From Bergström: An Il-2 Shturmovik myth

[leonid]

The following post was made in the Russian Military Forum by Christer Bergström, author of the definitive volumes of the "Black Cross-Red Star" series:


One of the most common misconceptions regarding the air war on teh Eastern Front is the notion of the Il-2 as always sustaining an almost unbearable loss rate.

I have made a brief summary and comparison of the Il-2 and the heavy bombers of U.S. 8th Air Force. The reason why I chose the latter is that it is widely acknowledged that these aircraft were fairly difficult to shoot down.

In the most difficult period, 22 June 1941 - 1 July 1942, the Il-2 loss rate was a terrible 7.7 % (one lost in every 13 sorties).

But after that, the Il-2’s loss rate declined.

The period 1 August 1942 - 1 June 1943 was the second worst for the Il-2, with an average loss rate of 3.85 % (one lost in every 26 sorties).

Interestingly, during the same period (1 August 1942 - 1 June 1943), the average loss rate for the U.S. 8th AF heavy bombers was higher - a staggering 5.1 % (one lost in every 19 sorties).

The loss rate in the Il-2 units dropped from then onward.

More interesting comparisons can be made with the heavy bombers of U.S. 8th AF:

Through 1944, a total of 4,100 Il-2s were lost in combat - compared with the 8,800 at hand on 1 January 1944, i.e. the yearly loss was 47 % of the number of aircraft available at the beginning of the year.

U.S. 8th AF: Through 1944, total of 3,497 heavy bombers were lost in combat - compared with the 1,686 heavy bombers at hand on 1 January 1944, i.e. the yearly loss was 207 % of the number of aircraft available at the beginning of the year.

If we compare the yearly loss for 1944 with the number of aircraft available at the end of the year, we get these relations:

Il-2: 40 % (10,200 available on 31 Dec 1944)
8th AF HBs: 94 % (3,706 available on 31 Dec 1944)

In 1945, the Soviet Air Force had an average loss rate of 0.6 %, while the 8th AF heavy bombers had an average loss rate of 1.15 %.

These relations are even more remarkable in view of the fact that the Soviet most of the time were faced with a stronger - or vastly stronger - German fighter opposition than the Western Allies were. The elite of the Luftwaffe always was concentrated against the Soviets, and the Allies were quite fortunate to be spared a confrontation with the best of the Luftwaffe.

All best,

Christer Bergström


_____________________________
Interesting data and assessment.

-leonid

[Krusty]

Apples and Oranges. The USAF heavy bombers were not "hard" to shoot down, per se. They had to fly straight and level at high alts and at slow speeds and MOST of those losses came from teh flak, the horrible horrible flak.

On the other hand the IL2 was a close support plane, diving and attacking the Jabo way. Probably most losses were a combination of MG/cannon, whether in fighters or in trucks/static positions.


It *is* interesting to compare, but it doesn't really mean anything

[B17Skull12]

the German pilots called it the concrete plane because it could take so much damage and still fly.  in the B17 you had so muchless armour the only thing that kept you from going down eaily was the size of the plane.

[Arlo]

I'm sure the IL-2 was devistatingly fantastic. But ... point of order here .... how is the opinion that the Luftwaffe's cream of the crop was specifically used on the Eastern front arrived at other than number of kills and the assumption that the Soviet airforce fielded nothing but equal or superior planes and pilots in comparison to their western allies?

[Sable]

Originally posted by leonid
The following post was made in the Russian Military Forum by Christer Bergstr?author of the definitive volumes of the "Black Cross-Red Star" series:


These relations are even more remarkable in view of the fact that the Soviet most of the time were faced with a stronger - or vastly stronger - German fighter opposition than the Western Allies were. The elite of the Luftwaffe always was concentrated against the Soviets, and the Allies were quite fortunate to be spared a confrontation with the best of the Luftwaffe.

All best,

Christer Bergstr?

_____________________________
Interesting data and assessment.

-leonid

The soviet's faced stronger fighter opposition from the Luftwaffe then the western allies did?  By spring 1943 when the USAAF was starting to launch B-17 raids against Germany itself there were around the same number of single engined day fighters deployed in Germany and France (facing the USAAF) as there were on the entire Russian Front.  The balance of Luftwaffe fighter deployment continued to swing towards the Western front for the rest of the war.  

