Air Power.

How does Air Power has a effect on WWII. How did it change the war for the Allies and destroy the Axis?

From what I think,
British saved themselves from Germany invasion by the Spitfire being able to dominate the air
And then when the American's created P51 Mustang, those bad boy just torched the air.

 

This is a very complex topic. Airpower in World War II has been the subject of numerous voluminous books which still haven't exhausted all of the aspects involved. Eric Bergerud has written an interesting book titled "Fire In The Sky" which explores the ramifications of airpower in one small theater in the Pacific over a period of about three years, yet even with that limited scale, the story is incomplete. Suffice it to say that neither the Spitfire nor the P-51 had much of a role in the destruction of the Axis air forces in the Pacific.

Your comments about the Spitfire and P-51 indicate you need to do lots more research. The Hurricane actually shot down more planes in the Battle of Britain than the Spitfire, and some argue it was a better plane than the Spitfire. The Spitfire was a glamorous looking plane that probably received much more publicity because of it's looks than anything else. The P-51 was designed to British specs and the Allison-engined version did not perform all that well, especially at higher altitudes. It wasn't until the plane was fitted with the British RR Merlin engine that it's full potential was realized. By then (late 1943), the Luftwaffe was well on it's way to being crippled by attrition incurred by the necessity of fighting on two fronts.

The actual planes involved were probably less important than pilot training, air combat tactics, air doctrine, and logistics (mainly production), in defeating the Axis in both the PTO and ETO. But studying those mundane topics aren't nearly as exciting as looking at pictures of snappy looking fighter aircraft.

 

Let's also reflect on the role of the bombers. While fighters were glamorous, it was bombers that did the most damage to the enemy.

 

You can't overlook the quantity of both planes and pilots that the allies were able to produce. As the war progressed the Axis' ability to produce aircraft and pilots deminished due to combat losses and bombing raids, whereas the Allies were able to increase production of aircraft and pilots and training and production methods became more "streamlined".

Brad

 

Its easy...the axis has the better air power early in the war, because they got better figters than any allied forces. but when battle of Britain started its indeed that the prepared forces in the air of Britain is better than the divided luftwaffe...

 

The performance of the fighters have very little or nothing to do with the outcome. British won the air war because they were fighting on their own turf, for things such as having an intergrated warning net, the ability to recover bailed-out pilots, shorter distance between airstrip to battle space, etc. Rough parity, numerical superiority, and well-trained men is all what you need. Will, Skill and Necessary Means, in that order.

 

Plane quality in 1940 was roughly even, the Spitfire had problems with using external tanks and remained rather short legged throughout the war so was just as poor an escort fighter as the Me 109.
The air war was a matter of attrition and in the case of Germany the supply of trained pilots and aviation fuel dried up long before that of aircraft, a 1945 Ta 152 was just as good as any allied plane.

 

That is precisely what I was talking about when I mentioned "pilot training" and "logistics (mainly production)". Pilot quantity (and quality) was extremely important; the Japanese, after 1943, had nearly the same number of pilots as the US, but they were inexperienced and only half trained by US standards. The result was that US air power went through Japanese air units like a buzz saw.

Production (not only in numbers, but in planning the types produced) was also important. The Allies forbore to produce some golly-gee whiz-bang wonder planes in favor of older, less capable types just so production numbers could be kept up. The Germans were forever switching their production lines over to flashy new types and that hurt them in operational numbers of aircraft available

Contrarywise, the Japanese were so desperate to keep up production levels that they waited too long to introduce new types into production. A contributory factor in this problem was the Japanese lack of enough aviation engineers to design new aircraft and produce needed modifications to existing designs. All of these things had much more impact on the course of WW II than who had the niftier looking fighters.

 

Quite true.

Fighters are essentially defensive, bombers are offensive, and the Allies always had the edge over the Axis in bombers, both in numbers and in design quality.

 

One cannot forget the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, which while it was not a primary factor in the Battle of Britian, it was a factor in the ongoing replacement of pilots and air crew after 1940. RCAF.com : Archives : British Commonwealth Air Training Plan

An additional factor for the British were the Observer Corps. The Royal Observer Corps Remembered - Welcome and from Royal Observer Corps - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "...In 1925, following a Defence Committee initiative undertaken the previous year, the formation of an RAF command concerning the Air Defence of Great Britain led to the provision of a Raid Reporting System, itself delegated to a sub-committee consisting of representatives from the Air Ministry, Home Office and the General Post Office. This Raid Reporting System was to provide for the visual detection, identification, tracking and reporting of aircraft over Great Britain, and was eventually to become known as the Observer Corps. The Observer Corps was subsequently awarded the title Royal by His Majesty King George VI in April 1941, in recognition of service carried out by Observer Corps personnel during the Battle of Britain.

