Most Overrated aircraft of WWII.....? (1 Viewer)

[Smokey Stover]

The B-17 may have been over hyped, both at the time and in popular writing since then. But I like to do analysis based on facts.
The B-24 had several advantages over the B-17, unfortunately it also had a few disadvantages which did not come out until it had bee in service for a while.
as to one aircraft replacing another, that gets very difficult some times.
For the B-17 the big change from the early planes came with the "E" model, This was ordered Aug 30 1940, well before the British had flown a Fortress I let alone used one in combat. It was in production in Sept of 1941 and by Dec 7th over 40 had been built (some were at Pearl harbor) and plans were made to produce it at two additional factories. The Vega plant ( a division of Lockheed ) and at a new factory run by Douglas, it takes time to build,equipe and staff factories and by the time these extra factories came on line they wound up building B-17Fs only 512 "E"s were built which is a small number compared to the overall total.
Now simultaneously the B-24 was going into production at Consolidated/San Diego and at Consolidated/Fort Worth and at Douglas/Tulsa. Ford/Detroit and North American/Dallas were brought in By Jan of 1942. First roll out of planes from these factories were months away.
Trying to swap which factory produced which aircraft could lead to months of lost production not to mention hundreds of tons of parts in the supply chain from subcontractors. B-17 and B-24 used different engines so you either came up with a new model to use up the existing engine manufacturing capability or you changed one or more factories over to make the other engine. IN 1943 alone Chevrolet made over 23,000 P & W R-1830s under licence and Buick made over 24,000 more. Studebaker built over 23,000 Wright R-1820s that year (and almost 50% more in spare parts).
Changing such programs in mid stream takes some awfully good reasons.

I would really like to see some evidence that the B-17E or F cruised 70mph slower than the early ones because of changes to the airplane. SO you have to compare at the same altitude and using the same power settings (RPM and Boost) or close to it. Yes they were slower But the 70mph figure is a bit dubious.
Speeds for large formations were often quite a bit lower than what the aircraft could do when flying alone or with only a few companions.
I would note that weight can play a large part also. And some of the early B-17s the weights they measured the performance at were absurdly low.

I Know the racks were removed but claiming the B-17 was over rated because the Lancaster could (as modified by 2-3 squadrons worth of aircraft) carry a 22,000lb load is not a very good argument.

Ok, i dont mind a bit of intelligent banter. Let me dig out some of my reference notes/stats and i will get back to you.
To be continued....

 

[Stig1207]

I suggest you get another translator. I do speak a little French and it is saying that essentially the question of losses is controversial and hard to conform, but at least 1000 Luftwaffe aircraft were destroyed in the air by the FAF, A/c destroyed in the air don't include aircraft that landed and were then written off. If you do include those numbers, losses inflicted on the LW by the French begin to climb toward the 1500 mark. What makes it difficult are that LW records are incomplete and we cant be sure who shot down what.

if you are going to use a foreign language source, it pays to have some idea of what you are posting.


This source does appear to be pretty good, though it is not properly referenced. It is possible that it has partisan positions to promote. There are some notoriously right wing French sources these days.....but it seems okay, thats about all i can say in its favour. But even if it is fairly balanced the centrepiece of its positioning is that it wants to challenge the established and accepted numbers. That's interesting and it is certainly not impossible but it is a far cry from proving anything, other than the author believes the numbers are contentious.


According to Peter Cornwell's "The battle of France then and now": between Sep 1939 to June 10th 1940 Luftwaffe lost 2168 aircrafts and about 3710 air crews killed or missing in the west, of which over 1800 were lost after 10 May. These losses do not include losses in Norway.

I certainly didn't understand the linked source the way you do, but somehow I don't think getting another translator is going to change that
So let's step back and review what you wrote earlier:

During 1939–1940, French H-75 pilots claimed around 230 kills. Losses were just 29 aircraft in aerial combat. While making up only 12.6% of the French Air Force single-seater fighter force, the H-75 accounted for almost a 33% of the victories during the 1940 Battle of France.

