What Killed The Most US Bombers in WW2? German Fighters vs Flak
Fighters and Flak (Anti-Aircraft Artillery) were both used by Germany to shoot down Allied Bombers like the B-17, B-24 and Lancaster. However, which one was more successful? The answer is not that straightforward, so let's have a detailed look.
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Boog, Horst (1982) Die deutsche Luftwaffenführung 1935-1945, DVA
Boog, Horst (2001) Strategischer Luftkrieg in Europa und Reichsluftverteidigung 1943-1944, in Horst Boog, Gerhard Krebs, Detlef Vogel (eds), Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Band 7 - Das Deutche Reich in der Defensive, DVA: Stuttgart.
Uziel, Daniel (2012) Arming the Luftwaffe - There German Aviation Industry in World War II, McFarland, Jefferson, NC.
Palmer, Allan (1963) Survey of Battle Casualties, Eight Air Force, June, July, and August 1944, in Medical Service, Would Ballistics, OFFICE OF THE SURGEON GENERAL DEPARTMENT of THE ARMY WASHINGTON, D.C.
Pehle, Walter (Hrsg.). Die Welt im Krieg 1941-1943, Band I - Von Pearl Harbor zum Bombenkrieg in Europa, Geschichte Fischer, 1992
TM9-1985-3/TO39B-1,4-10 German EXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE (PROJECTILES AND PROJECTILE FUZES), United States Government Printing Office Washington :1953
- Timecodes -
00:00 - Flak vs Fighters
00:18 - Community Support
01:34 - Aim of Videos
02:14 - FLAK! (AA-Defenses)
05:33 - Fighters
08:29 - Flak vs Fighters
13:31 - Cost-Benefit
17:12 - Balancing Capabilities
18:35 - Bonus Questions
- Audio -
Music and Sfx from Epidemic Sound
IMO, fighters and flak work together. The Bombers stay in tight formation because of the fighters and this increases the effectiveness of flak. Flak can break up the formations, allowing fighters to attack the Bombers leaving the formations.
flak forces bombers to fly higher and thus are less accurate. Though given the weather in Europe means cloud cover more often than not, most of the bombing is "area bombing" whether by day or night.
You are on a different topic. @@gleggett3817
This is right. And if you have more fighters you need more pilots. I suppose flak personal needs less trainng than fighter pilots.
@@gleggett3817 Also flak emplacements forced bomber to fly at certain specific paths, to avoid heavier densities of firepower. Well studied positioning could make bombing runs almost inconciveable due to extremely long fligth times, dificult angles of approach, terrain features (valleys, mountains, so on) and even forcing the bomber to fly near airstrips, well within range of figther squadrons. The problem was create those flak positions werever they were needed.
lol area bombing for the British at night was aim for the bit that is on fire at the coordinates you were given tally ho! @@gleggett3817
Iirc at the end of the war Germany had still lots of aircraft but not enough fuel and qualified pilots, so building more fighters without addressing that first would have been rather futile. And it was easier to train a flak gunner than a pilot.
Yes, that exactly the case why they choose more flak - those resources had been more available.
The point is the more fighters and pilots to fly them needed to come much earlier. They were still working hard to build bombers and air crew for them pretty late into the war. Yes, by mid 1944 it was too late, and flak was the only option, but maybe in 1941-42 maybe not so much
The Germans were using teenagers and younger to man flack guns later in the war. The results were tragic as later in the war they were directly engaging allied ground forces
Thank you, I came here to mention the lack of fuel for fighters. And the lack of flying hours to train new pilots...
I think you are correct; I think this should have been part of the cost benefit analysis. The FlaK that was built could be used, the fighters that could have been built could not.
You have to remember that all those flak guns were also used against the RAF night raids, where “day” fighters could not be used to any great degree.
It's a very good point; I am sure you know that some 'day' fighters were used against night attacks, but the majority of night fighters were multiengined radar equipped types. So especially with radar control and automated fuse setting, German FlaK was a 24/7 weapon. Probably cheaper to produce and crew than aircraft, and possibly a lot less vulnerable? In the sense that Luftwaffe aircrew would take losses, but how many FlaK positions took casualties and daamge in the air raids?
The Luftwaffe had PLENTY of night fighters and crew, who were very effective when radar guided to the attacking RAF formations.
@@chuckschillingvideos indeed the best of them were, chillingly so - again it would be interesting to see who brought down the RAF night bombers, and see if the proportion of fighter/FlaK/accidents is significantly different?
@@Simon_Nonymous with how messy, Dark, and confusing night combat was, I doubt we's ever truly come close to knowing.
@@Simon_Nonymous On the Nuremburg raid of March 30/31, 1944, the RAF lost 95 heavy bombers MIA, its worst night of the war. The losses are distributed as follows: To night fighters: 79 To AAA: 11 To both night fighters and AAA: 2 To collision: 2 To "friendly" fire: 1 Source: Nuremburg Raid 30-31 March 1944, by Martin Middlebrook In the same author's book about the Regensburg/Schweinfurt raid of August 17, 1943, the causes of losses of B-17s MIA are as follows (when a bomber was lost to both AAA and fighter action, he has attributed the loss to the original cause of distress, which would more often put the missing aircraft in the AAA category): To fighters: 50 To AAA: 9 To mechanical defect: 1
As the Allies pushed the Germans into a smaller and smaller box, the density of flak guns increased, making flak ever so much more dangerous. My father, who was shot down in a B-17 over Stuttgart in September of 43, said he flew into the flak to avoid the fighters. A FW 190 eventually brought him down. The turbocharger on the #3 engine seized up, and he fell behind.
