Some thoughts on "combat effectiveness/performance" factors that are often hidden.

[SaparotRob]

I just make stuff up as I go.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Perhaps by you and me. But also perhaps not by the US Navy. If a plane was lost on the way home, it was an operational loss. Maybe that's why the kill ratios are a bit wierd and maybe that's why we lost so fewe Hellcats in actual combat report numbers. We only lost 270 in air-to-air combat according to the US Navy. Maybe the real number is a bit higher?

Reading between the lines, the people reviewing the combat reports for the end-of-war report summaries perhaps didn't quite calssiy things tyhe way WE woudl taody. They likely followed orders and made the Navy look good.

But, and here's the rub, I have no proof of that. Only my suppositions that are well-founded perhaps, but not back by facts I can cite.

My point is that they don't rely on the Navy's conclusions. They report what happened to the planes. 14 landed back at base normally, 2 missing, 3 seen to shot down / pilot bailed out / exploded etc., 2 more ditched or crash landed. The latter often resulting in a longish (or sometimes very long) saga about how the pilots got back to base, got captured and later executed as all too frequently happened to those caught by the Japanese), or whatever happened to them.

Whatever the US Navy or the IJN or the Regia or the Luftwaffe or the FAA or RAF or VVS or whomever reported will be in the mix, but that isn't necessarily the last word, needless to say.

So it's really up to us as the reader to decide what qualifies as a loss.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

This B-17 clearly made it back to base, and carried several presumably grateful crewmen to safety, and then never flew again.

Is this a combat kill? To the fighter pilot who nearly severed the tail, perhaps -- assuming he survived the mid-air. To the bomber pilot, hell no, this is a survival story and we won. To the 8thAF hierarchy, it's an operational loss, because it got home, but ain't ever leaving.

I just make stuff up as I go.

PIDOOMA for the win!

 

[Steamed_Banana]

View attachment 854639

This B-17 clearly made it back to base, and carried several presumably grateful crewmen to safety, and then never flew again.

Is this a combat kill? To the fighter pilot who nearly severed the tail, perhaps -- assuming he survived the mid-air. To the bomber pilot, hell no, this is a survival story and we won. To the 8thAF hierarchy, it's an operational loss, because it got home, but ain't ever leaving.

Like I said, in my book it would not count as a loss, especially if it landed on a base and on it's wheels as this one looks like it mostly did. But i would note that it was written off immediately after landing because that counts as a partial victory to me. (i.e. in a sense, it's possible for both sides to 'win' some of these)

You can't go much further than that though, IMO.

The Luftwaffe had a helpful damage rating system in the MTO which you can use, by percentage. I'd call anything more than 60% damaged as certainly noteworthy. Brits had "Damaged Cat 1, Cat 2" etc. which can also be used in a similar fashion.

They also usually note if the aircraft was immediately written off after landing.

Some percentage of lightly damaged planes were later repaired, a lower percentage of moderately or severely damaged etc., but that gets too complicated to try to pursue.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Like I said, in my book it would not count as a loss, especially if it landed on a base and on it's wheels as this one looks like it mostly did.

Right. I put this up to stimulate and prod the convo, which I think on this topic often becomes too rigid to be useful.

 

[GregP]

My point is that they don't rely on the Navy's conclusions. They report what happened to the planes. 14 landed back at base normally, 2 missing, 3 seen to shot down / pilot bailed out / exploded etc., 2 more ditched or crash landed. The latter often resulting in a longish (or sometimes very long) saga about how the pilots got back to base, got captured and later executed as all too frequently happened to those caught by the Japanese), or whatever happened to them.

Whatever the US Navy or the IJN or the Regia or the Luftwaffe or the FAA or RAF or VVS or whomever reported will be in the mix, but that isn't necessarily the last word, needless to say.

So it's really up to us as the reader to decide what qualifies as a loss.

Once again, what are they using for references? The primary sources are US Navy wartime documents, which the US Navy used to produce the reports.

I'm apparently having a hard time syaing this so you can get it.

