# Air forces losses in WWII



## Vincenzo (May 29, 2008)

i'm looking infos on air forces losses in WWII like that can see Army Air Forces Statistical Digest - World War II for USAAF some can help me?

i found this for raf bomber command BC Main Page

i found this for us naval aviation Naval Aviation Publications


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## Flyboy2 (May 29, 2008)

Casualties of World War Two by Branch of Service 
Country Branch of service Number served Killed/missing Wounded Prisoner of war Percent killed 
-Germany Air Force[6,333-335] 2,500,000 433,000 17.32% 
-Japan[1,254] Army 6,300,000 1,526,000 85,600 30,000 24.22% 
-United States Army Air Forces(included in Army[69]) (3,400,000) (88,119) (17,360) 2.5% 
[hide]Casualties of World War Two by Branch of Service 

World War II casualties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Aircraft losses
Finland: Reported losses during the Winter War totaled 67, of which 42 were operational, while 536 aircraft were lost during the Continuation War, of which 209 were operational losses. (Overall 603).[1] 
France: From the beginning of the war until the capitulation of France in 1940, 892 aircraft were lost, of which 413 were in action and 234 were on the ground. Losses included 508 fighters and 218 bombers.(Overall 892)[1] 
Germany: Estimated total losses for the war totaled 27,875 aircraft, of which 7,000 were total losses and the remainder significantly damaged. By type, losses totaled 4,452 fighters, 2,037 bombers, 5,428 trainers, 1,221 twin-engine fighters, 8,548 ground attack, 3,733 reconnaissance, and 3,141 transports.[1] 
Italy: Total losses were 5,272 aircraft, of which 3,269 were lost in combat. 
Japan: Estimates vary from 35,000 to 50,000 total losses, with about 20,000 lost operationally.[2] 
Netherlands: Total losses were 81 aircraft during the May, 1940 campaign.[2] 
Poland: Total losses were 398 destroyed, including 116 fighters, 112 dive bombers, 81 reconnaissance aircraft, 36 bombers, 21 sea planes, and 9 transports.[2] 
Soviet Union: Total losses were over 106,400 including 88,300 combat types.[3] 
United Kingdom: Total losses in Europe were 22,010, including 10,045 fighters and 11,965 bombers. (This figure does not include aircraft lost in Asia or the Pacific.)[2] 
United States: Total losses were nearly 45,000, including 22,951 operational losses (18,418 in Europe and 4,533 in the Pacific).[2] 
Equipment losses in World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hope this helps


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## Kruska (May 30, 2008)

I wouldn’t want to get into that thread, because latest by evaluating losses during the BoB, it would turn into an endless statistic debate.

Regards
Kruska


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## Vincenzo (May 30, 2008)

thanks for help flyboy but wikipedia is not a reliabity source
for kruska i wan't start a debate i want links at official or quasi official statistic orf air forces losses (i talking of aircrafts), everyman reading the source can have him opinion (with some salt grain obvsiosly)


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## Trautloft (May 30, 2008)

i'd be interested in the numbers of fighters and bombers lost (USAAF) per type like
P-39
P-40
P-51

etc.
anyone sources or links please?


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## red admiral (May 30, 2008)

```
Type	Sorties	Bombs Dropped Tons	Combat losses	Kills in air	Kills on ground
P-39	  30547	     121	     107	     14	       18
A-36	  23373	     8014	     177	    84	       17
P-40	  67059	     11014	     553	    481	       40
P-47	  42343      113963	    3077	   3082	    3202
P-61	  3637	      141	       25	       58	     0
P-38	  129849     20139	    1758	   1771	        749
P-51	  213873     5668	     2520	   4950	        4131
```


```
Loss Rate	Kill Rate	Kill/Loss
P-39	0.4	         0.0	        13.1
A-36	0.8	         0.4	        47.5
P-40	0.8	         0.7	        87.0
P-47	0.7	         0.7	        100.2
P-61	0.7	         1.6	        232.0
P-38	1.4	         1.4	        100.7
P-51	1.2	         2.3	         196.4
```

From Francis Dean's America's 100,000


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## drgondog (May 30, 2008)

red admiral said:


> ```
> Type	Sorties	Bombs Dropped Tons	Combat losses	Kills in air	Kills on ground
> P-39	  30547	     121	     107	     14	       18
> A-36	  23373	     8014	     177	    84	       17
> ...



