Which is the better fighter, P-40F or Typhoon? (4 Viewers)

[Stig1207]

Yes you are right! Christopher Shores and his team of researchers probably missed 131 victories of the mongrel Allied pilots by the experten! And so did the Fighter Group historians who posted the stats here. Possibly due to a Bolshie conspiracy.

It's American sources that differ, there doesn't have to be a conspiracy; the victories of experten or other Axis aces/ pilots have nothing to do with it.

OR - the other possibility is something like "b. "Operational" and "Other" losses include aircraft accidents at base or other friendly territory on a combat mission. Many of these aircraft were not heavily damaged and were flying again after the necessary repairs were made. This condition also exists as regards P-51 aircraft and all loss figures and rates are inflated in this respect. "

Shores et al might be filtering such incidents out especially if they took place at or near the friendly base and not over enemy territory. I don't know.

The losses (casualties) in MAW IV that I counted are to all causes, incl. damaged; in Table 103 of the Digest there are 492 losses to combat & accident for the period mentioned.

I haven't had time to crunch the numbers in MAW IV - I'm rather amazed you apparently have to some extent. Any actual data is always welcome.

 

[Schweik]

I don't get why everyone has such a problem using quote tags here. Just put [ quote ] in front of the text you want to respond to followed by [ / quote ]

It's American sources that differ, there doesn't have to be a conspiracy; the victories of experten or other Axis aces/ pilots have nothing to do with it.

Shores isn't American, he's from the UK. I don't even think he likes Americans. If anything his books have a pro-Axis bias.

The losses (casualties) in MAW IV that I counted are to all causes, incl. damaged; in Table 103 of the Digest there are 492 losses to combat & accident for the period mentioned.

I grant you, it's an interesting discrepancy, but I can't think of any reason why squadron or Fighter Group histories would lie or not know about how many planes they lost. Nor Shores and his international team that works on MAW. I haven't counted up page by page all the victories and losses in Shores for every day but for the specific days I looked into (including those posted above plus about 20 more) between June and August, Shores numbers match those of the 325th and 79th FG squadron histories.

Without more detail, like losses by unit, by type, and / or by day, it's very hard to get to the bottom of it, but I can make a couple of guesses. I would assume the discrepancy comes down to differences categorization in some way or another. Since the Air Force digest includes both accidents and combat losses it's hard to tease out the latter or more generally the reason for the discrepancy.

I assume (I think I remember?) the number you are referring to is specifically fighter losses, right?

• As I already suggested some of the accidents or other incidents (engine failure shortly after takeoff) may have been left out by Shores if they happened at or near home base. This was mentioned in the 325th FG history as an issue and there were always a lot of such incidents, so I think this is the most likely reason. 131 aircraft is a lot but there were at least 12 US Fighter Groups active in the Med that I can think of, 5 P-40, 2 Spitfire, 2 P-38, 2 P-39, that is about 600 aircraft and I'm not counting the Beaufighters or A-36 groups (I think there were two groups but I'm not sure). I think the first P-47s arrived some time in August as well and there were a lot of training accidents with those (about a dozen of these incidents are listed in the 79th FG history I posted upthread)
• It could be a matter of the categorization of aircraft - for example are A-36 counted as bombers or fighters? They are P-51s with dive brakes in a "Fighter Bomber" group, they could be counted either way. They did lose a fair number of these in 1943 though I don't think anywhere near 131 in two months.
• Shores often puts maritime operations in a separate section from the regular fighter ops. So activities involving Beaufighters etc. may have been in different chapters. I'll check that myself. While they did take losses on maritime ops again I doubt that adds up to 131 planes either.
• The USAAF figures may also include things like aircraft lost in transit etc. such as when being flown across Africa.
• It could be a combination of some or all of the above.

I would encourage you to look into more detail on the Air Force Journal records if you can find them and if you are really interested in this beyond implying that Shores filtered out pertinent data.