The density per unit area of guns would only increase if the guns could be shifted in time to avoid being captured.
Which is not the correct conclusion. When the Reich was squeezed (44-45), more and more 8,8cm Flak were hastily sent to the front for anti-tank work. Lack of heavy tractors meant many guns were abandoned/destroyed. Your dear father was shot down in a time when the Luftwaffe was still a major (and dangerous !) factor. 1943 was a very bloody year for both US and British strategic bombers. This was before long range escort !
As German air assets were depleted, the AA did not seem to be reduced as much and got proportionally more kills.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 a large percentage of German flak capability was mounted on railcars, halftracks and heavy trucks. The defenses of the oil refineries at Ploesti were on flak trains.
@@sullyway51 and IIRC most of it was light flak and certainly not capable of reaching the heavies.
Fighters require well-trained pilots, mechanics and ground crew; also, lots of POL. Radar-directed flak guns require some specialized people to run the radar, but less skilled people to do the loading and shooting.
Fighter engines were incredible rare through the whole war too.
I also bet the radar crew didn't suffer anywhere near the casualties that the fighter pilots did.
I dont think flak gets enough credit. So much emphasis goes to the fighters and the "aces", but the real value of flak,, and the ground based air defense network in general was in making bombers less efficient. By forcing bombers to come in at 25-30k feet, flak significantly reduces the accuracy of bombing. This also requires extra fuel, and reduces bomb capacity. The point of air defense is to keep bombs off the target. Forcing half the bombers to miss the target is of more value than shooting down 2% of them.
I think both are critical. I don't think you can rely ONLY on fighters nor ONLY on flak when you were in Germany's situation. They simply did not have enough resources regardless of what approach they took and had to use everything they had.
FlaK . . . . . And now I've watched the video. I've recently viewed a couple of generally reliable sources that estimate 85% of bomber casualties were inflicted by FlaK. Now I see that that figure aligns pretty closely with the Damaged figure, 900+ vs 100 or so shot down. Some of these damaged aircraft would have required long-term repairs or possibly could have never returned to service even though they returned to their bases, and this would certainly have been counted as "losses" by the 8th AF. There's a serious lesson here about how to apply raw data to reach meaningful findings, and you've done a hell of a job with a difficult and subjective subject. Great job, and thank you for putting in the effort!
I agree: Depending on the bomber and the theatre, being on a bomber crew was nearly unsurvivable, with periods where only about a quarter of crew members made it through their tour. "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" describes quite well how the bombers made it back while the crew did not: "When I died they washed out me out of the turret with a hose." One of the more memorable experiences I ever had was being able to board and crawl around inside a B-17 as a teenager. I sat in the tail gun, and was kind of imagining what it was like. Reality came crashing in when the Commemorative Airforce (veteran) knowingly walked over, and banged a couple of canes right next to where I was standing (from the outside - and unseen by me). He gave me a hell of a fright, and then yelled "And that's what German bullets sound like!" Some lessons are hard... and humorous.
@@pariahzero, sounds like a rude awakening! My great uncle was the copilot of the Axis Ass Ache, an F-series that flew their missions out of north Africa. He never really talked about it, although Googling the plane will take you to a couple of websites where you can get a minimum of information and a couple of pictures. Maybe that's why I have an interest in this, or maybe it's just that the B-17 is such a beautiful piece of art. The Ass Ache was shot to hell on her 49th mission and rather than try to make it back across the Med opted to land at a fighter base on Sardinia. A fighter base is a poor fit for a Fortress on its best day, and when it's shot up... They overran the runway, the gear collapsed, and the plane was a write-off. Final log entry is, "Crew survived; plane didn't."
Pilots are more expensive and take longer to train than to build another bomber. This is not meant to slight the other crew members.
@@jerryw6577 Yes, and most heavy bombers had three pilots - two of which could be killed without necessarily downing the plane. (The bomberdier was also a qualified pilot in many types, and could even kind of fly the plane from his post if required.) I mentored under a former B-24 bombardier from 1998-1999, and he was willing to talk about a very _few_ things from the war. He greatly preferred the B-24 over the B-17, I know he was part of the Ploesti raids and that he only remembers being "too busy to be scared" - which has to be the biggest understatement I've heard in my life. Otherwise, he really didn't want to talk about it, and even back then, I knew to respect it (after nearly soiling myself after the guy from the Confederate Airforce gave me the excellent object lesson a couple years earlier).
@@pariahzero I believe it is now the Commemorative Air Force, to avoid the racist overtones of its origins.
The German leadership thought that flak had a huge effect on civilian morale, hence the emphasis on more flak batteries. Fighter interception, especially at altitude, weren't seen by the populace, and had a corresponding low effect on morale. I would love to see you explore one of the flak towers that still stand in Berlin.
My wife's grandfather would probably argue it was coordination between fighters and Flak. His B-17 was initially wounded by flak over target and then suffered additional damage that brought it down by fighters since it couldn't stay in formation. All but one of his crew would become POW.
