I recently finished reading Richard Overy's The Air War 1939-1945 in which he discussed, among other things, the production of the various combatant nations in WWII. I have always read with interest discussions on forums like this where Germany is credited with tremendous achievements in wartime production, focusing particularly on their increases of 1944. Many use these numbers to indicate that the strategic bombing campaign had little notable effect on German industry. Having a particular interest in armor I have read that while Germany was able to increase tank production in '44 they sacrificed production of parts and necessary logisitic support so the increase did little. In Air War Overy shares the numbers of war production influence the air war. Overy provides some numbers which clearly indicate that Germany's increase was no increase at all. First some background: Population- US- 141,940,00 USSR- 170,400,000 UK- 47,600,000 Ger.- 79,200,000 Labor Force US- 52,000,000 USSR- 70,000,000 UK- 22,900,000 Ger.- 36,200,000 % of world manufac US- 32.2 USSR- 16.5 UK- 9.2 Ger.- 10.7 Aircraft Production - 1944 US- 96,318 USSR- 40,300 UK- 31,036 Ger.- 39,807 No# of Aircft Engines- 1944 US- 256,912 USSR- 52,000 UK- 56,931 Ger.- 54,600 Prod by Weight(m lb.)- 1944 US- 951.6 UK- 208 Ger.- 199 Most know that Germany showed an increase in production in 1944 (15,0000 aircraft) but a closer look shows that they had dedicated their production to fighters and were outproduced in number of engines and weight of airframes (Indicating production of multi-engine aircraft) by Britain which had a smaller workforce and population.
I am lost, why are you saying that the increase was not an increase? Germany never really produced large aircraft in great numbers. By 44 I do not think that Germany was too concerned with strategic bombing or anything else that required large planes. Help me understand please.
I think the point was that if you measure aircraft production by weight or number of engines or overall effort shifting to single engine aircraft means that although the numbers of planes may go up the other measures may not and in fact may go down. It then becomes a matter of how you measure things and why.
I spent the day trying to think of a way of explaining it. First is the method I already used, a comparison to armor. The Germans increased tank production by using the facilities that would normally make parts to make tanks and ended up with a shortage of parts (I'm sorry I don't recall my source for this.) The result is the inability to repair tanks in the field, essentially no increase at all but a decrease. Think if we compared two combatant nation's numbers of wheeled vehicle production and one of the numbers was for 40,000 jeep like vehicles while another country produced 10,000 jeeps, 20,000 4 wheel drive trucks and 8,000 armored cars. Which country produced more for their war effort. Germany never had a strategic bombing capability, thus the problem with the use of their air force. At best their air force was a tactical support for their army and barely much more. Their production in multiple engine aircraft decreased as they concentrated on defending the homeland from our bombers and thus losing the air war over the battlefields of both the eastern and western fronts. Look at the number of engines. How many replacements have they left themselves? Their "increase" left them with no ability to fight offensively and not much ability to fight defensively. I'm not always good at this type of thing, I hope this helped. I strongly recommend the book for the data it offers; not the easiest read though.
From E .Hooton (the Fall of the Luftwaffe,appendix 19)the following figues for 194O Single-engine fighter :1870 Twin-engine fighter :1840 Twin-engine bomber:2744 Four-engine bomber :38 Stuka-Schlacht :611 Transport :763 Trainer :1328 Other(inc.gliders):1632 1941(types are replaced by numbers:singl-engine fighter =1,etc) 1) 2852 2)1880 3)2816 4)58 5)476 6)969 7)889 8)1836 1942 1)4542 2)2422 3)3620 4)251 5)917 6)1265 7)1170 8)1369 1943 1)9626 2)4100 3)4266 4)491 5)1844 6)2033 7)2076 8)1091 1944 1)25860 2)5025 3)3063 4)518 5)909 6)1002 7)3063 8)348 While the gross figures fromOvery are right,they are not giving a comparison withe the other years,and,no comparison of the different types .
Overy gave a comparison of other years, I did not. You make the same point, the Germans made nearly 5 times more fighters than any other type of aircraft. You might recall that by Germany's classification the Me-262 was a twin engine bomber, so "types" don't always paint a clear picture. I did not offer all the years because of the ridiculous way it would look on the page.
