A-36 Apache losses over Sicily in July 1943

[Paul Thompson]

I have across a source which says that a total of 25 A-36s were lost in combat in the Mediterranean in July 1943. I assume that most or all of these occurred during the fighting in and around Sicily.

Can anyone cite the reason for such high losses? Did they get caught by German fighters on any occasion?

Regards,

Paul

[Frank Olynyk]

Paul,
I have a total of 21 MACRs for A-36s in July 1943. Ten are by flak, only one by enemy aircraft. Six are unknown, 2 are mechanical, and two flew into a hill or water.

14 more in August. Five by flak, five by enemy aircraft, 3 mechanical, one unknown.

Of these 35 losses, 17 are KIA, 15 POW, and three apparently evaded or were rescued. Remember, this plane is a dive bomber and it operated close to the ground, where flak can get at it. And usually with air superiority.

At this point I do not know how many losses occurred without a MACR.

This will all end up in A History of the Mediterranean Air War, Vol 4. Someday.

Enjoy!

Frank.

[Larry deZeng]

Had to look this one up - 500 built at a cost of $49,000 each!

L.

[Paul Thompson]

Frank,

Thank you very much for the comprehensive review of the MACR data! It's a pleasure to be able to consult the ultimate encyclopedia

The numbers that I have on total losses for July and August 1943 are as follows:
July 1943 - 25 combat, 1 non-combat
August 1943 - 15 combat, 1 non-combat

Compared with your MACR numbers, it would appear that there were 5 losses without a MACR in July and 2 more in August.

I am not entirely surprised by the high losses to flak in July, the Sicily garrison had a relatively large number of flak guns in a small area. The five losses to enemy aircraft in August are more suprising, but I take it these were isolated incidents.

I have sent you a PM about my figures.

Warm regards,

Paul

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Larry deZeng

Had to look this one up - 500 built at a cost of $49,000 each!

L.

Hello Larry,

It's quite a popular aircraft on this forum, for one reason or another. Frank has shared his statistics on the A-36 and other Mustang versions in two interesting threads, one from 2011 - http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?p=132170 and another from 2014 - http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=38046 .

49 thousand dollars would be at least 2 million in current money. That might seem little comapred to the $108 million cost of a new F-35A, but the Apache wasn't a supersonic stealth fighter with an electronically scanned radar

Warm regards,

Paul

[Kutscha]

To put these losses in some sort of perspective, how many sorties did the A-36s fly?

[Paul Thompson]

They flew 2,155 sorties in July, of these 1,969 were bombing attacks against ground targets and another 186 were attacks on shipping.

Before you say 'low loss rate', consider the fact that there were just six squadrons flying the A-36 in two groups.

[Graham Boak]

A sortie loss rate is independent of the size of the force. RAF Bomber Command considered 4% the margin between acceptable and not so: a rate of 1.2% does indeed seem low for ground attack units during a particularly intense operation. The numbers show that each squadron lost one aircraft per week in July. It doesn't seem excessive.

At $4 to the £1, a Mustang for just over £12000 seems reasonable enough. During the Battle of Britain, the populace were encourage to "buy a Spitfire" for savings set at £6000, but this was not based on any strict accounting, and is known to have been well below the price of the aircraft - I believe it excluded Government Furnished Equipment such as engine, guns and radios. I have seen £12000 quoted as being closer to reality.

Apache was proposed as a name for the P-51 but rejected. The A-36 was apparently called the Invader around the time of the Sicily operation, but this was not accepted either because of the forthcoming A-26. Boring I know, but they're just Mustangs, if anything.

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Graham Boak

A sortie loss rate is independent of the size of the force.

Graham, a loss rate calculation does not in and of itself take the size of a force into account, but this does not mean that the force size is irrelevant. For Bomber Command, a 5% loss rate was considered the maximum acceptable, on the assumption that this was spread across the entire force. For the A-36 groups, the losses in July 1943 amounted to something like a fifth of all serviceable aircraft, a level of attrition which clearly could not be sustained.

As to price issues, my discussion was tongue in cheek, in response to Larry's post. I do not think that it is particularly useful to discuss exchange rates or aircraft prices in a wartime situation, where all prices are assigned by a planning mechanism and are therefore shorn of most meaning. The only use for wartime prices is to compare the assigned resource costs of items. Therefore, based on your figures it is possible to say that the A-36 and Spitfire Mark I had a similar assigned resource cost. In practice, the A-36 would have been significantly more expensive, because of its greater airframe weight, heavier armament and other factors. It would be best to compare the price of the A-36 to that of other aircraft ordered by the USAAF at the same time.

I am fairly certain that Apache was the name of the A-36 used in USAAF documents throughout 1943, but Frank certainly knows better and I hope he will clarify if one of us is wrong.

Warm regards,

Paul

[Kutscha]

Average Cost
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a542518.pdf Table 82

No A-36 tho.

Table 87 has 308 A-36s overseas.