Need help for LW-losses Normandy

[Jens]

At this site: http://feldgrau.slacker.se/wwiilexic...-m-fbottom.htm
there are some interesting tables.

My question is table III, are these losses for all causes or losses by enemy?

Personella förluster, döda
Personella förluster, sårade
Personella förluster, saknade

I think first one means KIA, but the rest? may be WIA and MIA, which means what.

Does Stridsuppdrag means Sorties?

[Christer Bergström]

Hm, if my Swedish doesn't fail me. . .

Personella förluster, döda = personnel losses, dead
Personella förluster, sårade = personnel losses, injured
Personella förluster, saknade = personnel losses, missing

Does Stridsuppdrag means Sorties?

Yes. Either sortie or sorties.

Hey - your Swedish is excellent! Four out of four right!

Anyway, lucky you chosen few who understand the language of (trumpets here!) the people of glory and honour - Swedish. The article on Normandy 1944 which is referrred to in the post above is just excellent.

[Jens]

thank you,
i never learned swedish, but is a little bit similar to my own language german.

indeed, although i can't read swedish, i think this article is very useful.

i need it to compare kursk 7/43 with normandy 6/44:
kursk (whole july) / normandy
personel losses (kia + mia): 238 / 77 (only pilots for 8 fightergroups jg-3 not complete at least 5 additionaly rk-pilots)
airplane losses total: 551 / 390-400
airplane damaged: 290 / 270-280
sorties: 13315 / 45999

[Christer Bergström]

Please tell me how you arrived at the "Kursk figures"? Due to your source, how many of Luftflotte 6's and Fliegerkorps VIII's aircraft were destroyed due to hostile action on 5 July 1943?

[Ruy Horta]

Wouldn't the correct translation be combat mission instead of the more generic sortie?

In this case most germanic languages can translate.

Swedish - Strid & Upptrag

Dutch - Strijd & Opdracht
German - Streit & Auftrag

Danish?

English might still hold the root in the word strive, but mission and sortie are unfortunately signs of Latin (or more exact FRENCH) contamination, Anglo-French relations are strong

Yves, aka Hawk-Eye our resident language wonder, may have some further thoughts on the subject?

[Christer Bergström]

Danish?

Carlsberg

[Jens]

Personal losses counted by different jg-books and loss lists (jg-3 only II). Due extensive use of Bombers and so on, flying personal losses must be higher than in normandy.
Sorties by german Korpsmeldungen.
Airplane losses by russian book from 2004, need to search the title.

First day losses of Luftwaffe i can't split sorry. IIRC the LW Korpmeldungen claimed only 26 Airplanes lost at 5th July. Indeed, if you compare whole July Korpmeldungen with Flugzeugbestand und Bewegungsmeldungen, losses gets twice (whole July). Break this down at 5th July, roundly 50 german planes were lost.

[Christer Bergström]

IIRC the LW Korpmeldungen claimed only 26 Airplanes lost at 5th July.

That was what I suspected. The daily returns to the Generalquartiermeister shows that actual combat losses were several times higher.

Break this down at 5th July, roundly 50 german planes were lost.

Even that figure is too low. I'm sorry if I can't give the actual figures here and now, since those will be the subject for the forthcoming volume of "Black Cross/Red Star".

Yes Ruy, you're right : the Swedish word "stridsuppdrag" corresponds more "COMBAT sorties"; as we know many sorties can be non-combat. On the other hand often the context is perfectly clear and the author(s) can only mean COMBAT sorties. In such (frequent) cases it is legitimate to write "sorties" only. Swedisch stridsvagnar = (battle) tanks, main battle tanks. Strid means combat. Eldstrider = gun battles = Feuergefechte.

Nevertheless we ALWAYS must be very careful when translating "obvious" things. Remember that the German wen is not when in English but whom, the German wer is not where but who, the German wo ist not who but where... I guess those old Englishmen had two bad ears each when the Saxon invaders came. And the English "eventually" is virtually never to be translated with "eventuell" in German (but with "schliesslich", "am Ende") and correspondingly in other languages like French. This is one of the main pitfalls for language students during their examination.

Yes, the French language proved its vast superiority over Anglo-Saxon in England after Guillaume le Conquérant took over following the Hastings victory! No... in fact in most cases everybody will adopt the words in the language in which they appeared first and conquered the world : this is true of many French words in aviation (fuselage, aileron...) and, for ex., of many US words in electronics and computer technology : transistor, microprocessor, PC, laser etc. Even a few German words made it : Panzer, Stuka, Blitzkrieg (a word invented in Britain it seems), but also Bauhaus. Too bad X-rays were discovered by a German, Röntgen, and in Germany they say Röntgenstrahlen for X-rays, but no foreigner is able to pronounce this name correctly so they cowardly chose les rayons X instead. The French invention "manche à balai" (broomstick) was too difficult for foreigners so it became a joystick (!) etc.

[Christer Bergström]

This is one of the main pitfalls for language students during their examination.

Main pitfalls? Hm - not to mention the Swedish word "pittfall" which is something terrible for both sexes.