Which Fighter was least successful?

[Shortround6]

You are absolutely correct.

You are also valid in the implied extension of mission that a big, clean airframe brings to the table to extend the mission and capability - as in the case of the P-47 and P-38.

I apolgise for my shot about 'massah' and reading comprehension - so we can get future debates back on track.

Thank you.

Perhaps a thread on "cost effectivenss" might be in order to avoid highjacking this one any further

Assuming anybody can really compare costs from country to country with war time economies

What might be possiable and what I don't believe I have seen elsewere is breaking down planes by fractions or percentages.
I may have this wrong but what I mean is what percentage of weight is airframe, what percentage is powerplant, what percentage is armament, what percentage is fuel?
It might give some insight into how some countries or designers veiwed certain atributes.

 

[drgondog]

Thank you.

Perhaps a thread on "cost effectivenss" might be in order to avoid highjacking this one any further

Assuming anybody can really compare costs from country to country with war time economies

What might be possiable and what I don't believe I have seen elsewere is breaking down planes by fractions or percentages.
I may have this wrong but what I mean is what percentage of weight is airframe, what percentage is powerplant, what percentage is armament, what percentage is fuel?
It might give some insight into how some countries or designers veiwed certain atributes.

Why don't you start a separate thread?

I suspect the four variables easiest to nail down are - 'weight empty' (including engine but no fuel or oil or crew or ammo), 'engine weight' from various manufacturer specs (engine stand alone w/o fuel lines, etc), gun/ammo and fuel tank capacity. (as noted above)

Mission weights are different (obviously)

What will be nigh impossible is to get reliable cost breakdowns that are truly measurable against each other.

Nobody was buying or acquiring aluminum, etc, on a 'pegged' commodity market, labor expenses varied, how does one reflect tooling, overhead and plant costs? In the US depreciation standards are fine and dandy for machine tools and plants but not truly reflective with respect to what DoD Contractors PRICED the tooling - particularly after it had been written down for the Balance Sheets.. one of the reasons the DoD elected to purchase tooling as part of many contracts to eliminate a difficult to account for resource 'fee' for subsequent spares and production runs.

With a very long production run from one plant within a depreciation cycle (say Ingelwood for p-51) one may extract some decent numbers, but what about the Me 109? or Ta 152 (on the other end of the spectrum)? or B-17 made from multiple plants starting at different times and producing dissimilar blocks?

The unit labor hours are important, one may 'assume' a unit per pound cost for airframe 2024 sheet and extrusions by weight to arrive at a single airframe unit cost but it was a lot tougher for Germany to get enough raw material than it was for US and that has to enter into an actual cost estimate.

I screwed around with CLI/WBS Cost Accounting systems for DOD 7000.1 and .2 enough to still lose sleep trying to rationize the EXTREME philosophical differences at costing the same 3-Axis tooling down to Jeweler's lathes when I was running GE's part of AFCAM.

Net - airframe major subsystems data weights may be achievable, labor hours and learning curve on labor efficiencies may be achievable, a plug average materials cost for the airframe may be rational..but getting a TRUE Cost by a single Accounting Standard is a Holy Grail that probably may not be possible.

 

[Njaco]

Yes. "Sitzkrieg" period.

I thought "Sitzkrieg" was in Europe from Nov 39 to May 40? Was there a cooling off period in the med at the time you mentioned?

 

[vikingBerserker]

Why don't you start a separate thread?

I suspect the four variables easiest to nail down are - 'weight empty' (including engine but no fuel or oil or crew or ammo), 'engine weight' from various manufacturer specs (engine stand alone w/o fuel lines, etc), gun/ammo and fuel tank capacity. (as noted above)

Mission weights are different (obviously)

What will be nigh impossible is to get reliable cost breakdowns that are truly measurable against each other.

Nobody was buying or acquiring aluminum, etc, on a 'pegged' commodity market, labor expenses varied, how does one reflect tooling, overhead and plant costs? In the US depreciation standards are fine and dandy for machine tools and plants but not truly reflective with respect to what DoD Contractors PRICED the tooling - particularly after it had been written down for the Balance Sheets.. one of the reasons the DoD elected to purchase tooling as part of many contracts to eliminate a difficult to account for resource 'fee' for subsequent spares and production runs.