And to say that the Luftwaffe pilot quality in the East was higher then in the West is laughable.  While the Ostfront aces may have had higher scores, when transferred to the west they struggled almost without exception.  When I/JG26 was transferred temporarily to the East in early '43 they had a field day, scoring 126 victories vs. 9 losses.  Kurt Buhligen of JG2 commented that every pilot sent to him from the eastern front was lost in the West.

And almost without fail, the Luftwaffe deployed their newest equipment in the West.  The first Fw190's were deployed with JG26 and JG2 in France in the fall of 1941 and it was nearly a year before FW190's were deployed in the east.  Western units were also the first to recieve the Fw190D-9.  And of course the Me163 and Me262 were brought into action against the western allies first.

[B17Skull12]

the 190 was effective in the winter when the Me109's could start because readiator fuild froze, while the Fw had no such thing because the engine was aircooled.  Also not the mention the fact of the quality of soviet fight pilots compared to British.

[Wotan]

C. Bergstrom is correct. The rest of you are just regurgitating Myths.

Fighter Combat in the East and the West - A Comparison

Quotes from that artical.

"Jochen" Müncheberg, Galland's protegé in JG 26, arrived to JG 51 on the Eastern Front in August 1942. He was shot down twice in four weeks. Siegfried Schnell, who achieved 87 victories against the RAF and the USAAF, arrived to JG 54 on the Eastern Front in February 1944; two weeks later he was killed in combat with Soviet fighters. "Assi" Hahn was shot down by a Soviet La-5, and ended up in captivity three months after he arrived to the Eastern Front; he had previously scored 68 victories against the French Air Force and the RAF. Oberstleutnant Hannes Trautloft, "Assi" Hahn's Geschwaderkommodore on the Eastern Front, recorded this statement by "Assi" Hahn regarding the quality of the Soviet opposition three months after Hahn's arrival to the Eastern Front:

"Hahn told me that the air combats are not easier, but instead harder than what he previously had experienced. He, who is used to merciless air combats against a skillful enemy over the English Channel, told us that he had to mobilize all his skills to fight enemies who proved to be at least as killful as the Englishmen."

One famous Eastern Front expert who "changed fronts" is Günther Rall, who after 273 victories and over 700 combat missions (almost all on the Eastern Front) in the Spring of 1944 was shifted to JG 11 in the Home Defense. Indeed, Rall was shot down and wounded by Thunderbolts from U.S. 56 FG on May 12, 1944. But this was not until he had shot down two of the Thunderbolts himself - and in an air battle where 470 German fighters were pinned against fifteen hundred American planes, including 814 heavy bombers and 735 fighters. This was the ninth time Rall got shot down - eight of which had occurred on the Eastern Front. Asked about his opinion on the American and Soviet fighter pilots, Rall said: "The Americans weren't better than the Russians. The Russians were aggressive and tough opponents."

Ernst-Wilhelm Reinert had carried out around 500 combat sorties and achieved 103 victories on the Eastern Front in 1941-1942 when he was shifted to Tunisia. Between January 1943 and early May 1943, he was credited with fifty victories against the USAAF and the RAF - quite comparable to the success rate achieved by other top aces on the Eastern Front at that time, and also comparable to the rate of successes that he had achieved against inferior equipped Soviets. Heinz Bär arrived from the Eastern Front to North Africa in October 1942 and shot down twenty RAF and USAAF fighters in two months - about the same rate of successes that he had scored previously on the Eastern Front. Theodor Weissenberger arrived to the "Normandie Front" in June 1944, after almost three years of service on the Eastern Front; he claimed twenty-five US and British fighters in only twenty-six combat sorties in June and July 1944 - his previous twenty-two victories had been achieved on twenty-five combat sorties on the Eastern Front. And we all know how Hartmann dealt with the US Mustangs...

The LW in the east had much more time in the air and in combat sorties actually fighting VVS fighters. For the most part in the West the LW priority was the bombers and for the most were not tasked with destroying the USAAF fighter forces.

Th exception was in NA were LW fighters mostly went after allied fighters. A look at the kill claims in NA it would appear the LW wasn't to concerned with bombers in NA.

