Break down of Lw losses during BoB

[Chris Goss]

Latest from Geoffrey who is unsure how else to help with this:


For Battle of Britain trends there were two main ones, the closing of the average gap between RAF and Luftwaffe fighter pilot effectiveness and the closing of the average gap between Luftwaffe bomb damage assessments and reality. There were many changes of tactics, for example the well known withdrawal of the Ju87 units, and so many variables that plenty of statisticians would say looking for trends means consulting your Middle Earth dragon maintenance manual, unicorn section.

I do not have a good reference that breaks down aircrew strengths.
Using Wood and Dempster Fighter Command say 1,259 pilots on strength on
6 July and 1,796 on 2 November, while 2,945 aircrew flew operationally
10 July to 31 October of whom 507 were killed and about the same number wounded, if you accept the 510 killed, 710 wounded figure then end + dead + wounded = 3,016 compared with 2,945 names on the list. A difference of 71 well within the bounds of possibility given wounded but returned to unit, joined unit too late to fly operationally, with a non operational squadron, posted elsewhere etc. movement the other way is noting the 2 Defiant squadrons had 2 crew per aircraft, the 6 Blenheim ones 3, and the Beaufighter squadron made operational on 28 October had
2 crew per aircraft. The non empire contributors were 9 Irish, 7 American, 141 Polish, 86 Czech, 29 Belgian, 13 Free French, total 285, how many are counted as RAF pilot graduates is unknown. The post battle surveys of flying hours use an establishment of 23 pilots per squadron.
If that figure is correct then the authorised pilots data in Wood and Dempster includes non operation squadrons and probably flights etc. or are aircrew, not just pilots, of the operational squadrons.

In the period 15 July to 31 October Fighter Command units by day flew
42,917 intercept, 5,695 convoy, 12,691 sector, 283 shipping and 2,376 other sorties, plus 2,071 night sorties. Then comes what the crew lists define as operational sortie.

There were 6 Blenheim, 2 Defiant and 19 Spitfire squadrons operational during the battle, Hurricanes start at 27, drop to 25 for the day on 12 July then back to 27, another day at 25 on 21 July then back to 27, to
28 on 3 and 29 on 4 August, to 28.5 on 5 August, to 29 on 17 August, to
31 on 18 August, to 32 on 22 August, to 33 on 9 September, 33.5 on 8 October, 34 on 20 October, giving 46 Hurricane and Spitfire squadrons at the start and 53 at the end. There was half a Gladiator squadron
(flight) operational for a few days in July then from 9 August. All up Fighter Command had 62.5 operational squadrons on 31 October, out of 72 fighter squadrons in existence, including the 4 Blenheim ones with Coastal Command. When it comes to aircraft on 14 July the authorised strength of 6 Spitfire plus all 27 operational Hurricane squadrons was raised to 22 from 18, another 3 non operational Hurricane squadrons also had their strength raised. They all officially reverted back to authorised strength of 18 aircraft on 6 September.

[VtwinVince]

Here's a dumb question: Are we including combat over the continent, such as RAF Blenheim raids over France post-July 10th, or just events over England?

[NickM]

Originally Posted by Chris Goss

Geoffrey has asked me to post this:


The accounting for missing aircraft, missing or incomplete records, the usual clerical errors, that some aircraft write offs were repaired while some sent for repair were written off all create an inevitable degree of uncertainty. Both sides could and did rotate units in and out of the battle. I am not sure there was a general trend, loss ratios tightened and loosened as tactics changed and in the statistics people would worry about the total number of fighting days, whether they provide a good enough sample given all the variables. Accuracy when describing cause of loss is a big issue.

Shorter periods require more detailed loss lists, probably the best British one is at https://martinaviationpages.com/ Overall the British won the defensive fighting about 2 to 1, when you add Bomber and Coastal Command etc. the losses end up around 1 to 1.

For the time period 1 July to 31 October 1940, results from looking through the various older loss lists, Luftwaffe bombers seem to have shot down a minimum of 97 Spitfires and Hurricanes.

The evolution of the single seat fighter loss ratio, all causes July 108 Spitfires and Hurricanes to 57 Bf109s, 1.9 to 1 August 350 to 232, about 1.5 to 1 September, 343 to 234, about 1.5 to 1 October, 174 to 136 (removing the training unit Bf109s), 1.28 to 1.

Switching to losses on operations that were definitely or possibly due to enemy fighters the results look like

July 73 Spitfires and Hurricanes (Including 19 crashes, many related to night fighter training and 1 unknown), to 43 Bf109 (2 crashes, 2 unknown) August 242 Spitfires and Hurricanes (8 crashes, 7 unknown), to 185
Bf109 (4 crashes, 18 unknown)
September 267 Spitfires and Hurricanes (5 crashes, 18 unknown), to 195
Bf109 (8 crashes, 3 unknown)
October 117 Spitfires and Hurricanes (24 crashes, 3 unknown), to 112
Bf109 (9 crashes, 1 unknown)

The loss ratios, including the crashes are July 1.7 to 1, August 1.3 to 1, September 1.4 to 1, October 1 to 1

The loss ratios, excluding the crashes are July 1.3 to 1, August 1.3 to 1, September 1.4 to 1, October 0.9 to 1.

Hurricane, 181 KIA, 91 MIA, 181 wounded (50 slightly), 1 PoW, from 597 aircraft losses. Dropping the slightly wounded, the results are 45.5% of losses resulted in the death of the pilot, another 22% in the pilot being wounded, so your chances of walking away basically unhurt from a Hurricane loss was around 32.5%.

Spitfire, 135 KIA, 33 MIA, 85 wounded (26 slightly), 7 PoW from 379 aircraft losses, again dropping the slightly wounded, the results are 44.3% of losses resulted in the death of the pilot, another 15.6% in the pilot being wounded, so around 41.1% of Spitfire pilots were basically unhurt when their aircraft was destroyed.

Bf109 173 KIA, 71 MIA, 82 WIA, 188 PoW, (43 of which were wounded) versus 665 Bf109 losses, so around 37% of losses resulted in the death of the pilot, another 19% resulted in the pilot being wounded, so if you were in a Bf109 that was destroyed you had a 44% chance of surviving unhurt. As far as the Luftwaffe was concerned the permanent loss rate (KIA, MIA, PoW) was 66%, plus another 19% some of whom would not recover enough to fly fighters again. So only 15% of pilots were immediately ready to fly again.

Fighter Command for July 14 to 31 had an average of 608 operational fighters with crew, in August 702, in September 687, in October 693 as noted daily figures fluctuate a lot, from a minimum of 599 on July 23 to
740 on 24 August.

Interesting facts: A zillion years ago, when I was first reading the JG26 War Diaries I commented about the high percentage of pilot fatalities from the planes that were shot down and I wondered if it was because the RAF Spitfire units now had cannon armed aircraft or the JG 26 pilots being shot down were inexperienced and 'panicked' when getting shot at, and committing some sort of fatal error. So obviously, being in a little aluminum tube full of gasoline and gunpowder that's getting shot to pieces is....