IMO, fighters and flak work together. The Bombers stay in tight formation because of the fighters and this increases the effectiveness of flak. Flak can break up the formations, allowing fighters to attack the Bombers leaving the formations.

Iirc at the end of the war Germany had still lots of aircraft but not enough fuel and qualified pilots, so building more fighters without addressing that first would have been rather futile. And it was easier to train a flak gunner than a pilot.

As the Allies pushed the Germans into a smaller and smaller box, the density of flak guns increased, making flak ever so much more dangerous. My father, who was shot down in a B-17 over Stuttgart in September of 43, said he flew into the flak to avoid the fighters. A FW 190 eventually brought him down. The turbocharger on the #3 engine seized up, and he fell behind.

You have to remember that all those flak guns were also used against the RAF night raids, where “day” fighters could not be used to any great degree.

I dont think flak gets enough credit. So much emphasis goes to the fighters and the "aces", but the real value of flak,, and the ground based air defense network in general was in making bombers less efficient. By forcing bombers to come in at 25-30k feet, flak significantly reduces the accuracy of bombing. This also requires extra fuel, and reduces bomb capacity. The point of air defense is to keep bombs off the target. Forcing half the bombers to miss the target is of more value than shooting down 2% of them.

Fighters require well-trained pilots, mechanics and ground crew; also, lots of POL. Radar-directed flak guns require some specialized people to run the radar, but less skilled people to do the loading and shooting.

The German leadership thought that flak had a huge effect on civilian morale, hence the emphasis on more flak batteries. Fighter interception, especially at altitude, weren't seen by the populace, and had a corresponding low effect on morale. I would love to see you explore one of the flak towers that still stand in Berlin.

FlaK . . . . . And now I've watched the video. I've recently viewed a couple of generally reliable sources that estimate 85% of bomber casualties were inflicted by FlaK. Now I see that that figure aligns pretty closely with the Damaged figure, 900+ vs 100 or so shot down. Some of these damaged aircraft would have required long-term repairs or possibly could have never returned to service even though they returned to their bases, and this would certainly have been counted as "losses" by the 8th AF. There's a serious lesson here about how to apply raw data to reach meaningful findings, and you've done a hell of a job with a difficult and subjective subject. Great job, and thank you for putting in the effort!

My wife's grandfather would probably argue it was coordination between fighters and Flak. His B-17 was initially wounded by flak over target and then suffered additional damage that brought it down by fighters since it couldn't stay in formation. All but one of his crew would become POW.

One big advantage of FlaK you somewhat ommited, is that the FlaK battery is 24/7 service that is not, at least once it is radar aimed, concerned with pesky things like weather or day time.

Fighters didn't have enough fuel or skill pilots. They HAD to make more flak. Flak crew got experience without suffering many casualties.

I wonder if anyone on a flak battery ever called out "kill steal" if a fighter swooped in lol

My father's B-17 was hit by flack forcing everyone to jump out of the stricken plane. B17 name was Miss Manookie and he spent 13 months as a prisoner in concentration camp. He hit the ground, passed out and came to, to a farmer with a pitchfork on his chest. Came home to New Orleans in 45, married my mother in 47 and had three babies between 1948 thru 1950. I am the 1950 baby boy. Other babies were girls. My story was without incident. Active duty from 1970-74 in USAF.

One point not covered: The lower the targeted bomber flies, the more accurate is the flak: low-altitude bombing is suicidal. So flak forced the bombers to fly high -typically above 6000 metres - from where bombing would be inaccurate. Thus, flak played a valuable defensive role even when it failed to destroy bombers. By forcing the bombers into a relatively narrow altitude band near their ceiling, flak also made the location of bombers by fighter aircraft outside the flak zones more predictable.

I think it was the force of gravity.

The fighters, that’s why once they started having the fighter escorts that where allowed to engage the German fighters losses dropped noticeably.

Very interesting analysis, Chris. Additional fighters would have required additional fuel which was already an issue late in the war. Maybe more fighters could have better defended the refineries, but it would also have meant significantly higher fuel consumption, especially considering training the additional pilots for the additional planes.

