Operational losses in Pacific War

[AmiralLaurent]

I agree with rtrapasso that statistics like that are counting apples and oranges, as both sides didn't count the losses the same way... and WITP is counting them another way, too. In WITP any plane destroyed on the ground by bombs or shells or left behind by retreating forces is counted as lost on the ground, even if it was heavily damaged before by AA or A2A.

But in overall ops losses are too low in WITP compared to known examples of units.

Ops losses reasons are divided in 3 types:
1) human error
2) aircraft failure
3) weather
Of course, many crashes are related to more than one of this cause but if we see this as for game checks, they are the three things counting:
1) pilot exp and fatigue
2) aircraft
3) weather
My experience seems to show that experienced pilots with low fatigue suffer very, very few ops losses. In wartime conditions in WWII, engine failures alone would cause more airplanes losses.
Using unexperienced pilots increase crashes and op losses in WITP, so that's OK for me.
Weather is tricky. In WITP, weather won't change during an air phase, so aircraft leaving a base or a CV to fly to their target will find the same weather when they returned. The main cause of weather-related losses was weather changes, so planes were unable to return to base. That was especially true in South Pacific where tropical storms were unpredictable.

On the other hand, transfering airgroups in an area with rain or thunderstorms predicted is costly in WITP. Losses are 2-3% of planes, even for a short trip with experienced and rested crews.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

I've wondered also how some losses get counted.

I.e. - an aircraft comes back from a mission with some battle damage after encountering Zeros and flak. Airplane cracks up somewhat on landing. The plane is repairable but they don't have parts immediately available. The plane sits around, until the mechanics make her a "cannibal queen" - start stripping parts off the plane to repair other planes. The aircraft is never repaired.

Now LOTS of planes suffered this kind of fate. How would count the loss? Operational? Air to Air? Flak? Just to make it more complicated, we could say this was Guadalcanal, and the plane was parked in the boneyard when the IJN came along and blew the snot of it during the Bombardment.[:'(] Then we could say it was air to air, or flak, or operational, or a ground loss. Probably would be best to say it was A% air to air, B% flak, etc.

We could complicate it even more, if we said it was a Japanese plane, damaged as above (but US cruisers doing the bombardment at say, Buna) and the plane is captured when the Allies capture Buna, etc.

Some guy in a hurry to get discharged is asked to fill out a form after the war is over is making this determination - he doesn't give a flip and just checks off the first thing that comes to mind...

Historians are finding all kinds of these problems looking over records on U-boats, I-boats and merchant shipping. With aircraft just multiply the problem by 10,000 or so. I wouldn't get TOO worked up over some statistics of arguably dubious quality.

The statistics quoted there are not of "arguably dubious quality" but rather a serious study conducted immediately after the war and in this case based primarily (with losses in mind) on the work of JANAC, which was, by the way, a rather conservative report which did not go in for speculation of any kind but was based primarily on original Japanese sources, and to an extent on interviews of Japanese principals in the war.

That's not to say it is necessarily 100% accurate, but "dubious" it is not.

As for Japanese records: they were and still are horrible. An effort has been made by the Japanese government in later years to complie its own encyclopedic record of the war. I haven't seen this work, but given what I know of the sources available, and add in the well-known Japanese cultural ethic which tends to gloss over all things WWII, especially all things WWII which tend to look critically at Japanese performance and behavior, and I'd venture to guess that this tome, while useful in its own way, no doubt, is in all likelihood no more valuable (if as valuable) as have been the American studies in this regard, these undertaken just after the war's completion.

[mogami]

Hi, Further report from my PBEM
Kereguen (I am Japan) 49.3% OP 21.5 AA 24.2 A2A

I don't see it being too far from the report quoted.

Where do we list destroyed on ground (in first game I have a total of 2 DOG and in this game 35 DOG) I did not include them in Op loss.

