are OP losses historical?

[BossGnome]

I'm not a great player, I admit. I have sent planes at smaller airfields, I have done stupid things. But as japanese, of my losses (145 planes in all, i think) nearly 80 have been by OP losses. The allied player is behind me, but still at a whopping 48 planes... is this historical? It just seems to me that you either have to be a pretty bad/ very tired pilot to, not damage your plane, but DESTROY your plane (and killing yourself) upon landing.

[Zeta16]

Explain more, please. In World War Two there were a lot of op loses. I lot more than people think.

[juliet7bravo]

Historically, something like 60% of Japanese losses were non-combat, and something like 30-35% of US losses were non-combat IIRC. So you're right in the ballpark...

[Nikademus]

Early war, Japanese combat losses outweighed op losses. However this flip flopped as the war continued and Japanese pilot skill fell and training/flight hours were reduced till by late war operational losses and "accidents" were far outnumbering combat losses.

As Japan player, you can minimize op losses by closely managing your active airgroups. General rule of thumb is to try not flying them on missions during bad weather or operate them from damaged facilities. Weather is especially important for long range transfers. Further, be very sparing of the use of LR-CAP. It can quickly wreck even the best trained fighter group/squadron.

(obviously this works the same for the Allied player too)

[plaxx]

Also during the "real" WWII, ops losses happened more due to shoddy upkeep of the planes, not enough ground support, and the hostile environment (jungle, humidity, ranges involved, etc.) of the Pacific war more than to pilot error, although Nikademus makes a good point that the pilots (both in the game and real life) must be rested, and hopefully trained/experienced! Because of the realities of war, a lot of planes were also deemed battle worthy to make a mission, when in peacetime it would have been grounded for safety purposes.

So the game seems to model this pretty well, I think.[:D]

[Ron Saueracker]

And don't forget the all weather go go go pace players usually employ. This should cause higher ops losses. Still think the maintenance penalties are too low. Pretty rare that I don't have over 90% servicable a/c every day.

[plaxx]

Yeah, you are right Ron, I usually have at least 80% to 90% available after just a couple of days of stand down...but like someone said in another thread (maybe you?), if we as gamers had to wait several days to form TFs, load cargo, etc., we might get bored! Not as realistic, but I guess it was a gameplay vs. reality decision.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: juliet7bravo

Historically, something like 60% of Japanese losses were non-combat, and something like 30-35% of US losses were non-combat IIRC. So you're right in the ballpark...

I think US operational losses were more likely 60-70%... I can dig out one old thread with info I found about Wildcats - nobody ever answered my question about serious number discrepancy...


Leo "Apollo11"

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

Since the resurrection of old thread didn't work I will post that data here.

Please note that I mistakenly mentioned "Wildcats" while the data is about "Hellcats"...


The PDF document "Tristanjohn" gave URL for (US Naval Aviation Combat Statistics WWII) is very very interesting one indeed (thanks for that "Tristanjohn")!


But some basic mathematics in it struck me as interesting/worth discussing...


Let's just concentrate on one singe aircraft type mentioned in that document - the Grumman F6F Hellcat.


On page 15 of that PDF there is list of all losses for that type:

A/A: 553
A/C: 270
Operational: 340
Other: 885
On ship/ground: 413

TOTAL: 2416


Now, I have number for whole Hellcat production (including all subtypes) which is 12275 (from 30 September of 1942 till 16 November 1945).

Note that in this 25 and half months it means that average monthly production was 481 units.

This number is given in book "The Great Book of World War II Airplanes" ISBN 0-517-459930 (this is _HUGE_ book of almost 5 kg / 10 lb with 700+ pages dealing with 12 remarkable aircraft of WWII illustrated by great fold outs by Ryuko Watanabe). The F6F Hellcat part of the book was written by David A. Anderton.

Also, in my book the very same (exact) number of aircraft looses for enemy A/C is given (270) and the total number of enemy aircraft shoot down differs by just 60 or from PDF Tristanjohn gave URL for (US Naval Aviation Combat Statistics WWII). Therefore we can safely assume that same data was used and that numbers were accurate.


But (there is always but)... can we now do simple arithmetic...


12275 (total production) - 2416 (total looses) = 9859

Therefore can we assume that by the end of the war there were almost 10000 fully operation F6F aircraft in squadrons.


