Luftwaffe Aerial Victory Claims from 1939 - 1945

[mhuxt]

Hi Greg,

RAF and USAAF victories and losses on the Channel Front are available from 1 November 1940 to 31 December 1943. Visit this page: http://lesliesawyer.com/claims/tonywood.htm, and they are the first available downloads.

Are you aware of Frank Olynyk's excellent USAAF victory claims books from the 1980s? He has plans to re-publish these at some point. I've attached a page from December 1944.

Cheers,
Andrew A.

View attachment 268203

Hi Andrew,

Those Olynyk books are rarer than hen's teeth, you're the only person I know who has one.

If I flicked you a small spreadsheet, would you be willing to look up some details for me? I'm trying (among other things) to identify any Mossie friendly-fire incidents, but don't have time of day, place and type claimed for US fighters. There's maybe 30 or 40 claims for which I have some but not all info - could you fill in the missing data if I batted my eyes at you? (Or something more appropriate...)

 

[wuzak]

In my claims file, the first P-51 claim shows up on 19 Aug 1942. In fact, the first three P-51 claims show up on 19 Aug 1942.

That would be the Dieppe raid.

Dieppe Raid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

According to wiki there were:
64 Spitfires
20 Hurricanes
6 Douglas Bostons
10 Mustang Is

lost that day.


RAF Strength wast listed as:
74 Squadrons
~10,500 men

There were 48 squadrons of Spitfires, 8 squadrons of Hurricanes and 4 squadrons of Mustangs.

There were 6.4 Spitfires lost for every Mustang, but 16 times the number of squadrons.
There were 3.2 times as many Spitfires lost as Hurricanes, but 8 times the squadrons.

Of course these losses were to all causes - not just losses to fighters.

On the other side, the Luftwaffe lost:
23 Fw 190
25 Dornier Do 217

 

[Shortround6]

In Jan 1943 15 RAF squadrons are using Allison powered Mustangs. The US orders 2000 Merlin powered P-51Bs the same month. North American is in the middle of the A-36 production run.

April 1943 sees A-36s in Tunisia.

I could be wrong but I don't think the US used Mustangs in the European theater ( as opposed to the Med or Italy) until Dec 1943.

Middle to end of Feb 1944 sees 2 fighter groups with P-51s in the 8th air Force. The only US Mustangs IN England?

British were supposed to get 944 P-51B&C's but some were repo-ed by the USAAF. British don't start operations until Feb 1944 with the Merlin powered versions.

Claims over time (or admitted losses over time) only are a useful comparison for trying to figure out which plane was "safer" IF you know the numbers of aircraft in service for the time periods in question.

P-40 might show up rather well in the last few years of the war (1943-44) when you compare the number built to the number "claimed" by the Luftwaffe. The fact that the P-40 was being phased out of operational squadrons with a lot of the new production planes being used in the US as advanced trainers might be responsible for a skewed result. A bit like the Hurricane, Used in combat but not without being escorted by other fighters. Were Hurricanes being used as fighter trainers in the RAF in 1943/44/45? Pilots got 10-20 hours in Hurricanes before switching to Spitfires/Typhoons/Tempests?

I think Greg has put a lot of work into this and the information is undoubtedly useful and interesting. It may not be enough to support some of the conclusions however.

 

[GregP]

I actually have no conclusions ... I have questions. I have just started a new job, have little time now, and completed the claims file after midnight a few days ago.

My intent was and is to provide some data that is easily analyzed, not to draw premature conclusions.

Down load the file, extract it, and do some investigation and let's talk about it. Should provide soime good discussion.

However, the simple fact is the same air force claimed 69% more Spitfires than Mustangs in the same timeframe from when both were in service. I can understand easily that fewer P-51's were available at the start of the time interval, but that is where reasonable discussion comes in.

What use of the claims makes sense?

We have NO German awarded victories file. What would you have us use? Not specifically you, Shortround, everyone ... though I'd listen to your opinion, it's usually a good one.

I'm trying very hard to get a way to loook at the data and find trends in the data.

Any ideas?

Post 'em!

 

[Andrew Arthy]

Hi Mark,

I'll send you an email to discuss the Mossie claims. I have Frank's ETO and MTO lists. I should be meeting up with him in early September, so will see if he has plans to make his work available in a new format. I know that he's been continually working on his Allied victory lists since the old ones were published. Anyhow, will contact you offboard.

Cheers,
Andrew A.

 

[stona]

So two good questions might be what % overcaliming is about fair

That's an impossible question I'm afraid. It is impossible to generalise. For a variety of reasons claims in different theatres and different times are more or less accurate. For example British claims in the BoB were wildly inaccurate, whereas German claims in North Africa usually tally remarkably well with allied losses.
Cheers
Steve

 

[mhuxt]

Hi Mark,

I'll send you an email to discuss the Mossie claims. I have Frank's ETO and MTO lists. I should be meeting up with him in early September, so will see if he has plans to make his work available in a new format. I know that he's been continually working on his Allied victory lists since the old ones were published. Anyhow, will contact you offboard.

Cheers,
Andrew A.

Many thanks Andrew.

 

[Milosh]

That's an impossible question I'm afraid. It is impossible to generalise. For a variety of reasons claims in different theatres and different times are more or less accurate. For example British claims in the BoB were wildly inaccurate, whereas German claims in North Africa usually tally remarkably well with allied losses.
Cheers
Steve

The German claims during the BoB weren't much better. They thought the Brits were down to only a few fighters left.

 

[stona]

The German claims during the BoB weren't much better. They thought the Brits were down to only a few fighters left.

