> impact on the ability of German industry to arm the > Wehrmacht. Do you feel this is a reasonable > assessment?
Yep. That's a theory that's already been explored to a certain extent. I don't have any references, but I remember studying the topic when I wrote a paper in college on the very subject. Yes, it is a very plausable theory. Lets say (figures are for reference only) in 1943 the Germans produced 800 Pz.IV tanks, while the next year (being hit by strategic bombers in key industries) they increase to 1000 tanks. It is quite possible, though, that they could have increased production to 1500 without the bombers. We'll never really know, of course, but there is at least some thought that although the Germans did increase production (which peaked in 1944 when the Allies were dominating the skies), the bombing campaign hindered the potential that production expansion had. And then you had the efforts of the Germans to hinder their own production (discussion for another time)... > 1. To what extent were German casualties on the > Eastern Front a product of Russian air superiority? Not nearly as great as in the West, at least not early on. I don't have any numbers handy here at work, but it may very well be comperable in raw numbers; however, the ratio compared to the size of the armies was probably much lower. Part of this is due to the fact that the balance of power in the air over the Eastern Front lasted a bit longer than in the West, where the allies had near total dominance. > 2. To what extent was Russian air superiority a > product of the losses inflicted on the Luftwaffe by > the British and American air campaigns? I'd say a great deal. Aircraft by their nature are strategic. It's fairly easy to shift them from one zone to another, just as the Germans did by shifting much of their fighter assets into Germany to defend from Allied Bombers. Thus the destructioin of airframes in one battlezone will have an effect on the airpower of another, if for no other reason than they won't be availalbe to shift to another front. Perhaps more telling though (at least in my mind) was the attrition of skilled pilots. Of course this is something each power had experienced at one point or another in WW1 or 2. The British, FREX, were feeling a significant pinch in pilot quality in IIRC 1915, and the Germans again in 1918. Now in 1944-45 the Germans were feeling it again. It takes considerably more to train a pilot than it does a tanker or infantryman, and the Germans were simply not able to put out the same quality pilots as they did in say 1940... Ah and to respond to another comment you made, I would say it wasn't the quality of the German soldier that made them a capable army (the quality of the German soldier declined significantly after 1941), but rather the quality of the leadership. When left to their own devices, German military leadership was excellent--one need look only at what Rommel could do with 2 armored divisions (15th & 21st), and Italian armored divison or two, and the bulk of an Italian army of rabble. But when you started having interference from the top in the local strategic disposition of the war (I'm speaking of Hitler here, obviously), I think it shows, and he was more responsible for the number of German disasters (which were happening almost daily in late 1944 on, but especially in 1945) than anything. Damon. ===== ------------------------------------------------------------ Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum." http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html Now Building: ------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now. http://promotions.yahoo.com/goldrush _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
