Hooton's Luftwaffe Loss Totals - request for clarification

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Andrew Arthy

Hi Paul,

These AHB translations are also available at the Australian War Memorial, and at NARA in the United States (Record Group 549). The AWM has the following: ...
I've got a couple of them. These tables provide exactly the same information as the Summarische Verluste documents that Andreas Brekken has kindly made available on his website. However, the AHB translations summarise losses at a higher level than the Summarische Verluste documents, the latter being at a Staffel/Gruppe level, and the AHB translations at Luftflotte/theatre level.

Cheers,
Andrew A.

Air War Publications - www.airwarpublications.com

Hello Andrew,

Thank you for the excellent listing and explanation! The 1939 through 1941 figures are also available at Kew, I haven't mentioned them since they don't list individual aircraft types. The relevant references are translation 83 in Air 20/7703 and translation 92 in Air 20/7704.

I suspected that the Summarische Verluste were the original source, so it's good to see a confirmation of that. Do you know what led the AHB to produce the tables for these specific periods and theatres instead of any others? I assume from what you wrote that there are no other tables of this nature, or at least they aren't widely known to exist.

Regards,

Paul Thompson

[Nick Beale]

Following on from Andrew's post, daily losses for the Mediterranean, 1 July –30 November 1944 are also in AIR20/7710.

These losses aren't attributed to units, just "1 Bf 109 (reconnaissance)" etc., there are no locations given and I had real problems which ones related to Italy (I'm assuming the others were from Greece, the Aegean and Southern France). I can't remember whether overall totals were included (not something I'd have had any use for).

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

Following on from Andrew's post, daily losses for the Mediterranean, 1 July –30 November 1944 are also in AIR20/7710.

These losses aren't attributed to units, just "1 Bf 109 (reconnaissance)" etc., there are no locations given and I had real problems which ones related to Italy (I'm assuming the others were from Greece, the Aegean and Southern France). I can't remember whether overall totals were included (not something I'd have had any use for).

Hello Nick,

Yes, they are. The losses in the Luftwaffen-Kommando Südost area are marked as such, otherwise everything is in the "Mediterranean". There are overall totals at the end of each month. To ask you the same question as I asked Andrew, have you seen such tables for periods not covered in Air 20?

Paul Thompson

[Andrew Arthy]

Hi Paul,

Unfortunately I'm not aware of any other tables aside from those I listed.

Cheers,
Andrew A.

Air War Publications - www.airwarpublications.com

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Andrew Arthy

Hi Paul,

Unfortunately I'm not aware of any other tables aside from those I listed.

Cheers,
Andrew A.

Air War Publications - www.airwarpublications.com

Hello Andrew,

That's what I expected. Since no one else on the forum seems to have seen any either, the probably don't exist. That's a pity, since the existing tables reveal a lot of unexpected information. For example, I was surprised that the Luftwaffe suffered its heaviest losses on the Eastern front in July 1941, while losing few aircraft in November and December. The overall loss figures were more in line with my previous estimates, but interesting nonetheless:

Theatre br Combat and Ops losses br Non-op losses
Easter Front br 2198 br 274
West and South br 2033 br 863


Regards,

Paul Thompson

[Dmitry Volodin]

Hello Paul,

Could you show 1941 ostfront losses by month?

BR
Dmitry

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Paul Thompson

To ask you the same question as I asked Andrew, have you seen such tables for periods not covered in Air 20?

Paul Thompson

Not that I can remember but then again it isn't something I'd have much interest in. Since I work essentially at the tactical level, I would really only be concerned with totals that I could assemble from identifiable individual losses.

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Dmitry Volodin

Hello Paul,

Could you show 1941 ostfront losses by month?

BR
Dmitry

Hello Dmitry,

Yes, see below. Could you share any equivalent data you have from the VVS side?

Month br Combat br Operational br Non-Operational br Total
June br 264 br 110 br 8 br 382
July br 449 br 182 br 61 br 692
August br 254 br 93 br 36 br 383
September br 226 br 69 br 49 br 344
October br 218 br 56 br 62 br 336
November br 132 br 32 br 29 br 193
December br 84 br 29 br 29 br 142
All 1941 br 1627 br 571 br 274 br 2472

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

Not that I can remember but then again it isn't something I'd have much interest in. Since I work essentially at the tactical level, I would really only be concerned with totals that I could assemble from identifiable individual losses.

Hello Nick,

I understand that. The tactical information is usually more difficult to collate, so it's great that people like you do it! For my part, if I get hold more loss tables, I'll post the information here.

Paul Thompson

[Paul Thompson]

With the help of forum member Nokose, who kindly provided the Eastern front data from Mr. Prien's JFV 12/I, I've compiled a set of numbers which compares the losses in the Mediterranean and the East in 1943. The comparison is imperfect, since only losses after the 4th of February are listed in the relevant volume, but two facts are striking. First of all, the chances of a German pilot surviving the loss of an aircraft were much worse in the East. What could have been the reasons for this?
Second, the Luftwaffe suffered far heavier losses in fighting against the Western allies than the Soviets in 1943. This is a strong indicator that the Soviet air force was still in the process of recovering its qualitative, if not quantitative, strength.

