Fw 190 - numbers for A-8 and A-9

MaxGunz · #1 03-12-2013, 06:22 PM

Can production tell what was flown? They didn't have gas for all that were made before the end and there were losses on ground as well as in the air.

I guess I should be happy that as many records survived as did.

Crumpp · #2 03-13-2013, 01:24 AM

Quote:

Therefore your claim that the A9 was the most prevalent is clearly not true,

JtD · #3 03-13-2013, 05:22 AM

He's saying they were used in 1945, side by side with the 2500 A-8's that were built in parallel to the 900 A-9's.

fruitbat · #4 03-13-2013, 11:10 AM

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Originally Posted by Crumpp

It certainly is true. More FW-190A9's were built than FW-190A3's!

What do A3's have to do with 1945, answer nothing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crumpp

So Fruitbat, what is your theory on the 900 examples of the FW-190A9 delivered to the Luftwaffe as to when they were used if it is not 1945?

Again you have reading comprehension problems. No where have i said they weren't used in 1945. I'm afraid if you can't read properly thats your own problem, not mine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JtD

He's saying they were used in 1945, side by side with the 2500 A-8's that were built in parallel to the 900 A-9's.

Exactly.

Simply fact is that in 1945 more A8's were used than A9's, because over two and a half times as many were made during the same time. No amount of trying to twist or ignore the facts can change this.

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Originally Posted by Crumpp

There is no need to guess or read into the documents as per the usual suspects.

Are yes, ignore any inconvenient information, seems oh so familiar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crumpp

You also do not have the production details for the blocks. Almost all the FW-190A8's produced in the later part of 1944 are all weather variants or assault ships.

Oskar Bösch went thru 13 FW190A8's during his time with IV/JG3 Sturm. His unit had a 500% casualty rate.

Both are specialized variants for specific units and neither is designed as an air superiority variant.

Doesn't change the fact that they were in existence, and that they were Fw190 A8's does it. Still more A8's flying in 45 than A9's.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crumpp

Almost all the FW-190A8's produced in the later part of 1944 are all weather variants or assault ships.

Whilst irrelevant to the numbers of A8's vs A9's, this is at least interesting, source please.

Oh, and while we're at it, here is the reason why they were produced concurrently,

The reason they didn't completely switch to the A9, was because they simply didn't have enough of the engines that were used in the A9, hence why A8 production carried on.

Crumpp · #5 03-13-2013, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Fruitbat says:
Oh, and while we're at it, here is the reason why they were produced concurrently,

I fail to see how the obscure clippings from a second hand or third hand source have to do with Focke Wulf's original documents.

I have some old magazine clippings I can post too. Like yours, not necessarily factual, but read well.

Quote:

Fruitbat says:
because over two and a half times as many were made during the same time.

Looking at Focke Wulf's production quotas by variant, this is not correct for fighters. It applies to airframes but not the type used to replace the FW-190A8's in the Day fighter units for tangling with allied fighters.

All weather fighters are made for IFR flight, not much dog fighting going on so it is ok to load the type down with the navigation, de-icing, and automation that makes flight under such conditions workable.

Assault ships also are not designed to fight allied fighters, they are bomber killers designed to get close and give the pilot a reasonable change at survival. In this case, the airframe is expendable with the goal of achieving the destruction of a bomber and saving our pilot to fly again.
Both of these variants have much higher wastage rates than normal fighter variants. Does it make sense that at a normal logistical reserve rate you would need to produce much more of these types?
You do realize that just one of the Sturm units could consume an entire months production of FW-190A8 airframes?
You also don't seem to realize that NDW, Fiessler, and Ago are almost exclusively turning out assault ships.

NDW for example, only produced 40 FW-190A8 normal fighters during the entire war! That is the entire run of FW-190A8 fighters from them.

The other 530 FW-190A8's produced by NDW were assault ship variants.

The 1270 airframes produced by Fiessler were mostly assault ships...

Now let’s get an idea of how many airplanes we need to replace our losses. It does not have to be complicated, we only need reach a general conclusion.

In every quarter of the war, the Jadgwaffe experienced a 100% wastage rate. That is a fact. Every four months, every single engine fighter in the Jadgwaffe was replaced. Some pilots might not have to replace their individual aircraft but others had their aircraft replaced multiple times during that four month period. Statistically, it comes out to a 100% wastage rate per quarter. War is expensive.

Let's do some simple math to grasp the scale of the logistics required to maintain FW-190A8's as the main single engine fighter in 1945. First let’s look at the number of airframe available!

Let's use that rather inflated claim of 2500 airframes and Focke Wulf's ratio of all weather fighters as well as assault ships.

2500 * .85 = 375 Normal fighter Variant FW-190A8's...

About maybe 5 weeks give or take a week or two.

Conclusion, there is not enough normal fighter variants to meet wastage rates for more than one, maybe two months before FW-190A8 normal fighter variants become extinct.
Now let's look at the FW-190A9 and FW-190D9 production:

FW-190A9 normal fighter variants ~870
FW-190D9 normal fighter variants ~1700

That is 2570 airframes. The Jadgwaffe maintained an average strength of roughly 1760 fighters of which one third is FW-190's. Just a reasonable assumption made based on RLM dictates.

