USN WW2 Aviation Tables.
TABLE 1 - CONSOLIDATED SUMMARY OF NAVY AND MARINE CARRIER AND LAND‑BASED AIR OPERATIONS AND RESULTS FOR ENTIRE WAR
| Base | Service | Aircraft | Action | Lost To | Lost To | Losses | Losses | Lost on ship | Bombers | Fighters |
| Base | Arm | Aircraft | Sorties | Enemy A/A | Enemy A/C | Operational | Other | or ground | Destroyed | Destroyed |
| Carrier | Navy | F6F | 62,240 | 538 | 245 | 321 | 829 | 403 | 1,387 | 3,568 |
| Carrier | Navy | F4U / FG | 6,488 | 93 | 18 | 48 | 182 | 76 | 100 | 260 |
| Carrier | Navy | FM | 12,925 | 62 | 13 | 75 | 283 | 71 | 194 | 228 |
| Carrier | Navy | F4F | 1,102 | 17 | 47 | 31 | 49 | 22 | 190 | 112 |
| Carrier | Marine | F4U / FG | 3,093 | 44 | 16 | 21 | 47 | 38 | 59 | 159 |
| Carrier | Marine | F6F | 146 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Carrier | Marine | F4F | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Land | Marine | F4U / FG | 52,852 | 207 | 141 | 157 | 458 | 48 | 300 | 1,100 |
| Land | Marine | F6F | 1,646 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 27 | 5 | 46 | 47 |
| Land | Navy | F4F | 1,074 | 4 | 75 | 11 | 34 | 26 | 175 | 281 |
| Land | Marine | F2A | 25 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 4 |
| Land | Navy | F6F | 2,470 | 8 | 23 | 16 | 21 | 5 | 12 | 103 |
| Land | Navy | F4U | 1,269 | 5 | 14 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 19 | 141 |
| Land | Navy | F4F / FM | 450 | 3 | 56 | 7 | 29 | 20 | 53 | 94 |
| Unknown | Unknown | F4U | 349 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Unknown | Unknown | F6F | 28 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Which gives the claims to loss ratio of the 4 USN fighters as
F2A 0.71 : 1
F4F/FM 6.95 : 1
F4U/FG 11.32 : 1
F6F 19.12 : 1
The F4F/FM war service had two distinct phases, the first was very tough as it took on the then elite IJNAF, the second was spending much time in low threat environments, much more likely to see enemy bombers than fighters, it claimed 1.17 fighters per bomber, the F4U 3.48, the F6F 2.57, but then again the F4F from carriers had 112 fighters to 190 bombers reflecting how hard it was to catch an A6M in 1942 and the composition of the carrier based strike forces.
Meantime over at America's Hundred Thousand by Francis Dean
Sustained 3 G turn, no altitude loss, clean airframe, with the best turn radius assigned the value of 100
FM-2 100 units at 118.5 mph
P-63A-9 124 units at 132 mph
P-61B-1 133 units at 137 mph
F6F-5 138 units at 139 mph
P-51D-15 179 units at 159 mph
P-38L 205 units at 170 mph
P-47D-30 206 units at 170 mph
F4U-1D 212 units at 172.5 mph
Getting into that turn is another issue, at 100 mph the P-61 roll rate is around 18 degrees per second, linearly rising to under 50 degrees per second at 325 mph, the unboosted P-38 starts off at 25 degrees per second, peaks at under 80 at around 300 mph, the roll rate would probably equal the P-61 at around 350 mph. Assuming the P-61 keeps rising linearly then it would cross the P-39D at under 400 mph, F4F-3, F6F-5 and P-47C before 450 mph and the P-51B-1 at over 450 mph. The small size of the P-61 control surface obviously hurts at low speed where turn fights occur, but gains the advantage at high speed. Apart from the P-38 all the other US fighter types are rolling at tw0 to three times the P-61 rate in the 200 to 250 mph band.
The Ki-43 had two main production lines, Nakajima phased it out in favour of the Ki-84 during 1944, Tachikawa had no other types in production, if being built in 1945 is a sign of value, 748 Ki-43 to 1,485 Ki-84 to 1,715 A6M. Alternatively like everyone else the Japanese found it hard to quickly switch and ramp up production
The following is from a time when if you were out and about it was still wise to keep a look out for the occasional hungry T-Rex.
The Messerschmitt Me262 was a pointer to the future of fighter aircraft, when everything worked it was the highest performance aircraft to see combat in WWII. The trouble for the Germans was making it work. The references,
Dan O'Connell Messerschmitt Me262 The Production Log 1941-1945 It has a list of all known Me262s built and individual histories when known.
