Lw-losses without enemy actions!

[Marius]

I can give the losses of operational units for September 1939 (mainly Poland);

Accidents - without enemy fire - appr. 100 total losses ( damage 60-100% ).
Total losses to all causes - 303 aircraft.

This means that appr. 30% of all total losses were write offs after accidents.

Marius

[Jens]

Luftwaffe documents of killed soldiers are not very relieable, if you read Overmans "Militärische Verluste". These documents were not doctored, but the Wehrmacht loss system was simply not very sufficent.
Therefore 430.000 KIA as a global number should be taken into account.

Also the system of the Luftwaffe aircraft reports has to be viewed with some scepticism. In Budrass "Flugzeugindustrie" is stated, that already before "Barbarossa" the statistices of damaged planes was lower by some thousand, compared to planes were repaired by industry in reality.

The high figures for non combat losses has IMHO also to be reviewed. One example:
Take this crash of Krupinski at 5.7.43.
Bf 109G-6 W.Nr. 20062 weiße 9 (80%) 7./J.G. 52
Krupinski, Oblt. Walter (RK) Injured, overturning on landing. (Flak?)
Ugrim/Belgorod F
by
http://www.lesbutler.ip3.co.uk/tony/...units/jg52.htm

Seems to be more a non-combat loss. As everybody know, Krupinski was already an ace in 1943. Look at Tollivers Hartmann book, there is stated, Krupinski had a hard fight with soviet fighters over the airfield and his 109 suffered hits at the rudder. So he tried an emergency landing and failed. For me this would be more a combat loss.

[RT]

Concerning the Krupinski case, the loss is noted F, so with ennemy action, in the reports it's not stated if it is an accident or anything else, just if it's made during "action" or "einsatz" called "F" or not "H", then you could interprete the cause, if it is or it is not an accident,but to sort them takes more than 5 minutes necessary to split among H or F
Following the figures I gave for 1941/1942 the one for non-action losses "H" seems very high 27%, I re-checked nd based on 23686 entries the "H" branded losses amount to 6480, so a bit more than 27 %, for 1943 the figure is quite higher 30 % based on 25.000 losses, but with Erg.gr. nd Jgr.
without them /if we consider them as schools units/ we fall to 24.8 %

RT

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, Jens

Sorry, but it is ignorant fools like yourself that make long standing errors like this available on the internet and in publications.

Luckily, your example nicely underline the fact that you must be totally illiterate when it comes to studying losses of the Luftwaffe.

In the original records by the Luftwaffe this loss is noted as a category 2:

durch Feindeinwirkung durch Flakbeschuss total

or in english as I guess you have to get this translated:

Destroyed due to anti-aircraft gunfire

The detailed loss record states that the aircraft was damaged 80%, and that Krupinski was wounded, and the loss reason is stated as 'Flakbeshuss'.

In fact I get a bit sad, if you are going to show examples to underline your position on this, at least TRY to find something that has not been translated or edited by an author, and please... try to find some losses that at least are a bit questionable when it comes to facts, in this case you have just shot yourself in the foot....

I have said this so many times to people now that I end up getting bored - you have to check contemporary references. If for some reason you can not do this, it would at least be wise not to state that the original documentation is erronous, while some large scale numbers published by one or more authors MUST be correct.

There are numerous clerical errors in the original documents also, not strange considering the amount of information... but it is the best references we have. So - if you want to do something useful, stop reading coffetable books and start reading original documentation.

Sorry, Jens if you think I am being to harsh on you, but this message of yours really irritated me a lot!

Regards, and do not be too offended!

Andreas

[odybvig]

And all the loss record are avaible in digitized form

Olve

[Jens]

So where are the losses of SG-101?

[Andreas Brekken]

In the document series called 'Flugzeugunfälle und Verluste bei Schulen und sonstigen Dienststellen'.

The units with numbers ranging from 101 - 11x were what one could translate to operational training units, and were reported as such.

A couple of examples:

http://www.ahs.no/ref_db/lw_loss_pub...?lossid=107194

http://www.ahs.no/ref_db/lw_loss_pub...?lossid=100985

F is Feindflug. (Heimflug and Feindflug). This is an indication on the mission flown, not an indication that enemy action was involved. One example is of course an aircraft lost due to pilot error, while on an operational mission. This would have an 'F' attached in the loss list, but no enemy were involved (other than by inducing stress....).

The categories 20 and 21 cover this situation in the Summarische Verlustemeldungen, 20 being 'ohne Feindeinwirkung mit Feindauftrag total', and 21 being 'ohne Feindeinwirkung mit Feindauftrag beschädigt'

Third - you did not make three points. You simply quoted information from three different sources stating as your point that these three references (two books and a webpage) must be the proof that the Luftwaffe original documents are not to be trusted. Sorry - but that doesn't quite cut it as a scientific evaluation of the available sources, at least not to me.

Regards,
Andreas

[Jens]

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

Hi, Jens

Sorry, but it is ignorant fools like yourself that make long standing errors like this available on the internet and in publications.

Luckily, your example nicely underline the fact that you must be totally illiterate when it comes to studying losses of the Luftwaffe.

In the original records by the Luftwaffe this loss is noted as a category 2:

durch Feindeinwirkung durch Flakbeschuss total

or in english as I guess you have to get this translated:

Destroyed due to anti-aircraft gunfire

The detailed loss record states that the aircraft was damaged 80%, and that Krupinski was wounded, and the loss reason is stated as 'Flakbeshuss'.

In fact I get a bit sad, if you are going to show examples to underline your position on this, at least TRY to find something that has not been translated or edited by an author, and please... try to find some losses that at least are a bit questionable when it comes to facts, in this case you have just shot yourself in the foot....

I have said this so many times to people now that I end up getting bored - you have to check contemporary references. If for some reason you can not do this, it would at least be wise not to state that the original documentation is erronous, while some large scale numbers published by one or more authors MUST be correct.

There are numerous clerical errors in the original documents also, not strange considering the amount of information... but it is the best references we have. So - if you want to do something useful, stop reading coffetable books and start reading original documentation.

Sorry, Jens if you think I am being to harsh on you, but this message of yours really irritated me a lot!

Regards, and do not be too offended!

Andreas

Yes it is too harsh, since i made three points and you counterattacked one, cause i overlooked the "F". For your surprise, i was already in the BAMA and checked loss stats even divided in (F/H), besides other documents. If you look at the global stats, it must be seen, that something isn't very relieable in the system of LW. Even more i know (from docus) complains from higher staffs about that fact.
One example: One unit in 1942 lost 6 Ju-88 totally in one sortie. The cause was reported due engine failures and fire (noncombat), even more the unit started complains about the unrelieability of Ju-88 and their engines. The GL started a commission to check these fact, indeed five of the six Ju-88 were shot down by AAA and the 6th also most probably.
So you can't just critizise Tolliver/Constable to make the look of stats better, you have also to ask why they wrote such an information. I believe such a detailed story in a book has a bit more relieability than others, besides this the story stated that Krupinski fought with the LaGG over the own airfield, claims lists give him a LaGG at 18.05 (last kill this day). Of course in their (T/C) books is written many senseless stuff and sometimes they changed history to their own attitude, but on the other hand they interviewed most pilots when they were quite near the events of WW2.

BTW: Where can i find a definition if H and F? F means IMHO Front not Feind?, H = Heimat. So if a loss is F, it is not necessary by enemy?