You are definitely still struggling with this mate. Shores lists these aircraft as 'crash landed' and I already explained, maybe five times in this thread, why I personally (not Shores) included crash landed as criteria to count as a 'loss' in answering the question "who was dominating the air war".
No I am not struggling, I am watching how the Shores loss list is too important to deal with its flaws.
As to how an aircraft can have the tail shot away and be repairable, I don't know for sure but my guess would be that the cloth covering of the tail surfaces (rudder and / or elevators) were shot away or burned, as easily happened, but that the pilot was still able to land because he was still getting some control surface response from whatever was left. But a crash landing usually means an uncontrolled or forced landing, either because the aircraft lost power or the pilot lost control, or for example the landing gear would not go down (maybe because hydraulics were damaged). So varying degrees of damage are typically the result.
Thanks for a clear example of what is going on, the squadron says tail damage, Shores ups that to tail shot off, you now try and come up with a definition of how an aircraft can land with its tail shot off, the Shores list is that important. While the list includes lightly damaged it is problematical. So what is the Shores definition of landed at base after damage, versus crash landed? A record that says the aircraft took more damage when landing?
With a working rear area system the allied air forces had the option to reduce the workload on the unit maintenance people by removing a damaged aircraft from a combat unit and replacing it with a reserve, something the axis dd not have.
Your surprise and doubt on learning that Allied pilots sometimes made multiple claims on a day when the Axis didn't take any losses is also nothing new. Many people including myself were surprised by this when this data first became available many years ago, but all of the similar comparisons which have now been done have shown this (on both sides).
Actually I asked did you believe all 8 allied pilots totally missed on 8 February 1942, but thanks for yet again making me the problem. I have known the RAF was over claiming big time for quite a few years, the black smoke emitted when axis aircraft pushed the throttle wide open one reason. The British Intelligence history covers how Ultra enabled the true losses to be calculated and the claims system to be tightened. In response to my query you have told us if Shores records no damage to axis aircraft, there was no damage, even slight. You believe the axis records are that good and Shores has them all and for that matter the allied ones, and they are all in the book. No lightly damaged axis aircraft to compare with the Kittyhawk tail shot off, back in under 3 days. Eliminate the lightly damaged, that will give a better comparison.
Based on that interview with this Canadian historian
Mike Bechthold, the guy who seems to have actually done the most to actually reorganize what became the DAF or WDAF is a 60 victory WW 1 ace named
Raymond Collishaw. Tedder hated him and was finally able to replace him with Coningham in July 1941. Collishaw is credited with creating the framework of what eventually became the close air support system often credited to Tedder. Tedder was the overall leader.
The allied ground support doctrine ended up being a good thing, lots of people want their contribution noted and we have a Canadian historian highlighting the Canadian input. The "hated him" reminds me of Hitler's Mediterranean Gamble by Douglas Porch, every commander gets a character assessment with plenty of negatives, which makes me less charitable when it comes to overlooking claims in the book like the Germans had Tigers and Panthers in North Africa.
What happened in a nutshell seems to be that there was a power struggle between the ground army Generals and the Air Force commanders, with London (and sometimes Churchill himself) stepping in to lean on one side or the other. As a result, the British Air Force in North Africa (I'm just going to use DAF for short from now on even though I know it isn't always accurate)... the DAF kept alternating clumsily between defensive and offensive roles.
There was not a lot of ground offensive to support. What is the definition of defensive and offensive in this case?
Specifically, the DAF seesawed between the 'air umbrella' of fighter protection and standby bombers that the Army generals wanted, with the increasingly cunning ongoing experiment in close air support and long range logistics interdiction that the Air Force was figuring out.
During 1941 the Desert Air Force was rather struggling to do interdiction, the lack of suitable aircraft plus the need to base the longer range stuff mostly around the Nile Delta thanks to supply issues. After all Tobruk was friendly at the time. Similarly the needs of Ethiopia, Greece, Syria, Iran and Iraq made it hard to allocated aircraft for the desert fighting for extended periods, and again there were the supply issues when that did happen.
Both sides caused dreadful mistakes - putting the DAF on the "umbrella" mission almost got the Army annihilated during Operation Battleaxe, and switching back to CAS (thanks to a directive to "Concentrate on ground strafing" in Jun 1941) is what saved the retreating army from total annihilation. In Sept 1941 Churchill broke the tie personally by issuing an order to all the ground forces and air force commanders "No more defensive air umbrella".
As read this suggest the army should have stayed passive and let the air force win it. What reports of the ground combat have you read?
12 May Tiger convoy via the Mediterranean delivers 238 tanks and 43 Hurricanes. Churchill has personally decided to take the risk rather than send the ships via the Cape of Good Hope. Operation Brevity 15 and 16 May, around a division level attack, prodded by an Ultra intercept that described the axis position as weak, only success is capture of Halfaya Pass. 27 May Germans retake Halfaya pass and better fortify it.
