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.

Mr. Sinclair:

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.

Well, from 27 Sept. to November 1 is @ 35 days, but I appreciate the
correction.

The point is that the Germans began redeploying the day fighters for home
defense in April and decided to disperse the fighter production factories in
May, 1943. This was well before even the 9/27/43 date, and it belies the point
the other poster made, that it was all "area bombing".

And it really is amazing that the 8th AF was able to do this when you remember
how many raids were run on U-boat pens and airfields in France and the like.
And also when you recall that the 8th never had more than @ 100 heavy bombers
on any given raid before mid-May, 1943.

snip the same old crap

"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.

The 8ith AF activated 5 new groups in May, 1943. The number of available
heavies rose from @ 100 to @ 250. But as noted, the Germans had begun
redeploying the day fighters in April and plant dispersion in May.

"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.

That too, would be a result of daylight precison bombing.


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.

Pedantry.


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.

The Germans perhaps could see the writing on the wall. It was in this time
frame I believe that Knoke called the Yank bombing accuracy "fantastic".

snip


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.

Who cares?

The point is that daylight precision bombing was effective. The Germans were
very alarmed and took dramatic steps to combat it. It wasn't, as one poster
said all "area bombing."

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.

Try and stay on point. I know you love your statistics, but the point here is
that it wasn't, as one poster said all "area bombing."

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.

That doesn't have much to do with the 8th AF, and certainly sheds little light
on the effects of daylight precision bombing.

So another
reason to disperse in November and December 1943.

The decision to disperse was taken in May, 1943. At that time, what the
Germans had seen was that the USAAF had @ 100 heavy bombers available on a
daily basis.

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.

Try and stay on point.

snip of more pointless pedantry

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.


It's seconded by Freeman.

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.

The force expanded. Prior to about mid-May, the 8th AF had @100 heavy bombers
available on any given day. And the Germans were so concerned about this
relatively small force that the needs of the Eastern Front and Mediteranean
were slighted.

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.

The decision to redeploy the day fighters and disperse the aircraft production
date from April and May, respectively.

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.

As Galland notes, the Germans were putting more emphasis on opposing the
numerically smaller day raiders. And as we know, the night fighters were sent
to attack the day bombers as early as February, 1943.

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

Both MeFarland et al and Freeman confirm German decisions from April and May to
support what Galland said.

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.

Not in April and May, 1943.

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.

The RAF was not doing daylight precision bombing in April and May, 1943. The
USAAF was.

nd, 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?


The day fighters began to redeploy in April, per Freeman. McFarland et al
refers to the "Spring"; and the decision to disperse the aircraft production
was taken in May, and gathered impetus later. What the Germans had seen, what
information they had to go on to make these decisions, was the operations of @
100 unescorted heavy bombers.

snip

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.

You're forgetting the 7/28/43 meeting of Goring and Milch:

"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."

-- To Command the Sky, pp. 100-109.

In July, after the battles over Sicily and Kursk, you can really see the
shift in fighter deployments.

That began in the Spring.

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.

Acting on decisions made when only @ 100 B-17/B-24's's were available on a day
to day basis and well before any non-visual targetting had been attempted.

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.

The decisions were made by the Germans when the USAAF had @100 heavy bombers
available for day to day operations and well before any non-visual targetting
was used.

snip

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.


Yes, I'd say 8 or 9 is several. I'd also say again that RAF strength was at
least 3 times higher, and note again that in late July, 1943, Goring is telling
Milch to give day fighter production the "main emphasis".


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.


They can certainly see that the Germans took decisions in April and May
respectively that repositioned the day fighters to oppose the USAAF and
disperse the aircraft factories.

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.

But the Germans took in hand decisions based on a sortie rate of @100 bombers a
day through mid-May. If they were acting on what a larger force --might-- do,
then you have to give them credit. But they were certainly reacting to a force
that was carrying out --precision daylight bombing--.


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.

Pretty much, yeah. When you think that they were only going out in good weather
conditions, only striking by visual means, and usually without escort fighters
in the target areas, they do look like super airmen. Especially when you
consider that the RAF had about three times the frontline strength.

I didn't do what you suggest, any way. The German decisions were taken in April
and May, at a time when the USAAF had only @ 100 heavy bombers available.


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.

I was in a hurry.

snip

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.

We've done this before. JG 300 was not a day fighter unit. It used singel
engine aircraft, but it was not a day fighter unit.

Hastings says:

"When the former bomber pilot Major Hajo Hermann formed his first "Wild Boar"
squadrons in July that year [1943], he found himself obliged to recruit among
failed bomber pilots and disgraced aircrew rejected by other units."

--"Bomber Command" p. 270 by Max Hastings.

On the other hand, the Germans did sent out their best night fighter pilots to
oppose the 8th AF.

The time is early February, 1943:

"In fact, though, Jabs, Grimm and Naumann each claimed the destruction of a
B-17 from their first stiff daylight combat with the Fortresses, all eight of
IV/NJG 1's aircraft that had been engaged emerged from it in a damaged state.
Consequently for the succeeding night patrols the Gruppe had to draw on
machines that were less operationally serviceable.

[As Galland said, opposing the day bombers took priority over opposing the
night bombers, even though the latter were much more numerous.]

Eight aircraft, with all
their sensitive special equipmenmt so essential for night fighting in darkness,
had been put out of action. And it was the same story with most of the other
night-fighter Gruppen, now also thrown into the daylight battle.

But if machines were utimately replaceable, men were not--and such combats
always ended in the loss of highly qualified crews. These were individualistic
warriors, whose metier, after being put on the track of a mighty Lancaster
bomber, was to stalk it in the darkness with their own radar sets and shoot it
down by surprise. Of this technique they had become masters, but in daylight
it was unthinkable and their skill was wasted.

Yet they continued to be used in this way. On February 26, 1943, Captain Jabs
took off with three duty flights to intercept a formation of B-24 Liberators
returning from a raid on Emden. With them for the first time on a daylight
operation was the squadron was the squadron commander of 12/NJG 1, Captain
Lugwig Becker, the night fighter arm's leading expert in technique. What was
such technique against all the guns of the Liberators? His companions lost
sight of him at the outset of the attack and neither he nor his radio-operator,
Staub, were seen again, though all available aircraft searched the sea until
dark. Missing from his first daylight mission was the man who by his skill at
night had not been hit for months, and who after forty-four victories had that
very day been informed of his award of the Oak Leaves of the Knigt's Cross.
To the night fighters his death brought disquiet. Was the Luftwaffe in such a
bad way that specialists like Becker had to be squandered on missions
completely foreign to their training?"

Luftwaffe War Diaries, p. 303 by Cajus Bekker

This at a time (February, 1943) when the USAAF was attacking solely by visual
means and never with more than several dozen bombers.

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.

People can judge for themselves.


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.

It's not fiction to say that the Germans began returning day fighter units to
Germany in April and began dispersing their aircraft production in May. It's
not fiction to say that opposing the day bombers was officially given the
highest priority in July.



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.

Off point. The Germans began returning day fighter units to Germany in April
and began dispersing their aircraft production in May. It's not fiction to say
that opposing the day bombers was officially given the highest priority in
July.



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.


We came out on top.

snip

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


I haven't mentioned Harris in this thread.

What -is- clear is that the Germans reacted very strongly to the application of
daylight precision bombing, did so when the number of aircraft actually over
Europe was pretty small and when those aircraft were only bombing by visual
means.

It wasn't all "area bombing."

Walt

Subject: B-17's and Strategic Bombing (Was:Was D VII a good plane)
From: (WalterM140)
Date: 4/25/04 3:08 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

USSBS figures.

