Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!newstop!sun!amdcad!amdcad!military
From: BXR307@CSC.ANU.EDU.AU
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Air losses in the Gulf
Message-ID: <1991Apr3.024658.24093@amd.com>
Date: 3 Apr 91 08:07:43 GMT
Sender: military@amd.com
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Lines: 68
Approved: military@amd.com



From: BXR307@CSC.ANU.EDU.AU


	Not that it is all over bar the shouting in the Gulf, I was wondering
if anybody else out there on the net, like me, had wondered about the
surprising low casualties which had been suffered by the Coalition airforces
during Operation Desert Storm?

	Last week I attended an a conference given here in Canberra at
the Australian Defence Force Academy by the RAAF.  The title of the 
conference was, "Conventional Airpower into the 21st Century: Smaller but
Larger".   At this conference a paper which piqued my curioristy was given
by a Dr. John McCarthy on "Air Power as History".  Why it piqued my curiousity
was because of the statistics he produced for loss rates in past conflicts.

	Here is the part of the paper which was most interesting (reproduced
with his permission):

	"...For operational aircrew, life has generally been hazardous and
expectancy short.  With the opening of the Battle of the Somme in July 1916,
the RFC employed its aircraft at very low altitude to deliver attacks with
machine guns and light bombs.  Even without a major battle, RFC carried out
two or three patrols a day.  The introduction of the Albatros types in the
spring of 1917 saw a British loss rate of some 30%.  By the end of the war,
Germany had lost 5,853 pilots killed, 7,302 wounded and 2,751 either taken
prisoner or listed as missing.  British figures were a little higher with
6,166 killed, 7,425 wounded and 3,212 take prisoner or listed as missing.
	If air to air fighting was relatively limited in the second war, 
and reasonably safe, ground attack sorties remained most dangerous.  In
1943, it was expected that only 7% of aircrews flying strike sorties in
Beaufighters would complete their operational tour.  The high casualty rates
of Bomber Command cannot be disguised.  Of the 74,797 deaths caused by 
injury among members of the Royal Air Force to May 1945, just over 66% came
from that one operational command.  The chance of an individual surviving
the two tour requirement while serving in it was one in fourteen.  Examples
of more recent air warfare might suggest that prospects of survival have
not improved.  India claimed to have destroyed 94 Pakistani aircraft in the
seventeen day war in 1971.  Sources conflict, but Israel claimed to have 
destroyed 442 aircraft and to have lost "several hundred" to Arab opposition
in the nineteen day Yom Kippur war.  During the "Rolling Thunder" air
campiagn in Vietnam in 1972, the United States lost more than 900 aircraft
to North Vietnam defences.  The Falklands fighting resulted in an Argentinian
attrition rate of between 15 and 22% of sorties flown.
	At the time of writing [14 March 1991] the Coalition forces in the
Gulf had flown some 65,000+ sorties, for the loss of only 18 aircraft.  This
is a loss rate of only .02769%."

	And this is what piqued my curiorisity.  Even in peacetime exercises
of the intensity of Operation Desert Storm, loss rates would be much higher
(I am not sure, exactly how much, but my memory seems to remember attrition
rates of at least 1-2%) if nothing more due to accidents.  As strikes
flown during Desert Storm were against heavily defended targets, and I would
presume integrated defense systems making extensive use of Flak and SAM's,
why weren't the losses higher?  I think it is obvious that the whole truth
of the number of actual losses of aircraft during Desert Storm is yet to come
out.  What do others on the net think?

	[I doubt the air defenses were very integrated after the first
	 night, and my understanding is that only F-117s went into
	 Baghdad.  Remember everyone, sci.military's charter is purely
	 technical, so replies (preferably with references) detailing
	 reasons why the loss per sortie was so low are welcome,
	 opinions, discussions and flames regarding "whole truth of the
	 number of actual losses" should go to alt.desert-storm. --CDR]

Brian Ross