[rtrapasso]

The statistics quoted there are not of "arguably dubious quality" but rather a serious study conducted immediately after the war and in this case based primarily (with losses in mind) on the work of JANAC, which was, by the way, a rather conservative report which did not go in for speculation of any kind but was based primarily on original Japanese sources, and to an extent on interviews of Japanese principals in the war.

You and i have vastly different opinions on JANAC![:)]

This study looked to be, um, shall we say: hasty. From the info i found out about it, much of it it was conducted by officers who were awaiting discharge, and didn't much care what went into it. I am sure there were SOME officers who did care, but it is rife with errors, misidentifications, etc. Warships were credited as sunk that were thousands of miles away, or were never sunk at all, etc. Other ships that WERE sunk were never mentioned.

The case was similar in the Atlantic. Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II -(by Robert Kurson) is devoted to describing the discovery and identification of a German U-boat off New Jersey. The identification was so difficult (people died trying to establish the ID) because the "official report" said that this u-boat was sunk off Gilbraltor. The researches finally located the report, which contradicted the official verdict at the time (no loss) - but the guy filling out the report apparently wanted to get the form filled out (according to the book) so ignored the facts.

Personally, i have run into numerous snags when investigating JANAC reports of losses. After encountering so many problems, i came to the conclusion that JANAC wasn't very accurate at all. I can't imagine the problem when trying to come to conclusions with aircraft losses. It would be a couple of orders of magnitude more difficult.[:(]

I will agree that the Japanese records are horrible - but bad things happen to paper when a city goes up in smoke, so it is partly due to that. I am also sure that they tended to "gloss things over" - as previously mentioned, anyone who went out and didn't come back was counted as a combat loss. This is at least in part due to the "warrior mentality" of the Japanese at the time. Best to tell the family the family their son died gloriously in combat than to say he died because someone installed the aerilon control cables backwards.

[rtrapasso]

in first game I have a total of 2 DOG and in this game 35 DOG

And here i thought you were a cat person![:D]

[mogami]

Hi, Did you see where in Wisconson they want to have a "Cat" season and shoot feral cats?

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, Did you see where in Wisconson they want to have a "Cat" season and shoot feral cats?

Yes...[X(] (well, heard about it on the radio).

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

The statistics quoted there are not of "arguably dubious quality" but rather a serious study conducted immediately after the war and in this case based primarily (with losses in mind) on the work of JANAC, which was, by the way, a rather conservative report which did not go in for speculation of any kind but was based primarily on original Japanese sources, and to an extent on interviews of Japanese principals in the war.

You and i have vastly different opinions on JANAC![:)]

This study looked to be, um, shall we say: hasty. From the info i found out about it, much of it it was conducted by officers who were awaiting discharge, and didn't much care what went into it. I am sure there were SOME officers who did care, but it is rife with errors, misidentifications, etc. Warships were credited as sunk that were thousands of miles away, or were never sunk at all, etc. Other ships that WERE sunk were never mentioned.

The case was similar in the Atlantic. Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II -(by Robert Kurson) is devoted to describing the discovery and identification of a German U-boat off New Jersey. The identification was so difficult (people died trying to establish the ID) because the "official report" said that this u-boat was sunk off Gilbraltor. The researches finally located the report, which contradicted the official verdict at the time (no loss) - but the guy filling out the report apparently wanted to get the form filled out (according to the book) so ignored the facts.

Personally, i have run into numerous snags when investigating JANAC reports of losses. After encountering so many problems, i came to the conclusion that JANAC wasn't very accurate at all. I can't imagine the problem when trying to come to conclusions with aircraft losses. It would be a couple of orders of magnitude more difficult.[:(]

I will agree that the Japanese records are horrible - but bad things happen to paper when a city goes up in smoke, so it is partly due to that. I am also sure that they tended to "gloss things over" - as previously mentioned, anyone who went out and didn't come back was counted as a combat loss. This is at least in part due to the "warrior mentality" of the Japanese at the time. Best to tell the family the family their son died gloriously in combat than to say he died because someone installed the aerilon control cables backwards.

