Best WWII Air-Force

[timshatz]

Give it to the USAAF/USAF. Second would be the RAF. And not a very close second but definitely second.

USAF created an effective Heavy/Strategic bomber force. Only other airforce that did that was the RAF. Great difference was the USAF airforce fought in Daylight in the teeth of the Enemy's defenses. But, that, in and of itself is not enough to make it the best Air Force of the War. It was the best because it won. It won because it adapted and brought new aircraft to the forefront to destroy the Luftwaffe (the real threat, the IJA/IJN airforces were not in the same league as the Luftwaffe).

The RAF attacked and fought at night because it did not have the equipment to fight in the day. Everyone knows that. But they never went back to Strategic Day bombing. They never developed a long range fighter to go deep into Germany and destroy the LW. The US produced three (P38, P47, P51). The effectiveness of each of them varied, but they all fought over the enemy's airbases. That makes the air superiority fighters. Not interceptors as is found in the RAF and LW. Both airforces created aircraft that were point inteceptors or local defense fighters.

For an Airforce to be considered great in WW2, it had to have the ability to both bomb and dogfight effectively over the enemy's bases by day as well as destroy strategic targets. The LW tried it and failed in 1940, switching to night bombing. Same with the RAF. Only the USAF/USAAF managed to do it by day to the point of Air Supremecy. Granted, it was at the end of the war and they had help, but they did get it done.

[Hunter368]

Originally Posted by timshatz

Give it to the USAAF/USAF. Second would be the RAF. And not a very close second but definitely second.

USAF created an effective Heavy/Strategic bomber force. Only other airforce that did that was the RAF. Great difference was the USAF airforce fought in Daylight in the teeth of the Enemy's defenses. But, that, in and of itself is not enough to make it the best Air Force of the War. It was the best because it won. It won because it adapted and brought new aircraft to the forefront to destroy the Luftwaffe (the real threat, the IJA/IJN airforces were not in the same league as the Luftwaffe).

The RAF attacked and fought at night because it did not have the equipment to fight in the day. Everyone knows that. But they never went back to Strategic Day bombing. They never developed a long range fighter to go deep into Germany and destroy the LW. The US produced three (P38, P47, P51). The effectiveness of each of them varied, but they all fought over the enemy's airbases. That makes the air superiority fighters. Not interceptors as is found in the RAF and LW. Both airforces created aircraft that were point inteceptors or local defense fighters.

For an Airforce to be considered great in WW2, it had to have the ability to both bomb and dogfight effectively over the enemy's bases by day. The LW tried it and failed in 1940, switching to night bombing. Same with the RAF. Only the USAF/USAAF managed to do it by day to the point of Air Supremecy. Granted, it was at the end of the war and they had help, but they did get it done.

Agreed

[The Basket]

The RAF did try day bombing and it was a disaster. Must remember that the USAAC also suffered heavy losses in daylight bombing and it was only the new fighter escorts that saved the day.

Britain didn't develop a long range fighter because the need wasn't there and we could use American fighters when we did.

I wouldn't compare the Battle of Britain to the Battle over Germany. It is just so different. The Germans failed not for pilots or for aircraft types but for sheer scale. The Americans could build aircraft and train new pilots until hell froze. And the Luftwaffe had to fight the RAF and Soviets as well. They did very well just to keep flying combat sorties.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by The Basket

Britain didn't develop a long range fighter because the need wasn't there and we could use American fighters when we did.

No actually the need was there. They wouldn't have needed to jump to Nighttime sorties if they had had the long range escorts. Therefore there was a need for them.

[Aussie1001]

Remember adler though it was great pressure being bombed around the clock imagine it nailed by the Yanks in the daytime and by the Pomes at night time. It would have been hell to be in berlin at the time...

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by Aussie1001

Remember adler though it was great pressure being bombed around the clock imagine it nailed by the Yanks in the daytime and by the Pomes at night time. It would have been hell to be in berlin at the time...

Imagine the RAF quitting night bombing in early 1944, join the 8th and 15th and 12th, concentrating on all strategic targets including Dusseldorf, Koln, Munster - inside the radius of P-47s while USSAF going deep with Mustangs and Lightnings - and expanding their (escorted RAF heavies) radius as more Mustangs and P-38s came into theatre and RAF Mustangs joined.