I suspect a digit was dropped on the P-47 sorties. 423,000 vs 42,300

I also often wonder what the source is for sorties. I have discovered that sortie statistics range from excellent to non-existant when researching individual fighter groups - much less by different types (i.e P-47 sorties versus P-51 for the 355th FG are given in aggragate but not separately).

I assume 'combat losses' refer to all Operational losses except flying accidents and ground accidents - but does your reference state its definitions?

So what sources does your reference point to?


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## Trautloft (Jun 2, 2008)

thanks alot,thats exactly what i been lookin for since years!!


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## Trautloft (Jun 2, 2008)

i should ask it in one of the p-61 topics,but you might know it- what caused the combat loss of 25 black widows? combat means to me ,flak,or enemy a/c ,not operational like crashes or accidents. since it was introduced very late and faced almost no opposition at all, it been told on many places/sources that only a single one been shot down (or a few but not 25). was it nightfighters,or flak? its just a random question,thanks again,great link


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## drgondog (Jun 4, 2008)

Trautloft said:


> i should ask it in one of the p-61 topics,but you might know it- what caused the combat loss of 25 black widows? combat means to me ,flak,or enemy a/c ,not operational like crashes or accidents. since it was introduced very late and faced almost no opposition at all, it been told on many places/sources that only a single one been shot down (or a few but not 25). was it nightfighters,or flak? its just a random question,thanks again,great link



A combat ops loss could include wether, loss of control, mechanical, fuel, coolant, structural, flak, ground or tree collision, flak - away from the UK on a mission..

If an aircraft crashed after take off, or during a test hop, or rat racing around the field, or a structiural failure on a gunnery range - it was a flying accident.

If a collision occurred on the ground, etc - it was a Ground accident.

The latter two categories aren't in 'combat ops'


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## GregP (Mar 28, 2013)

Regarding post # 7, I found several references to P-47 combat sorties as 423,435. 

Just FYI and probably worth what you paid for it. - Greg


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## GregP (Mar 28, 2013)

Please note the list below has been revised to include ground kills for teh USAAC because the Navy indluded ground kills in their tally.

I spent some time compiling statistics for US aircraft types used in WWII. I used the report entitled Naval Aviation Combat Statistics – World War II compiled by the US Navy in the winter of 1945 – 1946 as one source and the US Army Air Forces Statistical Digest as the other source. Both are US Government documents detailing combat statistics for the USA in WWII.

The Navy broke out combat losses into losses on action sorties and losses not on action sorties. Further, they broke out action losses as losses to A/A, to enemy aircraft, and to operational losses on action sorties. That’s where they get the 19 : 1 kill to loss ratio for the Hellcat. The Hellcat destroyed 5,163 enemy aircraft and had only 270 losses to enemy aircraft. That is, in fact, 19 : 1. But if you add in losses to A/A (553) and to operations on action sorties (340), the losses in combat were 1,163, not 270. Also, ground kills are included for the Hellcat in this number, after checking on it, so the 19: 1 is somewhat misleading. I have seen a total in the AIR for the Hellcat and it is over 4,000, but I can't find that just now.

The US Army Air Forces listed combat losses only with no breakout.

To make things equal, I decided to compile the combat sorties, combat losses to all causes, and all kills in the air or on the ground. The list came out as shown below.

View attachment 229266



Note the Hellcat still has the top combat kill to combat loss ratio at 4.4 followed by the Mustang at 3.6. Next comes the Wildcat at 3.3 and the Corsair at 2.8, then the Black Widow at 2.3 and the Thunderbolt at 2.0. 

I'm sure tahth if the roles were reversed, and if the Thunderbolt had been tasked with more fighter versus fighter and less ground and vice versa for the Mustang, the numbers might have changed. But we are left with what actually DID happen and it is what it is. This is no "what if."

For Combat Loss Percent per Sortie, the safest was the P-39, followed by the P-61 and P-47. The most dangerous was the Wildcat followed by the Hellcat and the Lightning. The Mustang is about in the middle. No surprise that Navy fighters were more dangerous … can’t glide in for a safe landing on the ocean, can you? The Thunderbolt flew about twice the sorties of the Mustang and was safer by 40% or so.

