Some thoughts on "combat effectiveness/performance" factors that are often hidden. (2 Viewers)

[Thumpalumpacus]

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.

See, and this is why this whole discussion is so flabby. I didn't know this plane flew again. I didn't know the German pilot died. Yes, the obvious criticism is "Well, why didn't you Google it, Thump?".

And that retort ignores the point that neither Luftwaffe nor 8th AF had Google, so LW thought they killed a plane, and 8th AF used it again anyway. LW came home at least one plane short, 8AF had a hack instead of the bomber it was, and how do folks count it?

Not only is there no hard-and-fast count, there literally cannot be one. You guys are straight-up pulling your own hair out for nothing. Seriously.

 

[CHen10]

Some of y'all just don't want to acknowledge that the myths you grew up with about this wonderful topic of military aviation were just that - myths.

BINGO! This sums it all up. People want to live in their fantasies and if the truth hurts they can't accept it. People will jump through all kinds of hoops to keep the myth of their favourite pilot alive. Even when the losses are right there they will reject it.

And about accident losses vs combat losses. I read Soviet reports, and the reports will state very clearly what the cause of the loss is. So if an aircraft's engine got damaged by an enemy fighter and later on many km or miles it ends up crashing, the report will say that. It will describe how the aircraft encountered enemy aircraft, got hit by the enemy, flew to another location and then crashed later on. This ensures we can always tell the difference between accidents and combat related losses.

By the way, the Soviet records and reports are E-X-C-E-L-L-E-N-T. The detail they provide is incredible and sometimes overwhelming. They tell us the amount of ammunition used, the serial number of the aircraft, the time of the loss, the location of the loss, the pilot of the aircraft, the type of mission being flown, the events that led to the loss and even things like the angle that the plane was attacked at.

Some pilots really did destroy loads of aircraft, and some others were a bit optimistic and the aircraft they damaged landed safely. A few pilots straight up lied, although this was rare and thankfully most claims were honest.

 

[GregP]

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

Writing a lot of books doesn't make one correct. It only means they wrote a lot of books.

Shores COULD be 100% correct, at least by his definitions.

Doesn't mean his definitions are my definitions, and that means the numbers will easily change depending on what your definitions are of a victory, loss, probable, damaged, etc.

I do not claim Shores is correct or incorrect at this time. I keep trying to arrive at the definition of a victory, loss, operational loss, "other" loss, etc. As of today, nobody appears willing to define how they think these categories should be defined. It's impossible to even start counting if you don't know what you are counting.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Writing a lot of books doesn't make one correct. It only means they wrote a lot of books.

It's dishonest to suggest that i was trying to make that claim. I was pointing out that you may not have read the books were are talking about, whether you have "a" book by this author or not.

Shores COULD be 100% correct, at least by his definitions.

Doesn't mean his definitions are my definitions, and that means the numbers will easily change depending on what your definitions are of a victory, loss, probable, damaged, etc.

With this kind of logic you could argue that the sky isn't blue.

I do not claim Shores is correct or incorrect at this time. I keep trying to arrive at the definition of a victory, loss, opertional loss, "other" loss, etc. As of today, nobody appears willing to define how they think these categories should be defined. It's impossible to even start counting if you donlt know what you are counting.

This has already been explained to you at least a dozen times by now.

 

[CHen10]

I keep trying to arrive at the definition of a victory, loss, opertional loss, "other" loss, etc. As of today, nobody appears willing to define how they think these categories should be defined.

Confirmed Victory Claim - A claim submitted for an enemy aircraft destroyed by a pilot and there are witnesses which confirm the claim.

Unconfirmed Victory Claim - A claim submitted for an enemy aircraft destroyed by a pilot but there aren't witnesses to support the claim.

Temporary Loss - A plane is damaged and needs to be repaired. It is temporarily out of service while it is undergoing repairs and once repaired it will return to service.

Permanent Loss - A plane which is destroyed or damaged beyond repair and is written off.

Reading the circumstances of the loss will let you know why the plane was lost. For example, if it was shot down by an enemy aircraft, shot down by flak, if it suffered a mechanical problem, if it suffered an accident etc.

If the aircraft was damaged by an enemy aircraft for example and then crashed in another location after the engine stops, then this will be noted down and it will be treated as a combat loss.

Overclaim - An overclaim is where a pilot has a confirmed or unconfirmed victory claim, but there is no combat loss on the other side, at approximately the same time and location. The timing and location don't have to be exact but just reasonable.

