The Greatest Air Battle

[renrich]

I don't believe that the US had a 4 carrier force operating together prior to August, 42. They would have had at Coral Sea if FDR had not sent Enterprise and Hornet off swanning about in the North Pacific, making the Army pilots sea sick. The 3 carriers at Midway operated more AC than 4 UK carriers operated.

[Njaco]

All good battles. Forgot about "Vigorous". Had 3 airforces involved in that one. I was going to add the Hope, Faith and Charity defense of Malta in the summer/winter of 1940 along with the Palm Sunday Massacre.

The battle doesn't neccessarily need to be a changing point although if that is a criteria you would use, thats fine.

[Wildcat]

Originally Posted by renrich

Two other major air battles to consider would be the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, 2-5 March, 1943.

Agree with you on that one mate. I'll also throw in the defence of Port Moresby in early '42 by a single Kittyhawk squadron and the vital role two Australian Kittyhawk squadron's played in helping to defeat the Japanese invasion force at Milne Bay as being important battles worth mentioning in this thread.

[Kurfürst]

Kursk?
22nd June 1941?

[Amsel]

Originally Posted by Kurfürst

Kursk?
22nd June 1941?

That was a massive battle. And the Luftwaffe lost the initiative after that.

[Juha]

I agree with Kurfürst on Kursk. A truly massive air battle of some 8 days during which LW lost air superiority over the battlefields.

22 June 41 was IMHO more a sneak attack against airfields without a declaration of war than pure air battle even if Soviets lost 300 a/c in air and LW some 55 plus what Romanian AF lost. So it was also a big air battle

Juha

[lesofprimus]

Im stuck between 2 choices, Midway and Bodeplatte... Im leaning towards Bodeplatte because it was the final nail in the coffin of the Luftwaffe and offensive operations...

The loss of leadership that they suffered was unrepairable...

[Erich]

you guys are positive about Kursk and the outcome in the air eh ?

you'll note a hesitancy in my air gents

guess I better pick up Bergstroms book on the battle, I note the LW losses are mentioned in it but nothing about Soviet, anyone have this book which is suppose to be hot stuff ??

a side note is that the forces started to snipe at each other by air at night after this point in time, both blasting off with nuisance raids until the Lw placed NJG 100 and 200 on the Eastern Front

[pbfoot]

I can't believe no one is voting for Dieppe this is a poll about greatest air battle not most significant 48 Squadrons of Spitties against 200 Luftwaffe fighters 109's and 190's. Now if that is not a scrap I don't know what is and it was less then 10 hours long with most if not all aircraft flying multiple sorties and 150 + losses

[Juha]

Hello Erich
I'm not a big fan of Christer B and didn't buy his Kursk book after leafing through it in a bookshop. I based my opinion years of reading on the battle (years ago, I admit). German units noted increasing interference by Soviet AF as the battle progressed.

Juha

[Venganza]

Juha, in an earlier post in this thread, I had mentioned Kursk, and you're right about the Soviets interfering more with the Nazis as time went on. One of the things I didn't mention about the air battle was that leading up to the battle and as it went on, the Soviets were changing their tactics from using smaller units to using larger units, with more fighter protection. In addition, they used some IL-2's specifically to suppress the flak, which lessened the aerial losses. The battle of Kursk also helped the Soviets hone the cooperation between the air attack units and the troops they were supporting, which made the air attacks on the German ground forces more and more effective as the war progressed. On the subject of the Barbarossa air assault, that obviously seriously crippled the Red Air Force at the onset of the war. It also had the effect of weeding out a lot of obsolete and obsolescent Soviet warplanes, such as the I-15, I-16, R-5, etc., which were destroyed on the ground in huge numbers. The Soviets were forced to put into large-scale production more advanced aircraft, such as the MiG's, the Lavochkins, IL-2's and so on, to replace their losses. It seems that the law of unintended consequences bit the Nazis on this one.

[Erich]

not too sure on that one by the LW JG scores during the battle, but must agree on the ground and in the air there was one set of unbelieveable huge activity.

Bergstroms books are interesting Juha I will leave it at that, still may pick up his volume as no-one has put the effort into covering the air consequences at all except for some small brief note about HS 129 knocking out a Soviet Pz brigade or some such other and the Rudel strike force. well I will say Fw's of JG 51 were performing minute by minute ground attacks both on Soviet infantry as well as Mt and armor and more than just them.

true the Il-2 was coming into it's own as the most respected of all Soviet A/c both by the LW pilots-crews and the men on the ground.

interesting to note the obsolete Soviet A/C garbage that is referred to was used at night and was shot to pieces by the LW NF's both single engine and twin and the bi-plane principle as well

[Njaco]

interesting to note the obsolete Soviet A/C garbage that is referred to was used at night.....

Erich, I seem to remember the LW doing the same with Hs 123s!

[Erich]

believe it or not Njaco but there were some Hs 123 ground attack aces on the Ost front, if I remember flown at night by some of the NSGr

[Njaco]

Thats what I thought. Amazing for the type of A/C used!