Mosquito versus the German fighters
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Kurfürst
Staff Sergeant
... and apart from these planes, the FW 190A, Bf 109G etc. Either could quite easily catch them if they were vectored onto the target correctly. As noted by others, the problem Mosquito interception caused was the same as with any target cruising at higher speeds like JaBos or fighter recces. It gave less time frame for interception, making ground control's job more difficult.
Neither it could afford to run at high powers for long time, as it would risking blowing up the engine or running out of fuel before returning to base. When the Mosquito was first entered combat, it had twice the loss rate other RAF bombers in the daylight. Ever wondered why Mosquitos mainly bombed at night - because they were faster than the Luftwaffe's daylight fighters, right? Nightfighters OTOH were slower twin engines, being burdened with lots of extra equipment, like flame dampers, radar, extra cannons and lost quite a bit of their daylight version's speed due to that.
Jabberwocky
Staff Sergeant
The evidence doesn't really bear this theory out.
May 31 - 5 sorties, 1 loss to light flak (20% loss rate for the month)
Jun 1 - 2 sorties, 1 loss to unknown causes,
Jun 18 - 3 sorties, no losses
Jun 20 - 3 sorties, no losses
25 Jun - 8 sorties, no losses
26 Jun - 4 sorties, no losses (5% loss rate)
1 Jul - 1 sortie, no loss
2 Jul - 6 sorties, 1 loss to FW 190s, 1 to light flak
11 Jul - 6 sorties, 1 loss to pilot error (hit a house on low level mission)
14 Jul - 6 sorties, no losses
16 Jul - 4 sorties, 1 loss to flak
21 Jul - 6 sorties, no losses
22 Jul - 1 sortie, no loss
23 Jul - 4 sorties and 3 aborts due to weather, no losses
25 Jul - 5 sorties, no losses
26 Jul - 3 sorties, no losses
28 Jul - 6 sorties, 1 loss to unknown causes
29 Jul - 3 sorties, no losses
30 Jul - 4 sorties, no losses
31 Jul - 1 sortie, no loss (6.4% loss rate for the month)
Aug - 54 sorties, 4 losses (7.4% loss rate for the month, 2 to fighters, 2 to flak)
Sep - 58 sorties, 3 losses (5.2% loss rate, with 2 attributed to fighters, 1 to flak)
Oct - 97 sorties, 5 losses, one to fighters, one attributed to navigational error, one flak, two unknown (5.2% loss rate)
Nov - 28 sorties, 3 losses all to naval flak (10.7% loss rate)
From Dec onwards, the Mossies operated both daylight and night time sorties.
Overall loss rate for first six months of daylight operations was 6.7%, which is high, but not twice the average daylight loss rate of BC at the time (which was about 4.6%), and certainly not due to German fighters causing problems.
Of the 22 Bomber Command Mosquito losses in the period, I can only find 6 directly attributed to enemy fighters by the RAF, while 10 were to flak and two to pilot error. The four losses to unknown cause could go to either flak, fighters or pilot error, leaving flak as probably the single largest killer of Mossie pilots in the period before they switched to mixed day/night operations.
However, that all said, this is just information for the inital operational period for the Mossie, before it got significantly more important to the war effort of the UK. Mosquitos flew well in excess of 50,000 bomber / fighter bomber sorties during the war, so 330 sorties in six months is to small a sample to really be statistically significant.
Erich
the old Sage
as to night losses of the Mossies you will find that out from the LW side of things next year when Dr. Boitens massive book on the Nachtjagd is published.