Very plainly, anyone can make statements in a book or on the internet. They might want a historically-correct document (the author, not the internet poster), or they might want to sell books. Either way, their writings are great entertainment and sometimes very interesting but, can they can back up their numbers with PRIMARY SOURCES. And the primary sources aren't always so well-defined as to what a victory or a loss is, or even whether or not they SHOULD add up. All the reports we HAVE were available to the guys writing the WWII summaries in 1946. It was their job and they were given access to anyting we had at the time. There is no "way back" machine to go back and re-check the facts ... they all come from the mission action reports, USAAF and USN/USMC documents.

And the US Navy already reported summaries of those reports and we have them in pdf fomat. Saying that some author has different numbers makes me naturally ask the question, "where did you get those numbers?" and "what did you check them against to accuracy and reasonableness?"

You seem to think loss reports are accurate. How do you know? How do you check them?

Offhand, I'd say take the aircraft production and acceptance numbers, which are NOT the same, and come up with some justification for arriving at an acceptance number for airplanes of each type. That is the number of planes you start with. Next, look at aircrfaft on-hand reports and loss reports. We absolutely cannot have lost any more airplanes that what we accepted for service minus what were left when the war ended. My bet is you cannot add up the on-hand aircraft and lost aircraft and come up with the acceptance numbers. I can't anyway. The reports are just not that accurate, regardess of which reports you use.

The only number we SHOULD be sure of are number built and number accepted. After that, we are stuck with wartime repports in a system without computers and so many math errors were made in reports that we cannot get good numbers from them. We CAN get good approximations, but the exact numbers are lost to the vagrancies of history and to inexact reporting that was never double-checked at the time. Or, if the reports WERE double checked, they didn't do all that good a job of it.

So, fighting over victory and loss totals, which SHOULD start with the definitions of victories and losses, is not really ever going to be all that productive. We have good approximations, but no exact numbers to compare our various conclusions with.

Doesn't mean the books aren't entertaining. It means their numbers make a good story but may have a radom relationship with the truth.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Once again, what are they using for references? The primary sources are US Navy wartime documents, which the US Navy used to produce the reports.

I'm apparently having a hard time syaing this so you can get it.

Right back at you mate

Very plainly, anyone can make statements in a book or on the internet. They might want a historically-correct document (the author, not the internet poster), or they might want to sell books. Either way, their writings are great entertainment and sometimes very interesting but, can they can back up their numbers with PRIMARY SOURCES. And the primary sources aren't always so well-defined as to what a victory or a loss is, or even whether or not they SHOULD add up. All the reports we HAVE were available to the guys writing the WWII summaries in 1946. It was their job and they were given access to anyting we had at the time. There is no "way back" machine to go back and re-check the facts ... they all come from the mission action reports, USAAF and USN/USMC documents.

And the US Navy already reported summaries of those reports and we have them in pdf fomat. Saying that some author has different numbers makes me naturally ask the question, "where did you get those numbers?" and "what did you check them against to accuracy and reasonableness?"

You seem to think loss reports are accurate. How do you know? How do you check them?

I'm really struggling to tell if you just don't like the message here, and are trying to invent reasons to dismiss it, or are genuinely not understanding what we are talking about here because you haven't read these specific books.

But to be clear, as far as I know there is no significant discrepancy between US or Allied losses and whatever the official record is in any of these books under discussion (Shore's Bloody Shambles and Mediterranean Air War series, Claringbould's South Pacific Air War, Solomon's Air War, Pacific Adverseries and etc. series (this guy is incredibly prolific), Piegzik's "Into the Endless Mist" series etc.).

It is true that for a summary of a given action or a day's action, they will tell you what happened (accident on takeoff, blew up, failed to return, bailed out, crash landed, landed with damage etc. etc.) and at least a good guess as to whether the same aircraft got into any combat. That formula may differ from how the USN or whoever counted operational vs combat losses, but as I've pointed out maybe two dozen times in various incarnations of this discussion so far, there is no obligation in these things. Any estimate you do get as to a daily set of combat vs. operational losses etc. is very provisional, as it should be.

But you can still tell that say, 20 were claimed and only 3 or 4 lost by any definition you want to use.

