Lw-losses without enemy actions!

[ju55dk]

Originally Posted by ju55dk

According to a document in BA/MA Freiburg, Luftwaffe lost the following number of flight crew+passengers:

24577 killed
5244 badly wounded
14095 lightly wounded.

Timeframe: 01.09.39-30.06.44.

Junker

Just to come back to the first post! These losses are all in connection with flights, that had nothing to do with enemy actions!!!!! It has nothing to do with Flak or other ground units exept if they went along for a flight!!! And these figure ar from Luftwaffes own papers in BA/MA Freiburg, not from a book.

Junker

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi.

I also use the original documents from the archives, no authors as go-betweens.

I just wanted to relay these numbers as they are what the Luftwaffe statistical department themselves used. And before anyone suggests these are doctored numbers.. these were not numbers that were supposed to be exposed to the public, but the Luftwaffe's own book-keeping...

As one of the posters mentioned the Gefechtsverbände, and Felddivisionen. In the grand total number which is mentioned by me, these are included.

I relay these also here for those interested:

Feldtruppen:
KIA: 12296 (373)
WIA: 38246 (836)
MIA: 7805 (172)
POW: 420 (not readable, but under 10, single digit only)


Fallschirmtruppen:
KIA: 20718 (706)
WIA: 54911 (1175)
MIA: 42928 (886)
POW: 2121 (66)



Before we start analyzing the numbers too much, remember that the numbers reported by authors, usually rounded to even thousand also must be analyzed. If You look at casualties, where do you stop? I know that some authors would combine all above numbers and say that the Luftwaffe in grand total lost:

KIA: 112493 (of these 8996 are officers)
WIA: 212701 (of these 9??? are officers document damaged)
MIA: 152934 (of these 7643 are officers)
POW: 8995 (of these 904 are officers)

= 487123 (some 20000 of those would hold officer rank)

In a book this would then be published as such: The Luftwaffe lost 487000 people in combat from 1.9.1939 until 10.01.1945.

This would in fact be a number much larger than the actual headcount.

Why?

Well, the number of people counted as wounded is not a per person count, but a per incident count. So.. a person wearing some of the higher valor Verwundetenabzeichen (Silver is for 3 or 4 times wounded, Gold for 5 or over), would count 3 - 5 or even more in the WIA count above.

The bookkeeping was quite tedious as an excerpts from the Ergänzungen and Berichtigungen for a report date would show. As soon as a person was reported as killed in action rather than missing, this was corrected, as soon as a person reported wounded was reported as unhurt this count was also updated. Corrections to the totals in this headcount was posted the 2nd of every month. For example, on October 2nd 1943, a correction to the number of personnel listed for as far back as July 1940 was entered (2(1) added to the total of KIA's for this month, 2(1) deducted from the total of MIA's for this month, for those interested, this was an Oblt from KG 3 and an Uffz from LG 1 declared dead by the Luftwaffe Personalamt). The count for several months in '41, '42 and '43 were also of course updated.

So - in my opinion and until further documentation appear, we will have to rely on the above mentioned 'grand totals'. BTW - this count also includes Hiwi's, Luftwaffe helferinnen and Blitzmädel, some of the personnel categories that one probably would not count as a battle casualty in it's strictest form.

In my opinion, the real number of casualties in the Luftwaffe flying units should be counted as the number of KIA's + the number of MIA's (well, those still listed as MIA today not in the scrolls of the Legion Etrangere that is.....)

Regards,
Andreas

[ju55dk]

I was'nt after your numbers Andreas, but others qouted books! Anyway try to figure monthly losses, in flying accidents, that had nothing to do with enemy actions, meaning training and transport and so on! It is a high figure.

Junker

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, Jörn

I understood that, and tried mostly to explain what kind of figures we both are quoting, and tried to make some of the others aware that this kind of information must at least be treated with caution coming from a published source.

Also, I totally agree, the numbers are very high. I have as You know been working with the summary losses of the Luftwaffe for a while, the DVD will be sent you saturday btw, and done a bit of analysis on these.

JG 5 is of course what I analyzed first for some peculiar reason, and the numbers are striking!

Of the 1278 aircraft losses recorded by the JG 5 from January 1942 through January 1945, only 38.1% was recorded as being due to any kind of enemy action (this includes ground attacks (3.6%), aircraft missing to unknown reasons on operative flights (10.4%) etc), while the rest, 61.9% were damaged and destroyed due to non-enemy action (mostly take-off and landing accidents).

I would be very surprised if this is not the case in the other fighter units also (the data I have already gathered points in that direction... will come back on this). So, a 40/60 split is realistic, thus a fair bit more than half the aircraft that were destroyed or damaged in the Luftwaffe fighter arm were in fact destroyed by the Luftwaffe themselves.....

Regards,
Andreas

[Ruy Horta]

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

I would be very surprised if this is not the case in the other fighter units also (the data I have already gathered points in that direction... will come back on this). So, a 40/60 split is realistic, thus a fair bit more than half the aircraft that were destroyed or damaged in the Luftwaffe fighter arm were in fact destroyed by the Luftwaffe themselves.....

It would be interesting to compare these numbers with other combatants, that would enable us to judge the results more effectively.

