Target Schweinfurt

parsifal said:

Thankyou for pointing out the table is excluding certain losses. its that type of creative accounting that skews numbers and hides realities. A non-combat loss is just that, doesnt matter how it gets itself lost, if it is permanently lost or permanently unavailable, its a loss. if the loss is directly because it was because of enemy action, its a combat loss. If its a loss for any other reason, its a non combat loss. The US lost 180000 airframes during the war to all causes, of which about 20000 were combat related. Any other methodology of including or not including losses for whatever reason just skews the reult and hides the true effect. And it certainly means the results shown in the statistical digest, or cannot be compared in any way to BC losses, because we dont know what losses were included and what werent, and if not, why not.

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I've presented the combat losses because in the link on BC losses there were only combat losses (BC - Statistics) so is right compare with USAAF losses in combat mission so i've hide nothing that was relevant. On the inclusion the data on BC talking of operational losses in combat mission they give the missing planes and that scrapped after back home (this with distintion if enemy related or not), the USAAF data give the losses on combat mission (to triple AAA, to enemy aircraft, to other causes) this data seem to me surely comparable maybe not the same to 100%.

parsifal said:

No need to get rude my friend, just becausde your asserions are being chanllenged here. im not using or disputing the losses listed in the statisitical digest, because Ive seen such creative accounting excercises done by every belligerent at one time or another. If a source excludes certain losses from its account, for whatever reason, then the numbers listed in that account immediately become unable to be compared with anything because we dont know what losses were excluded and why. They may say why, but the number isd stil suspect. For example, what do you say about an aircraft that returns but is scrapped due to damage. is that a loss. By the parameter you are stating its not a loss. Since flak accounts for about 7 times the number of aircraft damaged, to those actually shot down, the methodology you are so strenuously defending immediately discounts by a dfactor of up to 7 times, the effect of the German flak guns. The whole argument of excluding certain losses from the accounting is just so non-sequitur and something Ive never accepted.

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My smart friend. No a planes scrapped for damage is a losses, i've writed a planes scapped to wear is not a loss, in other worlds a planes scrapped because it's too old. However the BC missed 5,862 Heavyes, 288 were scrapped for EA and 781 not EA.

parsifal said:

No, they are not. They are significantly different in size, and because they have selectively included obly certain types of lossess (eg excluded aircraft scrapped that returned to base) cannot be compared to BC losses. We dont know the parameters of the BC accounts, and whether what they include in their loss sheets are the same as those for the US.

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Different size? show me that difference. imo both the report include airplanes scrapped that returned to base. As writed possibly not 100% same but limited difference.

parsifal said:

Just because the table you are reading from displays losses in a certain way, and excludes certain losses, does not mean that an aircraft scrapped is not a loss. its just that your table doesnt include it as a loss. I can tell you that aircraft not avaiilable for operations, for whatever reason are treated as a loss from the force structure. thats not my idea, incidentally, its the way daily strength returns are reported in the military. actually the daily servicieability sheets are morre detailed than that, because they list permanent losses and how long damaged aircraft will be before they return, but an aircrafdt scrapped is counted as a loss, I can assure you.

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i escluded losses in accident in not combat mission that however are not included in the BC data. You tell that USAAF data don't include scrapped i tell that were include...
I think you confuse loss with waste. afaik loss need a action. It' obvious that accounting purpose it's the same. A plane post out service can be selled or just lended, gifted a secondary air forces a planes loss maybe usefull only for junk ( recovery not damaged items)

The numbers you are suggesting still dont add up. The US produced 240000 aircraft, started the war with about 12000 aircraft, is known to have lost to enemy action about 20000, and finished the war with about 60000 aircraft. Aabout 20% of the aircraft produced were given away. What happened to all the others? I dont believe that 150000 aircraft were worn out or retired because they were obsolete.

