Battle of Germany= Could LW have done better?

[Glider]

Originally Posted by drgondog

At the end of the day, had the war been extended several months, the Ta 152H would have been confronted with P-51H, P-47N, P-80, Gloster, Spit XXI, Tempest V and maybe an F8F.

Maybe a marginal performance advantage but not overwhelming in the piston arena... and the 262 whether superior or equal to P-80 is also marginal.

Is this the time to discuss numbers and pilot skill out of training command available for combat? Or fuel supplies or security of any airfield in Germnay - day or night - from 50 Fighter groups from RAF and USAAF- day or night?

Its also worth adding the Hornet, Spiteful, Tempest VI, Tempest II to the list as these were in production before the wars end.

To assume that the TA152H would have ruled the sky is a massive assumption

[drgondog]

I think from my own perspective and some pretty clever ideas presented for example by Udet on solving pilot shortage problems, I would have selected the following as "Changes to be Made"

1. Convert most of LW bomber pilots (not all) but perhaps 75% to fighter pilots in early 1943. Focus twin engine bomber production on Ju 88 series followed by Ar 234 starting in 1942.
2. Immediately fly night intruder missions to attack airfields all over Britain and Italy when 8th and 9th and 12th and 15th AF started ops, as well as follow RAF back to their airfields. To be done by existing twin engine fighter force primarily
3. Dedicate proportionate force of daylight fighters with best high altitude performance at the time to attack and harass daylight escorts.. This would be initially Me 109s but supplanted by 190Dora or Me 262s as each came into production
4. Put the Me 262 into production as soon as possible as a day fighter and make sure they are concentrated to protect key industries and targets such as Ploesti and Merseburg, etc
5. Discard Dive Bombing spec and let Heinkel build the best strategic bomber they could build as early as possible but in production no later than 1941 to support ops in Russia beyond Moscow
6. Quit building all twin engine fighters except for those that had best night fighter capability and keep them in that role
7. Except for transition Me 109s named in 3. above, concentrate all piston engine development from 1942 forward in Focke Wulf line and derivatives

Kill Hitler and Goering in 1940 - before BoB. (Have to assume war has started)

On other lines of thought - don't bother with surface fleet of Cruisers/Pocket Battleships - dedicate all of that production and focus to U-Boats starting in 1935-1938. Have 100-150 U-Boats ready when WWII starts. Develop drop tanks for Me 109 in 1939 so that they had 200 mi longer range or more than 1 hour of loiter beyond London before BoB starts

[Erich]

Bill your numero # 2 is vital, and most of the members here and on other forums that I have expressed this statement on do not seem to have a clue, except to say the RAF/Allies would of come up with the Mossie nf earlier to defend the airfields, .......but I say what airfields as they would of been continually potholed if not wrecked.........

one of Hitlers major bungles during thew ar was to removed NJG 2 from that scenario and not allow the whole NJG units to come to fruition on these attacks

also develop ground to air rocket defense, although if # 2 would of been in effect totally there would not have a need for ground to air rocketry.

I'm hoping we do not then continue the silly what if's on the TA 152H and other Allied counterparts that were not even in circulation yet as we have countless threads that turn into this out of sheer un-knowledge of the true facts.......

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by Erich

Bill your numero # 2 is vital, and most of the members here and on other forums that I have expressed this statement on do not seem to have a clue, except to say the RAF/Allies would of come up with the Mossie nf earlier to defend the airfields, .......but I say what airfields as they would of been continually potholed if not wrecked.........

one of Hitlers major bungles during thew ar was to removed NJG 2 from that scenario and not allow the whole NJG units to come to fruition on these attacks

also develop ground to air rocket defense, although if # 2 would of been in effect totally there would not have a need for ground to air rocketry.

I'm hoping we do not then continue the silly what if's on the TA 152H and other Allied counterparts that were not even in circulation yet as we have countless threads that turn into this out of sheer un-knowledge of the true facts.......