Also you mention take off and landing, but that doesn't differentiate between mechanical, weather or pilot error. In general take off and landing are still the most dangerous moment.

Now this isn't critique, it is great to see figures.

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, Ruy.

This is exactly one of the reasons I have established my database system.

All loss reasons in the database has several 'indexes' connected to it. In that way, as soon as a loss is entered, it will update the loss information.

For example:

The loss reasons listed below all are attributed on a second level to 'pilot error category', thus, when I want to I can take the grand total for the given unit and sort out the ones attributed to pilot error. Cool right??

Bedienungsfehler
Absturz inf.Bedienungsfehler
Bedienungsfehler b.Start
Bruchlandung inf.Bedienungsfehler
Bedienungsfehler b.Landung
Bruchldg.inf.Bedienungsfehler
Bedienungsfehler b.Rollen
Überschlag b.Landung inf.Bedienungsfehler
Bauchldg.inf.Bedienungsfehler
Notlandung inf.Bedienungsfehler
Bedienungsfehler b.Landung, abgestellter Bf 109 gerammt
Notldg.inf.Bedienungsfehler
Bauchlandung infolge Bedienungsfehler
Bauchlandung inf.Bedienungsfehler
Absturz inf.Bedienungsfehler (F.unverl.)
Bedienungsfehler bei Landung
beim Start ausgebrochen inf.Bedienungsfehler
Bedienungsfehler beim Start (F.unverl.)
Kopfstand inf.Bedienungsfehler
Bedienungsfehler b.Landg.
Bedienungsfehler beim Start
Bedienungsfehler bei Landung (F.unverl.)
Kopfstand b.Start inf.Bedienungsfehler
Baumberührung infolge Bedienungsfehler
Absturz infolge Bedienungsfehler
Bruchlandung infolge Bedienungsfehler
Bedienungsfehler bei Landung, Aufschlagbrand
Überschlag bei Landung infolge Bedienungsfehler
Explosion in der Luft infolge Bedienungsfehler
Absturz infolge Bedienungsfehler, Aufschlagbrand
Absturz in See infolge Bedienungsfehler
Bedienungsfehler (Besatzung unverletzt)
Absturz, vermutl.Bedienungsfehler
Absturz infolge Bedienungsfehler (F.unverletzt)
Fahrwerkschaden infolge Bedienungsfehler
Absturz, Aufschlagbrand, vermutl. Bedienungsfehler (Nicht feindbeobachtet)
Bei Landung infolge Bedienungsfehler ausgebrochen
Hindernisberührung bei Landung infolge Bedienungsfehler
Absturz infolge Bedienungsfehler (Besatzung unverletzt)
Unfreiwillige Bodenberührung infolge Bedienungsfehler
Bedienungsfehler (Nicht feindbeobachtet)
Bruchlandung infolge Bedienungsfehler (Nicht feindbeob.)
Bei Landung ausgebrochen infolge Bedienungsfehler
Beim Start ausgebrochen infolge Bedienungsfehler
Bedienungsfehler (F.unverletzt)
Notlandung infolge Bedienungsfehler
Bedienungsfehler bei Landung, Überschlag (Nicht feindbeobachtet)

this being a wholly relational system also gives us the possibility to do amongst other the following: Want to read the loss reason, location name, aircraft designation, personnel ranks etc etc in your native language? No problem.... I have included support for normalized german (you will see that some of the loss reasons above are the same, but just written in a different form, words in shorthand etc, this is corrected to normalized german for those that want a 'unified' look to the loss reasons), french, english, russian, norwegian, danish, swedish, finnish and spanish until now, and you can if you want to expand this into eternity... as long as someone care to do the translations.


Regards,
Andreas

[Ruy Horta]

Very impressive indeed!

[RT]

Concerning the figures given by Andreas for the aircrafts "casualties", we arrive to a gross figure of 115.000, I hv in my own base, 90.000 entries, but is missing part of 1940 for the schools + polen is uncomplete +the whole 1944/at least 35.000-40.000, so for end of 1944, man could expect around 135.000 craft-casualties....

rt

[Boandlgramer]

Originally Posted by RT

Concerning the figures given by Andreas for the aircrafts "casualties", we arrive to a gross figure of 115.000, I hv in my own base, 90.000 entries, but is missing part of 1940 for the schools + polen is uncomplete +the whole 1944/at least 35.000-40.000, so for end of 1944, man could expect around 135.000 craft-casualties....

rt

according to the book i quoted above :
The germans have built planes total : (including school) 113 515 AC between 1939 - 45


so its not possible according that book to lost "around" 135 000 .


Also according the book
aircraft losses from september 39 till end of December 44. 71 965 AC (total and damaged more than 10 % ).

the year 1945 is missing.

[Boandlgramer]

AC production :

1939 = 2518
1940 = 10247
1941 = 12401
1942 = 15409
1943 = 24807
1944 = 40593
1945 = 7540

= total 113515 AC.
=
Bomber = 18 235
Jäger = 53729
Schlacht = 12359
Aufklärer = 6299
Seeflugzeuge = 1190
Transport = 3079
Kampf /Transportsegler = 3145
Verbindungsflugzeuge = 2549
Schulflugzeuge = 10942
Strahlflugzeuge = 1988