Aviation Activity

UpdatedSeptember 5, 2004
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    As usual I have to say that the number of German losses may be overestimated, as these data are given on 1944 year....

Number of Aircraft Sorties
Date Soviet German*
2nd Air Army 17th Air Army ADD Total
Daylight Night Daylight Night Daylight Night Daylight Night
July 5 1274 48 446 123 - 1720 171 1947 11
July 6 820 72 458 197 85 1278 354 873 26
July 7 847 83 689 192 163 1536 438 829 15
July 8 957 96 228 174 275 1185 545 692 25
July 9 658 60 187 183 161 845 404 1577 28
July 10 455 69 71 149 231 526 449 1105 17
July 11 539 57 56 183 45 595 285 528 21
July 12 759 109 134 164 - 893 273 530 8
July 13 659 156 118 151 112 777 419 271 35
July 14 865 200 168 114 144 1033 458 1195 43
July 15 328 151 35 146 193 363 490 261 -
July 16 723 219 203 143 112 926 474 403 7
July 17 484 135 - - - 484 135 140 22
July 18 436 199 - - - 436 199 55 17
* - Fixed sorties
upMutual Aircraft Losses on Belgorod-Oboyan Direction
Date Air Fights Number German Losses Losses of the 2nd Air Army
Fighters Bombers Total Fighters Ground Attack Planes Bombers Total
July 5 81 71 83 154 36 27 15 78
July 6 64 40 65 105 23 22 - 45
July 7 74 44 78 122 24 13 - 37
July 8 65 54 52 106 24 16 1 41
July 9 62 49 22 71 16 15 1 32
July 10-14 152 112 93 205 49 75 14 138
July 15-18 43 45 27 72
Total 541 415 420 835 172 168 31 371

up Summary of Air Fights
Dates Air Fights German Losses Soviet Losses Average Losses per Fight
German Soviet
July 5-6 168 219 188 1.3 1.12
July 7-8 125 185 87 1.5 0.70

upMutual Aviation Activity (sorties)
Date Soviet German
Fighters GAP Bombers Total From them ADD Total From them at Night
Daylight Night
July 5 817 225 105 102 1249 17 2257 24
July 6 779 225 122 469 1595 269 1162 32
July 7 731 219 235 422 1607 210 1203 41
July 8 613 130 170 342 1255 169 933 58
July 9 448 152 175 181 956 36 350 16
July 10 419 79 173 250 921 77 955 5
July 11 218 80 3 176 477 - 680 11
July 12 25 7* 1 236 269 - 72 7
Total 4050 1117 984* 2178 8329 778 7612 194
* -This figure was corrected due to errata in original source

up Air Missions
  2nd Air Army 17th Air Army 16th Air Army Total
Daylight sorties 9804 2808 6151 18763
From them: Covering land troops 3683 165 1800 5648
Bomber and GAP escort 2226 1216 2057 5499
Airfields attacks 85 70 - 155
Total number of fights for domination in the air: in sorties 5994 1451 3857 11302
in % 61 52 62 60

Abbreviations ADD - Long-Range (i.e. strategic) Aviation GAP - Ground attack planes
Literature

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