Manfred Boehme JG7 (In German), the appendix of claims and losses
John Foreman and S E Harvey The Messerschmitt Me262 Combat Diary which has lists of Me262 kill claims and losses and allied kill claims for Me262s
Dr Theo E W Boiten Nachtjagd War Diaries Volume 2. For Me262 nightfighter claim checking
Roger A Freeman Mighty Eighth War Diary For 8th Air Force losses
Roger A Freeman and David Osborne The B-17 Flying Fortress Story It has a list of all known B-17 built and individual histories.
John Foreman Fighter Command War Diaries Part 5 for RAF claims for and losses to Me262s
Norman L R Franks Royal Air Force Fighter Command Losses volume 3
W R Chorley Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses volume 6
Richard Davis Spreadsheets of allied heavy bomber operations for allied targets, sorties, losses, bomb tonnages
The break down in Luftwaffe record keeping means any conclusions are tentative, there are clearly a number of Me262 losses in the air from February/March 1945 onwards that are not recorded accurately enough to enable reliable loss evaluations in the months when the Me262 was most active, similar for kill claims made by the Me262 units, though allied loss reports make up for most of this. Many losses with unknown work numbers in O'Connell also have no reference to support the listing, at the moment these are largely excluded, even when the German pilot or unit is explicitly mentioned. Also a number of RAF claims mentioned in O'Connell's "no work number known" Me262 loss list do not appear in Fighter Command War Diaries, so at the moment the bias is to exclude listings. Then there are the losses with unknown work numbers on unknown dates which are normally excluded.
JG7 as noted by its title covers the main Luftwaffe user of fighter Me262s only. Foreman and Harvey have tried for all Me262 combat units. Both books cover losses as well as kill claims. The lists of Me262 losses in Foreman and Harvey was used as the initial basis then checked and supplemented from O'Connell who covers all units and includes losses taken before delivery to a combat unit. Reading the aircraft histories in O'Connell it is clear build quality was slipping in 1945, along with either spare parts supply or distribution, that clearly hurt serviceability. Overall it when everything worked the Me262 was the best thing flying on operations in 1945, but the engine reliability, fuel consumption and airfield requirements were a big negative, as was the average pilot quality. So for example the Me262 could easily outpace a P-51, but only for a short time because of the fuel consumption problem, the P-51 could pursue and if the Me262 did not manage to evade or land quickly the P-51 could catch up and force a fight. The number of airfields capable of operating Me262s was also limited, enabling the allies to cover them with fighter patrols.
The list of destroyed Me262s has some 490 entries, of which 189 are not identified by their work numbers. This is out of around 1,200 Me262s built. With some 172 aircrew KIA, 27 MIA, 41 WIA and 2 PoW. However some 121 Me262s are listed as being destroyed by bombing and another 23 by strafing, with no aircrew casualties listed against these losses. This leaves 346 losses where about 57% of the time the pilot was killed. O'Connell indicates there are probably more losses to bombing. Plus a series of losses where the date is uncertain and work numbers unknown. These may or may not have been included in the F+H list in entries where the work number is missing. After bombing the next 3 highest causes for losses of Me262s are Fighter 89, Crashed 83 and Shot down 68.
The losses for JG7 in 1945 in F+H versus the JG7 book are, January 8 versus 6, February 11 versus 6, March 40 versus 31, April 57 versus 34. Which is not good agreement unless JG7 only covers combat losses.
To start off with allied claims against Me262s. Allied fighter kill claims against Me262s appear reasonable, with 188 claimed versus 89 losses listed to fighters and 75 listed as shot down or lost to enemy aircraft, a total 164. Note a number of these possibles would have been lost to bomber gunners or AA Fire, on the other hand a number of crashes are reported as after combat and other allied claims are a case of mistaken identity, it was not an Me262 that was actually attacked. The discrepancy between allied fighters claims and recorded Me262 losses is biggest in April 1945, 14 to fighters, 38 possibles versus 74 claims, a difference of 22, or almost all the total discrepancy of 188 kills versus 164 possibles.
O'Connell also has some Messerschmitt production reports, to end November 1944, 368 built at Augsburg, 26 at Regensburg plus a number sent to Blohm and Voss for conversion to 2 seat trainers.
