LW transport fleet - losses, operations, stock, production

[Urmel]

I think it would be useful to gather the impact that major airlift operations had on the transport fleet. I have come across some numbers, but am not sure about their veracity.

Let's start with a chronology up to 1943, counting only the major high-intensity operations, not the day-by-day ops:

1) Weseruebung (Norway, Denmark)
2) Fall Gelb (France and low countries)
3) Sonnenblume (transport to Africa)
4) Merkur (Crete)
5) Crusader (North Africa)
6) Demjansk
7) Stalingrad
8) Tunisia

Feel free to add or correct.

[Urmel]

Now, for losses:

1) 180, according to Phylo
2) 400 in Holland alone, of which 200 w/o, 200 major damage, according to Zuylen
3) ?
4) 271 destroyed or major damage, of which 174 destroyed, 97 damaged, all Ju 52
5) ?
6) 262 planes lost, equivalent to 100 crews lost
7) 490, of which 266 Ju 52
8) 432, mostly Ju 52, of these at least 150 during Operation FLAX, of which 123 Ju 52, and 23 Me 323.

[Urmel]

Now for a quick look at stock and production: (Ju-52//Other types*)

1939
Stock at start of war: 552 available (100 in dedicated transport groups, 450 available elsewhere, includes schools)
Production during year: (Sept.-Dec. only) 145/6
Stock at end of year: ?
Deduced write-offs: ?

1940
Stock at start of year: ?
Production during year: 388/42
Stock at end of year: ?
Deduced write-offs: ?

1941
Stock at start of year: ?
Production during year: 502/61
Stock at end of year: ?
Deduced write-offs: ?

1942
Stock at start of year: ?
Production during year: 503/157
Stock at end of year: ?
Deduced write-offs: ?

1943
Stock at start of year: ?
Production during year: 887/236
Stock at end of year: ?
Deduced write-offs: ?

*'Other types' include Fw-200, Me-323, Go-244, Ju-90 and Ju-290 but not He-111, Ju-86 and He-177 types occasionally used as transports.

[Jon G.]

This should be interesting

Before we scramble for our books and documents, we should perhaps endeavour to seperate LW transport aircraft production between France and Germany.

Preliminarily, here's a thread about the Stalingrad airlift

forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=140788

[Urmel]

Here's some interesting info:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... &start=105

[Urmel]

More info:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 1&t=182542

[phylo_roadking]

3) ?

I have an old note saying 432 LW transport "almost all Ju52s" aircraft in April 1943 during the DAK evacuation from Tunisia in three weeks of that month

6) equivalent to 100 crews lost, so presume similar number of planes?

385 flight personnel lost, and 262 aircraft lost supplying the Pocket

4) 271 destroyed or major damage, all Ju 52 (?)

I have 174 destroyed, therefore by inference 97 major damage.

For instance, the old RAF "boneyard" at Maleme (Maleme was an atrocious strip that cracked up a lot of RAf aircraft!) was filled with wrecks and damaged aircraft - and these were gradually stripped down into major assemblies through 1941 and taken by barge back to the greek mainland.

This - and Zuylen's earlier material on recoveries from Holland - illustrate one mAJOR difficulty with numbers in service during a given year - how/where are the dozens of rebuilt 52'sincorporated into the figures???

In the meantime - I have a note saying...

502 new builds in 1941

503 new builds in 1942

887 new builds in 1943

[Urmel]

Thanks for all this, very helpful, and all integrated.

[This - and Zuylen's earlier material on recoveries from Holland - illustrate one mAJOR difficulty with numbers in service during a given year - how/where are the dozens of rebuilt 52'sincorporated into the figures???

Stock changes.

[phylo_roadking]

Before we scramble for our books and documents, we should perhaps endeavour to seperate LW transport aircraft production between France and Germany.