the truth is the Bf 109G-6/AS and later G-14/AS could take on the mossies of the LSNF and shoot them down as well as Mossie fighters. We have the documentation for our book
I must add that in the earlier part of the war that the nuisance raids on Berlin made quite a propaganda scare of the Third Reich leadership so much so that Goebbels and staff pressed Fat man to do something about it and the anti-Mossie units were created. JG 50 "tired" during the day and were unsuccessful, 10.(N)/JG 300 with 109G-6/AS and also 1./NJGr 10 much more so and the result of this led to Kurt Welter establishment of his private gang - Kommando
the truth is the Bf 109G-6/AS and later G-14/AS could take on the mossies of the LSNF and shoot them down as well as Mossie fighters. We have the documentation for our book
I must add that in the earlier part of the war that the nuisance raids on Berlin made quite a propaganda scare of the Third Reich leadership so much so that Goebbels and staff pressed Fat man to do something about it and the anti-Mossie units were created. JG 50 "tired" during the day and were unsuccessful, 10.(N)/JG 300 with 109G-6/AS and also 1./NJGr 10 much more so and the result of this led to Kurt Welter establishment of his private gang - Kommando
Glider
Captain
I must also question this statement. Looking at the stats for 2 Group in 1944 the stats are
Mossies (Day) 1732 sorties, 1320 successful, 17 lost to flak, 1 to fighters, unknown 11. total loss ratio 2.2 percent.
Mossies (Night) 9899 sorties, 8877 successful, 4 lost to flak, 0 to fighters, unknown 73. total loss ratio 0.9 percent
Note. I did the loss ratio on successful missions, not missions flown the normal method.
So whilst they did have fewer losses at night I don't think a loss ratio of 2.2% is high and definately not twice the loss ratio of other bombers.
Maybe this should be reworded
'the truth is the Bf 109G-6/AS and later G-14/AS could take on the mossies of the LSNF and shoot them down as well as Mossie fighters, but didn't'
The real question is, why didn't they?
Erich
the old Sage
but you are mistaken 10./JG 300 was successful against the LSNF and in one case against a day fighter Mossie. At present they are listed in JG 300 volume 1 bei Lorant/Goyat and will be in much longer length in our Moskito-jagd über Deutschland and of course the kills in Kommando Welter. One case we were able to get the German pilot in a small reunion with the radio op living in Canada, the pilot did not make out of his burning Mossie sadly
Glider
Captain
No doubt the odd mossie was shot down as no one is saying that they were bullet proof and I do not doubt that some of the unknows are due to fighters, but nowhere near enought were shot down to make any difference. The loss ratios are almost trivial compared to other aircraft involved in the conflict.
I have no access to the german figures but I would be suprised if the loss ratios of the German planes were less than those of the Mossies.
Erich
the old Sage
Glider I am in total agreeance, it did not make any difference as Berlin was repeatedly annoyed by Mossie bombings into April of 45. Losses were minimal to the wooden crate, the Germans rarely got a chance to jump on them and if so it was only 1-2 at a time the Mossie formation if we want to call it that just simply ran off to their homefield(s).
from an earlier post of mine the day-time trials against the Mosquito were a joke, JG 50 scored a fat 0 and was turned over to encounter US day time 4 engine bombers.........
4./NJGr 10 stationed in Holland during 1944 hoped it could catch Mossies en-route to Germany with their Fw 190A-8's ~ they failed every time...
from an earlier post of mine the day-time trials against the Mosquito were a joke, JG 50 scored a fat 0 and was turned over to encounter US day time 4 engine bombers.........
4./NJGr 10 stationed in Holland during 1944 hoped it could catch Mossies en-route to Germany with their Fw 190A-8's ~ they failed every time...
Glider
Captain
Kurfurst. Can I ask you to say where you obtained your figures and support your statement?
Kurfürst
Staff Sergeant
Source for the figures...?
I think you've missed the part in my post which says 'when introduced'. You quoted loss figures for 1944. I am quite sure the Mosquito was introduced into combat much earlier.
Anyway, if you want to boast about loss rate figures, there are plenty of aircraft enjoying similiar or better loss rates as the Mosquitos at night, take a look at here and scroll down. http://les_butler.drivehq.com/jg26/thtrloss.gif
That's a 0.53 % loss rate on daylight sorties the East in 1944, 'twice as good' as the Mossie during the night over the Reich, but I very much doubt that's because Stukas and Heinkel's kept outrunning Soviet fighters in 1944, or were covered to teeth by cemented Krupp armor..