For those who are interested in the total losses suffered by the US during WWII, from all causes, the breakdown from one source is as follows (according to Piper)

Combat losses Europe and MTO: 20000
Other causes Europe and MTO: 23000

Combat losses outside US not in Europe or MTO: 4300
Other losses outside US, not in Europe or MTO: 4500


Continental US (Training Command) : 14500

The losses do not certain losses that I know of, so losses will be somewhat higher than this still. Almost all the pre-war airforce were scraped due obsolesnce and most of the airforce losses in the Far East or China in the early days are also not included for various reasons. Those sources for losses might add another 4-8000 aircraft that would be listed as losses

Combat losses
Army Air Forces in World War II
22,948

Losses of All Types of Airplanes Overseas
http://www.usaaf.net/digest/t100.htm
41,575

Parsifal my number were on Heavy Bomber, we were talking of Bomber Command and USAAF HB in ETO (i show also the data for all the HB).
You again change the cards on table....
for the statistical digest the number are that shown from Milosh i can add the losses in continental US 21,583. (The 41,575 of table 100 not include loss on route with the losses on route the number is 43,581 (table 99))
I can add also USAAF on hand planes 30/11/41 were 10,329, the planes on hand the 31/8/45 were 63,715 (with a max of 79,908 the 31/7/44) (Table 83)
The USAAF get 151,070 planes from december '41 to august '45. Missing 32,520 planes put out service w/o being a losses, we are talking all type also not combat type.
Only after the July '44 USAAF get 43,640 planes and despite this the on hand planes go down of ~16,000 sure for large put out service older model (probably some old designed plane were built and never go in service)

iron man said:

The unfortunate thing in this is the simple fact that German industry had amassed a huge surplus of finished product by this point. Even if complete destruction of German production is acheived, the Swedish production can be called on to "fill in the blanks" while the Germans restore production elsewhere.

This is not True. Had the 8th continued the attacks on Schweinfurt, Erkner, Steyr and Cannstatt on a bi-monthly basis, according to Speer on page 284 "Inside the Third Reich". He stated "Armaments production would have come to a complete standstill in four months." The first raid achieved 38% reduction of Ball Bearing production. The US however did not yet have the reserves to continue the necessary pace.

As was pointed out upthread, utterly destroying machine tools was problematic unless direct hits on individual machines can be realized. This was proven out during post-war analysis of the Allied bombing effort.

The power grid would have been a far better target to go after...if such an effort were mounted; specifically the load control switching and transformer sites. This equipment was utterly fragile and more importantly? Productive capacity to provide for wholesale replacement of these items was virtually non existant; they built for expansion and maintenance. There was no way to suddenly have capacity to produce countless thousands of electro-mechanical switches. These are sophisticated devices; they were built by a few highly trained people...you can't throw a couple of thousand "Ostarbeiter" at a problem like this and expect a suitable resolution.

This was an opportunity missed. Bearings were a "panacea"

Hindsight is always 20/20.

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Seek further wisdom regarding the importance of Schweinfurt as a strategic target from the Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich in "Inside the Third Reich".

drgondog said:

Seek further wisdom regarding the importance of Schweinfurt as a strategic target from the Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich in "Inside the Third Reich".

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I've read everything published that the "Good Nazi" wrote Bill.
I've also read the memoirs of the Heer Generals.
Speer (much like Manstein etal.) was writing for a rather self-serving purpose in the Cold War period; there was a new "Fuhrer" in town, after all.
IMHO, corroboration of some of these memoirs (when held against primary documents), can be just a little bit "problematic".
It's been many, many years since I last read ITTR...it might be time to give it another go-round.

FWIW, Tooze gave a lot of Speer's attributed "wisdom" a pretty sound thrashing in "Wages of Destruction".

Since you've got ITTR close to hand (mine's packed away somewhere in a box) does Speer give reference (in footnotes) to specific documents at BA-MA that back the veracity of the statement you quoted?

Not being confrontational, just curious.

Parsifal my number were on Heavy Bomber, we were talking of Bomber Command and USAAF HB in ETO (i show also the data for all the HB).
You again change the cards on table....

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No, I am not changing the cards on the table. I just want this debate to be clear so we dont end in some sort of acrimonious name calling session. Its an interesting conversation, so we should enjoy the exchanges, not allow it to spill over

I claimed that around 50% of RAF losses were not combat related with an average airframe life of 9.5 months. I said that US losses were lower, because the average airframe life was about 13.1 months. Elsewhere I quoted Westermann who (among other things) points out that aircraft damaged by flak is about 7 times the numbers shot down. Most of those 7x manage to return to base, but many of them are scrapped due to dmage, or as your source puts it "wear and tear". What we are really disagreeing on is that number I think. Theres not really much argument about the statedd US losses of 20000 to combnat. What is at issue is that only 600 of the 8th AF for the entire war were lost to flak, and the fact that you deny an aircraft scrapped after return due to cumulative losses should be recorded as a loss.

