[Arsenal VG-33]

[quote]

Originally Posted by Juha

Hello VG
On Il-2 losses, IIRC in 43 it was something like 1 in every 35 sorties.

Might be, but off-topic. I let someone else answer

Tvcolvin
This is true but irrelevant in 1944 after the USAAF's Thunderbolts and Mustangs had achieved air superiority over Europe by destroying the GAF.
The British Ju-87 could then have done its accurate work unhindered by enemy fighters, and the British Il-2 would have been more effective than Typhoon and Spitfire because of its resistance to FLAK.

Moreover, i told the TBO was 100 hours for the AM-38, it's true for le last ones, first ones had only 50 hours TBO.
So considering 3rd army statistics, if 50 % of Il-2 returned from a mission with battle damage, with 2,8 % (1/36) of sturmoviks actally lost, it means that each plane was repeared 18 times for dozen and hundreds man hours each time, only for 36 combat sorties and 41 hours of combat flight.

Do you think it was usefull to repear again the flying colander for the remaining 4-5 combat hours? 5 others flying hours at least were used for training and service missions...

On fighter losses, it also depended what was counted as sortie, were PVO’s patrols included etc and anyway, even if general loss rate was low, some units still took fairly heavy losses in 44 at least.

Off-top. There's little wonder about that routine PVO's sorties were not considered a combat ones. Call on (fake or real) alert, certainly.
All is relative (Einstein), heavy losses in 44 compared to what?

Low flying Il-2s on the other hand had not much to fear from heavy AA which inflicted many losses to US heavy bombers and because escort fighters flied in relays and the bomber formations were hundreds of kilometers long, LW could generate local numerical fighter superiority over the escorts in given place and time if fighter control worked well.

Have you got statistics on US heavy bombers losses by heavy FlaK?

Mustang wasn’t a typical fighter-bomber for Allies but it is true that one pass was the norm. And Finnish experience was that Il-2 attacks looked more terrible than their actual material results were but that was true to most of CAS work, much of CAS effectiveness was based on psychological impact and same goes to artillery preparations, that’s why it was important that the ground attack followed as soon as possible the CAS attack and /or the artillery preparation.

Juha, you suggest what, that 6 passes buy soviet SBD "slow but deadly" Il-2 (precisely "deadly" because it was "slow"), are less effective than one pass peformed by an allied fighter-bomber?

Regards