The major new thing in all of these is including the Axis losses, not just the Allied claims. That is really it. And all the information the Axis gives them is also included, with for Claringbould often includes the same type of data about pilots or aircrew being rescued after ditching, whether they landed and blew up a tire etc. and all that kind of stuff.

Again, it is up to the reader to decide how to reconcile the yawning gap between claims and losses on both sides. And for those who like to insist that the Germans or anyone else didn't make this kind of error, in all the Theaters I've looked at in detail, major overclaiming by factors of 3 or more is basically a universal phenomenon during the war)

Like you, i have a lot of books on WW2 aviation. A lot. Very few of them, in fact almost just limited to the ones mentioned in this post and one or two other series, ever give the loss data for both sides, by any definition. That is what is new here.

Offhand, I'd say take the aircraft production and acceptance numbers, which are NOT the same, and come up with some justification for arriving at an acceptance number for airplanes of each type. That is the number of planes you start with. Next, look at aircrfaft on-hand reports and loss reports. We absolutely cannot have lost any more airplanes that what we accepted for service minus what were left when the war ended. My bet is you cannot add up the on-hand aircraft and lost aircraft and come up with the acceptance numbers. I can't anyway. The reports are just not that accurate, regardess of which reports you use.

You seem to be talking about very "Big Picture" here ala whole war figures or whole Theater. That doesn't really exist. I haven't seen any of these authors compiling totals for the whole war. Maybe some of the other people JobinTheGoblin mentioned have attempted this on the web. All but one of the Claringbould books only cover 2-3 months of time, day by day and his two main series have only reached mid 1943 at this point. The other one covers about 8 months. Shores seems to cover about 8 months at a time in exhaustive detail for the Med, going all the way to 1945 in five volumes, and a few years per volume for Burma / India. But not the whole war and he doesn't compile any running totals.

So you seem to be talking about something entirely different than what I'm talking about here Greg.

The only number we SHOULD be sure of are number built and number accepted. After that, we are stuck with wartime repports in a system without computers and so many math errors were made in reports that we cannot get good numbers from them. We CAN get good approximations, but the exact numbers are lost to the vagrancies of history and to inexact reporting that was never double-checked at the time. Or, if the reports WERE double checked, they didn't do all that good a job of it.

So, fighting over victory and loss totals, which SHOULD start with the definitions of victories and losses, is not really ever going to be all that productive. We have good approximations, but no exact numbers to compare our various conclusions with.

Doesn't mean the books aren't entertaining. It means their numbers make a good story but may have a radom relationship with the truth.

Yeah, I would categorize that analysis as a 1/10 for accuracy on your part. Sorry man. i really don't know if it's an honest mistake but I think maybe we should quit debating the subject in the abstract since you haven't read these books, apparently.

 

[OldGeezer]

a

 

[z42]

Though I said air cooling above a lot of radial heat loss is through the oil system, lose that and the engine will fail. Liquid cooled engines look like they were more vulnerable to coolant loss via engine damage, and designs like the Spitfire, Bf109 and Mustang had a lot of piping to the radiators just waiting to have holes put in them.

Further, these were pressurized cooling systems running at a temperature above the sea level boiling point. Meaning that battle damage to the cooling system would result in the coolant rapidly flashing to steam and evacuating the aircraft.

I have not done a systematic check but it looks like radials generally had a higher fuel consumption.

Radials were cooling limited to a much greater degree than inlines, and tended to need to be run fairly rich at high power settings to provide extra cooling.

 

[z42]

Maybe a naive question in all this, but why ARE radials generally more reliable than inlines? You'd think efforts in the automotive segment would have translated pretty well into making more reliable aviation inlines, while radials didn't benefit from this at all (I don't think anyone was putting radials in cars)

I'm not sure how much such cross-pollination there were between automotive and aero inlines at that time that were exclusive to inlines? Many improvements were of course applicable to all kinds engine types, like bearing materials, sodium cooled valves, and whatnot.

Of course after WWII high powered air cooled engines all but died out (except maybe some motorcycles) whereas inlines continued evolving. And modern inline engines are indeed marvels, and AFAIU the tight tolerances in modern engines is enabled by the tighter and more even temperature range that the liquid cooling can keep them at, and also by modern synthetic lubricants which are amazing compared to what they had back in the day.

and they at least look much more complex with long, exposed pushrods, many cylinder heads, and the 'master rod' in the center of the crankcase negotiating all 7 or 9 cylinders attached to it.

