (don't have the reference,
"To Command The Sky" by McFarland and Newton, handy), giving him six months to
achieve it. Besides the P-38 was only in the ETO for a couple of months before
they were all sent to the Med.

I consider one of the great historical "what ifs" to be what if at least some P-38s
had remained in the 8th from November 1942 until September '43 (we'd have to assume
that P-38 production was sufficient that the 78th FG wouldn't have had its P-38s
stripped from it and sent to the Med as attrition replacements, so they weren't
forced to transition to the P-47). Would we have been able to fix the P-38's high
altitude/cold and wet climate problems prior to the availability of the P-51?

As it is, we know from Zemke that turbosupercharger control freeze-up was still an
issue in August _1944_ (IIRR he was flying a J-15), despite the problem being
identified no later than when the 55th FG had gone operational in mid-October '43.
Even assuming that the problems (engines, turbo controls, cockpit heat, dive flaps;
the boosted ailerons were a 'nice to have') had been fixed earlier, was it possible
to produce enough P-38s in that period to supply the needs of the PTO, MTO _and_
ETO? It seems unlikely, given the relatively low production totals of the P-38
compared to the single-engine a/c, and cost -- both the P-47 and P-38 cost about
double the P-51 to build in money, materiel and man-hours; fuel requirements were
also about double.


Eaker was not the only one and he did ask for long range tanks on
his fighters. It is not a simple good guy/bad guy situation.

Eaker dawdled on it. It wasn't important to him.

Eaker thought the B-17's could defend themselves until very late in the game.

He -was- sacked, after all.

True.

Eaker even suggested that the first Mustang groups go to the 9th AF. He didn't
understand the problem. He didn't allow for improvements and reinforcments of
the German AF. P-38's of longer range and better reliability could have been
provided well before they were. An all P-38 force could have done what a mixed
P-47, P-51 and P-38 force DID do-- wreck the German day fighter force. -- if
it had been stressed earlier. But it was not.

Assuming that the numbers had been available, which seems questionable, but I agree
with your basic idea.

Now, you'll dispute this of course.

I doubt Geoffrey will, as he's been mostly agreeing with you.

But the problems the long range escorts
gave the Germans rested on this:

The Germans had to up-armor and up-arm their single engine fighters and add
twin engine bomber destroyers to the mix, in order to kill B-17's in large
numbers. -Any- of the three main US fighters on the scene (P-38, P-47,
P-51)could have made that up-armoring and use of the twin engine bomber
destroyers impractical.

Assuming they had the internal fuel capacity, and that took time to get into
production and service even after it was given top priority by Arnold.

Guy