It only climbed heavily in '43. In '42, it practically was all on their own resources. Overy indicates that less then 10% of total lend-lease arrived in the '41-'42 period.
See Gudestein's comment; its not just numbers but quality of what was received and whether was was received in 1941-42 could have been made in the USSR.
Then his 20-30 hours estimate is just as trustworthy (particularly given that the document he linked too doesn't work), so why bring it up?
Then we're back at square 1.
From 50-60 to 100-120 hours.
Again based on what source? We don't have one as the link I posted was based on assumptions and you don't have a cited one.
Indeed. The key difference was the improvement in quality. Indeed, when the Soviets moved to successfully seize air superiority over the battlefield during Operation Uranus, they were acting at only a 1.6:1 numerical superiority against the Germans (1,401 Soviet aircraft versus 842).
During Operation Uranus the weather prevented air ops; how many of those aircraft you mention were fighters on both sides and how many aircraft were operational during and after Uranus?
Re-read what that lresponse was in response was in response (now that was confusing to type) again, I'll highlight the relevant point:
So what I was saying was that the overwhelming number of kills achieved in the East were achieved by the German's. Any German novices who were assigned there from 1943 onwards (and there were precious few likely died as quickly as their Soviet counterparts. Pretty much the only thing that held the German air force together in the east during the last few years were their "experten".
Except you haven't proven it, just asserted it. We know the German pilots in the East lived longer, given the casualty rates we have and overall numbers. So they survived for longer to build up combat experience. No matter where the replacements did not have as long of lives, but we have little record of what the loss rates were for newbies in the East compared to the old eagles because of the destruction of Luftwaffe records at the end of the war and perhaps the Russians hiding some stuff still in archives. So its really difficult to say for sure what the pattern was, just that the East was drawn down for the West and the guys there were there in 1941 stayed there pretty much until the end, scored the most victories of all (Hartmann, Rall, Barkhorn, Kittel, Nowotny, Batz, Rudorffer, etc. basically the top 50 Luftwaffe aces made most of their kills in the East especially in 1941-43 because it was far easier to wrack up kills)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_flying_aces
Yeah. And as you can see in that very graph, in each theater the losses are roughly 1/3rd. The Germans have 1/3rd of their air force in the Med and hence suffer 1/3rd of their casualties in the Med. During the summer of 1943 the Germans have 1/3rd of their air force in the west and thus suffer 1/3rd of their losses in the west. And finally, they have 1/3rd of their air force in the east and thus lose 1/3rd of their air force in the east. Of course then in the autumn they shift even more aircraft away from the east and their losses there consequently drop.
You can see that despite having ~50% of the overall Luftwaffe in the East in July 1943 it suffered less than 1/3rd of the July 1943 losses in the East. The Mediterranean with just LF 2 suffered well over 1/3rd of the overall losses for the entire LW that month. Despite Western Europe/Germany begin defended by around 25% of the Luftwaffe in July 1943 it suffers nearly as many losses as the Eastern front in toto which had double the aircraft of the Western air fleets.
Except according to your little spiel on fighters earlier,
And again, that works out to the numbers I stated on a per theatre basis. According to Hyperwar, ~600 of those fighters were in northwest/west Europe, deployed for home defence. That leaves ~800 for the Med.
And? The loss rates were far higher in either non-East Front theater relative to the overall Luftwaffe commitment; in July 1943 roughly 50% of the overall LW was in the East yet less than 1/3rd of the losses were there, leaving the remainding ~50% of the overall Luftwaffe against the Wallies suffering more than 2/3rds of the losses. Breaking it down by theater is pointless because we are talking about the casualties suffered against the Wallies vs. Soviets and in that vein the Wallies inflicted FAR higher losses on the overall LW compared to the Soviets in 1943 and pretty much from that point on. The bulk of the LW was in the East from June 1941-42 so consequently the bulk of the losses were there until Autumn 1942 when the shift west happened and the vast majority of the losses were inflicted there from late 1942 until the end of the war. The Soviets did damage, but it was sustainable damage to the Luftwaffe if that was their only front; it was the Wallies that inflicted the death blows to the LW that the Soviets massively benefited from and were therefore able to recover and never face the majority of the LW from 3rd quarter 1942 to the end of the war.