Battleaxe began on 15 June, ended on 17 June. Corps level action except both divisions involved were under strength, corps HQ located 5 hours drive behind the lines in order to be near a good airfield and to stay in touch with RAF HQ which was even further back. This is the battle where the Matilda met the 88mm, the limits of the 2 pounder as a tank gun against the Germans became clear, the reliability of the new Crusader tanks shown to be poor. The new tanks enabled 7th Armoured division to actually have tanks again for the first time in four months, but many personnel had been transferred in the months of idleness. It took until 9 June for all the tanks to arrive. There were 4 regiments of tanks, 2 with Matildas, 1 of these was attached to the infantry. Most of those tanks were lost in the first attack. End of attempt to take Halfaya Pass. A lack of radios meant there was only one per tank troop. Hitting a succession of anti tank lines meant British armour was down to around half strength by the end of the day, most knocked out tanks left in German hands. Few Axis tanks had been hit.
Next day it was the turn of 15th Panzer to take on an infantry/artillery/anti tank line and bounce with heavy losses, while 5th light reduced 7th Armoured Brigade to 9 tanks as of dawn on the 19th, which resulted in 15th Panzer joining 5th Light for the final push on the morning of the 19th. This worked quite well except the allied infantry commander had understood the situation well enough to ensure the force had an escape route. Wavell arrived and discovered two things, this had been a two division operation, corps was too far back to effectively command and Hindustani speaking divisional commanders gave good radio security. The allied force retreat was well underway before corps was aware of it. With a strong tank and artillery force blocking the German attacks. The allied troops escaped, but losses were 122 killed, 588 wounded, 259 missing, 64 Matildas, 27 cruiser tanks and 4 guns. The ground war accounts indicate neither air force was a problem at any time. On the 18th 5th Light effectively rolled through the British armour in the field, its HE firing tanks effective in suppressing the 25 pounders, and its superior firepower effective against the British tanks.
So the claim is those machine guns in the fighters prevented the German massed panzer attack, not the timely concentration of artillery and tanks in good positions guarding the escape route. I assume the video uses the Corps Commander's thank you message which is full of praise and credit, with the implication keep the air umbrella up.
After this came Crusader, a true army level fight, with more than twice the troops to command and that meant finding experienced corps and army commanders and staffs, with a couple of days of a weak divisional attack and 3 days of a weak corps attack as the sum of local combat knowledge to go on. What could possibly go wrong?
The pre war idea of an air umbrella was actually achieved in 1944 in both Italy and France.
Unfortunately they used Hurricanes for a lot of the Tac Recon. I have no idea of the reasoning.
The first several hundred Tomahawks in Britain were given cameras and used for Rec Recon in early 1941.
Maybe part of the British aircraft Hierarchy? Not good enough to be fighter? do Tac Recon.
Not good enough for Europe? go to the mid-east. Not good enough for the mid-east? Go to the Far East (Buffaloes).
It took a lot of pleading to get even one PR Spitfire. They knew they were taking losses. But the idea of not having photos bothered them even more.
A lot of the early Tomahawks were not suitable for combat, so you need to remove them.
Spitfire IV was for strategic reconnaissance, tactical reconnaissance was nominally for the Lysander units, but it was appreciated quite early that was not going to happen, for example 3 RAAF arrived in 1940 as an army co-operation unit. Tactical reconnaissance units began equipping with fighters, later some were modified to take reconnaissance cameras. The first shipments of Hurricane mark II to Takoradi were in July 1941. Even the Tiger Convoy Hurricanes were mark I.
The Baltimore and Boston versions used in the desert had about the same defensive armament as the Blenheim, with hand held machine guns against the dorsal turret of the Blenheim. They were about 40 mph faster, shorter ranged and could carry double the bomb load. The first Baltimores arrived in November 1941, first operational hours in May 1942, total of 312 arrivals to end September 1942. A total of 111 Bostons arrived in the Middle East September to December 1941, first operational hours in February but the numbers involved meant it played a bit part until September 1942. There were 76 Marylands imported in 1941, plus a few from Britain, again faster but weak defensive armament. Apart from the pre and early war shipments Britain sent 1,583 Blenheims to the Middle East August 1940 to end October 1942.
Hurricanes, exports to the Middle East totalled 2,414 June 1940 to October 1942, plus others via Malta. Spitfires, exports of 299 February to October 1942 but 161 of those September/October and the figures seem to include some PR but exclude the reallocation of some, about 48, originally meant for Australia. 28 Tomahawks were also sent from Britain. Tomahawk imports 516 February to September 1941. Kittyhawk imports to Middle East 878 November 1941 to October 1942.
Beaufighters, 16 exports to the Mediterranean (Malta) in April 1941, then 446 to the Middle East June 1941 to October 1942. Wellingtons 1,018 May 1940 to October 1942. As both these types could fly out there is a chance some exports are missed.
