USSAF Statistics for 1944

[VooDoo]

Your right! They have peered into the crystal ball and found the number.
I think that they have peered into the german documents.

The number you see in the "sent for repairs" comes from the Geschwader maintenance shop. It is the number of airframes sent to higher maintenace levels for both combat damages, non combat damages, and normal service life repairs/maintenance.
Yes. Damaged planes. Its exactly that Im talking about.

As for the loss column, please review the thread.
Yeah. Its nothing new up there. You still think that lost german planes werent lost and damaged planes werent damaged...

[Crumpp]

I think that they have peered into the german documents.

Yeah the same ones I have.

Yes. Damaged planes. Its exactly that Im talking about

It says nothing about:

1.  Those aircraft repaired in the GESCHWADER maintenance shops.
2.  Those aircraft still in the GESCHWADER maintenance shop.

Yeah. Its nothing new up there. You still think that lost german planes werent lost and damaged planes werent damaged...

No you fail to understand the Luftwaffe accounting procedures and how they effect statistics.  Why do you think this is STILL a major controversy among historians?  

You also seem to think the Luftwaffe was a much bigger organization than it ever was numerically.

Crumpp

[Angus]

That Spitfire vs 190 fight was as we both know, quite possibly no mistake. The question remains from where the 190's came and what type of 190 they were.

The Guncam of the 190 shot down was pretty good, - I at least took it as a 190.

Oh, edit:
I have some tales of misidentification from the allied side. I'll take some time to type it up, and either post or mail it.

I have some as well about incredible mistakes and so on, will post some goodies from that as well

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by Angus
That Spitfire vs 190 fight was as we both know, quite possibly no mistake. The question remains from where the 190's came and what type of 190 they were.

The Guncam of the 190 shot down was pretty good, - I at least took it as a 190.

Oh, edit:
I have some tales of misidentification from the allied side. I'll take some time to type it up, and either post or mail it.

I have some as well about incredible mistakes and so on, will post some goodies from that as well

Did you see the August edition of "After the Battle " Magazine Angus?

Cover story is who shot down Douglas Bader.

No one could ever figure out which German pilot was involved.  Well it turns out, based on some very convincing evidence, he was shot down by one of his Spit pilots who thought he was a 109.  And the Spit pilot was no novice, but one of the Flight Commanders who was also shot down that day later on by Gerd Schoepful of JG26

Buck Casson, of 616 was the pilot in question, and in a 1945 letter to Bader, quoted in full by the author, he describes shooting the tail off a 109 from which the pilot finally was able to escape at about 6000 feet.  An exact description of what happened to Bader.  No LW plane that day suffered the same fate.  Casson had no idea it was Bader, and Bader never commented afterwards, but you have to wonder what he thought when he read the description of that "109" being shot down

Dan/Slack

[MiloMorai]

Originally posted by Crumpp
Ask Angus about that one MTO Spitfire vs FW-190 fight.  No 190 fighters even in theater much less conducting escort of Italian transports.

There was 190s though (even in NA).  So unless you have the records of the 190 units in the MTO, how can you say they did not fly any escort missions.

[Angus]

The "Were not there" will always have to be taken with a grain of salt, - just like that Stuka that was supposed to have been at Stalingrad but was fished out of the med!
I actually looked it up on the net, and it definately lists the whole unit at the Russian front.
(StG 77)

Anyway, very interesting about Bader. Now, if my memory serves me, he himself makes no special note of being hit, and also, not just the tail was missing, but the whole unit behind the cockpit.
Since the wreckage was looked at by the LW (Iron Leg retrieved among things...) I wonder if there are documents about it.
I have the book, "Reach for the Sky" BTW.

[Crumpp]

The "Were not there" will always have to be taken with a grain of salt, - just like that Stuka that was supposed to have been at Stalingrad but was fished out of the med!

I have the records as you know bro.  SKG 10 was the only 190 unit in the MTO at that time.  Their missions for that day was low level strikes against an allied airfield.