A game with words, now that proves a lot... here's my version
'The truth is the Bf 109G-6/AS and later G-14/AS could take on the mossies of the LSNF and shoot them down as well as Mossie fighters, but there are some on this board who just can't bear the idea of his favourite nuisance bomber could be and have been shot down like any other bomber'
Second thing I don't quite get is what the importance of the night sorties thing. Night mosquitos were introduced after Bomber Command realized Berlin is just a too tough, and largely for propaganda reasons, they've created the light nightly strike force of mosquitos in 1944 that performed militarily insignificant, politically motivated nuisance raids on Berlin, the only questionable gain being enjoyed by the British propaganda ministry. They could have a headline that they've 'bombed' Berlin this night, again. Even if in reality it meant single aircraft dropping single high capacity bombs from high speed and high altitude without the slightest chance of hitting any specific target.
Waste of resources if you ask me, and the sensible German LW commanders must have thought the same, there were never any significant resource spent of combatting non-significant threats like the Mosquito. The Nachtjagd kept concentrating grinding the heavies, which were doing the real damage to cities anyway. Which is the answer to your question WHY.
Glider
Captain
My source is 2 Group RAF ISBN 0 571 11460 1 Appendix 10, your source for the claim of twice the loss ratio of other bombers, is what?
No 2 Group Mossie squadrons became fully equipped with these aircraft in Oct 1943. The figures I gave were for 1944 but I have a breakdown for the first three months of 1944 if that's better.
Mossies (Day) 1195 sorties, 7 lost to flak, 1 to fighters, unknown 9. total loss ratio 1.4 percent.
Mossies (Night) 244 sorties, 0 lost to flak, 0 to fighters, unknown 6. total loss ratio 4 percent
In addition I can say that Bomber Command lost 62 mossies to all causes (including non operational losses) in the whole of 1943. I am afraid I don't know the number of missions but 62, little more than 1 a week doesn't seem excessive. Its worth noting that a large proportion of these would have been flak and unknowns. (source The Luftwaffe 1933-1945 page 164)
Sorry but I must be having a thick moment. Can you explain to me how you arrived at a loss ratio of 0.53% for daylight sorties over the East from the link provided?
Interesting choice of words but you still haven't addressed the problem, if they could shoot the Mossies down by day or night, why didn't they. It's a simple question devoid of emotion and still waiting for a reply.
Suggest you read up on the conflict a bit more. As for insignificant, thousands of missions each of which carried the same bombload as a B17 can hardly be called insignificant. Unless you call the B17 an insignificant nuisance bomber, which I doubt.
Plus they were ideal for pathfinding, recce, Photo Recce and weather reporting ahead of the main raids often alone, many hundreds of miles inside German territory and a number of other high risk tasks made them a valuable target, one the Germans tried hard to stop. Special units were formed and versions of fighters developed just to stop these happening and still they continued with low loss ratio's.
Kurfürst
Staff Sergeant
... why restrict Mosquito losses to No 2 Group and 1943...? Mosquitos were present with No 2 Group from November 1941, No 105 Sqn being the first to equip.
Osprey's combat a/c No 4, page 10 (Marin Bowman). It notes Mosquitos flying high flying missions in 1942 had losses comparable to Blenheims flying low altitude missions a year before, and the Mosquito was considered to be removed from production at all.
I recall the loss rate information was from here, but I don't have it handy to recheck. Amazon.com: Great Book of World War II Airplanes: Books: Rh Value Publishing
Meaning they knew that 1 was lost to fighters, and they had no idea in 15 cases what hit them at all...
Well more information would certainly be welcome. If only small numbers were deployed, then 62 losses are not slight at all, then there's the mission profile (I guess patrolling the Atlantic for example was a rather safe place away from 109s/190s - just an example) and the number of sorties made.
You seem to have hard time accepting that unknowns can be due to by being hit by a fighter before you realize what's happening and report it.
Wrong link !
http://les_butler.drivehq.com/jg26/thtrlosses.htm
Scroll down.
