WW2 monthly aircraft production numbers?

[R Leonard]

No, don't move the goal posts.
You seem to like to imply that the total navy A2A credits include aircraft destroyed on the ground when it is patently untrue using your own source. If the total numbers reported for aircraft destroyed on the ground do not give you the level of detail you like, that's not my problem. I am sure if you contact the USN they will be happy to provide you what you want in their abundant free time. File a FOIA.

 

[GregP]

Not trying to move the goal posts. Made a simple mistake. I looked at my table and read the wrong line.

It's the USAAF Statistical Digest of WWII that lacks a LOT of data. The USAAF doesn't break out losses by any categories. In particular, they don't mention A/A, which SHOULD be significant for the USAAF, at least over Europe. As stated above, the Air Force does a good job at breaking out victories by air and ground, but they don't break out fighters and bombers.

The Navy did a pretty decent job of summarizing the war in Naval Aviation Combat Statistics, Tables 1 and 2, with a few exceptions. The Navy breaks out kills by fighter and bombers, which is more properly titled Fighters and "Bombers, Twin-Engine, Transports, etc." The Navy doesn't break out victories by air kills and ground kills in these tables; they purport to show air kills in tables 1 and 2. They DO break out losses and show ground losses, losses to enemy A/C, enemy A/A, "Other Flights," and Operational losses. That's nice. The definitions part of the report talks about enemy aircraft destroyed on ground, but tables 1 and 2 don't mention them at all. You have to wait for table 25, where they are shown, but not broken out by the type of aircraft employed. So the data are not very useful except for macro comparisons. The Navy also broke out the FM from the F4F, but they were all Wildcats. I combined them into Wildcats. Nobody breaks out any other aircraft by model, so why the Wildcat? It's anybody's guess.

The net result of the above is an inability to compare the USAAF and the USN/USMC meaningfully, as also stated above.

You CAN compare all victories to all losses, but you can't break it out much more because the data are missing for one service or the other.

In the all combat kill-to-loss:

1) For the USAAF: The P-51 comes out first at 3.6 victories per loss over 213,873 sorties.The two runners-up would be the P-61 at 2.3 over 3,637 sorties and the P-47 at 2.0 over 423,435 sorties. Easy to see which one was used more.

2) For the USN/USMC: The F6F comes out first at 4.4 victories per loss over 66,530 sorties. The two Fighter runners-up were the Wildcat at 3.3 over 15,553 sorties and the Corsair at 2.8 over 64,051 sorties. The surprise was the actual second place all combat kill to loss aircraft, which was the PB2Y Coronado at 4.0 kills per loss over 142 sorties. Seems like it was not a healthy thing for them if the Japanese managed to stumble across a Coronado. Not too sure why, but it was apparently a bitch to shoot down. Of course, it also didn't fly very many sorties. The PBJ flew 8,390 sorties and the PB4Y flew 3,640 sorties by comparison. They only built 217 PB2Y Coronados, but they built 706 PBJs and 739 PB4Ys. Figuring out the low sorties would take some digging I'm not willing to do at this time.

It does show us that the Navy flew a lot fewer sorties than the USAAF. But, we all knew that anyway. Carrier operations are nothing near as easy as land-based operations. Each flight has not only flight costs but the cost of the ship and escort operations, too. Let's face it, you don't have to refuel an air base. You DO have to refuel a carrier so you can drive the airfield around the ocean with a team of escort vessels.

Bottom line: The Navy did better than I said above, but there is no real excuse for two services serving the same government to not save the same data specifically for comparative purposes. Not saying it is the Navy's fault. Not saying it is the USAAF's fault. But, somewhere in the chain of command, they meet. The only place I can think of the the President. It is likely he had other things on his mind than looking over air combat data but, in the middle of WWII, I'd think that would have been decently high on the list of things to look at and compare.

They did different things with their sorties, but the combat effectiveness as a macro calculation was reasonably close. Maybe that was the difference ...they were substantially the same per sortie.

 

[drgondog]

Examination of loss causes is highly speculative in many cases. I looked at approximately 3,000 MACR/Returned POW interviews and Accident reports to compile satistics I presented for Loss data - USAAF ETO for my book Our Might Always. The categories extracted from MACR include enemy fighter, probable enemy fighters (i.e. last seen in vicinity of enemy fighters, anti aircraft fire (seen to be hit and lost due to enemy AAA, probable Flak (last seen near airfield or strafing area but no enemy fighters observed); friendly fire; mid air collison - friendly, mid air collison - enemy; weather suspected cause (icing, T-Storm, crashed in poor visibility/flight conditions, mechanical failure (fuel, engine power loss, structural failure, etc), crash on take off/landing. KIA, MIA, POW, Evaded, KIFA were

As to VC's? USAF 85 was first foundation, then Olynyk/USAFHRC as final arbitor. That said, Study 85 well defined Destruction of Enemy aircraft, includin requirement of first hand witness (I was there and saw what happened an agree his encounter report details, or clear evidence of gun camera recording - that aircraft was a.) manned and powered, b.) was observed to be destroyed by losing critical component required for flight such as wing or empennage separation; pilot/crew bailing out; exploded or aflame; crashed.

What was USN/USMC published standard?

 

[GregP]

It is fairly well-described in Naval Aviation Combat Statistics World War Two. Claims for aircraft destroyed in the air quoted below:

[Airborne enemy aircraft claimed destroyed by naval aircraft, in aerial combat only. Planes destroyed by own anti-aircraft fire or in suicide crashes are not included. Enemy aircraft reported as "probably destroyed" are not included. Squadron claims, as made in ACA-1 or other action reports, are the basis for these figures. They thus represent the evaluations only of the squadron intelligence officer, squadron commander and, in some cases the air group commander. However, rarely was there any further evaluation by higher authority of squadron claims with respect to airborne enemy aircraft.