The USSBS figures have been largely discredited over the years.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.

They failed to take into account that fighter production increased because we
switched to oil targets and allowed fighter productio to increase. Without oil
it makes no difference how many fighters they made. They wil never fly. The
USSBS was written by economists, not military men.The RAF was not doing
daylight precision bombing in April and May, 1943. The
USAAF was.

We could afford to. The Brits couldn't Any mission aginst Germany was better
than no mission .


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

This will probably appear in the wrong place thanks to a buggy news server.

WalterM140 wrote in message ...
Mr. Sinclair:

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.

Well, from 27 Sept. to November 1 is @ 35 days, but I appreciate the
correction.

Walter wrote "The first radar assisted bombing by the 8th AF was in
November, 1943", missing all the strikes in September and October,
so I wrote 2 months since I did not know how many strikes were
missed in November as well. Like the above choice of 1 November
as the cut off date, there were no 8th Air Force strikes on the 1st or
the 2nd, it was the 3rd where Freeman notes "First use of H2X PFF"

The point is that the Germans began redeploying the day fighters for home
defense in April and decided to disperse the fighter production factories in
May, 1943. This was well before even the 9/27/43 date, and it belies the point
the other poster made, that it was all "area bombing".

Can people see the disconnect here? Walter is trying to run the line
the Luftwaffe had a major reaction to small USAAF raids, and
somehow linking that to area bombing.

And it really is amazing that the 8th AF was able to do this when you remember
how many raids were run on U-boat pens and airfields in France and the like.
And also when you recall that the 8th never had more than @ 100 heavy bombers
on any given raid before mid-May, 1943.

What is really amazing is the way Walter is simply assuming his readers
have zero memories,

snip the same old crap

The snipped stuff includes the "evidence" Walter produced to support
his claims about the USAAF effects on the Germans in the April and
May 1943 period. Things like the fighter deployment in December
1943 and the reduction in the attempts to contest French airspace in
1944.

The evidence has to be deleted, and the editorial put back in, with a
change, Walter now admits a jump in USAAF raid size in mid May 1943.

The list of the redeployed fighter units is still missing, last time it included
training units.

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.

"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.

The 8ith AF activated 5 new groups in May, 1943. The number of available
heavies rose from @ 100 to @ 250. But as noted, the Germans had begun
redeploying the day fighters in April and plant dispersion in May.

Note the deletion of things like the claim "As much as they could", it is
time for the motherhood statements, ignore the overclaiming about the
size and timing of the Luftwaffe fighter deployments. They were not
as early nor as large as Walter wants to claim.

"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.

That too, would be a result of daylight precison bombing.

If Hitler stubbed his toe in 1943 Walter would claim it was the result
of the USAAF strikes.

In the 1942/43 period Milch drove an increase in the efficiency of
the German aircraft industry, it started before the USAAF entered
the war, but Walter will claim it as a USAAF success.

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.

Pedantry.

Translation, the numbers do not fit the fiction so they need to
be ignored.

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.

First the data, the first raid on German aircraft factories was 17 April,
the next raid was 28 July 1943.

The Germans perhaps could see the writing on the wall. It was in this time
frame I believe that Knoke called the Yank bombing accuracy "fantastic".

So in other words it was not what the USAAF did in May 1943
but rather what the USAAF might be able to do in a later period,
but Walter will claim it as an April/May 1943 victory and ignore
the fact dispersal did not happen until well after May 1943.
Walter turns the contingency plan into reality long before it was
implemented.

Walter likes the Knocke quote, the fighter pilot was busy assessing
USAAF bombing patterns while under fire from his own flak and
lining up for an attack.

snip

Of the quote which notes little was done about dispersing the aircraft
industry for another 2 to 3 months.

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.

Who cares?

Walter prefers to avoid facts, like try and figure out what the bombing
raids actually did.

The point is that daylight precision bombing was effective. The Germans were
very alarmed and took dramatic steps to combat it. It wasn't, as one poster
said all "area bombing."

Let us see now, "very alarmed and took dramatic steps", is the air ministry
actually saying it looks like our factories will be bombed, we had best think
about dispersal, and then doing nothing for months.

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.

Try and stay on point. I know you love your statistics, but the point here is
that it wasn't, as one poster said all "area bombing."

The point is quite clear, Walter is massively overclaiming the early
effects of the USAAF bombing. And then dismissing the probable
direct and indirect effects on aircraft production by the day and night
bombing, since they happen too late in the year for his current claims.

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.

That doesn't have much to do with the 8th AF, and certainly sheds little light
on the effects of daylight precision bombing.

Walter is claiming only the USAAF bombing forced the changes.

So another
reason to disperse in November and December 1943.

The decision to disperse was taken in May, 1943.

No Walter, the quote says a request was made in May 1943 to disperse,
not a decision was taken, the decision would need to be taken at a higher
level than the air ministry. The actual work was much later in the year.

At that time, what the
Germans had seen was that the USAAF had @ 100 heavy bombers
available on a daily basis.

The German decision to increase day fighter production was taken
before the USAAF entered the war, and long before any USAAF
bombers flew over France. Walter likes to simply connect facts
with the "USAAF did this" link.

Walter is simply mixing up the potential threat with the actual
strength. The potential was hundreds of bombers, the actual
strength was not doing any lasting damage.

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.

Try and stay on point.

Walter ignores what the actual production was, he prefers a quote
that he tries to imply gives the credit for any production loss to the
USAAF, preferably in early 1943 at the moment.

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

snip of more pointless pedantry

Translation. a critique that showed the Milch plan for fighter expansion
was probably not achievable even without the bombing has to be
deleted, since that means the effects Walter is claiming have to be
reduced.

Above all what has to be deleted is another standard Walter method.
Cutting a quote to fit. So when Goering makes his remarks about
priority for Reich defense Walter is not going to admit he simply
cut out the fact it was made the day after the Hamburg firestorm, and
tried to give the credit to the USAAF alone.

I will put the text back in

""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.

It's seconded by Freeman.

No Walter, Freeman notes an increase by/in August 1943, that is
not April and May 1943.

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.

The force expanded. Prior to about mid-May, the 8th AF had @100 heavy bombers
available on any given day. And the Germans were so concerned about this
relatively small force that the needs of the Eastern Front and Mediteranean
were slighted.

All people have to do is note Walter's proof is deployments in August
1943, and how he claims the effects are May 1943.

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.

The decision to redeploy the day fighters and disperse the aircraft production
date from April and May, respectively.

The reality is Walter's proof of the above claims is missing, and ignores
what the Germans actually did.

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.

As Galland notes, the Germans were putting more emphasis on opposing the
numerically smaller day raiders. And as we know, the night fighters were sent
to attack the day bombers as early as February, 1943.

In February 1943 Galland said they had solved the problem of the 4 engined
bomber by day.

When it comes to priorities Galland is simply wrong, especially in early
to mid 1943. Check out when he was in the Mediterranean for example
and the increase in day and night fighter strength. The Germans could
not ignore the Hamburg firestorm.

The sending of nightfighters out in daylight is really a basic point in
favour of the Germans doing nothing, double timing the existing
units, not sending new units.

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

Both MeFarland et al and Freeman confirm German decisions from April and
May to support what Galland said.

Walter has basically assembled a whole lot of quotes that show German
activity from around August 1943 onwards, and is busy claiming they
were really done in 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.

Not in April and May, 1943.

The majority of the 8th's campaign was non visual.

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.

The RAF was not doing daylight precision bombing in April and May,
1943. The USAAF was.

