Most Overrated aircraft of WWII.....?

[Shortround6]

MS.406 was not weakly armed, it sported a 20 mm cannon that fired heavy shells at excellent muzzle velocity, on very good RoF; plus two MGs. It was indeed lack of air defence network that was French undoing, along with doctrine and startegy.

I agree with much of what you say except the above. Contrary to much of what has been Written it seems the majority of MS 406 aircraft were armed with the HS 7 or HS 9 cannon and while there was little to chose in the power of the individual cartridge between the HS 7/9 and the HS 404 the HS 7/9 fired at around 360-420 rpm or about 2/3 the rate of fire of the HS 404.
The MAC 34 machine gun seems to have been pretty good (or at least no big complaints) but in the MS 406 it seems to have been fed from a 300 round "drum" or container for the belt while some other French aircraft used a more normal belt arrangement with more ammo per gun.

The MS 406 carried 60 rounds of very powerful ammo to the 109s 110-120 rounds of 20mm ammo, and only 600 rounds of MG ammo to the 109s 2000rounds.
The 109 was probably carrying to much but the MS 406 may have been carrying to little.
The D 520 had four machine guns with 500rpg in addition to the cannon.

 

[Stig1207]

"According to Peter Cornwell's "The battle of France then and now": between Sep 1939 to May 9 1940 Luftwaffe lost 354 aircrafts and 445 air crews killed or missing in the west, and between May 10 to Jun 24 Jun 1940, Luftwaffe lost 1814 aircrafts and 3278 air crews killed or missing in the west". There is then some debate as to whether the cut off date should 24 June. With regard to that last comment, I cant be sure. But 1814 + 354 = 2168

Read again the post I linked to; because there it is implied that the poster made a mistake and instead of adding should have subtracted. So the 1814 is the total number of lost aircraft
3 Sep 39- 24 June 40, while 354 lost aircraft is 3 Sep 39-May 9 40; thus 1814-354 = 1460.
Since I don't have Cornwell's book I can't check the above numbers; but since it's your main source I suppose that you can?

No he doesn't say 1500. I don't know that he did miss anything. He cannot list an aircraft still recorded as being "available" as being "destroyed". An aircraft sitting in the corner of a factory, or at the edge of a runway, a total wreck, but still being listed as "available" is a loss in my book, but in the context of accurate reporting Cornewell cannot do that. Until the LW quartermaster is going to admit that aircraft as a loss, its hard to show that it is, but it is still a loss.

You mentioned that you had some additional losses, (400 something?) that the Lw quartermaster apparently covered up; that's the source I am asking you for.

This sort of chicanery is not limited to the germans. There are credible sources that report total French losses as 550-600 aircraft during the battle. The catch is the phrase "during the battle". in reality the LW forced out of the fight more like 2000 FAF aircraft, before the armistice. The RAF lost more like 900. The trick is to try and understand the aircraft listed as "damaged" and work out whether they ever actually were returned to service. Sometimes also a given report will not include aircraft listed as "missing" as a loss, though that's a lot less prevalent.

The annoying thing about the German returns is that their loss returns could be fairly slow. The LW would not automatically list an aircraft as lost unless
it had suffered more than 70% damage, but in reality anything with more than about 40% damage was very unlikely to ever fly again. but because of the relative paucity of repair facilities at the front, these heavily damaged units would be transported back to the factories to await " further assessment"....and there they would stay for months sometimes, still listed as being on strength , but without the slightest chance of ever flying again. There were differences between the LW system and those of the RAF (and I think the French). The RAF system, in the first instance, a higher percentage of aircraft were repaired at the unit repair facilities, but if an aircraft was so damaged as to be returned to a factory, it was removed from the strength lists. I think also that the RAF were more realistic in declaring when an aircraft was a write off . it is likely the French were the same

The LW criteria for a writing of an aircraft was +60%. What's your source for the + 40% damaged not being repaired?
They would need to be be transferred back to the factories for repair with that amount of damage; but they were certainly not on strength with the unit after being transferred. Damaged aircraft were just as much 'lost' to their unit as destroyed aircraft, and would be replaced by new or repaired aircraft as required.

 

[Greyman]

So my conservative estimate is that the P-36 could probably top 400 MPH in a dive. I believe even the P-51D was rated to 505 MPH dive speeds.

