life expectancy of German two-seater crews

[jastaflieger]

I am wondering about what the expected survival rate, and/ or the longevitiy of German two-seater aircrew was over the Western Front. I know that the survival rates at times were abyssmal for the RFC:: but i do not know what the German side "was like".
Seems, many of the surviving pilots eventually made their way to the fighter groups: and the writings of Heydemarck, and others would indicate that the aircrews did pretty well, considering they were often flying alone and especially towrds the end of the war, outnumbered in the air at most times.
i just do not remember seeing this topic discussed yet.
jim

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Jastaflieger:
I thinkthe difference between the Flierger Abteilung/Shusta crews and the Jasta pilot and Schlasta crews was their function of defense as opposed to offense. The Fl.Abt. or Fl.Abt.A crews were not to seek combat but to observe and photograph or direct artillery. If they were able to work, they did they assigned function. However the the function of the Jasta was to seek, and engage in combat and destroy the enemy, or conversely be destroyed. There primary function was to control the air space and to defend the Fl.Abt. or Fl.Abt.A aircraft. The Jasta pilots for the most part of 1917 and 1918 fought a defensive war, over their own territory fighting the constant offensive attacks of the RFC/RAF, other than the period of late March to mid July 1918 when the German Armeen were on the offensive. This resulted in high casulties to the Jasta pilots.
The two seater has a better defense system, it can fire at the enemy from any atitude it is in, while the the fighter, has only one defensive position, that is, when its fixed guns are pointed at the enemy. The Schusta two seater is a defensive weapon with all the advantages of the two seater, its function was to engage the attacking fighter and to protect the Fl.Abt /A two-seater crew.
The Schlasta two seat fighter is an offensive weapon who's function is to seek and destroy the enemy, and support their ground forces, however, this offense was at very low levels, 25 to 50 meters, and is subject to counter-defensive action by the enemy ground troops. This is really flying in harm's way.
This would explain the relative lower losses in the Fl.Abt/A two-seater crews, over the single-seat fighter and two-seater fighter crews with their higher loss rate.
Merry Christmas,
Dan-San

[Willi Von Klugerman]

Well,it would depend on how well expirienced the gunner is.Though the Germans had good 2-seater aircraft like Rolands,Halberstadts,Hannovers,ect. which gives the crew a better life expectancy than B.E.2c and R.E.8 crews.2-seaters were attacked the most than single seater a/c,so enemy pilots would try their hardest to bag them.But since 2-seaters are rarely escorted,that leaves them a bit helpless when they are jumped by a large flight of enemy fighters.So my best estimate is that they would have a life expectancy of about two weeks,correct me if Im wrong.

[Galloway]

Don't forget wind direction, as it was in the German two seaters (Reconnaissance) crews favor most of the time, making an escape an easier proposition!


Ken

[Pips]

With deadly opponents like McCudden and Fonck around things wouldn't have been too healthy for German observation aircraft.

Can't say I agree with Dan Sans view this time round. The proposition that the two seater has a better defense system, it can fire at the enemy from any atitude it is in, while the the fighter, has only one defensive position, that is, when its fixed guns are pointed at the enemy doesn't hold; otherwise two-seater losses for both the French and British wouldn't have been so high.

A quick look through Allied fighter pilot claims does show quite a high number of German two-seaters downed.

It's a good question you have posed jastaflieger, one that really hasn't been analysed to any great extent.

[jastaflieger]

It seems that with Trenchards aggrssive strategy to take the airwar over to the German side at all costs, the allied( esp British) aircrews were over the German lines and the fighters were often there to protect the the British two seaters:: therefore i have this impresion, maybe wrong, that the German two seaters flew at higher altitiudes ( better engines, better cameras allowing this?) as the british fighters flew past them over to the German side to protect the Be2's, who God knows , needed all the help they could get.
And that for much of the war, the British fighter pilot were concentrated on their two seaters and trying to help them and only when that "job" was done, then they tried to find the German two seaters.
Any opinions out there to those thoughts?
1) german equipment allowed the two seaters to fly higher
2) the british fighters were "busy" protecting their own, which diminshed their chances of seeking out the German recon. patrols
Jim

[Romani]

Originally Posted by jastaflieger

Any opinions out there to those thoughts?
1) german equipment allowed the two seaters to fly higher

There is no such thing as a standard, generic "two seater", since there aren't so many different airplane types and configurations as in the Second World War, a common beginner mistake, is to think, like I did, to think that all the 2-seaters were the same and equivalent. I mean, they all seem alike, biplanes, one engine, a crew of 2, two or three machine guns, perhaps some bombs or a camera or a wireless set, change the load and they can do any of the jobs.