Just ignore the reason why Goering was so concerned on 28 July 1943.
Walter needs to erase the RAF for a while.

nd, 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?

The day fighters began to redeploy in April, per Freeman.

Freeman notes the fighter strengths in April and August 1943,
Walter announces this means extra fighters were sent in April.
Why not May, June or July?

Walter the overall Luftwaffe fighter strength rose in the first few
months of 1943 and the number of fighters in the west actually
dropped as a percentage of the total force between January
and April 1944, it then recovered to slightly more than the
January percentage of total force by June. It looks like the
majority of the reinforcements arrived in May around the same
time as the new USAAF bomb groups, of which the Luftwaffe
would have been aware, they had a good handle on allied
aircraft strengths from prisoner interrogations and radio watches.

Walter wants to claim major redeployments "denuding" other
fronts and so on.

McFarland et al
refers to the "Spring"; and the decision to disperse the aircraft production
was taken in May, and gathered impetus later. What the Germans had
seen, what information they had to go on to make these decisions, was
the operations of @ 100 unescorted heavy bombers.

So the aircraft industry making contingency plans but not carrying them
out until attacks actually happened in the second half of is proof of
USAAF lasting damage in April and May 1943 correct? Interesting
disconnect.

So show us the fighter redeployments, not the before and after
figures from Freeman.

snip

This is what has been snipped, to the next "" the actual numbers,

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.

You're forgetting the 7/28/43 meeting of Goring and Milch:

"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."

-- To Command the Sky, pp. 100-109.

I have covered this quote above, Walter chose to delete my reply to it
when he first used it, the reply is above.

Simply Walter is deleting the events of the 27/28 July in Hamburg.
There was a reason Goering was so worried on 28 July.

Note by the way the running together of quotes 10 pages apart.

In July, after the battles over Sicily and Kursk, you can really see the
shift in fighter deployments.

That began in the Spring.

Walter the trouble you have is quote simple, you are significantly
overclaiming the German reaction, and deleting the evidence that
contradicts the fiction.

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.

Acting on decisions made when only @ 100 B-17/B-24's's were available
on a day to day basis and well before any non-visual targetting had been
attempted.

No Walter, the Luftwaffe redeployments in 1943 occurred later than what
you are trying to claim. The priorities until around the middle of the year
were the east and south, when those operations failed as well as the
increase in pressure from the west the west became the priority.

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.

The decisions were made by the Germans when the USAAF had @100
heavy bombers available for day to day operations and well before any
non-visual targetting was used.

Yes folks, repeat the fiction in the hope it becomes "truth", just ignore
the actual size of the missions in May for a start. By the way the USAAF
had more than 100 bombers available for day to day operations in April
and May 1943, they flew missions of around 100 aircraft, which is not
the same thing.

snip

The deleted text,

"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.

Yes, I'd say 8 or 9 is several. I'd also say again that RAF strength was at
least 3 times higher, and note again that in late July, 1943, Goring is telling
Milch to give day fighter production the "main emphasis".

Thanks Walters, you always manage to give a good example of how
you simply twist words and invent meanings,

"Goring ordered Milch to give the defence of the Reich the "main emphasis"
in Luftwaffe planning" is the quote, see above, and this was the day after the
Hamburg firestorm. Now it is turned into "day fighter production".

The reality is Walter simply deletes bits he does not want and then
changes the meanings of the text he does like.

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.

They can certainly see that the Germans took decisions in April and May
respectively that repositioned the day fighters to oppose the USAAF and
disperse the aircraft factories.

Walter will simply ignore the fact he is overclaiming the extent
of the German reactions.

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.

But the Germans took in hand decisions based on a sortie rate of @100
bombers a day through mid-May.

Note Walter does not bother to tell us why the decision to drop the
extra strike on 13 May and subsequent strikes was taken. After all the
production dispersal decision was supposed to happen in May, when
the USAAF was flying 200 bombers at a time, not the 100. So simply
delete any day that had more than around 100 bombers flying.

Walter will now tell us what day in May the dispersal decision was
taken and also what the Luftwaffe expected the USAAF strength to
grow to, in say May 1943

If they were acting on what a larger force --might-- do,
then you have to give them credit. But they were certainly reacting to a force
that was carrying out --precision daylight bombing--.

The Luftwaffe was reacting to a probable increase in the threat from
the west, and did so later than Walter is trying to claim, Kursk and
Sicily had priorities.

Also if the heavies were doing precision bombing then the mediums
were doing very precise bombing and the fighter bombers ultra
precise bombing.

The Luftwaffe was reacting either to future threats (dispersal plans) or
the threats of the day (deployments). Walter is simply exaggerating
when the reactions occurred and how big they were. You can see
that by the way the fighter deployment numbers were deleted.

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.

Pretty much, yeah. When you think that they were only going out in good weather
conditions, only striking by visual means, and usually without escort fighters
in the target areas, they do look like super airmen. Especially when you
consider that the RAF had about three times the frontline strength.

Yes folks,

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.

Oh yes, the majority of the 8ths strikes in the first half of the year
were over France, and they had fighter cover.

I didn't do what you suggest, any way. The German decisions were taken in April
and May, at a time when the USAAF had only @ 100 heavy bombers available.

Walter simply deleted the 200+ USAAF raids in May 1943 and refuses
to provide figures for the claimed fighter deployments.

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.

I was in a hurry.

snip

More figures deleted,

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.

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. (Walter tried for 3 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.

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.

We've done this before. JG 300 was not a day fighter unit. It used singel
engine aircraft, but it was not a day fighter unit.

Walter you are going to have to try harder, the Luftwaffe diverted
airmen and day fighters into night fighter units in the second half
of 1943. Under your logic this shows the USAAF was not effective
in the 1943/44 period, the logic is junk of course.

You also might note the JG300 etc units scored in the region of
1,000 day kill claims in 1944, to 350 night kill claims. The day
claims started in January 1944 and in the first 3 months of the
year were 45 day to 66 night claims.

JG300 was created in June 1943, JG301 and 302 in October,
between them they managed around 180 night and 1 day kill
claims in 1943.

Hastings says:

"When the former bomber pilot Major Hajo Hermann formed his first "Wild Boar"
squadrons in July that year [1943], he found himself obliged to recruit among
failed bomber pilots and disgraced aircrew rejected by other units."

--"Bomber Command" p. 270 by Max Hastings.

This ignores the fact JG Hermann was the first unit raised and after
it had been proved the expansion began, Aders notes the instructor
level pilots used. It is fun to see the attempt to make instrument trained
pilots, a relative rarity in the Luftwaffe, turned into the dregs.

On the other hand, the Germans did sent out their best night fighter pilots to
oppose the 8th AF.

The time is early February, 1943:

"In fact, though, Jabs, Grimm and Naumann each claimed the destruction of a
B-17 from their first stiff daylight combat with the Fortresses, all eight of
IV/NJG 1's aircraft that had been engaged emerged from it in a damaged state.
Consequently for the succeeding night patrols the Gruppe had to draw on
machines that were less operationally serviceable.

[As Galland said, opposing the day bombers took priority over opposing the
night bombers, even though the latter were much more numerous.]

Want to know something folks, the western nightfighter units
claimed 18 day kills January to July 1943 inclusive, according to
Tony Wood's list, they claimed 852 night kills according to Tony
and 902 according to Aders.

So priority is 2% of kills. Note the experiment above showed the
problems with non formation attacks on USAAF formations, not
a priority to day defence.

IV/NJG 1 sent up 8 out of a nominal 30 aircraft.

You see the technique is simple, try and discredit the night fighter
pilots sent against the RAF and play up the pilots sent against the
USAAF.