A radial might have a higher probability of keeping operating in a damaged state? Say if a pushrod on one cylinder is destroyed, or even the entire cylinder head shot off, if you're lucky the engine might keep operating (sans that one cylinder, of course), at least for a while until the oil leaks out. Maybe enough to get the plane home? Whereas in an inline if you get hit somewhere near the top of the engine there's a decent(?) chance the camshaft will be bent and seize, which would stop the engine outright? For both engine types, receiving a cannon shell in the crankcase is most likely good night fairly immediately?

And then there's of course the already mentioned cooling system. Yes, a radial needs an oil cooler, and bad things will happen if that is shot to pieces, but those are generally quite small compared to a radiator for a liquid cooled engine so less probability of getting hit.

But whether here with trustworthy data or in common anecdotes, it really seems that in wartime you'd want nothing but radials if you have models you can adapt to your needs - (apparently) they are easier to build, are lighter, and more resilient against battle damage than a comparable inline; all for a modest, but not impossible to overcome, increase in drag and frontal area (with the indirect benefit of forcing those pesky aircraft manufacturers to make cockpits for an entire person and not just 80% of one).

Well, this is a topic that tends to lead to, ahem, vigorous discussion. You might want to consider investing into asbestos underwear before going further.

 

[Shortround6]

Maybe a naive question in all this, but why ARE radials generally more reliable than inlines?

This strongly depends on which countries we are talking about and which years and even which engine companies in the same country in the same year/s.
Certain French pre-war radials acquired a reputation for having their propellers part company with the aircraft while still fairly new.
Perhaps the engine was fine but the reduction gear assembly needed some work?

Things also changed with time. Water cooled inlines had a terrible reputation in the US Navy in the 1920s. Mostly because of the Liberty engine which used a separate water jacket for each cylinder so there were a lot of coolant connections and gaskets. They also hadn't figured out how to make anti-vibration loops, extra bends in the coolant pipes if not full circles to allow for movement/vibration without cracking or pulling loose (or at least not as quickly/often). They were also working on better engine mounts for all types of engines. In the 1930s most senior aviation officers had been junior flying officers in the 1920s and most had at lease one forced landing because of the liberty engine.

Allison went through 4 different crankshafts from 1939/40 to 1945. 3 of the changes were entirely changing in heat treatment/finishing and the later cranks would last many times longer while making more power. Last crank got added counter weights and that crank would last several times longer than the 2nd best crankshaft.

P & W R-2800's had famous reputation for taking battle damage and making it home. They also were successfully modified to make over 25% more power by using better fuel or water/injection. However you could also crack cylinders or cylinder heads by descending too quickly at idle or low power settings and over cooling the engine if you were not paying attention the temperature gauge/s. This is less of problem with liquid cooled engines.

Blanket statements often have numerous exceptions.

 

[Engineman]

View attachment 854639

This B-17 clearly made it back to base, and carried several presumably grateful crewmen to safety, and then never flew again.

Is this a combat kill? To the fighter pilot who nearly severed the tail, perhaps -- assuming he survived the mid-air. To the bomber pilot, hell no, this is a survival story and we won. To the 8thAF hierarchy, it's an operational loss, because it got home, but ain't ever leaving.



PIDOOMA for the win!

The funny thing here, in the context of the Kills/Loss etc discussion, is that this B-17F 41-24406 "All American", was just damaged, but the Bf 109 was Destroyed and the German pilot, reported as being 16-victory ace Erich Paczia of I/Jagdgeschwader 53, was killed.
The B-17 crew all survived the mission, the B-17 was repaired and flew till March1945 when it was obsolete and salvaged!
I count that as 1 combat Kill to the B-17, and a Kill for the Captain, Ken Bragg Jr!

Eng

 

[Frog]

View attachment 854639

This B-17 clearly made it back to base, and carried several presumably grateful crewmen to safety, and then never flew again.

