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Off the top of my head Ill try to answer some of your questions. 1, Hitler vastly underestimated the importance of Northern Africa and the ME. His original idea was to just support the Italians in Libya, but Rommel had other ideas. Hitler never gave Rommel the numbers or quality of equipment, and enough men, needed for the Africa Corp to succeed. Be that as it may they almost did anyway. Also the Brit navy and air force made a major dent in the Med supply convoys going to the AC and Rommel. The Germans too had good success interdicting British supplys but this started to change in 1942 with the impact of American entry into the war.

1b, I dont know. I'd have to say the Germans cause they lost the war. In war "winning" is the only thing.

The Luftwaffe had superiority in the battle of Britain too. The Brits just used their fighters smarter, had radar, and the 109s had a limited loiter time over Britain. The Germans probably started loseing air superiority in 1943, with the arrival of the Americans, and thru attrition in Russia. The P-51 mustang sealed their fate as the Germans were forced to engage them to get to the bombers. The Mustang pilots thumped them pretty good and the Luftwaffe could never replace the losses of planes or pilots. A major blunder was Hitler insisting the new jet ME-262 be a bomber instead of a fighter, thus delaying its impact on the air war.

2b, Before American entry into the war the Germans probably had more airplanes in theatre, and even if they didnt, they used them more effectively. Starting in 1942 the Allies regained control of the air and never lost it. Much of this was due to Hitlers stupidly not moveing to take Malta. Malta was like a huge aircraft carrier that controlled the Med and Malta based aircraft took a huge toll on German and Italian convoys and U-boats. Hitlers eyes were to the East and he never supplied his Africa Corp properly. He had many , many fighters and bombers available post-Greece but he short changed Rommel and used them in Barbarossa. The war in North Africa became largely a "supply" war. The side that got in numbers of supplys would go on the offensive until they ran out, then, the other side. Its amazeing Rommel went as far, and fought as long, as he did.

The Germans had more, and in some aspects , better aircraft the the Brits. There air superiority in NW Europe during the ground war "1940" is unquestioned. Its true the Brits were effective in Night time bombing operations, but the 1,000 bomber raids didnt happen until 1942, were only marginally effective, weren't much more then terror bombing operations tho there was some success in damaging industry.

When I said the "Luftwaffe had air superiority in the Battle of Britain" I didnt answer in literal terms. In many aspects Dave is right, when speaking in a classic sense, air superiority could be called what we had over Iraq in the first night of Desert Storm, shortly after that we had supremacy. In 1940, during the fall of France, there is absolutely no doubt the Luftwaffe had air superiority in the battle space. A factor in this was the Brits holding many of their spitfires back to protect the homeland, but its unquestioned that after one week the Germans had superiority, after the 2nd week they had supremacy.

"""""the Allies were conducting operations at will over German held territory from 1939 until the German offensive began in 1940 as well as through out 1941 and 1942. """"""

I think your vastly overstating British bomber activity in 1939, even 1940. The 1,000 bomber raids didnt start until 1942. In retrospect Id have to agree, again in a classic sense, that the Germans never gained air superiority over England during the war. It could be argued, at least with bombers, they gave better then they got until 1941. But theres no question that terror bombing the Brits had no effect on their ability to make war. If anything it stiffened their resolve and when the Germans switched tactics to terror bombing of cities they made a huge tactical/strategic error.

The allies never really had air superiority over Germany until 1944. The Americans took huge losses in their bomber fleet in '42 and '43 using daylight precision tactics. The deployment of the P-51 started turning the tide. The Brits, at night, never had air superiority in their bombing campaign. German night fighters and flak took a fearsome toll of Brit night bombers. In any event, the Brits were able to replace their losses. The Germans couldn't! Not only that but Hitler squandered his air force assets thruout the war, and he delayed ME-262 deployment.

It could be argued that neither side ever had air superiority over enemy homeland sky's until the last few months of the war, the exception being France in 1940, and Russia 1941/'42 . I never considered the bombing offensive over Germany, by either the Yanks in the day, or the Brits at night, to be a great success. Bombers losses during the day were fearsome and the technology for pin point bombing just wasn't there. Night time bombing by the Brits was reduced to "area bombing" only and had very limited success against German industry, tho it improved with the introduction of "window" and incendiary devices. Falk and night fighters took a heavy toll on them too.

In the end it was probably worth it. It helped beat the Germans down and even if German production actually increased during the bomber offensive who knows what production goals they would have been able to meet if the offensive never happened.