Therein lies the source of the disagreement. Because of the very narrow definition you are adopting, your figures are vastly innacurate an skewing the result. Certainly the accounting mechanism you are relying on make the numbers not comparable to BC statisitics.

There is no "changing the tables" going on at all. Its the same argument, dressed up in different ways. The issue is about losses, and how to categorize them. I say the best way is to say that an aircraft lost in the air, to direct enemy action is a combat loss. A loss not attributable to enemy action, such as a navigational error, is a non-combat loss. Its debateable about what to do or record aircraft that are damaged, but make it back to base, only to be scrapped due to damage.

Another area of disagreement is what to do with losses like those scrapped due to obsolescence, wear and tear (whatever that means) training accidents and the like. I maintain they are still losses, as do many others. Any other method of arbitrarily not including certain types of losses may be valid, but it make comparisons with other nationalities (in particular) not possible, because we dont know if the same standards and parameter have been applied to those nationalities.

As writed the scrapped BC heavies for EA were few: 288 in comparation with 5,862 missing and 781 scrapped (ever from combat mission) not for enemy action. So you argument is not valid. who is a writed that 8 AF losses for flak are 600?? you don't read or you're cheating?? Stop this.
For BC is available the data for scrapped not EA related. for USAAF is available the data losses for other causes. The losses for accident are available for USAAF.

parsifal said:

For those who are interested in the total losses suffered by the US during WWII, from all causes, the breakdown from one source is as follows (according to Piper)

Combat losses Europe and MTO: 20000
Other causes Europe and MTO: 23000

Combat losses outside US not in Europe or MTO: 4300
Other losses outside US, not in Europe or MTO: 4500


Continental US (Training Command) : 14500

The losses do not certain losses that I know of, so losses will be somewhat higher than this still. Almost all the pre-war airforce were scraped due obsolesnce and most of the airforce losses in the Far East or China in the early days are also not included for various reasons. Those sources for losses might add another 4-8000 aircraft that would be listed as losses

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Parsifal - there was a massive scrapping activity on all fronts for USAAF. I don't know what the figures are but IIRC the three primary 'reductions' to USAAF inventory post VE Day were a.) fully operable and current airframes sent to Davis Monthan for scrap, and b.) perfectly good airframes scrapped in Europe and Far East (in Germany for example), c.) perfectly good airframes given away or sold to other countries.

iron man said:

I've read everything published that the "Good Nazi" wrote Bill.
I've also read the memoirs of the Heer Generals.
Speer (much like Manstein etal.) was writing for a rather self-serving purpose in the Cold War period; there was a new "Fuhrer" in town, after all.
IMHO, corroboration of some of these memoirs (when held against primary documents), can be just a little bit "problematic".
It's been many, many years since I last read ITTR...it might be time to give it another go-round.

FWIW, Tooze gave a lot of Speer's attributed "wisdom" a pretty sound thrashing in "Wages of Destruction".

Since you've got ITTR close to hand (mine's packed away somewhere in a box) does Speer give reference (in footnotes) to specific documents at BA-MA that back the veracity of the statement you quoted?

Not being confrontational, just curious.

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Pages 546 and 547 for references to Chapter 20 "Bombs" - condensed paragraph content below.

Reference #12. References to production drop on August 17 came from Statischer Schnellbreit zur Kriegproduktion - Jan 1945.
Reference #13, to RAF awareness of significance of US attack and reccomendation to Harris that RAF follow up - "Effects of the Bombing Vol II (pg 20) Webster and Frankland - source - Director of Bombing Operations Air Commodore Bufton. He was over ruled By Harris.
Reference #14 Following the second Schweinfurt attack, the total production at Schweinfurt, relative to July 1943 was 60% and the entire industry was down 32%.
Reference #16
Harris was successful at forestalling any RAF attacks on Ball bearing sources until Feb 1944 - at which time Speer had enough time to de-centralize and place into reserve large quantities of critical ball bearings.