Eight aircraft, with all
their sensitive special equipmenmt so essential for night fighting in darkness,
had been put out of action. And it was the same story with most of the other
night-fighter Gruppen, now also thrown into the daylight battle.

But if machines were utimately replaceable, men were not--and such combats
always ended in the loss of highly qualified crews.

Always ended, so every time a nightfighter squadron attacked at
day they always lost at least a crew killed?

These were individualistic
warriors, whose metier, after being put on the track of a mighty Lancaster
bomber, was to stalk it in the darkness with their own radar sets and shoot it
down by surprise. Of this technique they had become masters, but in daylight
it was unthinkable and their skill was wasted.

Yet they continued to be used in this way. On February 26, 1943, Captain Jabs
took off with three duty flights to intercept a formation of B-24 Liberators
returning from a raid on Emden. With them for the first time on a daylight
operation was the squadron was the squadron commander of 12/NJG 1, Captain
Lugwig Becker, the night fighter arm's leading expert in technique. What was
such technique against all the guns of the Liberators? His companions lost
sight of him at the outset of the attack and neither he nor his radio-operator,
Staub, were seen again, though all available aircraft searched the sea until
dark. Missing from his first daylight mission was the man who by his skill at
night had not been hit for months, and who after forty-four victories had that
very day been informed of his award of the Oak Leaves of the Knigt's Cross.
To the night fighters his death brought disquiet. Was the Luftwaffe in such a
bad way that specialists like Becker had to be squandered on missions
completely foreign to their training?"

Luftwaffe War Diaries, p. 303 by Cajus Bekker

This at a time (February, 1943) when the USAAF was attacking solely by visual
means and never with more than several dozen bombers.

Congratulations Walter in discovering the fact the experiment by
the nightfighters was a loser. Going to mention the result was
a continuation of the attacks on a lower level but with the experienced
crews excluded from day operations?

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.

People can judge for themselves.

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.

It's not fiction to say that the Germans began returning day fighter units to
Germany in April and began dispersing their aircraft production in May. It's
not fiction to say that opposing the day bombers was officially given the
highest priority in July.

Fiction 1, the overstatement in the rise of Luftwaffe fighter strength in
the west, in terms of numbers and timing.

Fiction 2, the dispersal of German aircraft production starting in May 1943

(in both cases supposed to happen while the USAAF was flying 100
aircraft missions as well)

Fiction 3, the idea the day bombers were given the highest priority
in July 1943, the day after the Hamburg firestorm. Go look at the
quote above and see how Walter simply changes the meaning
and refuses to put in the missing parts.

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.

Off point.

You see folks, Walter does not want to see a rise in Luftwaffe nightfighter
forces, that destroys the fiction of the day bombers being given the
priorities he claims for them.

Interestingly enough Alfred Prices' Luftwaffe OOB for 27 July 1942
and 17 May 1943, give the following. In the west in 1942 388 day
and 282 night fighters, in 1943 559 day and 407 night fighters,
increases of 44.1 and 44.3% respectively.

The 8th had gone from 0 to 200 aircraft missions. Harris says
bomber command had gone from 388 to 790 average daily
availability, aircraft and crews, including the day bombers.
It looks like the day bomber strength was around 90 in July 1942
and 110 in May 1943.

The Germans began returning day fighter units to Germany in April
and began dispersing their aircraft production in May. It's not fiction to say
that opposing the day bombers was officially given the highest priority in
July

Fiction 1, the overstatement in the rise of Luftwaffe fighter strength in
the west, in terms of numbers and timing.

Fiction 2, the dispersal of German aircraft production starting in May 1943.

(in both cases supposed to happen while the USAAF was flying 100
aircraft missions as well)

Fiction 3, the idea the day bombers were given the highest priority
in July 1943, the day after the Hamburg firestorm. Go look at the
quote above and see how Walter simply changes the meaning
and refuses to put in the missing parts.

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.

We came out on top.

The army put tanks on the Luftwaffe runways, it made a big difference.

snip

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


I haven't mentioned Harris in this thread.

Walter's words,

"But Bomber Command was kept at its Sisyphean task by the almost criminally
incompetent Arthur Harris until the very end."

You see Walter hopes no one has a memory, since he contradicts
himself within hours or days, showing just how much fiction he writes.

What -is- clear is that the Germans reacted very strongly to the application of
daylight precision bombing, did so when the number of aircraft actually over
Europe was pretty small and when those aircraft were only bombing by visual
means.

Walter will take the results of the second half of 1943, apply it to
the first half of 1943 and thereby "prove" his claim.

It wasn't all "area bombing."

By the looks of it non visual bombing was over 50%, the USSBS says
around 2/3 of this was blind, so just over 1/3 of the 8th efforts.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

Mr. Sinclair wrote a bunch of stuff.

I don't see anything he posted that refutes Galland.

During the course of 1943, the day bombers received more attention than the
night bombers, even though the night bombers were more numerous.

This is backed up by what McFarland et al and Roger Freeman said. The Germans
began redeploying the day fighters back to Germany in April per Freeman and in
the "Spring" per McFarland. The Germans decided also per McFarland to begin
dispersing the aircraft production from May.

All of this was well before the first use of non-visual targeting by the 8th AF
and at a time when only @ 100 bombers were available day to day.

Walt

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...
Mr. Sinclair wrote a bunch of stuff.

I don't see anything he posted that refutes Galland.


Translation:

I propose to ignore any and all evidence that disagrees with
my pre-conceived notions.

Keith

I wrote:

I don't see anything he posted that refutes Galland.


Mr. Willshaw writes:


Translation:

I propose to ignore any and all evidence that disagrees with
my pre-conceived notions.

I am sure glad you posted that. Sometimes it feels like it's just me and
Sinclair.

My pre-conceived notions don't show me that the USAAF had only @ 100 heavy
bombers available for day to day operations prior to mid-May, 1943.

My pre-conceived notions don't tell me that these aircraft bombed using only
the "mark I eyeball."

My pre-conceived notions don't tell me that the Germans began bringing the day
fighters home in April, 1943.

My pre-conceived notions don't tell me that the Germans felt the need to
disperse the aircraft production in May, 1943.

My pre-conceived notions don't tell me that this reinforces what Galland said
-- the day bombers received more attention than the night bombers as 1943 wore
on, even though the night bombers were more numerous.

My pre-conceived notions don't show me, but the data above does -- that it was
not all "area bombing" as one RAF apologist -- maybe it was you -- suggested.

Walt

WalterM140 wrote in message ...
I wrote:
I don't see anything he posted that refutes Galland.

Mr. Willshaw writes:
Translation:

I propose to ignore any and all evidence that disagrees with
my pre-conceived notions.

I am sure glad you posted that. Sometimes it feels like it's just me and
Sinclair.

Hmm, I receive nice emails including contacts who have helped me
find much useful information, apart from other people's public postings
refuting the silly claims Walter tries to run.

My pre-conceived notions don't show me that the USAAF had only @ 100 heavy
bombers available for day to day operations prior to mid-May, 1943.

My pre-conceived notions don't tell me that these aircraft bombed using only
the "mark I eyeball."

So far we are back in the motherhood area, the exaggerations are
simply deleted for the moment.

My pre-conceived notions don't tell me that the Germans began bringing the day
fighters home in April, 1943.


Now the first attempt to slip in misleading information, please supply
the units and dates of their arrival, and note the increase in the overall
numbers of Luftwaffe fighters during the first half of 1943. We want
the April transfers, not the final total in August. As a hint, ignore JG 11,
it was formed in April 1943, and be aware of the rotation of fighter
units to the Reich for refitting, and note JG1 on 17 May 1943 was
around half strength compared with 27 July 1943, since it was used
to form JG11. Then the key point, tell us how this means the Luftwaffe
was "denuding" the other fronts of fighters which was the original claim.