Since they have been mentioned, apart from the pre and early war shipments, 54 Lysanders sent to the Middle East June 1940 to February 1941, another 2 in September and 3 in November 1941, and 8 more July to December 1942. Halifax exports, 1 in December 1941, 2 in June 1942, 30 in July and 5 in October. Britain also sent 3 B-24 it had received to the Middle East in the first half of 1942, and 4 arrived from the US in January 1942. The B-24 are included to show the limitations of the import/export figures, aircraft that moved as part of units are NOT counted, these moves were the major supplier of Liberators to the Middle East in 1942, plus also a few Halifaxes. The air components of numbers 159 and 160 squadrons with B-24 arrived in the Middle East in May 1942 en route to India but stayed, using things like the ground crew only 147 squadron for support. Effectively in January 1943 their remaining personnel and those 147 squadron were merged to form 178 squadron.
To around Alamein there were around 4 Blenheims to 1 Baltimore/Boston and 3 Hurricanes to 2 of any other single engine fighter.
I know there was some residual anger about the P-40F / L - for a long time there were many books stating that the British didn't get any of them. They had been asking for merlin engined P-40s for a long time and when they became available, were originally planning to equip 4 squadrons, but were only able to acquire enough for two squadrons. There was a shortage of P-40F which were in high demand for a little while but the reason was basically because Packard switched over their American production to making the 60 series type Merlins for the Mustang.
However due to the licensing contract they still made Merlin XX for British aircraft, including Hurricanes, many of which seem to have never left Canada. It might have been better to make a few more P-40F as they were still being used in the Med through Anzio, and remained in use in the Pacific and CBI even longer.
The Hurricane engines sent to Canada were Merlin XX family, designated Merlin 28 and 29. There were 480 Merlin 29 originally meant for what ended up as the 400 RCAF order Hurricanes designated mark XII, but 150 of the Hurricanes were exported to Britain and the Canadians kept all the Merlin 29, using the spares to upgrade survivors of the 30 Mark I transferred to the RCAF in early 1942 and the 50 Sea Hurricanes meant as the North American pool for the Merchant Ship Fighter Unit after the unit disbanded. The Rolls Royce Heritage Trust reports 144 Merlin 28 in 1942 and another 141 in 1943 were imported into Canada for Hurricanes, all these engines were sent to Britain either attached to a Hurricane airframe or stand alone. Upon arrival apart from a few test flights the engines were used for Lancasters. The Hurricanes tested in Britain have mark III noted on their aircraft cards. The Hurricane X is used in some RAF documents for a Canadian built mark I (Merlin III) but there was no official mark X, while the mark XI never existed, persistent reports of these marks using US Merlins are wrong.
According to the British reporting what the Americans did, Merlin 28 were the first Merlins built by Packard, production of 5,200 to February 1943. The Merlin 29 were built during 1942. Production switched to the Merlin 38 in March 1943 and to a lesser extent also the Merlin 31 in April. March 1943 the final month any single stage Merlins were built for the US, total 2,813 built. P-4F production January 1942 to January 1943, P-40L January to April 1943, total 2,011 Merlin engine P-40.
According to the British they received 418 engineless mark I Hurricane airframes, 447 engineless mark II airframes and 234 mark II with engines from Canada, another 8 mark I and 11 mark II were lost en route, total 1,118 out of 1,451 built. In addition the mark I pattern aircraft sent to Canada pre war returned, officially making imports 419 engineless mark I airframes.
K-1 it's a P-40K of the 1 block like how are used now for the F-16C-60, for the 60 block
Not quite correct as I understand it, and now I get to find out if it is correct. The P-40E-1 was the export version of the P-40E, the P-40K-1 was the export version of the P-40K, produced under Defence Aid contacts, production and designations predate the introduction of block numbers into P-40 production, but by the time the P-40K models ordered under the USAAF contract began production block numbers were in use and they became the P-40K-5. DA-3 for 600 P-40K-1 and AC-22714 for 1,400 P-40 accepted as 700 P-40K and 700 P-40L, contracts signed on the same date.
The first 699 P-40F production starting from January 1942 were just that, there were no P-40F-1, P-40F-5 starting in August 1942, the same month as the first P-40K-5 were accepted. The P-40K-1 production finished in August 1942 except for 1 in September, 600 built. The first batches of P-40L, M and N all were block 1.
Interestingly the V-1710-73 was fitted to a number of the last batch E-1's being built (sorry don't know the exact number as my V-1710 database isn't presently mature enough - it needs more data), along with about the last 500 E-1's also having the fin fillet ala the K-1/5 models.
Looking at the engine serial numbers in the final P-40E-1 most are 42-35xxx, but a few have 42-160xxx, including the final 11. While the P-40K-1 early engine serials are 42-85xxx.