By my reckoning that would make for a total of about 700 victories for FAF fighters. Yet, in subsequent posts you have arrived at a score of 1500 victories for the French? A number that is also some 50% higher than they claimed?

Regrettably, I have not read Cornwell's BoFTN but others obviously have, and it seems that the over 1800 aircraft the Luftwaffe lost was for the period 3.9.1939-24.6.1940.
Luftwaffe losses France, 1940 • Axis History Forum

 

[pbehn]

The Battle of France was not an air battle, it was a land battle to out flank and surround allied forces as quickly as possible. It is completely understandable that L/W sortie rates got lower, the range of missions increased daily. Air forces were involved but Germany had a military dedicated to campaigns, from their side the losses were worth it, overall it was a rout.

 

[parsifal]

The French fighters might have shot down about 700 a/c, but loss tallies are far more than just those shot out of the sky . to be accurate,it needs include all losses, and many aircraft were lost after they had landed.

Your initial objection was that these (corrected) claims were overclaims. I would agree that claims data made at the time were usually grossly inaccurate, but corrected claims are a bit more reliable. not always, but fairly often, corrected claims are okay.

Another way to look at this might be to examine the numbers of LW aircrew captured. About 3500 according to Cambell. What might be the average numbers of aircrew per aircraft? most optimistically, if every one of the shoot downs was a bomber, carrying 4 aircrew, the losses cannot be less than 800aircraft shot down over enemy territory. But it will be less than four aircrew per shoot down ,some of those aircrew will be dead others wont be shot down over enemy territory and still others will make it back but the aircraft will never fly again.



.

 

[Glider]

Anyone reading this thread would think that the French won. Does anyone really think that the H75 had a near 8 - 1 advantage over the Luftwaffe when you consider that lack of radar, organisation and command and control that the French suffered from?.
I should add that I do believe that the H75 was the best plane they had but it wasn't better than the 109E

 

[parsifal]

The reasons for the allied defeat in NW Europe in the Summer of 1940 are complex. But it was undeniably a defeat.

Some of the more general reasons should include poor command and control, outdated tactical concept, archaic communications, poor use of existing assets like tanks and aircraft.

In the air the defeat has some additional twists. At the top of the list are numbers, and this arose because of the pre-war confusion in the French aircraft industry. Prewar the world witnessed the embarrassing fact that whereas Italy was producing some 200 aircraft per month, the French were languishing at the pitiful 30 a/c per month. It took time to overcome these issues. In the panic that followed, French outputs easily overtook those of Germany, but the aircraft being poured out were new types, requiring extensive conversion training, that was never to occur.

French tactical concepts in the distribution of air assets were very poor, especially at the beginning. Air assets tended to be allocated a bit at a time to support a particular army command. The result was dilution of effort. The French concepts for air support were poor compared to the LW. They favoured the concept of "Hedge hoppers", which exposed their attack aircraft to heavy ground fire. The aircraft they used in these operations were not well protected for this work and losses to ground fire were fairly high. The French did not use their attack aircraft intelligently. There tended to be a delay in response times, especially on vital targets like bridges. Such delays allowed the germans to defend these vital targets comprehensively.

There were lots of lesser, but still noteworthy reasons for the defeat, But it is a mistake to equate the overall strategic failures to battlefield failures. In the air, the germans won a resounding strategic victory, and a large part of that victory arose from their intelligent use of airpower. Their aircrews were experienced and effective. But they did not win one sided tactical victories without taking very serious losses. On the contrary, LW loss rates during the battle can be quite forcefully argued as being the a major factor leading to the subsequent failures over England and the USSR. The LW was always a force in which all the assets were 'in the shop window". They never carried large reserves, of either pilots or machines, or indeed even spare parts, making the structure very vulnerable to losses. The lack of spares repeatedly meant that in prolonged operations sortie rates would also suffer. The lack of adequate maintenance and repair infrastructure at the front often meant that in prolonged operations there were long repair times. Many aircraft were needed to be sent back to the factories for repairs. In france there were few opportunities for counterattack, but in Russia, many LW a/c were lost to ground counterattacks by the Soviets

Losses on the ground were probably on the other foot. I haven't read the full account, but according to Terraine, of the 430 hurricanes lost in France and the low countries in May/June 1940, only 80 were lost in air combat. Ive not verified that completely but also I have no reason to doubt it. Allied C&C was just that bad, that the losses on the ground reflected in these numbers are entirely plausible. French MS406 formations suffered similar attrition. The H-75s only lost 29 a/c in air combat, but lost over 100 a/c of that type overall.

