Air forces losses in WWII

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

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
 
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
 
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)
 
Code: 
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

Code: 
	  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
 
red admiral said:
Code: 
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

Code: 
	  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
Click to expand...

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?
 
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:)
 
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:)
Click to expand...

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'
 
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!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
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.

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 kills in the air for USAAC and US Navy/Marine aircraft. I decided not to include kills on the ground. The list came out as shown below.

View attachment 229198


Note the Hellcat has the top air kill to combat loss ratio at 4.4. For fighters, the Wildcat is next followed by the Corsair, Black Widow, and then the Mustang.

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 and if you wanted to make ace, fly a Hellcat.
Click to expand...

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+
 
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.
 
Last edited:
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.
 
Last edited:
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.
 

Attachments

  • US Victory credits-corrected to usaf 85 for eto.pdf
    15.7 KB · Views: 489
Last edited:
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.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Similar threads

K
Hard runways in WWII
2
Replies
31
Views
2K
Thumpalumpacus
Thumpalumpacus
tomo pauk
Supercharging & stuff - losses, improvements, good vs. bad. vs. excellent etc
2 3
Replies
44
Views
3K
Bretoal2
B
aidenmac16
11th Air Force
Replies
7
Views
608
GreenKnight121
GreenKnight121
German WWII Archive
Number of Allied Plane losses against Germany in May 1944
2
Replies
26
Views
3K
drgondog
drgondog
_PabloSniper_
WWI Aces Flying WWII Planes
Replies
17
Views
1K
Admiral Beez
A
Back