S

 

[Schweik]

I just looked up the Allied Order of Battle for July 1943 and it's a bit more fighters than I had originally guessed. This might be helpful to understanding the Mediterranean Theater in general so I thought I'd post it. This is from Shores MAW pp 153-157

I'm just showing US fighter, fighter-recon, or fighter bomber units here though these were all mixed US / RAF. Each US Fighter Group had 3 squadrons of 16 fighters plus an HQ unit of 2-4 aircraft except where otherwise stated (one of the P-39 groups only had one squadron for some reason). Nominal US squadron strength was 16 aircraft though they would typically have about 20 or 25 in various states of repair, with ~8-16 active at any one time. So nominal strength of a FG was about 50 fighters active.

North African Tactical Air Force*
Desert Air Force -216 fighters
57th Fighter Group - P-40
79th Fighter Group - P-40
33rd Fighter Group - P-40
324th Fighter Group - P-40
99th Fighter Squadron (Tuskgegee) - P-40
US 12th Air Support command -170 fighters
31st Fighter Group - Spitfire
27th Fighter Bomber Group - A-36
86th Fighter Bomber Group - A-36
111th Tactical Recon Squadron - P-51A
1437 Flight - A-36

North African Strategic Air Force
5th Bomb Wing - (three groups of B-17s) -100 fighters
1st Fighter Group - P-38
14th Fighter Group - P-38
47th Bomb Wing (two groups of B-25s) -50 fighters
82nd Fighter Group - P-38
2686th Bomb Wing (three groups of B-26s) - 50 fighters
325th Fighter Group - P-40

North African Coastal Air Force
81st FG / 92nd Fighter Squadron - P-39 - 16 fighters
350th Fighter Group - P-39 - 50 fighters
US 1st Defense wing - 100 Fighters
52nd Fighter Group - Spitfire
81st Fighter Group - P-39

North African Photographic Reconnaissance Wing
US 3rd Photo Recon Group -32 fighters
5th Squadron - F-4 (Lightning)
12th Squadron - F-5 (Lightning)

In addition to this Shores left out the US Night Fighter Squadrons, which also performed day-time coastal patrols and maritime strikes near Algeria and Tunisia, Malta, Sardinia, Corsica and Italy. These included three squadrons, all equipped with the Beaufighter while in the MTO:

414th Night Fighter Squadron - Beaufighter - 16 fighters
415th Night Fighter Squadron - Beaufighter - 16 fighters
416th Night Fighter Squadron - Beaufighter - 16 fighters

So by my count (correct me if I'm wrong my arithmetic isn't stellar) that ads up to 832 US Fighters active in the MTO at that time in official strength, which means probably at least 1,000 counting replacements, aircraft under repair etc. Of that number, in my opinion, ~130 losses to accidents or mechanical failure on or near base in two months doesn't seem necessarily beyond the ballpark of reality, though that is only a guess. Hopefully the TO&E is useful or interesting in it's own right.

Breakdown by type, by my count - is
P-40s - 266
Spitfires - 100
P-38s - 182 (counting recon)
P-51s - 120 (counting A-36 and recon)
P-39s - 116
Beaufighters - 48


*North African Tactical Air Force / Desert Air Force is also where most of the RAF Spitfire units were.

EDIT: Here is the Commonwealth breakdown for anyone interested.

DAF Commonwealth Fighter Units included:
40 SAAF sqn - Spitfire
60 SAAF sqn - Mosquito
6 sqn -Hurricane
7 SAAF Wing ( 3 x squadrons) -Kittyhawk
239 Wing ( 5 x squadrons) - Kittyhawk
244 Wing (5 x squadrons) - Spitfire
322 Wing (5 squadrons) - Spitfire
324 Wing (5 x squadrons) - Spitfire
225 Sqn - Spitfire
241 Sqn - Hurricane

There were also 6 x Spitfire squadrons, 3 x Beaufighter squadrons and a Mosquito squadron based on Malta.

Coastal Air Force RAF units included
77 Sqn - Spitfire
255 Sqn - Beaufighter
GC 2/3 (Free French) - P-40
GC 2/7 (Free French) - Spitfire

Plus "HQ Air Defense Eastern Mediterranean" which included 4 Groups consisting of 21 squadrons of mixed Hurricanes, Beaufighters and Spitfires, plus two flights of Gladiators! I think this was a reserve?

