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Old 08-03-2013, 06:21 PM
horseback horseback is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: San Diego, California
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I disagree. Numerical superiority helps even in smaller battles. Even an 10:9 superiority means 1 pilot out of ten can engage the enemy at will. And if the LW managed to get 300 planes in the air to engage the bombers and say 100 P-51, then it looks like a huge numerical superiority for the LW, but may in fact have been 100 P-51 against 30 LW planes and this ten times.
Your 100 Mustangs engaging 10 consecutive 30 plane attacks would lead to a certain amount of wastage; aircraft would be lost, some would expend too much fuel or ammo and have to RTB, and some would get separated from the main body and not be able to rejoin. By the time the 10th group of 30 LW fighters arrived, they would be facing a seriously depleted escort, even had the Mustangs managed to destroy or disperse the previous 270 fighters.

The LW had radar plots & aircraft shadowing the bombers from the North sea onwards as they headed to their targets; they systematically kept track of each bomber formation’s altitude, course and speed, where the escorts were most heavily concentrated and tried to calculate how soon they were likely to depart or be replaced for the next ‘leg’ by another group of escorts. LW interceptors were kept well-informed of all of this as they waited for takeoff orders and as they climbed to position for their attacks.

The whole point of these practices was to ensure numerical superiority at the point of attack, and as a practical matter, they were often successful. But even if they were successful, an aggressive escort positioned in the right place could break up an attack and inflict disproportionate casualties. The sky is a big place and you cannot keep track of everything. There is the glare of the sun, contrails, clouds and sheer distance to contend with. The 8th Fighter Command had some very good minds who worked very hard at coming up with new ways to vary courses and schedules to throw the Germans off the scent, but most of the time, it mainly came down to the escort being in position for the bounce and being better than the opposition.

cheers

horseback
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