 

[parsifal]

Anyone reading this thread would think that the French won. Does anyone really think that the H75 had a near 8 - 1 advantage over the Luftwaffe when you consider that lack of radar, organisation and command and control that the French suffered from?.
I should add that I do believe that the H75 was the best plane they had but it wasn't better than the 109E

And those "anyones" would be badly misreading the debate.

It is what it is. The FAF was defeated, comprehensively. Does not mean the LW achieved their victory without suffering heavy losses in doing that.

Similar comparisons can be drawn in the case of the Polish air force. Despite the obvious obsolescence of its fighter, the PZl-11s that they were flying managed to shoot down some 114 Luftwaffe,aircraft in the air. This is more aircraft than there were P-11s in flyable condition at the beginning. Overall the Luftwaffe the lost in excess of 550 a/c in Poland. Doesn't mean that the LW lost. They just did not achieve their victories in a bloodless way as is so often portrayed.

The misinformation about LW losses serves the victorious (by that I mean British) post war image, who want to portray the BoB as the pivotal battle in which the LW up to that point won cheap and easy victories over the continent, and were not finally defeated until they met the RAF over SE England. For the germans its convenient as well, because it provides their personas with a victory that they can laud, when if the truth came out the myth of their invincibility would be exposed.

 

[parsifal]

Losses in Poland

Germans admitted they lost 285 planes in aerial combats, shot down by AA defence and lost in the crashes.
Amongst them:
63 recon planes
67 Bf-109
12 Bf-110
78 He-111 and Do-17
31 Ju-87 and Hs-123
12 transportation planes (mostly Ju-52)
22 naval and liaison planes
Moreover 263 or 273 (dependeing of German source) planes were damaged and only 70 of them were capable of repairing. Total losses suffered by the LW over Poland amounted to

The arithmetic suggests the LW suffered 495 unrecoverable losses in or over Poland

Polish losses:
118 fighters (P11 and P7)
32 of them were shot down by fighters, 10 by bombers, 7 by German air defence and 7 by Polish air defence. 4 were destroyed on the ground. It gives total number 60. The remaining 58 were destroyed due to crashes, damaged due to forced landings, damaged and abandoned.
11 PZL-37 "£o¶" and 2 destroyed on the ground
20 PZL-23 "Kara¶"
7 recon planes (3 R-XIII, 2 RWD-8, 2 Fokker F-VIIb)
Polish bombers shot down 13 Bf-109 (5 shot down by PZL-37 and 8 by PZL-23).
1 Bf-109 crashed while it attacked training plane PWS-26
One should add 1 Bf-109 shot down by Cpt. Boles³aw Le¶niewski from 55 eskadra (according to German sources he shot down 2 Bf-109 in a single flight).

There is a mountain of source material to support these numbers.

The Poles were even more outnumbered, also didn't have radar, and their command system fragmented and dislocated by the german attacks. Why is it that they could mount an (ultimately) unsuccessful defence, yet extract such a heavy toll out of the LW, with worse a/c, and the French could not?

 

[pbehn]

The misinformation about LW losses serves the victorious (by that I mean British) post war image, who want to portray the BoB as the pivotal battle in which the LW up to that point won cheap and easy victories over the continent, and were not finally defeated until they met the RAF over SE England. For the germans its convenient as well, because it provides their personas with a victory that they can laud, when if the truth came out the myth of their invincibility would be exposed.

