Good to know I am the problem again. It is really not that complicated from my end. You appear to only have access to the Shores Et. Al. book to figure out losses. Therefore that list must be used and considered correct. Even enhanced. The gap between what the book says and the air force records say was lost 8 February is ignored. Not used an example of verifying what the references are reporting.
Yes you seem to be having a problem with part of this discussion. In order to quantify the data, you have to have pretty simple criteria and be consistent about it. To me, 'shot down' = 'can't fly any more after being attacked'. To keep it simple. So long as you use the same criteria for both sides, I believe it's valid. It's not like I'm only counting crash landed planes on the Allied side. On that Feb 8 date the Allies didn't even make any claims IIRC.
I'm also not trying to second guess Shores here, and I'm not trying to follow the audit trail of every crash-landed aircraft.
So a simple explanation. As Shores points out a number of times tracking down total losses has problems at times. I add these problems are essentially the same for aircraft damaged badly enough to require removal from the unit, in both cases paperwork tends to be generated, aircraft movement cards updated. Adding aircraft that were repaired in unit throws open a major source of errors. You are now reliant on the individual unit records, what the person doing the reporting thought important, those people change and they can be told to change what to report. If you have seen examples of the reports you would know they cover a wide variety of styles and information. Then whether the Shores book reports all it finds.
Adding aircraft that are repaired doesn't introduce any errors if you are just counting aircraft that were
shot down. Repairs and getting aircraft back into action are another aspect of this worth looking into. But if you do look at Shores, I'm afraid that you will find that there are a quite large number of KiA, MiA, and PoW on the Allied side as the result of air combat, especially in the fighter squadrons. Those were some brave men and they took appalling losses. It's more than just the machines. And I think a short turn-around on a 'heavily damaged' or crash-landed plane was not the norm.
All the above assumes the RAF, RA and Luftwaffe had compatible systems for reporting losses and damaged aircraft, as well as the usually very bad assumption the axis air force records for the time are as complete as the allied ones. And you want to include as losses an aircraft that was damaged but flew again in under 3 days, with the possibility it did not fly on day 2 because it was not needed that day. Include repaired in unit aircraft and the list is most probably worthless unless those losses are separated out. As another point, did either axis air force have rear area repair depots, the number of abandoned aircraft suggests not, so every axis repair was a by unit one? In the desert war the British Army tended to have lots of equipment captured by the axis, but the air force very little, the axis was the other way around.
I'm using Shores here because I think he's generally accepted as a valid source. He has been doing this a long time and his early books on the Desert Air War back in the 1960s and 70s were badly off on numbers because for example he didn't seem to have good sources for Italian losses. I don't think Shores is perfect and I have also found mistakes, and certainly you are correct when you say that Axis losses reported aren't always on the level - quite often for example Luftwaffe planes are lost to 'engine failure' after a combat when the Allies had made claims. Suspiciously often I'd say. The Italians don't give us much data and I suspect many aircraft reported simply as 'damaged' never flew again.
However I think Shores, partly because he does now work with a bunch of other historians including experts on the German and Italian records, does get it pretty close to correct, the best we have available right now for this Theater for sure, and he gives us basically raw data, formatted to make it a bit easier to read. This is much more useful to me than the opinions of an author (and I say that as someone who has done academic writing myself - when it comes to History, opinions and interpretations including mine should always be considered provisional, the data is really what matters). Hopefully at some point someone will come along and do an even better and more thorough job than Shores did in counting and adding up all these numbers for us, for now, he is the best source. I certainly don't think there is any reason to assume he is heavily biased or that the numbers he presents lean one way or the other.
On the basis of the above all loss lists are a waste of time. Instead I read it as Shores list, end of story, if the book says crash landed it equals loss.
The book doesn't say "crash landed equals loss" - that is my criteria for the list i made from Shores. Shores indicates whatever the records said - "lost", "MiA", "FTR", "Crash-landed", "Force-Landed", "Exploded", "Badly Damaged", "Damaged", "Engine Failure" etc. He also indicates what happened to the crew.
The spreadsheet I posted has such data by month for the Allies. Thanks for the interest. The file I am working from also has non combat losses. Your criteria is mentioned in Shores, less those with a couple of key words, you have zero idea of what the Shores criteria are or how complete that data is. To use every entry in Shores means you are comfortable all aircraft damaged enough not to fly again for 2 to 3 days (and maybe available earlier than that) are recorded for all units on both sides.
I'll give it a look mate, and I appreciate anyone doing that kind of numbers crunching. I've got house guests right now and can't spend as much time as I wish I could pouring over WW2 air combat loss data. But I'll check it out and thanks for putting it together.
You made a claim about fighter cover being annihilated often and failed to back it up. You are struggling with basic concepts, like having evidence to back the claims.
Really? Fighter cover wasn't annihilated on several of the days I already listed? You are calling me a liar here basically. Maybe we need to plunge deeper into some of those 'bad days'.
The Bf110 versus the Beaufighter was not that uneven.
I wouldn't say it was. There were many interesting and perilous duels between Beaufighter and Bf 110 over the Med going into 1943. Bf 110 was also a good night fighter. What was uneven though was Bf 110 vs. Spitfire, Kittyhawk, Hurricane, even Martlet. That meant it was inadequate.
Bragadin notes different figures, April to October 1942, 0.78%, 7.24%, 22.14%, 6.45%, 33.03%, 20%, 44.2%. Remembering of course ships were lost sailing both ways.
So slightly different numbers? I still see very low losses (below 1%, below 10%) then moving up to 1/5, then below 1/10, then 1/5, then almost half. That is telling basically the same story I think.
So how many vehicles and how many units qualify for most heavily hit?
Those are numbers we can wade into. I think we have to settle the first few basic issues first. We are struggling on pretty basic and obvious stuff right now.
Casualties, Killed, Wounded, Missing, Allied 1,750, German 1,859, Italian 1,051, 38 Panzers, 11 Italian tanks, 67 British tanks.
What is your source for that?
Rommel would not be the first general to decide most of his defeat was due to enemy airpower, not the opposing general, one who had laid down a plan that was followed and who stayed in control of the situation. For devastating and decisive the losses to airpower need to be split from those inflicted by the ground forces, plus dealing with the way DAK kept moving until it hit resistance on the ground, not in the air.
Rommel's opinion is not the last word, but it's certainly a data point. The key thing is I think you will find people on both sides who share his opinion on the role of Air Power in El Alamein, but I'll get deeper into that too.
