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

LUFTWAFFE AGAINST POLAND
pilots made them dangerous ~pponents.~~ The Poles had deployed a substantial
portion of their fighters and bombers to satellite fields before the
war broke out. Thus, the initial German strikes did not substantially affect
the Polish force ~tructure.~~ Combat, however, against Luftwaffe formations
that possessed qualitative and numerical superiority in aircraft soon
shredded the Polish Air Force. Given the German superiority, the results
were never in question. By the end of the first day, the Germans had gained
general air superiority; by the end of the second day, little remained of the
Polish Air Force support ~tructure.~~ Having gained air superiority, the
Luftwaffe finished off the Polish fighter force and shifted its attention to
deep interdiction attacks on the enemy's transportation system and to
direct support of the ground offensive.
Air superiority allowed the Luftwaffe to accomplish a number of
important missions. On the ground the combination of rapidly advancing
mechanized units and air strikes against the Polish Army proved devastatingly
effective. Interdiction missions made it impossible for the Poles to
patch together a new line of resistance once German armored forces had
broken out into the open. Along the Bzura River, the Luftwaffe caught
large Polish formations attempting to fight their way through German encirclements
in order to reform along the Vistula. These air attacks so demoralized
the Poles that some troops even threw away their weapons.so German
losses against the Poles were not light. By the time the campaign was over
the Luftwaffe had lost 47 Bf-109s (5.6 percent of the force structure), 81
bombers (6.5 percent), 50 close-air-support aircraft (13.2 percent), and a
total of 261 of all types (7.2 percent). Losses on the Western Front to the
French and British in September spoke volumes for the complete lack of
activity by Allied air forces. The Germans lost 13 aircraft in combat and 18
aircraft through noncombat causes in the west for the entire month of
Septembe~.~'
The German ability to maintain the thrust of mechanized units and to
push fighter and close-air-support coverage forward rested on an effective
air transport system. Airlift squadrons, equipped with Ju-~~s, resupplied
the army as mechanized forces outstripped the ground-based logistics
system. At the same time, Bf-109 squadrons established themselves on
forward airfields within conquered territory and received supplies of fuel,
ammunition, and parts through airlift.s2 This operational concept,
established before the war, played a crucial role in helping the Luftwaffe's
fighter force keep up with the Army's thrusts during both the French
campaign and the invasion of Russia as well as in Poland; such a system,
however, had no utility in circumstances where no forward movement
occurred and where opposing air forces grappled independently of ground
operations.
The German victory over Poland represented only a limited operational
success, however. The entrance of Britain and France into the war
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