Originally posted by Mr.Frag I think this quote pretty much covers it. 25 missions in 300 days!
It was pretty rare to have a plane survive 25 missions let alone the aircrew of ten and the 8th AF certainly had all the comforts of home.
Hi, there were many B-17's with over 100 missions. (several crews) There are 2 parts of the story. The unescorted phase and the escorted phase. (There were several fighter groups that never lost a bomber to enemy fighters) (But still I would not have flown in a B-17 in 43)
I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a different direction!
I seem to remember reading on the forums that you could expect to write off 10% of plane used in combat due to actual combat damage and fatiuge to the air frames and engines?
A lot of planes were broken for parts and scrapped as they were no longer air worthy.
If this was historically the case you could not keep up a 100% effort for long, planes and crew would not be able sustain the preasure.
It takes time to repair the likes of a B17.
"Look at yours before laughing at mine". Garfield 1984.
Wanted: ISDII Low millage in Imperial gray.
Just my 2 pence worth.
I might not be right.
Hell I am probaby wrong.
But thats my opinion for what its worth!
My Dad flew 35 missions in a B-24 from mid Sept 44 - mid March 45, along with a few turn backs and 2 crash landings. His Group flew about every other day, with each squadron flying about twice a week - weather permitting. (in Italy)
Common Sense is an uncommon virtue.
If you think you have everything under control, you don't fully understand the situation.
Originally posted by Bobthehatchit I seem to remember reading on the forums that you could expect to write off 10% of plane used in combat due to actual combat damage and fatiuge to the air frames and engines?
A lot of planes were broken for parts and scrapped as they were no longer air worthy.
If this was historically the case you could not keep up a 100% effort for long, planes and crew would not be able sustain the preasure.
It takes time to repair the likes of a B17.
an attempt in a previous patch was made to simm this a bit more. It was needless to say.....very unpopular and was partially nixed.
Truth of the matter was that the SoPac theater was very very hard on machines leading to a near constant surplus of pilots to planes.
Certainly you would not see so many squadrons with 100% servicable aircraft as they are in UV , and many of the planes damaged in the game should really stay damaged for longer periods than they do but would probably again be an unpopular thing to gripe about.
A prime example i always cite for the doubtful, is, load any one scenerio and check aircraft squadrons.....you will almost always find them with a ratio of servicable and unserviable planes as one would expect to find on any given day depending on how hard the unit has fought....but let them sit for a day or two, (assuming adequate or near adequate av support) and they will all click over to the servicable catagory. Its one of the components of what makes LBA so overpowering in places.
Carriers are a partial exception, usually having almost all serivcables being small and highly maintained air units sheltered from the elements when in the hangers though even then a few would usually crop up unservicble due to damage or mechanical failure during a cruise/patrol
VIII airforce, benefited not only from a more tempermant climate but also a very large and well developed infrastructure which had priority throughout much of the war so repair rates would have been superior to the SoPac.....the situation there in general was the exact polar opposite of the air force in Oz in 5/42 before General Kenney's arrival......the units in Austrailia were in sad shape then and morale was rock bottom.
U.S. air units in the Southwest Pacific-regarded as “pitiably inade-
quate” for their task-consisted on 31 June I 942 of I,602 officers and
18,116 enlisted men with a paper strength of two heavy, two medium,
and one light bombardment groups, three fighter groups, two trans-
port squadrons, and one photographic squadron. Of the heavy groups,
the 43d would not be ready to carry its share of the burden until
autumn, a fact which forced the 19th Group and its veterans of the
Philippine and Java campaigns to continue as the mainstay for heavy
bomber operations. The 38th Bombardment Group (M), which was
to be equipped with B-25’s, did not have its planes in commission until
mid-September and even then two of its squadrons, the 69th and 70th,
actually served on assignment to the South Pacific. The 22d Bombard-
ment Group (M) had been in operation with its B-26’s since April;
the 3rd Bombardment Group (L) having incorporated the remnants
of the 27th Group after the fall of Java, fought in July under the ex-
perienced leadership of Col. John Davies with an assortment of planes
which included twenty-two A-24’s, thirty-eight A-20’s, and seventeen
B-25’s. All bomber groups were based within Australia, and for strikes
against Rabaul and intervening targets they used the fields at Port
Moresby only as a staging point, in part because of the frequent bomb-
ing raids delivered against Moresby by the enemy’s 25th Air Flotilla.
