On February 8, 3 of the 4 Hurricanes were shot down and strafed. The other 'shot down with pilot PoW'. The one Kittyhawk which crash landed had it's "tail shot away".
Checking the 3 squadron records, the report is AK665 received a damaged tail plane, landed 1350 on 8 February. It is next recorded on operations on 11 February, 0955. The 8 February mission was cover for 73 squadron, 4 other aircraft returned with engine trouble, 4 lost the formation and returned early, remainder attacked by 3 Bf109. Squadron records (3 squadron history sheets) at the Australian Archives, see around page 595.
Shores has the Hurricane actually lost to Flak. He then has 2 crash landed and strafed, 1 crash landed and 1 damaged, you have upgraded that to 3 shot down and strafed, why? 1 Hurricane was lost that day, it had a different serial to the one provided in Shores, Hurricane Z5069 is both Hurricanes shot down and strafed, one as "AX-H The Glamour King" with Lt. Biden wounded by the strafing and again just as Z5069 with Lt. Biden safe. Which is it? Listed as lost twice in February 1942 by Shores it is reported in North West Africa in 1943 and finally SOC on 8 March 1944. Lt S A FINNEY (103700V) has an incident recorded on 8 February 1942, in Hurricane Z5336, which again lasted until 8 March 1944. Shores has them both destroyed in February 1942. Lt Stewart Alexander FINNEY (103700V) also appears against Hurricane Z5455 which lasted until 1 July 1943, and again in BD893 in a collision on 3 August 1942, the other Hurricane was repaired.
When it comes to damage taken anyone seen a good list of the Hurricanes and Spitfires damaged during the Battle of Britain but repaired by the squadrons, not just those sent to the maintenance system? Nice static situation, near to head office with all its administrative capacity, should be easy enough?
To spell it out to count damaged means deciding the list in the Shores book is based on equally complete lists of damaged aircraft on both sides, that these lists are published in full, not above a certain threshold decided by the authors nor edited down for say space reasons in the publishing process. It also means a definition of losses does not match the air force one.
You can use your own criteria as to what counts as loss. My feeling is that if the aircraft goes down (can no longer fly) or is destroyed on the ground, then it counts. You need some way to determine which side is winning the air war since that is the point under debate right now.
The criteria for winning depends on the circumstances. Even loss lists have uncertainties, as Shores regularly notes, add damaged and the uncertainties grow.
If you are going to use your own criteria then inevitably that means everyone is wasting their time. Consider the way disease will rip an army, therefore in the desert the obvious decisive unit was allied, the British mobile bath unit, the axis forces in Africa are known to have had a bigger disease problem. Definition of disease to support the decisive tag, case closed.
An example, The US Army in France lacked field craft knowledge, and had clothing problems. The result of the lack of clothing was a major rise in trench foot, 25% of US casualties in Italy in the 1943/44 winter. It was not widely realised that spending all day in damp shoes and socks in cool weather would cause trench foot. It is not until January 1945 that the Mediterranean Theatre report on trench foot makes it to the European theatre, and then only after a specific request. Meantime in the ETO Trench foot "accounted for 9.25% of all the casualties suffered on the Continent." Warnings had been given but the seriousness of the problem had been discounted by the units. The standard combat boot was not waterproof but much of the problem was lack of simple precautions. Trench foot, joined the VD, AWOL and court martial rates as a measure of unit discipline.
Forget the fancy weapons, invest more in the "decisive" mobile bath units.
If you try to go by what may or may not be repairable you end up in a much more complex kind of analysis, but a lot of the heavily damaged aircraft were not repaired for one reason or another. Some were cannibalized for parts, some destroyed in subsequent bombing or strafing, some left behind when they moved bases etc. etc. Some were eventually repaired of course but if it's put out of action for months I think that counts.
You have an aircraft that was repaired in around 2 days by the unit as a casualty. Once you count damaged you have to define how damaged, currently the definition is a mention in the Shores lists, with no definition of what aircraft are included in those lists or any idea of how complete they are. An example of the list versus air force records can be seen from the 8 February summary. The air forces are quite clear in their definitions, destroyed and damaged.
On 8 February 1942, the RAF lost 1 Hurricane and 4 Kittyhawks, according to its summary. On this day the Germans pulled off two bounces.
The lack of axis air strikes in the retreating 8th Army after Gazala is widely noted, a time when the ground units were at their most vulnerable, an air force should not have missed this opportunity, which shows how the axis air power in North Africa was concentrated in staying just over or behind the front line. Not surprising given the numbers and supply available. Something that was also happening in the USSR and France. Wiliamson Murray has a later example from the Eastern Front of Leutnant Elmar Boersch from 3./KG4, he survived the war with 311 combat missions to his credit. First 25 missions 8 August to 6 September 1943, no more than 10 minutes per mission over enemy territory. Next 25 missions, 7 to 22 September 2 missions lasted more than 10 minutes over enemy territory, one was 15 minutes, the other 2 hours. In the next 50 missions 3 lasted more than 10 minutes over enemy territory. In his second 100 missions 32 lasted over 10 minutes but many of these were weather reconnaissance over the Black Sea or transport missions to the Crimea. So at a maximum of 5 minutes in and 5 minutes out he was usually bombing maybe 15 miles behind enemy lines.
The axis air force in the desert surged in May/June 1942, its fighters in a situation similar to that of France in 1941, plenty of targets, generally superior equipment, tactics and training plus often no need to engage unless the situation was favourable, in France in 1941 that translated to a 3 to 1 or better loss ratio. To do this it largely stayed over friendly territory, any domination had a limited scope, space wise. As a guide consider how many axis fighter pilots were being made prisoner.
The important thing IMO is to compare like with like. Same criteria for Axis as for the Allies. And either way, I don't believe the ratios will change.
Fine, please contact Christopher Shores and obtain from him certification the published loss and damage lists are complete to about the same degree for both sides. And have a chat to him about the differences between sources for the 8 February losses.
Even when the bombers weren't shot down they often had to eject their bombs and run for home when their fighter cover was annihilated.
So what is the definition of often? Say as a percentage of sorties, you must have the figures to make the claim.
Something like half of his gas was in ships being sunk by Allied bombers by El Alamein
As has been said before. No, both in terms of absolute losses and even more so by cause. Why is it even when you have the correct figures they are not used?