USSAF Statistics for 1944

[Crumpp]

Just got a bunch of documents from the USAF Historical Archives.

These figures are for USAAF Day fighters ONLY. They do not include the RAF, RCAF, or any other allied air force. They only include the USAAF fighters engaged in western Europe.

Some telling statistics for 1944:

USAAF Day fighter Losses - 4,897 planes lost in air to air combat

Pilots Lost in combat - 2,801

Enemy Aircraft of all types claimed destroyed in Air to Air Combat - 5608

Sorties Flown - 365,284

Escort Sorties - 207,532

Above sortie figures does NOT include 30,706 non-effective sorties that turned back due to weather, technical problems, or other reasons.

Average Number of USAAF fighters vs. Luftwaffe fighters in engagements - 8.6: 1

Total number of sorties flown by the Luftwaffe in all fronts during 1944 - 66,300

Roughly 75 percent of the Luftwaffe day fighters on the Western Front in 1944 were FW-190A's. For the majority of time in 1944, the predominate FW-190 was the FW-190A8.



Discuss please.

[Angus]

Hello
In 1944 I belive the LW lost 2000 aircraft on the eastern front, and 8000 on the western front.
(Air action I think)
Would be great to know more about this.
Nice Idea for thread Crumpp

[Crumpp]

Yeah, those statistics do not include other Allied AF's nor their claims.

8000 A/C total lost = about 3400 destroyed by RAF and other Allied AF's.

Any idea of the RAF losses in Air to Air combat?

Thanks for the info, Angus.

Crumpp

[Angus]

Hello again.
I don't have all the data, I had this from a website.
I have the raw data from the RAF aces only, but again, the RAF as well as the USAAF had so many pilots with a couple of kills.....hundreds...even thousands!
I'll look into the RAF losses, but again, I am sure that this will be a successful thread in bringing data, so just wait.
Guppy perhaps would have some goodies coming.

[Crumpp]

I have the raw data from the RAF aces only, but again, the RAF as well as the USAAF had so many pilots with a couple of kills.....hundreds...even thousands!

Nice!

Actually for every 1000 sorties the Luftwaffe averaged 40.9 allied A/C destroyed.  

For every 1000 sorties the USAAF averaged 12.3 Axis A/C destroyed.

Of course with 8.9 targets a piece on average to choose from....

Looking forward to Guppy's input!

Crumpp

[Guppy35]

Geez, talk about pressure

What you gents looking for RAF or USAAF stuff or both?

I do think it speaks loudly to those LW honchos that somehow survived it all and racked up such high scores.  The amount of targets they saw compared to the average USAAF pilot would have been no comparision.

I remember reading some comment by a 4th FG pilot who saw an enemy aircraft on only one occasion of his tour

Seems to me Yeager said he encountered enemy aircraft only five times during his tour as well.

I know when we argued about when the airwar was won in that one thread I posted those numbers of sorties vs losses and the losses percentage wise were miniscule for the Allies based on the amount of aircraft in the air.

That's the thing that is hard to comprehend is that sky over Europe covered with thousands of aircraft each day.

A couple of things just to throw out there to give a perspective on RAF engagements.

Two squadrons operated the XII from February 43 -September 44.  During that time they claimed 59 enemy aircraft..

I have the logbook of a Canadian Spitfire Pilot who flew with 416, 41 and 91 Squadrons.  In 289 combat sorties, totaling 704.25 hours of combat flying from  December 9, 1941 to August 16, 1944 he saw enemy aircraft 5 times. and was in only one real scrap on July 18, 1943, otherwise it was chasing or evading on the other four occasions.  One he was on a recco and bounced by 190s and outran them.  On two of the others it was seeing 190s that didn't engage and the other one was early on in 1941 chasing a Ju88 that had been over England.

I have to believe that a LW fighter pilot flying in the same time frame on the Western Front, with the same amount of hours would have engaged in combat a heckuva lot more often.

And I have a list of 91 Squadron claims for the entire war from their formation in 1941.  They claimed 73 aircraft in the entire war with their last two kills being in May of 1944.

