Bomber Command losses

spicmart · Dec 20, 2016

Yes, the losses were unacceptibly high but no more than 50 %.

pbehn · Dec 20, 2016

spicmart said:
Yes, the losses were unacceptably high but no more than 50 %.

10% is unacceptably high do the maths.

stona · Dec 20, 2016

spicmart said:
How many fatalities had the 8th Air Force? Less than Bomber Command percentagewise. By night it was almost impossible to get out of a stricken bomber....
The Lancaster had been the worst to get out of.

It was possible to escape from British bombers. Crews that had to abandon aircraft which were under control, as in incidents of fuel failure or undercarriage failure enjoyed a high success rate.
Bomber Command's ORS looked at the problems of escaping from various types. Survival rated for the Lancaster were just 10.9% compared with 29.4% for the Halifax. These were often aircraft that were not under control when the crew attempted to abandon them.
Harris, on seeing an initial report was keen to make improvements. He wrote to Saundby at the Air Ministry asking him to

"write officially drawing attention to urgent need of improvement in escape hatches etc.Far too few crews get away with it and bad hatches etc. are the reason for it."

Actually, it was not just the hatches. Despite its size the Lancaster fuselage is extremely cramped and crew passing from one end to the other had to negotiate the main spar which passed through the fuselage. Lancasters also had a greater propensity for breaking up than the more strongly constructed Halifax. Crew training in emergency escapes was also considered inadequate. Plans were made to introduce outward opening hatches on both Halifax and Lancaster aircraft not yet built, though the effect on production (modifications of all types were the primary reason for delays) was a worry. Retro fitting such hatches on aircraft already in service was not considered practical. Some simpler measures, like seat pack parachutes for pilots, were implemented.

Cheers

Steve

Ascent · Dec 20, 2016

My grandfather was on HMS Eridge, a Hunt type 2 destroyer, in the med. They were a very lucky ship, in 18 months they only suffered one dead when they were torpedoed by a MAS boat. And that 18 months included Malta convoys as well as escorting merchants to Tobruk.

18 months was about double the average life of a destroyer in the med.

Shortround6 · Dec 20, 2016

I wonder if the "better" survival rate for US bomber crews had anything to do with using two pilots in most of their bombers?
Having a "redundant" pilot and control station (at least partly) might do wonders for the survivability rate.
Of course you have to train double the amount of pilots and on planes that are shot down/destroyed you are loosing more crewmen (US 4 engine bombers using larger crews).
Bombers with small fuselages always presented a problem with dead or incapacitated pilots and giving the rear top gunner rudimentary flight controls (A-20 and Martin Maryland) only worked on occasion.

Having a second pilot to keep the plane flying somewhat straight and level while the crew bales out is a plus for the crew.

tomo pauk · Dec 20, 2016

USAF entered the fray later than RAF BC. And when their effort really gathered the momentum, the main force that would be killing the bombers, the LW fighter force, was removed by the escort fighters by a good deal. We can just wonder how much would've the BC suffered less casualties if there was more Moquito and Beufighter night intruders above Germany.
Another thing is that USAF bombers cruised five or more thousand feet above what was the cruising altitude of the RAF bombers, every thousand feet of extra altitude was rendering the 88mmL56 Flak more inneficiant. The turbo engines were a major asset for the USAF when it is/was about altitude.
It also helped that USAF didn't ventured into the 'lets raze Berlin' campaign, that cost the BC many crews and aircraft.

airminded88 · Dec 20, 2016

spicmart said:
How many fatalities had the 8th Air Force? Less than Bomber Command percentagewise. By night it was almost impossible to get out of a stricken bomber. I think that was a factor, too. And the fact that a british airman had to complete 30 sorties to get out of active service.
Compared to the 25 missions required for american bomber cres.
I wonder why the manufactureres never installed adequate escape possibilities. The Lancaster had been the worst to get out of.