The US bomber crew members that I met in the 60's, 70's and 80's overwhelmingly expressed a fear of flak over fighters. The impression I got was that this was mostly psychological in nature--they hated flak because there was no way to "shoot back," as opposed to fighters, which a crew possessed weapons to fight back.

I'm 55 and I grew up listening to stories from my neighbors who were WW2 veterans. From Navy to Army Air Force I talked to grunts, cooks n pilots. Every single bomber crewman I spoke to said when it came down to it they did not worry about the AA as much as fighters. Several of them had been shot down or had aircraft severely damaged. When they would tell us neighborhood kids a story you could always see it in their eyes and hear it in their voice when they started to talk about "Fighters started to come in at us"... We were so lucky to be kids and listen to their stories.

One consideration in figuring out effectiveness, is that a bomber over the target would probably force defensive fighters out so the flak could operate. Any damage by the flak could make the bomber's capabilities in self defense be reduced and a fighter later could pick off the wounded bomber. Thus a counted fighter kill would really be more of a collaboration kill.

What a fantastic and illuminating video. I admire how you explain your conclusions with hard data. The opportunity costs of AA production relative to fighter production was something that I found extremely interesting. Very well done.

I think the Allies have to be extremely thankful that the Germans didn't develop proximity fuses for their flak guns. If the Germans had such fuzing for their 88 mm flak guns, Allied losses would have been close to catastrophic because the flak bursts would have been much more accurate against bombers.

When the Luftwaffe had enough well-experienced pilots (up to the end of 1943) it was evident that the fighters were far more effective than the Flak. The proportion of 3.000 shells per destroyed bomber says everything. The Flak was ridiculously expensive in terms of material and manpower.

Tough Question. But I think the most often overlooked toll-taker was first Formation Form-Ups, especially in fog or bad weather. Veteran Air Crews I've talked to at Air Shows all stated they were beyond terrified of mid-air collisions. Of course, we saw how the recent B-17/P-39 accident showed the world how quickly everything can go wrong.

I remember years ago finding some US Army air corps (USAAC) after war documents saying (rounding numbers) that 60% of USAAC bombers were brought down by flak and 40% by fighters. An approach the USAAC would vary altitude every 45 seconds but when they were actually on the bombing run they had to maintain a constant altitude. They were very susceptible on that part of their approach to flak.

I have long thought that anything that delayed D-Day increased the chance of the Iron Curtain being on the Rhine instead of central Germany.

The Tizard mission in 1940 gave British technology to the US including: the cavity magnetron, the design for the proximity VT fuse, details of Frank Whittle's jet engine and the Frisch-Peierls memorandum and MAUD Report describing the feasibility of an atomic bomb, designs for rockets, superchargers, gyroscopic gunsights, submarine detection devices, self-sealing fuel tanks, plastic explosives and others.

I would really like to see an analysis of how effective defensive aircraft armaments were against attacking fighters.

I have read a great deal about the brilliant Luftwaffe Oberst (Colonel) Josef Kammhuber who was put in charge of Germany's air defenses against the RAF's night bombing raids in 1940. The combined air defense organization he designed used everything Germany had, from the meager Freya/Wurtzburg radar installations to the flak batteries to the night fighters. Kammhuber's air defenses were so formidable it almost brought RAF bombing to a complete halt more than once. One tactic originated by Kammhuber that worked particularly well was to send over fighters timed to be over British airfields when the bombers were taking off and landing. But eventually the two fuddy duddies Hitler and Goering, in a truly stupid move, put a stop to the night airfield raids...their reason being, Hitler thought the "enemy planes should be destroyed over Germany, where the people on the ground can see them falling out of the sky in flames, for morale purposes"! Kammhuber's fighter pilots were racking up large kill scores, and there was even talk among RAF bomber command that the bombing raids might have to stand down, until some counter to the night fighters could be created. Fortunately for the RAF though, Hitler did their work for them as, incredibly, Hitler sent away almost all Kammhuber's fighter force to the Mediterranean theater!