I'm 55 and I grew up listening to stories from my neighbors who were WW2 veterans. From Navy to Army Air Force I talked to grunts, cooks n pilots. Every single bomber crewman I spoke to said when it came down to it they did not worry about the AA as much as fighters. Several of them had been shot down or had aircraft severely damaged. When they would tell us neighborhood kids a story you could always see it in their eyes and hear it in their voice when they started to talk about "Fighters started to come in at us"... We were so lucky to be kids and listen to their stories.
I wonder if anyone on a flak battery ever called out "kill steal" if a fighter swooped in lol
Probably happened more often than a mobile flak unit got a no scope.
16:28 but h-h-h-ow did Germans get Soviet POWs to operate AAA guns, i mean, couldn't the Sov'z just intentionally miss?
@@Defender78 My understanding is that the POWs and such would be used for the manual labour roles, like carrying ammunition. Not actually laying the guns. Also, in many cases with heavy AA guns, they were remotely aimed using the radar equipment.
@@Defender78Maybe they would then be unintentionally not-missed...
Probably not, because they didn't speak English.
One big advantage of FlaK you somewhat ommited, is that the FlaK battery is 24/7 service that is not, at least once it is radar aimed, concerned with pesky things like weather or day time.
WWII US Bombers channel went into this a while back. The numbers from sources he used were like yours, showing the initial high danger of fighters. The same period you pointed out in mid-1944 showed decreased fighter effectiveness while flak threat soared. Obviously many reasons behind the downfall of Luftwaffe fighter strength. You could do a whole video on that alone. The bombers tied up a lot of German resources and manpower. All the personnel tied to fighter defense, flak gun crews for air defense of the Reich. So much gun and shell production dedicated purely for defense of Germany and not at the front. I remember reading of more fighter strength being taken from the frontlines to fight over Germany itself. So many of these 88 flak guns not at the frontlines. All this while the Soviet and Western Allied air power got stronger and stronger.
Declassified doc stated ovet 80 pct by flak
Flak is way too expensive over AT-cannon. Yet, flak production obviously affected AT-guns production.
And that analysis doesn't comprehend the increasing numbers and effectiveness of US escort fighters in disrupting the Luftwaffe's attempts to intercept the US bomber streams. US escort fighter tactics evolved and improved dramatically in this time period.
@@chuckschillingvideos The dwindling of the Luftwaffe's strength truly began in 1943, before Mustangs started escorting bomber formations. The Luftwaffe was losing a lot in North Africa and desperately trying to save corned Axis troops in Tunisia, November 1942 to May 1943 when they finally surrendered there. The invasion of Sicily happened in July 1943. Before that the Allied air forces had conducted a massive air campaign directed at the Axis air forces. The Luftwaffe's losses were staggering. Adolf Galland was sent down south to Italy to get hold of the air situation. He said that he was amazed at the sheer scale of Allied air force operations. He was a Battle of Britain veteran and what he saw made anything he experienced before pale in comparison. The situation was so bad that the Germans directed most of its fighter production to go to the Mediterranean instead of the air defense of Germany itself. From there the Luftwaffe's fighter force was in a death spiral. Add its ongoing mission requirements in the Eastern Front, occupied western Europe, the Mediterranean, and Germany itself, there was no way the Luftwaffe could cover all this. - The Battle of Kursk happened in July 1943, too. For such a major operation, the Luftwaffe was no longer able to properly provide fighter coverage. It was too spread out and too weak to do this job.
Fighters didn't have enough fuel or skill pilots. They HAD to make more flak. Flak crew got experience without suffering many casualties.
You're describing 1944. You ask both KIA and surviving Allied crews what they thought about Luftwaffe pilot skills in 1943. Flak crews don't need much experience, they need to be strong. Aiming was done by radar, fuse setting was done automatically. Many Flak crews were not even in the Wehrmacht; they were school boys - civilians ! As a general rule, you always have to produce more of both fighters AND Flak. As the US have shown in an extraordinary way, production wins. From that point of view, Germany never had a chance.
@@ottovonbismarck2443that's his point...
Problem is that Flak is static. You must have Flak in every city but you can concentrate your fighters more easily.
I think it was the force of gravity.
Although Gravity played an important part, the Solid Ground was ultimately the deal closer.
@@GazzaLDNAs a lifelong skateboarder, I can confirm this. "They fly through the air With the greatest of ease And then they come down And get asphalt disease." My anthem as a rider 🤣
@@johngregory4801Humans are still evolving ablation. You’re advancing humanity, you beautiful mutant!
I fervently hope that my passing does not involve words like "plummet".
Oddly enough gravity only pulled down the planes that got hit by shells. Some bomber crews were dead before they hit the ground.
My father's B-17 was hit by flack forcing everyone to jump out of the stricken plane. B17 name was Miss Manookie and he spent 13 months as a prisoner in concentration camp. He hit the ground, passed out and came to, to a farmer with a pitchfork on his chest. Came home to New Orleans in 45, married my mother in 47 and had three babies between 1948 thru 1950. I am the 1950 baby boy. Other babies were girls. My story was without incident. Active duty from 1970-74 in USAF.