British Pilot's Notes have max dive speed at 415 mph.

French manuals just give a maximum rpm for diving, which seems to indicate that was run into before the limiting airspeed.

 

[parsifal]

Read again the post I linked to; because there it is implied that the poster made a mistake and instead of adding should have subtracted. So the 1814 is the total number of lost aircraft

3 Sep 39- 24 June 40, while 354 lost aircraft is 3 Sep 39-May 9 40; thus 1814-354 = 1460.

Since I don't have Cornwell's book I can't check the above numbers; but since it's your main source I suppose that you can?

Im not in possession of my copy either at this minute, but Im trying to retrieve it. I saw that axis history forum discussion as well, and if I am reading that discussion correctly. It states (cutting and pasting from that forum discussion)

"According to Peter Cornwell's "The battle of France then and now": between Sep 1939 to May 9 1940 Luftwaffe lost 354 aircrafts and 445 air crews killed or missing in the west, and between May 10 to Jun 24 Jun 1940, Luftwaffe lost 1814 aircrafts and 3278 air crews killed or missing in the west

Then, as I acknowledge in my previous post, there is some discussion about when losses might apply. I can tell you that is not how I read Cornewells account present the information. Several other commentators that have also quoted those loss figures agree that it is 1814 + 354, and not 1814 – 354.

You mentioned that you had some additional losses, (400 something?) that the Lw quartermaster apparently covered up; that's the source I am asking you for.

Its based on a French report, which I don't have at this minute. As I recall Cornwell does include some figures on damaged a/c. If I get my copy of the book back, I will check and get back to you.

However the figures for damaged aircraft is entirely plausible. For the Polish campaign I have confirmed data that 298 a/c were shot down outright, and a further 273 were damaged, of which 203 were eventually scrapped. You are going to get similar percentage for the LW after the BoF.

The LW criteria for a writing of an aircraft was +60%. What's your source for the + 40% damaged not being repaired?

That account is contrary to John Foreman. In his book "1941 Part 2 – The Blitz to the nonstop offensive – The Turning Point, there is an account somewhere as to how the German repair system worked. I will concede that I now unsure whether a damaged unit sent back to a factory was included in the on strength numbers for the front line units, but it looks like they do. Costello, in his statistical references has a number of tables dealing with the LW, in which he has separate columns for available and serviceable for given units. "Serviceable" would generally be at about 50% of "available" numbers, even after periods of relative quiet.

As to the cut off being 60%, I don't think that is correct.

In the first 5 pages of Foremans daily diaries for 1941 campaign, I found a whole bunch of entries for damaged aircraft for the LW, wherer the extent of damage exceeded 60%. There are some accounts of damage exceeding 80%. Usually Foreman notes where a diary entry listed is damaged is scrapped soon thereafter. For the entries I found there is no such entry, suggesting that they were retained on strength at least for a time.

It was Foreman as well that alerted me to the '40%" rule of thumb.

They would need to be transferred back to the factories for repair with that amount of damage; but they were certainly not on strength with the unit after being transferred. Damaged aircraft were just as much 'lost' to their unit as destroyed aircraft, and would be replaced by new or repaired aircraft as required.

The available and serviceable figures published by Costello don't support that. I would also note in passing that numbers of airframes damaged were simply left strewn around airfields. This was something reported by the advancing US forces at the end of the war….vast numbers of damaged aircraft, many of which had been there for months or even years, just strewn around airfields. You did not find that at allied airfields

 

[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 disagreed with this post because I have never seen any evidence of deliberate misinformation being used post war. What was known during the war was claims, only the Poles and Germans knew their losses and it took years for the information to become known. Is there any evidence of deliberate post war misinformation by the British?

 

[parsifal]

It probably isn't deliberate misinformation, as a lack of in depth analysis.