You tend to misread me, too.

I didn't say JANAC was a completely reliable source. I did say it was conducted in earnest and is, on balance, a conservative effort to get at the facts. Of course, these materials will be flawed for any number of reasons, as are all historical works, but "arguably dubious" (what I find to be loaded terminology) they certainly are not.

Is that better?

[rtrapasso]

You tend to misread me, too.

I didn't say JANAC was a completely reliable source. I did say it was conducted in earnest and is, on balance, a conservative effort to get at the facts. Of course, these materials will be flawed for any number of reasons, as are all historical works, but "arguably dubious" (what I find to be loaded terminology) they certainly are not.

Is that better?

Sorry if i misread you.[:(]

Maybe it is my personal experience with JANAC that tends to color my opinion.

In studying some JANAC claims, i came across some serious discrepancies. I could not resolve them. I tried to get a copy of the original JANAC report, and contacted a historian (a retired USN officer gone back to university) trying to find a copy. After some discussion, he told me (in guarded language) not to bother with JANAC.

Now, i had trouble with this. However, after several more frustrating experiences, i realized that JANAC wasn't reliable and why the historian advised me not to bother with it. Oh, i think it gives sort of a rough idea of what went on, and maybe the senior officers conducting the study were great and earnest, but there were just so MANY problems when you started looking at individual claims, i have come to seriously doubt the overall work.

However, this is my experience. "Your mileage may vary" - and you might think it is a reliable work. I do not think it is. But that is my own (perhaps arguably dubious) opinion.[:'(]

[The Gnome]

In order to truely gauge whether WitP is adequately measuring operational losses, we need an operational loss per sortie statistic. Most players will be playing more or less aggressively than their historic counterparts so the total numbers will be misleading.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

You tend to misread me, too.

I didn't say JANAC was a completely reliable source. I did say it was conducted in earnest and is, on balance, a conservative effort to get at the facts. Of course, these materials will be flawed for any number of reasons, as are all historical works, but "arguably dubious" (what I find to be loaded terminology) they certainly are not.

Is that better?

Sorry if i misread you.[:(]

Maybe it is my personal experience with JANAC that tends to color my opinion.

In studying some JANAC claims, i came across some serious discrepancies. I could not resolve them. I tried to get a copy of the original JANAC report, and contacted a historian (a retired USN officer gone back to university) trying to find a copy. After some discussion, he told me (in guarded language) not to bother with JANAC.

Now i had trouble with this. However, after several more frustrating experiences, i realized that JANAC wasn't reliable and why the historian advised me not to bother with it. Oh, i think it gives sort of a rough idea of what went on, and maybe the senior officers conducting the study were great and earnest, but there were just so MANY problems when you started looking at individual claims, i have come to seriously doubt the overall work.

However, this is my experience. "Your mileage may vary" - and you might think it is a reliable work. I do not think it is. But that is my own (perhaps arguably dubious) opinion.[:'(]

I sympathize, I have problems with JANAC, too, and I have serious problems with people who go around quoting JANAC as if it were . . . the Bible.

One of my problems relates to a passage Morison wrote where he states that some 300,000 tons of Japanese shipping had been dispatched from USN submarine action through April of 1942. (In fact, I might be misquoting Morison here, as I haven't bothered to go back and check and see if that's the precise figure and date he gives, but for purposes of this argument we'll go with that.)

It's important to know at this juncture that Morison used JANAC himself, was probably one of the first authors to do so--undoubtedly he was one of the first historians to have access to that material. And yet JANAC gives total Japanese tonnage sunk through the same date as only a fraction of what Morsion cites, much less what USN boats alone accounted for.

Now I know that Morison is not always correct, even after the effort he went to years after publication of his work to provide a comprehensive errata list for each of his volumes. But I wonder how he could be that far off from the figure JANAC gives when he clearly states that he not only used JANAC himself but used it as one of his primary sources. That being the case, my conclusion is that Morison arrived at his figure through a more corraborative process which employed other, call them subsidiary or complementary, sources. He certainly didn't just pick that number out of the thin air! The trouble now is to nail down what that real figure might have been, due to a paucity of "complementary" sources available for interview this far down the road; and it's impossible at this late date to know where Morsion went wrong, if indeed he was wrong, for he might have been correct.