My pre-conceived notions don't tell me that the Germans felt the need to
disperse the aircraft production in May, 1943.

Now the a bigger attempt at fiction, a "request" is turned into action,
ignoring the lack of dispersal work actually done.

My pre-conceived notions don't tell me that this reinforces what Galland said
-- the day bombers received more attention than the night bombers as 1943 wore
on, even though the night bombers were more numerous.

The largest 8th Air Force raid on Germany in December 1943 was
722 bombers on 24 December, the largest Bomber Command raid
was 712 bombers on the 29th (there were larger night raids in November)

Using the figures in E R Hooton Eagle in Flames,

December 1943 bomber sorties to Germany night 3,389, day 3,692
(140 from the 15th Air Force). The day bombers had fighter escorts,
some 4,926 sorties, the night bombers an extra 35 nightfighter and
electronic warfare sorties.

There were an additional 1,137 day heavy bomber and 288 night
bomber sorties to non German targets in western Europe.

However now we have "day bomber" as the criteria, which means
the sorties of the lights and mediums. In this case the number
of day bomber sorties exceeded the night sorties in November
1943, 4,790 to 4,607 and in December 1943 the numbers were
7,733 to 3,677. These ignore the thousands of day fighter sorties,
12,263 to be precise.

It is clear the day defence in the west became the priority over the
day defences in the south and east in the July/August 1943 period.

There does not seem to have been any time when the night defence
was deprived of resources in favour of the day defences, as late
as 31 May 1944, using Alfred Price's figures, there were 1,091 day
and 742 night fighters in the west, plus 142 single engined fighters in
the JG300 series units which were used day and night. It was things
like the bomber force that were sacrificed to build up the fighter force.
Galland may claim there was some sort of priority day versus night
but the numbers say it was day over the west versus day over the
other fronts.

My pre-conceived notions don't show me, but the data above does -- that it was
not all "area bombing" as one RAF apologist -- maybe it was you -- suggested.

When stuck answer another question, not the one being asked, and
throw an accusation without any supporting evidence.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.

I wrote:
I don't see anything he posted that refutes Galland.

Mr. Willshaw writes:
Translation:

I propose to ignore any and all evidence that disagrees with
my pre-conceived notions.


I am sure glad you posted that. Sometimes it feels like it's just me and
Sinclair.


My pre-conceived notions don't show me that the USAAF had only @ 100 heavy
bombers available for day to day operations prior to mid-May, 1943.

My pre-conceived notions don't tell me that these aircraft bombed using only
the "mark I eyeball."


So far we are back in the motherhood area, the exaggerations are
simply deleted for the moment.

It's not a motherhood statement to say that all the bombing in this period was
visual. It's what happened.

My pre-conceived notions don't tell me that the Germans began bringing the
day
fighters home in April, 1943.


Now the first attempt to slip in misleading information...

I've certainly said it before. I guess you mean that stating that the bombing
was all visual wasn't false, it was just a "motherhood statement." It's still
true.

please supply
the units and dates of their arrival,

"Thus, despite the mounting production, the number of serviceable dayfighters
available for the defence of Germany rose only slowly: from 120 in March and
April to 162 in early May, 255 in early June and 300 in July.

By the end of August, under pressure of the American daylight offensive, the
home defence force reached its all-time "high" in first-line aircraft: 405 Me
109s and Fw 190s, plus one twin-engined Geschwaderwith about eighty Me 1l0s and
Me 410s.
Though some were newly formed units, most of them had had to be withdrawn from
other fronts. From southern Italy Il/JG 27 under Captain Schroer moved to
Wiesbaden-Erbenheim, II/JG 51 under Captain Rammelt to Neubiberg near Munich,
while. a single Gruppe of the renowned "Greenheart" Geschwader, IIl/JG 54 under
Major Reinhard Seiler, was posted from northern Russia to Oldenburg and
Nordholtz on HeIigoland Bight. .
Two complete Geschwader were also brought home: JG 3 ("Udet") under
Lieutenant-Colonel Wilcke from the southern sector of the eastern front;
JG 26 ("Schlageter") under Major Priller from the English Channel, where its
experience of combat with the British and Americans was perhaps un.rivalled.
Both now were stationed on the lower Rhine and in Holland, right on the enemy
approach routes.

Even the Me 1 I Os, long obsolete in daylight and lately relegated to a host of
inconsequential tasks, were given a new lease of life. Provided they could
evade combat with enemy fighters, their firepower could still make dents in the
heavy bombers."

-- "Luftwaffe War Diaries, p. 319

So the day defense force rose from April to May by 1/3, at a time when the
USAAF had no more than 100 heavy bombers available day to day, and was only
bombing by visual means.

As a hint, ignore JG 11,
it was formed in April 1943, and be aware of the rotation of fighter
units to the Reich for refitting, and note JG1 on 17 May 1943 was
around half strength compared with 27 July 1943, since it was used
to form JG11.

Thanks for making my points for me.

But let's look at something else, the effect of the first year of Harris in
charge of BC, also from the LWD:

"The success of Bomber Command's offensive was however, questionable. Although
many German cities lay in ruins, had the objective been acheived? Had German
industry been destroyed, or the morale of the population undermined? Nothing
of the sort had taken place."

LWD, p. 309

So we see that the first year of bombing by Bomber Command under Harris had no
apreciable effect.

But the first year of USAAF operations -- 8/17/42 -- 8/17/43, we see the Reich
day fighter force brought to it's 'all time 'high'", to fight against the Day
Bombers. This is pretty much what Galland said -- the USAAF received higher
priority even though still numerically inferior.

Then the key point, tell us how this means the Luftwaffe
was "denuding" the other fronts of fighters which was the original claim.

LWD does indicate that at Hitler's insistence, and against the advice of Milch,
Jeschonek and Goring, that many aircraft were sent both to the Med and the
Eastern Front in this time frame:

"But the most striking evidence of Jeschonek's failure emerges from the last
months of his life. The Luftwaffe staff was fully informed about the American
aircraft construction programme, and at last Jeschonek recognized the mortal
danger that such swarms of four-engined bombers represented for Germany. "A
danger of such magnitude, that by comparision the disaster of Stalingrad was
trifling.

His volte-face in favor of defense put him on the side of Generals Galland and
Kammhuber who, while the Luftwaffe was bled to death on the eastern and
southern fronts, had for long tried to draw attention to the threat from the
west."

-- LWD p. 316

This at a time, when the USAAF had only @ 100 heavy bombers available, and was
bombing only by visual means.

It wasn't all "area bombing", as one poster suggested.

My pre-conceived notions don't tell me that the Germans felt the need to
disperse the aircraft production in May, 1943.

Now the a bigger attempt at fiction, a "request" is turned into action

That's pathetic.

A request that was brought on by operations of the the 8th AF with @ 100 heavy
bombers on any given raid, bombing exclusively by visual means.

My pre-conceived notions don't tell me that this reinforces what Galland
said
-- the day bombers received more attention than the night bombers as 1943
wore
on, even though the night bombers were more numerous.

The largest 8th Air Force raid on Germany in December 1943 was
722 bombers on 24 December, the largest Bomber Command raid
was 712 bombers on the 29th (there were larger night raids in November)

Hello? Anyone home?

