On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:15:09 -0500, ®i©ardo wrote
(in article ):

RVB wrote:
From: The Bomber Command War Diaries b\y Middlebrook and Everitt

Ops statistics Bomber Command 3 Sept 1939-May 7/8 1945.
(2,074 days/nights).

Number of nights with ops:.......................1,481 (71.4% of all
nights during war).
Number of days with ops:..........................1,089 (52,5% of all
days during war).
Number of night sorties.........................307,253, from which
7,953 aircraft (2.6%) were lost.
Number of day sorties:.............................80,163, from which
1,000 aircraft (1.2%) were lost.
Total sorties:.......................................... .387,416, from
which 8,953 aircraft (1.2%) were lost.
Approximate bomb tonnage in war:.......955,044 tons
Average per 24-hour period:...................186.8 sorties, 4.3
aircraft lost, 460.5 tons of bombs dropped.
thanks

And have you got the same statistics for the US heavies for the same
operation theatre ?
That would be interesting to compare...


Well, a bit of research tells us that, in terms of tons of bombs dropped:

1942 RAF 45,561 US 8th Air Force 1,561

1943 RAF 157,457 US 8th Air Force 44,165

1944 RAF 525,518 US 8th Air Force 389,119

1945 RAF 191,540 US 8th Air Force 188,573




A Lanc could carry 6 to 10 tons of bombs, depending on marque and range to
target. A B-17 or B-24 could carry 2-3 tons. That means that the American
aircraft would have to fly a lot more sorties to get the same tonnage
dropped.

Also, figures from the 15th AAF should be included. The difficulty there
would be to split off the purely tactical missions flown by smaller bombers
(B-25s, B-26s, etc.) in the 15th; most of those kind of missions flown from
8th AAF territory were flown by the 9th AAF, not the 8th. (Though there were
the tactical missions flown by the 8th which resulted in, among other things,
the only American general killed in action in WWII, killed when the 8th
dropped short of the real target..)

Finally, the escorts from both the 8th and the 15th would sometimes carry
bombs themselves, to strike Luftwaffe fighter bases. Those bombs would
probably be included in the overall total, and would also need to be deleted.
IIRC most of the dedicated jabo fighter-bomber sweeps and raids were 9th AAF
missions. (P-47s, P-51s, P-38s, B-26s, A-26s, etc, with bombs, rockets, and
guns, hunting trains and tanks and such.) To further complicate things, the
9th started out in the Med, alongside the 15th, and was transfered to England
in, I think, late 1943, and many of the larger operations the 9th flew were
done in co-operation with the RAF...