To be fair, the JANAC report should be excused for some of its mistakes, regarding the Japanese at least, for the reason this committee had very poor records to go on. And it wasn't a case of all the essential documents being "burned" in the general chaos which overtook Japan toward the end. Someone else mentioned that, and it's a misconception. The truth is the Japanese simply didn't keep very good records, all across the board, and they especially didn't keep very good records of their losses. They just didn't.

If I had to guess, I'd say Morsion arrived at his conclusion after first consulting JANAC for a ballpark figure, but then he also conducted further interviews with as many war principals as he could get ahold of (that, or these interviews were conducted by one of his various aides). And that's fine. Unfortunately, Morsion didn't see fit to footnote that particular reference even though it ran substantially counter to what JANAC (one of his primary sources, remember) claimed. Had Morison done so, at least then we'd know why he thought what he thought in that regard. But it's a dead issue now.

Anyway, JANAC is what it is and one really should be careful with its data. On that score we agree. But mark my words, within a week or a month someone around here will quote JANAC as if it were . . . the Bible. [8D]

[Mr.Frag]

One has to seriously look at the position in your game compared to history when judging ops losses.

The farther away the target, the higher the odds of not making it back.

Depending on your game, you could be doing a lot of overwater long range missions. These will pull up the rate.

There is also a damage factor, planes suffering battle damage have a higher rate of failure.

If you keep your aircraft close to the action and keep them chained with a shorter leash, you will go a long ways to cutting back on the losses.

The A6M2, Nell/Betty are your worst offenders due to their range.

[Bombur]

Of course, the data may well not BE accurate!

Numbers get thrown around a lot, and differ wildly from one source to another.

In Fire From the Sky (massive book on the air war in the South Pacific, and the Pacific theater in general)- the numbers quoted are QUITE different. The Japanese operational losses are very low (as a percentage) and the author spends a lot of time trying to analyze this. (I don't have the book handy, so i can't quote them. The author used Japanese data for analysis, not what the US forces CLAIMED they did to the Japanese).

Before we advocate changing the game engine (with all attendant collateral damage in new bugs that will ineviditably appear), we best be sure that what we want is in fact accurate.

BTW - the biggest killer of pilots and planes? TRAINING! Iirc, this was for both the Allies and Japan.

-Right, but USA data on USA losses is more accurate, isn´t it?

[tsimmonds]

PBEM game 1942 April 23
Allied
AtA losses 1,049 (57.4%)
Destroyed on field 458 (25.1%)
Destroyed by flak 41 (2.2%)
Operational losses 280 (15.3%)
Total losses 1,828 (406 per month)

IJ
AtA losses 466 (36.1%)
Destroyed on field 120 (9.2%)
Destroyed by flak 334 (25.8%)
Operational losses 374 (28.9%)
Total losses 1,294 (288 per month)

[Cap Mandrake]

Scenario 2 losses:

Japanese: Air to Air 29.6%
Flak 16.9%
Ops 53.5% (mostly zeros and Bettys)

Allied: Air to Air 35.6%
Flak 5.4%
Destroyed on Ground 57.7%
Ops 1.4%

From this I would conclude that a concerted ground sacrifice strategy can seriously reduce operational losses. [:'(]


PS...on a related note in regard to service downtime. I read yesterday that because B-29 tires could ony take 10-15 landings, the US forward-deployed numerous huge, custom tire retreading machines along with the trained crews from the manufacturer to Guam.

Really an awesome display of industrial might. The B-29 program actually cost more than the Manhattan Project.

