Compare of Bf 109 and fw 190 cost of Production

[davebender]

I've seen the same claim several times before and never with any evidence to support it. It's time to produce evidence or else write the claim off as a myth.

 

[Vincenzo]

Where did Germany get its bauxite from.

many countres in Europe haved bauxite mine so was not so hard find it (France, Italy, Hungary, Yugoslavia...)

for clear pre war first productor of Bauxite was France, follow to Hungary , Italy and Yugoslavia production were at same level of dutch and british Guyana and around the same of U.S.

 

[riacrato]

I've seen the same claim several times before and never with any evidence to support it. It's time to produce evidence or else write the claim off as a myth.

Same here. How would anyone in Germany even be able to make such a specific statement without having detailed information about the sub assemblies and production processes involved in making a Spitfire? I work for an aero engines manufacturer and we make the final assembly of several military jet engines as well as subassemblies. Guess when we really know how many man hours are needed for the assembly of a new engine? After we completed the first 10 or so engines. Every estimation before that is off to an increasing degree of uncertainty and without detailed design data for every single subassembly its flat out a "shot in the blue".

Smells to me like one of these statements that are either taken out of concept or blow out of proportion. A short look that report would probably help.

 

[drgondog]

The same holds true for the USA.

Germany was the world's largest producer of aluminum during the 1930s. Massive wartime increases in aircraft production probably used up all the pre-war surplus aluminum production and then some. However WWII Germany was never in the same boat as Britain which was short of aluminum even before the war began. Nor did they have the Russian problem of having most aluminum production capacity over run by an enemy army during 1941. Or the American problem of needing to supply massive quantities of aluminum (and almost everything else) to sustain British and Russian aircraft production.

As for labor.....
A document from the Reich's aviation department states that productivity of female Russian and Czech workers was 90 to 100% of the productivity of their German counterparts. Such workers from Eastern Europe volunteered by the miillions rather then be "liberated" by the Red Army. For instance, over 1/3rd of the Junkers workforce consisted of foreign volunteers during 1943. About 2% were prisoners (from concentration camps or POWs)

The problem with any production figures and accounting processes from Germany (or US) when you point to 'cost' or 'productivity' is that one set is orange and grapefruit to banana and apricots.

In other words, how do you 'cost' .125 2024-T4 sheet coming into the plant before stamping - or 4130 bars before machining in Germany or Czechoslovakia or Austria? How do you measure the productivity, education, ease of training, etc between the German worker (many 16-45 headed for Ost Front) or the captured Soviet female - and make a judgment to the American counterpart?

Did the German accounting system recognize amortization the way we did - how much new investment was made in new machine tools in Germany after 1941? If you compared the 1943 Augsburg Me 109 Production with NAA at Inglewood what were the comparisons? Documented?

If you compare Augsburg in 1945 what effect did bombing have on machine tools and plant and equipment write offs due to damage, replacement training of new assembly line personnel, QA rejections and re-works?

How did those factors change when the entire airframe industry de-centrailized, built sub assemblies and placed them on road nets or rivers and lost a % on the road or water before reaching final destination and final assembly.

Did they have a cost accounting system that accounted for a 'partial' completion before destruction - to add to the 'cost' of a completed unit - that in turn was destroyed on the airfield before delivery - all 'stuff' the Third Reich presumably paid for but never received?

When these kinds of discussions get angry based on someone's perceptions of facts based on obscure documents with no accounting frame of relevance - I am consumed by indifference.

From my perspective if you have the manufacturer's statement of 'average labor hours', average throughput per unit, average weight of empty airframe, the charged price per unit of GFE, and the end price charged to the Customer for the completed unit - well you have a nice place to start a discussion.

Most people on this forum do not have a true frame of reference to make judgments on cost accounting - and airframe cost accounting is one of the most arcane disciplines of all the financial world.

 

[Maxrobot1]

A confusing aspect of cost of aircraft during wartime can be if the cost stated includes just the airframe or the fly-away a/c. Some costs I have seen over the years vary because of differences in listing "government furnished equipment" which can include engine, propellor, radio gear, armaments, first aid kits, etc.
I once tried to make a list of costs of WWII aircraft but gave up.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

A confusing aspect of cost of aircraft during wartime can be if the cost stated includes just the airframe or the fly-away a/c. Some costs I have seen over the years vary because of differences in listing "government furnished equipment" which can include engine, propellor, radio gear, armaments, first aid kits, etc.
I once tried to make a list of costs of WWII aircraft but gave up.