In one stroke the twin engine fighters lose their effectiveness (both day and night) and even more pressure is put on daytime German pilots to fly multiple sorties a day trying to take on twice the bomber count - and worthwhile targets get pounded more efficiently.

THAT would have been the real nightmare...

[Aussie1001]

Did the americans have the planes to support and cover both the AAF and the RAF the raf bombers would have needed more cover because of their much decreased armament compared to the B17's, B24's and B25's the lancaster if i recall correctly had 8 .303 machine guns compared to something like the b17 with chin turrents which had something like 15 .50 cal machine guns.

[syscom3]

Originally Posted by drgondog

Imagine the RAF quitting night bombing in early 1944, join the 8th and 15th and 12th, concentrating on all strategic targets including Dusseldorf, Koln, Munster - inside the radius of P-47s while USSAF going deep with Mustangs and Lightnings - and expanding their (escorted RAF heavies) radius as more Mustangs and P-38s came into theatre and RAF Mustangs joined.

In one stroke the twin engine fighters lose their effectiveness (both day and night) and even more pressure is put on daytime German pilots to fly multiple sorties a day trying to take on twice the bomber count - and worthwhile targets get pounded more efficiently.

THAT would have been the real nightmare...

Actually, I think the night bombing was more effective than the day bombing, as the RAF spent hours bombing their target, allowing fires to take hold.

The USSBS did mention this as a key to the better effectiveness of the RAF as compared to the AAF.

And then, the nightbombing does force the LW to divert significant resources to fight at night.

[Aussie1001]

My point exactly Syscom3.

[pbfoot]

I believe Syscom is correct the CEP was about the same between Bomber Command and the USAAC except the RAF was dropping a much larger load per aircraft . Now imagine if you had tied the Lanc instead of the Fort and Lib with the 51 that would have been the combo

[syscom3]

Originally Posted by pbfoot

I believe Syscom is correct the CEP was about the same between Bomber Command and the USAAC except the RAF was dropping a much larger load per aircraft . Now imagine if you had tied the Lanc instead of the Fort and Lib with the 51 that would have been the combo

Well, that was thought of but the Lanc did have some key weaknesses that would not have allowed it to be as effective during the day as opposed to the B27/B24.

The Lancs element was during the night.

Now just imagine a Spitfire with drop tanks that would allow it to escort the bombers to berlin!

[Hop]

I just think its unfair to directly compare BoB with BoG, both were very different battles with very different conditions & variables.

Of course they were, I'm not suggesting otherwise. Just pointing out that the "circumstances" of the two battles actually favoured the Luftwaffe, due chiefly to the distances involved. What it boils down to is the Luftwaffe had an air force 20 miles from the British border with 1940 radar technology (actually a bit older as CH was built in 1936/1937), whereas the USAAF had an air force 250 miles from Germany, with occupied territory in the way for most targets.

For that reason you can't excuse the Luftwaffe defeat by circumstance, because the circumstances were in their favour. (as they usually are for the defence).

Fwiw, I don't think the Luftwaffe had a hope in hell of winning either battle, Germany was just too weak militarily. I just think the Luftwaffe performance was poor in both cases.

The RAF attacked and fought at night because it did not have the equipment to fight in the day. Everyone knows that. But they never went back to Strategic Day bombing.

They did. BC actually dropped about 27% of their total tonnage in daylight, 262,078 tons in day sorties, 691,858 tons at night.

They never developed a long range fighter to go deep into Germany and destroy the LW. The US produced three (P38, P47, P51). The effectiveness of each of them varied, but they all fought over the enemy's airbases. That makes the air superiority fighters. Not interceptors as is found in the RAF and LW. Both airforces created aircraft that were point inteceptors or local defense fighters.

Not really true. The USAAF developed long range fighters when they found a need for them, in 1943. The RAF did the same, although the range requirement was never as great. The basic 85 gallon fuel tankage of the Spitfire was increased to 213 gallons in the Spitfire VIII with drop tank, 260 gallons in the Spitfire IX with rear tank and drop tank.

For an Airforce to be considered great in WW2, it had to have the ability to both bomb and dogfight effectively over the enemy's bases by day as well as destroy strategic targets.

You could equally argue it has to be able to do the same at night. The USAAF never developed much of a night fighting force, for the simple reason that the RAF did most of the night fighting. But that hardly makes the USAAF incapable.

The LW tried it and failed in 1940, switching to night bombing. Same with the RAF. Only the USAF/USAAF managed to do it by day to the point of Air Supremecy.