1760 * .3 = 528 FW-190 fighter variants in the force

2570 total FW-190 fighter variants produced / 528 FW190 fighter variants required = 4.86 months worth of fighter variants to experience a 100% loss rate per quarter. Wow, that takes us to the last few weeks of the war!!

So, the logistical math works out and we have enough FW-190 normal fighter variants to conclude that the FW-190A9 was the predominate Anton normal fighter variant in 1945 especially considering production of FW-190A8's switched almost exclusively to assault ship and all weather fighter production in the last quarter of 1944.

Works out pretty good especially considering a small number of both FW-190A9's and FW-190D9 were built as all weather fighters.

Quote:

Fruitbat says:
Whilst irrelevant to the numbers of A8's vs A9's, this is at least interesting

It is more than interesting; it is the reason for my statement that the FW-190A9 is more prevalent in 1945 as a normal fighter variant.

It is also based on original documentation from the source.

JtD · #6 03-13-2013, 03:35 PM

So we can bin your claim that the A-9 was the most numerous 190A of 1945.

However, as already requested by Fruitbat and ignored by you, it would be interesting to see some evidence that supports your new claim.

Rodeike states that most of the A-9 built by Focke Wulf in Cottbus were R11 all weather variants, as were some built in Wismar. Additionally the Erfurt production possibly were A-8, designations vary. Since you are so picky to rule out any A-8 that does not come as the standard fighter variant, we might want to do the same with the A-9 and end up, conservatively, at 110 A-9's produced in standard fighter configuration. That's about the same ratio you chose for the A-8. Now as you are contradicting Rodeike's accepted research, it would be nice to see some source that shows for instance how no Cottbus built A-9's came as R11.

MiloMorai · #7 03-13-2013, 04:07 PM

the following is from a graphic I have of Fw190A production:

A-8 - A-9

Mar 82 - 0
Apr 347 - 2
May 492 - 15
Jun 430 - 21
Jul 502 - 70
Aug 648 - 30
Sep 465 - 122
Oct 293 - 14
Nov 482 - 99
Dec ? - ?
Jan 328 - ?

total 4060 - 373

This does not include the numbers for the R8 and R11 versions for the A-8 and A-9.

A-8/R11(/R2) - A-9/R11

Jun (103)
Jul (180)
Aug (202)
Sep 14 (159) - 56
Oct 79 (123) - 80
Nov 33 (80) - 58
Dec ? (?) - ?
Jan 73 (51) - ?

total 199 (898 ) - 194

fruitbat · #8 03-13-2013, 05:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JtD

So we can bin your claim that the A-9 was the most numerous 190A of 1945.

However, as already requested by Fruitbat and ignored by you, it would be interesting to see some evidence that supports your new claim.

Rodeike states that most of the A-9 built by Focke Wulf in Cottbus were R11 all weather variants, as were some built in Wismar. Additionally the Erfurt production possibly were A-8, designations vary. Since you are so picky to rule out any A-8 that does not come as the standard fighter variant, we might want to do the same with the A-9 and end up, conservatively, at 110 A-9's produced in standard fighter configuration. That's about the same ratio you chose for the A-8. Now as you are contradicting Rodeike's accepted research, it would be nice to see some source that shows for instance how no Cottbus built A-9's came as R11.

Very interested to see your answer and even more so, some actual evidence to support it for once as i have seen none so far at all but claims, particularly regarding JtDs post quoted above Crump, as both him and Milo have shown A9's in R11 configurations as well in roughly the same ratio as A8's.

Good to see you abandoned your initial claim as well, that the A9 was the most common Anton in 45, and changed your claim to now be most common 'normal fighter'. As Milos and JtD's posts show, this may well be questionable as well unfortunately for you.

MiloMorai · #9 03-14-2013, 07:42 AM

So Crumpp. JG301 was only one of many units flying the Fw190A.

I already posted that JG301, an all weather unit, was flying Fw190A-9/R11s.

As of March 19 1945

Stab J.G. 301 FW 190 A-9/R11
I./J.G. 301 FW 190 A-9/R11
II./J.G. 301 FW 190 A-9/R11
III./J.G. 301 FW 190 A-9/R11

http://fw190.hobbyvista.com/oob.htm

MaxGunz · #10 03-13-2013, 03:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crumpp

2500 * .85 = 375

I think you need a new calculator.

I don't have trouble with your reasoning but you should check your math before clicking 'post'.

I also see the usual pattern of two people arguing different things. It is like circles on a map.. how to tell what the overlaps mean when the circles have different criteria.

Maybe A-8's as air superiority fighters were fewer than total A-8's but when did that become the comparison? I was reading A-8's, not A-8 sub-types.

FB, A-8 production for all of 1944... when did A-9 production get into swing that year? I see A-8's in the hundreds from II/44 and wonder how many were still in use 9 months later? Ditto for early A-9's.

Aren't there people with unit strength figures or is that too incomplete?

If it's about what was more used, I don't think that should control player choice. Show that the type was in short supply or that certain units only had them (should not be hard, then the player can pick the unit).

If it's about what was more used, that would be good to know in mission design what AI's to place and the tasks they are assigned. But when in IL2 will players encounter A-8's without massed B-17's coming right around the corner? Last sim I could run that could have even a taste of that was EAW.

Come to think about it.. on the newer decked-out PC's, might there be enough power to fill the skies with AI bombers and escorts? 4.4?