The 8th did raise the number of missions required for a tour to be completed to 30 missions in 1944. Even if LW air opposition waned throughout the year thanks to aggressive and effective escort coverage; losses by flak remained deadly for the remainder of the air war.

stona · Dec 21, 2016

The USAAF loss rates for bombers in the ETO were similar to the RAF. I've just dragged the figures for the 92nd to 96th and 100th Bombardment Groups out of 'The Mighty Eighth' (at which point I got bored).
The loss rates per sortie flown vary from 1.8% to 2.7% over the nearly 9,000 sorties each of these units was credited with.
The average loss rate for the six Groups, throughout their period of operations, is 2.2%, remarkably similar to Bomber Command's 2.3%.
This implies, statistically at least, an 8th AF bomber was almost as likely as an RAF bomber to be shot down operating over Europe.
If being shot down in an American bomber was more survivable, and I don't have figures for them, it would be largely due to the way the aircraft were constructed, ease of movement inside, access to emergency exits (I know it was possible to leave a B-17 by the bomb bay for example), and the overall strength of the aircraft.

As far as a second pilot, almost all Bomber Command aircraft had at least one crew member apart from the pilot who could fly the aircraft. Almost all the crew, with the exception of gunners, would have received some flying training and many flight engineers in particular had been 'scratched' from pilot courses at some stage. Some flight engineers were capable of landing (and did land) bombers, most could at least fly one straight and level. They all received some ongoing flight training as part of the Flight Engineer course, both on the Link trainer and at the controls of the aircraft they would operate. Initially this training was given to air bombers, so older/surviving air bombers would also have some flying experience. There are plenty of accounts of pilots implementing some on the job training for their engineers , 'just in case'.
The reason Bomber Command only flew with one pilot is that in March 1942 it solved a critical pilot shortage at the stroke of a pen, effectively doubling the number of aircraft that could be flown. It also, in Harris' words, "relieved both the strain on the pilot instructors and the congestion around the OTU airfields". An air bomber (bomb aimer) was added to the crew in place of the second pilot, this man was also the front gunner. Bomb aiming had previously been the job of the second pilot.

Cheers

Steve

pbehn · Dec 21, 2016

Statistics can be very misleading. For example there was a limit to how many aircraft the LW could put in the air and therefore to how many enemy aircraft they could shoot down. This was the thinking behind the "bomber stream" of bomber command. If you increase the number of bombers they each become statistically safer from enemy aircraft and also flak if you can overwhelm with numbers. If the target is a single refinery attacking it with 2000 or 3000 bombers doesnt really do more damage than 1000 especially if all bombers are releasing on one mans command. As said previously some raids later in the war purely reflect the danger of flying groups of aircraft by day or night, some targets were not defended at all while others like Berlin were defended almost to the day of surrender.

stona · Dec 21, 2016

pbehn said:
Statistics can be very misleading.

Yes, but the 2.3% loss rate is an average for Bomber Command over the entire war and more than 387,000 sorties of all types.
The 2.2% loss rate is an average for six of the 8th Air Force's Bombardment Groups over their entire period of operations in the ETO and more than 52,000 sorties.
By taking large representative samples we can establish overall loss rates accurately, and make valid comparisons. The method tends to minimise the effect of the missions at both ends of the scale, with minimal or extraordinarily high losses, and give a good overall measure.
The numbers for both air forces are very similar.

You are absolutely correct about the concentration of bombers, this was one of the earliest recommendations of Bomber Command's ORS.

The number of bomber sorties required to destroy different types of targets was also carefully calculated using a wide range of data derived from known bombing accuracy and the concentration of bombs required to do sufficient damage. It wasn't left to guess work. This applied to targets like the oil and transport targets in the lead up to D-Day. City area raids tended to use forces ready and available, the entire command would not always attack one objective as in a maximum effort raid.

Cheers

Steve

stona · Dec 21, 2016

Misleading statistics and context:

Just to emphasise the valid point made above (by pbehn).

Bomber Command's losses were 2.3% of all sorties despatched throughout the war. This is a good measure of overall losses, coming from a very large number of total sorties of all types.
The 2.2% figure for the 8th Air Force is similarly derived, at least for the six Bombardment Groups whose figures I extracted before I suffered terminal boredom.
Comparing the two is as close to comparing like with like as is possible, given the different operational methods of the two forces.