My father enlisted in the Army Air Corps (1942), age 18, and served as a gunner and radio operator on B-17s. He was assigned to the 8th Air Force in England and flew 35 combat missions over Europe. Including one shown as "SECRET" on his papers. The records for many crew members were lost during a fire at Fort Benjamin Harrison. His brother, age 20, was a Navy aviator flying in the Pacific area: his plane was shot down . The bad news was wired to the family, who were surprised three months later when he walked in the front door in his Navy uniform. My father had left the service at the end of the war and worked as a TV/Radio engineer. He was called back to duty for the Korean conflict but didn’t have to deploy; and stayed with the new US Air Force. He retired in 1968 after 26 years of active duty and died in 1976. Both brothers are buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Regards
The Tizard mission in 1940 gave British technology to the US including: the cavity magnetron, the design for the proximity VT fuse, details of Frank Whittle's jet engine and the Frisch-Peierls memorandum and MAUD Report describing the feasibility of an atomic bomb, designs for rockets, superchargers, gyroscopic gunsights, submarine detection devices, self-sealing fuel tanks, plastic explosives and others.
Yes we gave all our inventions to the yanks without patenting them.
I think the Allies have to be extremely thankful that the Germans didn't develop proximity fuses for their flak guns. If the Germans had such fuzing for their 88 mm flak guns, Allied losses would have been close to catastrophic because the flak bursts would have been much more accurate against bombers.
And each projectile had a chance to detect proximity on the way up and on the way down.
The US spent prodigious amounts of effort to develop a miniture radio proximity fuse [had to surviive 28k g's] and finally saw its efforts rewarded in the near destruction of Japanese air power in the Battle of the Phillipine Sea.
I would really like to see an analysis of how effective defensive aircraft armaments were against attacking fighters.
Tough Question. But I think the most often overlooked toll-taker was first Formation Form-Ups, especially in fog or bad weather. Veteran Air Crews I've talked to at Air Shows all stated they were beyond terrified of mid-air collisions. Of course, we saw how the recent B-17/P-39 accident showed the world how quickly everything can go wrong.
I have long thought that anything that delayed D-Day increased the chance of the Iron Curtain being on the Rhine instead of central Germany.
The Russians clearly paid the heaviest price in the war and just getting to Berlin. So in that single respect the allies played it perfectly. Hitler was not going to give up until he was going to hear the guns right outside his door. The push to Berlin cost the Russians a million men, and they were allies themselves. Losing a good part of Eastern Europe was at the time worth the price, and now here we are again with the Russians having the mindset that Eastern Europe belongs to them?
What a fantastic and illuminating video. I admire how you explain your conclusions with hard data. The opportunity costs of AA production relative to fighter production was something that I found extremely interesting. Very well done.
Very interesting analysis, Chris. Additional fighters would have required additional fuel which was already an issue late in the war. Maybe more fighters could have better defended the refineries, but it would also have meant significantly higher fuel consumption, especially considering training the additional pilots for the additional planes.
When the Luftwaffe had enough well-experienced pilots (up to the end of 1943) it was evident that the fighters were far more effective than the Flak. The proportion of 3.000 shells per destroyed bomber says everything. The Flak was ridiculously expensive in terms of material and manpower.
Donald Nijboer in German Flak Defences reports that the loss of B17 and crew was good value and outweighed expenditure on shells. General Arnold said.... We could never conquer German flak artillery
The fighters, that’s why once they started having the fighter escorts that where allowed to engage the German fighters losses dropped noticeably.
The bombers were bait so the Allies could destroy the Luftwaffe once and for all, that and losses could be replaced, FLAK was the biggest killer, not the fighters….
One consideration in figuring out effectiveness, is that a bomber over the target would probably force defensive fighters out so the flak could operate. Any damage by the flak could make the bomber's capabilities in self defense be reduced and a fighter later could pick off the wounded bomber. Thus a counted fighter kill would really be more of a collaboration kill.
The US bomber crew members that I met in the 60's, 70's and 80's overwhelmingly expressed a fear of flak over fighters. The impression I got was that this was mostly psychological in nature--they hated flak because there was no way to "shoot back," as opposed to fighters, which a crew possessed weapons to fight back.
One point not covered: The lower the targeted bomber flies, the more accurate is the flak: low-altitude bombing is suicidal. So flak forced the bombers to fly high -typically above 6000 metres - from where bombing would be inaccurate. Thus, flak played a valuable defensive role even when it failed to destroy bombers. By forcing the bombers into a relatively narrow altitude band near their ceiling, flak also made the location of bombers by fighter aircraft outside the flak zones more predictable.
Anything that stood in the way of Me262 production and Me262 assignment as a defensive fighter was a huge mistake.
Every time I hear criticism of the Allied Strategic bombing campaign I refer these critics to the fact that over 2 million personnel and thousands of 88mm guns were deployed to defend the Reich. These were assets that could have been used elsewhere. As for the Jagdwaffe - Big Week. ‘Nuff said. Loving your work Chris (as always) 👍👍
The "point" of the strategic bombing campaign was not to act as a sponge for German personnel. That is a tail wagging the dog explanation of how it was "effective." The point of the strategic bomber campaign, at least for the US, was to cripple the German military industry to shorten the war. It failed miserably. The British had a different reason for conducting the strategic campaign, with targeting industry being a secondary goal, and that is to sap the morale of the German citizenry. Again, it failed miserably. Any unexpected effects of the campaign are inconsequential. Also, your numbers are a bit inflated. At its height the flak arm of the Luftwaffe employed 1.2 million. 44 percent of that, however, were civilians and auxiliaries. So, no, it wasn't draining military personnel away from other fronts where they were needed.