From what I understand RAF squadrons were usually 12 fighters nominally with 6-10 probably being more typical of available strength for an active unit.

 

[Stig1207]

I don't get why everyone has such a problem using quote tags here. Just put [ quote ] in front of the text you want to respond to followed by [ / quote ]

It seems the quote function in the posts wasn't working yesterday, for me at any rate; but you are right adding quote tags manually probably did.

Shores isn't American, he's from the UK. I don't even think he likes Americans. If anything his books have a pro-Axis bias.

ffs

I would encourage you to look into more detail on the Air Force Journal records if you can find them and if you are really interested in this beyond implying that Shores filtered out pertinent data.

I am not implying that Shores et al filtered out anything; but their numbers for this particular period don't agree with a USAAF source. I am not speculating why, but pointing it out as this period is referenced quite a lot by you; so I would think that it is relevant.

As for some of your other points, it's not just with the fighters that there is discrepancy, but also with the light and medium bombers, some 30-40 less losses in MAW IV compared to the Digest. I counted the A-36 as a fighter; I'll leave it to you to work out what effect it would have on the fighter losses, if the A-36 should be counted as a light bomber.

The 391 combat losses are attributed to e/a, AAA, and other; I assume accidents occurring on operations would be recorded under 'other', while non-operational accidents would be recorded in the Combat and Accident losses. Iirc, there is also a table that records airplane losses en route to the theatre.

 

[Milosh]

The usual RAF establishment strength of a fighter squadron was 16 or18 a/c (depending on the time period) with 12 being flown.

 

[Kevin J]

The usual RAF establishment strength of a fighter squadron was 16 or18 a/c (depending on the time period) with 12 being flown.

Also, a squadron needed 50 for 6 months operation in the front line then you will understand why so many aircraft need to be built for so small a number of squadrons.

 

[Schweik]

Yeah because of the high turn over of fighter planes, even if they aren't engaged in heavy combat. Fighter planes are somewhere in between Drag racers or Grand Prix race cars, a demolition derby car and a light tank... that flies. They get messed up a lot and they wreck a lot.

Thanks to someones suggestion upthread, i have acquired and am reading the biography of James "Stocky" Edwards, the formidable Canadian P-40 ace. I already have a couple of biographies of Clive Caldwell and I have one on Nicky Barr, but this one on Edwards is good and I've learned a lot already. When I'm done I'll post a little "book report" synopsis.

Yesterday I read that after a heavy dust storm in Egypt, dust got deep inside many of the planes causing a host of problems. Edwards encountered two engine failures in two days. On the first occasion, his engine seized right after takeoff, just after he got his wheels up. On the second, the very next day, his engine seized at 2,000 ft as he was forming up with some Baltimore bombers over his airfield. In both cases Edwards, who was a good pilot, was able to dead-stick his fully fueled, heavily laden Kittyhawk back to base and land more or less normally without any damage or injuries. But apparently his squadron had 5 or 6 more engine failures during or right after takeoff in that same two day period and not all of the other pilots, or their planes, were so lucky.

Now I don't know Chris Shores methodology or that of his 4 or 5 collaborators, however I don't notice a lot of those kinds of incidents in MAW. Usually he shows engine failures when they happen over the target, or crash landings when returning to base after battle damage. For US fighter groups like the 325th, their base was in Mateur Tunisia during the periods of June and July where I posted some of their combat results upthread. Their targets were in Sardinia, Sicily or Southern Italy 120 - 180 miles away. Incidents at or near Mateur may not have that much relevance to the battlefield. If an engine seizes 5 minutes after takeoff and the pilot force-lands, bending a propeller or worse, I'm not sure if that makes it into MAW or not.

However this is just a guess on my part and I really don't know what the reason for the discrepancy in the count is that S Stig1207 keeps bringing up.