When you dig deeper, you realize how deep are the differences and capabilities of each type. Dan San has pointed out that the airplanes of the ground attack Slachtstaffeln were a totally different bird, being almost 2-seater fighters. When I first heard about the Slachsta, I incorrectly thought these flew armored airplanes like the Albatros J or the all metallic Junkers J I, thinking that they were the predecessors of assault airplanes such as the IL-2 Sturmovik and the Henschel 129 of the later war. Turns out they were specialized airplanes with a very concrete mission, they were Infanterieflieger or as the British refered to their mission "contact patrol". They were tasked with battlefield reconnaissance, they did strafe the enemy troops, but their task was to fly low enough to determine the extent of the advance and the position of enemy and own troops to give the higher headquarters a picture of the battle and position own and enemy troops to their artillery. They were a specialized tool of position warfare to fill the breakdown in control and communication that happened in infantry assaults.

So for now one could say the following for these types of German 2-seaters

1) Ground attack.

Better equipment since the Germans used specially designed 2-seaters for this purpose wich were less vulnerable to fighter attack than the Allied single seater fighters pressed into this purpose. But lacking armor their casualties were high, as much or more than single seater fighter units.

2) Infantry flying.

Better equipment as above and lower casualties due to the use of armor, though is obvious this was a very hazardous duty.


Now, the former types are quite different airplanes from the normal 2-seater, but it is not so obvious that these are too very different between them.

Though early in the war a 2-seater could be a jack of all trades, spotting for artillery, or taking photos, or dropping bombs, they became more specialized as war went on.

We will skip the bombers, because the Germans did not have an equivalent to the single engine Allied bombers like the Breguet 14 or the Airco DH4, focusing instead on developing bimotor bombers and using them at night.

3) Artillery spotting
That leaves photo recon and artillery spotting, this was, in my opinion the most valuable and important contribution of aviation to the ground fighting, and also what justified the continued employ of kite balloons. In an artillery war, it is vital for artillery to have eyes on the target.

But this so important mission did not need special airplanes. Just as with infantry flyers, where climb and altitude performance are not necessary for their task, for artillery spotting any type of airplane that can carry an observer and a wireless set and can reach a medium height, enough high to be out of range of ground fire, but not so high it cannot observe the fall of shot, will do. Speed and maneuverability and climb are not so important, stability and endurance are a bonus. In fact, the recquirements are so modest this task was carried out in WWII by Piper Cubs (once air supremacy was gained of course)

This explains why mediocre or poor aircraft or those that had become obsolete were still in service for longer that it would be logically expected on performance and obsolescence, airplanes such as the British RE8 and the FE2b, the French Farmans and Caudrons, and the French Sopwith Strutters. They were good enough for the task of artillery spotting.

The Germans had in general 2-seaters of better performance and handling than the above mentioned flying contraptions, but even in that case you can see types serving on when they had grown old, such as the DFW CV, cutting edge in 1916, dulled by 1917.

I would expect that casualties among artillery flyers were high on both sides, because their mission forced them to loiter at not too high an altitude, leaving them at a disadvantage and vulnerable to attack, and to make things worse their airplanes were not the best.

4) Photo reconnaissance

What I have said about artillery spotters is largely applicable to photographic types, in particular those tasked with the routine job of taking photographs of the trench lines and the inmediate zone of the front mainly for the purpose of keeping artillery firing maps up to date. Repeat, it was an artillery war.

The exception is deep photo reconnaissance, airplanes that have to venture deep into the enemy rear to take photos of distant objectives and concentrations better have superior performance in climb, ceiling and speed to enable them to get them to the target and come back with the photographs, after running the gauntlet of enemy fighters and antiaircraft artillery.

In this we can say that in general Germans probably have a slight advantage in photographic equipment, thanks to thet vaunted German optics industry, enabling them to build cameras capable of taking photos from higher altitudes than Allied planes and other ingenious techniques concerning oblique photography.

But I digress, what I know for sure is that the Germans developed both high altitude cameras, and as important, a type of motion camera film, a camera that exposed a roll of film continuously forming a long band like photograph of terrain wich greatly enchanced the efficiency of mosaic mapping photography. A single airplane could photograph a much larger stretch of terrain, and make the assembly of a map with the compiled photos much easier.

Mated with this development, the German aircraft industry developed several types of specialized airplanes with excellent high altitude performance wich coupled with the above camera innovations kept the German command fed with strategic reconnaissance.

These airplanes flew so high they could avoid antiaircraft fire and most of the Allied fighter planes save for very determined hunters like McCudden and Fonck. Is interesting to note that McCudden's proposal to build a squadron of interceptors to catch these high flyers was rejected as not worth the effort.

These high flyers were the predecessors of the high speed high altitude reconnaissance airplanes of the Second World War, such as the Mosquito and later planes such as the U-2 or the SR 71 Blackbird, though the conception of the observation airplane as a slow, low flying 2-seater persisted into the 1930s.

