The losses suffered by III./JG 52 aren't particulary surprising to me. First the Gruppe itself was "brand-new", having been formed from scratch only in March 1940, secondly according to the literature I own it didn't see much combat before the fateful combats in late July 1940 and last but not least the Gruppe was pretty much exclusively engaged in close escort missions for Stukas. Which meant you had a very inexperienced Gruppe chained to abysmally slow Stukas ... a hideous tactical position. Of course losing the Gruppenkommandeur and two Staffelkapitäne within days was a particularly nasty string of bad luck but in itself the losses aren't surprising.
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07-07-2011, 12:53 PM
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