Throughout the remainder of World War II, the ROC continued to complement and at times replace the Chain Home defensive radar system by undertaking an inland aircraft tracking and reporting function, while Chain Home provided a predominantly coastal, long-range tracking and reporting system. With the advent of the Cold War, the ROC continued in its primary role of aircraft recognition and reporting, and in 1955 was allocated the additional task of detecting and reporting nuclear explosions and associated fall-out. By 1965, thanks to advances in (radar) technology, most roles and responsibilities relating to aircraft had been withdrawn and the ROC assumed the role of fieldforce for the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation, (UKWMO); a role which the ROC continued until the early 1990s and the cessation of the Cold War."

The technical expertise in research and design of the Allies was combined with the manufacturing production capabilities in North America where there was abundant labour that felt it was working toward victory. Germany had a finite capacity -on all levels.

 

I was supporting your statement not trying to contradict or detract from what you said. Sorry if you took it that way as it was not my intention.

 

No problem.

I assumed you were in agreement with my comments, but I usually won't pass up an opportunity to elaborate om my earlier brief remarks if there is any further discussion presented.

 

Air power was critical in the Allies winning the war

Germans invent a new wonder tank? Bomb the factories.
Don't allow Germans to counterattack with Panzers? Blow them to pieces with rockets and 500pounders
Germans holding in fortified town? Level it

Once the Allies had air supremacy in middle42-early43 they had the ability to make such simple solutions as that.

 

over continental europe, not much help. to overrrun the place from outside, you needed a powerful navy and ground logistics. over britain and the pacific, yes.

 

I vaguely recall that the curriculum of the US pilot training was markedly more efficient compared to that of the Germans. The effort was directed at making a military pilot well-honed in all of the skills without wasting a second on non-essentials. The German training course really was quite long.

 

How do you figure that? Air power was instrumental in winning the war in Europe.

 

i didn't think so. the allies overran germany because germany's force was destoyed in the east and because it couldn't interdict the build up of forces over at normandy. allied strategic bombing began in 1944 when german production was about at its peak. the allies overran german a year later. that's too short a time to see what "strategic" effect the bombing might have made.

it's a little too extreme for me to say germany would have been defeated in may 1945 even without the lost production from bombing and without the attrition of its tactical/defensive air arm. im saying the pivotal effects of those two would have been felt a couple years after 1945, had germany held out that long.

 

German production peaked in 1944 at the height of the bombing effort.

There are some interesting claims tha armour losses due to direct air attack were minimal, tanks are pretty hard to destroy with 20mm guns (or worse .5" MGs) and bombs and rockets are awfully inaccurate weapons. Most tank losses to air power were indirect, the planes hit the fuel lorries or supply rains and the tank had to be abandoned but of course this will only happen when the front is moving.

The German experience at Stalingrad and allied at Cassino seems to point out that if you bomb a fortified town you get an even tougher to take fortified rubble heap. The critical element to taking a town is cutting it off from reinforcements first (the old siege story) unless you can do that your chances are slim no matter how much firepower you have, urban environments provide just too much cover to be easily taken from an enemy able to reinforce.

Allied air superiority didn't happen before late 42 early 43, the axis had air superiority in the Gazala battles, Stalingrad and parity for the first part of the Solomon's campaign. The Germans could still mount some pretty nasty operations well into 43 as the Aegean campaign showed.

 

Interesting discussion. I vote for the least glamorous of all, the C-47 and its many variants. Supplying men and material can never be underestimated. It played an important role in many of the island campaigns as well as on the Continent and I don't think we should forget its role on many homefronts.

 

you now why i gave you a sulute!cause i have never seen anyone give credit to the english with the air war and there planes. .I am thrilled to see you're post.

i also agree that england R/A/F had much more to do with the air war than history protrays it to be,england won on it's on plus with americans help also cause that last push for the RAF to Victory,i do respect america in that way.
england and america made a tough force,with both in the air the allies were very strong! both england and america deserve respect in the airwar in my veiws.