Indeed. There are many reasons why this should be, maybe for another thread. The propensity for the British to make up the numbers with estimated losses which were judged to have gone into the sea, and for the Germans to have no way of checking British losses over what was, for them, hostile territory being the most obvious.

In the desert excellent weather and visibility, crash sites or burning wrecks being visible for many miles, probably contributed to the relative accuracy of claims.

In WW1 the RFC had a category for aircraft downed 'out of control'. In WW2 such an aircraft, disappearing into cloud seemingly out of control would usually be claimed as 'probable' or even 'destroyed' particularly if smoking or on fire.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Milosh]

There was also the numbers released to the British public for propaganda purposes which were totally at odds with actual RAF claims.

 

[stona]

There was also the numbers released to the British public for propaganda purposes which were totally at odds with actual RAF claims.

That's not how I understand it. The government 'propaganda' claims ran at about 2.5 : 1 (claimed : actual loss) which tallies well with the RAF's claims.

The famous '176 destroyed' reported by the BBC for September 15th matches exactly the figures in the RAF's official history ("Our fighters destroyed 176 enemy aircraft (124 bombers and 53 fighters) plus 41 probable and 72 damaged.")

We now know the number was more like 60, but neither Fighter Command, nor the BBC thought so at the time

Cheers

Steve

 

[parsifal]

In regard to the disparity of Mustang losses to Spit losses August 1942 to May 1945, one explanation would be that the RAF utlised may times more spits than they used Mustangs. in 1944, they took delivery of something like 800 Mustangs, whilst taking delivery thousands of Spitfires. In North africa, or rather Tunisia, there were if I remember correctly 40 something squadrons of Spitfires to about 4 Mustangs.

Another issue is that the early marks of Mustang were not worked that hard, because the RAF didnt really like them. The p-51A was found to be disappointing in many respects, and the Mustang II, or P-51B didnt arrive until the middle of 1943, with combat debut in November, from memory.

The war experiences of the two aircraft , in RAF service at least, are not comparable.

 

[wuzak]

That would be the Dieppe raid.

Dieppe Raid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

According to wiki there were:
64 Spitfires
20 Hurricanes
6 Douglas Bostons
10 Mustang Is

lost that day.


RAF Strength wast listed as:
74 Squadrons
~10,500 men

There were 48 squadrons of Spitfires, 8 squadrons of Hurricanes and 4 squadrons of Mustangs.

There were 6.4 Spitfires lost for every Mustang, but 16 times the number of squadrons.
There were 3.2 times as many Spitfires lost as Hurricanes, but 8 times the squadrons.

Of course these losses were to all causes - not just losses to fighters.

On the other side, the Luftwaffe lost:
23 Fw 190
25 Dornier Do 217

Just did a quick search on Greg's database - found 111 claims for Spitfires on 19 August 1942 (the day of the Dieppe landings), 1 Hurricane claimed and 4 Mustangs.

 

[GregP]

I expected better but ... use the data or don't.

It's all up to the person who downloads it and decides what to do with it. A potential good use might be to compare the claims with any known losses over a time period. The location may or may not help as some towns or designated areas may well have changed names. I haven't dealved into it mush as yet. I'm still fighting a computer as of last night ...

 

[wuzak]

A potential good use might be to compare the claims with any known losses over a time period. The location may or may not help as some towns or designated areas may well have changed names.

I thought that's what I was doing - comparing losses and claims for the 19th August, 1942.

There were 199 claims that day. 87 identified Dieppe. 83 identified Dieppe and has a Spitfire as the victim.

The other 4 victims with Dieppe as the location were:
1 x Hurricane
1 x Blenheim
1 x Mustang
1 x P-39

There are also a number of Spitfire claims without location, and others with locations of towns in the Dieppe area.

KG 40 claimed 5 Spitfire on the 19th August 1942 too.

This has a similar list to the spreadhseet - perhaps from the same source?
German Victories At Dieppe

The P-39 is interesting, since the RAF stopped using them months earlier. Mistaken identity, most probably.

 

[GregP]

Sorry Wayne,

it wasn't aimed at you and I haven't seen that list before despite looking very hard for such lists.

I'll get on the next list when I get the time. I'm now out at Chino airport 6 days a week and it's getting pretty darned hot over here. I don't have a lot of "go get 'em" left when I get home ... hopefully I'll get used to it and move on with regular energy.

Just ordered vol 1 of the RAF Fighter Command Losses online. It's a start.

 

[Shortround6]

The P-39 is interesting, since the RAF stopped using them months earlier. Mistaken identity, most probably.

Well, the RAF 'claimed' a number of He 113s during the BoB.

I guess turnabout is fair

 

[stona]

When the Fw 190 first appeared RAF pilots identified it as the Curtiss Hawk, presumably knowing that the Germans might have acquired some from the French. Misidentification was commonplace.

Keith Park sent an official signal to Hornchurch on 20th August 1940 to commend

"..the fine offensive spirit of the single pilot of No.54 Squadron who chased nine He 113s across to France this afternoon."

The He113s were of course Bf 109s.

Cheers

Steve

 

[parsifal]

When the Fw 190 first appeared RAF pilots identified it as the Curtiss Hawk, presumably knowing that the Germans might have acquired some from the French. Misidentification was commonplace.

Keith Park sent an official signal to Hornchurch on 20th August 1940 to commend

"..the fine offensive spirit of the single pilot of No.54 Squadron who chased nine He 113s across to France this afternoon."

The He113s were of course Bf 109s.

Cheers

Steve

or captured french mohawks.......hehe

 

[Milosh]

Still not as bad as claiming Spitfires when they were Hurricanes.