The victory claim can be considered legitimate if there is a combat loss on the other side which reasonably matches.

 

[Juha3]

BINGO! This sums it all up. People want to live in their fantasies and if the truth hurts they can't accept it. People will jump through all kinds of hoops to keep the myth of their favourite pilot alive. Even when the losses are right there they will reject it.

And about accident losses vs combat losses. I read Soviet reports, and the reports will state very clearly what the cause of the loss is. So if an aircraft's engine got damaged by an enemy fighter and later on many km or miles it ends up crashing, the report will say that. It will describe how the aircraft encountered enemy aircraft, got hit by the enemy, flew to another location and then crashed later on. This ensures we can always tell the difference between accidents and combat related losses.

By the way, the Soviet records and reports are E-X-C-E-L-L-E-N-T. The detail they provide is incredible and sometimes overwhelming. They tell us the amount of ammunition used, the serial number of the aircraft, the time of the loss, the location of the loss, the pilot of the aircraft, the type of mission being flown, the events that led to the loss and even things like the angle that the plane was attacked at.

Some pilots really did destroy loads of aircraft, and some others were a bit optimistic and the aircraft they damaged landed safely. A few pilots straight up lied, although this was rare and thankfully most claims were honest.

Yes, the SU was a very bureaucratic state and produced an immense amount of documents. There are gaps in the wartime documentary collections, but mostly from the summer of 1941 to autumn and the summer of 1942, the times of big military catastrophes for them.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

The Japanese also record stuff like the total amount of rounds of ammunition expended etc.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

The Japanese also record stuff like the total amount of rounds of ammunition expended etc.

Anyone who has seen the deck logs for KdB at Midway knows just how detail oriented IJN was. Even Parshall was stunned by the sheer amount of data he got from (I think?) Sawruk.

 

[GregP]

With this kind of logic you could argue that the sky isn't blue.

You start by defining blue. Hello, McFly ...

If you want to talk about victories and losses, you START by defining what a victory means and what your various loss categories.

None of my loss categories include a requirement that they show up on enemy loss lists. I already covered tghat too many times.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

You start by defining blue. Hello, McFly ...

If you want to talk about victories and losses, you START by defining what a victory means and what your various loss categories.

None of my loss categories include a requirement that they show up on enemy loss lists. I already covered tghat too many times.

Your premise that the enemy didn't know how many aircraft they lost in a given combat (or by extension how many they still have available for combat the next day) strikes me as ridiculous, and to be blunt, false.

This is true whatever definition you want to use.

It's also very clear that the books you are criticizing so bitterly but in such broad and abstract terms are books which you have not yourself actually read, which is also IMO ridiculous.

You seem like a nice guy but maybe it would be more honest to just admit that you don't like the idea that losses don't match claims and just resign yourself to that.

 

[Jugman]

My suspicion is that US radials were derived from commercial aircraft designs, while most aviation V-12s were military in origin, and armed forces, in peacetime, use their aircraft much less than airlines. This is probably starker today, as, from the specs I've read, military aircraft operate only about four hundred hours per year, while commercial ones in airline service operate about ten times that.

I don't know how applicable the above is to non-US engines.

Actually its the other way around. P&W and Wright designed their engines for military use then adapted them for commercial use. A major reason radials had better reliability is they had somewhat lower BMEP. For example the BMEP for the R-2800-21 at takeoff and rated power were 95% and 92% respectively of that of the V-1710-89. Another issue is liquid cooled engines typically run at higher rpm.

 

[CHen10]

None of my loss categories include a requirement that they show up on enemy loss lists. I already covered tghat too many times.

If you look at my post #85, we have the categories defined. Any loss category you think of will be included in these definitions:



Temporary Loss - A plane is damaged and needs to be repaired. It is temporarily out of service while it is undergoing repairs and once repaired it will return to service.

Permanent Loss - A plane which is destroyed or damaged beyond repair and is written off.

Reading the circumstances of the loss will let you know why the plane was lost. For example, if it was shot down by an enemy aircraft, shot down by flak, if it suffered a mechanical problem, if it suffered an accident etc.

If the aircraft was damaged by an enemy aircraft for example and then crashed in another location after the engine stops, then this will be noted down and it will be treated as a combat loss.