There's no problem. There are just rhetorics from you.
The question wheter Mosquitos can be intercepted by Bf 109s or FW 190s is a technical one - plotting possible Mosquito max level and cruise speeds vs. contemporary enemy fighters and see the results. Results show the Mosquito was considerably slower than either. Do that and come back when you're ready. You can't answer that with mere rhetrorics, I am afraid.
A better question, why Mosquitos operated at night... when they could outrun Luftwaffe fighters anyway, or so you suggest. Would not it be easier to bomb in the daylight?
Suggest you drop the big attitude because if you're wrong, you'll look very silly.
The Mosquito is no-where near the class of a heavy bomber.
It's light bomber with a very limited bomb load, and yup, some late war versions were converted to carry a single, thin walled bomb which is pretty much useless to any purpose other than busting the roofs of civvy houses.
What military worth that has, tell me. The FB VI was a useful light bomber and interdiction aircraft. The B XVI et co doing the Berlin runs were little more than a high profile nuisance OTOH, an expensive handkerchief Harris put in front of his bloodied nose in early 1944...
It doesn't appear that they tried hard, nor there seems to be any special in these tasks at all. Yep the Mossie did that, as did other planes during the war.
Really? Can you name a few of these special units and fighter types, I am dying to hear of them... I guess you want to name a high altitude 109s, but you'd need to understand high altitude 109s existed before Mosquitos.
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mosquitoman
Master Sergeant
Max bombload of a Mosquito: 4,000lb in one single bomb.
Max bombload of a B-17: 17,600lb (over a short range)
6,000lb was a normal bombload for a long range mission
Sources were: Aircraft of World War II by Kenneth Munson; The illustrated Dictionary of Fighting Aircraft of World War II and Mosquito in action part 1 squadron/signal publications
Max bombload of a B-17: 17,600lb (over a short range)
6,000lb was a normal bombload for a long range mission
Sources were: Aircraft of World War II by Kenneth Munson; The illustrated Dictionary of Fighting Aircraft of World War II and Mosquito in action part 1 squadron/signal publications
Glider
Captain
Because these are stats that I have and can quote
Interesting and I didn't know this. Did they quote numbers.
Re 105 squadron they received seven Mossie PR 1.
W4065 lasted 6 months
W4066 lasted 26 months
W4068 lasted 6 months
W4069 lasted 6 months
W4070 lasted 9 months
W4071 lasted 10 months
W4072 lasted 8 months
They then moved on to Bomber MkIV. I do not know how many missions they flew but to last a minimum of 6 months in front line action alone on PR misions is quite an achievement.
I doubt that you have ever flown at night, I could be wrong. No it means that 15 were lost but the cause was unknown, by no means the same thing.
I make it 5 squadrons equipped with Bomber Mossies in mid 1943. One month on average for a plane flying deep into enemy areas is very good. As for mission profiles the mid atlantic wasn't the place for Mossies.
Wrong again. The loss ratio's mentioned are for all losses. No doubt some were caused by fighters and flak. However in the entire war for all types and nations flying at night accidents were a major cause of loss.
Thanks I did. I notice the bit where it states that the West was a far more dangerous place to operate than the East. We are of course talking about the West, over Germany, the most heavily defended area in the world, by day and night, hundreds of miles behind German Lines. Not I suggest the same as the East where there were almost no German long range missions of any kind against a weaker opposition.
I think this is the main difficulty between us. You are looking at it as a technical issue. Plane A goes so fast, its faster than plane B, therefore it can shoot it down.
My position is this only happened on very rare occasions. More than 99 times out of a 100 the Mossie completed the mission without being shot down by a fighter. Such was the cruising speed of the Mossie it was very difficult, almost impossible, for the fighter to get into a position to intercept. If it did then there was every chance that it didn't have the fuel for a long tail chase as the mossie had a much longer range. I try to look at what actually happened instead of what could have happened and the actual experience i.e. loss ratio's prove this beyond any doubt.
