Luftwaffe Sorties

[CEFORNIGLIA]

How Many Combat Sorties did the Luftwaffe Fly in the Time Period Between September 1939 and May 1945?

 

[Admiral Beez]

How Many Combat Sorties did the Luftwaffe Fly in the Time Period Between September 1939 and May 1945?

Isn't every flight that's not a training, transport or reconnaissance mission a combat sortie? It must number in the millions of individual aircraft combat sorties. The Germans produced 30,000 Bf 109 fighters alone, fly each one ten times in a combat mission and you've got 300,000 sorties right there.

Sortie - Wikipedia

In military aviation, a sortie is a combat mission of an individual aircraft, starting when the aircraft takes off. For example, one mission involving six aircraft would tally six sorties.

 

[Admiral Beez]

German aircraft production during World War II - Wikipedia

18,499 bombers.
53,215 fighters.
11,349 ground attack.

That's 83,053 bombers, fighter and ground attack. Fly each one twenty times and you've got 1.6 million sorties. Then add in combat sorties for the reconnaissance types such as the Fw 200 Condor and any combat ops by seaplanes and you've got millions of combat sorties,

 

[GregP]

The Germans didn't produce 30,000 Bf 109s during the war. It was closer to 24,000. The balance were built post-war and many in other countries. The total is estimated at about 36,000 Bf 109s, counting Ha-1112s and Avias, etc.

There are no exact German records because they were lost to bombing but the accepted figure is 22,000 - 25,000 wartime Bf 109s.

 

[Vincenzo]

The Germans didn't produce 30,000 Bf 109s during the war. It was closer to 24,000. The balance were built post-war and many in other countries. The total is estimated at about 36,000 Bf 109s, counting Ha-1112s and Avias, etc.

There are no exact German records because they were lost to bombing but the accepted figure is 22,000 - 25,000 wartime Bf 109s.

No you are in wrong
the 109 production until the 30th November '44 was 29,595, is true that include pre-war 109 , 1075 A to D model, plus some, probably less of one thousand, E built before of war, but also miss 4 full months of production, that could be estimated in 3 thousands.

 

[Admiral Beez]

No you are in wrong

I wouldn't have bothered Vincenzo. Don't feed the contrarian is my mantra - let them have their perceived gotcha moment.

The exact number of Bf 109s is not important. The question asked is how many sorties. I only gave the estimated production figures to support my suggestion that the number of combat sorties is likely in the millions.

 

[Andrew Arthy]

Hi,

Here are some Luftwaffe fighter sortie totals for 1944. It doesn't answer the original question, but at least it's a start:

Luftwaffenkommando West: 47,055
Luftwaffenkommando Südost: 8,676
Italy: 16,189
Norway: 3,376
Reich: 59,033

Cheers,
Andrew A.

 

[Milosh]

Andrew did a very nice job of 109 production from Jan '44 to war end. It can be found here, Bf109 Neubau 1/44 to 3/45 - Page 3 - Luftwaffe and Allied Air Forces Discussion Forum Post #28. Total was 17,017

 

[CEFORNIGLIA]

Thank You, Everyone for Answering My Question...I Guess There are No Definitive Answers Like For Example, the USAAF and the US Navy Totals in All Theaters from December 1941 to August 1945.