Is this a combat kill? To the fighter pilot who nearly severed the tail, perhaps -- assuming he survived the mid-air. To the bomber pilot, hell no, this is a survival story and we won. To the 8thAF hierarchy, it's an operational loss, because it got home, but ain't ever leaving.



PIDOOMA for the win!

Feldwebel Erich Paczia (I/JG53) was killed in the collision.

And the B-17 was repaired and flew again but by precaution only as utility plane.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

The funny thing here, in the context of the Kills/Loss etc discussion, is that this B-17F 41-24406 "All American", was just damaged, but the Bf 109 was Destroyed and the German pilot, reported as being 16-victory ace Erich Paczia of I/Jagdgeschwader 53, was killed.
The B-17 crew all survived the mission, the B-17 was repaired and flew till March1945 when it was obsolete and salvaged!
I count that as 1 combat Kill to the B-17, and a Kill for the Captain, Ken Bragg Jr!

Eng

Wow, agreed!

 

[Engineman]

You'd think efforts in the automotive segment would have translated pretty well into making more reliable aviation inlines,

Which "automotive segment"?
Do you mean the cast-iron, 3 bearing, sidevalve, 4cyl making 40bhp ? No, that technology is not in the running.
Germany had a brainstorming exercise between Ferdinand Porsche and Daimler-Benz et al, before WW2, particularly to see if there was useful technology to transfer, considering the
high performance of some German pre-War Grand-Prix cars. The result was that they declared the different applications were not going to gain anything from each other!
I think that was a bit blinkered, but the reality is that the aero-engines did benefit from the same tech advances in fuels, oils, supercharging and materials tech. As a generality, the aero-engines were going to be large capacity and yet, had to be lightweight for their power output, so they always had limitations due to the mass of the large rotating and reciprocating components, within their lightly-built cases. Additionally, they could also push the technology and material specifications to the limit, with very high powers and loadings of components, built as lightly as possible.
Overall, there was technology read-across from very high-performance race engines to aero-engines and vice-versa, but the different applications were so very different that the final products remained specialised within their applications.

Eng

 

[beers]

Well, this is a topic that tends to lead to, ahem, vigorous discussion. You might want to consider investing into asbestos underwear before going further.

Too soon to declare war on the other side?

Certain French pre-war radials acquired a reputation for having their propellers part company with the aircraft while still fairly new.

As the saying goes, nobody copies the french and the french copy nobody. Or they do, and you end up with the M-107 inline.

Germany had a brainstorming exercise between Ferdinand Porsche and Daimler-Benz et al, before WW2, particularly to see if there was useful technology to transfer, considering the
high performance of some German pre-War Grand-Prix cars. The result was that they declared the different applications were not going to gain anything from each other!

That's interesting, thanks for the information. Guess cars really were too far behind.

 

[GregP]

But you can still tell that say, 20 were claimed and only 3 or 4 lost by any definition you want to use.

Not so. There are many defintions, none of which are widely agreed-to by large numbers of people. If you rely on, say, Shores, then you are by default accepting HIS definition of losses and victories. I'm not too sure what his definitions are just now, but the many definitions I have seen are not very well worded so you can classify odd actions. They are good for expected black and white outcomes, not for planes that got damaged and flew away, only to go down later.

The main issues I see are related to going through the individual action reports and classifying them.

Suppose the action reports are available (I don't know that is true, personally). Then, someone has to go through all of them and classify them, all without being able to ask any questions of anyone, since there is nobody much to ask who was there these days. If they ARE around, their memories are suspect. After WWII, there were studies by the USAAF and the USN/USMC done. They did not communication with one another and they did NOT use the same difinitions or save the same data sets. They were paid to do it by the "powers that were" at the time. We have all seen those two studies and likely have the pdf files.

I will not disagree with them since I will NOT take the time to make a review on my own. There is no point in it. If I DID it, what is the outcome? I might be right, but you (and many others) would disagree no matter what I reviewed / decided. I'm not getting paid for the time. Hence, there is no point in doing it to satisfy myself only. I am satisfied with what I have now.