On pages 20 and 21 of PDF there is list of F6F squadrons in action. In 1945 the largest number of carrier based squadrons was in May (22) and in July for land based squadrons (6).

Can 28 (22+6) squadrons in peak of action in 1945 account for 10000 aircraft?

IMHO Nope...


And then further down in PDF document on pages 46 and 47.

It says that in July of 1945 there were 412 F6Fs on 10 CVs and 144 F6Fs on 6 CVLs and that there were 84 F6F on CVEs in April of 1945.

This gives total of just 640 (412+144+84) F6F in service for late 1945.

Above numbers correspond OK with number of squadrons I mention above and everything is much clearer... the number of squadrons and aircraft add up just fine - something else must be wrong here...


Also on page 59 in PDF document there is summary for 1944/1945 regarding F6F availability (I think this table must be some kind of average on-hand availability since it covers 1944/1945).

It lists that Navy had 511 and Marines had 362 on hand. The calculated total is then 873 (511+362).

This also roughly corresponds with above data and, again, something else must be wrong here...


So... even if we generously round up numbers of F6F available in late 1945 to 1000 units this leaves us with 9000 F6F unaccounted for.


Add to that 930 that were supplied to UK via Lend-Lease agreement we deduct one more thousand but still 8000 F6F unaccounted for remain.


Why is there such _HUGE_ discrepancy in numbers?


To me this seems awfully big number (way too big)...

If this calculated number is inaccurate - then what happened to difference in numbers and who made mistake in counting?


Any ideas gentleman?


Leo "Apollo11"

[SeaWolF K]

I can think of two things that you haven't accounted for:

1) The number of TOTAL Hellcat squadrons -- You have the numbers in action, but there were at least as many squadrons in the States training to replace squadrons in action, accompany new carriers etc.

2) In 1945 the Americans stockplied thousands of aircraft to replace expected losses of aircraft during the invasion of Japan. Remember, the expected allied losses of such an operation were in the millions.

[Buck Beach]

ORIGINAL: Zeta16

Explain more, please. In World War Two there were a lot of op loses. I lot more than people think.

My dad was almost one of these when going back to OZ on a R&R from Port Moresby the units B-17 had to set down on a short field on the way. They almost wiped out landing and then they also had trouble getting back in the air later.

[RUPD3658]

Another way to think of OP losses is that they include friendly fire losses. A lot of AC were lost due to triggery happy folks on the ground.

[juliet7bravo]

Those figures off the top of my head, but I think they're straight from the USSBS though.

IIRC, at the time I read it, it struck me that it sounded like they were weasel wording it to only reflect US training losses that happened within theatre, while including all Jap. training loss figures...which could make the difference.

[OG_Gleep]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but in game terms Air to Air losses were only aircraft shotdown in combat. Op losses included everything else, including planes that survived the firefight but had been damaged in combat (by fighters, defensive fire from bombers and ship, friendly fire or flak), and did not make it back to base intact.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: SeaWolF K

I can think of two things that you haven't accounted for:

1) The number of TOTAL Hellcat squadrons -- You have the numbers in action, but there were at least as many squadrons in the States training to replace squadrons in action, accompany new carriers etc.

According to PDF (I originaly answered to) all US existing squadrons were listed.

2) In 1945 the Americans stockplied thousands of aircraft to replace expected losses of aircraft during the invasion of Japan. Remember, the expected allied losses of such an operation were in the millions.

That might be true but we are talking about 8000 aircraft (i.e. 2/3rds of all produced)... that is _HUGE_ number...


Perhaps, the operational looses were intentionaly depiced very low while 100x more aircraft were written off (i.e. never repaired and scraped for parts)...


Leo "Apollo11"

[Nikademus]

Just to make things even more convoluted.....US and Japanese interpretations of combat and operational losses were different. The Japanese considered any aircraft lost on a combat mission, whether it was shot down, MIA, crashed (over/near the battlefield), fate unknown, or a damaged aircraft that crashed shortly after combat as a "combat loss" Op losses would included damaged aircraft that landed or crash landed back at the field and written off, or accidents on take off.

The US tended towards the opposite and tended to classify any aircraft lost that wasn't an immediate and direct result of enemy fire as an "op loss" An aircraft for example shot full of holes that limps away and crashes shortly after would be listed as an op loss.