GFE will vary contract to contract and is actually easy to extract from fly away costs as its a separate CLIN. For historical purposes its a matter of just of knowing what the GFE cost was for the particular item.

 

[vanir]

Wouldn't a more telling comparison of unit cost be within a selected industrial complex, ie. Me-109 vs P-51D where both are being produced in either the United States or Germany?

Just thinking along the lines of greater industrial output means lower unit cost, so for comparative figures one should use the same industrial complex.

Let's say for example the P-51D has a different comparative price than if it were produced in Germany using German industry as it stood. Perhaps it might've been prohibitively expensive and difficult.

Didn't the Me-109 partially gain preference over the Heinkel fighters on the basis of existing production (albeit in limited capacity) of a roughly similar BF-108 airframe and associated tooling? I mean it's quicker and easier adapting and scaling up production than it is to invent it from the ground up, this was the issue with the Spitfire versus the Hurricane (being British aero industry was geared to produce things like the Fury and a lot of retraining and new ground was required to produce the Spit so large numbers in service lagged behind the Messer).
Or do I have it all wrong?

 

[drgondog]

Wouldn't a more telling comparison of unit cost be within a selected industrial complex, ie. Me-109 vs P-51D where both are being produced in either the United States or Germany?

Just thinking along the lines of greater industrial output means lower unit cost, so for comparative figures one should use the same industrial complex.

Let's say for example the P-51D has a different comparative price than if it were produced in Germany using German industry as it stood. Perhaps it might've been prohibitively expensive and difficult.

Didn't the Me-109 partially gain preference over the Heinkel fighters on the basis of existing production (albeit in limited capacity) of a roughly similar BF-108 airframe and associated tooling? I mean it's quicker and easier adapting and scaling up production than it is to invent it from the ground up, this was the issue with the Spitfire versus the Hurricane (being British aero industry was geared to produce things like the Fury and a lot of retraining and new ground was required to produce the Spit so large numbers in service lagged behind the Messer).
Or do I have it all wrong?

Remember that ~70% of the steel consumed by US manufacturing in 1939 was automobiles.. and by 1942 the entire domestic auto industry halted, and was converted (skilled labor, new hires, new tooling, new plants like Willow Run) to building tanks and Aircraft. The US wartime industry was completely transformed from 1940 forward..in other words 100% change from the existing industry. The only thing that remained were plants (not big enough for long wing span bombers) and production methods for mass production.

The aircraft industry in 1939 was just beginning to mobilize but the only single location plants of significance (i.e. Boeing and Douglas, Lockheed and Curtis and Grumman) - all of which were in process of replicating tooling for B-17s, C-47s, P-40s and F4Fs to name several. Essentially all the new plants (Vega, NAA Inglewood, Boeing Wichita, Willow Run, etc). From 1939 the new tooling designs far outpaced the existing plant tooling, as well as the workforce and the Government directed resourcing.

Contrast that with Germany which introduced far fewer designs from 1942 forward, and from 1943 forward was suffering major attacks on its war machine from the 8th AF (yes it started in aug 42 but mere pin pricks for many months). The Brits suffered some attacks from Luftwaffe but never on a similar scale.

IIRC there is no single example of anything resembling mass production battery operations in either Germany or Britain to macth US at beginning of WWII.

Converting production methods from relatively small volumes to huge is a VERY difficult transition.

 

[alejandro_]

Didn't the Me-109 partially gain preference over the Heinkel fighters on the basis of existing production

Bf-109 was easier and cheaper to mass manufacture than Heinkel counterparts.

No. You have to be very careful to know exactly what is being compared, whether all sub contracted work is being included, etc. Unless you know the details you can't really compare different reports, as they might be using different methods.

This is where I was going. Figures will vary depending on what you include: engine manufacturing, subcontractors, final assembly... I do not think there is an unified criterion.

 

[Kurfürst]

Don't know about Messerschmidt - but P-51 went from 12,000 hours in 1941 to 2,077 in 1945. Learning curve from repetitive assembly and employee skills development, improved process plans, and improved manufacturing tooling will all contribute to dramatically reducing long run assemply labor times.

If your other figures above are correct it says a lot about US manufacturing capability in contrast with other nations in the war.