Please note that these are for COMBAT sorties. Non-action sorties and non-combat-related flights of all kinds are excluded … just performance in combat. 

Looks like if you wanted to be safe, fly a P-39 or a Thunderbolt and if you wanted to make ace, fly a Hellcat or a Mustang.

Hello any moderator! I can't seem to get tghe lower image to go away. The correct list is in color and the black and whiote list needs to disappear!


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## drgondog (Mar 29, 2013)

GregP said:


> I spent some time compiling statistics for US aircraft types used in WWII. I used the report entitled Naval Aviation Combat Statistics – World War II compiled by the US Navy in the winter of 1945 – 1946 as one source and the US Army Air Forces Statistical Digest as the other source. Both are US Government documents detailing combat statistics for the USA in WWII.
> 
> The Navy broke out combat losses into losses on action sorties and losses not on action sorties. Further, they broke out action losses as losses to A/A, to enemy aircraft, and to operational losses on action sorties. That’s where they get the 19 : 1 kill to loss ratio for the Hellcat. The Hellcat shot down 5,163 enemy aircraft and had only 270 losses to enemy aircraft. That is, in fact, 19 : 1. But if you add in losses to A/A (553) and to operations on action sorties (340), the losses in combat were 1,163, not 270.
> 
> ...



Taking strafing victory credits from the P-51 list in the ETO is very misleading regarding operational losses to combined victory credits. 41% of all 8th AF P-51 Losses (All causes) in ETO were due to strafing but they accounted for 78% of all German aircraft on the ground (3204 to 4106). In contrast the 8th AF P-47 accounted for 18% of Ground credits for 32% (200 to 612) of their operational Loss Totals.

The Mustang in the 8th AF lost approximately 569 P-51s strafing out of 1380 Total - All causes including flying accidents but destroyed 3204 on the ground for those losses... so your decision to leave out ground victory credits when compiling your tables fails to take into account the extraordinary risks the Mustangs were exposed to in the ETO and the Operational Loss rate due to that environment. By contrast the P-47 lost 214 while strafing for 740 VC's.

Take out the strafing credits and losses due to strafingfor the Mustang derives an 8th AF Operational Ratio of (3315/(1380-569) of 4.1:1 air to all Ops loss ratio. I haven't finished tabulating the 9th AF Operational losses but their air to air ratio was about the same with 354th and the PRU groups skewing higher while the 363rd was lower.

As to Mustang Operational totals for air victory credits in your tables.

Air to air the 8th AF Mustang had 3313 vs 322 losses, and 4179 vs 402 for 9th and 8th AF combined.

Your air victory credits are about 600+ shy of USAF 85 for all theatres and do not include RAF totals.

IIRC the MTO had about 900+ and PTO/CBI added another 600+


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## airminded88 (Mar 29, 2013)

Gentlemen those are great statistics to look at and analyze.

Thank you very much for sharing them with the forum


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## GregP (Mar 29, 2013)

Hi Drgondog,

Since you posted your reply, I went back and looked closely at the definitions in the report. It seems that they did include ground kills, so I will go back and revisit the kill column and repost the revised list. 

I did not remove straffing losses because they were not broken out, so the loss column is correct as is the sorties column. That will have the effect of moving the effective combat kill ratio up for the USAAC aircraft. If I had spent the time in the definitions section earlier, I'd not have excluded the ground kills for the USAAC. 

Somebody slap me.

Looking at them both again, the USAAC shows air and ground kills separately and the Navy doesn't, but the Navy breaks out losses much more than the USAAC does. I already got this task done and the new list (in color) is posted. I'm trying to have a moderator remove the old list as I can't seem to do so.

I revised the post rather than post a new second list. That way, there SHOULD BE only one list and it's apples to apples, with no chance for someone to get the wrong one for their records.

Thanks for objecting ... this time. 

At least we're closing in on a list that is reasonable for US aircraft even though we're not there yet. 

Now if we could only get this type of data for the rest of the countries. I doubt if anyone will ever have data of this type for the Soviet Union, but I could be wrong. If anyone knows where a unified list of German, British, Japanese victories can be found, please post the link or reference. As I recall, the Japanese didn't even keep official victory tallies and most were reconstructed from war diaries after the war. At least that is what was written in the 1960's.