Bomber Command's losses for daylight sorties throughout the war was just 1.2%, for 80,163 sorties flown. As this loss rate is significantly lower than the overall average loss rate it would seem that Bomber Command's day light losses were lower than average. Why did it bomb by night?
This is where context enters the equation. A very large proportion of the daylight sorties were flown in the last year of the war, post D-Day, and at a time when the Allied air forces had almost total air supremacy over the command's area of operations. This resulted in minimal losses during this period.
Earlier in the war there was a very different story.
Daylight losses from September 1939-April 1940 were 4.8% (2.6% by night)
Daylight losses from April 1940-May 1940 were 6.3% (2.9% by night, there were already nearly three times as many night sorties as day sorties)
Daylight losses from May 1940-June 1940 were 5.7% (1.5% by night)
I could go on, but the overall daylight loss rate is badly skewed by the heavy losses in the first year of the war, and the light losses in the last year. This is how raw statistics can be very misleading. Losses around the 5% level were unsustainable for any length of time, for the ten months from September 1939- June 1940 daytime losses ran at 5.6%, that's why night bombing was adopted.

Cheers

Steve

wuzak · Dec 21, 2016

spicmart said:
7377 Lancasters were built. 3932 were lost in action. More than half. It's daylight counterparts B.24 and B.17 had fewer losses
even in the time when there were no escort fighters.

Early missions were short(er) range and often within the escort range of Spitfires and/or P-47s.

This occurred for most (all?) of their first year of operations.

When they went to Germany, in August 1943, they got spanked - with loss rates of up to 20% per mission.

After the Schweinfurt-Regensberg raid the 8th AF did not have the strength for follow up missions.

When they returned to Schweinfurt in October the losses were as bad, if not worse. It was after this raid that the offensive was stopped - as much to do with the weather as it was for the losses.

When they resumed operations against Germany, the P-51B was coming into service in the ETO.

During the following 6 months the Luftwaffe's fighter arm in the West was depleted through attrition.

You could say that the 8th AF bombers faced a full strength Luftwaffe for less than a year.

spicmart · Dec 21, 2016

pbehn said:
10% is unacceptably high do the maths.

Please clarify.

stona · Dec 21, 2016

He is correct. No strategic bombing force could carry on operating efficiently with that level of loss.

Here is a post I made in a different thread in an attempt to explain this:

I've just had a look through this thread and see that there is a misunderstanding of the maths of just how an ongoing loss rate, seemingly low, can actually effect an organisation over a period of time.
Near the end of the war (March 1945) the Director of Bomber operations wrote a paper which addressed this issue. It was entitled
"What is the Highest Percentage of Losses That the Royal Air Force Could Stand Over a Period of 3 Months of Intensive Operations".
I will use the data from this, in the form of various selected quotations, to explain.

1) Aircraft in Bomber Command missing on operations during the five years 1940/44 have fluctuated between 1.8% and 4.4% of sorties despatched. There were occasions when losses rose considerably higher in certain units for short periods with the result that the units concerned were suspended from operations to enable them to rehabilitate themselves or to re-equip with an improved type of aircraft."

Three examples are given. The period March to August 1942 when losses on the Halifax squadrons of 4 Group were such that they were withdrawn from operations for four weeks to rest and train crews. The period August to November 1943 when Stirling losses led to them being suspended from bombing operations against targets in Germany. The period from November 1943 to February 1944 when losses of Halifax IIs and IVs of 4 Group led to them permanently being suspended from operations against targets in Germany.

2) A table to explain the effect of the Halifax loss rates gives the following sobering numbers.

An 8.1% loss rate meant that 8% of crews would survive 30 missions.

A 10.8% loss rate meant that just 3.2% of crews would survive 30 missions

The numbers are put in context thus.

"If the total wastage rate including crashes and postings is 7% the proportion of crews who would survive a tour of 30 operations is only 10% which means that most of the experienced Squadron and Flight Commanders with their best crews would rapidly be lost. Thereafter, operational losses would rise rapidly by reason of the unduly high percentage of inexperienced crews."

