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

OPERATION OVERLORD
ial reconnaissance. The latter function was very important in the bad
weather of the summer of 1944.14’
It appears that, on the whole, tactical intelligence of all kinds was better
than strategic intelligence. Furthermore, it also seems that this intelligence
was of greater use in the battle for local air superiority than it was in
the attempt to gain a general theater superiority. Strategic intelligence
seems to have been marred by faults in the sources and in the analytical
habit of seeing in the data what was expected. Perhaps the best that can be
said is that while intelligence made a considerable contribution to the air
superiority campaigns, it did not make a decisive one.
Assessment
The air superiority achieved for Operation OVERLORD was largely the
product of vastly superior Allied production and training efforts that were
begun very early in the war. Some marginal advantages in technology and
some greater ones in intelligence contributed to the result. Overall, the
struggle for control of the air in western Europe was a war of attrition. The
German failure, for one reason or another, to build a larger air force, to
expand its effective offensive power, and to support it with a proper training
program contributed directly to the outcome.
Three campaigns effectively translated superior numbers and training
into a practical Allied domination of the air. RAF Fighter Command’s
successful struggle to prevent the Luftwaffe from carrying on effective
offensive air action over the United Kingdom and its coastal waters
established a secure base for conducting Allied air operations, for producing
and accumulating materiel, and for assembling and training the
invasion armada.
The strategic bombing campaign for general air superiority did not succeed
by reducing the production of German aircraft. After an initial decline
in 1943, production continued to climb, especially in fighters, right through
the invasion up to September of 1944. The strategic offensive did gain air
superiority for its own operations, however, largely by applying greater
numbers and by carrying offensive air combat to German air space itself
with the long-range fighter escort. The attrition caused by these operations
kept the Luftwaffe from translating improved production into an enlarged
frontline force. It also forced a continued decline in the average quality of
German aircrew, measured by the extent of their training and their performance
in combat.
The inability to expand the frontline force meant that the Luftwaffe
had to enter the critical period of 1944 with numbers barely adequate to
meet the demands of only one of the major theaters of operations in which
the German armed forces were committed. The decision to keep special-
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