What did the P51s have over the German fighters?

[Tante Ju]

Germany built approx. 119,000 military aircraft of all types. Of that approx. 116,000 were lost of which 70,000 were total losses.

Hi Adler, what is the source for these figures, is there a breakdown of losses (lvl of damage, cause)?

German aircraft industry and production, listed earlier in Spanish source lists ~40 000 combat related total losses, plus about 22 000 non combat.

IMHO "lost" is a poor choice of word for an aircraft 10% damaged and needing a replacement undercarriage, for example.

As for available aircraft, Quartermaster returns for 30 September 1944 lists a total of 33 877 aircraft available, to that comes 3782 gliders.

 

[CobberKane]

What do the words in the table mean?


Categoría
Pérdida total
Dañado, hasta un 10%
Aviones de combate
Otros modelos operacionales
Entrenamiento

translation:

Sun dried tomatoes
Utter bastards
Back in ten, Donald
Battered flying fish
Call girls
Dysentery


I think...

 

[alejandro_]

Categoría
Pérdida total
Dañado, hasta un 10%
Aviones de combate
Otros modelos operacionales
Entrenamiento

Category
Complete loss
Damaged (up to 10%)
Combat aircraft
Other operational types
Training

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Hi Adler, what is the source for these figures, is there a breakdown of losses (lvl of damage, cause)?

German aircraft industry and production, listed earlier in Spanish source lists ~40 000 combat related total losses, plus about 22 000 non combat.

IMHO "lost" is a poor choice of word for an aircraft 10% damaged and needing a replacement undercarriage, for example.

As for available aircraft, Quartermaster returns for 30 September 1944 lists a total of 33 877 aircraft available, to that comes 3782 gliders.

40,000 is the approx. number of fighters lost. Fighters are not the only type of conbat aircraft. I will dig up my sources (including the OKW Tagebueche) when I have time. I am about to go to work.

 

[Aozora]

IMHO "lost" is a poor choice of word for an aircraft 10% damaged and needing a replacement undercarriage, for example.

That can depend upon where the 10% damage was inflicted, or in what circumstances: for instance how many aircraft categorised as 10% damaged were captured when the Allies overran airfields in Libya and Tunisia, and how many when the Russians overran Luftwaffe airfields during their offensives? The first 109E-1 captured by the French in September 1939 was able to be test flown almost immediately because it did not have enough damage, yet it would have been a write-off to the Luftwaffe.

A classic example of a lightly damaged aircraft being captured and test flown by the Allies is the 109G-2/Trop Black 6, W/NR.10639, of 8./JG77. Had the airfield on which it landed been well behind the German lines, chances are it would have been put back into Luftwaffe service.

View attachment X001-2501-BF109G-'Black-6'.pdf

It was also possible to repair aircraft which were, for all intents and purposes write-offs and get them back into service; eg:

This Spitfire XII, which was effectively written off twice, was able to be rebuilt because it crashed in England; had it crashed in (say) Burma it would have been stripped of any useful parts and dumped (or buried, to be rediscovered 70 years later!).

 

[Milosh]

Also for the record, the british total losses were 22000 for the war, whilst the Americans were about 18000, of which 4000 were in the PTO

The Americans (USAAF) lost at least 65,154 a/c.
Table 99 AAFSD

 

[parsifal]

Your figures seem far more plausible. i suspect the figures ive seen are for combat losses only. As for the british losses, they are perhaps the worst, because fiding relaible figures for them is just diabolical

 

[Milosh]

Army Air Forces in World War II

Combat Losses (USAAF)
Grand Total - 22,948
vs Germany - 18,418
vs Japan - 4,530

 

[Tante Ju]

That can depend upon where the 10% damage was inflicted, or in what circumstances: for instance how many aircraft categorised as 10% damaged were captured when the Allies overran airfields in Libya and Tunisia, and how many when the Russians overran Luftwaffe airfields during their offensives?

IMHO in such cases an easily repairable (but captured in unairworthy state) aircraft should appear in losses as a 100% loss. IRL however things are not always ideal, and probably there are a lot of such duplicate entries for the same aircraft. I.e. lightly damaged and repaired twice, then when under repairs advancing enemy troops captured it in maintanaince depot.. if one handles even 10% damaged aircraft as "lost", in this case you have three "lost" aircraft but only on aircraft in reality.

One always have to be careful with statitistics for this reason, its always important to know what they show exactly. Even comparisons between air forces is troublesome, since they may well had different understanding of "lightly" and "heavily" damagaged aircraft.

 

[fastmongrel]

View attachment 237423

It was also possible to repair aircraft which were, for all intents and purposes write-offs and get them back into service; eg:

This Spitfire XII, which was effectively written off twice, was able to be rebuilt because it crashed in England; had it crashed in (say) Burma it would have been stripped of any useful parts and dumped (or buried, to be rediscovered 70 years later!).

I wonder if there is a clue in the name of the organisation that did the repair. Possibly this was rebuilt by trainee engineers as a good teaching excercise because surely even in 1943 that cant have been economical to repair. Spits were being built like shelling peas by then.