WWII US Bombers channel went into this a while back. The numbers from sources he used were like yours, showing the initial high danger of fighters. The same period you pointed out in mid-1944 showed decreased fighter effectiveness while flak threat soared. Obviously many reasons behind the downfall of Luftwaffe fighter strength. You could do a whole video on that alone. The bombers tied up a lot of German resources and manpower. All the personnel tied to fighter defense, flak gun crews for air defense of the Reich. So much gun and shell production dedicated purely for defense of Germany and not at the front. I remember reading of more fighter strength being taken from the frontlines to fight over Germany itself. So many of these 88 flak guns not at the frontlines. All this while the Soviet and Western Allied air power got stronger and stronger.

It’s always interesting for me when Germans examine specific elements of the Second World War objectively and subjectively. It’s eerie to hear the reminder, “of course it was a good thing we lost the war!” Born to immigrants to the U.S., I happen to be half German (East Prussian) on my mother’s side. My maternal grandfather, a farmer with four young children, was conscripted into the Wehrmacht in late 1944 / early 1945. Returning to their farm briefly-he strongly considered desertion, but the couple decided he faced better odds on the retreating Russian front (just miles away) than at the end of a rope. He bid her farewell before setting off East towards the sounds of artillery in the distance. Meanwhile, his wife and children headed to the northwest, in order to flee the Russian advance. Once she and the four young children reached the Baltic Sea, they were able to board a coal ship. Making landfall in Denmark, they were placed in a refugee camp. Shortly after the war, she learned that her husband did not survive. A fellow soldier wrote her to say that he had been a fellow POW with my grandfather-that he died of disease and neglect in a camp somewhere in Lithuania. Meanwhile, her youngest, my mother’s one year old sister had fallen ill. She was buried along with several other refugee children who died that day. My grandmother remarried a kind Danish man. They immigrated to the U.S. in 1954. My grandmother would speak to us of the wonderful farm she left behind in East Prussia. Konigsberg became Kaliningrad after the war. She died in California in 1993 at the age of 79. It’s amazing that her three children, my mother and two brothers, are all still alive, retirees in their 80’s. In 2016, I accompanied my mother in an attempt to find her family’s old farmland in Kaliningrad. A Russian man we met via Facebook drove to retrieve us from the other side of Kaliningrad’s border with Poland. While we were probably just a kilometer from the farm, it was a fascinating trip-my mother’s first time back to the region since 1945. Many of the area’s Russian transplants (all since the war’s end) have a curious connection to East Prussia history. They would just assume refer to the region as Konigsberg. As for the man who drove us around: I would trust him with my life and consider him my brother. He is not happy with the current state of affairs.

My father enlisted in the Army Air Corps (1942), age 18, and served as a gunner and radio operator on B-17s. He was assigned to the 8th Air Force in England and flew 35 combat missions over Europe. Including one shown as "SECRET" on his papers. The records for many crew members were lost during a fire at Fort Benjamin Harrison. His brother, age 20, was a Navy aviator flying in the Pacific area: his plane was shot down . The bad news was wired to the family, who were surprised three months later when he walked in the front door in his Navy uniform. My father had left the service at the end of the war and worked as a TV/Radio engineer. He was called back to duty for the Korean conflict but didn’t have to deploy; and stayed with the new US Air Force. He retired in 1968 after 26 years of active duty and died in 1976. Both brothers are buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Regards

Every time I hear criticism of the Allied Strategic bombing campaign I refer these critics to the fact that over 2 million personnel and thousands of 88mm guns were deployed to defend the Reich. These were assets that could have been used elsewhere. As for the Jagdwaffe - Big Week. ‘Nuff said. Loving your work Chris (as always) 👍👍

50% flak 30% Luftwaffe fighter planes 20% friendly fire

Anything that stood in the way of Me262 production and Me262 assignment as a defensive fighter was a huge mistake.

Flak gunners included one future Pope so that was quite a buff for them

The synergy is important. The fighters took down bombers out of range of the flak. Fighters were mobile and could be sent to wherever the bombers were, flak guarded ONE area and AA systems around Berlin could not assist AA over Dresden.