Pop over to this site:

http://brew.clients.ch/RAF41Sqdn.htm

I've got a lot of my 41 stuff there.  41 was fairly typical of a Fighter Command squadron.  Look at the casualties to all causes during the course of the entire war.  Roughly 180 lost to all causes.

Do the math and average it out for the rest of the squadrons.  

Clearly the RAF and USAAF were target 'deprived' compared to those LW guys.   At the same time I wouldn't want to have been climbing into the cockpit of a 190 or 109 from 43 on as the odds were against them bigtime.

Dan/Slack

[Angus]

Oh, for interest,I have the RAF fighter command losses 1942 and 1943. I had some sport comparing it with LW claims a while ago.
BTW, I have some LW claims on file, and Crumpp has very much of their losses. We could build one hell of an archive!
Will be back with some links later on.

[Crumpp]

Here are some OOB for the Luftwaffe in regards to the FW-190. Do you think we can draw any conclusions on how competitive the A/C was from these statistics?  I am interviewing LW veterans who flew the FW-190A8.  They all claim it was the most nimble version of the FW-190A.  One flew the FW-190A8/R7 "sturmjager" until the unit was disbanded in 1944.  Then he flew the FW-190A8 for the rest of the war.

http://fw190.hobbyvista.com/oob.htm

I know when we argued about when the air war was won in that one thread I posted those numbers of sorties vs. losses and the losses percentage wise were miniscule for the Allies based on the amount of aircraft in the air.

You can compare the number of sorties, losses, and claims in the reports I have. The Luftwaffe was destroyed in a year of intense Allied Pressure marked by spikes of maximum effort once the allies established a 10 to 1 ratio.

We could build one hell of an archive!

I would love to do this.  Sharing information means we can all make better conclusions.

As far as individual pilot stories go, you would surprise Guppy what comes out when you start looking at both sides of the same engagement.

One the FW-190A pilots made an interesting comment.  He says the race for level speed between the FW-190A and the Merlin Spit was won for a short time period by the Spitfire in late 1943.  The FW design team came out with some changes to the fuel injector system and the Kommandgerat that gave the FW-190 the edge again.  This would account for the wide variations we see in documented horsepower of the BMW 801D2. Benefits I guess of having the design team fly the plane in combat themselves as well as constantly meeting with pilots who flew the plane.  Kurt Tank was the flight leader of the Focke Wulf factory defense flight team.  His engineers flew along side him.

Another commented on EW/MW boost systems that they all say they had mounted on their FW-190A8's in 1944.  Only one says he did not use it.  The rest say the extra 200 hp gave them a measure of superiority over the Spitfire IX.  BMW-801D2 would have been a 2250hp engine at FTH in the lower supercharger gear for 10-15 minutes.

The air war was a punch and counterpunch affair as you once commented Guppy.  I don't think the allied pilots where flying around menacing fighters which had no chance performance wise to win the fight.  I think the majority of actual dogfights were decided by pilot skill with each pilot desperately fighting for their lives.  This is punctuated by short time periods were one side does enjoy technical superiority, which is quickly countered by the other side.

There is documentation to back up these pilots' claims on the FW-190A.

Crumpp

[VooDoo]

60K sorties for the whole LW looks strange. Here is another point of view:

1944 - All Combat Types
Total West 182,004
Eastern Front 342,483

As for USAAF losses.

Here:
http://www.au.af.mil/au/afhra/wwwroot/aafsd/aafsd_pdf/t159.pdf
http://www.au.af.mil/au/afhra/wwwroot/aafsd/aafsd_pdf/t160.pdf

You can find another data:

1734 fighters lost to enemy ac (ETO + MTO).

[Scherf]

With some exceptions, many of which are documented elsewhere, LW claim lists have been transcribed from the microfilms by a fellow named Tony Woods and are available on his site:

http://www.tonywood.cjb.net

The claims for 1945 are missing, either destroyed at the end of the war or simply not compiled as the Reich descended into chaos. A recent book has listed out the Nachtjagd claims for '45, I can find reference if needed.