But it is irrelevant to this discussion because on the dozen or so days of action by USAAF P-40 units that I have posted from MAW IV, the American losses can be verified in their squadron histories and other sources. I have six of these squadrons histories plus other books that are derived from several more, Allied fighter losses have been known to the aviation community for a long time - for decades. There are dozens of sources for them. All of the squadrons involved do have their own individual histories, as do the fighter groups and regional Air Forces, plus there are numerous biographies by group and squadron leaders, mechanics, and pilots. Even the Osprey books are pretty accurate on this kind of data for Anglo-American units. And the official records themselves are intact and available if you look hard enough. What we didn't have was a way to verify their claims.

I have not relied on Shores for overall statistics of any kind, at least not yet, I have only compared known Allied losses on certain days with his records of Axis losses.

What Chris Shores (and Guest, Massimello, Winfried Bock, Frank Olynyk, and former Wing Commander Andy Thomas) brings that we didn't have before are the Axis losses. This is really the only thing we didn't have before.

To be more specific, I have known about the 325th FGs impressive victory claim-to-loss ratio for 20 years. They actually created a bit of a stir online about 10 years ago when they became more widely publicized I think due to debates springing out of flight Sim video games. The response from guys like Stig1207 was that there was no way Allied pilots flying P-40s could defeat Luftwaffe pilots flying Bf 109s. They cited the records of the experten, and suggested that all Allied claims, especially DAF claims, were wildly exaggerated or just made up altogether. This is still incidentally being said about Soviet claims and also quite a bit about Japanese claims.

I more or less accepted this until 2007 when an Australian guy named Russell Brown wrote a book called "Desert Warriors" that called this narrative into question and he researched some of the Axis records and compared them with the DAF unit histories. Then Shores MAW and other series, and some other data like the lend-lease.ru site, Black Cross Red Star and others started checking Axis loss records. That is what I started posting here last spring. I think comparing those records gives us a much clearer idea of how these aircraft really performed where it mattered - on the battlefield.


Of course Shores did, does and has made mistakes. That data will no doubt continue to be further clarified - I'm under no illusions nor am I claiming he is the last word. To the contrary he's basically the first. Now the Luftwaffe fans if they really think he's wrong can go and check his sources themselves.

 

[Schweik]

Schweik :"Shores isn't American, he's from the UK. I don't even think he likes Americans. If anything his books have a pro-Axis bias."

Stig1207: "ffs"

I'm not making that up. Shores made his name in the aviation history community way back in 1969 when he published a book called "Fighters over the Desert" in collaboration with another guy called Hans Ring, later augmented with another book called "Fighters over Tunisia" in 1975 in collaboration with the same guy. Ring, a German author, wrote books about the Condor Legion and JG 27. I think in his day job he was an Airbus executive.

Shores 'Fighters over the Desert" book was ostensibly the same type as his more recent works - an effort to set the record strait on WW2 by looking at the records. But it turned out much later that the records they used were incomplete.

It was published during the period when many German Aces autobiographies were getting popular and a kind of obsession with German WW2 prowess that is still somewhat with us, the notion of the experten etc. was just rising to popularity. Biographhies or autobiographies of guys like Hans Ulrich Rudel, Joachim Marseille, Willi Heilman, Adolf Galland, Erich Hartmann etc, were published in the 1950's and 60's and became very popular. For some they were seen as anti-Communist heroes. Biography and history soon tipped into fantasy. For example the somewhat ridiculous Eric Hartmann historical novel "The Blond Knight of Germany" was published in English 1970 and was a big hit in the US. Adolf Galland participated in the film Battle of Britain in 1969 and became something of a celebrity in the UK at that time. Similar interest in the exploits and superiority of WW2 German tanks, battleships, U-boats etc. was also widespread in Anglo-American spheres in the 60's and 70's. It was just part of the Cold War mood.

Shores two early books basically undermined the records of Allied Aces including the likes of Clive Caldwell, Neville Duke and Billy Drake, while upholding and emphasizing the records of guys like Marseille. This was revisionist and controversial but it fit the mood of the times. It wasn't until Russell Browns book directly challenged this research, poking holes for example in some of Marseilles wilder claims, that Shores had to revisit the whole thing.

