WW2. Remarkable Statistics.

Discussion in 'General' started by von Poop, Feb 2, 2014.

  1. Wills

    Wills Very Senior Member

  2. -tmm-

    -tmm- Senior Member

    http://www.usaaf.net/digest/index.htm

    This site has a lot of numbers. A lot. A complete digest of the US Army Air Forces during WW2

    Average manufacture costs of aircraft by year.
    Tonnage of materials shipped overseas by month and by theatre
    Man hours in Air Depots in USA by month and by job type
    Number of personnel overseas and at home by month and rank.
    Tonnage of bombs dropped per month by theatre.
    Enemy kills per month by aircraft type and by theatre.
    etc etc etc

    A whole lot of numbers.

    Examples
    In 1945 there were 2,282,259 AAF personnel and it accounted for 27.6% of the Army
    There were 1,268 complete, and 591 partial B-24 crews in training in July 1944
    There were 499,433,000 gallons of gasoline expended by heavy bombers in the ETO in 1944
    There was 3,880,795 square feet of roof damaged or destroyed at the Mitsubishi Aircraft Plant in Nagoya between Nov 44 and Aug 45
    There were 382 training fatalities in B-26 Marauders in 1943
    302 USAAF airfields in Europe in 1944
    The average cost per B-17 dropped from $301,221 in 1941 to $187,742


    If you like numbers, lots of numbers, then you'll like this place.
     
  3. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Estimated Canadian Veteran Population as of March 2013

    Second World War

    91,400; their average age is 89.

    Korean War

    9,900; their average age is 81.

    Veterans (Regular Forces and Primary Reserves)

    594,300; their average age is 56.
     
  4. elser

    elser Member

    Approx 77,000 german citizens were killed for one form or another of resistance to the nazis.
     
  5. tmac

    tmac Senior Member

    Of the 4.5million in the UK who served in the Forces, is there any breakdown as to how many went to each service - Army, Navy, RAF? I'd especially like to know how many infantry battalions were raised.
     
  6. Wills

    Wills Very Senior Member

  7. Wills

    Wills Very Senior Member

  8. Bart150

    Bart150 Member

    Impressive indeed, but, er, is it true?
     
  9. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Anecdotally, my mother in law, born in 1924, reported that 2/3 of the boys in her graduating high school class were killed overseas. Most it seems were in Bomber Command.
     
  10. Sheldrake

    Sheldrake All over the place....

    Two obvious explanations.

    1. The time periods are difference. The RAF figures are for service from Sep 39 -Aug 45. USAAF Bomber force from Dec 41- Aug 45.

    2. The figures are also sensitive to the total number of men in some form of training or included in the totals but involved in lower intensity air operations. E.g. the substantial US Bomber forces employed with the 9 & 12 tactical air forces and in the pacific and CBI.

    Some of the RAF loss rates are truely shocking - No 2 Group figures for early war operations include daylight raids were loss rates might be 25% or higher.
     
  11. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    As regards the statistics of Bomber Command in relation to the loss of aircrew acoss all facets of service,the following data is returned.

    Aircrew killed on ops including those who died as POWs.........47268 and these were of the following air forces.

    RAF...........................................................................................32980

    RAAF ........................................................................................ .3417

    RCAF............................................................................................8240

    RNZAF..........................................................................................1439

    SAAF................................................................................................20

    Other Dominions/Colonials............................................................. 29

    PAF.................................................................................................753

    Other Allies.....................................................................................390

    Aircrew killed on non ops duties....................................................8090

    Aircrew wounded on ops................................................................4200

    Aircrew wounded on non ops.........................................................4203

    For the reasons of the loss of Bomber Command aircraft from 3 September 1939,the inventory type of aircraft and the roles undertaken by the aircraft have to be studied.

    As to the losses suffered by Bomber Command in the early days of the war.First the background to the obsolete aircraft held on charge as front line bombers is revealed by the fact that there were a number of squadrons who were equipped with the open turret Heyford until January 1939 when these squadrons converted to the Wellington.Even so when Bomber Command went to war in September 1939,it was equipped a number all twin engined bombers which were to prove to be inadequate against the Lufwaffe on daylight operations.

    So the Bomber Command battle order in September 1939 was as follows.

    Advanced Striking Force.France...Battle equipped

    Air Component. France.................Blenheim equipped

    (Both these groups returned from France with bloody noses after a severe mauling in France when engaged in daylight support of the BEF)

    No 1 Group reforming....no squadrons or aircraft

    No 2 Group....................Blenheim equpped.

    No 3 Group .................. Wellington equipped

    No 4 Group....................Whitley equipped

    No5 Group.....................Hampden equpped

    Daylight operations using these aircraft.unescorted, led to untolerable losses and to stem the losses,the policy of night bombing was adopted.Bad weather and poor navigational aids took their toll of casualties in these early days of night operastions and it was not until the introduction of better navigational equipment that losses were arrested.

