16. An Aggressive Change in Tactics That Created Many an American Ace Over German Skies
German Focke-Wulf Fw 190s had it even worse than the Bf 109s when they tried to penetrate the protective screen of P-51s in order to get at the bombers. While the 109s at least had engines that were suited for high altitude dog fighting, the Fw 190s did not have even that. Fw 190 radial engines were no match for the Mustangs’ Rolls Royce engines at high altitudes. That combined with the dilemma of needing heavy armaments in order to shoot down heavy bombers, even as those heavy armaments reduced their ability to take on enemy fighters not similarly encumbered. It placed the Fw 190s found themselves at a severe disadvantage against the P-51s. After months of heavy losses to the Mustangs, and unsustainable attrition that bled the German fighter arm white, the Luftwaffe effectively ceded the skies over Germany to the P-51 escorted bombers.
German fighters eventually began to shadow bomber formations, without attacking them. Instead, they pounced on stragglers with mechanical malfunctions or damaged by flak. The P-51s begrudged them even that, and would not allow the once proud Luftwaffe to skulk and scavenge in peace. If German fighters would not come up to fight them, then they would go down to find and fight the German fighters. When Jimmy Doolittle, of Tokyo Raid fame, was appointed to command the Eighth Air Force, he was not content with simply protecting the bombers. Instead, he sought to achieve aerial supremacy over German skies. To do that, he changed the orders that had required escorting fighters to stick with the bombers at all times, and freed them to sweep far ahead of the formations to engage any Germans they could find. Seemingly overnight, many an American P-51 ace was created.
