# PZL P11 vs Bf 110



## Supermarine-SpitfireMkXIV (Aug 21, 2018)

I think PZL P11
Ps they are in a dogfight


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## fubar57 (Aug 21, 2018)

Depending on the source, the Luftwaffe lost 8 110s shot down during the Polish Campaign!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EDIT: Couldn't sleep, added more exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## parsifal (Aug 21, 2018)

Oh boy, this is one helluva can of worms......

One pretty good source has this to say on losses overall

"Of about 2000 aircraft used against Poland Luftwaffe lost 258 to all causes, and of additional 263 damaged only 40% made it back to the front-line units after repairs. An estimated 230 aircraft were destroyed in action, primarily by Polish fighters and anti-aircraft artillery. About 400 aircrew were killed or missing, and an additional 120 wounded. Of 217 German tanks destroyed and 457 seriously damaged in the campaign, a significant proportion can be attributed to the Bomber Brigade and P.23s of the Army reconnaissance squadrons. Lotnictwo Wojskowe lost 333 aircraft, 260 as the result of enemy action. Of these, around 100 were destroyed in combat, and a further 120 as the result of sustained damage. Only 25 combat aircraft (as opposed to many training and civilian airplanes) were destroyed on the ground. Aircrew killed numbered 61, 110 were missing and 63 wounded. When comparing the combat potential of both sides, this is by no means a bad result for the Polish Air Force. An interesting observation is that, throughout the campaign, more than 30 Polish aircraft were shot down by Polish anti-aircraft fire. This sad testimony to the efficiency of Polish AA gunmen (who also took a heavy toll - considering the minute number of AA guns available - of the Luftwaffe) is easy to explain. Constantly harassed by the Luftwaffe, mauled by the horrifying Stuka attacks, Polish ground troops fired at anything that flew. Polish aircraft were indeed a rare sight those days, thus, when they did appear, they were almost automatically assumed to be German. Probably the worst incident happened on September 8th. When P.11s of were chasing a He 111 formation near Pulawy, Polish AA opened fire, and shot down four aircraft, killing two pilots - one of them the C/O of - and wounding one. More frequent, though, were cases of downing Polish liaison and reconnaissance aircraft, which, because of German mastery of the air, usually kept close to the ground and were often hit by own machine gun or even small arms fire. Another interesting statistic is the number of defensive kills by Polish bomber and reconnaissance crews - 14 - as compared to the number of these aircraft shot down by German fighters, which is 31. As Polish bombers had relatively weak defensive armament (three 7.92mm guns) and no armor, even assuming top-quality gunnery on part of the Polish crews, there is no escape from the conclusion that many German fighter pilots were only learning their trade (for comparison: the Pursuit Brigade claimed 38 victories over German bombers and lost only 4 fighters to their defensive fire)".

This is also a reasonable resource to look at IMO

Poland in Exile - Polish Air Force

Polish fighters claimed shooting down following German planes:
10 Bf-109
13 Bf-110
10 Ju-86
17 Ju-87
30 Do-17
44 He-111
15 Hs-126
1 He-45
7 planes of unrecognized types
Total should be 247.
In the addition 1 Polish PZL-23 "Kara¶" from 42 eskadra was shot down by Polish fighters by mistake.

Polish AA defence claimed shooting down roughly 40 Bf-109.

Germans admitted they lost 285 planes in aerial combats, shot down by AA defence and lost in the crashes.
Amongst them:
63 recon planes
67 Bf-109
12 Bf-110
78 He-111 and Do-17
31 Ju-87 and Hs-123
12 transportation planes (mostly Ju-52)
22 naval and liaison planes
Moreover 263 or 273 (dependeing of German source) planes were damaged and only 70 of them were capable of repairing.

Polish losses:
118 fighters (P11 and P7)
32 of them were shot down by fighters, 10 by bombers, 7 by German air defence and 7 by Polish air defence. 4 were destroyed on the ground. It gives total number 60. The remaining 58 were destroyed due to crashes, damaged due to forced landings, damaged and abandoned.
11 PZL-37 "£o¶" and 2 destroyed on the ground

20 PZL-23 "Kara¶"
7 recon planes (3 R-XIII, 2 RWD-8, 2 Fokker F-VIIb)
Polish bombers shot down 13 Bf-109 (5 shot down by PZL-37 and 8 by PZL-23).
1 Bf-109 crashed while it attacked training plane PWS-26
One should add 1 Bf-109 shot down by Cpt. Bolesaw Leniewski from 55 eskadra (according to German sources he shot down 2 Bf-109 in a single flight).

According to Cajus Bekker ("Angriffshohe 4000", 1964) Luftwaffe lost 664 planes in Poland in September of 1939 (this includes 285 destroyed and 379 damaged).

According to Cajus Bekker 734 Luftwaffe soldiers were recognized as killed.

Cajus Bekker was basing on "reliable source documents - documents of Luftwaffe quartermastery" and on relations of Luftwaffe pilots.

According to Adam Kurowski, "Lotnictwo Polskie w 1939 roku" ("Polish Air Force in 1939"), publishing house MON, Warsaw 1962 (basing on data of Department of Provision of Headquarters of Luftwaffe), Luftwaffe lost 564 planes including 285 destroyed and 279 damaged.

According to Jerzy B. Cynk - "Siły Lotnicze Polski i Niemiec", 1989 ("Air Forces of Poland and Germany") Luftwaffe lost 521 planes during the Polish campaign (this includes 258 damaged in 100% - 60% and 263 damaged in 59% - 10%; those damaged in less than 10% were not included in this number). Out of those 263 damaged in 59% - 10% - according to Cynk - only around 50% were later repaired or reconstructed and came back to units.

According to some other sources only 70 out of those 263 damaged in 59% - 10% planes were possible to be repaired.

According to Jerzy B. Cynk, out of those 258 planes damaged in 100% - 60%, 232 were planes which did not come back from the action (were shot down). He does not write how many out of those 263 damaged in 59% - 10% were those which did not come back from the action.

Emmerling ("Luftwaffe over Poland", three volumes, 2002 - 2007) writes that 247 planes were "totally lost" - did not come back from the action.

One point that is repeated in most sources....it is an enormous fib that the PAF was caught on the ground and destroyed within 3 days of the outbreak of hostilities. it was still providing effective resitance more than a week after the 1 September commencement.

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