Flak killed more American and British bombers, but mainly because Allied escort fighters and bombing of fighter factories eliminated the German fighters as a major threat by late 1944. My father flew as a navigator in a B-17 in the 15th Air Force out of Foggia, Italy attacking targets in northern Italy, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bavaria. He told me that he was never attacked by German fighters but he was very lightly wounded (requiring only a band aid) from Flak Shrapnel.

My uncle was a 27 year old B-26 copilot who was downed by FLAK over the Mediterranean in 1943. Five of the six crew members drowned. I am the last who remembers him. He was the pride of the family. Many crews were lost. Flying a bomber was extremely dangerous.

Chris, can you do a video on how effective the FW190 was in shooting down bombers compared to the BF109? I read that the FW190 was a real terror to the bombers.

I have heard that in 1944 Germany was drowning (so to speak) in fighter aircraft, but was suffering huge shortages of fuel and pilots which made a large portion of these reserves useless. It’s hard to tell if more fighters were produced in 1942-43, whether it could’ve temporarily halted the US bomber offensive earlier. It’s entirely possible, but I don’t think it would’ve had much of an impact on when the war ended.

Shout out to "WWII US Bombers" for covering the answer to your question in his video "Where to armor on the B-17 bombers to reduce losses: Surprising Combat Study Results"

Back in the late 60's I knew a missionary in Brazil that had been a belly gunner in a B17 out of England. He related that at one time his flight got a new pilot and he wanted to get better mileage so the belly turret was removed and a sheet of metal was placed over the space. On that day they went on a bombing run over Belgium. His job was to assist one of the side gunners. During the run he casually looked at the sheet metal and there was a three-and-a-half inch hole right in the middle. He looked up and saw another three-and-a-half inch hole in the ceiling of the aircraft. An 88 shell had just run through the aircraft. Had his flight still had the previous pilot he would have been in the belly turret. His life had been spared by events and a merciful God.

more fighters are nice but could the luftwaffle actually field enough pilots to use those additional airframes? The support personnel and resources needed for a fighter only have some overlap with the resources needed to produce and support a flak battery.

Can you talk about the importance of allied ground mapping radar on bombers like the H2X system, how it worked, how wide spread it was, what percentage of bombs were dropped using the Norden sight vs the H2X radar?

When I was in the US Army in Schweinfurt, Germany in 1965 - early 66 a mid 40's former German Luftwaffe soldier joined our unit. After a few months in the unit he mentioned that he was in a Flak unit in WWII and that his gun had shot down 28 bombers. He said they were all British . . .

Excellent video ! You only mentioned once that I heard - that the Achilles Heel of the German aircraft arm was the dearth of fuel. You did mention this indirectly, showing the large increase in fighter production later in the war, without increasing operational sorties. Well done !

3000 shells on average to take down a single heavy bomber? Was it even worth it to even bother building up an elaborate system of Flak if it takes such a sheer amount of it to take them down.

I'd say that conclusion was borne out by the US Navy's experience in the Pacific Theaer, to use a comparison that doesn't draw upon more modern technology. Where valuable aircraft carriers and air bases on land were defended not only by their fighter wings but, even as air superiority over the IJN and IJA became more and more pronounced, batteries of heavy AA guns as well.

There is also the complex consideration of a flak damaged bomber then being a good target for fighters. MRAmptech also brings up the fighters press the bombers into tight groups which are good targets for flak vs dispersed to avoid flak being vulnerable to fighters. We can be sure of one thing though: The defending Germans were also asking this question and we see that they came up with.

My mother was 19 and ran away from her WWII war job making shells in North Carolina. She re appeared in Seattle as a doctor's receptionist.

my vote Gravity and loss of lift

I have further questions to your flak stats. How many of those guns were 88s? I don’t think I missed it but, I don’t recall seeing if there was a disclaimer towards that. Also, let’s assume your flak stats were based on 88s, were those numbers you showed, purely manufactured for the purposes of anti-air, or just all around 88mm production?

great video. Only thing I thought it missed was fuel. Of course, transporting flak guns and huge shell volumes and their production precursors would require fuel as well, but far less of the critical aviation gasoline that the allies targeted and the germans needed so badly

Love the deep dive into flak. I've always wondered how much impact flak had on the war.