So when he acknowledges Allied victories in MAW II, III or IV, he is sometimes directly contradicting his own previously published books. And he does so with a certain not very veiled reluctance, for example "It is not impossible that these losses correspond with claims by the 79th FG which was operating in the same area"

S

 

[Schweik]

I should add that subsequent research has vindicated Caldwell and the others. For example Caldwell apparently shot down three experten and killed two (Wolfgang Lippert and Erbo Graf von Kageneck), Edwards shot down and killed two (Otto Schulz and Gunter Steinhausen) all while flying Kittyhawks.

 

[DarrenW]

I'm not making that up. Shores made his name in the aviation history community way back in 1969 when he published a book called "Fighters over the Desert" in collaboration with another guy called Hans Ring, later augmented with another book called "Fighters over Tunisia" in 1975 in collaboration with the same guy. Ring, a German author, wrote books about the Condor Legion and JG 27. I think in his day job he was an Airbus executive.

Shores 'Fighters over the Desert" book was ostensibly the same type as his more recent works - an effort to set the record strait on WW2 by looking at the records. But it turned out much later that the records they used were incomplete.

It was published during the period when many German Aces autobiographies were getting popular and a kind of obsession with German WW2 prowess that is still somewhat with us, the notion of the experten etc. was just rising to popularity. Biographhies or autobiographies of guys like Hans Ulrich Rudel, Joachim Marseille, Willi Heilman, Adolf Galland, Erich Hartmann etc, were published in the 1950's and 60's and became very popular. For some they were seen as anti-Communist heroes. Biography and history soon tipped into fantasy. For example the somewhat ridiculous Eric Hartmann historical novel "The Blond Knight of Germany" was published in English 1970 and was a big hit in the US. Adolf Galland participated in the film Battle of Britain in 1969 and became something of a celebrity in the UK at that time. Similar interest in the exploits and superiority of WW2 German tanks, battleships, U-boats etc. was also widespread in Anglo-American spheres in the 60's and 70's. It was just part of the Cold War mood.

Shores two early books basically undermined the records of Allied Aces including the likes of Clive Caldwell, Neville Duke and Billy Drake, while upholding and emphasizing the records of guys like Marseille. This was revisionist and controversial but it fit the mood of the times. It wasn't until Russell Browns book directly challenged this research, poking holes for example in some of Marseilles wilder claims, that Shores had to revisit the whole thing.

So when he acknowledges Allied victories in MAW II, III or IV, he is sometimes directly contradicting his own previously published books. And he does so with a certain not very veiled reluctance, for example "It is not impossible that these losses correspond with claims by the 79th FG which was operating in the same area"

S

Bravo! You nailed it concerning the whole Nazi invincibility BS that many of us were forced to endure in our youth.

 

[Schweik]

It is a known issue, something talked about in military history circles these days. Of course it's also possible to swing the pendulum too far in the other direction. There is no doubt guys like Marseille and Hartmann etc. were excellent pilots, nor that the Bf 109 and Fw 190 weren't excellent fighters - they certainly were.

But it is possible to overstate such things.

 

[Schweik]

I also want to be clear I'm not claiming Shores was sympathizer to WW2 Germany as such, let alone their ideology. What I'm talking about is much less extreme than that. It's simply that there was a "revision" movement and general rising wave of interest in German war machines and techniques which was going on in the 60's and 70's. There are some good things that to an extent came out of all that such as all those cool Avalon Hill and SPI tabletop wargames.... And some not so good things, some romanticizing and glossing over of the nasty stuff and some exaggeration of data, as well as a few people who go over the edge. A lot of decidedly mediocre History Channel shows about Nazi UFOs and so on. The more general issue especially in the US but also the UK was that there was this intense fascination with the 'elite' and 'uber' qualities of the German War machine which has been talked about a lot in many places and is way beyond the scope of this thread. But it comes up especially whenever you compare German and Allied aircraft or pilots among other things.

To the extent Shores was really caught up in this I don't know, but his original book "Fighers over the Desert" was a big part of this "Germans were the best!" arguments during discussions in aviation circles for years and it definitely had some mistakes, errors or omissions in it. I think he's made some effort to correct earlier mistakes - and do a much more thorough examination of all the records- in his MAW series, I just do notice some reluctance to acknowledge Allied victories in certain entries.

