VVS loss reporting system (Damage/Destroyed/"loss")...

[kolya1]

Hello,

If anybody familiar with russian documents could tell me how the loss reporting system worked in the VVS during WWII, I'd be very interested...

Here is what makes me ask this : while researching a bit about the Battle of Kursk, I found diverging loss figures between daily reports ("The Battle of Kursk : the Soviet General Staff study", and many others) and overall figures (Krivosheev,...)...

E.g. : - Almost all sources mention 176 soviet losses ("потери") on the first day of the Battle (5/07/1943)...
- Similarly, the following days' reports show enormous losses, with a total if add each figure of approximately 500 after 4 days of battle.
- Krivosheev mentions only 459 aircrafts lost in the Kursk operation for the 5/07 to 23/07 time, and the Orel operations which could create some confusion didn't start before the 12/07...

- So there is clearly a gap between the reported daily losses (more than 500 in 4 days), and the total number of losses (at the very least less than 459 in 7 days)...

An explanation I read somewhere, was that the first figure reflects all aircrafts no longer flyable at the end of the day, while the second one reflects all aircraft "definitely lost".


This seems to make sense, but could somebody confirm or invalidate this ?

Many thanks,

Kolya

[Jens]

Voronesh Front stated following:
4-23 July shot down and damaged: 347 aircraft
16 - 23 July shot down and damaged: 347 aircraft
4-23 July 145 aircraft irrecoverable lost

So the greater loss numbers may be including damaged planes.

[Jack Sanders]

Hello kolya,
The General Staff/Krivosheev loss figures are usually not worth the paper they are written on. Khazanov and Gorbach's book is the place to go for reliable data. They write that the 16 VA suffered 391 total losses between the 5th and 12th of July and the 2 VA lost 371 aircraft between the 5th and 18th.
VVS total losses are usually subdivided into several categories: a/c shot down by enemy aircraft, a/c shot down by AAA, a/c failed to return, a/c lost in crashes (non-combat causes, crew killed), a/c lost in accidents (non-combat causes, crew survived), a/c written off due to damage. A source such as Krivosheev's book simply adds these together, but often omits some data.

Yours sincerely,

Jack Sanders

[kolya1]

Originally Posted by Jack Sanders

Hello kolya,
The General Staff/Krivosheev loss figures are usually not worth the paper they are written on. Khazanov and Gorbach's book is the place to go for reliable data. They write that the 16 VA suffered 391 total losses between the 5th and 12th of July and the 2 VA lost 371 aircraft between the 5th and 18th.

Hi,

Could you precise the title of the Khazanov and Gorbach's book, and if possible, what sources did they use, and do they separate combat and non combat casualties (which could explain part of the differences between sources, non-combat also including, if I remember well, worn out aircrafts) ?

The General Staff book was indeed most incomplete (although their (partial) data mostly corresponds to the figures you quote), but Krivosheev is usually a good source, and If you check in it, you have to take into account the Kursk defensive ops but also part of the Orel offensive, in which the losses were more than twice those of the defensive operation...

Honestly, the total figure given for the Kursk, Orel, and Belgorod-Kharkov operations (that is the german offensive and russian counterattacks) between 5/07 and 23/08, 1626 total combat losses seems quite possible, it gives an overclaim ratio of a bit more than 2:1 for the Germans which is not surprising for that time...

Is the total given by Khazanov and Gorbach much higher ?

Thanks,

Kolya.

[Jack Sanders]

Originally Posted by kolya1

Hi,

Could you precise the title of the Khazanov and Gorbach's book, and if possible, what sources did they use, and do they separate combat and non combat casualties (which could explain part of the differences between sources, non-combat also including, if I remember well, worn out aircrafts) ?

The General Staff book was indeed most incomplete (although their (partial) data mostly corresponds to the figures you quote), but Krivosheev is usually a good source, and If you check in it, you have to take into account the Kursk defensive ops but also part of the Orel offensive, in which the losses were more than twice those of the defensive operation...

Honestly, the total figure given for the Kursk, Orel, and Belgorod-Kharkov operations (that is the german offensive and russian counterattacks) between 5/07 and 23/08, 1626 total combat losses seems quite possible, it gives an overclaim ratio of a bit more than 2:1 for the Germans which is not surprising for that time...

Is the total given by Khazanov and Gorbach much higher ?

Thanks,

Kolya.

Hello kolya,
The title of the book is "Aviation in the Battle for the Orel-Kursk Bulge". They use TsAMO documents. They do split causes of losses into combat and non-combat ones, but the combat losses alone are greater than those cited by Krivosheev.
As for Krivosheev, I do not trust a single figure in his book, as I have found and have been made aware by others of numerous inaccuracies in it, always erring on the side of lower Soviet losses.
Khazanov and Gorbach wrote only about the defensive operation, since a second book is to be published covering the offensive operation.
Regardless of what data you use, overall totals are not often conducive to calculating overclaim ratios. I would estimate the German ratio during the battle as 3:1 at best and tending towards 4 or even 5:1. You have to remember that AAA was responsible for a substantial number of losses.

Yours sincerely,

Jack Sanders