"BUFDRVR" wrote in message
...
Brooks wrote:

Yeah, but they did NOT have plenty of fighters stationed forward to use
that
fuel to deal with the invasion force. They had retained the bulk of their
fighter force to protect against the strategic onslaught against Germany,

Absolutely, I used ground air defense assets as an example of syphoned
resources, but fighters were just as big a factor.

IIRC, their Wehrmacht units of 1944 *were* understrength in terms of both
equipment and manpower--they had been forced to cut the number of sub-units
in divisions, Panzer and Panzer-Grenadier divisions did not have near the
number of tanks they had in previous years, etc. Given that the German
government had been forced to increase production of anti-aircraft armament
(and was already resource constrained), and assign many more men to work in
AAA units, by '44, I'd posit that the strategic offensive *did* have a
definite effect in terms of reducing the available manpower and equipment
resources for their ground forces as well.

Brooks


and IIRC by the summer of 1944 they were already suffering the strategic
campaign's attrition effects in terms of training of replacement pilots
to
take the place of those they had lost, a large part of which were lost
defending against the 8th AF and RAF BC.

Absolutely.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it
harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"