I cannot agree to this conclusion. Firstly, the BoB was always portrayed in anything I read as the first time Germany had been stopped doing what it wanted to do. The strength of the LW at the start of the conflict, that is, after the Battle of France is stated as it was. There is always a disagreement about numbers but they are broadly similar. Secondly, in the previously quoted victories many were Ju87s, which were Germany's airborne artillery. They may have shot some down even a lot down but they didn't stop the army below doing what it wanted to do. After the first days of the war the Bf 109s were operating at increasing range and so their capacity to escort and protect became reduced. The French (like the B.E.F.) may have had some Stuka parties and other successes but down below their airfields were being over run. Thirdly the Germans didn't care about air losses, Goering was shocked at the reduction in strength of the LW prior to the BoB but he was the man in charge and he had paid no attention to it. The campaigns in Poland, Netherlands, Belgium and France had been a success. To reduce air to air losses with a more conservative approach may well have slowed up things on the ground and created a front over which losses would be much greater and eventual defeat almost certain.
This is an aviation forum which sometimes attaches far too much importance to what happened in the air.

 

[swampyankee]

Losses in Poland

Germans admitted they lost 285 planes in aerial combats, shot down by AA defence and lost in the crashes.
Amongst them:
63 recon planes
67 Bf-109
12 Bf-110
78 He-111 and Do-17
31 Ju-87 and Hs-123
12 transportation planes (mostly Ju-52)
22 naval and liaison planes
Moreover 263 or 273 (dependeing of German source) planes were damaged and only 70 of them were capable of repairing. Total losses suffered by the LW over Poland amounted to

The arithmetic suggests the LW suffered 495 unrecoverable losses in or over Poland

Polish losses:
118 fighters (P11 and P7)
32 of them were shot down by fighters, 10 by bombers, 7 by German air defence and 7 by Polish air defence. 4 were destroyed on the ground. It gives total number 60. The remaining 58 were destroyed due to crashes, damaged due to forced landings, damaged and abandoned.
11 PZL-37 "£o¶" and 2 destroyed on the ground
20 PZL-23 "Kara¶"
7 recon planes (3 R-XIII, 2 RWD-8, 2 Fokker F-VIIb)
Polish bombers shot down 13 Bf-109 (5 shot down by PZL-37 and 8 by PZL-23).
1 Bf-109 crashed while it attacked training plane PWS-26
One should add 1 Bf-109 shot down by Cpt. Boles³aw Le¶niewski from 55 eskadra (according to German sources he shot down 2 Bf-109 in a single flight).

There is a mountain of source material to support these numbers.

The Poles were even more outnumbered, also didn't have radar, and their command system fragmented and dislocated by the german attacks. Why is it that they could mount an (ultimately) unsuccessful defence, yet extract such a heavy toll out of the LW, with worse a/c, and the French could not?

...and the Polish Air Force's aircraft were, on average, probably inferior to those of the Armée de l'Air, and the Polish Air Force had to deal with the Soviets on its other border.

 

[parsifal]

We should probably apologise at this point. We have moved away from "most overrated aircraft" to "most overrated air force". I don't have a problem with that but some may. We need to be careful not to stray too far off topic.

In reply to your concerns about the point I have made.

1) Firstly, the BoB was always portrayed in anything I read as the first time Germany had been stopped doing what it wanted to do

I don't disagree with that. I do disagree that in those earlier victories, the Luftwaffe did it easily. It did not. It suffered heavy casualties that affected it later.

2) The strength of the LW at the start of the conflict, that is, after the Battle of France is stated as it was. There is always a disagreement about numbers but they are broadly similar

Strongly disagree with that statement. Prior to the campaigns in the west, as of the end of March, LW returns including reserves was 3500 flyable airframes. By the end of the BoF it was under 1500. By the start of August it had recovered back to about 2800 and then levelled off, as the training schools were combed out to provide fillers for lost billets. The LW was already showing signs of combat stress by the time it went into battle over SE England

3) They may have shot some down even a lot down but they didn't stop the army below doing what it wanted to do.

This relates to two things, the doctrinal advantages the LW enjoyed and secondly the numbers they enjoyed. And factually it does ignore what happened over Dunkirk, or are you suggesting the LW let the BEF and the French 1st army group escape because they wanted them to???? Kleist was reporting that the LW had lost air superiority over that sector don't forget. People do tend to forget these details, papering over the cracks of the myths that we have all come to believe in.