If we use Occams razor:

We know that the transports were Italian according to the RAF pilots.

There were no FW-190 fighters in the theater.

The only fighter unit in the theater was escorting SKG 10.

The only fighter units did have transport escort duties 4 days before the date of the encounter.

1.  It was most likely Italian fighters escorting Italian transports.  The Italians did have a radial engine fighter that IMO very easily could have been mistaken for an FW-190.

2.  The RAF intelligence officer changeover cause the date of the action to be recorded wrong and it occurred 4 days earlier.  The Transports were Luftwaffe Ju52's and the fighters were Bf-109's out of JG53.

For the Stuka.  It is much more likely someone transcribed the wrong WerkNummer than the Luftwaffe misplaced an entire StukaGeschwader.

Crumpp

[VooDoo]

Yeah the same ones I have.
And no crystal balls.

It says nothing about :

1. Those aircraft repaired in the GESCHWADER maintenance shops.
2. Those aircraft still in the GESCHWADER maintenance shop.
Maybe its because those planes just wasnt counted at all.

No you fail to understand the Luftwaffe accounting procedures and how they effect statistics. Why do you think this is STILL a major controversy among historians?
Its means that its discussable.

You also seem to think the Luftwaffe was a much bigger organization than it ever was numerically.
No its total strength wasnt so big. Just huge "aircraft flow".

[Crumpp]

No its total strength wasnt so big. Just huge "aircraft flow".

From where??  Have you copy of the monthly production and delivery figures?  Compared to the Allies for sure.  They had 10 times the fighters not to mention other types of Aircraft!  
A war of attrition is about loss rate to size.  If both airforces are lossing the same amount of planes then the larger force will win.

Maybe its because those planes just wasnt counted at all.

Yes the problem is that they can be counted in the loss section for one day and then returned to the full flight status.  In other words they are not a loss yet they are recorded as one simply because of minor damage.  
This is the third time this has been explained.
 

Its means that its discussable.

Not when you spend 3/4's of your time explaining the same thing over and over.

Crumpp

[Angus]

Umm.

"There were no FW-190 fighters in the theater.

The only fighter unit in the theater was escorting SKG 10. "


There were 190's in Sicily as we know.
There were also 190 ground attack aircraft right?

We know some bits of what did happen, but we have a lot of bits that we don't know about.
That's the headache of the whole deal.
So, I'd take that with a grain of salt, that's all.

BTW, I belive that Stuka was properly marked to StG77. The museum tried to find out about where it belonged to, and came out with the eastern front.
I tried here:
http://www.ww2.dk
and came out with the eastern front.
So, missing papers, or whatever the cause, what was registered was wrong. It took a whole wreckage to discover it though.

[Crumpp]

There were 190's in Sicily as we know.

There were no 190's in Sicily, either bro.  The only FW-190 unit in the MTO was one SKG.  You did the claim, loss, and OOB document I sent you right?  Look through it and it lists the units in theater at that time.

This is what the 190's did that day:

III/SKG 10 attacked Souk el Ariba with an escort of JG53 109's.  On the return flight they were bounced by Spitfires from 111 Squadron and 72 Squadron.  1 x 109 went down and 1 Spitfire was claimed by the 190's.  F/O Clark's chute failed to open and he was killed (poor guy).  After escaping the Spitfires III/SKG 10 shot up a light anti-aircraft gun and landed at 1945 hours.

Think I found your mystery Stuka as well.

On 18.10.43 II/ SG77 became III/SG10.  They were in southern Russia (Black Sea) and exchanged their Stukas for FW-190's.  The Ferry route back to the Reich for their Ju 87's would have taken them over the Med.  In November a direct route up through russia, Eastern Europe, and finally Germany risked weeks of weather delays.  The probably went Greece, Italy, Southern France, and then Germany.  Slightly longer flight but much less of a weather risk in November.