In evaluating pilot claims for ACA-1 reports squadron intelligence officers were instructed to follow the definitions of "destroyed" established for the command or theater. Subsequent to early 1944 this was the standard Army-Navy definition that the plane must be seen to crash, disintegrate in the air, be enveloped in flames, descend on friendly territory, or that its pilot and entire crew be seen to bail out. Prior to this time the definitions varied between commands, but the definitions used in the principal naval theater (SoPac) were at least equally stringent. The degree to which squadron intelligence officers and commanders succeeded in eliminating duplicating and optimistic pilot claims is not known, but it is believed the amount of overstatement is relatively low. Since 93% of all enemy aircraft claimed destroyed by Naval aircraft were claimed by single-seat fighters and the bulk of the remainder were claimed by two-place dive bombers and by lone search planes, the tremendous duplication of gunnere~ claims experienced by air forces operating large formations of heavy bombers with multiple gun positions is largely eliminated. Duplication of claims between fighter planes can be more easily controlled by careful interrogation.

Over-optimism has always been difficult to control. During the early part of the war, before standard definitions were in force, before full-time trained Air Intelligence Officers were available to apply them, and before the need for conservative operational intelligence was fully appreciated, action reports may often have overstated enemy losses. Evidence from the Japanese has tended to indicate that in some of the early actions, and even as late as the Rabaul raids of early 1944, there was such overstatement.

It must be remembered, however, that the bulk of Naval aerial engagements in the Pacific did not involve the mass combat of Europe. Even the large-size engagements seldom involved more than 30 of our planes against 30 of the enemy's at any one time within visible range of any one point. By far the greatest number of engagements involved only 1 to 8 of our planes, or the same number of the enemy's. Thus, in the main, the claims under this heading, offset as they are by the exclusion of planes classified as "probably destroyed", are believed to be near the truth, with only local exception, and to be as conservative as those of any major air force.]

 

[drgondog]

It is fairly well-described in Naval Aviation Combat Statistics World War Two. Claims for aircraft destroyed in the air quoted below:

[Airborne enemy aircraft claimd destroyed by naval aircraft, in aerial combat only. Planes destroyed by own anti-aircraft fire or in suicide crashes are not included. Enemy aircraft reported as "probably destroyed" are not included. Squadron claims, as made in ACA-1 or other action reports, are the basis for these figures. They thus represent the evaluations only of the squadron intelligence officer, squadron commander and, in some cases the air group commander. However, rarely was there any further evaluation by higher authority of squadron claims with respect to airborne enemy aircraft.

In evaluating pilot claims for ACA-1 reports squadron intelligence officers were instructed to follow the definitions of "destroyed" established for the command or theater. Subsequent to early 1944 this was the standard Army-Navy definition that the plane must be seen to crash, disintegrate in the air, be enveloped in flames, descend on friendly territory, or that its pilot and entire crew be seen to bail out. Prior to this time the definitions varied between commands, but the definitions used in the principal naval theater (SoPac) were at least equally stringent. The degree to which squadron intelligence officers and commanders succeeded in eliminating duplicating and optimistic pilot claims is not known, but it is believed the amount of overstatement is relatively low. Since 93% of all enemy aircraft claimed destroyed by Naval aircraft were claimed by single-seat fighters and the bulk of the remainder were claimed by two-place dive bombers and by lone search planes, the tremendous duplication of gunnere~ claims experienced by air forces operating large formations of heavy bombers with multiple gun positions is largely eliminated. Duplication of claims between fighter planes can be more easily controlled by careful interrogation.

Over-optimism has always been difficult to control. During the early part of the war, before standard definitions were in force, before full-time trained Air Intelligence Officers were available to apply them, and before the need for conservative operational intelligence was fully appreciated, action reports may often have overstated enemy losses. Evidence from the Japanese has tended to indicate that in some of the early actions, and even as late as the Rabaul raids of early 1944, there was such overstatement.

It must be remembered, however, that the bulk of Naval aerial engagements in the Pacific did not involve the mass combat of Europe. Even the large-size engagements seldom involved more than 30 of our planes against 30 of the enemy's at any one time within visible range of any one point. By far the greatest number of engagements involved only 1 to 8 of our planes, or the same number of the enemy's. Thus, in the main, the claims under this heading, offset as they are by the exclusion of planes classified as "probably destroyed", are believed to be near the truth, with only local exception, and to be as conservative as those of any major air force.]

Looks 'under' inspected compared to AAF fighter squadron/group intelligence IO's reviewing claims - then batching up Encounter Reports and Witness Statements plus combat film to Victory Credits board for final disposition. It was at VCB where many claims for destroyed wee reduced to Probable, Damaged or N/C. No Credits were always issued absent valid combat film or documented eyewitness statement.

AAF bomber claims were pathetic in first 18 mo - but more closely matched LW losses in late 1944 to VE Day.

 

[GregP]

I agree, but there is also the fact that many fewer aircraft were in the air in most Naval engagements, making tracking them a LOT easier than for massed USAAF missions. It's WAY easier to make sense of 2 pairs of fighters fighting 2 or 4 pairs of enemy fighters than for a raid where there are 500+ P-51s escorting 1,000 bombers. Most engagements were 4 v 4 or 4 v 8 in size, and most were SE fighters engaging enemy SE fighters or SE bombers. Twins and even more engines were comparatively rare in the Pacific when compared with the ETO.