I don't think ther is much evidence of deliberate misinformation, but there is a ton of poor information. The best myths that can stick are those with a half truth attached. It has always served British egos for them to be able to say they alone stopped the LW. in fact the truth is different to that. in part the LW stopped the LW, but so too were the losses they had already suffered before the battle with FC started. FC fought a near perfect battle and you are right that for the first time the LW was prevented from doing what they wanted. I think we agree on that. Where we differ is the effect of the lead in campaigns on the achievement of that win

 

[buffnut453]

Yes, the Luftwaffe suffered considerable losses prior to the summer of 1940 but are you really suggesting that it was those losses that meant the difference between success and failure for the Luftwaffe? Not sure I agree with that line of argument. Yes, there were losses in experienced crews but it's not like the Luftwaffe had a declining number of Gruppe between September 1939 and June 1940...indeed Luftflotten 2, 3 and 5 which were responsible for the Battle were reinforced by units from Luftflotten 1 and 4 in Germany. Simply throwing yet more aircraft into the fray isn't going to win the Battle of Britain for Germany.

 

[parsifal]

Yes, the Luftwaffe suffered considerable losses prior to the summer of 1940 but are you really suggesting that it was those losses that meant the difference between success and failure for the Luftwaffe? Not sure I agree with that line of argument. Yes, there were losses in experienced crews but it's not like the Luftwaffe had a declining number of Gruppe between September 1939 and June 1940...indeed Luftflotten 2, 3 and 5 which were responsible for the Battle were reinforced by units from Luftflotten 1 and 4 in Germany. Simply throwing yet more aircraft into the fray isn't going to win the Battle of Britain for Germany.

They had suffered in the order of 3300 unrecoverable losses when Poland, Norway and the campaigns in the West are taken into consideration up to the end of june. The German replacement system was not able to adequately cope with even that loss rate. Numbers were maintained by successive comb outs of the training schools and the façade of strength maintained by a reliance on "available" numbers as opposed to "Seviceable" numbers. This at least partly explains the delay in the operations after the fall of france. Operations completed against the French on or before 25 June, yet serious operations against the main defences in England did not start until August. At least some of the German high command advocated a rapid move against the British, They were overruled by Hitler…..for sure because he believed the British would implode on their own, but also because of the hard realities that the LW was not in a position to carry the fight forward at full tilt straight away. They needed time to reorganise and recuperate. That process of recuperation was not a full recovery however.

The full extent of how much effect these earlier campaigns is debateable, but I take the view that everything contributed to the ultimate German defeat. Neither the BoB losses, or the earlier losses in 1939-40 can be said to have been sufficiently great as to stop the LW. The LW returned to the fray in April 1941 with the LW fully expecting they would finish the job they had started in the previous Autumn. For a while, according to Foreman, they were successful inflicting heavy losses on FC yet again and disrupting channel communications to the point of again closing the channel to British traffic. There was heavy damage inflicted on a number of british population centres 9notably Coventry) But the losses being suffered by the LW were steadily bleeding them white. By the time the LW crossed into the SU in June, LW reserves were on the ropes, and this showed in east as serviceability rates again plummeted to new depths. Crossing the border with about 2800 a/c at the start, by the time of Smolensk (in July/August, LW serviceability rates had crashed out to less than 1000 in the east. There was a partial recovery in late September through to when the snows hit, after which serviceability rates sank to about 40% and pretty much stayed there until the following summer. In the summer of '42, according to Hayworth, the LWs best month was 59%, but usually about 45%.

 

[Stig1207]

Then, as I acknowledge in my previous post, there is some discussion about when losses might apply. I can tell you that is not how I read Cornewells account present the information. Several other commentators that have also quoted those loss figures agree that it is 1814 + 354, and not 1814 – 354.

A bit of copy/ paste of my own:

Interesting discussion!

Mars
Quote:"According to Peter Cornwell's "The battle of France then and now": between Sep 1939 to May 9 1940 Luftwaffe lost 354 aircrafts and 445 air crews killed or missing in the west, and between May 10 to Jun 24 Jun 1940, Luftwaffe lost 1814 aircrafts and 3278 air crews killed or missing in the west"

Is the 1814 a/c LW losses really for 10.5. - 24.7.40? The reason I ask is that if it is for 3.9.1939 - 24.6.40 it would be in line of the numbers given by Groehler and Hooton, but if it is number for those lost 10.5. - 24.6.40 it is 386 - 413 a/c bigger than those given by the other 2 authors.

