Response to Glider and Juha.

[Arsenal VG-33]

[quote]

Originally Posted by Juha

Hello VG
As much I’d like to have exact info, I don’t have, maybe nobody have because the high number of those which simply went missing, but losses in operations was 10759 – 109 destroyed by enemy on the ground + probably most of 807 lost by Naval units.

To resume we can agree that 11 500 - 12 000 Il-2 were lost or written off after combat damage due to ennemy action?

I just want to point out the fact that if everybody here shouted loud about horrendous shtormovik losses, no one was able to provide reliable data about them.

For instance

3rd May 2011, 20:41 MW Giles
The Ju87 had been shot out the sky and withdrawn from the action in the BoB. The Il-2 may have been wonderful, but they had been shot down in droves in the German advance into USSR which was still rolling eastwards (650+ Il-2, R-3, V-11 and ZKP-57s depending on what they called them claimed by Jagdwaffe by 30/6/42).

or

6th May 2011, 17:34Juha
Il-2 was interesting solution to CAS problem but if you look the Soviet losses in men and material in 44-45 and compared those to losses of Western Allies in ETO in 44-45 you can see that it wasn’t a magic weapon. One could not fight a cheap war against an army like WM.

Glider
As has been pointed out a large number of IL2's were shot down but the Finns who were on the receiving end of the IL2 noted that against pin point targets they were pretty ineffective due to a lack of accuracy.

or

7th May 2011, 01:36 Bill Walker
As revealed in Rastrenin's book, it took horrendous IL-2 losses before VVS Shturmovik units developed effective ground-

attack tactics. The book is replete with countless missions where poorly-trained IL-2 crews, usually without fighter escort, hurled themselves at Axis forces only to be slaughtered by flak and Luftwaffe aircrews."

or

7th May 2011, 18:00 Bill Walker
Juha, thank you for the Il-2 loss statistics. Pretty scary stuff. We need to remember that the Russians had the relative luxury of a single front war. Could the RAF have sustained fighter losses like this in western Europe, and still have fought in the Mediterranean and the Far East?

etc. So since no one answered to tvcolin

Tvcolvin 2nd May 2011, 05:01
But it's likely that there is no one in the West who can answer that question.
Perhaps someone in Russia has some of the answers?

I 'm giving the soviet (Perov & Rastrenin) stats.
one lost for combat 85 missions in 1944
one for 90 in 1945

I don’t have info on Shturmovik units but in fighter units also too high combat losses might mean hard times to the CO. One might try to alleviate the impact of high losses by inflating victories but if caught doing that, one would have been in deep trouble indeed. Life wasn’t easy under Stalinist system.

So you have now, it was 1:127 in 44, 1:194 in 1945 for fighters. Quite moderate even low, loss rate.

IMHO it is rather useless to compare Il-2 losses to US heavy bomber losses, their attack profiles were so different and heavy bombers spent so much more time in hostile airspace per sortie.

I agree with the opposite. Strategic missions were far less dangerous, the light AAA was devastating on small Il-2 formations flying low and slow. So were the german fighters. Amercan escort had the advantage of hight, speed and number...

I will add from myself, that real combat losses due to some arrengements between friends and other good old fellows ( to write of accidents as combat losses) were even lower. How many? I dont know but with air superiority and skilled krews it should not exceed 0,8%!

It's less than Mustang's loss rate and perfectly acceptable to RAF and USAF standards.

More fruitful comparison would be Il-2losses vs fighter-bomber losses

I wouldn't say that. Reading about Mustang attack missions over France and soviet Il-2 ones over russia it's quite different.
One was practicing "fire and escape" surprise attack carefully avoiding any flack position, the others were smashing it, to provide free ride to others shtormoviks. At high coast.
From Normandie pilots point of vue, a stormovik attack was looking like a "furious madness". Once target founded, Il-2 were attacking and attacking it again and ...again without any care to own losses and damaged it order to destroy it definitly until victorious issue or death...

Anyway a stormovik attackit was at least 3 passes, one for bombs, one for rockets, one other at least and often more for guns.

The result was simple, even on calm fronts was damaged by Flack all 4 missions. And knocked-off less than 10 ones. K'O' means sometimes written off in fact in 10% of the cases, but pilot was changing of plane.

3th army official statistic was even worse, one Il-2 was damaged by Flak every 2/3 sorties, the loss rate was 1 for 36 missions. I assume the fact that a written-off plane for the 3 VA is not always written off for the VVS: it could be transmitted to PARM's, or industry, be repeared at 2nd or 3rd maintenance echelon level and see combat later elsewhere.
Maybe combat effectivness was at that price?

I don't think a single P-47, Typhoon or anything else would survive in such combat conditions.


