WWII Fighter Combat Statistics

[PierreDeveaux]

Yeah. Early on, there were more Hurricanes. But, in the end, they built about 14,500 Hurricanes and a little over 20,000 Spitfires.

An extra 6,000 Spitfires ought to more than compensate for getting to the fight a small bit later than the Hurricane. At least, it seems that way to me.

Thanks Greg.

We however are alien to any "challenge mode" (which is the best, bigger, etc). When reviewing any given aircraft, the only questions on the table are:
1. Is it consistent with the chosen geographical, historical and 1963-1967 fictional AAC™ framework ?
2. If not, is there good enough a reason for a "cheat-pick" (eg: a funny design like the 1938 Canadian FDB-1 Gregor to illustrate "late bi-planes"
but one of my partners brought much worse than that !)
These already are enough the source of ... interesting debates.

Working on a potential seaplanes update, I spotted a Hawker Hurricane seaplane project (part conversion of #N2599) which lead to scrutinize the type in general and triggered a "background note" briefly setting the Hurricane in perspective. Not in "challenging mode" however as it being inferior/superior to this or that isn't relevant. What might be relevant is its WWII use from carriers (thanks the previous suggestion to check with Armoured Aircraft Carriers in World War II) an overlooked detail adding meat to chew and possibly granting a "cheat-pick" among various vintage a/c outside AAC™ framework.

This background note of mine merely offers a condensed RAF based perspective - I just wished similar FAA data would have been available to widen the perspective.

Friendly regards,
Pierre Deveaux

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

If you want the most accurate lists of air combat claims see the books by Frank Olynyk. While John Foreman published the series RAF Fighter Command Victory Claims of World War Two. There are various tabulations of claims by aircraft type in WWII, but little on how they were calculated.

Fighter Command's Spitfire strength exceeded its Hurricane strength in Q2/41, from 27 Spitfire to 37, 40 Hurricane to 30 in the quarter, on 1 October 1941 it was 43 to 32, on 1 December 58 to 12.

The Fighter Command War Diaries by John Foreman is a 5 volume set that gives the number of claims monthly plus at the end of each volume during the time period in the volume and the cumulative total since the start of the war with one significant problem, the end totals for January 1942 to June 1943 inclusive come to 2,050, the monthly totals come to 1,158, using the end of volume figures the air combat claims for the war come to 10,736.5, using the monthly figures totals 9,844 (there were some revisions done plus some early USAAF claims counted). They include the RAF fighters in France in 1940, the 876 claims made in May 1940 would be overwhelmingly by Hurricanes. By end September 1940 Fighter Command had claimed 3,700 destroyed in the air, over a third the wartime total.

Using the monthly figures the half way point for Fighter Commands wartime claims in in July 1941, from 4,799 end June to 5,020 end July, if you use the end of volume figures the halfway point was in December 1941, from 5,509 end November to 5,540 end December.

John Foreman's idea of combat losses, year / Hurricane / Spitfire / Fighter Claims (monthly figures)
1939 / 8 / 0 / 29
1940 / 1,002 / 531 / 4,127
1941 / 294 / 595 / 1,384
1942 / 76 / 710 / 723
1943 / 14 / 469 / 1,066
1944 / 3 / 797 / 1,783
1945 / 0 / 386 / 732
Total / 1,397 / 3,488 (total 4,885 out of 7,523 aircraft losses) / 9,844

The Spitfire fighter arrived in Malta in April 1942, then the Middle East, then Australia and finally Far East in 1943 until then the RAF day fighter force tended to be majority Hurricane. Apart from Malta this was generally towards the end of axis offensive day operations, heading to cut backs in axis air strength. As a result it is quite possible for the war Hurricanes claimed more enemy shot down than Spitfires. The Fighter Command/ADGB/2nd TAF/RAF in France in 1940 monthly highest "top scores".

Sep-40 / 1305
Aug-40 / 1006
May-40 / 876
Jul-44 / 322.5
Jun-44 / 316

 

[pbehn]

Dear all,
Wishing to assemble a article/background notes about the Hawker Hurricane, I have been looking for WWII aerial victories per aircraft type (not the best this or that, just numbers). Thanks your pages, I managed to gather the required information about US Forces and the RAF but ... can't find the same for the FAA. Any suggestion about where to look for these ?
Incidentally, I observed the same kind of information regarding the Luftwaffe and the Imperial Japanese Air Forces (Army & Navy) didn't show up. Many thanks in advance !
Pierre Deveaux
Brussels - Belgium

Not exactly what you are looking for, but Bungay's "The most dangerous enemy" did a comparison between the service record of the Spitfire and Hurricane during the BoB. Victories are of course important, but the Spitfire was way better in preserving the life of pilots on their first mission, first week, first month etc. a different way of looking at the "stats".

 

[PierreDeveaux]

Not exactly what you are looking for, but Bungay's "The most dangerous enemy" did a comparison between the service record of the Spitfire and Hurricane during the BoB. Victories are of course important, but the Spitfire was way better in preserving the life of pilots on their first mission, first week, first month etc. a different way of looking at the "stats".

Indeed ! Even a diamond has many facets...
Maybe I should present the query like a street demonstration : FAA - FAA - FAA - FAA !!
WE WANT F-L-E-E-T A-I-R A-R-M (stats...) FAA - FAA - FAA - FAA !!

This silly "competition" between Spitfire(s) & Hurricane(s) has been carried out a zillion times and, in my own résumé, it's just a line among a dozen others setting good enough a perspective (now augmented by Geoffrey Sinclair contribution) The aim of adding FAA stats is to deepen this perspective not start any argument.

 

[GregP]

We have an entire sticky thread dedicated to the performance numbers for individual aircraft, and the sources for numbers are, many times, all over the place. The Bf 109 is an easy example. We see top speed for the Bf 109F model, for example, from about 388 mph up to about 410 mph, depending on source. And these data are for variables that can be directly measured.

When you take into account that something like turn radius is very difficult to accurately measure, it makes accurate comparisons among various fighter aircraft not an easy task.

Now we want to break out victories by individual fighters and add things like survivability of the pilot in combat.

They didn't even reliably save easy to track data like sorties, victories and victims in the case of a victory, much less things like turn time and turn radius. The thought that someone saved data about survivability is interesting, but I've never come across any data like that that can be considered reliable enough for a decent analysis.

But, I like the idea of having these calculations available ... IF we can find the data.

 

[pbehn]

Indeed ! Even a diamond has many facets...
Maybe I should present the query like a street demonstration : FAA - FAA - FAA - FAA !!
WE WANT F-L-E-E-T A-I-R A-R-M (stats...) FAA - FAA - FAA - FAA !!

This silly "competition" between Spitfire(s) & Hurricane(s) has been carried out a zillion times and, in my own résumé, it's just a line among a dozen others setting good enough a perspective (now augmented by Geoffrey Sinclair contribution) The aim of adding FAA stats is to deepen this perspective not start any argument.

Pardon me for living I'm sure, I am not bothered about any silly competition. Good luck with your quest, I am sure it will set the world to rights.

 

[GrauGeist]

Didn't Coastal Command have some fighters in service as well?

 

[fubar57]

Hurricanes, Spitfires, and Defiants among others

 

[GrauGeist]

Hurricanes, Spitfires, and Defiants among others

Ah hah!

So more facets to the diamond!

So now, in addition to RN, RAF and FAA - FAA - FAA stats, we need to tabulate Coastal Command numbers, too.

Coh - Stal - Coh - Mand....

 

[WARSPITER]

I remember hearing something about the Sea Scouts .........

 

[SaparotRob]

I remember hearing something about the Sea Scouts .........

That was from me.

 

[special ed]

I have seen scouts.

 

[pbehn]

Yeah. Early on, there were more Hurricanes. But, in the end, they built about 14,500 Hurricanes and a little over 20,000 Spitfires.

An extra 6,000 Spitfires ought to more than compensate for getting to the fight a small bit later than the Hurricane. At least, it seems that way to me.

Production of Spitfires was so slow that the project was threatened with being cancelled. Using a factory close to the English channel and had to be dispersed didnt help. The Hurricane should have been a stop gap, used to develop the RAF with monoplane fighters and then replaced with the Typhoon and Tornado. But one engine fo those was cancelled and the other was crap. So the Hurricane had to soldier on. Without the Hurricane there would be no RAF fighter command, no air cover for the BEF and a minimal number of Spitfires during the BoB. When war was declared there were just over 100 Spitfires in service, when France fell despite all the Hurricane losses in France the numbers were around 250 of each type. From then Hurricanes still provided the most in numbers because the Castle Bromwich factory that started producing Spitfires didnt do so until August 1940. Production umbers of all Hawker types Hurricane Typhoon and Tempest was approximately equal to those of the Spitfire. The Typhoon was a dog, when the drive across Europe was completed it was scrapped and they didnt keep one as a memento. The Hurricane was one of the few aircraft of the era to outlast its scheduled replacement, Hurricanes saw service after the war with various air forces, no one bought a Typhoon, no one would sell a Typhoon.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

He left out the part where Doolittle demonstrated it could take off on one engine.

Doolittle was also the able to fly the Gee Bee R-1 without getting killed.

 

[GregP]

Production of Spitfires was so slow that the project was threatened with being cancelled. Using a factory close to the English channel and had to be dispersed didnt help. The Hurricane should have been a stop gap, used to develop the RAF with monoplane fighters and then replaced with the Typhoon and Tornado. But one engine fo those was cancelled and the other was crap. So the Hurricane had to soldier on. Without the Hurricane there would be no RAF fighter command, no air cover for the BEF and a minimal number of Spitfires during the BoB. When war was declared there were just over 100 Spitfires in service, when France fell despite all the Hurricane losses in France the numbers were around 250 of each type. From then Hurricanes still provided the most in numbers because the Castle Bromwich factory that started producing Spitfires didnt do so until August 1940. Production umbers of all Hawker types Hurricane Typhoon and Tempest was approximately equal to those of the Spitfire. The Typhoon was a dog, when the drive across Europe was completed it was scrapped and they didnt keep one as a memento. The Hurricane was one of the few aircraft of the era to outlast its scheduled replacement, Hurricanes saw service after the war with various air forces, no one bought a Typhoon, no one would sell a Typhoon.

Never mentioned the Typhoon, pbehn. Just wondering why you did.

I was talking about Hurricanes and Spitfires ...

 

[pbehn]

Never mentioned the Typhoon, pbehn. Just wondering why you did.

I was talking about Hurricanes and Spitfires ...

The Hurricane was always supposed to be a bridge to give the RAF something cheap and cheerful to build a force with until its replacements were ready with their 2000BHP Vulture and Sabre engines. Although they started work on them almost as soon as the Hurricane flew they never did really replace the Hurricane. In terms of a business plan, it was sound but one engine was poor and the other was cancelled. You said 14,500 Hurricanes were made and 20,000 plus Spitfires. This is true, but Hawkers built other single engined fighters and everything is classed as a Spitfire, which was like my favourite hammer, 3 new shafts and 4 new heads. The Spitfire had everything changed in its lifetime and they are all Spitfires, while a Hawker Tornado is a Tornado until it has a Sabre engine when it becomes a Typhoon.

 

[ThomasP]

Good points.

While I understand why the UK concentrated on the Spitfire development over that of the Hurricane, I have always wondered what the effects of concentrating on development of the Hurricane rather than the Tornado/Typhoon and the Vulture and Sabre engines.

The Griffon/Hurricane seemed particularly doable - assuming production/availability of the Griffon in enough numbers.

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

Coastal Command had 4 squadrons of Blenheim fighters transferred to it from Fighter Command in early 1940, with the result they ran some day raids in 1940 consisting of Swordfish strike aircraft with Blenheim escort, 2 more Coastal Command Blenheim fighter squadrons formed in November 1940, first Beaufighters came on strength in December but it took until end 1942 before the last Blenheims departed. Later Mosquitoes were used, any Spitfires in Coastal Command were reconnaissance versions with perhaps some Air Sea Rescue ones.

Supermarine had built 481 Spitfires by end 1939, Hawker had built 755 Hurricanes, for 1939 it was 445 Spitfires to 554 Hurricanes by Hawker and 32 by Gloster (from October), then with the Gloster line open and Castle Bromwich delayed production for the first 6 months of 1940 was 1,028 Hurricanes to 358 Spitfires, with Spitfire II production beginning in June, Spitfire Contracts to end 1939 were
527113/36 for 310 + 200 (second batch in 1938)
980385/39 for 183 (2 for Türkiye)
981687/39 for 1,000 from Castle Bromwich
B19713/39 for 460, later extended

Under peace time conditions the Hurricane and Spitfire were both slated for replacement by what would probably be the 1941 fighters with their 1,500 to 2,000 HP engines, carrying on the 1930's Bulldog, Fury, Gauntlet, Gladiator etc., progression. Griffon engine production began in April 1942 with 52 built in 1942 and 402 in 1943, compared with 59 Firefly, 100 Spitfire XII and 20 Spitfire XIV built to end 1943.

Apart from consulting the FAA Museum and the British Archives, the Olynyk books are the best references for FAA combat reports.

 

[GregP]

The Hurricane was always supposed to be a bridge to give the RAF something cheap and cheerful to build a force with until its replacements were ready with their 2000BHP Vulture and Sabre engines. Although they started work on them almost as soon as the Hurricane flew they never did really replace the Hurricane. In terms of a business plan, it was sound but one engine was poor and the other was cancelled. You said 14,500 Hurricanes were made and 20,000 plus Spitfires. This is true, but Hawkers built other single engined fighters and everything is classed as a Spitfire, which was like my favourite hammer, 3 new shafts and 4 new heads. The Spitfire had everything changed in its lifetime and they are all Spitfires, while a Hawker Tornado is a Tornado until it has a Sabre engine when it becomes a Typhoon.

I'm sure there is a point there somewhere. I like the Hurricane myself, and it seems to be relatively easy to repair and also has simple enough systems not to be overly complicated while retaining decent lower-end fighter performance and reliability. When I say lower end, I'm referring to top speed rather than maneuverability and ability to hit a target.

Here's a Hurricane Mk II I drew:

 

[wrathofatlantis]

If you want the most accurate lists of air combat claims see the books by Frank Olynyk. While John Foreman published the series RAF Fighter Command Victory Claims of World War Two. There are various tabulations of claims by aircraft type in WWII, but little on how they were calculated.


John Foreman's idea of combat losses, year / Hurricane / Spitfire / Fighter Claims (monthly figures)
1939 / 8 / 0 / 29
1940 / 1,002 / 531 / 4,127
1941 / 294 / 595 / 1,384
1942 / 76 / 710 / 723
1943 / 14 / 469 / 1,066
1944 / 3 / 797 / 1,783
1945 / 0 / 386 / 732
Total / 1,397 / 3,488 (total 4,885 out of 7,523 aircraft losses) / 9,844

It's interesting here that 1943 fighter losses were much lower than 1944, despite an apparent completed switch (in 1943) to mostly Spitfire activity judging from the distribution of losses.

The 1945 losses are almost as high for four months in 1945 as for 1943 for the entire year!!! (or about 7 months if you include the Pacific).

The ratio of kills to victory is also very constant at just over 2:1.

To me this indicates the later models of the Spitfire did not improve survivability despite a declining Luftwaffe. Or that the later models took a lot of ground attack losses.

I do not find it hard to believe the Hurricane out-scored the Spitfire, though I have no opinion either way.

The "F4U vs Zero" Osprey book had an end chapter that analysed encounters were only F4Us and A6Ms were present, and then tabulated actual failed to return losses from both sides in the areas of the respective involved squadrons... This is the only reliable way to get anything anything even resembling an accurate picture.

The result for the entire first year of the Corsair introduction, again not for all combats, but for all encounters were it is certain no other types were present (again, the blood sample analysis: A large enough sample becomes representative for the whole exchange ratio between these two types), covering a fairly large number and a long period.

It turns out that an air to air exchange ratio of 1:1 was the typical average of that period for those two types, in those combat were other types can be excluded... Note USN claims for the F4U are of an 11:1 ratio (all types combined)...

The way they are probaby wrong is that a lot of axis air to air kills are counted as flak kills or unknown, or accidents. Also, a huge amount of Allied air to air kills are likely vaporware. The same applies to some dubious Axis claims, particularly Eric Hartmann. Using failed to return data from the Soviets, his actual kills went as low as 80 in a "Fana de l'Aviation" article (and he went down some 12-15 times, mainly from hitting the debris of his victims)... While I don't think his kills are that low, I would not be surprised if he was far under 200, or even just above 100.

It goes to show the uncertainty of this data is high. I vaguely recall reading that British kill ratio data was of a more stringent sort, which is probably why it is so low...

As to the P-51 vs P-47 debate, one set of data I memorised from another French article was that the P-47 scored 140 of 220 Big Week kills, the P-38 and P-51 sharing 80 in an unknown ratio.

The data presented in this thread was like this:

During Big Week, with 1/5 the sorties, the -51B destroyed 64.5, the P-47 destroyed 78. The P-38 destroyed 10. (This totals 152.5, a long way from 220)

Similar to the Corsair/A6M correlation compilation, from both sides, a failed to return correlation from both sides for the Luftwaffe vs the Allies in the Normandy theater yielded, again, a 1:1 ratio for Luftwaffe fighters, despite overwhelming Allied superiority. I don't know if Allied bomber kills were included in that ratio.

It does seem the Luftwaffe did very, very poorly at high altitudes compared to low altitudes, but beyond that I would not trust kill ratios that have no failed to return data from both sides, along with the specific encounter and the specific types and specific units involved. The way to get an idea of the whole is to look at the most precise encounter possible, as defined by location and units and the failed to return at the relevant time data, these in numbers sufficient so that these individual parts gain, cumulatively, the size of a ballpark representative sample.