Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

AIR SUPERIORITY
FIGURE 6-1
Allied and German Aircraft Production 1940 - 1944
140,000
120,000
100,000
80,000
60,000
40,000
20,000
0
I
I 1940 ' 1941 1942 1943 1944
Allied aircraft production 1940 - 44
German aircraft production 1940 - 44
its rearmament program.' The Luftwaffe went to war with a reasonably
well equipped and trained frontline force, balanced between modern fighters
and medium bombers. But it had insufficient reserves of men and materiel
to sustain combat operations.8 These deficiencies caused no
embarassment until the Battle of Britain because the campaigns were short
and decisive. When Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941 and
declared war on the United States in December of that year, he enlarged
the war but failed to put the Luftwaffe on an appropriate production and
training f~oting.~ Hitler and Goering seem to have been aware of the importance
of large numbers in modern air warfare, but they were either unwilling
or unable to take the measures necessary to significantly expand the
Luftwaffe before 1943.1°
The British and the Americans also entered the war long before their
rearmament programs were completed. But, in contrast to Germany, they
not only aimed at very high levels of aircraft production, they achieved
them as early as 1942. Indeed, from 1940 to 1943 Great Britain alone outproduced
Germany in numbers of aircraft." In 1941 the United States produced
two and one-half times the German output of aircraft. In 1943 this
gap stretched to nearly three and one-half times German production.'* This
was a crucial advantage in a struggle for air superiority that was essentially
a war of attrition.
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