Could the Luftwaffe have won in the West?

By late 1943 could the Luftwaffe still have reversed its fortunes and won the skys over Europe back from the Western Allies? All the good research would seem to say no. It wasn't just a lack of fuel. It was deteriorating aircraft quality and performance (not just the "on the books" figures but in things like reliability, quality of workmanship etc.), poor pilot quality outside the few experten still flying, lack of technology to support the fighters, the list seems endless.
Comments?

 

Only with the new technology i.e. Me-262 and a couple of thousand of those to start with...plus rockets and maybe later on some land-to-air missiles. Think if the Germans had batteries of such missiles and a day-time attack of B-17´s would approach and the Germans would just shoot a couple of barrages and sat down and had a cup of coffee meanwhile and counted the falling bombers...

 

Yes, and Particle beams. Two or three dozen particle beam cannons.

Sorry to be flippant, but asking for a 'couple thousand me-262" in 1943, in addition to guided missiles (which were only at the prototype stage in mid 1945 - wasserfall project) is asking for the moon.

In 1943 it was too late, the Germans could have made a difference in 1941 if Goering had allowed production of next-generation piston aircarft. The Me-109 should have been released in 1943, and better aircraft from then on. But The Luftwaffe refused to invest in any significant piston aircraft R&D, and crippled themselves in the medium/long term.

Now would this have been enought to "Turn things around" over Europe in 1943? maybe, but probably not by 1944, when the weight of allied airpower was just too strong.

Williamson Murray's Excellent book on the Luftwaffe goes into this lack of strategic vision in some detail, I highly recommend it.

 

in 1943 the Luftwaffe was not in real fear of the combined RAF/US heavy bomber fleets. The Luftaffe could still deal huge blows and shown throughn history. On;ly through the immense and long battles on early 1944 into spring of that year did the Luftwaffe feel that the time was ripe for new projected wepaons to be released and tested on the Allied formations.......too late !

~E

 

One note on the German SAM and AAM programs. Both were doomed to failure simply because the Germans could not match the Allied ability to counter any control system that gave these weapons a reasonable chance of success.
Both the Hs 117 Schmetterling and the C-2 Wasserfall had the dual problem of being command guided (very inaccurate system with then available technology) and, that the Wasserfall's guidance system fell into British hands when it was used on an A-4 launch that failed and ended up landing in Sweden (the Hs 117 used much the same system). The Allies thought the guidance system was for the A-4 and immediately built a number of jammers to counter it.
The X-4 Ruhrstahl AAM was an unmitigated joke. It was a desperate attempt to find a counter to US bombers. In service it would have proved an extremely unpopular weapon and would have done little but provide US fighter escorts with easy targets in the launching aircraft. One need only detail out the typical launch sequence to see this. When one adds the joystick control system it makes this missile unlikely to hit anything other than by sheer chance. Look at 1st generation joystick controlled ATGMs and their low probability of success against tanks using dedicated operators with extensive training for comparison.

 

Well, how about R4M...





Closeup view of battery of 12 R4Ms
Inset: The R4M rocket had two basic operational variants.
Top - armour piercing warhead
Bottom - high explosive warhead


A hit anywhere on a bomber would be enough to bring it down. The R4M also had the effect of breaking up the tight bomber formations making them easier targets for the fighters.

"They could be let off 1,100 meters away from the target - and from this range continued until they represented a field of fire of over 30m x 14m. This meant that by releasing all his rockets at once against a close formation of bombers a pilot couldn't miss!"
Johannes Steinhoff

http://home.att.net/~JV44/r4m.htm

http://www.geocities.com/lastdingo/aviation/r4m.htm

 

well the R4M was underdeveloped in 1943 as there was sole dependence on heavy AT weapons transformed to flak and then to Luftwaffe requirements.

In this I speak of the 3.7cm and the 5cm weapons used with some effect on the Bf 110G-2 and the Me 410 A and B series bomber destroyers.

The R4M was first exploited to terrible advantage on March 18, 1945, and so effective that bomber group histories claim that the causes for bomber destruction per se was by heavy Flak as they had not witnessed the carnage of such an aerial weapon.

Later the slim pointed warhead of the R4M was replaced with a Panzerschrck lokk a like and was used with efficency against Soviet armor and MT in the spring of 45

~E

 

Kai, I would agree. The R4M was an excellent concept. That it was copied extensively post war by the US in the FFAR rocket used by a wide range of 50's fighters says alot. It had real potential to be a bomber killer on a serious level, especially when coupled with the 262.
On the other hand, the 37mm and 50mm guns tried on the 262 and 410 proved to be near worthless. Galland in his book 'The First and the Last' admits as much. Both guns suffered from low rates of fire, frequent jams and, recoil / aiming problems as well as flash problems.
The US 37mm T9 on the P-39 and early P-38 had similar problems. For this reason it was often replaced in service with a 20mm Hispano Suiza copy cannon.