Mediterranean all 1943, East from 4 February 1943 onwards
KIA/MIA
Med 356, East 393
POW
Med 28, East 41
WIA/INJ
Med 236, East 221
Written Off (60-100%)
Med 1092, East 801
Med - additional to the above approximately 40 (42?) of IV/JG 3 on 23rd July on the ground at Leverano airfield
Damaged (10-60%)
Med 826, East 853

[Andreas Brekken]

Dear all!

I thought I should add a little post here. As I have told some of you in pm's, my work schedule does not really allow me to do anything related to Luftwaffe research until end of June.
However, as I see that there is some confusion with regards to sources and what they contain, I will try to give a short overview here today to try to demystify some of them. To limit myself I will only cover frontline units now.
As we all know, the most detailed day-by-day loss listings for the Luftwaffe are contained in the RL2-III records spanning parts of the RL2-III-7xx and RL2-III-11xx series. A major note that especially a lot of English speaking researcher seem to have a problem understanding is that the losses considered by the technical staff of the unit assessing the loss to be below 10% WILL NOT be found in these listings! Even if the damage was due to combat with the enemy. The regulations stated that these should be submitted from the unit no later than 48 hours after the incident in case of bodily harm to crew members or other personnel - I have seen that in some cases the loss has been reported over a year after the incident. For the conspiracy theoretics out there it is of importance to note that these reports and the subsequent statistical data built on it were the governing data for supplying the units with personnel and aircraft. So thos of you that are constantly wimpering and complaining about missing data - in some cases these can of course be missing because there were no longer a unit to resupply... looking at the Stalingrad data for example entire units simply cease to exist - their entire personnel roster put on the missing in action list - and if they were not able to write up their loss reports from the Gulag there is a probability that we have a few missing losses there - no conspiracy - just the problem of filing the report when you are dead.
These are available as Mikrofiche and microfilm rolls also from several sources - the quality in parts indicating that especially the guys filming the rolls currently at IWM must have been rather intoxicated at times...
Gathering the information from these in a relational database give a great tool to research and build statistics and aggregates on the data submitted on unit level. These reports have the highest granularity with regards to loss reporting, mainly due to the fact that apart from the so called Vordruck II - a slang term for what we tend to call Namentliche Verlustmeldung - currently deposited at the WASt - the other data that were largely transferred via telephone or telegraph type strips from the units have been destroyed.
In addition to these records, there is a vast amount of statistical data built on it, the main ones being the:
Summarische Verlustemeldungen an Flugzeuge und Personal - these records give the summarized losses at unit level, reporting loss date, loss report date, aircraft model, loss category (categorized in 21 categories - 17 for combat losses - 4 for non-combat losses), number of aircraft. The corresponding personnel losses split into officers and non-officers, missing, injured, dead, under the main in combat or non-combat categories.
Also - we have the Monatsmeldungen for Gesamt-Flugzeugverluste der Front- und Ergänzungseinheiten - containing the monthly losses of all front and operational training units split in the same categories as the Summarische Verlustmeldungen. These have to additional 'reporting dimensions' and I will describe them here:
Main sheet contain the number of aircraft losses in the 21 (17 + 4) categories, split on unit category (for example Jagd, Nachtjagd, Fliegende Verbände See, Schlacht, Kampf etc etc etc)
For each unit category (for example Fernaufklärer to use this as example here) one then have
One sheet broken down by aircraft type in the same 21 categories (in case of Fernaufklärer you have Bf 109, Do 217, FW 190, He 111, Ju 88, Ju 188 and Me 410 for January 1944)
One sheet broken down by Kriegsschauplatz und Luftflotte in the same 21 categories (in the example here we have the following for January 1944 - West (Lfl. 3 and Lfl.5), Süd (Lfl.2 and Lw.Kdo.Südost), Ost (Lfl.1, Lfl.4,Lfl.5 and Lfl.6) and Erweitertes Reichsgebiet (Lfl. Reich only)
These sheets and a lot of other statistcs are based on the so-called 'Strichlisten' - also in German called the Aufschlüsselung der Verlustmeldung vom ...., handwritten information in preprinted sheets were the individual loss-records as typed up by the GenQu6 Abt are split into the categories necessary to create the reporting dimensions used.
I am sure (and have seen a few examples of this in letters and reports to the top brass in the RLM) that these were then submitted in multiple channels to act as 'business intelligence' data for the RLM.
I have plans to write up a larger article covering the orders, regulations and different resulting documents over the summer, with examples.
Most of the documents not destroyed by the allies should have been delivered back to Germany and the Bundesarchiv - Militärarchiv. Sadly for a vast amount we have rather crude translations only in fir example the National Archives in London, often these translations loose a great deal in just the ... translation.
Using these sources on will be able to cover the losses reported to the Generalquartiermeister from September 1st 1939 and up to the losses filed and recorded by April 1st 1945. Losses sustained but not reported by the report date April 1st 1945 must be pieced together from other sources.

Regards,
Andreas B