We're talking about the operation of @ 100 B-17's and B-24's and their
operations through mid-May, 1943.

snip a lot of really strange and pedantic stuff

It is clear the day defence in the west became the priority over the
day defences in the south and east in the July/August 1943 period.


It's also clear per Freeman and LWD that this build-up started in April, and
per LWD increased the Day fighters by 1/3 between "April and early May". This
at a time when the USAAF had @ 100 bombers available on any given day and was
bombing entirely by visual means.

Galland may claim there was some sort of priority day versus night
but the numbers say it was day over the west versus day over the
other fronts.

After 1 year of BC operations under Harris, the RAF failed to achieve its
objectives.

After 1 year of USAAF operations, the day fighters were quadrupled. And all the
US raids were done solely by visual means.

It wasn't all "area bombing."

As of 1 April:

100 US heavies

120 German day fighters.

As of 17 August:

300 US heavies

500 German day fighters.

Did the night fighters quadruple in strength?

After the raid on Hamburg which produced the firestorm, things changed. But
that was over three years after the war began.

After 1 year of RAF operations against Germany, the effect was negligible. Not
even you can say -- honestly-- that the effect of the first year of USAAF
operations was negligible. In fact, the first year of USAAF operations scared
the Germans very badly, and defnitely impacted the number of aircraft they
planned to produce.

My pre-conceived notions don't show me, but the data above does -- that it
was
not all "area bombing" as one RAF apologist -- maybe it was you --
suggested.


Somebody with "uk" in their e-mail address indicated it was all "area bombing."
But that is not true. That's how this particular iteration started.

When stuck answer another question, not the one being asked, and
throw an accusation without any supporting evidence.

You have no answer. But then, you never do.

Walt

This will probably appear in the wrong place thanks to a buggy news server.

WalterM140 wrote in message ...
I wrote:
I don't see anything he posted that refutes Galland.

Mr. Willshaw writes:
Translation:

I propose to ignore any and all evidence that disagrees with
my pre-conceived notions.

I am sure glad you posted that. Sometimes it feels like it's just me and
Sinclair.

Deleted text,

"Hmm, I receive nice emails including contacts who have helped me
find much useful information, apart from other people's public postings
refuting the silly claims Walter tries to run."

My pre-conceived notions don't show me that the USAAF had only @ 100
heavy bombers available for day to day operations prior to mid-May, 1943.

My pre-conceived notions don't tell me that these aircraft bombed using only
the "mark I eyeball."

So far we are back in the motherhood area, the exaggerations are
simply deleted for the moment.

It's not a motherhood statement to say that all the bombing in this period was
visual. It's what happened.

Yes start again at the basics, try and hope everyone who wants to
follow the thread has forgotten the exaggerated claims, just start
again. Hence the non reply to my post of a few days ago, the
twisted logic becomes too much so start again.

My pre-conceived notions don't tell me that the Germans began bringing the
day fighters home in April, 1943.

Now the first attempt to slip in misleading information...

I've certainly said it before. I guess you mean that stating that the bombing
was all visual wasn't false, it was just a "motherhood statement." It's still
true.

Ah yes, when in doubt take someone's words and change the context,
my reply to the "day fighters home" point, moved to "visual bombing".

please supply
the units and dates of their arrival,

"Thus, despite the mounting production, the number of serviceable dayfighters
available for the defence of Germany rose only slowly: from 120 in March and
April to 162 in early May, 255 in early June and 300 in July.

Note folks, the attempt is being made to tell us what happened in
April and early May 1944. The 162 serviceable fighters in early
May 1943 can be compared with the 127 serviceable fighters in
July 1942.

You see the reason the fighter force in the west expanded slowly
before July/August 1943 was the priorities given to the other fronts.

Note how the quote below is yet again dispositions by August.

By the end of August, under pressure of the American daylight offensive, the
home defence force reached its all-time "high" in first-line aircraft: 405 Me
109s and Fw 190s, plus one twin-engined Geschwaderwith about eighty Me
1l0s and Me 410s.
Though some were newly formed units, most of them had had to be withdrawn
from other fronts. From southern Italy Il/JG 27 under Captain Schroer moved to
Wiesbaden-Erbenheim,

Present 17 May 1943 according to Price, though he says I/JG27
and it looks like this unit was present in March or earlier, refitting
after the fighting in Africa

II/JG 51 under Captain Rammelt to Neubiberg near Munich,

Not present on 17 May 1943.

while. a single Gruppe of the renowned "Greenheart" Geschwader, IIl/JG 54 under
Major Reinhard Seiler, was posted from northern Russia to Oldenburg and
Nordholtz on HeIigoland Bight. .

Present 17 May 1943, with an extra staffel operating as a fighter
bomber unit against England.

Two complete Geschwader were also brought home: JG 3 ("Udet") under
Lieutenant-Colonel Wilcke from the southern sector of the eastern front;

According to Price on 17 May 1943 I/JG3 was reforming in the Reich, in
other words a typical refit period back at home.

JG 26 ("Schlageter") under Major Priller from the English Channel, where its
experience of combat with the British and Americans was perhaps un.rivalled.
Both now were stationed on the lower Rhine and in Holland, right on the enemy
approach routes.

As of 17 May JG26 was still under Luftflotte 3 control, with two
gruppen not operational it seems.

Even the Me 1 I Os, long obsolete in daylight and lately relegated to a host of
inconsequential tasks, were given a new lease of life. Provided they could
evade combat with enemy fighters, their firepower could still make dents in the
heavy bombers."

No ZG units present in May 1943. Hence the trials with nightfighters.

-- "Luftwaffe War Diaries, p. 319

Yes when in doubt find the Luftwaffe dispositions in August 1943 and
try and claim them as the April dispositions.

So the day defense force rose from April to May by 1/3, at a time when the
USAAF had no more than 100 heavy bombers available day to day, and was only
bombing by visual means.

Go look up the figures Walter, in early May your serviceable figure,
says 162, up from 120 in early April. A whole 40 fighters, this is
really denuding the other fronts, this is really bringing many units
home, given a gruppe is 30 fighters. The movement in the serviceable
figures tells more about the mechanics than the number of fighters
assigned to home defence. Instead announce how the Luftwaffe
increased the fighter strength by a whole 1/3, wow, 42 fighters. I
mean 30 fighters is say a new gruppe formed.

The RAF started night bombing of Germany in May 1940, by 17 August
1940 the night fighter force had grown from near zero to 102 aircraft,
by the end of the year NJG 1, 2 and 3 had been created, though they
were certainly not at full strength. They had 245 aircraft between them
on 24 June 1941.

In August 1940 the RAF were running a maximum of 150 aircraft night
raids, around 170 in June 1941, with an increase in quality, fewer
Blenheims.

So if the moving of 30 serviceable fighters in April 1943 is significant
the moving of much larger numbers of fighters is even more significant.
Walter simply ignores where his "logic" leads to.

As a hint, ignore JG 11,
it was formed in April 1943, and be aware of the rotation of fighter
units to the Reich for refitting, and note JG1 on 17 May 1943 was
around half strength compared with 27 July 1943, since it was used
to form JG11.

Thanks for making my points for me.

Yes folks, when Walter is stuck he simply ignores facts and pretends.

But let's look at something else, the effect of the first year of Harris in
charge of BC, also from the LWD:

"The success of Bomber Command's offensive was however, questionable. Although
many German cities lay in ruins, had the objective been acheived? Had German
industry been destroyed, or the morale of the population undermined? Nothing
of the sort had taken place."

LWD, p. 309

So we see that the first year of bombing by Bomber Command under Harris had no apreciable effect.