4) The Germans didn't care about air losses, Goering was shocked at the reduction in strength of the LW prior to the BoB but he was the man in charge and he had paid no attention to it. The campaigns in Poland, Netherlands, Belgium and France had been a success.

The luftwaffes defeat was caught up against the losses it was sustaining and the inability to adequately replace those losses. It was a very shallow outfit, lacking the depth and resilience to undertake sustained heavy combat on a continuous basis. The Luftwaffe was structured towards short, sharp campaigns, with relatively long pauses between the campaigns. Whilst that tempo could be maintained they were going to win, if the war dynamic changed, they were going to lose.

The LW was in more or less continuous combat from April 1940. There were some periods that were quieter, but no periods of complete rest. This explains why in June 1941, the LW was the same or similar strength to what it had been prewar. By comparison, the RAF had tripled in size. In that intervening 22 month, from 9/39 to 6/41, the LW had lost 15000 airframes, roughly three times its force structure. A percentage of those losses occurred in the BoF.

5) After the first days of the war the Bf 109s were operating at increasing range and so their capacity to escort and protect became reduced. The French (like the B.E.F.) may have had some Stuka parties and other successes but down below their airfields were being over run

Bf109s also suffered from increasing serviceability issues. This slowed down their sortie rate as moreso over the increasing distances you mentioned. The very airfields you spoke about that were captured were quickly used by the LW as advanced airbases for LW a/c. conversely the allies were forced back to airfields across the channel and behind Paris, relatively speaking much further from the fighting than the advance LW bases, yet both the RAF and FAF increased their sortie rates, whilst the LW slumped.

6) To reduce air to air losses with a more conservative approach may well have slowed up things on the ground and created a front over which losses would be much greater and eventual defeat almost certain. This is an aviation forum which sometimes attaches far too much importance to what happened in the air.

German doctrine was an advantage, but tying one arm behind their backs and not providing the necessary logistic support to support their ambitions war plans was bordering on the criminal from the german perspective. Having made the decision to go to war, Germany absolutely needed to back up their war effort by going to a full war footing and stop loping along as if they were on a summer holiday romp. In this regard the British, even the French, were miles in front of the Germans. Their arrogance that they could win a war without raising a sweat is appalling history. They could have won, but chose to lose!!! Who does that!!!!!

 

[Smokey Stover]

I think its fair to say the French airforce ranged from the ridiculous to the fanatical. But sadly the result was much the same. France upon realizing they were about to be overrun tried to get the RAF to deplete all its air strength in a futile attempt to stop a german invasion that by then was already happening. Records show the French airforce contributed little, and what they did contribute was used in totally the wrong way, not to mention heavily overestimated success wise. I agree that this was a ground war not an aerial war like the bob. And the whole French army/BEF were caught napping by the germans and didnt even realize their mistake until it was too late.
As Stalin said "How the hell did they let them (germany) capture half of europe so easily" Im sure he probably thought it was some kind of ploy against russia itself. And tbh who could blame him!

 

[wuzak]

I Know the racks were removed but claiming the B-17 was over rated because the Lancaster could (as modified by 2-3 squadrons worth of aircraft) carry a 22,000lb load is not a very good argument.

I believe only 617 squadron was equipped to carry the 22,000lb Grand Slam.

9 Squadron was the second to carry the 12,000lb Tallboy bomb, after 617, but I believe the mods required for that were minor, amounting to bulged bomb bay doors, which were also required to carry the 12,000lb HC blockbuster bomb.

The Lancaster could, of course, carry up to 14,000lb of smaller sized bombs - 500lb to 4,000lb. Just the fact that the Lancaster could carry the 4,000lb MC or HC bombs internally made it useful. The B-17 could not, due to its bomb bay size restrictions.

The Manchester could carry over 10,000lb of bombs, though not very high or far.

 

[Shortround6]

The Under wing racks were used on occasion. Near the end of the war several missions were flown using a pair of 4,500lb rocket assisted concrete penetrating bombs, called Disney bombs. A British designed and built bomb it was only ever dropped from B-17s.