In January 1945 the Luftwaffe quartermaster reported 162 Me262s produced in January, including 14 repaired airframes, another report noted that while Messerschmitt claimed to have produced 681 Me262s in December 1944, with 499 made available to the Luftwaffe, the rest unassembled and in storage, only some 186 of the 499 had made it to combat units, the rest destroyed, damaged or diverted. In February 1945 the Luftwaffe quartermaster noted 224 Me262s had been built, 212 new, 11 repaired, 1 recycled. Hence the problems in determining Me262, and German aircraft, production.
The kill claim list in Foreman and Harvey is the basis for an evaluation of the number of allied aircraft lost to Me262s. It does have a problem in that kill claims mentioned in the text do not always make it to the list. So the list has about 345 entries, expanded to 365 based on other kills mentioned and could have expanded more by accepting every mention of an allied aircraft being shot down. In the F+H List JG7 are credited with 243 kills in 1945, versus the list from JG7 of 217 kills, plus 42 probables. In detail, ignoring the probables, F+H 149 USAAF heavy bombers (Including 2 that really might be Lancasters), JG7 141, P-51 35 versus 31, P-47 18 versus 9, P-38 3 versus 6, others 38 versus 30. F+H have a table that says there were up to 616 kill claims made by Me262 pilots, but it is clear many of these must be initial claims, and would have been eliminated with checking.
The simplest way so see the overclaim is to note the USAAF thinks in 1945 the European Theatre of Operations saw the loss to enemy aircraft of 199 heavy bombers, 20 medium and light bombers and 227 fighters, total 446, the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations lists 7 heavy bombers, 3 light and medium bombers and 24 fighters lost to enemy aircraft, total 34. Overall total 480, and most Me262 operations were against the USAAF and in 1945. Of the 365 Me262 kill claims listed in the spreadsheet 161 are for B-17/24 heavy bombers in 1945, and 66 USAAF fighters or reconnaissance fighters, so the Luftwaffe piston engined fighter units were still active, even if all the Me262 claims in the list are correct.
It looks like to the end of October 1944 the Me262 units made 24 kill claims, of which 16 can be definitely verified by the sources. This was a period where most of the combat was single combat against allied reconnaissance aircraft plus some attempts to intercept USAAF day bomber raids.
As expected the accuracy of the kill claims by Me262s seems to have declined in large combats and towards the end of the war. On 3 March 1945 the Me262s claimed 11 (F+H) or 12 (JG7) B-17 kills and 3 (F+H) or 1 (JG7) P-51 kills. The text in F+H says some 21 allied fighters shot down, these claims do not appear in the kill list, the 8th AF lost 6 P-51s plus another written off. The 8th lost 12 B-17 and 1 B-24 MIA, plus 14 B-17 and 1 B-24 written off, 11 bombers choosing to land in Soviet territory. Freeman notes the Me262 attacks plus that 8 MIA B-17s were lost to flak, 1 to collision. Leaving 3 as actual MIA to enemy fighters, plus maybe the B-24, plus of course some of the 14 written off.
On 31 March the attack on a Bomber Command formation resulted in kill claims for 16 Lancasters (plus possibly another 2 claimed as B-17) in F+H or 14 plus a probable in the JG7 listing. Some 11 RAF heavies were lost that day, 6 definitely to Me262s, no cause of loss is given in Chorley for the other 5, F+H suggest 2 of these to flak and 2 to collision. In March 1945 the USAAF reports the 15th Air Force lost 13 heavy bombers to enemy aircraft, the F+H kill list has some 27 kill claims, the JG7 kill list has 25 claims for 15th AF heavy bombers. Comparison between the Me262 kill claims list in F+H and allied losses would indicate somewhere around half the claims are accurate, so around 180 to 200 out of the 365 listed.
In the spreadsheet JG7 lost 132 Me262s of which 3 were bombed, versus making 262 kill claims. The losses include to 101 to fighter, enemy aircraft, shot down, failed to return and bomber. So overall JG7 was losing about 1 Me262 per real kill, and in combat around 1 Me262 per 1.3 to 1.4 real kills.
The results from JG7 were undoubtedly better than the piston engine fighters (USAAF fighters in the European Theatre of operations claimed 1,362 kills in the air in 1945, mostly fighters, versus the 227 losses to enemy aircraft or 6 to 1, which is of course an overclaim, but it shows how many conventional Luftwaffe fighters were being shot down.) RAF fighter kill claims for 1945 were 732, or about half that of the USAAF, but with a number at night against bombers or night fighters.
