How can I reduce operational a/c losses?

[tiger111]

I`m Axis in 43-45 grand campaign.(Med difficulty)

I`m suffering 10% operational losses among my FB interceptors,

what steps can I take to reduce these losses. I hav`ent been relocating them much and morale and experience seem generally >65.

Any ideas. Thanks

[Speedysteve]

What's their fatigue like and are they flying reliable planes?

[Smirfy]

Check your fatigue, put your fighters into two wings. One wing flies day 2,4,6 other wing flies day 1,3,5,7. Exp below 70 aint great I find

[Great_Ajax]

Heh. Considering 40-50% of all historical air losses were operational and not combat, 10% is stellar!

Trey

[Smirfy]

Not sure about that figure Lancaster had a .16% operational loss rate the Halifax .24% Wellington .72% Mosquito .13%. So in the Lancs case it works out at of the 3431 lost, 246 were operational which is nowhere near 50%.

[HMSWarspite]

Are we sure that Operational losses in game are the same thing as Operational losses in RL? In RL, I suspect that training flights etc count as operational in RL, but in game anything that isn't actually shot down by a combat evaluation I think is 'operational'. If I am correct the game will have more operational losses. Does a Dev know if (for example), a combat 'damaged' result that later crashes is a combat loss or operational? Is a random or weather loss on a combat mission a combat loss or an op loss?

I am sure there are other examples.

[carlkay58]

I understand that Operational Losses are all losses that do not occur during combat. So a plane badly damaged by flak or air to air combat that does not make it bake is operational loss if they survive the initial combat.

[HMSWarspite]

That was my thought. If this is true, Op losses in game will be far higher than the Op losses in RL. A lot of the time no one could tell whether flak (for example) got a plane straight away or 30 mins later

[Joel Billings]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

I understand that Operational Losses are all losses that do not occur during combat. So a plane badly damaged by flak or air to air combat that does not make it bake is operational loss if they survive the initial combat.

I don't think this is true, but Pavel or Gary would have to answer this to be sure. My understanding is that a plane that takes damage in combat might be counted as a flak or A2A loss if it crashes on the return.

[Joel Billings]

As for the original question, you may be taking high training losses. Check your air doctrine to see how many pilots are below your training threshold and consider lowering them (to reduce amount of training and number of losses).

[Smirfy]

The way I see it (though I could be wrong) in game is the pilots reach the units from flight school. Whatever losses happen in flight school arnt considered in game. Operational losses in game are planes that crash on operations whether thats training a rookie pilot in unit who crashes or a planes landing gear fails returning from a raid, or a plane getting lost and running out of fuel or whatever other accident. As the war progressed Allied operational losses got lower and lower Axis losses got higher and higher. The simple reason was expediency became less critical for the Allies as the war progressed instructors got better, training got longer and build quality dramatically improved, mechanics were better and off course navigation aids became nearly universal. The opposite was true of the Axis

[Speedysteve]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

I understand that Operational Losses are all losses that do not occur during combat. So a plane badly damaged by flak or air to air combat that does not make it bake is operational loss if they survive the initial combat.

I don't think this is true, but Pavel or Gary would have to answer this to be sure. My understanding is that a plane that takes damage in combat might be counted as a flak or A2A loss if it crashes on the return.

Certainly works that way in WITP and AE in that a plane hit by AA or A2A would be counted as lost that way (whatever last hit it IIRC)

[Great_Ajax]

German Fighter Losses

January - June 1943: 1,046 Combat Related losses, 1,046 Non-Combat related losses (50% Combat Related)
July - December 1943: 1,850 Combat Related losses, 1,236 Non-Combat related losses (59% Combat Related)
January - June 1944: 2,855 Combat Related losses, 1,345 Non-Combat relates losses (68% Combat Related)

Table LXIV
Strategy for Defeat, The Luftwaffe, 1933-1945

[Smirfy]

For the Germans you have to remember a few factors. The Luftwaffe from 43 was operating was operating from the extremedies of Europe from rough strips, spares were a big problem, you did not get spares in Russia, Tunisia and Sicily you became a non combat loss. I seen a couple of cool pictures lately One was of a badly crash damaged Lancaster getting repaired and being returned to service in a couple of weeks, the other was a few JU88's in the same condition on flat cars getting returned to Germany. Those JU88s would be the lucky ones the Lancaster would be the norm.

[MechFO]

ORIGINAL: Smirfy


For the Germans you have to remember a few factors. The Luftwaffe from 43 was operating was operating from the extremedies of Europe from rough strips, spares were a big problem, you did not get spares in Russia, Tunisia and Sicily you became a non combat loss. I seen a couple of cool pictures lately One was of a badly crash damaged Lancaster getting repaired and being returned to service in a couple of weeks, the other was a few JU88's in the same condition on flat cars getting returned to Germany. Those JU88s would be the lucky ones the Lancaster would be the norm.

A lot has to do with different loss definitions. German operational losses seems to be arrived at by aggregating the numbers from readiness reports like http://www.ww2.dk/oob/bestand/jagd/bjagd.htm, "verluste ohne feindeinwirkung", however this included anything which made the aircraft not combat ready, i.e. couldn't be fixed by the squadron in x days. This means that even fairly minor damage would lead to a reported loss.

Comparing these numbers to Allied ones which seem to only include total write offs like in http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a542518.pdf p.255 will give a skewed picture.

The better comparison would probably be accident rates per 1000 flying hours, which was apparently still double for the Luftwaffe compared to the USAAF, where the factors like field conditions, weather and very importantly, training come into play.