Squadron Organizations

[Kodiak]

How where the US, British, French and Germans organized?

How many planes to a:

Flight
Squadron
Group
Wing

Where do Jasta and Staffell fit in? Same as Squadron and Group? Thanks for any info. Take care.

Bill

[sparty]

I'm keenly interested in this too because there seems like a really high number of French squadrons compared to the total number of pilots compared to the German Jasta numbering system. It's a bit confusing when I'm doing the "Today in History" posts!

[Carl_Brisgamer]

How where the US, British, French and Germans organized?

How many planes to a:

Flight
Squadron
Group
Wing

Where do Jasta and Staffell fit in? Same as Squadron and Group? Thanks for any info. Take care.

Bill

The Luftstreitkraefte (German Air Service) had about 10-12 aircraft per Staffel (squadron). The 'Jagdstaffel' (literally 'hunting' squadrons) shortened to 'Jasta' were the single seat fighter squadrons. From mid 1917 the Germans formed 'Jagdgeschwader', grouping 4 Jastas together into a fighter wing.

For the Allies, they had up to 18 aircraft in a squadron divided up into three flights of six made up of two sections of three each. There was no set structure for Wings or Groups, it depended on the operational circumstances. This site gives you the RFC/RNAS/RAF order of battle for the major Western Front offensives, including Wings.

http://clubweb.interbaun.com/~milesc/major_battle.htm

Hope this helps,

Carl.

[Carl_Brisgamer]

And if you have a little French this site gives you the details of squadrons (Escadrille) and groups (Groupe) in WW1:

http://www.traditions-air.fr/index.htm

Cheers,

Carl.

[Kodiak]

Hi Carl,

Thanks for all the info. The websites are great. I have been reading up on the WWI aces again starting with Udet and now Richtoffen. Udets autobiography was very interesting. But they dont really talk about how many went out at a time in any great detail. However in general, it sounds like 1 or 2 at a time was rare, 3 or 4 was more common and a lot of the time it was all twelve (or whatever was operational in the Jasta/Squadron)?

Bill

[sparty]

Yeah an interesting anecdote from Richthofen's Journal was that he was in a situation where he and 4 wingmen were up against 15 Brits. His statement was something like, "I didn't like being outnumbered 3 to 1, but I also was confident we were better pilots and could handle it."

Looking at the statistics from the air war, it's pretty clear the Germans were far superior pilots than their their counterparts.

So I wonder if that was almost built in from a manpower availability standpoint it was just a fact of life?

[Carl_Brisgamer]

Yeah an interesting anecdote from Richthofen's Journal was that he was in a situation where he and 4 wingmen were up against 15 Brits. His statement was something like, "I didn't like being outnumbered 3 to 1, but I also was confident we were better pilots and could handle it."

Looking at the statistics from the air war, it's pretty clear the Germans were far superior pilots than their their counterparts.

So I wonder if that was almost built in from a manpower availability standpoint it was just a fact of life?

There are a couple of reasons for von Richthofen's confidence in his pilots. As he was the leading German ace he could actually hand pick his Jasta mates, which meant that only the best of the best flew with him. Richthofen trained his men relentlessly, they marvelled that even after an aerial battle in which von Richthofen had been fighting for his own life he seemed to be aware of every move they had made and used their errors to illustrate a tactical point.

More generally whilst the Allies would post new pilots directly to fighter squadrons the Germans often sent theirs to two-seater units where, if they survived, they could be selected as Jagdflieger after they had proved themselves. So new German fighter pilots already had invaluable combat experience, that 'sense' of battle, whereas new Allied fighter pilots were so inexperienced they were often no better than targets.

In 1918 this changed as mounting German losses in the face of Allied numerical superiority forced them to post new pilots straight into the Jastas.

Cheers,

Carl.

[sparty]

Carl... You da man! Excellent rundown.