Regards

[Juha]

Hello Glider
I only gave the penetration power of the normal AP shot to show that Vickers S gun was capable to pierce side and rear armour of all German AFVs but that of Tigers even without Littlejohn adapter. IIRC Littlejohn adapter was not used in combat by RAF and it seems that its use would not have changed much. With it the effectiveness against Tigers would have been very marginal and the normal AP was powerful enough against other German AFVs. RAF to my knowledge didn’t even use Littlejohn ammo without the adapter which trick seems to have been unofficially adopted by some armoured car crews.
And you are absolutely correct that 4x20mm Hispanos was enough against “soft” targets.

Hello Nifty
Vickers S gun, being a long recoil design, didn’t produce nearly so bad nose down pitch when fired than for ex Soviet NS-37 cannon used in some Il-2s. And even if Merlin didn’t allow engine gun installation, it was possible for ex in DB 601, DB605 Hispano-Suiza, Klimov M-105 etc, for ex Yak-9T had the same 37mm NS-37 cannon firing through spinner as the A/T Il-2s had.

Juha

[Juha]

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

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.

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.

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

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Six Nifty .50s

In December 1942 No. 6 Squadron was withdrawn from the front after losing 14 aircraft in about 300 sorties. They flew defensive patrols over Egypt until March 1943, when they were back in action with the latest Hurricane IID (uprated power and armor protection for the engine and radiator). These "enhancements" imposed a very unfortunate side effect: the aircraft was too heavy to begin with but now it was overweight towards the front, and this caused control problems in all flying maneuvers.

After 6 Squadron moved to Italy in 1944, the Hurricane pilots preferred to carry 3-inch rockets. The 40mm underwing guns were removed due to the considerable nose-down pitch when firing. Even with heavy cannons discarded, the nose armor moved the center of gravity very close to the forward limit.

The decision to rid themselves of the 40mm S gun was requested by front-line RAF pilots, not old men back in England who were supposedly hidebound by the Trenchard doctrines.

The British 40mm gun (and pretty much all other underwing cannons) did not fire accurately compared to internal guns. The best place to hang the outboard gun was on the centerline, to avoid overloading the wings and convergence of fire problems. Obviously that was not possible with single-engine types.

Would you please provide a source for your information, Nifty, as it differs fundamentally from that provided by Christopher Shores' 'Ground Attack Aircraft of WWII'. Shores places the blame for the demise of the Hurricane IID on men in England and not the pilots. I have trusted Shores, and my opinions have been formed on the facts he has supplied. One of you is wrong.

On page 58 Shores stated that "no additional armour protection was fitted to this aircraft (Hurricane IID) to protect the engine, cooling system and pilot from the high volume of ground fire it was likely to counter".
On page 66 of this book, Shores repeated that the Hurricane IIDs lacked any protective armour to the underside of the engine or fuselage, and therefore suffered heavily in the Mareth battle of March 21-25, 1943. They suffered again in April during the Tebaga Gap battle. Then the finger pointing at the Air Ministry; "Efforts were made to provide armour for the Hurricane IID in England, but this was never to reach units in the Mediterranean, and the 'tank-buster' disappeared from Allied service here during May 1943. The British and Americans were unwilling to direct effort to the production of an armoured ground attack aircraft of this nature, as the new rocket projectile was at that time offering promise as a viable anti-tank weapon, while the flexibility of the fighter-bomber appealed more to Allied thinking. However the Hurricane IID was to prove the most accurate aerial anti-tank weapon of the war for the RAF, and the failure of the Anglo-American aviation industry to produce an equivalent of the Il-2 or HS 129B was to be a matter of some regret to a fair proportion of high-ranking Army opinion".

Tony

[Juha]

Hello Tony
the info on the Hurricane IID armour in my message #66 is from the leading Hawker and Hurricane specialist late Francis K. Mason, more specifically from his article on Hurricane Variants in Wings of Fame Volume 2. He also noted that also the GB based 164 and 184 Sqns got the lightly armoured early production version. IMHO when we are talking on Hurricane Mason is better source than Shores.

And as have been told, armoured Hurricane IV was the ultimate CAS Hurricane, it could and did use 40mm Vickers S gun in combat till 1945.

Juha

[glider1]

Tony
You have made a number of claims without support in this thread as well. A number of specific questions were asked in http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showpo...7&postcount=69 If you could support your statements it would be appreciated.

Glider

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Juha

Hello Tony
the info on the Hurricane IID armour in my message #66 is from the leading Hawker and Hurricane specialist late Francis K. Mason, more specifically from his article on Hurricane Variants in Wings of Fame Volume 2. He also noted that also the GB based 164 and 184 Sqns got the lightly armoured early production version. IMHO when we are talking on Hurricane Mason is better source than Shores.