 

[Milosh]

I wonder if there is a clue in the name of the organisation that did the repair. Possibly this was rebuilt by trainee engineers as a good teaching excercise because surely even in 1943 that cant have been economical to repair. Spits were being built like shelling peas by then.

Air Service Training (AST) is an organization in Perth, Scotland, that has been training engineers and pilots for airlines, maintenance organizations and the military since 1931.[1] It is owned by Perth College UHI, with training taking place on the college campus and at Perth Airport, near Scone.

 

[Civettone]

Kris, i never made this claim.

I know, I should have referenced the quotes, but was too lazy.

Sometimes, these discussions fly all over the place and it is difficult to keep track what everyone is referring to

This Spitfire XII, which was effectively written off twice, was able to be rebuilt because it crashed in England; had it crashed in (say) Burma it would have been stripped of any useful parts and dumped (or buried, to be rediscovered 70 years later!).

Actually, it is interesting to realize that towards the end of the war, there was a change in German policy. It was considered to be "cheaper" (I assume, in man hours) to produce a new fighter plane than to try and repair one. As such, Germans would no longer send a 50% damaged bird to the workshop, but list it as 100% loss. It seems a waste, but that is war economics at work.

Kris

 

[stona]

Actually, it is interesting to realize that towards the end of the war, there was a change in German policy. It was considered to be "cheaper" (I assume, in man hours) to produce a new fighter plane than to try and repair one. As such, Germans would no longer send a 50% damaged bird to the workshop, but list it as 100% loss. It seems a waste, but that is war economics at work.

Kris

This is partly due to the way the German system worked. I have posted a large schematic of the system elsewhere but can't find it and I'm not at home to copy it again.

Essentially a badly damaged aircraft (say 50%+ but I don't remember a figure) left the Luftwaffe and was returned to "industry" where it was repaired with new or reconditioned parts. Industry does not necessarily mean the original manufacturer, there were many companies authorised to carry out the work. The RLM then had to pay for these (plenty of disagreements over the invoices, what was new, what was recycled etc) before the aircraft was re-accepted by the Luftwaffe.

The British system was much simpler and the aircraft never left the RAF.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Aozora]

This is partly due to the way the German system worked. I have posted a large schematic of the system elsewhere but can't find it and I'm not at home to copy it again.

Essentially a badly damaged aircraft (say 50%+ but I don't remember a figure) left the Luftwaffe and was returned to "industry" where it was repaired with new or reconditioned parts. Industry does not necessarily mean the original manufacturer, there were many companies authorised to carry out the work. The RLM then had to pay for these (plenty of disagreements over the invoices, what was new, what was recycled etc) before the aircraft was re-accepted by the Luftwaffe.

The British system was much simpler and the aircraft never left the RAF.

Cheers

Steve

There are also more than a few instances of Luftwaffe aircraft being completely overhauled and updated to a later model, although not necessarily after being damaged. For example, lots of 109E-1s were sent back to the manufacturer or to a repair depot and reconditioned to effectively became 109E-4s or 7s. One really good example is W.Nr. 3523, which was pulled out of a Norwegian lake:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pzOUKeN4ys

This E-7 started life as an E-1 built by Arado some time between June 39 and April 40. In August 1940 it was returned to a major repair facility in Germany and upgraded to E-7 standard. In mid-late 1941 3523 was given its mandatory 2 year overhaul and was completely stripped of its paintwork and was further updated to an E-7/Trop. After this it was sent to JG5 in Norway, and was assigned to Lt Wolf-Dietrich Widowitz of 5./JG5 on 23 March. On April 4 3523 was shot up by a VVS Hawker Hurricane and Widowitz force landed on a frozen lake. After being stripped of important components the airframe was left on the ice which later thawed.

 

[GregP]

According to the USAAF Statistical Digest of WWII (Army Air Forces in World War II) and OpNav-P-23V No. A129 (Naval Aviation Combat Statistics, WWII) available online, the losses were as follows for overseas aircraft operated by the USA:


US Army Air Forces lost 41,575 total including 22,948 in combat and the balance on operations.
US Navy lost 5,915 total including 2,418 on combat and the balance on operations.
US Marine Corps lost 1,940 total including 996 in combat and the balance on operations.

That makes a grand total of 49,430 lost, with 26,362 lost in combat and 23,068 on operations.

So it was almost as dangerous to simply fly as it was to go into combat! The majority of the operational losses were in the ETO, as pointed out by Milosh above. Must have something to do with the weather ... ya' think? IMC most of the time in planes with almost no avionics.

 

[parsifal]

This E-7 started life as an E-1 built by Arado some time between June 39 and April 40. In August 1940 it was returned to a major repair facility in Germany and upgraded to E-7 standard. In mid-late 1941 3523 was given its mandatory 2 year overhaul and was completely stripped of its paintwork and was further updated to an E-7/Trop. After this it was sent to JG5 in Norway, and was assigned to Lt Wolf-Dietrich Widowitz of 5./JG5 on 23 March. On April 4 3523 was shot up by a VVS Hawker Hurricane and Widowitz force landed on a frozen lake. After being stripped of important components the airframe was left on the ice which later thawed

.