Presumably Bekker is talking about the Bomber Command attack as of
February 1943

Yes folks, see the disconnect, Bomber Command is judged on the
destruction of German morale and industry. The 8th air force on the
increase in the Luftwaffe day fighter force in the west, nice neat
double standard, and ignoring the contributions of the medium and
light bombers as well, those B-26 raids.

On 27 July 1942 there were 195 operational night fighters in Germany,
on 17 May 1943 there were 355 operational night fighters in Germany.
How about that.

But the first year of USAAF operations -- 8/17/42 -- 8/17/43, we see the Reich
day fighter force brought to it's 'all time 'high'", to fight against the Day
Bombers. This is pretty much what Galland said -- the USAAF received higher
priority even though still numerically inferior.

This is really funny, apparently the Luftwaffe fighter force in Germany
hit an all time high in August 1943, not April 1940 or even during
1944, no folks in August 1943 the force hit an all time high.

If you want to use serviceable aircraft as the criteria then on 27
July 1941 the Luftwaffe had 198 serviceable fighters in France
and a further 127 in Germany. So in early April 1943 the
Luftwaffe had the same fighter force in Germany as in July 1942.

On 17 May 1943 there were 218 serviceable day fighters in Germany,
counting the 20 fighters in the refitting JG 3 units, up from 127 in
July 1942, there were 178 serviceable fighters in France.

So from July 1942 to mid May 1943 the number of serviceable day
fighters in Germany goes from 127 to either 198 or 218 depending on
the status of JG3, the number of night fighters goes from 195 to 355.
Overall the number of serviceable day fighters in the west goes from
325 to 376 or 396. Remembering it was not until June 1943 that the
8th flew more heavy bomber missions to Germany than the rest of
western Europe.

The increase in day fighters is considered proof the 8th was going
great and mighty things, the increase in night fighters is ignored,
instead the criteria for night bombing is damage on the ground.

The Luftwaffe increased the night defences by 82%, the German
day defences by either 56 or 72% and the western day defences
by either 16 or 22%. Walter awards the 8th the "effective airforce"
tag on the basis of the increase in serviceable fighter deployments.

As can be seen, the verdict is determined before hand and the messy
evidence side of things is ignored.

Then the key point, tell us how this means the Luftwaffe
was "denuding" the other fronts of fighters which was the original claim.

LWD does indicate that at Hitler's insistence, and against the advice of Milch,
Jeschonek and Goring, that many aircraft were sent both to the Med and the
Eastern Front in this time frame:

In other words Walter is finding evidence that shows his claims about
the effects of the 8th air force are exaggerated. It was not until the
July/August period that the 8ths attacks caused significant changes
in Luftwaffe fighter deployments.

"But the most striking evidence of Jeschonek's failure emerges from the last
months of his life. The Luftwaffe staff was fully informed about the American
aircraft construction programme, and at last Jeschonek recognized the mortal
danger that such swarms of four-engined bombers represented for Germany. "A
danger of such magnitude, that by comparision the disaster of Stalingrad was
trifling.

His volte-face in favor of defense put him on the side of Generals Galland and
Kammhuber who, while the Luftwaffe was bled to death on the eastern and
southern fronts, had for long tried to draw attention to the threat from the
west."

-- LWD p. 316

This at a time, when the USAAF had only @ 100 heavy bombers available,
and was bombing only by visual means.

Yes folks, note how Jeschonek is reacting to the US potential and
Walter tries to give credit to the actual raids being run at this time.

It wasn't all "area bombing", as one poster suggested.

It wasn't all 8th air force as Walter keeps trying to claim.

My pre-conceived notions don't tell me that the Germans felt the need to
disperse the aircraft production in May, 1943.

Now the a bigger attempt at fiction, a "request" is turned into action

Deleted text,

"ignoring the lack of dispersal work actually done."

That's pathetic.

Walter you are the one that turned an Air Ministry request into action.

A request that was brought on by operations of the the 8th AF with @ 100 heavy
bombers on any given raid, bombing exclusively by visual means.

Yes folks, after telling us the Air Ministry, with people like Jeschonek,
were reacting to US potential Walter goes back and claims it was
all due to the 100 aircraft raids, as if they were expected to continue
at that strength indefinitely.

My pre-conceived notions don't tell me that this reinforces what Galland
said
-- the day bombers received more attention than the night bombers as 1943
wore
on, even though the night bombers were more numerous.

The largest 8th Air Force raid on Germany in December 1943 was
722 bombers on 24 December, the largest Bomber Command raid
was 712 bombers on the 29th (there were larger night raids in November)

Hello? Anyone home?

We're talking about the operation of @ 100 B-17's and B-24's and their
operations through mid-May, 1943.

Sorry, I had to go away for a good laugh. Note the Walter words, "as 1943
wore on". The above Luftwaffe fighter locations quote from August 1943.
Now all of a sudden we are back in April/May 1943. Why?

Because in December 1943 there were more day heavy bomber sorties
than night and the biggest raid was by day. This blows away the cherished
claim about the USAAF being smaller. So delete the evidence. Galland
says 1943 in the quote Walter is pushing.

snip a lot of really strange and pedantic stuff

The evidence deleted,

Using the figures in E R Hooton Eagle in Flames,

December 1943 bomber sorties to Germany night 3,389, day 3,692
(140 from the 15th Air Force). The day bombers had fighter escorts,
some 4,926 sorties, the night bombers an extra 35 nightfighter and
electronic warfare sorties.

There were an additional 1,137 day heavy bomber and 288 night
bomber sorties to non German targets in western Europe.

However now we have "day bomber" as the criteria, which means
the sorties of the lights and mediums. In this case the number
of day bomber sorties exceeded the night sorties in November
1943, 4,790 to 4,607 and in December 1943 the numbers were
7,733 to 3,677. These ignore the thousands of day fighter sorties,
12,263 to be precise.

It is clear the day defence in the west became the priority over the
day defences in the south and east in the July/August 1943 period.

It's also clear per Freeman and LWD that this build-up started in April, and
per LWD increased the Day fighters by 1/3 between "April and early May". This
at a time when the USAAF had @ 100 bombers available on any given day and was bombing entirely by visual means.

Freeman gives two dates without stating when the build up began
or when units arrived.

Walter fails to mention the fact this dramatic 1/3 build up is from
120 to 162 fighters. In other words aground a gruppe at a time
when the overall Luftwaffe fighter force was growing from 1,090
on 20 January to 1,328 on 20 April and 1,704 on 20 June.
Serviceable figures were 771, 980, 1,261 respectively.

Galland may claim there was some sort of priority day versus night
but the numbers say it was day over the west versus day over the
other fronts.

After 1 year of BC operations under Harris, the RAF failed to achieve its
objectives.

After 1 year of 8th air force operations the USAAF had failed to achieve
its objectives.

After 1 year of USAAF operations, the day fighters were quadrupled. And all the
US raids were done solely by visual means.

It wasn't all "area bombing."

Walter needs to hang onto this chant, it provides a useful distraction.

As of 1 April: 100 US heavies 120 German day fighters.

As of 17 August: 300 US heavies 500 German day fighters.

People can go up above and note things like JG26 was not in
Germany, they can also look up records like the 108 aircraft
B-26 strike on 19 August 1943. Walter will ignore even the
rest of the USAAF in order to credit the 8th air force heavies.

By the way I believe the quote being used is

"Hello? Anyone home? We're talking about the operation of @ 100
B-17's and B-24's and their operations through mid-May, 1943."

Walter usually convicts himself.

Did the night fighters quadruple in strength?