Some historical commentary on this general phenomenon can be heard here by an Historian from the Museum of Flight named JD Wyneken, and there is a book that tackles part of the issue called "The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture"... you can read some reviews on Amazon here. Obviously it's a controversial issue, and it's not one I'm hugely invested in or very worried about but I do think it's real.

 

[Clayton Magnet]

Bravo! You nailed it concerning the whole Nazi invincibility BS that many of us were forced to endure in our youth.

Conversely, keep in mind that much of the rest of the world must contend with a barrage of "assumed" American superiority. The real truth lies somewhere in between

 

[Schweik]

Definitely agree with that too.

 

[Schweik]

Some interesting details about the Tiffy in this article, which I ran across accidentally when googling the weight of armor in a Tempest.

The Hawker Typhoon 1A & 1B: Worst RAF Fighters in WWII?

Among some of the data points claimed in the article, it noted that:

• The Typhoon went into service as an interceptor in the summer of 1941.
• Typhoons were switched to fighter bomber missions from interceptor missions in the second half of 1942
• "All told, during 1943 low-level attacks resulted in the loss of 380 Typhoons in exchange for the downing of 103 German aircraft including 52 Focke-Wulf 190s. "
• Issues with oil coolers, engines cutting out in tails breaking continued through 1943
• Typhoons destroyed 26 tanks from the 21st Panzer Division on D-Day, leaving them with 6 to attack the beaches.
• Typhoons were the aircraft that shot up Rommels staff car.
• Total loss of pilots in 4 years of service was 670

I don't know if any of it is true. Just thought it was interesting.

 

[Milosh]

Rommel's car was shot up by a Spit IX flown by F/L Charlie Fox of RCAF 412 squadron.

He dies in an auto accident Oct 18 2008.

Again this tail failure is blown out of all proportion.

 

[Kevin J]

Some interesting details about the Tiffy in this article, which I ran across accidentally when googling the weight of armor in a Tempest.

The Hawker Typhoon 1A & 1B: Worst RAF Fighters in WWII?

Among some of the data points claimed in the article, it noted that:

• The Typhoon went into service as an interceptor in the summer of 1941.
• Typhoons were switched to fighter bomber missions from interceptor missions in the second half of 1942
• "All told, during 1943 low-level attacks resulted in the loss of 380 Typhoons in exchange for the downing of 103 German aircraft including 52 Focke-Wulf 190s. "
• Issues with oil coolers, engines cutting out in tails breaking continued through 1943
• Typhoons destroyed 26 tanks from the 21st Panzer Division on D-Day, leaving them with 6 to attack the beaches.
• Typhoons were the aircraft that shot up Rommels staff car.
• Total loss of pilots in 4 years of service was 670

I don't know if any of it is true. Just thought it was interesting.

Typhoon deliveries began late 1941, squadrons operational early Summer 42, switched to fighter bomber 1943 with arrival of Spitfire LF IX and XII.

 

[KiwiBiggles]

Some interesting details about the Tiffy in this article, which I ran across accidentally when googling the weight of armor in a Tempest.

The Hawker Typhoon 1A & 1B: Worst RAF Fighters in WWII?

Among some of the data points claimed in the article, it noted that:

• The Typhoon went into service as an interceptor in the summer of 1941.
• Typhoons were switched to fighter bomber missions from interceptor missions in the second half of 1942
• "All told, during 1943 low-level attacks resulted in the loss of 380 Typhoons in exchange for the downing of 103 German aircraft including 52 Focke-Wulf 190s. "
• Issues with oil coolers, engines cutting out in tails breaking continued through 1943
• Typhoons destroyed 26 tanks from the 21st Panzer Division on D-Day, leaving them with 6 to attack the beaches.
• Typhoons were the aircraft that shot up Rommels staff car.
• Total loss of pilots in 4 years of service was 670

I don't know if any of it is true. Just thought it was interesting.

A bit History Channel.

 

[Kevin J]

A bit History Channel.

Not very accurate though.

 

[KiwiBiggles]

Not very accurate though.

That's pretty much what I meant