Would that situation qualify as mutiple losses in the LW reporting system?

 

[davparlr]

P51s and put them in fight with 10-20-100 german fighters with NO bombers attracting the attention of LW
P51 was a good fighter that was blessed by the circumstances

In general, I agree with you. The P-51 was indeed a good fighter. However, what made it particularly great was its ability to project this good fighter capability deep into the heart of the enemy, changing the dynamics of the air war in the west at a vital time.

LW for three years was facing low level airforce in the east and low/mid level airforce in west and south. The coming of the americans brought another requirement -high altitude fights. Lw proved weak to adjust in time to this new threat. It was natural. did not have enough engineers,to design or factories and raw to produce new fighters to face the high altitude americans and at the SAME time keep fighting in the east and the RAF
The introduction of Both D9 and ta 152 was delayed because of fear of losing production. Many improvements for the 109 were delayed or never introduced for the same reason .Me 262 was late because of raw materials shortages
So, yes, P51 was a very very good design. Yes in early 44 clearly had an advantage over 109G6 and Fw190A . But only because war circumstances prevented the normal evolutin of the german fighters. In my opinion P51 was inferior to Bf109k4 in a classic dogfight ,using same fuels. K4 could be introduced in january 44 but production issues did not allowed it. Also the Fiat G56 ,that was rejected only on production concerns ,would be also a formidable opponent for p51. Or turbosupercharged Fw190s cancelled only because lack of raw materials.
In this sense i consider the succes of P51 ,to a degree, circumstantial

While this last statement is true, it is not really relevant. Had the Brits seen the value of Whittles design and financed it appropriately, they may have fielded the first jet fighter thus making the success of the Me 262 circumstantial. This is a very prevalent situation.

Has anyone pointed out that when the P-51 entered combat in early 1944, the Luftwaffe was pretty much on its relative technological low? It was fielding aircraft that performed as good or worse than the aircraft it fielded in late 1941, early 1942, as the development in the past 2 years had mostly focussed on making their fighters multirole aircraft, adding armament, radio equipment, fuel capacity and whatnotelse. As a matter of fact, a Bf 109G-6 with gunpods gave considerable worse performance in early 1944 than a clean Bf 109F-4 in early 1942. The same can be said about the Fw 190A-8, not yet using the erhöhte Notleistung, and the early 1942 Fw 190A-3. This only changed later in 1944, but then it was too late to have a noticeable effect.

I agree with all of this. It has always baffled me as why the Luftwaffe was caught unprepared to deal with the P-51B. Surely they knew the P-51A was fast and that the P-51 had good range, British Mustang Is made a fighter sweep over the Ruhr valley as early as July, 1942. I suspect they even had technical data on Mustang since I am sure some had been shot down over German controlled territory. I would have thought that some German intelligence officer would have put two and two together and say "hey, if the Brits put a Merlin in this aircraft, it could be a dangerous escort fighter." The Germans desperately needed an Fw 190D-9 or a Bf 109K en masse in early days of 1944. This could have had a large impact on D-day. They did not pursue this.

In particular against the fairly numerous gun podded Bf 109, a P-51 without drop tanks would have pretty much all performance advantages that count. It was a good weapon, and it appeared at the right time..

Again true, however, the P-51B was also a very capable aircraft against the best Bf 109s and Fw 190s in early '44, even before 44-1 became available, besting both in speed, often significantly so, and comparable in climb, except for the climb of the AS powered 109. I am not sure this engine was available in quantity at this time. The post 44-1 fueled P-51B, May/June '44, was quite comparable with the Fw 190D-9 at low altitude and superior at higher altitudes but the Bf 109K would have been a problem, as long as it did not run out of fuel.

 

[davparlr]

duplicate

 

[Jabberwocky]

According to the USAAF Statistical Digest of WWII (Army Air Forces in World War II) and OpNav-P-23V No. A129 (Naval Aviation Combat Statistics, WWII) available online, the losses were as follows for overseas aircraft operated by the USA:


US Army Air Forces lost 41,575 total including 22,948 in combat and the balance on operations.
US Navy lost 5,915 total including 2,418 on combat and the balance on operations.
US Marine Corps lost 1,940 total including 996 in combat and the balance on operations.

That makes a grand total of 49,430 lost, with 26,362 lost in combat and 23,068 on operations.

So it was almost as dangerous to simply fly as it was to go into combat! The majority of the operational losses were in the ETO, as pointed out by Milosh above. Must have something to do with the weather ... ya' think? IMC most of the time in planes with almost no avionics.

You can add another 21,583 lost by the USAAF within the continental US, making non-combat losses twice those of combat losses

 

[Aozora]

.

Would that situation qualify as mutiple losses in the LW reporting system?

Not likely in this instance - this is used to illustrate how a Luftwaffe fighter could be updated to later standards; no doubt this happened in many instances after an aircraft sustained damage, so I'll see if I can dig up some case studies. Another F'rinstance is that some Me 210s were converted to 410s, possbly after sustaining damage?