Easily, the Luftwaffe had something between 0 and 30 night fighters
in April 1940, a gruppe of Bf109Ds as part time night fighters, but
were apparently really dusk and dawn fighters. Within a year there
were over 240 night fighters, that is the numbers went up at least 8
fold. The problems of a low starting base when doing percentages.

Put it another way, with the RAF doing around 170 aircraft missions
in mid 1941 the Luftwaffe allocated 240 fighters to stop them.

With the USAAF doing 300 aircraft missions to Germany the Luftwaffe
allocated around 500 fighters for defence, of which 158 total, 127
serviceable had been there before the USAAF began bombing.

Note the difference, 170 RAF bombers for 240 fighters, 300 USAAF
bombers for under 400 fighters. Do not worry though, Walter will
now change the rules about when such numbers should be compared,
or drop the idea of measuring success by the number of fighters
deployed after a years bombing.

It is his usual tactic, find something that looks good and instead reveal
a great ignorance in logic and facts.

After the raid on Hamburg which produced the firestorm, things changed. But
that was over three years after the war began.

After 1 year of RAF operations against Germany, the effect was negligible. Not
even you can say -- honestly-- that the effect of the first year of USAAF
operations was negligible. In fact, the first year of USAAF operations scared
the Germans very badly, and defnitely impacted the number of aircraft they
planned to produce.

The criteria for negligible for the RAF, impact on German industry,
The criteria for negligible for the USAAF, deployments of Luftwaffe fighters.

If you use the same criteria for both you discover the reality is the effects
were about the same, minimal impact on the German economy, but similar
movements of Luftwaffe resources.

Walter's claims about German aircraft production were debunked in
the post he decided not to reply to.

My pre-conceived notions don't show me, but the data above does -- that it
was
not all "area bombing" as one RAF apologist -- maybe it was you --
suggested.

Somebody with "uk" in their e-mail address indicated it was all "area bombing."
But that is not true. That's how this particular iteration started.

Not for Walter to track down who said it, since it is too useful to spray
about as an accusation.

When stuck answer another question, not the one being asked, and
throw an accusation without any supporting evidence.

You have no answer. But then, you never do.

Yes folks, this thread looks like it will start up again, Walter has tried
to wipe the slate clean and will now start again, even if he contradicts
himself.

The story so far, the attempt to over credit the effects of the early
1943 USAAF attacks.

Firstly start with the definition of 100 bombers as a few dozen,
then give a careful list of the early May 1943 raids, ignore the
fact the 13 May raids despatched 169 bombers, the 14 May
raids 217 bombers. Indeed omit the 72 aircraft raid of the
13th. This way you can claim any reaction during May 1943
as due to 100 aircraft sized USAAF raids.

Next find a quote that gives the Luftwaffe fighter numbers in the
west in April and August 1943, announce this proves how the
Luftwaffe denuded the other fronts of fighters to oppose the
USAAF 100 aircraft sized missions. Never stop to ask when
the extra fighters arrived, from the quote it could have been in July.
It needs to be in mid May at the latest in any case.

Do not provide a list of Luftwaffe fighter units transferred and when,
after all the last time such a claim was made the list included front
line units like JG101, 104 and 108 (training units) and also if a
Gruppe was sent back it was counted as the whole Geschwader.

For additional proof of what happened to May 1943 tell us about
fighter deployments in December 1943 and Luftwaffe operations
in 1944. Tell us about how Galland says "in the course of the year
1943" the emphasis shifted towards day defence and then announce
this happened in April and May 1943, no numbers provided. Ignore
the increase in nightfighter strengths and the formation of the JG300
series of units for night fighting. Do not mention Galland's quote
from February 1943 where he said they had solved the problem of the
4 engined bomber by day.

Ignore when it comes to priorities Galland is simply wrong, especially in
early to mid 1943. Check out when he was in the Mediterranean for
example and the increase in day and night fighter strength.

Ignore the heavy Luftwaffe commitments to the defence of Sicily and
the Kursk offensive and the failures there in July 1943. Just announce
it was all pressure in the west that caused redeployments of fighters
and ignore the fact the Luftwaffe gave defence of the Reich a lower
priority until those two operations had failed.

Then slip in the big lie, the conversation of 28 July 1943 where Goering
tells Milch defence of the Reich will have the "main emphasis" in Luftwaffe
planning. Ignore the events of 27/28 July, the firestorm at Hamburg, one
of the biggest shocks the allied air offensive ever delivered the Nazi
leadership, the blinding of the night defences followed by the apparent
destruction of a city. Simply excise that information from the quote, then
decide the quote says Goering tells Milch to give the "main emphasis"
to day fighter production.

Find quotes about the USAAF effects in the summer of 1943, so June,
July and August, announce these quotes apply to spring, February, March
and May, despite all the references in them to summer.

In claiming the USAAF effects on German aircraft production assume
the 1943 plan was achievable and was only stopped by the effects of the
bombing. That is one of the few production plans made by anyone that
was going to be hit 100%. Ignore the figures that show otherwise.

Announce a request to disperse aircraft industry plants in May 1943 is
proof of how good and effective the USAAF was in May 1943, or in fact
in one strike in April 1943, which according to the USSBS did little to
the number of acceptances at the plant. Ignore the fact dispersal did
not begin until a series of raids later in the year, including RAF ones.
Ignore the allied inability to suppress German fighter production before
the middle of 1944.

Finally when comparing the RAF effort delete effective RAF raids and
do comparisons between the B-17 raids and those done by the RAF
in aircraft like the Blenheim, Hampden and Whitley and so on. Ignore
the reality Bomber Command was a majority twin engined force until
September 1942 and in May 1943 was around 71% four engined.

Announce the 1,000 bomber raids the RAF ran in 1942 should be
considered as normal strength and used for later comparisons with
USAAF raids, just ignore the use of training aircraft, the use of
Coastal Command aircraft, or even in June 1942 the average aircraft
with crew availability was 427 and this fell to 388 in July 1942.

When looking at the use of Luftwaffe night fighters in the spring of 1943
emphasise that a Luftwaffe ace was shot down, ignore the western
nightfighter units claimed 18 day kills January to July 1943 inclusive,
according to Tony Wood's list, they claimed 852 night kills according to
Tony and 902 according to Aders. Instead claim the nightfighters were
putting in major daylight efforts. Downgrade the efforts of JG300 from
mid 1943 and JG301 and 302 from October 1943 onward. Night fighter
units that used day fighters and some of the best instrument trained pilots
the Luftwaffe had. Ignore the fact these units claimed some 180 kills at
night during 1943, compared with 82 by the twin engined night fighter units
flying by day. Announce the nightfighter effort by day shows how good the
USAAF is, but a greater effort by day fighters at night in terms of aircraft,
sorties and kill claims, means nothing.

The basic tactic is standard, find a quote, edit it, ignore factual errors,
even embellish it, ignore any quote that contradicts the preferred fiction,
announce it as "truth", say people who disagree are contradicting the
person being quoted, not the meaning assigned to the quote. If a quote
by that person contradicts the fiction they are declared wrong, only if the
quote is liked is it declared beyond contradiction.

The truth is this sort of approach does a horrible job on the USAAF, if
it needs to compare the B-17 to the early twin engined RAF bombers,
if it needs to rig results to obtain a favourable outcome, if it needs to
time shift results to make it look good and so on. It insults the people
who flew the missions, overcrediting them and at the same time
belittling their opponents and allies.

Repeat the above methodology for the duration of the war in further
attempts to overclaim what the USAAF did, and underclaim what
everybody else did.

Now for some figures,

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
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 1943 there were 6 operational Geschwader plus 1 training
unit controlling 22 gruppen, 18 of which were in the Reich.

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.

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.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.