@@timothyhouse1622 this. Germany war production was highest in the last years of the war, with them not shifting to a total wartime economy until ‘43 (hence a certain famous speech). If anything it showed the citizenry that they had nothing to lose, especially with the unfairness of the treaty of Versailles still fresh on their minds, that whatever would come after this war, should they lose, would be far worse. They weren’t wrong either because Germany only finished paying off its reparations debt to England for WW1 in 2015 and all of its WW2 debts in 2010.
True. Richard Overy, RAF Bomber Command 1939-1945: ""The air war over Germany absorbed a large share of German artillery output, one third by 1944. There were by that year 14,489 heavy guns and 41,937 lighter guns pointing skywards over Germany. Anti aircraft guns in Germany alone took one fifth of all ammunition. As well as this, 1/2 of German electro-technical and 1/3 of all German optical equipment was deployed in Germany against the Anglo-American strategic bombing campaign. After 1942, the German forces on the eastern front became increasingly depleted of German air protection, artillery guns, radio and radar equipment due to the Anglo-American strategic bombing campaign in the west. In January 1943 only 25% of the Luftwaffe's fighter force was on the eastern front and 59% was in Germany facing the bomber threat. By January 1944 the proportion was 17% on the eastern front and 68% in Germany""
@@timothyhouse1622" It failed miserably" The German production rates would have been far higher had the Allies decided not to do strategic bombing. We know that the Germans were strapped for production and resources by the end of the war and that was due in part to bombing missions destroying infrastructure and reducing production capacity and hampering logistics. The Allies on the other hand were capable of funneling resources to equipment, supplies, and projects that would have been considered luxuries by the Germans. Funneling resources towards a strategic bombing campaign didn't degrade the Allies nearly as much as it penalized the Germans therefore can be seen as an overall benefit. In hindsight it was obviously overly optimistic to assume strategic bombing would completely shut down Axis production, but there was still value in degrading it to a measurably reduced capacity. Strategic bombing also reduced casualties of ground forces as urban warfare attrited infantry and armor far more in areas that hadn't been bombed. Allied bombing of Dresden completely broke German resistance to the Red Army in that area when just prior the Soviets had sustained 70,000 casualties fighting street by street to take Budapest.
Er, may I disagree? RAF Bomber Command was hugely successful. Even up to Dec 1942 when so many 'historians' claim bombing was 'ineffective' - Hitler, lip trembling again as ever against the British, triggered the V-weapons programme, so wasteful it absorbed the equal of 25,000 fighters' worth of resources. Some 35% of all Tiger tanks weren't built - due to bombing, etc. Albert Speer's claims of a production 'miracle' are now completely disowned by real historians - he fudged the figures. Luftwaffe base commanders scratched their heads asking - 'Where are all these new fighters??' - they never arrived, and most were never produced.. @@timothyhouse1622
I see that I have already subscribed to the channel, meaning that you impressed me, but I don’t recall what I saw, so not MANY encounters. That’s okay, though. Here, I love your balanced approach to the mathematics of the equation-which is the beauty of hindsight (and is labeled as such). Brilliant! Above all, I love your delivery, which is likely why I subscribed; I wanted MORE of that. Nor was I disappointed. Well done, friend!
I remember years ago finding some US Army air corps (USAAC) after war documents saying (rounding numbers) that 60% of USAAC bombers were brought down by flak and 40% by fighters. An approach the USAAC would vary altitude every 45 seconds but when they were actually on the bombing run they had to maintain a constant altitude. They were very susceptible on that part of their approach to flak.
I have read a great deal about the brilliant Luftwaffe Oberst (Colonel) Josef Kammhuber who was put in charge of Germany's air defenses against the RAF's night bombing raids in 1940. The combined air defense organization he designed used everything Germany had, from the meager Freya/Wurtzburg radar installations to the flak batteries to the night fighters. Kammhuber's air defenses were so formidable it almost brought RAF bombing to a complete halt more than once. One tactic originated by Kammhuber that worked particularly well was to send over fighters timed to be over British airfields when the bombers were taking off and landing. But eventually the two fuddy duddies Hitler and Goering, in a truly stupid move, put a stop to the night airfield raids...their reason being, Hitler thought the "enemy planes should be destroyed over Germany, where the people on the ground can see them falling out of the sky in flames, for morale purposes"! Kammhuber's fighter pilots were racking up large kill scores, and there was even talk among RAF bomber command that the bombing raids might have to stand down, until some counter to the night fighters could be created. Fortunately for the RAF though, Hitler did their work for them as, incredibly, Hitler sent away almost all Kammhuber's fighter force to the Mediterranean theater!
I haven't read about that tactic before... 🤔
German radio interception worked pretty well too; they very often picked up RAF transmissions when the British crews checked their radios before take-off. Ju-88 had a fantastic range/loitering time; the former bomb bay essentially became an additional fuel tank. Not only did the nightfighters wait over RAF bases on returning bombers; they could also follow them home. Edit: if it wasn't for the horrendous bloodshed over the Mediterranean, Sicily in particular, 1943 would have been "the perfect year" for the Luftwaffe.
Wurzburg radar...
Hitler also ordered a shift from bombing RAF facilities to bombing cities, in the hope that this would discourage the British citizenry and lead to an armistice. Instead, it gave the RAF some breathing space and recovery time, and strengthened the resolve of the British citizens to win the war.