The heavy bombardment missions pulled the B-17's away from their
home bases at Townsville for thirty-six to forty-eight hours, includ-
ing approximately eighteen hours in actual flight, and levied a heavy
drain upon the air crews. Of the fighters, the three groups were re-
ported on 1 May to be 100% per cent complete with a 50 per cent
reserve. By July, two squadrons of the 35th Fighter Group equipped
with P-400’s had moved up to Port Moresby. The 8th Fighter Group
had withdrawn its P-39’s to Australia, while the P-40’s of the 49th
Fighter Group continued to concentrate upon the defense of Darwin.
The American units were deployed for the most part in areas
remote from the main centers of Australian population. Primitive liv-
ing conditions, lack of opportunity for recreation, unfamiliar rations,
the war weariness of men rescued from the Philippines and Java, the
inexperience and inadequate training of some of the more recently
arrived units, stagnancy in the promotion list, lack of adequate provi-
sion for hospitalization, and other such influences made it difficult to
maintain a necessary level of morale. And if it was difficult to hold at
a high level of efficiency the men who flew the planes, it was equally
difficult to maintain the equipment. Heavy tasks confronted the U.S.
Army Air Services under Maj. Gen. Rush B. Lincoln. His shops and
depots were more than 7,500 miles from the United States, shipping
space was at a premium, and the demands of other theaters often took
precedence. Even the planes dispatched over the South Pacific ferry
route" were subject to raids upon their incidental equipment at the
hands of US. air personnel stationed along the island chain, who
themselves were in dire need of parts.ll Australian industrial facilities
already were overburdened, the local transportation system was woe-
fully inadequate in the most critical areas, and a persistent shortage of
spare parts, trained mechanics, and service units, together with im-
perfect landing fields, hazardous weather, great distances, and unceas-
ing combat, made it difficult to keep more than 50 per cent of available
aircraft in commission. Even the estimated wastage factor of 20 per
cent was regarded as conservative, and the best efforts of representa-
tives of American and Australian commercial firms, who continued to
perform much of the repair work, were unable to meet the demand.
Other difficulties arose from the lack of reliable information con-
cerning a combat area known to only a few white men and for which
no adequate maps existed. Although an effective intelligence organi-
zation had been established at Brisbane and was operating under Air
Cdre. Joseph E. Hewitt, its evaluation of enemy activities suffered
from poor communication. However, it did have the benefit of reports
sent in by the coast watchers, a group of men of great daring and in-
genuity, Australians for the most part, who worked their way close
up to Japanese airfields and installations, sending back over their small
radio sets regular reports on enemy activity. Aerial reconnaissance
provided a second vital source of information but it was a function
which imposed a heavy burden upon the limited resources of the
Allied Air Forces. Planes searched for submarines 500 miles off the
coast of Australia, patrolled the East Indies and New Guinea, and
covered the sea and air lanes along New Britain, New Ireland, and the
northern Solomon's All bombardment squadrons occasionally per-
formed these missions, but it was the 435th Squadron of the 19th
Group which flew the majority of them in the New Guinea-New
Britain area through the summer and early autumn of 1942. Originally
flying two daily missions out from TownsviIle, by August this unit
moved four aircraft and eight crews up to Port Moresby and doubled
its missions to four per day.
Under the leadership of Maj. Karl Poliflca the 8th Photo Squadron
complemented the work of the 435th. After Flight A of the 8th had
reached Australia in April, Polifka in an F-4-a P-38 stripped of its
guns and equipped with special cameras for aerial mapping-had per-
formed almost single-handed the feat of mapping a large portion of
the eastern New Guinea and New Britain areas. In June, Flights B and
C arrived and a month later, in conjunction with the 435th, the
squadron was operating out of Port Moresby, although the base of
both units was 675 statute miles distant at Townsville. The normal
route led from Port Moresby up to Rabaul, thence back over Lae
and Salamaua, but the light F-4 often received a heavy battering
from weather as it crossed the equatorial front on the way up to
Rabaul. It was a task that extended plane and pilot to the limit, and in
time Wewak and Madang became the most distant 0bjectives.
{Sorry for the spacing here after scanning and OCR, copy and paste I am just glad you can even read it}
This is by far the best discription of the hardships faced by aircraft and especially the crews that i have encountered in my research. if anything the fatigue and morale in UV is underestimated. 20% to 50% aircraft down at any given point and still trying to maintain some sort of combat Ops Amazing
Yes, and Allied aircraft received much better care than Japanese. The Japanese were always critically short of skilled mechanics and spare parts. Many Japanese planes were destroyed on the ground as they were frequently out of service and unable to fly.