Flak for sure, the fighters were in short supply and fuel was scarce.

I came in expecting fighters to win out but i wasn't expecting the breakdown of why that I got. While flak damage causes attrition, shoot downs prevent bombs from getting to targets and completely remove airframes from the war. While in theory the aircrews could be recovered, they would be shot down over hostile waters/territory and thus likely captured. However, the breakdown of aluminum usage is a real eye opener. Way too much aluminum went into exploding shells compared to airframes. The lack of resources and the poor allocation of them ensured germany lost the war before it even started. Thank god for that.

I've often heard the point that (expected) Flak fire during a bombing run forced bomber formations to a higher altitude where Flak is less effective, thus limiting the accuracy of bombing on target. Is this true? Was this a beneficial factor for WW2 german Flak?

I read recently about the number of 88's withdrawn from the Eastern front for Flak defences of the Reich , if I remember correctly it was in the order of 6,000 units. These were not then available for anti tank use against the masses of T34's being deployed by the Russians.

Two comments: 1) any statistical analysis that would downplay the losses due to fighters would tend to downplay the US P51 narrative. 2) its hard to attribute the losses to just one cause. For example fighters picked off bombers previously wounded by flak.

Hi, as always very nice presentation. I was wondering though should fuel consumption / availability be part of fighter effectiveness?

Another very intelligent and well presented analysis; I appreciate that this is about the USAAF, and the day light raids. If we consider that the air war was on at night as well, I think that this analysis would benefit from examining who did the damage to RAF night raids, and the results combined to give an overall picture. After all you did start by asking who downed more Allied bomber planes, not USAAF ones....

A complicated answer dependant on all sorts of variables. Impacts to this out come include Hitler declaring war on the USA, refusing to reduce bomber production, preventing use of the Me262 earlier, not going to full war capacity earlier, lack if R&D of new fighter designs etc.

On more fighter aircraft, Germany pilot training was too much time per pilot trainee. This led to fighter without trained pilots in late 1944 and 1945. In other areas germany had trouble producing enough engines for the aircraft they already fielded.

My fathers friend was a turet gunner on a bombing run over Germany on Christmas eve day when his plane was knocked out. As a result of flak fire, the crew bailed out. And he managed to survive but Some of the crew were shot dead by German soldiers as they landed, and he was spared because a German officer came up fired his pistol in the air. And ordered them to stop.... a it was a fascinating story to hear from the man himself

Hi Chris, I'm looking forward to this, but don't forget to show the B24 liberator some love in the thumbnails 😢, its not all about the B17😂 but does tie in nicely with Masters of the Air😁. from a fellow Chris.

I had read years ago that fighters were more effective and believed it so I won't comment on that, but I found the idea that flak uses a large amount of aluminum interesting. Do we know exactly where does it all go, do we have a breakdown? From my own knowledge of production possibility frontiers I would instinctively surmise that flak and fighters were only minimally in competition for resources, interesting video Chris!

Boeings quality assurance team ;=P

Another key consideration is that flak crews had significantly lower training requirement to achieve basic combat effectiveness compared with fighters. I think you got it right with better to focus more on fighters (particularly training pilots) in 42-43, then shift to flak. The benefits of that approach are not only maximising the fighter combat outputs (i.e kills) in that time period, but also front-loads the training burden when the economy could better accommodate it, and reduces the impact that crew losses would have on the Luftwaffe by '44, buying a few precious months. Once fuel shortages become a key limiting factor on not only operations but training and the Luftwaffe goes into the doom loop of pilot losses leading to inexperienced replacements which in turn are lost at higher rates, the return on investment from flak increases. Additionally from a data analysis POV, on the fighter lethality slide, don't forget to include the caveat of increased numbers of bombers, which directly effects both axis and exacerbates the divergence between the two; the percentage hit data needs to factor in the greater proportion of targets (bombers) and is not simply reflective of increased lethality (although increasingly larger cannons etc are certainly a factor, it can't be directly inferred from that data set)

But what about trained personell? In many reports it is stated, that there were not enough well trained pilots, but most times there were enough planes. I believe it is easier to train good Flak personell and keep it alive during missions, than to create good pilots and mechanics. Anyway I appreciate your work!

