Hello,
I always had some unspoken question about WWII and could not lay my hands on it. But then a few days ago I saw Battle of Britain with Michael Caine and suddenly it clicked.
Why did the German air force in WWII not win?
The german fighters could fly from their bases in France to London and back and had about 5-10 minutes reserves for air-to air combat (That is what I read in a magazine about the Battle of Britain).
In wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain#Fighters:
The biggest disadvantage faced by Bf 109 pilots was that without the benefit of long-range drop tanks (which were introduced in limited numbers in the late stages of the battle), usually of 300 litres (66 imp gal; 79 US gal) capacity, the 109s had an endurance of just over an hour and, for the 109E, a 600 km (370 mi) range. Once over Britain, a 109 pilot had to keep an eye on a red "low fuel" light on the instrument panel: once this was illuminated, he was forced to turn back and head for France.
So the german planes were shortrange fighters.
On the other hand the allied fighters could fly to Dreden and later Koenigsberg and back and still could dogfight far longer.
Yes, they carried droptanks but every droptank and fuel weighs and this is a disadvantage in a dogfight.
I compared the ME-109, Spitfire and the P-51 and the ME-109 was lighter than the other planes.
The allied fighters had higher horsepower (ok offsets the weight) but still weight means mass and that has impact on the maneuvers a plane can fly. Remember mass inertia?
So the german fighters should have flown circles around the much heavier allied fighters and downed fighter after fighter and bomber after bomber. But they did not.
I found references that a german plane could outdive allied planes but in climbing and turning the allied planes had the advantage.
The laws of physics were the same to both sides. And both sides knew them.
Did the german fighters carry instead more armor? If yes then the allies could have unloaded lots of ammo at one german fighter and still did not shoot him down. But german fighters were as easily shot down as allied fighters. (and the "Everything has to divebomb" would be close to additional armor as the entire planestructure has to made stronger to resist gravitational forces)
Were the german engines gas guzzling? I found no such thing.
If I look at the fighters I have the impression that the germans were given planes from the planing stage or drawn up by a little boy while the allied were given planes maybe two steps away from production with the mistakes removed and corrected.
Were the germans sabotaged by their own aircraft companies?
So, does anybody know the answer?