Attacking bombers on British soils also has disadvantages: damaged planes are lost, parachuted pilots are captured, enemy "flak" kills your planes, more fuel consumption, less operating time (due to longer distance). I don't think that the "let's destroy the enemy planes over Germany for psychological reasons" was the only reason! Quite often people tend to attribute, to Hitler and Goering, wrong motives for their decisions. Those men were not idiots, and they were at least as intelligent as the average English historian, and often more.
These videos are why I love your channel, thank you for looking into the factors and meanings behind historical statistics! My questions are: Would there be a sufficient number of trained pilots to operate a significantly larger fighter force at the same cost-benefit ratio as the force actually employed? Was a drastic increase in Flak production a better or worse use of available manpower in terms of cost-benefit vs. time to become effective?
Really enjoyed this presentation, the film footage is great of course, & above all the host is very knowledgeable, well spoken & likeable.
Flak gunners included one future Pope so that was quite a buff for them
Seriously? Was Pope Francis an AA gunner?
@@rongardener4142 Benedict XVI was a Flakhelfer when he was 16 yo, you can find a photo of him in uniform online.
The pope is a communist
Astute observation :) There is a good observatiuon of how and why with with what tragic outcomes for Flakhelfer in "Downfall/Der.Untergang" 2004.
@@louayghanjati5056 Thanks for the info. I knew that many flak gunners were young boys, but to learn that one of them became Pope is my surprise new fact of the week.
The synergy is important. The fighters took down bombers out of range of the flak. Fighters were mobile and could be sent to wherever the bombers were, flak guarded ONE area and AA systems around Berlin could not assist AA over Dresden.
You'd be surprised, they were just slower to react. The Germans had plenty of heavy flak mounted on rail cars so they could be moved quickly.
@@voiceofraisin3778 while that would improve their defensive rating as opposed to static defenses, you still couldn't move them timely by rail more than a city or two away and would risk moving them to defend what you THOUGHT was the target only to be overflown and leave the real target defenseless. Same with AA "tanks", they're mobile, therefore safer from being directly attacked, but not as mobile as an airwing that could meet the bombers enroute and follow them to the target. Any ground based defenses will have greater restrictions on effective range than fighters chasing them across the sky.
Yes, they moved 1,300 to defend the synthetic oil plants after they were attacked - which is why Dresden and other cities had no AA defences when the RAF paid it a courtesy call.@@voiceofraisin3778
Love the deep dive into flak. I've always wondered how much impact flak had on the war.
first time watching your channel. Very impressive work, and interesting. Thanks for your dedication
Chris, can you do a video on how effective the FW190 was in shooting down bombers compared to the BF109? I read that the FW190 was a real terror to the bombers.
Shout out to "WWII US Bombers" for covering the answer to your question in his video "Where to armor on the B-17 bombers to reduce losses: Surprising Combat Study Results"
A well done piece. Thanks for posting this.
Great job it is always best when all of the answers lead to more questions. I went with Flak as the answer originally but now i understand the question much better. I never considered the kill vs damage part of the equation and the number of shells needed per kill. Excellent job!!!
Flak killed more American and British bombers, but mainly because Allied escort fighters and bombing of fighter factories eliminated the German fighters as a major threat by late 1944. My father flew as a navigator in a B-17 in the 15th Air Force out of Foggia, Italy attacking targets in northern Italy, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bavaria. He told me that he was never attacked by German fighters but he was very lightly wounded (requiring only a band aid) from Flak Shrapnel.
more fighters are nice but could the luftwaffle actually field enough pilots to use those additional airframes? The support personnel and resources needed for a fighter only have some overlap with the resources needed to produce and support a flak battery.
Excellent video ! You only mentioned once that I heard - that the Achilles Heel of the German aircraft arm was the dearth of fuel. You did mention this indirectly, showing the large increase in fighter production later in the war, without increasing operational sorties. Well done !
Yep. The bad news for Germany was fuel was a multiheaded enemy since they needed fuel for the fighters to go up and fight, and they needed fuel for pilot trainees to go up and train to fly combat operations. How do you make that allocation? How do you live with that terrible paradox?
Great video. Where did you pick up that framed artwork of the Tornado's on the wall behind you.
I'd say that conclusion was borne out by the US Navy's experience in the Pacific Theaer, to use a comparison that doesn't draw upon more modern technology. Where valuable aircraft carriers and air bases on land were defended not only by their fighter wings but, even as air superiority over the IJN and IJA became more and more pronounced, batteries of heavy AA guns as well.
3000 shells on average to take down a single heavy bomber? Was it even worth it to even bother building up an elaborate system of Flak if it takes such a sheer amount of it to take them down.
Good question, but this works both ways. Many say that long-range bombing was a waste of men and material considering the damage output and did little to change the outcome and timing of victory. The counter-argument was keeping pressure on all fronts plus the psychological impact. (I'm not advocating for this position ... just saying the same arguments apply).
The 3000 shells/ bomber is a late war figure when the skies darkened from the numbers and Germany finally had developed the Doppelzünder. (delay and impact) Previously bombers returned to base with a grenade gone through and through.
Thanks for sharing Chris
Good analysis. Very thorough and thoughtful.
Can you talk about the importance of allied ground mapping radar on bombers like the H2X system, how it worked, how wide spread it was, what percentage of bombs were dropped using the Norden sight vs the H2X radar?
