In reading about both Goering and Milch I have been picking up bits and pieces of the technical aspect of the air war in defending Germany from British and American bombers and have picked up bits and pieces of it. Namely, that it was more complex than I thought with the process of vectoring in aircraft, the bombers faking direction, radar signals and jamming, and that the air war ebbed and flowed with periods of the bombers getting through fairly easily vs., surprisingly, many periods when the Luftwaffe would adjust tactics and hold the upper hand for a few weeks or a month.
Is there any one good book that describes this technical aspect that anyone can recommend?
Thanks
The two big books for the study of the Luftwaffe are Williamson Murray's A Strategy for Defeat and Volume VII of the Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt's official study, Germany and the Second World War. Both books provide a solid bedrock of the Luftwaffe's organization, strategic direction, and response to events.
For a more detailed look into the defense of the Reich, Donald Caldwell's book Luftwaffe Over Germany: Defense of the Reich co-written with Richard Muller and Day Fighters in Defense of the Reich: A War Diary, 1942-45 may look like the typical pop history book of the German war machine, but they both have a very detailed look at the German air effort. Daniel Uziel's Arming the Luftwaffe: The German Aviation Industry in World War II is a valuable look at the production efforts of the Jagerstab in the latter half of the war and measures the German response to the war situation and how it was quite lacking. Edward B. Westermann's Flak: German Anti-Aircraft Defenses, 1914-1945 is a bit less critical of German efforts than it could be, but nonetheless is a valuable examination of the creation and evolution of Germany's ground-based defenses. Two of the better books on the British side of the equation in the electronics war are Confound and Destroy: 100 Group and the Bomber Support Campaign by Martin Streetly and Martin Bowman's 100 Group (Bomber Support): RAF Bomber Command in World War II.