Flak had the issue that you could under fly it. German flak had a altitude / time fuse. So they basically set at which height they knew bombers would fly in and shelled the area. The incoming bombers had orders to vary their height & course every so and so mins as the Flak needed travel time. So it became a guessing game

Allies are darned lucky the Germans didn't develop the proximity fuse. If they had the fighters could have focused more on their intended purpose, coordinated support for tactical ground operations. Those Germans would have also probably figured out a way to miniaturize the fuse into the Me 262 30 mm rounds for the MK 108 cannon ensuring damage for every round fired.

Germany's greatest mistake is instigating a total war against opponents who were far better at it.

I could not imagine how terrifying it would have been to fly a bomber through the heavy clouds of flack while having a super bright spotlight flooding the interior of the bomber. The sound and visuals must have been psychological and physical hell.

Good analysis. Very thorough and thoughtful.

The amount of metal and explosive material slammed into the sky around the world during the war is for sure super wild. Tons over tons.

In the 1970's amazing series "World at War" Albert Speer himself is talking about the volume of guns, ammo and personnel allocated to AA guns. I do not remeber the numbers by heart, but it were tens of thousands of heavy guns, and something like a 1M of personnel, so, in his words - by sheer numbers - it WAS a front of its own.

Couple of things about flak the moral of civilians was helped by the firing of the guns and flak didn't need fuel like fighters once emplaced.

My question is why didn’t the allies have guns in some of the bombers to shoot down at the flak positions? They were, after all, static, probably easy to spot, and manned in the open. They could have had specific planes equipped with the right heavy equipment to do this in each bomber group. This would have impacted the effectiveness of the ground positions, raising casualties, and causing the Germans to harden their AA batteries or disperse them.

There is a significant difference between day and night. During the daytime, it is relatively easy to use fast, light, and agile single-engine fighters. In contrast, at nighttime, they needed much heavier and less agile double-engine planes with a lot of radio equipment and a two- or three-man crew.

Great video! In my work on Eagles over Husky the data and anecdotal evidence suggested multiple of your conclusions. Flak damaged more aircraft but fighters destroyed more (data from 12th Air Force / NASAF) in the Med in summer 1943.

An excellent analysis. One aspect that wasn’t mentioned when talking about the amount of personnel needed for flak is that one could probably train a personal to operate a flak gun in one or two weeks of training, whereas for a pilot to be somewhat competent would be anywhere from six months to a year, along with the need for a lot more competent mechanics. also, because of the level of training from 1943 onwards, the number of aircraft losses from combat was nearly equaled by the number of aircraft losses do to training accidents not to mention the number of pilots that would possibly killed.

Germany was trying to develop proximity fuses. They tried several technologies, including acoustic.

These videos are why I love your channel, thank you for looking into the factors and meanings behind historical statistics! My questions are: Would there be a sufficient number of trained pilots to operate a significantly larger fighter force at the same cost-benefit ratio as the force actually employed? Was a drastic increase in Flak production a better or worse use of available manpower in terms of cost-benefit vs. time to become effective?

first time watching your channel. Very impressive work, and interesting. Thanks for your dedication

Flak is static and can only be used to defend a certain area or flightpath, while fighters can be combined in bigger and stronger groups and be used to intercept an incoming air raid. In that sense you can compare flak to the atlantic wall, spread to thinly and requiring a huge amount of resources. A bigger fighter group would probably have been more effective (in the day).

I still have a piece of flak that my grandfather pulled from an allied bomber in WWII. I'm not sure if he flew on that one, or was only working on it. Most of his time was spent as a mechanic but he did fly on one or two sorties.

