Flo
Between July 25 and August 7, 1944 the 9th AF lost 80 aircraft, the majority Thunderbolts. Over the whole of those two months the 2nd TAF lost 151 Typhoons. The majority of losses to both were to ground fire. Typhoons and Thunderbolts were operating under very similar conditions, the Hawkers in direct support, the P-47s in close support, with considerable cross over in roles. During the Normandy operations the 9th AF flew 2891 sorties, the 2nd TAF 9896. The 9th AF claimed 2654 vehicles destroyed, the 2nd TAF 3597. The 2nd TAF claimed 257 of the 391 tanks destroyed by Allied aircraft, reflecting the slight difference in tasking between the two forces.
It's the closest example of air vs liquid cooled propulsion I can think of. Typhoon losses ran at about twice those of Thunderbolt equipped units, but they mounted three times the sorties. Just as well, since they made one third of the claims per sortie. It's possible to cut the figures to demonstrate various points- I fully expect Duncan and Lightning to do just that!
- but I think they're close enough to refute claims of any superiority of
either power plant.
Ricky
Let me be the first to play with the numbers...
25th July - 5th August is 11 days
The whole of July and August is 61 days
Therefore:
7.3 P-47s were lost per day
2.5 Typhoons were lost per day
Given that the Typhoons were flying 3 times as many sorties, that further increases the gap - the ratio of loss rates per sortie is 7.3:0.8 in favour of the Typhoon! That makes for a ratio of more than 9:1
Now, obviously, the statisics are not directly comparable, making a mockery of my analysis. Anybody know the P-47 losses for the whole of July/August 1944?