Juha


you are correct, Juha, it is for 3.9.1939 - 24.6.40 ,I got confused in those tables

 

[Stig1207]

That account is contrary to John Foreman. In his book "1941 Part 2 – The Blitz to the nonstop offensive – The Turning Point, there is an account somewhere as to how the German repair system worked. I will concede that I now unsure whether a damaged unit sent back to a factory was included in the on strength numbers for the front line units, but it looks like they do. Costello, in his statistical references has a number of tables dealing with the LW, in which he has separate columns for available and serviceable for given units. "Serviceable" would generally be at about 50% of "available" numbers, even after periods of relative quiet.

As to the cut off being 60%, I don't think that is correct.

Then I suggest that you do some further research on the Lw loss classifications before making sweeping conclusions.
I agree about the servicability issue; but while some unserviceable aircraft may be the result of combat damage that was deemed repairable at unit level, others would be unserviceable due to mechanical problems, etc.

 

[pbehn]

It probably isn't deliberate misinformation, as a lack of in depth analysis.

I don't think ther is much evidence of deliberate misinformation, but there is a ton of poor information. The best myths that can stick are those with a half truth attached. It has always served British egos for them to be able to say they alone stopped the LW. in fact the truth is different to that. in part the LW stopped the LW, but so too were the losses they had already suffered before the battle with FC started. FC fought a near perfect battle and you are right that for the first time the LW was prevented from doing what they wanted. I think we agree on that. Where we differ is the effect of the lead in campaigns on the achievement of that win

We don't even disagree on the effect of the lead in campaigns. What we disagree on is whether the British misrepresented known facts to boost their ego's. The RAF especially fighter command is always represented as a multi national force. At the climax to the Battle of Britain the British were desperately holding on against what they thought was a much stronger force than it actually was while the Germans were certain the British were down to their last 50 fighters. When British fighter production reached 500 a month the British thought they were approaching parity, in fact Germany was only producing 200. A staggering number of German losses for whatever reason occurred on their own airfields. The British in France Belgium lost aircraft in the air, destroyed on the ground and captured on the ground. The only way to make any sense of any of it was to examine records after the war but they are not complete, not presented in the same manner and in the case of East Germany and Poland especially were not freely available.

 

[parsifal]

Then I suggest that you do some further research on the Lw loss classifications before making sweeping conclusions.
I agree about the servicability issue; but while some unserviceable aircraft may be the result of combat damage that was deemed repairable at unit level, others would be unserviceable due to mechanical problems, etc.

Foreman gives some very detailed particulars about each aircraft lost and each aircraft damaged for both sides, There is no doubt or uncertainty as to how an aircraft is damaged. and there are plenty of examples of aircraft from the LW with greater than 60% damage.

I'm not sure of the usefulness, but Foreman gives the S/N of aircraft damaged. It might not be helpful given that a lot of german records were lost. but if not we could trace one or two examples of aircraft with greater than 60% damage and find out if and when they were finally removed from the "available " lists

 

[parsifal]

We don't even disagree on the effect of the lead in campaigns. What we disagree on is whether the British misrepresented known facts to boost their ego's. The RAF especially fighter command is always represented as a multi national force. At the climax to the Battle of Britain the British were desperately holding on against what they thought was a much stronger force than it actually was while the Germans were certain the British were down to their last 50 fighters. When British fighter production reached 500 a month the British thought they were approaching parity, in fact Germany was only producing 200. A staggering number of German losses for whatever reason occurred on their own airfields. The British in France Belgium lost aircraft in the air, destroyed on the ground and captured on the ground. The only way to make any sense of any of it was to examine records after the war but they are not complete, not presented in the same manner and in the case of East Germany and Poland especially were not freely available.

Do you think that immediately after the war, and perhaps for 20 years after that, the popular histories were accurate in their reports for losses and effects of the battle?

 

[parsifal]

A bit of copy/ paste of my own:

Interesting discussion!

Mars
Quote:"According to Peter Cornwell's "The battle of France then and now": between Sep 1939 to May 9 1940 Luftwaffe lost 354 aircrafts and 445 air crews killed or missing in the west, and between May 10 to Jun 24 Jun 1940, Luftwaffe lost 1814 aircrafts and 3278 air crews killed or missing in the west"

Is the 1814 a/c LW losses really for 10.5. - 24.7.40? The reason I ask is that if it is for 3.9.1939 - 24.6.40 it would be in line of the numbers given by Groehler and Hooton, but if it is number for those lost 10.5. - 24.6.40 it is 386 - 413 a/c bigger than those given by the other 2 authors.