There are a couple other benefits to Flak: 1) It can push the enemy to higher altitudes that can make it harder to hit targets. 2) Because it's more distant, it's harder to fight against compared to fighters that have to show themselves and get close to do the job. 3) It is easier for Flak to provide ongoing coverage of an area because it doesn't have to worry about fuel, crew fatigue, and traveling to-and-from the fight. 4) Crews are easier to find and train than pilots who have to be physically able to fly, taught to fly, and then taught specifically to fly fighters. It doesn't make them better than fighters, becaus fighters: 1) Have the advantage of being able to focus their attention on a single target and adjust their fire to improve the odds of bringing it down. 2) Can also cover a wider area of territory, making it harder to fly around their defenses. 3) Aren't thrown off by periodic changes in heading and altitude like Flak can be. (How many of those thousands of rounds used by Flak to shoot down one plane are because they detonated in empty air simply because the bombers shifted course between when the rounds were fired and when the rounds arrived at the aiming point?) Done carefully, these two could be an effective pairing. I think that, if the fighters suffered from not being made a priority, it was not being made a priority among aircraft types sooner.

On a related note many people don't know that late in the war German HC went ballistic for so many bombing runs making it through. The very next day many German pilots continued their attack runs DURING intense flak attacks. Previously they withdrew when the bombers flew through flak bubbles. After that point I wonder how many German planes were shot down by friendly fire.

Speaking with an old FW190 pilot at a long-ago German wedding, he credited :"Our crazy trigger happy flak crews! They shot ME down twice." There you have it. Guy was also the father of the bride!

He didn't really answer the starting question on what destroyed more bombers? Would also be interested in how many fighters both sides lost during bomber defense missions... might be tough to get a reliable count?

A few points that are not touched in the video: - Flak is both used during day and night / Regular Fighter plane can't (only night fighter with limited use can). - One of the reason why fighter effectiveness got lowered in 1944 was due to the Allied fighter getting better operational ranges allowing them to escort the bombers much further than before. - Flak gunners are much easier to train than pilots and don't get killed during bombing run, unlike fighter pilots.

This video surprised the hell out of me. My intuition had always been that flak was more effective than fighters. This is simply because so much of our work in the field of history has had the effect of minimizing the contributions of heroic individuals--like, the individual soldier has no effect, but an artillery battery has a great effect, etc. I figured that a "heroic fighter ace" would be ineffective in comparison to an anonymous flak battery. It's actually kind of cool to learn it went the other way around.

How would flak change if they started to use Doppelzünder FLAK shells, the double fuze shells where they also have an impact fuze? I've read that it would improve the kill count to something nearing proximity shells, but I'm very skeptical of that. Your thoughts?

Did you ever pick up a shell fragment? Jagged, razor sharp and pretty hot. Helped you visualise what damage it had done!

The problem with this sort of comparison is that the role of air defence isn't really to shoot down, or even damage bombers. It's to prevent the bombers hitting their targets. Fighters often shot down bombers on their return home, which whilst overall helpful to the campaign is a bit late if your vital factory is now a smoking ruin. Heavy flak around key targets was certainly more useful in this respect, making aiming more difficult and damage assessment a challenge, even if nothing was ever shot down

Well, survivor bios here too about wounding crew. Naturally if bomber shut down - all crew lost, no wounded reported. Arguably though, biggest problem was not a airplanes production, but experienced pilots. And it was no source for that. Especially - no fuel for training.

I think you underestimated that FLAK just requires unskilled labour, for the most part. Some specialists for the RADAR, one grown man to feed the gun, the rest can be 14 year old boys. Compare that to the specialists needed to keep a modern fighter aircraft in the air. To the fuel. To the hundreds of hours of training a pilot needs. Guns require more steel, but less qualified people.

17:05 Please explain: How is aluminum used in the production of flak? What part of the gun or the ammunition is made of aluminum?

The research and lecture were outstanding. My compliments to the author. We all know the difficulty in post-war research, but the author did a good job in qualifying the data. A most interesting presentation. Pretty good cost-effectiveness analysis too.