Percentage lost in action.

[michael rauls]

I was just reading that only .7% of p47s were lost in action. This seems very low especially considering the mission profile Jugs were so often given but its a stat I have never read before on any aircraft and this is the first time for the Thunderbolt.
Does anyone know this stat for other types and how important is this statistic in your opinion.

 

[Capt. Vick]

Can that be true?

 

[Shortround6]

Only if you believe that 105 P-47 were lost in action during WW II.

15,000 X .007 = 105.

US must have lost a bunch due to crashes/mechanical malfunctions and covered it up by claiming combat losses?

Or it's a misprint/typo.

Or it is the loss rate per sortie, 7 P-47s lost for every 1000 P-47s dispatched against the enemy.

Context is important.

 

[michael rauls]

Only if you believe that 105 P-47 were lost in action during WW II.

15,000 X .007 = 105.

US must have lost a bunch due to crashes/mechanical malfunctions and covered it up by claiming combat losses?

Or it's a misprint/typo.

Or it is the loss rate per sortie, 7 P-47s lost for every 1000 P-47s dispatched against the enemy.

Context is important.

It was .7 ( slightly less than 1 out of 100)not .007 but still that seems quite low.

 

[pbehn]

It was .7 ( slightly less than 1 out of 100)not .007 but still that seems quite low.

0.01 is one hundredth 0.007 is slightly less than that.

 

[Shortround6]

It was .7 ( slightly less than 1 out of 100)not .007 but still that seems quite low.

0.7% is 0.007 when doing the actual math. Like 10% is 0.10

 

[michael rauls]

0.7% is 0.007 when doing the actual math. Like 10% is 0.10

Ya, 10-4 but that's how it was written in the article and I'm sure they meant slightly less than 1 out of 100. Would be ridiculously low otherwise.

 

[Stig1207]

Or it is the loss rate per sortie, 7 P-47s lost for every 1000 P-47s dispatched against the enemy.

Yes, it's the loss rate per sortie; but it's the loss rate for the European theatres only, ETO and MTO, according to Wagner.

 

[Shortround6]

Thank you,

 

[GregP]

Loss rates are generally not percents; loss rates are generally along the lines of "losses per 100,000 flying hours," at least the ones I have seen. I never ran across loss rates per X sorties ... it was always losses per X flying hours.

I have seen losses due to enemy aircraft (air-to-air losses), losses due to AAA (flak), operational losses (running out of fuel, losses while repositioning, pilot error, etc.), and ... at least for the Navy, losses with the ship, as when a carrier sinks with aircraft aboard. To get a real percent, we'd have to know total sorties by type and total losses by type of sortie. Mostly, I see "Effective" and "Noneffective" sorties; effective being whenever a sortie contacts the enemy and noneffective being when a sortie is flown without enemy contact. I have also run across "noncombat losses," that were not exactly defined.

So, the value of .7 is not very useful unless we know exactly what losses the .7 refers to.

 

[pbehn]

Loss rates are generally not percents; loss rates are generally along the lines of "losses per 100,000 flying hours," at least the ones I have seen. I never ran across loss rates per X sorties ... it was always losses per X flying hours.

.

Discussion of massed bomber raid losses is frequently in percentage of the planes used in the raid. I think Bomber Command considered 4% to be the most they could cope with long term. In this respect the more aircraft involved in a raid reduced the loss rate, because the anti aircraft fire and fighter defences had more targets than they could cope with as long as the bomber stream was short.

 

[MikeMeech]

I was just reading that only .7% of p47s were lost in action. This seems very low especially considering the mission profile Jugs were so often given but its a stat I have never read before on any aircraft and this is the first time for the Thunderbolt.
Does anyone know this stat for other types and how important is this statistic in your opinion.

Hi

'The Bomber Command War Diaries' gives the statistics for Bomber Command type losses, these are:

Lancaster - 156,192 sorties, 3,431 aircraft lost (2.20% of sorties), 246 lost in operational crashes (0.16% of sorties).
Halifax - 82,773, 1,884 (2.28%), 199 (0.24%).
Wellington - 47,409, 1,386 (2.92%), 341 (0.72).
Mosquito - 39,795, 260 (0.65%), 50 (0.13%).
Stirling - 18,440, 625 (3.39%), 59 (0.32%).
Hampden - 16,541, 424 (2.56%), 209 (1.26%).
Blenheim - 12,214, 442 (3.62%), 99 (0.81%).
Whitley - 9,858, 317 (3.22%), 141 (1.43).
Boston - 1,609, 42 (2.61%), 4 (0.25%).
Fortress - 1,340, 14 (1.04%), 4 (0.30%).
Manchester - 1,269, 64 (5.04%), 12 (0.95%).
Ventura - 997, 39 (3.91%), 2 (0.28%).
Liberator - 662, 3 (0.45), nil.

I hope that is of use.

Mike

 

[pbehn]

Hi

'The Bomber Command War Diaries' gives the statistics for Bomber Command type losses, these are:

Lancaster - 156,192 sorties, 3,431 aircraft lost (2.20% of sorties), 246 lost in operational crashes (0.16% of sorties).
Halifax - 82,773, 1,884 (2.28%), 199 (0.24%).
Wellington - 47,409, 1,386 (2.92%), 341 (0.72).
Mosquito - 39,795, 260 (0.65%), 50 (0.13%).
Stirling - 18,440, 625 (3.39%), 59 (0.32%).
Hampden - 16,541, 424 (2.56%), 209 (1.26%).
Blenheim - 12,214, 442 (3.62%), 99 (0.81%).
Whitley - 9,858, 317 (3.22%), 141 (1.43).
Boston - 1,609, 42 (2.61%), 4 (0.25%).
Fortress - 1,340, 14 (1.04%), 4 (0.30%).
Manchester - 1,269, 64 (5.04%), 12 (0.95%).
Ventura - 997, 39 (3.91%), 2 (0.28%).
Liberator - 662, 3 (0.45), nil.