Hi, as always very nice presentation. I was wondering though should fuel consumption / availability be part of fighter effectiveness?
Yes, without fuel they don’t fly - still was part of the reason for the fighter kill drop by mid-1944
An excellent analysis. One aspect that wasn’t mentioned when talking about the amount of personnel needed for flak is that one could probably train a personal to operate a flak gun in one or two weeks of training, whereas for a pilot to be somewhat competent would be anywhere from six months to a year, along with the need for a lot more competent mechanics. also, because of the level of training from 1943 onwards, the number of aircraft losses from combat was nearly equaled by the number of aircraft losses do to training accidents not to mention the number of pilots that would possibly killed.
My mother was 19 and ran away from her WWII war job making shells in North Carolina. She re appeared in Seattle as a doctor's receptionist.
I have further questions to your flak stats. How many of those guns were 88s? I don’t think I missed it but, I don’t recall seeing if there was a disclaimer towards that. Also, let’s assume your flak stats were based on 88s, were those numbers you showed, purely manufactured for the purposes of anti-air, or just all around 88mm production?
I have heard that in 1944 Germany was drowning (so to speak) in fighter aircraft, but was suffering huge shortages of fuel and pilots which made a large portion of these reserves useless. It’s hard to tell if more fighters were produced in 1942-43, whether it could’ve temporarily halted the US bomber offensive earlier. It’s entirely possible, but I don’t think it would’ve had much of an impact on when the war ended.
Great video! In my work on Eagles over Husky the data and anecdotal evidence suggested multiple of your conclusions. Flak damaged more aircraft but fighters destroyed more (data from 12th Air Force / NASAF) in the Med in summer 1943.
When I was in the US Army in Schweinfurt, Germany in 1965 - early 66 a mid 40's former German Luftwaffe soldier joined our unit. After a few months in the unit he mentioned that he was in a Flak unit in WWII and that his gun had shot down 28 bombers. He said they were all British . . .
Two comments: 1) any statistical analysis that would downplay the losses due to fighters would tend to downplay the US P51 narrative. 2) its hard to attribute the losses to just one cause. For example fighters picked off bombers previously wounded by flak.
P-51 narrative? Just throw that phrase out there in passing and not something that a clique has formed to describe how they feel.
Word salad at its finest.....what a melt😂😂😂😂
I came in expecting fighters to win out but i wasn't expecting the breakdown of why that I got. While flak damage causes attrition, shoot downs prevent bombs from getting to targets and completely remove airframes from the war. While in theory the aircrews could be recovered, they would be shot down over hostile waters/territory and thus likely captured. However, the breakdown of aluminum usage is a real eye opener. Way too much aluminum went into exploding shells compared to airframes. The lack of resources and the poor allocation of them ensured germany lost the war before it even started. Thank god for that.
There is also the complex consideration of a flak damaged bomber then being a good target for fighters. MRAmptech also brings up the fighters press the bombers into tight groups which are good targets for flak vs dispersed to avoid flak being vulnerable to fighters. We can be sure of one thing though: The defending Germans were also asking this question and we see that they came up with.
Flak for sure, the fighters were in short supply and fuel was scarce.
My fathers friend was a turet gunner on a bombing run over Germany on Christmas eve day when his plane was knocked out. As a result of flak fire, the crew bailed out. And he managed to survive but Some of the crew were shot dead by German soldiers as they landed, and he was spared because a German officer came up fired his pistol in the air. And ordered them to stop.... a it was a fascinating story to hear from the man himself
Great video Chris!
Another very intelligent and well presented analysis; I appreciate that this is about the USAAF, and the day light raids. If we consider that the air war was on at night as well, I think that this analysis would benefit from examining who did the damage to RAF night raids, and the results combined to give an overall picture. After all you did start by asking who downed more Allied bomber planes, not USAAF ones....
Another key consideration is that flak crews had significantly lower training requirement to achieve basic combat effectiveness compared with fighters. I think you got it right with better to focus more on fighters (particularly training pilots) in 42-43, then shift to flak. The benefits of that approach are not only maximising the fighter combat outputs (i.e kills) in that time period, but also front-loads the training burden when the economy could better accommodate it, and reduces the impact that crew losses would have on the Luftwaffe by '44, buying a few precious months. Once fuel shortages become a key limiting factor on not only operations but training and the Luftwaffe goes into the doom loop of pilot losses leading to inexperienced replacements which in turn are lost at higher rates, the return on investment from flak increases. Additionally from a data analysis POV, on the fighter lethality slide, don't forget to include the caveat of increased numbers of bombers, which directly effects both axis and exacerbates the divergence between the two; the percentage hit data needs to factor in the greater proportion of targets (bombers) and is not simply reflective of increased lethality (although increasingly larger cannons etc are certainly a factor, it can't be directly inferred from that data set)
On more fighter aircraft, Germany pilot training was too much time per pilot trainee. This led to fighter without trained pilots in late 1944 and 1945. In other areas germany had trouble producing enough engines for the aircraft they already fielded.
That is especially damaging for jets,which had 10-25 hours of flight time.
@@naamadossantossilva4736Jets took less manhour to produce then reciprocating engines
@@ksztyrix And they failed so often this advantage got eaten away and many 262 airframes got stuck on the ground without engines.
Another excellent analysis of the issue. I look forward to seeing your video on German night fighters.