[tcrean7828]

Mate,
In reguard to your question, I mention this in passing concerning the loss of recon/photo/observation aircraft according to Ltn. Werner Voss in the 1916 time frame.
• During the first weeks of the Battle of the Somme (Jul 1916) he flew as an observer where the highly dangerous routine of artillery observation brought him both a strong identification and sympathy for two-seater crews (he wrote later that of his original reconnaissance unit not one was still alive and had survived the intense air offensive mounted by the Allies). ‘September Evening’ by Barry Diggins – pg 18.

ttfn

tcrean7828

tom

[Romani]

Originally Posted by jastaflieger

And that for much of the war, the British fighter pilot were concentrated on their two seaters and trying to help them and only when that "job" was done, then they tried to find the German two seaters.

I would like to know on what you base that statement. For all that I know, escort of 2-seaters was rather the exception rather than the norm. With no radar and no radio sets onboard airplanes, coordination of formations with their escort was a challenge. Usually fighters and 2-seaters operated from different airfields, complicating matters.

Also, there is the problem of different climb rates, speeds, endurance and engine regime, wich makes close escort of 2-seaters by fighters difficult, even if it could be arranged for a flight of fighters to meet a formation of 2-seaters and escort them to the objective.

In view of all this, the Germans thought of a sensible solution with the Schusta, the 2-seater protection flights.

Regarding escort by single seater fighters, it seems to have been more the exception than the norm. Fighter protection seems to have been more an affair of having your fighter flights operating in the same area as the 2-seaters to intercept and chase away attackers.

Finally, I do not believe that your statement is true or accurate for British scouts, maybe for the French chasse as I have read that after 1917 they were kept in a short leash and ordered to protect the bombers and observation aircraft, but on the reverse, I also read somewhere (maybe in another thread in this forum) that the British pilots had the tendency of going after the enemy fighter formations at the expense of other duties like protecting their own 2-seaters and attacking the enemy ones, this propensity is explained as an human tendency to affront the higher threat first, as the enemy fighters were the most obvious danger, and for the single seater fighter, the best defense is the offense, as Dan San has already exposed. Furthermore, though fighters are in theory more dangerous opponents, it recquires courage and skill to brave the defensive fire of a observer machine gun. With no armor to protect the pilot, it is natural that many aces would consider preferable to attack enemy fighters as once you are in their tail they cannot shoot back, than 2-seaters. Though observer machine guns were very ineffective on terms of shooting down aircraft, they were very effective in dissuading attack.

Finally,in an indirect answer to your question, Barrett conducted a study of the top 10 scoring German aces claims and found a split of 60% fighters 405 2-seaters. For the above reasons and others I think it is skewed towards fighters, and lossess on all air forces were 50-50 or higher for 2-seaters.

It has been said that mortality in air combat was enormous, I am not convinced that it was as bad as in the infantry, unless accidents are taken into account. Fighter pilot attrition was quite high, if we suppose a 50/50 split in aircraft lossess , then fighter pilots did have a lower survival rate as 2-seater crews because there were more 2-seaters than single seater fighters flying.

A think a good rule of thumb is 40% casualty rate for fighter pilots, 30% for 2-seater crews, but this would vary with type and crew. Lower for high altitude recon, higher for ground attack and artillery spotters.

I regret I can not give you a precise answer, but I think those estimates are good for all air services. Allied airmen would suffer higher casualties due to having to fly over enemy territory (for scouts and bombers) but also their numbers was higher, so the percentage of casualties as total of the force would be lower.

[R Gannon]

There is no doubt that the Jagdstafflen took a high toll of British Corps aircraft Aug 16 to April 17 - 160 hp 2 gunned Albatros against pricipally obsolete BE2's. But from mid 1917 onwards losses to Brit Corps squadron's drop off markedly. In the lead to Messines on 7 Jun 17 for example the Corps aircraft directing prepatory barrages in the weeks leading up to the attack, were almost unmolested in their work - not because the British fighter were on escort duty as one gentleman suggested, but because they were on offensive patrols - fighting the German's over their own side.

Having done a long study in air combats - German 2-seater losses might best be described a steady throughout. They did of course have escorts - the Schultstafflen - who in my opinion protected their charges from fighters in the main by getting shot down instead.

In truth Brit Corps squadrons and German FAA operated pretty much the same - and from June 17 onwards with pretty similar real term losses. The great difference is the strategic as opposed to tactical recon. The British employed fighter recon squadrons - initially FE2's and Sop Strutters and then later the more capable Bristol F2b's. These flew formation missions up to 30 km behind German lines to recce rail heads etc - there was no German equivelent. And these resulted in many a bloody running fight with German fighter one the way in but more often on the way out. The German method was for single aircraft FA & RBZ aircraft to attempt to slip in and out un challenged - most particularly with high flying Rumplers with high resolution cameras. And in this, they had far less losses than the Fighter Recon - but the question is and I do not know the answer - did they glean better intelligence?????? There was for example a clear failure on the German 2 Armee front in November 17, when the FA's their totally failed to identify the build up for the Cambrai assault.

The Brits for their part took a leaf out of the German book in 1918 using 25 Sqn with high flying DH4's in a like manner as the FA.

Season's Greetings

Russ.