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Hundreds of horsepower gained between the low/high rated altitudes, and about 10 horsepower lost at and above the rated altitude to quantify it a bit.
Hello Kurfürst
you forget completely the Italians, who played substantial part on Malta Campaigns and also suffered substantial losses and also achieved kills against Malta fighters.
Also I'm sure that when you evaluate the effectiveness of the fighter defence of the Reich you do not compare only Allied escort fighter losses vs. LW fighter losses but also take the Allied bomber losses into consideration, so why not do the same in case of Malta.
After all the main target of an interceptor was the bomber. Malta Spitfires in Oct 42 succeeded to stop the German bombing offensive by extracting higher price from LW bomber force than LW was ready to pay.
And those Mk Vs were equipped with Vokes filters, which produced rather high performance loss, and had to fought against Bf 109G-2s and Macchi 202s. Even if I'm not a great fan of Spit Mk V, it seems that when operated right way, it wasn't so bad as an interceptor in Med.
Juha
Can you support this statement with something? The Germans "stopped" their air offensives many times. They stopped bombing Britain in May 1941 when they regrouped their bombers to the East. They stopped bombing Malta in 1941 when they felt they neutralized it and forces were needed elsewhere (primary on the Eastern front).
Luftwaffe records indicate that between 20 March and 28 April 1942, Malta was subjected to 11,819 sorties and 6,557 tonnes of bombs.
A renewed wave of attacks on 11 October 1943. However, this time the defenders were mass equipped with Spitfire Mk VB/Cs. Over 17 days, the Luftwaffe suffered 34 Ju 88s and 12 Bf 109s destroyed and 18 damaged. RAF losses amounted to 23 Spitfires shot down and 20 crash landed. 12 RAF pilots were killed.
Hi VG 33,
This is for DB 605L, the one with the most powerful supercharger mounted. If I read it correctly the power loss at 3,5% slip is 17 PS. I would assume the other DB engines with much more simple superchargers would loose less.
I think that should read Oct 11 1942, as by Oct 1943 the Luftwaffe was far out of Bf109 range against Malta.
Typically 109s and Macchis did carry a tropical filter (of Italian design) in the Med, too
Indeed. We still miss British bomber losses, after all the Germans were not going after Malta, because it was there, they did it because it was a base of operations for British bombers and naval craft that harassed Axis convoys carrying supplies to the German forces in Africa.
We are discussing however how it performed against fighters, and the data supplied so far seems to indicates that it did very poorly.
A renewed wave of attacks on 11 October 1942. However, this time the defenders were mass equipped with Spitfire Mk VB/Cs. Over 17 days, the Luftwaffe suffered 34 Ju 88s and 12 Bf 109s destroyed and 18 damaged. RAF losses amounted to 23 Spitfires shot down and 20 crash landed. 12 RAF pilots were killed.
Re the RAF bombers. We don't have the numbers but the vast majority of these sorties were on shipping strikes which is a risky business and a majority of the losses seem to have been to AA fire.
Do we know how many German/Italian bombers and fighters were lost to naval and ground AAA?
In fact the 'October Offensive' consisted of small formations of JU 88s (7-8 usually) or fighter-bombers escorted by large numbers of Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica fighters - almost exactly the same as the RAF "Circus" ops over France in 1941, with similar results.I also gave two sources, one of them official history, but if you have problem with British sources, look on Prien's JG 53 history, Vol 2 (5.42-1.44), English edition, p. 491. In fact the Oct 42 bomber offensive only lasted from 11. Oct to 18th or 19th Oct, losses already given. On 19th only one bomber attack at dusk, but almost all of 40 Ju 88s dumped their bombs into sea when 3 Spits and 2 Beaufighters attacked, only 3 crossed the coastline and bombed Luga and Hal Far without effect. Loss rate of 3 bombers and 1 badly damaged per day wasn't so high but meant that during that 9 day period c. 20% of attacking bombers were lost and further 6% badly dam and Germans knew that bombing results were very disappointing.
I would say that Spits did fairly well and Axis escorts failed to give adequate protection to bombers. And in the end the results was not a temporary set-back for Axis but a strategic failure from which Axis paid a high price in coming months.
Juha
Do we know how many German/Italian bombers and fighters were lost to naval and ground AAA?
It doesn't give a breakdown as to how many Spitfires were lost to the 109 s. clearly the fighters went after the bombers (161 Ju 88s) and there were losses to German bombers, Italian fighters, operations over Sicily etc, not to mention the Spitfires lost on the ground to bombs and strafing.
My estimate suggests 144 Spitfires in trade for 82 Bf-109's for air to air based on a study of Shores's Malta book. Spitfires did tip the balance, remaining competitive against the maurauding Axis fighters while shooting down scores of bombers. (97 x Ju-88 alone)