[Grotius]

In response to Mogami's query, here are some of my numbers. The last set, from my AI game, is perhaps most significant statistically. The total percentage of all losses from all sides was A2A 57.1%, Ground 15.1%, AA 7.97%, Ops 19.8%. Perhaps I and my opponents are just whizzes at minimizing operational losses? Also, my AA losses are easily the smallest, especially for the Allies -- less than 4% AA losses for the Allies in the aggregate.

PBEM of "Rising Sun" after 1 month:

Japan: 27,861 sorties, 194 losses total, A2A=47(24%), Field=86 (44%), AA=16 (8%), Ops=45 (23%).

Allies: 16,735 sorties, 275 losses total, A2A=151 (55%), Field=82 (30%), AA=8 (3%), Ops=34 (12%).

PBEM of "Guadalcanal" after 3 weeks:

Japan: 6,926 sorties, 224 losses total, A2A=119 (53%), Field=71 (32%), AA=23 (10%), Ops=11 (5%).

Allies: 17,736 sorties, 156 losses total, A2A=72 (46%), Field=15 (9%), AA=19 (12%), Ops=50 (32%).

AI game after 11.5 months:

Japan (AI): 987,163 sorties, 4,431 total losses (averaging 385/month), A2A=2780 (62.7%), Field=44 (0.99%), AA=511 (11.5%), Ops=1,096 (24.7%).

Allies (me): 935,956 sorties, 3,568 total losses (averaging 310/month), A2A=1879 (52.7%), Field=1041 (29.2%), AA=128 (3.6%), Ops=520 (14.6%).

[rtrapasso]

-Right, but USA data on USA losses is more accurate, isn´t it?

I sure hope so![:D]

But again - the way the losses are allocated depends on how the survey was set up. See my posts above about what happens with multiple causes of losses. The way the system works, multiple causes are assigned one ultimate cause. Change the survey rules, and the statistics for causes of losses come out quite differently (although the TOTAL number lost will be the same).

But yes, at least in the total raw numbers lost, the US data for its own losses is certainly more accurate than the (say) Japanese estimates of US losses.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Bombur

Of course, the data may well not BE accurate!

Numbers get thrown around a lot, and differ wildly from one source to another.

In Fire From the Sky (massive book on the air war in the South Pacific, and the Pacific theater in general)- the numbers quoted are QUITE different. The Japanese operational losses are very low (as a percentage) and the author spends a lot of time trying to analyze this. (I don't have the book handy, so i can't quote them. The author used Japanese data for analysis, not what the US forces CLAIMED they did to the Japanese).

Before we advocate changing the game engine (with all attendant collateral damage in new bugs that will ineviditably appear), we best be sure that what we want is in fact accurate.

BTW - the biggest killer of pilots and planes? TRAINING! Iirc, this was for both the Allies and Japan.

-Right, but USA data on USA losses is more accurate, isn´t it?

We have exact (or nearly so) records of our own losses. For instance, at this link you can read a survey on USAAF activities in the war for all theaters: Army Air Forces Statistical Digest

And so on.

[mogami]

Hi, I'm looking at Zeta and Freeboys PBEM it is 8-28-44 Allied Ops loss =33 percent.
Japanese Op loss=22.7 percent.

How does the report list destroyed on ground?

[Cutman]

Another issue that the game does not take into account is that it is very difficult even today to get all of the aircraft up in a squadron of 12-24 aircraft even in a combat zone. The percentage that most squadrons have to maintain in combat is normally 90 percent. This changes by the type of aircraft. Some types even today run as low as 60-70 percent. You have to assume that it was almost the same back then. Just about every unit has a certain amount of hanger queens that cannot get fixed for months and the game allows you build up to 100 percent way to often. A lot of you have been in and know about this. How often where all of the vehicles up and running in the Bn Motor Transport (MT) lot? I have never seen it. Maybe there should be a few aircraft based on percentages and size of the airfield. That rarely ever get fixed. By the way I do not know anything about WWII aviation maintenace I am just saying that this is realty in the military.

New guy that never post so do not slam me hard ![:D]


Cutman