Jon, according to Heinz Nowarra, at Wiesbaden in July 1941 the Vichy government agreed to build 2000 aircraft for Germany. After this, the former Amiot works at Colombes, just north-west of Paris, began producing Ju52/3mg10e's. A total of 321 of these were built at Colombes for the Luftwaffe before the liberation of Paris ended this contribution to the German war effort. Looking at Nowarra, the 10e was unique to the Amiot works; it was in all ways identical to the current German-produced 9e, except it used the "Z" variant of the BMW 132.

Production later restarted, with the factory now renamed "Ateliers Aeronautiques de Colombes", and the Ju52 was manufactured again there for some years, being known as the Ju52 AAC1, with a total of 415 being built. The Armee De L'Air postwar took on charge 216 of these, and the French Navy 12. 38 formwer Luftwaffe 52s were reconstructed and used by the French air force, and three were flown in from Norway...and four old prewar civvie Ju52/3m's too.

[Jon G.]

Cheers phylo, but in my experience, Nowarra sometimes needs to be double-checked, although his technical stuff is usually in order. I'll see what I can dig up.

In the meantime, I have (very) slightly different figures for 7) the Stalingrad airlift. According to Williamson Murray, p 217, losses as of Feb. 3 were 269 Ju-52, 169 He-111, 9 FW-200, 42 Ju-86, 1 Ju-290 and 5 He-177, for a combined total of 495 aircraft lost in that operation. I'm fairly sure this set of figures includes write-offs.

[phylo_roadking]

Nowarra sometimes needs to be double-checked, although his technical stuff is usually in order.

This is true, he can be a little....partisan?...towards one of his favourite aircraft in the way that Hooton can be biased in favour of the performance of the Luftwaffe. Nowarra rarely gives good solid numbers on losses, for instance...that's why I only use him as a reference for certain things and aspects.

[Urmel]

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 2&start=60

[phylo_roadking]

Nowarra sometimes needs to be double-checked

Here's a better example of what I mean - on the 2nd of September 19439, Nowarra gives the following figures...

In 1939, the LW's entire dedicated air transport capacity was KGrzbV 1 and 2, with a total of 8 squadrons each, each consisting of 12 Ju52's. This means only 96-100 dedicated transport Ju52s available...

BUT - a report from Gen.Qu.6.Abt. on the 2nd of September reigisters a total of 552 Ju52s "available" for military use; this means that around 450...or 81%...of the LW's Ju52s "available" on the outbreak of war were raised from the various flying schools.

I meant there that Nowarra mentions the 450 other aircraft - he's the one making the point, courtesy of the LW report, that 81% of the Ju52s available on the outbreak of war weren't "dedicated" transport aircraft in the then-only two transportgruppen, they were gathered up from all over.

[Jon G.]

I think category 3) , above, is too loosely defined.

Some interesting info gleamed from Martin Pegg, Luftwaffe Transport Units vol. 1, p 82 tells us that in July 1942, the number of Ju-52s in the Mediterranean doubled from 150 to 300, and that efficiency also increased because, it is implied, only by the summer of 1942 was there sufficient storage in Crete itself for the Transportgruppens' daily fuel requirement, which is given as 360,000 litres of fuel a day.

As a very crude hack - assuming only Ju-52s and equivalents, assuming that all a/c had 2,400 litres of fuel capacity, and further assuming that every a/c would need a full tank of gas for each mission, that comes out as 150 missions a day, or a flight every other day for Crete-based Ju-52s, which is actually pretty good measured as a sustained performance. Ibid. DAK needs are given as 25 tons of equipment and 1,000 troops/day.

[phylo_roadking]

As a very crude hack - assuming only Ju-52s and equivalents, assuming that all a/c had 2,400 litres of fuel capacity

Jon....which mark of Ju52???There's definitely a jump in range (and I presume therefore fuel capacity) somewhere around the middle of its development history...there were 14 militarised marks of the 52. My fuel capacity figure/number of tanks was for the early marks of /3mge.