 

[Stig1207]

The French fighters might have shot down about 700 a/c, but loss tallies are far more than just those shot out of the sky . to be accurate,it needs include all losses, and many aircraft were lost after they had landed.

Your initial objection was that these (corrected) claims were overclaims. I would agree that claims data made at the time were usually grossly inaccurate, but corrected claims are a bit more reliable. not always, but fairly often, corrected claims are okay.

The corrected claims might also be 355-500 per French sources. Now what about the 1500 that you also have given as the number of French victories compared to about a 1000 that they claimed?

Losses on the ground were probably on the other foot. I haven't read the full account, but according to Terraine, of the 430 hurricanes lost in France and the low countries in May/June 1940, only 80 were lost in air combat. Ive not verified that completely but also

Norman Franks in FC losses vol. 1 writes ' only 75 Hurricanes losses were directly due to combat in the period May10-21 ' from memory as I no longer have the book at hand.
Bemusingly he then goes on to list 180 Hurricane losses, mostly to combat, with some 140 lost in air combat. Losses include damaged aircraft, and the text is not always clear on whether force landed aircraft were abandoned right away or later or actually recovered.

 

[swampyankee]

I think its fair to say the French airforce ranged from the ridiculous to the fanatical. But sadly the result was much the same. France upon realizing they were about to be overrun tried to get the RAF to deplete all its air strength in a futile attempt to stop a german invasion that by then was already happening. Records show the French airforce contributed little, and what they did contribute was used in totally the wrong way, not to mention heavily overestimated success wise. I agree that this was a ground war not an aerial war like the bob. And the whole French army/BEF were caught napping by the germans and didnt even realize their mistake until it was too late.
As Stalin said "How the hell did they let them (germany) capture half of europe so easily" Im sure he probably thought it was some kind of ploy against russia itself. And tbh who could blame him!

I think the comment "France...tried to get the RAF to deplete its air strength ..." assumes the French thought the British were naive and altruistic, whereas the general assumption of the French government was closer to the British being selfish and untrustworthy: after all, it was the British who did nothing and even fought France in their attempts to limit German re-militarization. As for Stalin? This was a man who refused to believe Hitler would break their bilateral non-aggression pact, despite warnings, even after German troops were invading.

The RAF was in France to help Britain; helping France would be a side effect.

France lost for a mix of military reasons and domestic political ones, the latter probably responsible for many of the military ones, including the poor state of the French Air Force.

 

[parsifal]

corrected claims are not 355-400, they are 700-800 for direct shoot downs. Total losses for the LW as a result of French action are in the order of 1500,given that total losses for the LW, per several good sources from may 1 to June 25 for the LW exceed 2000 a/c (many loss lists don't include losses like write offs or noncombat losses. a loss is a loss is a loss in my book). Your sources incidentally are not saying what you are claiming they say. They are not saying 350-400 losses for the LW, they are not saying that losses are 700 or even 1000. They are saying that previous claims have tended to understate the efforts of the FAF, and that overall losses for the LW during that campaign remain rather shrouded. I will prefer Campbell and his verifiable lists any day thank you. I just wish I had my copy right now

Stop claiming that your sources are saying something when they don't.

As to "what about your claim about losses being 1500? I can only SAY AGAIN, for you to read some of the source material that Ive quoted, rather than making it up, or misrepresenting what you have posted.

 

[Peter Gunn]

Peter Cornwell's "The battle of France then and now"

I admit to a huge gap in my knowledge of the Battle of France and would like to rectify that issue. This sounds like a good place to start, any other suggestions?

Thanks

 

[parsifal]

A few suggestions

Amazon product ASIN 0141030658View: https://www.amazon.com/Lose-Battle-France-1940/dp/0141030658


Maybe

Frieser, The Blitzkrieg Legend

E. R. Hooton,"Phoenix Triumphant"
Cornwells book though is formidable. He details every single known losses of German, British,France, Italy,Dutch and Belgian aircrafts loss

 

[Ascent]

I would definitely agree about'To lose a battle' it's an excellent read and covers the political position and industrial unrest leading into the war. It's been on my shelf for years and and gets re-read every so often.