"Two main factors limit the loss rate which can be sustained - operational efficiency and morale. The first is dependent upon the average level of experience amongst the crews in the Squadrons. The higher the loss rate the the lower the level of experience and the lower the operational effectiveness. This factor is largely independent of the intensity of operations. Morale, which is to some extent governed by the standard of operational efficiency, is closely related to the intensity of operations to which, for a given loss rate, the actual losses over a period are proportional. Experience suggests that the factor of operational efficiency will impose an earlier limitation on the acceptable loss rate than that of morale."

The conclusion explains just what was considered sustainable for Bomber Command.

"Operational experience in this war, therefore, indicates that a strategic bomber force would become relatively ineffective if it suffered operational losses in the region of 7% over a period of 3 months' intensive operations, and that its operational effectiveness may become unacceptably low if losses of 5% were sustained over this period."

I hope this helps!

Cheers

Steve

pbehn · Dec 21, 2016

spicmart said:
Please clarify.

Just calculate the chances of surviving a 30 mission tour when 10% are lost on each mission, the few that made it would feel chosen by God. If you mount 2 x 1000 bomber raids per week you need to produce and train crews for 200 bombers per week.

pbehn · Dec 21, 2016

stona said:
Daylight losses from May 1940-June 1940 were 5.7% (1.5% by night)
I could go on, but the overall daylight loss rate is badly skewed by the heavy losses in the first year of the war, and the light losses in the last year. This is how raw statistics can be very misleading. Losses around the 5% level were unsustainable for any length of time, for the ten months from September 1939- June 1940 daytime losses ran at 5.6%, that's why night bombing was adopted.

Cheers

Steve

Steve you can look at the stats from another direction. If 5% is unsustainable (I read elsewhere the maximum was calculated at 3.5%) then over the course of a long campaign the average must be below that, it is perfectly reasonable for both forces to be about the same because much above the 2.2 or 2.3% overall would mean long periods of unsustainable losses.

stona · Dec 21, 2016

Unsustainable losses were just that. When incurred something had to change. The Americans curtailed their deeper raids when confronted with such losses. The British were forced to withdraw either temporarily or permanently certain units or aircraft types when their losses rose to unsustainable levels.

Take the Stirling. In late 1943 No. 3 Groups Stirling losses rose to such levels when flown against targets in Germany. August 7.8%, September 6.3%, October 3.6% and November 5.6%. The type was permanently suspended from bombing operations against Germany. It continued to carry out other operations with an acceptable and sustainable loss rate.

In 1942 the Halifaxes of No.4 Group started to sustain high losses. March 8.8%, April 9.2%, May 4.8%, June 6.0%, July 4.9%, August 10.1%. August was the final straw, all Halifax squadrons of No.4 Group were suspended from operations for three or four weeks to rest and train crews.

It was only by actions like these, which can be seen as victories for the Germans, that loss rates were maintained within manageable and sustainable limits.

Cheers

Steve

michaelmaltby · Dec 21, 2016

... it's worth considering that RAF BC campaign was playing out night after night in view of the British public .... not the case for USAAF command.

British public opinion fully supported the bombing and devastation - total devastation - of Germany.

stona · Dec 21, 2016

michaelmaltby said:
... it's worth considering that RAF BC campaign was playing out night after night in view of the British public .... not the case for USAAF command.

British public opinion fully supported the bombing and devastation - total devastation - of Germany.

And the British had themselves been bombed, unlike the Americans. Whilst it is true that public opinion broadly supported the campaign against Germany there were some dissenting voices. In a strange way that's what we were fighting for.

Cheers

Steve

pbehn · Dec 21, 2016

stona said:
Unsustainable losses were just that. When incurred something had to change. The Americans curtailed their deeper raids when confronted with such losses. The British were forced to withdraw either temporarily or permanently certain units or aircraft types when their losses rose to unsustainable levels.

I agree but that is what the war was about. The Germans had a different command. They suffered unsustainable losses at Stalingrad and kept at it losing much of their transport and bomber aircraft. The baby blitz was a similar operation losing over 500 aircraft that Germany could not afford to lose and having almost zero impact at all apart from civilian lives.

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