NAZI AIR FORCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 February 1941, Page 9

NAZI AIR FORCE

I PROBABLE STRENGTH. I 11 ‘ SOME AMERICAN ESTIMATES I REJECTED. I ■ j j <l3y Telegraph—Press Association.! I LONDON. February 1. ! j Describing as nonsensical the ; j Americans' estimates of a German air j I strength amounting to 70.000 military! i aircraft, the "Sunday Times' " aeronau- ’ tical correspondent analyses the Luft-1 waffe's likely striking power and con-j eludes that even if the German war-1 planes today total 40.000. only about! 9000 could be combat machcines cap- j able of operating at any given moment, i This number, of which half would! be bombers, could be used against j Britain only if Germany were free j from all other commitments and able' to concentrate her entire force for a* single blow, but she dare net risk ; withdrawing planes from Poland. Italy! and the Balkans. Therefore, the writer! states, she will be lucky if she can | launch an attack with 6000 planes. j The correspondent estimates the, Luftwaffe's total strength at 24.000 j first-line planes, behind which lie a | reserve pool and unfinished machines j and also about 5000 training machines j making an absolute grand total of j 40.000. against which must be set the j likely total of losses since the outbreak j of the war. 24,000 —6000 confirmed ! victories plus accidents, unrecorded j victories and training losses. Germany : was now estimated to be building 1400 i to 1600 first-line pianos a month, and j she had thus constructed about the j same number as she had lost. Therefore, the Luftwaffe had not • expanded, a conclusion supported by' the fact that Germany has not used more !' an 2500 planes on any one day. oven during the worst periods of the blitz.