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## GregP (Mar 29, 2013)

Hello any moderator. In post number 12 above, I went and changed the list to include ground kills for the USAAC and cannot get the lower image to go away. It still shows on my screen but I have only one link in the post as far as I can tell.

The correct list is in color and the black and white list does not take into account for USAAC ground kilsl.

Can anyone remove the black and white lower list so I don't cause confusion? Thanks!

Hey Drgondog, in this case, thanks for the correction! Hopefully everyone can see that we have combat sorties, combat losss and combat kills and can agree that unless we can get data broken out better from both the USAAC and the US Navy, this is about as close as we can get to a fair comparison of US types in WWII combat. I wish they had included data for foreign types operated by the USA, but the data is what it is. I can't manufacture more data tables myself. Well, I could, but that would be conjecture and that's what I'm trying to avoid.


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## drgondog (Mar 29, 2013)

WIP - USAAF data from USAF 85 with errors that creep in when a squadron transitions from Spit to P-51 or P-47 to P-51 or P-39 to P-40 or P-40 to P-51A, etc - what I call the blurring effect.

The USN figures were picked off 20 years ago from Frank Olynyk data but I know there are errors in mine.

This does not include Ground credits or RAF/RAAF/RCAF victory credits with any US a/c. The Mustang was by far the highest scoring of all Lend Lease aircraft with possibility of P-39.


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## mhuxt (Mar 29, 2013)

Not sure if this link has been posted before - I've seen some of the graphics previously, not all:

The Defeat of the German Air Force

"The Defeat of the German Air Force", USSBS.


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## GregP (Mar 29, 2013)

Hey Drgondog, a question for you after a brief explanation. 

The USAAF data I got came from the US Army Air forces Statistical Digest online. Looking at the data, it strikes me that the sorties for the P-39 are quite low compared with when the P-39 went into service. Now the Statistical Digest doesn't SAY so, but from the sortie total, I surmise the data I got are probably a subset only since I believe that not all P-39 sorties or victories are accounted for, especially when I look at your table. From your table, it looks like the statistical digest includes victories for ETO, MTO, and CBI but excludes the PTO. 

I don't supose the P-39 in the Pacific was operated by other than the USAAC was it? Were they issued to Navy / Marines or were perhaps an interservice loan?

Also, I note your table says ground credits not included but the F6F / F4U totals would indicate they are for Navy data since it agrees within 3 of US Navy reports I used that DOES include ground victories.

What do you think?

What I'm looking for is data from which I can construct a table fairly comparing some set of aircraft in combat by combat results. It says nothing of how the aircrfaft were employed, the quality of the attackers or defenders ... just results as they happened in real life.


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## Njaco (Mar 29, 2013)

Greg, I removed the B/W list.


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## GregP (Mar 30, 2013)

Thanks Njaco! 

I appreciate it. Now if I can only get the USAAC PTO data it would be complete, but it is at least a good cross section of performance, being composed of all theaters for the Navy and 3 4f 5 for the USAAC (ETO. Med, CBO .... missing PTO). What I have been trying to do for years is find the data to fairly compare the aircraft. I have a good start for USA aircraft, but would love to get data for UK, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union ... and the rest if available. The question is whether or not is even in existence. I suppose we'll see, won't we?

Thanks again.


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## drgondog (Mar 30, 2013)

GregP said:


> Hey Drgondog, a question for you after a brief explanation.
> 
> The USAAF data I got came from the US Army Air forces Statistical Digest online. Looking at the data, it strikes me that the sorties for the P-39 are quite low compared with when the P-39 went into service. Now the Statistical Digest doesn't SAY so, but from the sortie total, I surmise the data I got are probably a subset only since I believe that not all P-39 sorties or victories are accounted for, especially when I look at your table. From your table, it looks like the statistical digest includes victories for ETO, MTO, and CBI but excludes the PTO.
> 
> ...



Good Luck. 

The Statistical Digest does not mention sources, nor have I been able to obtain them or even obtain where the sortie build up resides - other than individual Group histories, many of which were terrible about recording daily statistics.


