Executive summary: I have put together tables of which aircraft were in use for each season of the war for the Germans, U.K., and French. They're on the Wings of Linen WIKI front page or at: https://linen.miraheze.org/wiki/Cate...m_Plane_Tables
Longer story: I've been collecting data on which planes were in use for each combatant nation for many years. The Germans have the best data...the Frontbestand records show how many planes of each type were in use on the front lines. There are some small mistakes, and we're missing data for October 1918, but the data is otherwise very solid. The French data is less clear, but we do get a good clue by when a unit changed its name. For instance Escadrille N (Nieuport) 49 became SPA (SPAD) 49 in December 1917 when they transitioned to SPAD 7's. For the British, Philpott's The Birth of the Royal Air Force gives a list of which types were present with each squadron and for how long (though it lacks a count...it might have been one aircraft or fifteen).
Using these data I have in the past put together charts of types in use, but I thought another way of looking at the same data would be in scenario generation... given a season of a year (say, Summer 1917), make a 1d100 roll and come up with an aircraft type (or types) for a scenario, where those percentage charts are based on historical data. For instance, for British Fighters in Summer 1917...
01-14 Sopwith Pup
15-23 RAF F.E.2b¹
24-32 Sopwith Camel
33-41 Sopwith Strutter¹
42-49 Airco D.H.5
etc.
(¹ = It's difficult to tell when these planes were used for the fighter role vs. other roles, so the table just reflects their raw usage rather than try to guess at the role proportions.)
I've put together tables for those three nations; one for fighters and one for bomber/reconnaissance aircraft. (The Germans are broken down by class-type: D&Dr&E; B&C; CL&J; G.) I think I've got the data to do a chart on German R-class planes (giant bombers), but I have to read through The German Giants again to put that together.
It would be nice to put together charts and tables for other nations, e.g. Italy, Austria-Hungary, U.S., Russia, Belgium..., but my sources there are much more sketchy and anecdotal. If anyone knows of solid usage data for those countries, please reply in this thread.
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