Luftwaffe fighter losses in Tunisia

[Juha]

Hello Christer
good point that of what Murray means on losses, checked a little bit from his book, in some earlier tables he gives Destroyed and Damaged but on these 1942 and 43 tables Losses. So his Losses seems to meant all those damaged over 10%. I should check more carefully, but nix time. Source for those 43 tables is given as BA/MA, RL 2 III/1185-1195, Genst. Gen. Qu. (6.Abt), "Flugzeugunfälle und Verluste bei den Fliegenden Verbänden." so it was that standard source.

If Murrey had used different criteria for different fronts that VERY bad. But Christer, You have been a little sloppy on this Murray gives in his Tables Eastern Front losses in Jan. 43 85 FIGHTERS but 482 a/c in TOTAL. Transport a/c and SchG 1 losses sure belonged under the TOTAL not under FIGHTERS. I'm afraid that You have mixed the tables.

But a) you cannot use only those lost in air combat, also those lost on the ground are lost to hostile action plus those lost in transit by enemy action. I think that is the classic way to count war losses and also those lost for operational reasons were also lost but those are usually given separately.

b) You way to estimate the relation between Allied aircraft shot down & destroyed and all aircraft destroyed or damaged to all causes is purely speculation, nothing scientific in it, I'm afraid. You need at least some randomly (statistically speaking) collected sample of real figures on that relation on Allied side to be able to approximate some sort of range inside which the real figure would be on certain probability.

Juha