One German fighter ace and Knight's Cross holder (he expressed the wish of remaining anonymous) expressed the impression that the Soviet airmen were better than the Americans (this was regarding the US airmen in North Africa in 1942). This is supported by Alfred Grislawski, who - speaking of the last Soviet pilots that he met (in the spring of 1943) compared to the American pilots that he met later in 1943 and in 1944 - said: "It is hard to compare because the Americans always came in large numbers against few of us. But when it comes to the individual pilot, I regard the Russians as better than the Americans. This is only natural, because the Americans had this tour system. How much did they fly - thirty or forty combat missions? - and then they were called back home again. They never accumulated that much experience."

"The advantage of the Americans was that they always appeared in large numbers," is a common statement from former Luftwaffe aces.

It is a fact that the most experienced and most successful fighter aces on the Allied side in WW II were the Soviet top aces.* It is interesting to note that the P-39 Airacobra was rejected by both RAF and USAAF pilots. Soviet ace Aleksandr Pokryshkin nevertheless achieved the bulk of his 59 personal (plus several "shared") victories while piloting an Airacobra, which by all means was vastly inferior to the Bf 109 G and the Fw 190 A - and to the Spitfire IX, the Mustangs, and the Thunderbolts that the British and US fighter pilots manned.

In 1941, Soviet ace Boris Safonov achieved his first sixteen victories (plus six "shared" victories) while piloting an I-16 Ishak. Although the performance of the I-16 has been belittled in several Western accounts (comparing test flights made by a New Zealand test pilot in recent years indicated that the I-16 was slightly superior to the British Hurricane), it is clear that the I-16 was vastly inferior to the Bf 109s with which it was opposed. It is easy to imagine which successes Safonov would have been able to achieve, had he been equipped with a Spitfire, and had he operated within the frameworks of a radar-supported fighter control system like RAF Fighter Command in 1940.

[Crumpp]

I agree Wotan.

What made the Western Front so "hard" for the LW was the fact they had no real strategic defense, doctrine, or effective bomber interceptors.  

Simply put the LW was a tactical air force designed to grab and hold the Airspace over an Army and support that Army with "flying artillery".

Several things made the western front "hard".

1.  The allied heavies put the Luftwaffe in a predicament.  If you carry enough weapons and armour to destroy enough bombers to stop the raids you cannot fight off the escort fighter.

If you fly light enough to fight off the escort fighters then you cannot shoot down enough bombers to stop the raids.

2.  The Luftwaffe high command recognized the Danger way too late to develop effective countermeasures.  Therefore the Luftwaffe had to develop it's tactics under a numerically superior opponent.  The Principals of War can be manipulated and used to overcome numerical superiority.  Not having the numbers AND not having effective tactical answers spells doom.

3.  Altitude - It's easy to underestimate the problems of high altitude combat or the importance of oxygen delivery systems to that combat.  The Luftwaffe had the best O2 systems for much of the war.  A lack of latex hampered further improvement.  

4. Numbers - For some reason the Luftwaffe never fielded that large of force of single engine day fighters in the West until it was way too late.  In May '44 the total number of FW-190 single engine fighters in the entire Luftwaffe was 265 Airplanes.

The majority of the Fighters Strength in the West was FW-190's.

The JG's with two or more Gruppen of FW-190's:

JG 1
JG 11
JG54 ( Two Gruppes in the East, One Gruppe in the West - all 190 )

JG2
JG26

With only one Gruppe 190's

JG300
JG3 (Sturm)

The Eastern Front was more "tailored" for the Luftwaffe.  It was a tactical Air War for the most part.  Exactly what the Luftwaffe was trained and designed to fight.  Did not make it "easier" or less deadly.

Crumpp

[Wotan]

Link to original thread btw

http://www.network54.com/Forum/message?forumid=116312&messageid=1093125473

[ra]

Through 1944, a total of 4,100 Il-2s were lost in combat - compared with the 8,800 at hand on 1 January 1944, i.e. the yearly loss was 47 % of the number of aircraft available at the beginning of the year.

U.S. 8th AF: Through 1944, total of 3,497 heavy bombers were lost in combat - compared with the 1,686 heavy bombers at hand on 1 January 1944, i.e. the yearly loss was 207 % of the number of aircraft available at the beginning of the year.
 

I've seen statistics butchered before, but this takes the cake.

[MiloMorai]

Denes' post was interesting.