This has been addressed. Most of the night missions were in support of the Heavy bombers. Weather was a day and night operation, Target Marking a night operation, spoof raids a night operation. Some such as PR were mainly done in daylight plus of course the precision raids.
The Mossies had the same bombload as a B17 to Berlin from the UK. Re the comment about destroying buildings, well that is what the British Heavy bombers did most of the time so the Mossie followed the same pattern. Factories, enginering works, power stations were buildings as were other major economic targets.
Name one plane that flew on a regular basis over Germany in daylight in 1943 let alone 1942 on PR, Recce, Bombing Missions with such a loss ratio. Or if you prefer a German plane over all parts of the UK
Certainly.
If I can quote Erich earlier in the thread
4./NJGr 10 stationed in Holland during 1944 hoped it could catch Mossies en-route to Germany with their Fw 190A-8's ~ they failed every time...
HS 219B was supposed to be a Mossie catcher. The 410 was tried and the TA154 was inspired by the mossie. Re the High Altitude 109's I know they existed but didn't achieve much or even anythng at all.
pbfoot
1st Lieutenant
The type of mission the Mosquito flew would also affect the losses they didn't fly in large groups and if they did it would be at lower levels . It would be very hard to scramble any aircraft to intercept a lo mission or even a small gaggle up high. Picking up a radar target on a small formation would be dicey at best let alone vectoring an interceptor on to it
Jabberwocky
Staff Sergeant
Kurfurst, you may need to recheck your maths re LuftWaffe daylight loss ratios, your out by a factor of 10....
9,760/186,004 = 5.37% loss rate (NOT 0.537%)
Bomber Command Moquito losses on Night Bomber operations from May 1943 to May 1945 were 108 losses and 88 additional write offs after return, in 26,739 effective sorties.
196/26,739 = 0.7% loss rate, with a 0.4% loss rate for crews, or about 1 in every 250 sorties.
Given that Mossies dropped, on average, 2,101 lbs of bombs per mission, thats about 525,250 lbs of bombs dropped per crew lost.
Christ, where to start?
First, don't expect numbers from the Osprey reference given. There are none. In fact, it's not even Bowman's research, it's a quote from a vet. Furthermore, he specifically limits the time period to three months in the summer of '42, July to September. He also says that the Mossie ops "were far more ambitious than Blenheim ops, but casualties were lower."
I can't speak for whatever rumours he encountered on squadron during the period in question, however at the end of July '42 the Ministry of Aircraft Production was at de Havilland's door to stress the need to ramp up production.
Night Mossies were not a response to the Battle of Berlin, which began in mid-November 1943. 109 Squadron made its first night sorties in December 1942. 105 and 139 Squadrons raided Berlin 5 times at night before the end of May '42. All up, 1,000 night Mosquito sorties had been flown at night into Europe before the Battle of Berlin even began.
Nor was the Cookie Mossie a response to the Battle of Berlin. The original instruction for development came in April 1943. By June the conversion was capable of carrying GP, MC and HE 4,000 lb.-ers.
First, don't expect numbers from the Osprey reference given. There are none. In fact, it's not even Bowman's research, it's a quote from a vet. Furthermore, he specifically limits the time period to three months in the summer of '42, July to September. He also says that the Mossie ops "were far more ambitious than Blenheim ops, but casualties were lower."
I can't speak for whatever rumours he encountered on squadron during the period in question, however at the end of July '42 the Ministry of Aircraft Production was at de Havilland's door to stress the need to ramp up production.
Night Mossies were not a response to the Battle of Berlin, which began in mid-November 1943. 109 Squadron made its first night sorties in December 1942. 105 and 139 Squadrons raided Berlin 5 times at night before the end of May '42. All up, 1,000 night Mosquito sorties had been flown at night into Europe before the Battle of Berlin even began.
Nor was the Cookie Mossie a response to the Battle of Berlin. The original instruction for development came in April 1943. By June the conversion was capable of carrying GP, MC and HE 4,000 lb.-ers.
Glider
Captain
Thanks for this, much appreciated.