I actually did consider the ground to air rockets E, except that all the guidance system technologies available before 1944 rendered them just another flack battery and maybe less accurate. I could be wrong of course but think earlier development of R4 more efficient than surface to air?

If B-29 comes into theatre, flak would be less effective and then surface to air maybe required to compliment high altitude fighters... I dunno

On number 2.) I can think of different countermeasures but none (barrage ballons, night fighters, etc) would have been very effective against say pairs of Me 110/210 or Ju 88's flying all over Britain after sundown and before sunrise looking for airfields.

RAF vulnerable on return, USAAF heavies vulnerable on hardstands and take off pre-dawn. Big mess potentially.

PS - I'm copying 355 mission summaries and encounter reports for July 7 and November 26 for you - I have quite a few that aren't on Mike's website.

[Erich]

geezo well once I get those copies I'll be burdened underground for 3 months...........thanks in advance.

yes the rockets of all sizes would be sent up as forward Flak taking out the initial B-17/B-24 boxes, literally a full scale barrage.

As to the Fernenachtjagd yes I have some other earlier info that will be in our book that I cannot share right now, but the airfields were quite well known but only NJG 2 with a meager alotment of Ju 88's were fulfilling the requirements but they of course were not desired, should of come in low over the ocean and right on top of land which they did when the March 45 raids became effective for Op Gisela and 2-3 others of too small a size but the Austrian had his fat ugly nose in everything and warped out eh LW Nachtjagd, Fatty was inept as he knew nothing of how to defend the Reich at night let alone take an offense to the British

though there is no doubt in my mind that British would of made it top priority to increase their own AA defenses by 50 %

[Glider]

Obviously it would depend on when the Germans tried to take the battle to Britain but the British defences shouldn't be underestimated. The flak guns alone had a good success rate against V1's with radar direction and proximity fuses. Whilst the nightfighters were very strong.

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by Erich

geezo well once I get those copies I'll be burdened underground for 3 months...........thanks in advance.

yes the rockets of all sizes would be sent up as forward Flak taking out the initial B-17/B-24 boxes, literally a full scale barrage.

As to the Fernenachtjagd yes I have some other earlier info that will be in our book that I cannot share right now, but the airfields were quite well known but only NJG 2 with a meager alotment of Ju 88's were fulfilling the requirements but they of course were not desired, should of come in low over the ocean and right on top of land which they did when the March 45 raids became effective for Op Gisela and 2-3 others of too small a size but the Austrian had his fat ugly nose in everything and warped out eh LW Nachtjagd, Fatty was inept as he knew nothing of how to defend the Reich at night let alone take an offense to the British

though there is no doubt in my mind that British would of made it top priority to increase their own AA defenses by 50 %

Erich - the reason for me sending you a lot of the ones that Mike doesn't have is to help you (and me) get a sense on the times and locations for each of the squadron's engagements - both for July 7 and Nov 26.

I finally figured out the July 7 massacre at Bernburg. The 8th 'forked out' too many separate attacks that day for the Long Range escorts to adequately cover.. The Leipzig Task Force from 2AD was covered by 355th and the Bernburg by the 4th - but the 4th was positioned to the center and rear and the entire focus it seems was the LW controllers laid a two pronged attack of me 410s on the Bernburg effort. The 4th was able to turn back beat off the attack on the rear but the lead CW's got hammered by the second force.

I asked Dr. Muller at Maxwell to help me find the 7 July and 26 November Mission Summaries for 8th - the same that we had for 24 April.

[freebird]

Originally Posted by Soren

All it took was the LW deploying the Me-262 in full scale in 1943 and the Allies would've been repulsed completely. Hitler made sure that didn't happen.

But still, this wouldn't ensure any victory, it would seriously prolong the war though.

PS: I agree completely with Erich, Les & Bill on most points - good posts guys!

Presumably they could have had the 262 operational in the fall of '43, what was the production capacity then? How much longer would it take to train LW pilots on the jet?

[Njaco]

Any thoughts on the V-1 or V-2 or were they too late for this scenario?

Stopping production and developement on inferior or outlandish designs I think would help immensly, as you say drgn.