To answer both questions.

a, Fw 190 - Bf 109. RLM labour hours ratios through the war were pretty consistent, with a Bf 109 being produced with about 2/3s the effort spent (measured in labour hours) compared to the FW 190.

The learning curve is an excellent point, the figures I have (I believe I posted these some time ago) show that experience assembly and production organisation greatly decreased the time required. For example, the time to proudce a Bf 109 went down to something like 2200 hours compared to many times that in the early war years.

Its also noteworthy that when a new model was introduced, for example the 109F, it required more time to finish, at least initially, despite more production friendly construction.

 

[Glider]

IIRC there is no single example of anything resembling mass production battery operations in either Germany or Britain to macth US at beginning of WWII.

Or I think during the war due to the danger of air attack. Those individual huge factories would be an almost unmissable target hence the development of shadow factories in Europe.

 

[alejandro_]

I got this table with production hours for several German aircraft types. Can anyone translate the title and 5 phrases at the bottom?

 

[alejandro_]

I am trying to find data on Bf-109 monthly production. This is what I have so far:

1944; day fighter versions
January:
February: 825
March: 841
April:967
May: 1025
June: 1120
July: 1237
August: 1138
Setiembre: 1511
October: 1505
November: 1312
December:

1944; short range reconnaissance
January:
February: 80
March: 93
April: 44
May: 40
June: 110
July: 105
August: 237
September: 94
October: 78
November: 151
December: 70

Production between September de 1939 and April 1941:

1939
September: 108
October: 102
November: 117
December: 122

1940
January: 70
February: 75
March: 120
April: 160
May: 195
June: 230
July: 180
August: 220
September: 160
October: 160
November: 100
December: 75

1941:
January: 79
February: 128
March: 190
April: 362

Source: German aircraft industry and production, 1933-1945, by Ferenc A.Vajda and Peter Dancey.

Can someone help in filling the gaps?

 

[Siegfried]

No. These are not the adjusted costs for forced labourers.
Usually this will triple the manhours but half´s the costs.
The IJA and IJN had higher manhours figures because of the lesser degree of overall automotion in production.
I can add costs for some Anti aircraft missiles:
C2W2: 10.500 RM
C2W6: 8.500 RM
C2W10: 7.000 RM ~ 3.500 manhours (sources differ, only techlabor produced units)
..and for a 8.8cm AA shell:
~100 RM


and the latest A4:
38.000 RM
12.950 manhours
(the given figures of 60.000 hours and 240.000 RM are wrong, sorry Twitch)
All figures from Nowarra, die dt. Luftrüstung, Vol. 4 (1990).
Confirmed by Luftwaffe docs in property of the author

A4/V2 costs were to drop to 10,000 hours by the 1000th unit, then 7500 hours and then at the 10,000th unit were expected to be 4000 hours. This includes the engine which is not usually included in production cost measurments of a fighter. A4's were initially ordered at $38500 RM.

 

[eaglestar78]

I have RM 42,900 for the Bf 109 in 1944
2.5 RM to $1 USD (.40)

RM 2.5 to $1 USD (.40)
48 French Franc to $1 USD (.02)
English Pound (4.20)

Try Google Translate

 

[Njaco]

Eaglestar, please keep all your items to one post. Thanks.

 

[davebender]

I assume that doesn't include the DB605 engine.

DB601 engine cost RM 27,970 during 1941 (per Olaf Groehlers GdLK). I'd hazard a guess late war DB605 engines cost about RM 20,000 each.

RM 60,000 (more or less) for a complete fighter aircraft is dirt cheap by WWII standards. Hence the reason Me-109 was not replaced by a newer design such as Me-309.

 

[tomo pauk]

Me-309 being a non-performer on it's own, hence replacing something with 309 would be an own goal?

 

[davebender]

Why do you say that? Is the Wikipedia performance data wrong?

Messerschmitt Me 309 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maximum speed: 733 km/h (455 mph; 396 kn)
Cruising speed: 665 km/h (413 mph; 359 kn)
Range: 1,100 km (684 mi; 594 nmi)
Service ceiling: 12,000 m (39,370 ft)

 

[tyrodtom]

According to the writeup in that Wiki article, the Me309 was 30mph faster than the Me109G.
The Me309 first flew in mid 42, so that would make it the Me109G1 or 2, which had a top speed of 410 at 7000meters. So that adds up to 440mph for the Me309.

Then the article goes on to say the performance fell to unacceptable levels when armament was added.

So the Wiki article doesn't even agree with itself.