RAF Bomber Command bomber aircraft.

[davebender]

90 Me-210As entered service before production was halted so Messerschmitt could fix the tail and wing slats.

145 He-177s were produced before Heinkel fixed the engine cowling.

Why did it take so long for Handley Page to fix Halifax bomber handling problems?

 

[mhuxt]

The He 177 program isn't really what you'd call a shining example of rapid industrial response to military necessity. Reading Griehl's (?) book I wondered they even got a single example off the production line, would have been simpler and less expensive to carve them out of granite.

 

[parsifal]

These losses are heavy by any standard, but they are not alone or unusual. German day fighters operating in Germany froom 1944 had operational loss rates approaching 40% in 1944, also operating from prepred airfields, and mostly by day.

Overwhelmingly, for all combatants, operational losses were not due to enemy action....they were due to some pilot eror or equipment failure. Many many aircraft are simply listed as "failed to return" but german claims often dont add up or are obvious double counts. Aircraft operations over enemy teritory simply attract a large number of operational losses, it cant be avoided. the Germans encountered this, as did the allies. Whats different for the Germans is that as the war progressed, and their training standards fell through the floor, and their QA from their factories also fell away, there was no real let up in the loss rate, even over Germany.

Brtiain expended about 12% of its military budgets on BC. Estimates vary, but typically German efforts at maintaining their flak arm, building and maintaining a night fighter force, developing the necessary techs to make the force viable, and repairing the damage done by the bombers, occupied about 25-35% of german resources from 1941 onwards. The flak arm alone accounted for over 60% of german artillery and munitions production.

Bombing was cost effective overall