Luftwaffe Aerial Victory Claims from 1939 - 1945

The first Mustang claimed by the Luftwaffe was claimed on 19 Aug 1942. Between then and the end of the war the Luftwaffe claimed 1,034 P-51's and 1,752 Spitfires, as I said above. Of the Spitfires, 943 of them (54%) were claimed by the combined units of JG 2 (349), JG 26 (378) and JG 54 (219). For P-51 claims, these same units accounted for 122 (JG 26), 69 (JG 2), and 52 (JG 53). That is 23.5% of all the P-51 claims.

So they DID, in fact, fight the same units in the same areas at least part of the time. If you add JG 3 and JG 11, these combined 5 units account for 46% of all P-51 claims from the time the P-51 was first claimed until the end of the war.

I submit they were fighting somewhat in the same areas (same units claiming a lot of planes), probably because the areas they were attacking the areas where the most German resistance was being encountered.

If I take some of the comments from above and decide to run that analysis again from 1 Oct 1943 through the end of the war, we find a swap. There were 957 P-51's claimed and 563 Spitfires claimed. In the case of the P-51, 50.5% of them were claimed by JG 11, JG 3, JG 26. FG 27, and JG 1. In the case of the Spitfires, 55% of them were claimed by JG 26, JG 1, JG 2, and JG 77.

I thiunk the P-51's were escorting raids and the Spitfires, though gainfully engaged, were not flying escort duty. Since the bulk of the damage was caused by bomber streams, I'd imagine that is where the bulk of the fighters were concentrated while ground attack planes were concentrated where the ground troops were advancing, but would have to check these premises somehow.

I'm trying to get Allied admitted losses from somewhere to bounce these numbers against, and will continue to pursue the numbers. Unless and until I can get the admitted losses by type designation, the claims make for some interesting speculation, but few conclusions.

Someplace online I have seen the US and British aircraft on hand by month and year, and will try to find that again to make more sense of the claims.

No big findings, but interesting numbers nonetheless, especially the swap in which plane had higher numeric losses. I wonder what the loss rate per sorties was and whether or not the Spirfiures were flying more sorties in the first case while the P-51's were flying more sorties in the second case. Again, some data aren't in hand yet.

Having the Germans claims, or at least one version of them, in hand is not very satrisfying for data analysis, is it?

GregP said:

T...
I thiunk the P-51's were escorting raids and the Spitfires, though gainfully engaged, were not flying escort duty...

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In fact Spits often flew escort sorties, mostly escorting fighter bombers or medium bombers but they also escorted heavy bombers, but because of their limited range (all longer range Mk VIIIs went to MTO or to CBI/SW Pacific and only VIIs (IIRC only appr. 100 built) operated in ETO) they were only employed in penetration and egress phases.

Juha

GregP said:

The first Mustang claimed by the Luftwaffe was claimed on 19 Aug 1942. Between then and the end of the war the Luftwaffe claimed 1,034 P-51's and 1,752 Spitfires, as I said above. Of the Spitfires, 943 of them (54%) were claimed by the combined units of JG 2 (349), JG 26 (378) and JG 54 (219). For P-51 claims, these same units accounted for 122 (JG 26), 69 (JG 2), and 52 (JG 53). That is 23.5% of all the P-51 claims.

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Between August 1942 and December 1943 the Mustang was operated in relatively small numbers, especially compared to the Spitfire.

GregP said:

If I take some of the comments from above and decide to run that analysis again from 1 Oct 1943 through the end of the war, we find a swap. There were 957 P-51's claimed and 563 Spitfires claimed. In the case of the P-51, 50.5% of them were claimed by JG 11, JG 3, JG 26. FG 27, and JG 1. In the case of the Spitfires, 55% of them were claimed by JG 26, JG 1, JG 2, and JG 77.

I thiunk the P-51's were escorting raids and the Spitfires, though gainfully engaged, were not flying escort duty. Since the bulk of the damage was caused by bomber streams, I'd imagine that is where the bulk of the fighters were concentrated while ground attack planes were concentrated where the ground troops were advancing, but would have to check these premises somehow.