Here are the Il-2 loss statistics, as found in Hans Seidl's book on VVS aces:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Year--Total Losses--Losses to enemy action--% of strength at hand
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1941--1,100--600--73.3
1942--2,600--1,800--34.2
1943--7,200--3,900--45.0
1944--8,900--4,100--46.6
1945--3,800--2,000--27.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Total: 23,600--12,400--70.3

from http://www.butler98.freeserve.co.uk/thtrlosses.htm

 1. During the period in question, a constant 21-24% of the Luftwaffe's day fighters were based in the East - but only 12-14% of the Luftwaffe day fighter "losses" occurred in this theater.

2. During this period, a constant 75-78% of the day fighters were based in the West. The turnover was enormous: 14,720 aircraft were "lost", while operational strength averaged 1364.

3. During this period, 2294 day fighters were "lost" in the East; the ratio of western "losses" to eastern "losses" was thus 14,720/2294 = 6.4 to one.

4. During this period, a constant 43-46% of all of the Luftwaffe's operational aircraft were based in the East. It should be noted that these included entire categories (for example, battlefield recce, battle planes, dive bombers) that were used exclusively in the East, because they couldn't survive in the West..

5. During this period, a total of 8600 operational aircraft were "lost" in the East, while 27,060 were "lost" in the West; the ratio of western "losses" to eastern "losses" was thus 27,060/8600 = 3.41 to one.



Ageed ra, someone has an agenda, comparing all Soviet Air Force to only the 8th AF heavy bomber losses.

"In 1945, the Soviet Air Force had an average loss rate of 0.6 %, while the 8th AF heavy bombers had an average loss rate of 1.15 %.
These relations are even more remarkable in view of the fact that the Soviet most of the time were faced with a stronger - or vastly stronger - German fighter opposition than the Western Allies were. The elite of the Luftwaffe always was concentrated against the Soviets, and the Allies were quite fortunate to be spared a confrontation with the best of the Luftwaffe."

USAAF stats can be found here, http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/afhra/wwwroot/aafsd/aafsd_index_table.html

Crumpp, you did not mention the JG300, 001, 002 units which mostly had 109s. http://www.ww2.dk/ A complete listing of LW units in the West for the time period (1944) would be useful.

[Seeker]

Crump; you make good points; but how different was the task the LW faced against the Allied heavies compared to the RAF's task in 1940?

Surely the same lessons apply for the Battle of the Riech as for the Battle of Britain?

They lost both.

[Angus]

The LW lost 4 fighters on the western front for every 1 on the eastern front in 1944. What does that tell you?
The LW lost more fighters on the western front in 1940 than on the eastern front in 1944. What does that tell you.

Bergström quotes Rall. I never saw that quote before, however, several times Rall has quoted that life was more dangerous to the LW pilot on the western front, the factors being better pilots, better planes, and better tactics.
However, the toughness was more on the eastern front, shot down LW pilots were frequently executed, while if they got captured by the western allies, they would be handled well.
I actually asked Rall about this personally. He said something of this sort, but also that the russians learned their lessons and late in the war there was not much difference anymore, they had adapted to the same tactics as the others.

[Edbert]

Look closely at Milo's chart...

Late 43 the LW had 56.4% of its forces in the west and they suffered almost 75% casualties, versus 25% casualties in the east.

Early 44 they increased their presence to 78.4% of their force and lost an even higher precentage (76.9%), compared to a reduced loss rate in the east of 23.3%.

Jun-Oct 44 they spread themselves out more, only 53.5% was stationed in the west, their loss rate stayed near 75%, just as their loss rate in the east stayed at about a thrid of that.

+++++++++
This does not indicate anything about the individual skills of the VVS pilots versus their USAF/RAF counterparts. But it speaks volumes with regards to the overall effectiveness of the respective air forces.

Just as the Russian ground forces largely detroyed the German ground forces, the Western Airforces largely destroyed the Luftwaffe.

I see no point to the agendas by those who wish to claim otherwise.

[bozon]

This is only natural, because the Americans had this tour system. How much did they fly - thirty or forty combat missions? - and then they were called back home again. They never accumulated that much experience."

Probably very true.

What the americans had going for them, both in ETO and PTO is tactics not individual skills. I am no expert, but from all the reading about WWII air combat I got the impression that the americans we the most flexible and innovative in their tactics - both wingman tactics, and general fighting tactics. When I read american aces stories, I actually get the impression of very dweebish flying. RAF aces tell of twisting and turning at treetops and much ACM. American aces tell about flying fast and diving into clouds out of trouble and banging a bandit in pairs.

just an impression.
Bozon