Love masters of the Air. Will certainly consider supporting you either by one off donations or regular on Patreon. Great channel. Love your content
Boeings quality assurance team ;=P
Germany's greatest mistake is instigating a total war against opponents who were far better at it.
The research and lecture were outstanding. My compliments to the author. We all know the difficulty in post-war research, but the author did a good job in qualifying the data. A most interesting presentation. Pretty good cost-effectiveness analysis too.
Hi Chris, I'm looking forward to this, but don't forget to show the B24 liberator some love in the thumbnails 😢, its not all about the B17😂 but does tie in nicely with Masters of the Air😁. from a fellow Chris.
Allies are darned lucky the Germans didn't develop the proximity fuse. If they had the fighters could have focused more on their intended purpose, coordinated support for tactical ground operations. Those Germans would have also probably figured out a way to miniaturize the fuse into the Me 262 30 mm rounds for the MK 108 cannon ensuring damage for every round fired.
Yes, all the fanboys fascinating on jets when a proximity fuze would have done much more.
The Germans could not have miniaturised proximity fuses to 30mm, given that even today it has not been done (modern airbusting 30mm ammunition is programmed to do so before firing). The US, with a considerably more advanced electronics industry, only managed to do this for 76mm/3-inch guns at the end of the war. 30mm ammunition also has insufficient explosive power and fragmentation for proximity fuses to be useful.
@@forcea1454 What you said. By way of further explanation, the damage done by the 30mm round was caused because it penetrated and exploded in an enclosed space, blowing pieces of the aircraft out. It was the explosive charge that did the damage more than shrapnel. A 30mm exploding outside dissipate almost all of its force in open air. The shrapnel damage would probably be negligible.
As the author said, radar guidance tripled the effectiveness of the entire battery. What was the multiplier of the effectiveness of the proximity fuse?
@@forcea1454 all I have to do is make a light hearted joke about German engineering and a half a dozen pedantic losers with their slide rulers start foaming at the mouth. ha Ha, get a freakin’ life, bro.🤣
50% flak 30% Luftwaffe fighter planes 20% friendly fire
Your videos are very interesting and informative. Thanks.
Once again an intersting Video. Thank you
Overall, an excellent presentation of the available data points, analysis, and fact-supported positions.
I would model it as an optimization model with weighting of the two different methods (or more nowadays when you're considering low, medium, and theater defense AA types) dependent on the platform parameters and the threat profile.
Thanks for this information. This is great.
Slipping in the silhouette of Elmer Fudd at 14:37… brilliant!🤣🤣🤣
Did you ever pick up a shell fragment? Jagged, razor sharp and pretty hot. Helped you visualise what damage it had done!
Spot-On, great homework!
great video. Only thing I thought it missed was fuel. Of course, transporting flak guns and huge shell volumes and their production precursors would require fuel as well, but far less of the critical aviation gasoline that the allies targeted and the germans needed so badly
But what about trained personell? In many reports it is stated, that there were not enough well trained pilots, but most times there were enough planes. I believe it is easier to train good Flak personell and keep it alive during missions, than to create good pilots and mechanics. Anyway I appreciate your work!
Big fan of your channel. Just observed something on this video. Maybe. It sounds like you might be using different microphones. To me, the one that you are wearing when you are on screen sounds better to me than the other one. Or something else is going on in the editing. Or I am just imagining it. Anyhow, love the videos.
There is a significant difference between day and night. During the daytime, it is relatively easy to use fast, light, and agile single-engine fighters. In contrast, at nighttime, they needed much heavier and less agile double-engine planes with a lot of radio equipment and a two- or three-man crew.
A complicated answer dependant on all sorts of variables. Impacts to this out come include Hitler declaring war on the USA, refusing to reduce bomber production, preventing use of the Me262 earlier, not going to full war capacity earlier, lack if R&D of new fighter designs etc.
Excellent presentation 👍
A couple of hitherto unmentioned pluses for flak: Flak has the advantage that your equipment (the gun) doesn't get damaged by the enemy - and it has a very long life with barrel replacements. To build, maintain, service and repair a fighter is vastly more demanding of resources.
Excellent comparisons. Interesting
Flak and Fighters are synergistic to any form of air defense. What matters is the right force composition to effectively manage resource constraints and most effectively execute the task of air defence. A most nuanced video and explanation to a very vexing problem to outsiders.
Aloha; well done sir; well done! How are your studies coming along? Have a great weekend. Mahalo
In the 1970's amazing series "World at War" Albert Speer himself is talking about the volume of guns, ammo and personnel allocated to AA guns. I do not remeber the numbers by heart, but it were tens of thousands of heavy guns, and something like a 1M of personnel, so, in his words - by sheer numbers - it WAS a front of its own.
17:05 Please explain: How is aluminum used in the production of flak? What part of the gun or the ammunition is made of aluminum?
Fascinating analysis. Thanks!
How would flak change if they started to use Doppelzünder FLAK shells, the double fuze shells where they also have an impact fuze? I've read that it would improve the kill count to something nearing proximity shells, but I'm very skeptical of that. Your thoughts?
Flak had the issue that you could under fly it. German flak had a altitude / time fuse. So they basically set at which height they knew bombers would fly in and shelled the area. The incoming bombers had orders to vary their height & course every so and so mins as the Flak needed travel time. So it became a guessing game