Wastage and losses

[rammjaeger]

Since some years I am searching for the more detailed structure of the wastage of aeroplanes of the Allieds.

For example the wastage of the Britons is given with 35,973 aeroplanes here but only 5,346 (source: Henshaw) or 14.9 % were lost in combat missions because of ground fire, AAA, engine trouble, navigational error.

Did anybody publish a statistic with numbers referring to the other causes of the wastage (like losses in accidents or removal of obsoleted aeroplanes - possibly exported aeroplanes were counted here too)?

VBR
Rammjaeger

Hannes,

This is for 2 Squadron Australian Flying Corps;


Airco DH5 : 2 Squadron AFC

10 Returned to Aircraft Supply Depot (no reason)

1 Withdrawn from Service

6 Returned to ASD engine failure (non combat reasons)

2 Returned to ASD crash

1 Destroyed in Crash

1 Destroyed in Aerial Combat

8 Damaged by Aerial Combat and returned to ASD

1 Damaged by Aerial Combat, crashed on landing and returned to ASD

7 Destroyed by Ground Fire

1 Damaged by Ground Fire and Returned to ASD

1 Captured behind German Lines due to Aerial Combat

1 Captured behind German Lines due to Ground Fire

1 Destroyed unknown


RAF SE5a : 2 Squadron AFC

18 Returned to Aircraft Supply Depot (no reason or to another squadron)

7 Withdrawn from Service (war weary or defective)

2 Returned to ASD engine failure (non combat reasons)

52 Returned to ASD crash

10 Destroyed in Crash

5 Destroyed in Aerial Combat

1 Damaged by Aerial Combat and returned to ASD

0 Damaged by Aerial Combat, crashed on landing and returned to ASD

1 Destroyed by Ground Fire

1 Damaged by Ground Fire and Returned to ASD

2 Captured behind German Lines due to Aerial Combat

0 Captured behind German Lines due to Ground Fire

1 Captured behind German Lines for unknown reasons

3 Destroyed unknown



The 52 returned to ASD because of crashing is for many reasons, many of the returns were written up in "Highest Traditions" as Forced Landing, or Damaged Landing or Crashed Landing. I think this hides a lot of aircraft that were returned to the ASD because they were damaged from combat. I think they would have had a distribution more like the DH5 distribution. Also they did crash an awful lot of SE5a's when they first got them it appears. Note how few engine problems the SE5a had in comparison to the DH5. 2 Squadron also handed over a lot of aircraft to 32 Squadron RAF in the late part of the war, they sent 9 aircraft to 32 Squadron. I will try to go into more detail about the nature of the SE5a crash category later.

I think the interesting thing to note in these is that damage from combat, either ground fire or aerial combat ended up in the aircraft being sent to the ASD to get fixed, cannibalized or written off.



cam

[rammjaeger]

Cam,

thank your for your numbers for 2 Squadrons of the Australian Flying Corps!

Nevertheless even the summarising of all Australian or British units will not solve the question about the majority of the wastage of aeroplanes in WWI. I am afraid the German records with info about the relation between wastage and combat losses are lost or will not be found before some years. :'(

Therefore I am still hoping the British (or maybe the US?) records could give some hints here.

VBR
Rammjaeger

[Frank_Olynyk]

Rammjaeger,
I would suggest that you get copies of three Air Britain publications by Ray Sturtivant and Gordon Page. They cover the Camel, SE 5/5A, and the DH 4/9. For your purposes they will be ideal, but time consuming. They list each aircraft, and what happened to it. Basically everytime the enters or leaves a squadron, it is noted, and generally when leaving, the reasons. You can find them on the Air Britain web site, which I would assume can be found on the links page here.

Ray was working on others when I saw him last in England.

Frank.

[leo]

I understand that the DH5 was not a popular airplane with the British and Commonwealth nations. After a short air combat career, it was relegated to ground support duties. How was it employed by the 2nd Australian Squadron. Since they went from the DH5 to the SE5, am I correct in assuming they were not a fround support group?

Leo,

>I understand that the DH5 was not a popular
>airplane with the British and Commonwealth
>nations.

The Australians werent impressed with it's performance, once in combat they found it was too slow. German 2 seaters would lope away from the DH5, which isnt exactly a good attribute for a Scout. Before they left to the Western Front they were calling their DH5's 'speedy'. That changed once Rumplers, DFW's, Aviatiks and so on left them in their wake over France.

>After a short air combat career, it was
>relegated to ground support duties. How was
>it employed by the 2nd Australian Squadron.

They started off doing scout patrols, but were quickly employed in ground operations during the Battle of Cambrai. Partly out of need, porbably also partly because of the deficiencies of their DH5 aircraft in the scout role.

Other RFC squadrons including RFC DH5 squadrons were also employed in Cambrai on ground operations. Including Camel squadrons and so forth. I wouldnt be surprised if the DH5's name for ground operations came from 2 Sqn AFC's and 62 Sqn RFC's achievements during Cambrai. 2 Sqn AFC in particular were awarded 7 Military Crosses for the 10 day period. That was also 7 of the 12 MC's recorded in the RFC Communiques for the same period.

>Since they went from the DH5 to the SE5, am
>I correct in assuming they were not a ground
>support group?

They were pressed into ground attack because of the need during the Cambrai offensive. Once changing to the SE5a in early December 1917, they started doing Scout style operations again. There seemed to be a lot of early landing accidents that wrote of SE5a aircraft, it appears that they had trouble translating their landing skills between the DH5 and SE5a.


It really wasnt until later in 1918 that 2 Sqn was involved in ground attack duties again. In early 1918 they were predominantly doing medium to high altitude patrols. They were also involved in a lot of wing formation experiments, but found that unless there was a strong German presence in the local area, the German Jasta's wisely would not fight when out numbered. 2 Squadron actually went back to smaller patrols so the Jasta's would engage them.




cam

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Ranmmjaeger:
Wastage is defined as:
Aircraft delivered, minus aircraft in inventory equals aircraft wastage. Aircraft wastage divided by aircraft delivered= wastage in %. In normal rather quiet operations, wastage amounted to 50 % per month. During defensive/offensive operations wastage would exceed 100 % /month.
The S.E.5a with it's high dihedral made the aircraft difficult to handle on the ground in even a moderate wind, as a consequence there were a lot of S.E.5a that suffered damaged lower wings. The original steel tube landing gear caused crashes on landing with strut failures. This was later remedied when the Royal Aircraft Factory redesigned the landing gear and replaced the streamline steel tubing with wood struts.
While air to air losses were more dramatic, the day to day loss of aircraft to bad takeoffs and landings on poorly prepared airfields and pilotage were the cause of most wastage in aircraft. Another cause and probably second, was most likely worn out engines quiting at the wrong time and resulted in bending the the plane.
Look at an RAF squadron history that gives all the aircraft types, serial number, etc. and the what happened to them, you will find direct losses from combat do not make up the major loss in these aircraft. Cross and Cockade International have several RFC/RAF histories that illustrate this point.
Blue skies,
Dan-San