Location of flak damage
- Thread starter WATU
- Start date
Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
Of course it was Survivorship bias - Wikipedia
But it is a complex calculation, you cant keep adding armour to make something safer. Some recon planes had all armour removed in order to not be hit by enemy fire, they flew high and fast.
Last edited:
shackleton
Recruit
- 5
- Mar 18, 2012
I think the diagram can be interpretated in two ways. The first way is suggested in the posting.
The other interpetation is that the areas not showing damage for example the engines and the pilot position actually were hit as often as the other areas but resulted in the loss of the aircraft so it never returned to base for these hits to be recorded, This would suggest that it was those areas that needed extra protection.
The other interpetation is that the areas not showing damage for example the engines and the pilot position actually were hit as often as the other areas but resulted in the loss of the aircraft so it never returned to base for these hits to be recorded, This would suggest that it was those areas that needed extra protection.
Last edited:
Chris H
Airman
I remember reading about this in Reader's Digest "Humour in Uniform" (at least 50) years ago!
Barrett
Senior Airman
During the Korean War one of my USN friends had the VA (attack) desk in BuAer. He compiled a summary of battle damage to aircraft (mostly Skyraiders) that returned to base and concluded that more armor was required around the engine. Don't recall if Hank said whether his figures resulted in fewer losses, as he rolled out to command an AD squadron.
I first saw a version of that story a long, long time ago. The wisdom of it is actually real; the historical accuracy of this particular version, likely not. It even seems likely (to me, anyway) that the first person to think hard about adding armor to an airplane was smart enough to focus on the obvious weak spots, like the pilot, the radiator (for liquid-cooled engines), the gas tanks, and so on.
But I have never before seen that article about Wald referenced before, so maybe I was wrong to doubt that anybody would really think that the places with more damage should get more armor. Thanks for the link.
Given the citation of the original research paper:
Wald, Abraham. (1943). A Method of Estimating Plane Vulnerability Based on Damage of Survivors. Statistical Research Group, Columbia University. CRC 432 — reprint from July 1980. Center for Naval Analyses.
And how many academic and professional books on OR discuss this, I'd say that it's absolutely true.
Wald was an interesting guy. As a Hungarian refugee in the United States, he was an enemy alien and was subject to security restrictions on what data he could see. Fortunately, his superiors ended up just ignoring the security regulations: legally, he could be imprisoned for reading A Method of Estimating Plane Vulnerability Based on Damage of Survivors! (Yes, the study he wrote.)
Studying and recording the battle damage of planes that made it home certainly makes sense. And if one happened to notice (hypothetically), that no plane has ever come home with a hole in the radiator, that should tell a smart guy something pretty important. But the really smart thing would have been noticing it at the time, not just with 80 years of hindsight.
I think the diagram in the link and OP over simplifies what was by the end of the war a very involved science. Returning planes were not the only "evidence", there were also pilot crew accounts who had seen others go down and quite a lot of planes which just made it near to UK airspace and were abandoned with the crew baling out of a plane that could just stay in the air but couldnt land.
Reluctant Poster
Tech Sergeant
- 1,565
- Dec 6, 2006
From one of my previous posts:
"According to USN stats damage to the power plant was the leading cause of loss of aircraft (22% of losses). In terms of percentage 70% of hits to this area resulted in loss. As a percentage this was only exceeded by the oil system (hit less often as a it was smaller target).
Of aircraft that survived serious damage only 7% suffered engine damage. The invincibility of the radial engine is greatly exaggerated.
The source for the data is the Rand Corporation paper "Aircraft Vulnerability in World War II""
"According to USN stats damage to the power plant was the leading cause of loss of aircraft (22% of losses). In terms of percentage 70% of hits to this area resulted in loss. As a percentage this was only exceeded by the oil system (hit less often as a it was smaller target).
Of aircraft that survived serious damage only 7% suffered engine damage. The invincibility of the radial engine is greatly exaggerated.
The source for the data is the Rand Corporation paper "Aircraft Vulnerability in World War II""
Did the study only count serious damage? If so, how was "serious" defined? Could an aircraft suffer minor or trivial damage to its engine, or were all engine hits scored as "serious"?
What percentage of USN losses were to unknown causes?
How did the USN collect the information on the cause of the loss? Presumably, aircraft lost over the water couldn't be examined.
Did the study give equivalent information for aircraft with liquid-cooled engines?
Did the study give equivalent information for USAAF aircraft with a single radial? For that matter, was the study confined to single-engined USN aircraft?
Did the USN aircraft operate at greater ranges from their bases (land or CV) than USAAF tactical aircraft? Were USAAF tactical aircraft operating closer to emergency airstrips where damaged aircraft could land, so that aircraft with engine damage could land and eventually be repaired, rather than crashing before reaching base?
How did the losses for fighter escorts on strategic bombing raids compare to USN aircraft and USAAF tactical aircraft?
Presumably, the longer the return flight to base, the greater the chance that a damaged engine would give out before the aircraft.
Reluctant Poster
Tech Sergeant
- 1,565
- Dec 6, 2006
This might be data from that report. Frustratingly no source -- but I copied it and turned it into an image (since the forum I was on couldn't do tables) over 20 years ago. I do remember that it was a report from the pacific, all single-engine aircraft were radials and all four-engine aircraft were B-24s.
Reluctant Poster
Tech Sergeant
- 1,565
- Dec 6, 2006
It took me a while to figure it out. It is a portion of the same data that I was referring to. The data I used was based on USN data for single engine aircraft F6F, F4U, SB2C and TBM, due to Japanese fire from September 1944 to August 1945. It is a much larger sample. For example structures includes 2045 hits from AA and 215 from E /A. The data you have shown is for enemy aircraft only.
Big killers are the same 5 for both but the percentages are different. Eg the powerplant is 69.7 for AA, 62.2 for E/A.
In terms of absolute numbers hits on the pilot/ controls are the number one cause of loss for both. The pilot is much more likely to get hit than the engine, particularly for E/A. This makes sense since in fighter vs fighter combat the bullets often have to pass through the cockpit to get to the engine.
Reluctant Poster
Tech Sergeant
- 1,565
- Dec 6, 2006
I recreated the table from the Rand study
As you can see the data for Enemy Aircraft Fire matches the data in your table.
Last edited:
