WWII Fighter Combat Statistics

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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
 

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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
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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