Bounced!
‘Some you win…………..’
Unlike the RAF and USAF the Luftwaffe did not rotate their aircrew and in the later stages of WW2 the Luftwaffe achieved a grossly imbalanced mix of very combat ‘savvy’ crews and ’newbies’. The image depicts a Luftwaffe pair of FW 190s bounced by prowling P51s, the battle hardened ‘experten’ immediately pulling into a hard break while the inexperienced pilot falls easy prey. The survivability of these superlative pilots is seen in the make-up of the post war Luftwaffe when Johannes Steinhoff, with 176 air combat victories, was appointed the first CinC of the post-war Luftwaffe.
Unlike the RAF and USAF the Luftwaffe did not rotate their aircrew and in the later stages of WW2 the Luftwaffe achieved a grossly imbalanced mix of very combat ‘savvy’ crews and ’newbies’. The image depicts a Luftwaffe pair of FW 190s bounced by prowling P51s, the battle hardened ‘experten’ immediately pulling into a hard break while the inexperienced pilot falls easy prey. The survivability of these superlative pilots is seen in the make-up of the post war Luftwaffe when Johannes Steinhoff, with 176 air combat victories, was appointed the first CinC of the post-war Luftwaffe.
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