Juha


you are correct, Juha, it is for 3.9.1939 - 24.6.40 ,I got confused in those tables

I read that. I can tell you that is not how I read Cornwell

 

[pbehn]

Do you think that immediately after the war, and perhaps for 20 years after that, the popular histories were accurate in their reports for losses and effects of the battle?

They are quite obviously inaccurate otherwise everyone contributing to this thread would be in complete agreement. The question is which is correct. Everyone has a different take on things. From my side, in the Battle of France, almost the whole of France including its military were knocked out of the war in 10 weeks. That is a success that the German leadership would be willing to suffer high losses for. Kill ratios in the air were only a part of the story when airfields were being over run and their planes, spares, pilots and technicians were being captured en masse. That is not to detract in any way from the performance of the men defending their country, or to exaggerate the strength of the Luftwaffe, it wasn't the LW doing the most damage, they were just part of it.

 

[parsifal]

Extracts from Murray's "strategy for defeat relevant to these campaigns

"Tables III through VI underscore the extent of German aircraft losses in the Battle of France. They suggest that the tendency to view the Battle of Britain as a separate episode from the defeat of France does not do justice to the resistance of Allied air forces in the spring of 1940 and distort the fact that for five months, from May through September, the Luftwaffe, with only a short pause, was continuously in action. The break in morale of bomber pilots, reported over London in mid-September 1940, thus was the result not only of the strain of fighting over Britain but of operations that had been continuous from the previous May.


Serious German aircraft losses from the spring campaign greatly weakened the Luftwaffe before the Battle of Britain. Had that been the only disadvantage under which the Luftwaffe operated, German strategic problems would have been daunting enough, given the difficulties of mounting a major combined arms operation. Unfortunately for the Germans, the strain that recent battles had imposed on their military structure represented only a small portion of the problem; a whole host of strategic, economic, tactical, and technological problems had to be faced and surmounted before the Reich could solve the "British question."

The rather long preparatory period between the end of the French campaign and the launching of the great air offensive against the British Isles was due to more than just German confidence that the war was over and that Britain would accept peace. The losses suffered in the spring and the extensive commitments of aircraft and aircrews in the May-June battles demanded considerable time for rest and recuperation as well as the integration of fresh crews into bomber and fighter units. Moreover, the speed of the German advance had caused several major redeployments of air units to keep up with ground operations. The attack on Britain now required another major redeployment and the preparation of permanent "

If the numbers damaged that are eventually written off are in the same ratio as was suffered by the LW after Poland, then of the 488 damaged in france some 370 will be written off. That raises the overall loss rate fro the campaign in the west to 1791 permanent losses.

 

[parsifal]

They are quite obviously inaccurate otherwise everyone contributing to this thread would be in complete agreement. The question is which is correct. Everyone has a different take on things. From my side, in the Battle of France, almost the whole of France including its military were knocked out of the war in 10 weeks. That is a success that the German leadership would be willing to suffer high losses for. Kill ratios in the air were only a part of the story when airfields were being over run and their planes, spares, pilots and technicians were being captured en masse. That is not to detract in any way from the performance of the men defending their country, or to exaggerate the strength of the Luftwaffe, it wasn't the LW doing the most damage, they were just part of it.

France was doomed no later than 3 June. The decisive battles that sealed her fate were fought 14 May to 26May. She succumbed for a number of reasons, some of them stretching as far back as 1917.

But, in going down, the French managed to inflict serious losses on the LW, as Murray and Cornwell demonstrate

 

[Stig1207]

The Lw system of reporting losses is another interesting discussion; but to our specific discussion about the number of aircraft actually shot down by the French it's a bit pointless.
After all, we are trying to verify 500+ Luftwaffe losses that the French didn't claim to have shot down!
So if these Lw 'losses' are missing, then it may be for a very good reason.

 

[parsifal]

I have no idea what you are trying to say.

 

[Stig1207]

The 1500 that you have deduced that the French must have shot down; despite that they claimed 'about a 1000'. Actually the claims figures are in round numbers 700 confirmed and 250 probables.