We know some bits of what did happen, but we have a lot of bits that we don't know about.

Very true.  Some of it we just have to piece together.

Crumpp

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by Angus
The "Were not there" will always have to be taken with a grain of salt, - just like that Stuka that was supposed to have been at Stalingrad but was fished out of the med!
I actually looked it up on the net, and it definately lists the whole unit at the Russian front.
(StG 77)

Anyway, very interesting about Bader. Now, if my memory serves me, he himself makes no special note of being hit, and also, not just the tail was missing, but the whole unit behind the cockpit.
Since the wreckage was looked at by the LW (Iron Leg retrieved among things...) I wonder if there are documents about it.
I have the book, "Reach for the Sky" BTW.

The aircraft came down fairly intact and was only surface wreckage.  Bader when he met with Galland and his boys insisted on meeting the guy who shot him down.  Galland had no idea and none of the claims his pilots made matched with Bader's shoot down.  Initially Bader thought he had collided with a 109.  But no 109s were lost that day to collision.  Both 109 losses were claimed by other Spitfires.  One of them possibily could have been the one Casson claimed to have shot down.  They excavated it, but it had it's tail still  attached.

Conjecture, since both Bader and Casson have passed away is that Bader may have realized what happened after reading Casson's letter in 1945 but saw no reason to point out the similarities to protect Casson, who clearly had no idea he'd shot down a Spit by mistake.

Dan/Slack

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by Crumpp
There were no 190's in Sicily, either bro.  The only FW-190 unit in the MTO was one SKG.  You did the claim, loss, and OOB document I sent you right?  Look through it and it lists the units in theater at that time.

This is what the 190's did that day:

III/SKG 10 attacked Souk el Ariba with an escort of JG53 109's.  On the return flight they were bounced by Spitfires from 111 Squadron and 72 Squadron.  1 x 109 went down and 1 Spitfire was claimed by the 190's.  F/O Clark's chute failed to open and he was killed (poor guy).  After escaping the Spitfires III/SKG 10 shot up a light anti-aircraft gun and landed at 1945 hours.

Think I found your mystery Stuka as well.

On 18.10.43 II/ SG77 became III/SG10.  They were in southern Russia and exchanged their Stukas for FW-190's.  The Ferry route back to the Reich for their Ju 87's would have taken them over the Med.
Crumpp

You sure about the 190s in Sicily bit Crumpp?

79th Fighter Group put two 190s they found on Sicily back in the air.

Image included here is a 190 with a couple of 350th FG pilots next to it also in the Med.  I can post the photos of the 190s the 79th FG had flyable at the time too.  Thought they were fairly well known

Dan/Slack

[Crumpp]

You sure about the 190s in Sicily bit Crumpp?

Yes I am.

Not during the time period we are talking about of 16 April 1943.  After Tunisia fell then you see FW-190's in Sicily that belong to ground attack units.

Thought they were fairly well known

Yes and the FW-190A5/U4's were captured much later after ZG 2 and SKG 10 left Tunisia for Sicily.

Guppy I wasn't claiming 190's never were in Sicily.  I would be glad to email the documents to prove it.

Crumpp

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by Crumpp
Yes I am.

Not during the time period we are talking about of 16 April 1943.  After Tunisia fell then you see FW-190's in Sicily that belong to ground attack units.



Yes and the FW-190A5/U4's were captured much later after ZG 2 and SKG 10 left Tunisia for Sicily.

Guppy I wasn't claiming 190's never were in Sicily.  I would be glad to email the documents to prove it.

Crumpp

No prob Crumpp.  I looked through the posts to see if there was a specific time frame you were after and clearly I missed it.  

I'm not of the impression that you are making this up as you go along

Thanks for the clarification.  I did see a mention in 109 Aces of the Med that II/JG2 arrived with 190Asin the Med in response to Operation Torch in late 42-early 43 operating out of Tunisia.  Does that fall under the time frame?

Dan/Slack