HEALTH WARNING! Attempting to link up claims and losses can cause insanity. I know this to be true since I'm still on medication myself, though I have not been fully cured.

It can be done in some cases, but in swirling daylight battles with aircraft all over the sky, it is all but impossible to build clear links. Generally speaking, it works a little better with night claims.

Crumpp - are you willing to exchange info on claims and losses? I have a file of Mosquito claims which you're welcome to in any case.

Cheers,

Scherf

[Crumpp]

HEALTH WARNING! Attempting to link up claims and losses can cause insanity. I know this to be true since I'm still on medication myself, though I have not been fully cured.

Absolutely, Takes a week to uncross your eyes.

It can be done in some cases, but in swirling daylight battles with aircraft all over the sky, it is all but impossible to build clear links.

Yes but we have found a measure of success in many of the battles analyzed.  One point has come to light.  Mistaken identity was a very common occurance.  

Angus, after our most recent comparision, I found numerous examples of 109's bouncing 190's!  One poor guy was all dirtied up (gear down, flaps, etc..) and on final approach to a Luftwaffe Airfield.  Two 109's from I/JG53 came down out of the clouds and bounced him.  The 190 pilot was killed.

Crumpp - are you willing to exchange info on claims and losses? I have a file of Mosquito claims which you're welcome to in any case.

Yes I would be glad to exchange the info I have but you better buy a copy of my book when it comes out!

Crumpp

[Scherf]

Book? Details? Date? Muahahahahahaahhhaaaaa!  

Done, put me down for a copy.

Email me at markhux@hotmail.com and I'll forward my Mosquito file. All secondary sources you understand, but there is a certain level of consistency among them which allows the duplications and "unlikelies" to be weeded out.

Cheers,

Scherf

[Crumpp]

60K sorties for the whole LW looks strange. Here is another point of view:

What is your source because it looks like you are listing the USAAF sorties instead of the LW.

66,000 comes from a Luftwaffe document.  Considering the number of fighters the Luftwaffe fielded this seems correct.  I posted a link to the OOB's for the Luftwaffe.  You can see from the OOB that even under ideal conditions, the Luftwaffe was never able to launch more than 450-500 fighters in the Air.  The majority of the interceptions conducted involved less than 250 machines up on the entire Western Front. The percentage of these which made contact with the bomber stream depended on the weather and the tactical situation.  It varies from 20 percent or less to up to 80 percent on clear days.

The largest number of fighters the LW was ever able to get up on the air was "Bodenplatte".  The reserves were thrown in as well as  3 Gruppes of the single engine nightfighters.  The Luftwaffe was able to field almost 900 machines.  

This is against a force that averages in 1944 1000+ bombers and 500-700 close escort fighters.  It does not include RAF operations, 9th Tactical Airforce, or USAAF on Fighters on pure fighter missions (sweeps etc..).

The 8.6: 1 ratio is from the USAAF as it the ratio of kills per 1000.

AS for the Fighter A/C fighter losses in Air to Air combat, you are correct. I read a different report which list's total losses in the Air.  I have this report but just have not gotten to it yet.  I have almost 4 linear feet of documentation.  I just finished filing it!

The correct figures should be:

1293 fighters shot down in Air to Air combat

1516 Heavy bombers shot down by enemy fighters

93 medium/light bombers shot down by enemy fighters.

Total USAAF aircraft lost to fighters in 1944 = 2902 A/C shot down by fighters at 8.6: 1 odds.

If you analyze the Luftwaffe casualty figures.  The pre-1943 trained pilots die at a steady attrition rate throughout the war.  It increase slightly the last two years but not dramatically.  The Post-1943 trained pilots have a 98 percent attrition rate.  If they could survive their first 6 missions their chances of surviving the entire war went up astronomically.  Much closer to the pre-1943 pilot attrition rate.

Crumpp

[GScholz]

When did you decide to write a book Crumpp, and what kind of book will it be?

[Crumpp]

Voodoo,

I found it.  Your figures are total sorties of All types.

66,000 is the single engine dayfighters.

Crumpp