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## Wildcat (Mar 31, 2013)

The RAAF did receive P-39's however they were only used in the home defence role and therefore never saw combat.


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## alejandro_ (Mar 31, 2013)

Some data on Soviet losses. It's in Spanish but can be easily translated.

Soviet losses in 1944 to *all causes*, note that many aircraft are written-off due to wear and obsolescence:

1

The next table shows the *combat losses* in main operations. The losses for aircraft can be seen in the last 2 columns. The first one means "total" and the second "daily average).

1

Finally, some German losses to all causes. The data seems to include aircraft lost to all causes between September 1939 and January 1945.

Historia y tecnología militar: Pérdidas de la Luftwaffe en la SGM, 1939-1945

The source is German aircraft industry and production, by Ferenc A.Vajda and Peter Dance (pag 143).


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## GregP (Mar 31, 2013)

Thanks Alejandro!


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## TheArtOfFlight (Dec 23, 2016)

I can tell you that despite an initially high loss rate, the DeHavilland Mosquito ended the war with the lowest losses of any aircraft in RAF bomber command service. Post war, the RAF found that when finally applied to bombing, in terms of useful damage done, the Mosquito had proven itself 4.95 times more cost-efficient than the Lancaster.


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## stona (Dec 23, 2016)

TheArtOfFlight said:


> the Mosquito had proven itself 4.95 times more cost-efficient than the Lancaster.



I don't know where that figure comes from off the top of my head, nor how it was calculated.

In terms of the man power cost of bombing, A Lancaster consumed 9.5 man months per 1000 lbs of bombs delivered, compared to 16 man months for the Mosquito. This was the measure used by the BBSU and, by it, the Lancaster was a far more cost effective delivery system.

The strategic bombing campaign could not have been carried out by the Mosquito, which _generally_ carried 2,000 lbs of bombs over typical ranges (until the introduction of types capable of carrying 4,000 lbs). It would have required thousands of aircraft.
In 1943 the weight in short tons dropped by the Lancaster and Mosquito respectively were 112,600 and 1,736.
In 1944 the weight in short tons dropped by the Lancaster and Mosquito respectively were 404,300 and 16,980.
In 1945 the weight in short tons dropped by the Lancaster and Mosquito respectively were 152,00 and 11,120.

The most destructive munitions carried by any aircraft of Bomber Command were incendiary. The Mosquito could and did carry incendiary loads, but it was not specialised in or noted for this role.

Bowyer probably summed up the effect of Mosquitoes of the Light Night Striking Force when he wrote of its first year of operations.

_"Losses during autumn 1943 on nuisance attacks represented 1.75% of sorties flown. Set against this was the fact that not much material damage resulted from Mosquito raids, but clearly they confused defences and were valuable because the interruption they caused was out of all proportion to the expenditure of effort."_

These raids, sometimes dropping target indicators rather than high explosives or other incendiaries were something the Mosquito was really good for. Despite the low losses, in the period around the end of 1943 and into 1944 nearly 50% of Mosquito sorties received some damage from flak, thankfully usually light, and this is rarely factored into calculations of cost and efficiency.

Cheers

Steve

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## GregP (Dec 23, 2016)

Hello Bill Marshall. First, Merry Christmas.

With regard to your table from Report 85, I entered the numbers and the total for the P-51, P-38, and P-47 do add uo to the entered numbers. They aren't off by a lot, but don't quite add up. When I add up your numbers I get 5884 for the P-51, 2740 for the F6F, and 3633.7 for the P-47. The rest match fine.

I find it funny that the USAAF uses these theaters and the Navy has others, like Central Pacific, FEAF, etc. Seems like they couldn't cooperate on anything! But ... not as bad as the IJN and IJA at least.

Not complaining, just FYI. Great list and offers a good picture of the aircraft involved. Thanks, again!


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## drgondog (Dec 25, 2016)

Greg - please send a detailed email describing what you are doing and I'll try to review the USAF 85 spread sheet. I did a pretty thorough scrubbing when I noticed that VCs were awarded to a squadron correctly - but as in example of 4th FG during their Shuttle Mission participation in 15th AF escort, the VCs were awarded to MTO and 4th - not ETO and 4th. Some minor changes to the ETO totals you have.

Merry Christmas

Bill


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