For JG7 better is a 1 to 1 exchange rate overall and 1.3 or 1.4 to 1 in combat. A real measure of the improvement the Me262 would be to compare the above figure to the real losses and successes of the Luftwaffe piston engined fighters in the west in 1945.
Speculation time, as a hand waving exercise, 298 Me262 kill claims in 1945, say 150 are correct. There are 480 USAAF losses plus any RAF ones. RAF fighter Command Losses indicates 65 fighters definitely lost to enemy fighters, plus another 95 to unknown reasons, out of 809 losses (359 to flak and 137 destroyed on the ground on 1 January make up the bulk of the losses), the RAF day bomber force, number 2 group reported 1 bomber lost to enemy fighters in 1945, Bomber Command 6 losses to fighters on day operations. So the assumption is 150 RAF losses to enemy fighters, since the 150 figure neatly cancels out the Me262 claims. This leaves 480 allied aircraft, call it 500, to be placed against the only yardstick available, the number of accurate allied kill claims against Luftwaffe fighters. We have 2,100 RAF and USAAF kill claims, ignoring the 192 claims by USAAF bombers, so at 80% accuracy and 80% against fighters we end up with 1,344, or around 1,200 after taking away the kills made against Me262s.
So with every person trained in statistics reading this cringing in shock, (this is not skating on statistical thin ice but swimming amongst icebergs watched by hungry Polar Bears) it is possible the Me262 was about three times as good as the piston engined fighters the Luftwaffe had at the time. That is a real kill ratio in combat of around 1.3 to 1.4 to 1 for the Me262 versus around 0.4 to 1 for the piston engined types.
Of course if you use 90% of 90% the Me262 is about 4 times as good, 60% of 60% and the Me262 is about twice as good as the piston engined types. So the real conclusion is the Me262 was better, just how much requires more and better information.
Another way of looking at effectiveness is to note the casualty rate, which requires sortie totals, the JG7 book does have sorties for some days. They do not look complete, but claim from 636 sorties some 71 Me262s were lost, or 11%. This compares to figures for day fighters in Luftflotte Reich in 1944, a 10.3% loss rate, or fighters over France in 1944, 6% loss rate. The trouble with the figures for all of 1944 is the decline of Luftwaffe fighter pilot experience and training between January and December, you would expect a higher loss rate later in the year.
It does raise the possibility the Me262 was no more survivable than the piston engined fighters in terms of losses per sortie, but was better able to shoot down allied aircraft, given its top speed and firepower. The 636 sorties gave rise to 155 kill claims, in other words 2.2 times as many kill claims as losses, halving the kill claims would mean an overall 1.1 to 1 loss rate, or a real kill every 8 or so sorties.
In 1944 the Luftwaffe day fighters in the west and over Germany flew some 80,000 sorties. The USAAF credits enemy aircraft with causing 2,902 losses, out of 7,749 losses on operations. RAF bomber units report 14 losses to enemy fighters on day operations, with Fighter Command reporting 244 losses to fighters plus 241 for unknown reasons, flak caused 809 losses or around half the 1,665 recorded losses. So 300 to 500 RAF losses to Luftwaffe fighters, call it 400. Plus of course some of the 1,060 USAAF heavy bomber and fighter losses to enemy aircraft from the Mediterranean based units, when they attacked Austria, Czechoslovakia, France or Germany. Based on the Bomber loss figures from Davis about 60% of the 15th Air Force Heavy Bomber losses in 1944 were from attacking those countries. That would give say 600 bomber and fighters kills made by the Luftwaffe fighters based in then defined Greater Germany and France.
So 80,000 sorties for 3,900 real kills, a kill every 20.5 sorties, so around 40% the effectiveness of the Me262 in 1945. It does fit but the data needs considerable refinement, since a number of the Luftwaffe fighter sorties in the west would be ground attack for example, not interception, whereas JG7 was near exclusively on interception operations. Also something more than a yearly average for Luftwaffe fighter losses in 1944 and a more definitive listing of allied losses is required.
It is quite possible the Me262 loss rate per sortie was in fact around the same as the piston engined types, and the main improvement it brought was a better kill rate per sortie, perhaps 3 times as much. A more middle ground is an improvement in loss rates per sortie and a higher number of kills per sortie rate but lower than the 3 times hand waved above.
While such conclusion seems to indicate it was the greater firepower, the four 30mm cannon, that were the difference the reality is it is also performance related, the Me262 had the performance to carry the armament and stand a good chance of intercepting enemy aircraft then evading counter attack, compared with any piston engine fighter carrying the same armament.