Also, I have never found similar reports from the UK, Germany, Japan, or the USSSR to go with the 1946 US reports. So, why scrutinize only US claims / losses and let all the other go? All that does is to make your conclusions apply only to the USA. Again, rather pointless and without any reward / benefit for the time spent.

I have a file of world-wide claims, gathered over 30+ years of effort, and posted in here before. It shows the widely-accepted victories claims world-wide by country. I am satisfied with it unless we can get a reasonable group of people to collaborate and review the complete data set as a group, assuming we can GET a complete data set to start with. If so, I'll hapilly join the group. If not, again, I'm happy with my claims file as it stands.

Cheers.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Not so. There are many defintions, none of which are widely agreed-to by large numbers of people. If you rely on, say, Shores, then you are by default accepting HIS definition of losses and victories. I'm not too sure what his definitions are just now, but the many definitions I have seen are not very well worded so you can classify odd actions. They are good for ecpected black and white outcomes, not for planes that got damaged and flew away, only yo go down later.

This is almost literally the opposite of what all the books I have of this type actually do. You are basing all this on some construct in your head, and I'm not the only one who will immediately notice that since many here have at least read Shores and I suspect quite a few have read the others as well.

The main issues I see are related to going through the individual action reports and classifying them.

Suppose the action reports are available (I don't know that is true, personally). Then, someone has to go through all of them and classify them, all without being able to ask any questions of anyone, since there is nobody much to ask who was there these days. If they ARE around, their memories are suspect. After WWII, there were studies by the USAAF and the USN/USMC done. They did not communication with one another and they did NOT use the same difinitions or save the same data sets. They were paid to do it by the "powers that were" at the time. We have all seen those two studies and likely have the pdf files.

I will not disagree with them since I will NOT take the time to make a review on my own. There is no point in it. If I DID it, what is the outcome? I might be right, but you (and many others) would disagree no matter what I reviewed / decided. I'm not getting paid for the time. Hence, there is no point in doing it to satisfy myself only. I am satisfied with what I have now.

I think this last statement is the most accurate thing you have said on this subject.

Also, I have never found similar reports from the UK, Germany, Japan, or the USSSR to go with the 1946 US reports. So, why scrutinize only US claims / losses and let all the other go? All that does is to make your conclusions apply only to the USA. Again, rather pointless and without any reward / benefit for the time spent.

Again, nobody is scrutinizing only US claims. One guy started a thread and used it to post a few comments about US claims specifically, but all of these books by definition talk about other countries, since they include both sides, and of the ones I have, one series (Black Cross Red Star) covers the Soviet-German war with no US involvement, another (Mediterranean Air War) is Desert Air Force vs. Germans and Italians (with zero to marginal to partial to significant US involvement, depending on which volume you are reading, but Vol 1 and 2 have almost no direct US involvement), one covers mostly RAF vs JAAF in Burma, with a little bit of US combat history but it's mostly RAF on the Allied side, and two series cover US and Australian and New Zealand vs Japanese.

I have a file of world-wide claims, gathered over 30+ years of effort, and posted in here before. It shows the widely-accepted victories claims world-wide by country.

I've seen it and the claims are off, but the claims are only a very small part of the story. Losses also matter, I'd say they matter more.

I am satisfied with it unless we can get a reasonable group of people to collaborate and review the complete data set as a group, assuming we can GET a complete data set to start with. If so, I'll hapilly join the group. If not, again, I'm happy with my claims file as it stands.

Cheers.

By all means continue to be happy, but don't pretend what you don't want to know about is therefore invalid because you don't want to know.

It's never going to be about ticking and tying claims to losses anyway, as I and others have repeatedly pointed out. That isn't really possible.

 

[GregP]

This is almost literally the opposite of what all the books I have of this type actually do. You are basing all this on some construct in your head, and I'm not the only one who will immediately notice that since many here have at least read Shores and I suspect quite a few have read the others as well.

I have a SHores and an Olynyck (Starts and Bars) and many others, YOU assume I haven't read them. Bad assumption.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

I have a SHores and an Olynyck (Starts and Bars) and many others, YOU assume I haven't read them. Bad assumption.

Your objections to the concept just aren't coherent, and Shores wrote a lot of different books, going back to the 60s.