Well, the Luftwaffe was alone when it tried it, so was the RAF. The USAAF was one of three airforces fighting in 1944, and they were fighting an already badly depleted Luftwaffe. As Williamson Murray put it, by the beginning of 1942 they had lost two complete air forces. They lost another 1.1 in 1942, another one Jan - Jul 1943, and another Jul - Dec 1943. By the time the USAAF began their campaign to smash the Luftwaffe in late summer 1943 the Luftwaffe had already been destroyed 4 times over. By the time that campaign got in to high gear in 1944 the Luftwaffe had been lost 5 times over.

As Murray puts it:

The attrition of pilots and skilled aircrews was perhaps the most
important factor in the destruction of the Luftrvaffe as an effective fighting force.
The rise in the attrition rate for pilots resulted in a steady reduction in the skills and
experience of those flying German aircraft . While the losses among the fighter
pilots may have been somewhat heavier than for other
categories, they undoubtedly reflected what was happening throughout the force
structure . The increasing attrition of pilots forced the Germans to curtail training programs to fill empty combat cockpits . As a result, new pilots with less skill than
their predecessors were lost at a faster rate. The increasing losses, in turn, forced
the training establishments to produce pilots even more rapidly. Once they had
begun this vicious cycle, the Germans found no escape . One of the surest indicators
of the declining skill of German pilots after the 1940 air battles was the rising level
of noncombat losses. By the first half of 1943,
they had reached the point where the fighter force suffered as many losses due to
noncombat causes as it did to the efforts of its opponents . Thereafter, the percentage
of noncombat losses began to drop. The probable cause of this was due less to an
awakening on the part of the Luftwaffe to the need for better flying safety than to the
probability that Allied flyers, in their overwhelming numbers, were shooting down
German pilots before they could crash their aircraft .
By the beginning of 1942, the Germans had lost the equivalent of two entire air
forces . The result was that the Germans had to curtail their training programs to
meet the demands of the front for new pilots . By January 1942, of the pilots
available for duty in the fighter force, only 60 percent were fully operational, while
the number in the bomber force was down to 47 percent. For the
remainder of the war, the percentage of fully operational fighter and bomber pilots
available, with few exceptions, remained below, and at many times substantially
below, the 70 percent level. Further exacerbating this situation was the fact that the
Germans were forced to lower their standards for a fully operational pilot as the war
continued . There was, one must note, no decisive moment in this decline in
expertise. Rather as Winston Churchill has suggested in another context, the
Luftwaffe had entered the descent from 1940 "incontinently, fecklessly. . . . It is a
fine broad stairway at the beginning but after a bit the carpet ends . A little further
on, there are only flagstones ; and a little further on, these break beneath your
feet . The graph for the number of training hours for new pilots clearly reflected
such a course. In the period through the late summer of 1942,
German pilots were receiving at least as many training hours as their opponents in
the RAF. By 1943, that statistic had begun a gradual shift against the Germans until
the last half of the year when Luftwaffe pilots were receiving barely one-half of the
training hours given to enemy pilots . In terms of flying training in operational
aircraft, the disparity had become even more pronounced: one-third of the RAF
total and one-fifth of the American total . But those Luftwaffe pilots who had
survived the attrition of the first air battles of the war had little difficulty defeating
new Allied pilots no matter how many training hours the latter had flown. In fact,
the ratio of kills-to-sorties climbed as those Luftwaffe pilots who survived built up
experience. However, few German pilots survived the attrition
of the first war years, and thus the Luftwaffe became, in fact, two distinct forces: the
few great aces-the Hartmans, Galands, and Waldmans-and the great mass of
pilots who faced great difficulty in landing their aircraft, much less surviving
combat.

No actually the need was there. They wouldn't have needed to jump to Nighttime sorties if they had had the long range escorts. Therefore there was a need for them.

But nobody had an effective long range fighter at the time. The Luftwaffe had the 110 which proved itself incapable, the Japanese were still working on the Zero which got in to service a year later, but lacked vital equipment by European standards.

Effective long range fighters required more powerful engines, which simply weren't available at the time.

[Aussie1001]

Ho do you type that much man ???

[comiso90]

Originally Posted by Aussie1001

Ho do you type that much man ???

LOL

Finally some one else said it.. I have alot to say but I'm too lazy to type that much... I wish i could!

[Aussie1001]

Ditto