With a very long production run from one plant within a depreciation cycle (say Ingelwood for p-51) one may extract some decent numbers, but what about the Me 109? or Ta 152 (on the other end of the spectrum)? or B-17 made from multiple plants starting at different times and producing dissimilar blocks?

The unit labor hours are important, one may 'assume' a unit per pound cost for airframe 2024 sheet and extrusions by weight to arrive at a single airframe unit cost but it was a lot tougher for Germany to get enough raw material than it was for US and that has to enter into an actual cost estimate.

I screwed around with CLI/WBS Cost Accounting systems for DOD 7000.1 and .2 enough to still lose sleep trying to rationize the EXTREME philosophical differences at costing the same 3-Axis tooling down to Jeweler's lathes when I was running GE's part of AFCAM.

Net - airframe major subsystems data weights may be achievable, labor hours and learning curve on labor efficiencies may be achievable, a plug average materials cost for the airframe may be rational..but getting a TRUE Cost by a single Accounting Standard is a Holy Grail that probably may not be possible.

Or even useful for that mater. The production run can swing from a few hundred units to 33k + and then there is the commonality of parts from model to model - such as engines. Quality would also have to come into play. Plan A costs twice is much as plane B, but plane B is 3 times better. I'm sure it could be done, but what would it really tell you?

I'll be damned Bill, you're a closet accountant!

 

[drgondog]

Or even useful for that mater. The production run can swing from a few hundred units to 33k + and then there is the commonality of parts from model to model - such as engines. Quality would also have to come into play. Plan A costs twice is much as plane B, but plane B is 3 times better. I'm sure it could be done, but what would it really tell you?

I basically agree but for the long run ships with fairly common airframes the starting and ending labor burden gives you a pretty good grasp on at least the final direct costs and the learning curve over time..

I'll be damned Bill, you're a closet accountant!

LoL! In my day Accountants were guys who couldn't hack Calculus or Statics and Dynamics! Math majors worked on obscure theorems and engineers and physicists found a use for them.

Accounting is easy (except for DoD Cost and Scheduling)..

 

[Nikademus]

I thought "Sitzkrieg" was in Europe from Nov 39 to May 40? Was there a cooling off period in the med at the time you mentioned?

Hi,

pulling it off the shelf, the losses covered in Fledgling Eagles ranges from 9/3/39 through 5/9/40 on the Western Front.

 

[Njaco]

ah ha, my mistake!

 

[Shortround6]

Why don't you start a separate thread?

A good suggestion. I just got home from a 14 hour night shift and I see some one already has started one.

Net - airframe major subsystems data weights may be achievable

I agree completely.

The weights are easy compared to costs. As an example of cost I will ask a question and answer it

What was the cost of an M-16 rifle during the Veit Nam war?

Answer:
Depends on when the contract was signed and by who. At one time there were 3 sources with (if I remember correctly ) Colt Charging 125 dollers per rifles another company charging in the 180-190 region and the 3rd company (H&R?) charging over 200 per rifle.

Getting accurate cost figures from one country to agree with each other is going to be tough enough ( did riveters in Connecticut make more money per hour than riveters in Kansas? as you have already mentioned) let alone trying to figure in labour costs from country to country.

A weight analysis might be somewhat more doable and perhaps estimates could be used for some things. Power plant weight vrs dry engine weight for example. In some case the powerplant weight is known and except in rare cases the powerplant weight should follow a predictable estimate (at least to a few percentage points of total weight).
Fuel weight should be pretty accurate.

I am not sure we really need to break down things too far. 50lbs differenc in radio weight on a 6,000-9,000lb fighter isn't really going to change things much.

I was thinking more on the lines of fuel weight = 11% or maybe with one decimal place
More of a rough comparison than an engineering exercise.

 

[Wildcat]

"Lost in Combat" means lost during any combat mission from any cause, including terrain.

I'm not an expert on the Boomerang, but I'm not aware on any even receiving any damage from e/a, let alone being shot down. Someone else may have more info on their air combat record.

If you're still interested claidemore, see this prvious post of mine (#. 17)
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/brewster-buffalo-vs-cac-boomerang-20394-2.html#post550862

 

[claidemore]

Thanks Wildcat, I re-read your post (this time with comprehension! lol).