 

[hobbes154]

Could you please cite a source on the Soviet pilots' habit of flying at full throttle? I have other information - for example, pilots kept the airspeed too low in thunderstorm clouds causing crashes, so they were instructed to increase the airspeed in such conditions.
The service life of the ASh-73TK was relatively low and reliability of the early series was abysmal, but the situation was gradually improved. Interestingly, the problems with the ASh-73 (without turbochargers), which were installed on Be-6 flying boats, were much less - they are not mentioned much at all.

Not explicit but seems a reasonable inference from Part 3:

A. S. This is strange. In the words of one American pilot, the Cobra was an airplane "suitable for large, low, and slow circles". To go further, if we judge by references, then the maximum speed of the Cobra fell below that of the Bf-109F, not to mention the later German fighters. The Allies removed it from their inventories because it could not fight with the "Messer" and the "Fokker". Neither the British nor the Americans kept it as a fighter airplane.​

N. G. Well, I don't know. It certainly did well for us. Pokryshkin fought in it; doesn't that say something? [Aleksandr Pokryshkin was the number 2 Soviet ace at the end of the war and flew a P-39 from late 1942 to the war's end – J.G.]​

​

It seems that everything depends on what you wanted out of it. Either you flew it in such a manner as to shoot down Messers and Fokkers, or you flew it in a way that guaranteed 120 hours of engine life.​

 

[bf109xxl]

Not explicit but seems a reasonable inference from Part 3:

the Cobra​

I read Golodnikov's interview, as well as dozens of other memoirs by Soviet fighter pilots. But in this case, we were talking exclusively about B-29/Tu-4 pilots.

 

[hobbes154]

I read Golodnikov's interview, as well as dozens of other memoirs by Soviet fighter pilots. But in this case, we were talking exclusively about B-29/Tu-4 pilots.

The statement in the post you replied to was that Soviet pilots in general had the habit of flying at full throttle, which they possibly had to modify when flying the Tu-4.

 

[bf109xxl]

The statement in the post you replied to was that Soviet pilots in general had the habit of flying at full throttle, which they possibly had to modify when flying the Tu-4.

Their pilots' habit of using full throttle in flight may have changed for these engines.

It is clear that this refers only to B-29/Tu-4 pilots, and not to all Soviet pilots. Otherwise, it would be written "its [in relation to the USSR] pilots." In addition, fighter pilots were usually highly unwanted in the bomber units in the post-war USSR.

 

[hobbes154]

It is clear that this refers only to B-29/Tu-4 pilots, and not to all Soviet pilots. Otherwise, it would be written "its [in relation to the USSR] pilots."

No offence, I don't think English is your first language?

The statement - with my comments in [ ] - was

Makes one wonder how the USSR did with their engines on the three B-29s they had, as well as the Tu-4s to follow. Their [USSR] pilots' habit of using full throttle in flight may have changed for these [B-29 and Tu-4] engines.

Indeed, even you said

Could you please cite a source on the Soviet [not just B-29 and Tu-4] pilots' habit of flying at full throttle?

Which is why I answered you with the source I did. Apparently, I was wasting my time, but no one has suggested the B-29 and Tu-4 pilots habitually flew at full throttle.

 

[bf109xxl]

No offence, I don't think English is your first language?

This is obvious, as well as the fact that the context referred exclusively to bomber pilots.

The statement - with my comments in [ ] - was

Your comments are out of context and distort the meaning of the phrase.

Which is why I answered you with the source I did. Apparently, I was wasting my time, but no one has suggested the B-29 and Tu-4 pilots habitually flew at full throttle.

I regret that your undoubtedly outstanding language skills were not sufficient to understand that the reference was exclusively to Tu-4/B-29 pilots. And please do not speak on behalf of everyone.

 

[frankv]

Regarding the shorter B-29 engine life in traing vs operations...

A friend in the RNZAF mentioned, some time ago, that their engine life on IIRC the Beechcraft King Air was somewhat less than other operators. On investigation, the reason was that at almost every landing the pilots did a simulated engine failure because they got relatively little time in the aircraft and this was their only opportunity to practice this scenario. So the aircraft spent a lot more time than average on one engine at full power.

 

[GregP]

The R-3350 needs a very gentle hand on the throttle and mixture. All power changes need to be gradual and slight, giving the engine time for the temperatures to adjust gradually in order to achieve long engine life. It is not surprising that learning this in training meant the engine nused in training were not run quite as well as engines in service.

Radial engine life in general is way longer with a gentle hand on the throttle than with a ham-fisted approach, even today.