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Indeed, Mustangs were escorting the bombers on long range missions. As Juha mentioned, Spitfires would often be part of the relay of fighter escorts - the last leg of which (going to target) would be taken by the P-51.

There were also a lot of Spitfires in the 2TAF, performing, largely, ground attack roles. A lot of them were the older Mk V.

Several Spitfire squdrons were involved in chasing down V-1 bombers. I think there was one Mustang squadron doing the same (from the RAF).

The Mustang is a particularly out of the ordinary aircraft to try to "evaluate" by enemy claims compared to total production.

According to one source 15,567 Mustangs (not including A-36s) were built by the end of 1945. And that is a big part of the problem. 6103 of them were built in 1945 and most of those did not see service against Germany. Since just about all, if not all, Mustangs were delivered by ship the Inglewood Mustangs had two choices. 1, Load the preserved for shipment aircraft aboard ships in southern California ports and send them through the Panama canal to an east coast port where the ship will marshaled into a convoy for the voyage across the Atlantic. 2, preserve aircraft and it's engine and take off the wing and crate the wing and fuselage for rail shipment to the east coast or gulf coast to be placed on a ship. The Dallas Mustangs can be placed aboard ship in Texas ports.

In any case it is very unlikely that any Mustang built after Feb 1945 showed up in time to fly against Germany.

Then you have the fact that while the numbers were not huge, Mustangs were being used in the China, Burma, India theater Starting around Sept 1943 with Allison powered versions. First P-51Bs show up in this Theater April 1944.

Going back to the production numbers, 6982 Mustangs were built in 1944 with production increasing from 370 per month in Jan to 720 in Dec.

Going back to 1943 a bit under 3000 Mustangs had been built by Dec 1943 since start of production and that includes the 500 A-36 aircraft.

Granted Spitfires were used around the world too and production continued post war but trying to draw any conclusions based off of claims vs numbers built seems to have a lot of potential problem areas.

Comparing even the B-24 to the B-17 gets difficult because the B-17 was primarily a European bomber with the B-24 seeing much more use in the Pacific, the CBI, for anti-sub patrols and cargo use. Actual numbers used against Germany might be much closer if not favoring the B-17 rather than in proportion to the numbers built.

The claims list is a very good piece of work and a valuable tool but it doesn't seem it can be used on it's own to draw conclusions unless the use of the compared planes is fairly close to begin with, like Lancaster vs Halifax. Somebody will probably point out that I am wrong about that

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a542518.pdf

The AAF had 4,833 P-51s on hand at the end of April 1945 of which 923 were in ConUS. 2455 vs Germany.

Gregg you will not find a complete list of LW claims this is plain and simple to draw from the cross check either US or Soviets. the stuff just is not there, too much is lost or in private ownership; I tried in vain back in the 80's and gave up. again guys I point this very important matter out the OkL did not confirm any more claims as of the end of October into November 1944.

absolutely

wuzak said:

Mustangs didn't see service for 2-1/2 to 3 years after the Spitfire. Merlin Mustangs some 4 years after the Spitfire began fighting the war.

Wayne - I suspect this is an apple to a petunia comparison for many reasons. The number of sorties and the location of sorties should certainly be considered. Certainly the quality of JG 26 and 2 in the west was very high wrt JG 27 and 77 in the south during epic LW vs Spit battles from 1939 through 1943. Post 1943 the epic battles were largely Mustangs against everything, everywhere in the West and South. Tactics as you say had a lot to do with tempering the aggressive nature of LW responses to bomber escorts.

Much of that time that the Merlin Mustangs were flying the Germans had weakened defences - for which the Mustang can take some credit. And there was also the directive to avoid the escorts and target the bombers. So less threat to the fighters than might have been.

Spitfires had, on occasion, been subject to poor tactics - like sweeps over France in 1941.

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The 8th AF, the dominant Mustang antagonist against LuftFlotte Reich and Sud in 1944-1945 lost about 324 Mustangs in air to air, 569 air to ground, have to dig for the operational losses '"other"