This is not supported by actual historical air combat.
No. They illuminate a broader picture that simply stating "the Germans lost 1/3rd against the Soviets and 2/3rds against the WAllies" does not.
Not if they are cherry picked; hard data shows where the losses were taking place and where it was easier for the LW experten to wrack up kills and survive. Its not great mystery when the top killers in the LW made most of their kills in the East and survived the war or later then died in the West. Individually the Soviet fighter pilots might have been better than the Wallied pilots due to surviving longer, but they were not getting the kills on the LW pilots that the Wallies did; the combat environment was far more lethal to the LW in the West due to the huge numerical superiority of the Wallies that they used to best effect; the VVS potentially could have been more lethal to the LW had it not been tied to army support ops, but the fact was Soviet doctrine limited fighter protection to supporting the army rather than killing the LW and they didn't have the training, technical, and doctrinal advantages the Wallies did and leveraged against the Luftwaffe that ultimately killed it. Overall I'm willing to state that the Soviets just by dint of facing the LW for longer amassed better individual fighter pilots if they survived than the Wallies due to the rotation program and sheer mass of fighters they could put out limiting the chance for Wallied individual fighter pilots to score kills and get combat experience, but in terms of damage inflicted on the LW the Wallies killed the LW and gave the VVS the breathing space it needed to recover and win.
The men who actually fought the VVS, yes. In fact, some of the best men who fought them. And the premiere scholar on the air war on the Eastern Front. Those are some pretty hefty credentials to overcome.
What makes them best? That they survived the longest and were able to kill the most because their opposition was so shoddy? They became the most experienced due to having a far less lethal combat environment as we can see from loss rates of the East vs. all other theaters. Bergstrom is a specialist in the East and has myopia for this chosen theater, which limits his overall perception of events; that's a common problem for scholars that specialize in something because they lack perspective. Economists are notorious for that and I was just having a rather acrimonious debate on reddit over reparations payments from the ToV where the guy arguing with me kept citing one scholar whose entire argument came from working in the French archives and he couldn't accept that that colored that one scholar's perspectives on the issue. So while I accept that Bergstrom is pretty good on Eastern Front air war issues, he's got myopia from primarily working on the one front that has been neglected for too long in the West.
As were the Germans. Again: 10% of the fliers are responsible for about 80% of the losses. Veteran pilots would learn how to survive, and maybe pick up a kill here and there, but they lacked the true fusion of abilities ever to become top scorers. Many pilots could manage to fly well enough to get an enemy in their sights, but most lacked the shooting ability to inflict lethal damage once they'd done so. Missiles have probably changed this equation in the modern age, since they reduce the skill required for one of air combat's most difficult tasks, that is, aiming.
Got a source to back up that number?
And I'm rather dubious that is true in the larger scheme of things.
Depends on what area we are talking about. In terms of the German night fighters and daylight heavy fighters they suffered very badly from technical inferiority. At night they lost massive effectiveness from not having the right weapons to fight the war. Their lagging in radar was horrifically crippling and led to things like the firebombing of Hamburg that left the attacking force pretty much untouched. That was the primary result of technical failures to develop the next generation of LW aircraft, engines, and radar due to Udet and Goering; the shift to fighters came too late, and the lack of a working strategic bomber was badly crippling; even Eric Brown said in 'Wings of the Luftwaffe' that had the He177 worked it could have been a game changer for the Luftwaffe. He also said the lack of the Jumo 222 for the German nightfighters, which according to modern German scholarship on the technical side of things said it was ready but for a political struggle that killed its chance to getting into production, caused existing designs like the He219 from being able to match or exceed RAF designs, which would have been a game changer from 1942/43 on in the night bombing campaign. Had there not been the fumbling of technology from the Luftwaffe after Wever's death the LW would have been a much more dangerous foe that could have extended the war significantly and inflicted a lot more damage on the Allies.
Udet and Goering deserve a medal from the Allies for their contribution to the German defeat.