I hope that is of use.

Mike

That illustrates things perfectly over the whole war for example the Lancasters losses were 2.2%. However there were many missions that were against very little opposition late in the war and prior to D-Day in France. At any time, if the RAF was suffering above 4% consistently on massed raids they would have to slow down, give up or re think. It was pretty much the same in the USAAF until the B-29 was introduced, with the cost of the plane and the training of crews required what was acceptable as a loss rate had to be revised.

 

[michael rauls]

Loss rates are generally not percents; loss rates are generally along the lines of "losses per 100,000 flying hours," at least the ones I have seen. I never ran across loss rates per X sorties ... it was always losses per X flying hours.

I have seen losses due to enemy aircraft (air-to-air losses), losses due to AAA (flak), operational losses (running out of fuel, losses while repositioning, pilot error, etc.), and ... at least for the Navy, losses with the ship, as when a carrier sinks with aircraft aboard. To get a real percent, we'd have to know total sorties by type and total losses by type of sortie. Mostly, I see "Effective" and "Noneffective" sorties; effective being whenever a sortie contacts the enemy and noneffective being when a sortie is flown without enemy contact. I have also run across "noncombat losses," that were not exactly defined.

So, the value of .7 is not very useful unless we know exactly what losses the .7 refers to.

It was out of all Thunderbolts made. Guess I should have been more clear.So I think there were about 15,000 made so .7% would be about 1,000 lost to enemy action. Sounds about right I think. Would welcome correction if those numbers are off.

 

[DarrenW]

Does anyone know this stat for other types and how important is this statistic in your opinion.

NACS breaks things down pretty clearly regarding combat losses for the principle US naval fighters (both land and carrier based, including Marine air units). These are the figures that I came up with:

Type / Total Action Sorties Flown During Entire War / Total Losses During Action Sorties Flown (Enemy Action + Operational) / Percentage of Losses during all Action Sorties Flown

F4F / 2,628 / 202 + 75 = 251 / 9.6%
F6F / 66,530 / 823 + 340 = 1163 / 1.75%
F4U / 64,051 / 538 + 230 = 768 / 1.20%
FM / 12,925 / 75 + 75 = 150 / 1.16%

Loss rate for all naval aircraft (all types including bomber and patrol) during all action sorties flown was 1.50%.

Be aware that due to the nature of their primary mission the F4F lost over seven times as many aircraft in air combat than to anti-aircraft fire, while the later FM units saw less air combat than the earlier F4F and lost almost five times as many to ground fire than to enemy aircraft.

As expected, there were around twice as many losses for the Hellcat and Corsair from anti-aircraft fire than during air combat. And while the Corsair maintains a lower overall combat loss rate than the Hellcat the study freely admits that carrier aircraft were employed "against heavily defended advanced targets" while land based planes were utilized in "clean-up operations against by-passed enemy bases or secondary targets". The report summarizes that carrier based aircraft experienced twice as many losses on action sorties than those stationed on land (2% vs. 1% of sorties flown). This would skew the numbers somewhat as the Corsair didn't fly from carriers on a regular basis until early 1945.

Personally I think loss rates have some importance when discussing the effectiveness of a combat aircraft, but they can only be adequately compared when the overall mission and combat environment is similar between the aircraft in question.

 

[jetcal1]

Personally I think loss rates have some importance when discussing the effectiveness of a combat aircraft, but they can only be adequately compared when the overall mission and combat environment is similar between the aircraft in question.

Like TBM losses in the Atlantic versus TBM losses in the Pacific?

 

[DarrenW]

Like TBM losses in the Atlantic versus TBM losses in the Pacific?

Yes, exactly like that...

 

[DarrenW]

I was just reading that only .7% of p47s were lost in action.

I've read that Thunderbolts flew more than half a million combat-related missions and lost around 3,500 aircraft due to these operations. That would work out to about 0.7% total losses for all combat missions flown during the entire war.

 

[Stig1207]

P-51 Mustang by Ray Wagner - Page 3

The USAAF stats are not quite as detailed as USN stats; the breakdown Wagner does is the only one that I have come across, and it's only for the European theatres, as

Unfortunately, we do not have this data for the Pacific theaters.

 

[MikeMeech]

Hi

The book 'Air Power at the Battlefront', Ian Gooderson, page 252, has some information on 'Sorties per battle casualty' January-March 1945, for 2nd TAF:
No. 83 Group.
Typhoons - Armed Reconnaissance 76.8, Close Air Support - 143.2.
Spitfires - 94.2, 181.4.
Tempests - 57.1, 2.7.
No. 84 Group.
Typhoons - 126.2, 248.3.
Spitfires - 135, 193.1.
Tempest - 36.

For April 1945 there is slightly more information.
No. 83 Group.
Typhoon - Armed Recce sorties 1,350, Close Air Support and Fighter patrol sorties 2,304, Aircraft destroyed/Pilots lost on Armed Recce 27/26, Aircraft destroyed/Pilots lost on Close Air Support 12/11.
Spitfire - 3,153, 4,560, 35/24, 14/10.
Tempest - 940, 529, 21/19, 7/6.
No. 84 Group
Typhoon - 976, 1,505, 22/20, 11/10.
Spitfire - 3,461, 1,847, 34/29, 9/6.
Tempest - 865, 135, 12/11, 2/2.

Mike