    These aircraft were to be the only contribution of bombing by night that the RAF could muster and the force was left like this until the four engined heavies came into service,first with the Stirling in February 1941,the Halifax in March 1941,then the Lancaster in March 1942 and then in sufficient quanties in the new year of 1943.A start could then be made of withdrawing the obsolescent Hampdens,Whitleys and Wellingons from front line service.Meanwhile, No 2 Group as a medium bomber group,equipped with Blenheims and later, an assortment of other twin engined types,suffered heavy losses in discharging the role of attacking daylight target role in occupied Europe and Germany itself....some from low level....experience that was to prove beneficial when the Group was transferred to the No 2 Tactical Air Force in readiness for the invasion of Europe in May 1943.

    I would think as regards mass raids,the loss rate on the Nuremberg raid of March 30 1944 must be the maximum suffered by the RAF at 11.7% (95 aircraft) of the 795 aircraft dispatched...a real tale of woe .

    Further losses endured by Bomber Command at the start of the conflict.A comparision.....while the Battle of Britain cost Fighter Command 500 pilots,Bomber Command,during the Battle of the Barges during the same period,cost the service, the loss of 800 aircrew.

    Per Ardua Ad Astra.
     
  12. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    This is how the German Kriegsgraberfursorge interpretated the losses of two world wars in 1993 when they set out to recover their Eastern Front dead "arbeit im Osten", following the agreement with the Russian Federation in the early1990s.

    They put the total dead at 65 million.The main project appeared to be the creation of three cemeteries in the Wolgograd (Stalingrad) area,namely Gorodice,Rossoshka and Krasnoarmejsk.They record that German dead are located in 118000 sites in Russia. IMG_0001 Dead of two World Wars.jpg
     
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  13. Rob King

    Rob King New Member

    • Two days before D-Day all participating aircraft, over 11,000 in total, had to be painted with white stripes to avoid confusion. By the time they were done painting the stripes, there was no white paint left in Britain.
    Theres loads more at ww2info.co.uk
     
  14. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

  15. Fred Wilson

    Fred Wilson Member

    I enjoyed an outstanding lecture on Kurst yesterday.

    Start at the 26 minute - 50 mark, for the second speaker: Jonathan Parshall
    Tank Production: A Comparative Study of output in Germany, the US and the USSR

    - First class presentation.

    What grabbed me was that (statistically) every 6th (Tiger) Tank off the production line had a modification.

    See his presentation notes at: http://www.combinedfleet.com/ParshallTankProduction.pdf

    Great quotes too. - Regarding a question as to US Spare Parts production and supply
    From: Rick Atkinson "The US Army did not solve it's logistics problems, it overwhelmed them."

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6xLMUifbxQ
     
  16. NickFenton

    NickFenton Well-Known Member

    Bomber Command training losses.

    My Father trained with 2 SFTS at Brize Norton between November 1940 and March 1941 as part of 56 course.

    He was told on passing out of EFTS that on qualification, he should expect to survive six missions.

    Ignoring the 2 guys who died during training from his course and those who did not qualify, both refereed to in the Operational Records Book as 'wastage', 37 pilots passed out as pilots, either commissioned or non-commissioned.

    Off these 37, 21 (57%) died in combat, 5 (13%) became POW's, 8 (22%) survived the war (although it appears that 4 of these guys never went operational) and l have yet to find out about the remaining three (8%), one of whom l think was killed but l need clarification of this.

    So if you take out the 4 non-combatants, l believe the casualties (including those captured and retained as POW's) are 27 or 82%, with a survival rate of 6 out of 33 or 18%.

    One of them died at the age of 17, in charge of a Whitley bomber with a crew of 5, and on two separate incidents, 2 members of 56 Course died on the same operation, in one of these, on board the same plane.

    I'm afraid the results of the courses before and after, 55 and 57 courses, are not much different.

    Regards,

    Nick
    KenFentonsWar.com
     
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  17. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    The Tiger was recognised as formidable armour by the Allies.Its advantage was that it was equipped with the "gun of all guns" for the battlefield..the 88mm. With its thick armour and fearsome firepower,it posed a problem wherever it served but had a slow travervising turret which at time put it at a disadvantage.

    As regards statistics...the Allies had the view that on average, it cost 3 tanks lost for every Tiger accounted for.

    But it was slower than the Sherman and lacked mechanical reliability and the Sherman production had the efficiency of the car assembly track.

    Not forgetting Hitler's interference in its design.
     
  18. L J

    L J Senior Member

    Index of food prices on urban collective farm markets in 43 cities in the USSR

    All goods :

    july 1941 : 100

    july 1942 : 854

    july 1943:1873
     
  19. archivist

    archivist Well-Known Member

    A very unusual statistic - but one that I consider remarkable.

    1 - the number of Ron Goldsteins

    In this topic and many others, I have read his posts and responses with great interest as he was one who was there and has suffered close family losses and the total loss/disruption of his young manhood years. In spite of this, I do not detect any bitterness or nastiness.

    Well done, Ron. We could do with a Prime Minister and a few hundred MPs with your well balanced outlook on life - maybe that would put the Great back in front of Britain! I am sure that a lot of watchers/contributors to this forum would agree.
     
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  20. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Of the 389 Australian, British and Canadian destroyers involved in the war, 153 were lost or damaged beyond repair. A loss rate exceeding 39%.

    Loss by cause
    Surface forces 22
    Submarine 33
    Mines 26
    Aircraft 55
    Shore defences 2
    Marine accident & unknown 15
    Total 153
     

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