German Airframe Losses, Pilot losses, accidents

[MechFO]

ORIGINAL: Jango32

I only have data for 1941 on hand, but there were 327 Luftwaffe planes written off as operational losses on the eastern front.

Will leave the page I took a photo of as a link instead of embedding it, it's too big. https://i.imgur.com/yzsTREw.jpg

Not that clear it was 327.

It's not clear how losses for unknown reasons were categorized and it seems that only incidents with 60%> damage are included in that number.

Much lower damage % led to write offs but there was no report that tracks the link.

There also seems to have been no consistent guidance or policy on how the above events should be reported.

[Jango32]

By 27 December 1941 German aircraft losses in the east were 2,505 destroyed, 327 of which were not due to enemy action, and 1,895 damaged. This meant that within six months of the opening of the eastern front 4,400 aircraft were permanently or temporarily out of action. On other fronts during this period an additional 1,330 front-line aircraft were lost, 779 totally. Total losses on all fronts since the beginning of the war in the east were therefore 5,730, about three-quarters of them in the east. This figure represented a third of all losses of front-line aircraft in the twenty-eight months since the outbreak of the war.

What it uses to cite these is:

Cf. Reports on the combat-readiness of the flying units as of 21 June and 27 Dec. 1941.
Generalquartiermeister der Luftwaffe, 6. Abt., 24 June, 30 Dec. 1941, BA-MA RL 2 Ш/713, 716.

Inaccurate figures in the original texts prevent precise calculations; however, the figures are sufficient to illustrate the general situation of the Luftwaffe. Somewhat different figures in Groehler, ‘Verluste der deutschen Luftwaffe’, 330-1

[MechFO]

As to training losses; another forum had these numbers from the Luftwaffe schools only, this includes all air crew but also includes accidents on the ground f.e. during infantry training. Bad weather heavily restricted training during winter, most probably the reason for the big reduction in Oktober.

https://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/inde ... /&pageNo=2

01.09.1939 – 09.05.1940 Tote: 499 Verw.: 376
10.- 31.05.1940 Tote: 178 Verw.: 77
Juni 1940 Tote: 134 Verw.: 73
Juli 1940 Tote: 150 Verw.: 75
August 1940 Tote: 141 Verw.: 105
September 1940 Tote: 104 Verw.: 109
Oktober 1940 Tote: 115 Verw.: 101
November 1940 Tote: 73 Verw.: 68
Dezember 1940 Tote: 81 Verw.: 47
Januar 1941 Tote: 88 Verw.: 49
Februar 1941 Tote: 120 Verw.: 54
März 1941 Tote: 111 Verw.: 73
April 1941 Tote: 149 Verw.: 83
Mai 1941 Tote: 132 Verw.: 133
Juni 1941 Tote: 117 Verw.: 114
Juli 1941 Tote: 122 Verw.: 108
August 1941 Tote: 142 Verw.: 105
September 1941 Tote: 118 Verw.: 66
Oktober 1941 Tote: 8 Verw.: 82

[MechFO]

March 1942 is one of the few months where we have Dreamslayers incident reports as well as numbers for written off airframes.

I've broken down the 109 events, the units involved are JG3 (without II), JG51, JG52, JG54, JG77 and I./SchG1. Some elements are in Germany but don't report any losses for this period.

These units reported 45 combat damage write offs, 33 non combat write offs and 22 sent for overhaul.

The total number of incidents are 132 of which

Unknown: Damage 60-100% (15)
Combat: Damage 60-100% (29 inkl. 6 ground)) 40-59% (9) 25-39% (13) 0-25% (14)
Ops: Damage 60-100% (13) 40-59% (15) 25-39% (14) 0-25% (10)

One immediately notices that the only way the write offs for March can in any way be achieved is if damage % as low as 40% are getting written off. I haven't checked the pilot losses for the units yet but they are probably low. Many of the 40-59% damaged airframes seem to be going to overhaul, unlike the KG unit above, which makes sense since a 109 is much easier to move or get large replacement elements for.

IMO a much needed fix would be to lower normal Ops losses, increase the damage events, and cause heavily damaged airframes to not be repaired but instead written off. If possible maybe scale with airfield size, but if that is too much effort than a straight write off of damaged airframes above f.e. 50% would be a start.

I'll check the pilot losses and see if I can do the same for Ju88/He111 next.

Pilot Losses March 1942 that I can find

JG3 exII. 3 combat, 1 Ops (wrote off 7 aircraft due to combat damage, 6 non combat)
JG51 no losses (wrote off 5 aircraft due to combat damage, 15 non combat)
JG52 3 combat, 1 unknown (wrote off 4 aircraft due to combat damage, 3 non combat)

[Dreamslayer]

ORIGINAL: MechFO
March 1942 is one of the few months where we have Dreamslayers incident reports as well as numbers for written off airframes.

Come on, it isn't my reports = P
It's a data from articles of Aleksandr Zablotskiy (Александр Заблотский) and Roman Larintsev (Роман Ларинцев). They're Russian military historians who specialize on the aviation, also they wrote a few books.
From the first article (translated by Google, sorry):

First of all, it should be recognized that today, absolutely reliable sources disclosing the damage suffered by the German Air Force do not exist. We have already repeatedly emphasized the rather complex and ambiguous nature of the information given in the reports of the losses of the service of the Quartermaster General of the Luftwaffe. Nevertheless, we repeat once again: the OKL reports are not the ultimate truth. There are both documented cases of their incompleteness, even in terms of irrecoverable losses, and no less reliable episodes of the presence of erroneous information in them. That is, summaries are good starting material, but nothing more.

[Iam5not8]

ORIGINAL: jubjub

Hopefully y'all can figure out and prove that the operations loss/sortie for the eastern front were much lower than they currently are in game.

Another example, on the northern ferry route between US and UK, the losses reached 10%, with one of the most reliable WWII plane aka B17.
That's pure ops losses, on a well knwow route, equipped with the lattest navigation equipment at that time.

If the way the ops losses are definitively challengeable, specfically criteria, nevertheless the total ops losses on a GC, or on few months do not seem to be out historical data.

At then end of nov 1941, only about 40% of the German crew bombers were operational, and about 60% of the fighers one.

@dev teams, when the game says mission or sortie, what does that really mean ?