And as have been told, armoured Hurricane IV was the ultimate CAS Hurricane, it could and did use 40mm Vickers S gun in combat till 1945.

Juha

Thank you for that nugget. The order for Wings of Fame Vol 2 has gone in.
This subject is a minefield if you can't trust the experts on the facts - judgment remaining the reader's responsibility.

But correcting that mistake leads straight to the question who decided 2TAF should use the crap Typhoon RP rather than the proven and accurate Hurricane IV, and when did they decide that and why, and was the decision ever re-visited, and if not why not. This opens a whole new can of worms. The work by Shores and Thomas is a prime source for 2TAF equipment, so you can't avoid Shores. I hope Mason deals with this.

Tony

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by glider1

Tony
You have made a number of claims without support in this thread as well. A number of specific questions were asked in http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showpo...7&postcount=69 If you could support your statements it would be appreciated.

Glider

OK, I will treat it seriously - I thought you were ranting.

Tony

[Juha]

Hello Tony
if you are interested in Hurricane, Mason’s Hurricane book might be a good buy, even if rather old and I don’t know how easily one can find a copy. I haven’t seen it.

I have not believed everything what Mason has written on Hawker planes but he had studied extensively the subject. The fact is that best way to find out facts is to consult several good sources and then try to weight evidence on matters on which there are conflicting info or go to primary sources and try to find the truth by oneself.

IMHO Hurricane IV was too slow and underpowered to work with acceptable loss rate in ETO. But I haven’t studied the matter so its only a hunch. But for ex 184 Sqn ORBs are available online, so if you are interested in the question, read through the ORBs from late 43 to March 44 and make your mind on it. I can only say that the two Mk IV losses I know, one crashed during exercise in GB and one was shot down in NW France, both were powered by Merlin XX even if Hurri IV should have had more powerful Merlin 24, at least according to many reference books. The early production Hurri IV lost in the accident doesn’t prove much but the probably later production (according to serial number) lost in operation is a odd case. The flight leader of the pilot during the accident thought that the reason to the accident was that the pilot, while not inexperience Hurri pilot was new on Mk IV and so was surprised by its slugginess. The plane hit ground during low level mock attack on a vehicle convoy.

Usually Shores is a good source, no doubt on that. But if there is a conflict between a reliable writer who has written on wide variety of subjects and a reliable writer who is specialized on the subject in hand as a rule of thumb I tended to believe the specialist. But it is only a rule of thumb and one must weigh the matter case by case and the best way is to try to find a third opinion, in Hurri IID case that might be a sqn history of the 6 Sqn, if there is a good one around.

Juha

[Six Nifty .50s]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

Would you please provide a source for your information, Nifty, as it differs fundamentally from that provided by Christopher Shores' 'Ground Attack Aircraft of WWII'.

I went with Francis K. Mason. The Hawker Hurricane (Aston Publications, 1987). This is what he writes, word for word, on page 160:

" … Meanwhile in Libya No. 6 Squadron, which had suffered the loss of 14 Hurricane IIDs and seven pilots in the course of more than 300 sorties in October and November, was temporarily withdrawn to fly defensive patrols over Cairo and the Suez Canal in Mark IICs while stocks of the anti-tank aircraft were replenished and modifications made to the aircraft; these included re-rating their Merlin XXs to give more power at sea level (increasing their low-altitude speed by about 40 mph) and providing some armour for the engine and radiator. In February the squadron received these modified Mark IIDs and was back in Libya on 2 March, 1943, now commanded by Sqn Ldr Donald Weston-Burt, DSO …"

Thence on page 162:

" … Nevertheless Hurricanes did operate from Italy, beginning in February 1944, when No. 6 Squadron, now fully rested from its hard work at Alamein and afterwards, and now fully trained and equipped with Hurricane IVs, flew to Grottaglie. Stocks of 3-inch rocket projectiles had built up in the Mediterranean and it was customary to fly with a single 40-mm gun and four rockets; later the gun was discarded altogether owing to the considerable nose-down pitch when firing (with nose armor the Mk IV's cg was very close to the forward limit in any case) …"

I'm sorry if you are disappointed with his findings that RAF pilots wanted the 40mm S-gun removed from the aircraft. This weapon was killed by battlefield reality, not evil Trenchard-mongers.

Originally Posted by tcolvin

Christopher Shores places the blame for the demise of the Hurricane IID on men in England and not the pilots. I have trusted Shores, and my opinions have been formed on the facts he has supplied. One of you is wrong.

Did Shores also supply the names of these alleged guilty parties who were nowhere near Italy at the time? Better yet, you could write to his publisher asking him to supply us with some photographs of knocked out Panzer IVs, Panthers, or Tiger tanks that have visible holes which were clearly made by 40mm aircraft guns.