# Why British Spitfire aces had such low record?



## Chiron (Apr 28, 2005)

I meant even the leading British ace James E. "Johnny" Johnson, only shot down 38 German aircrafts.

Can somebody explain


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## Anonymous (Apr 28, 2005)

Chiron said:


> I meant even the leading British ace James E. "Johnny" Johnson, only shot down 38 German aircrafts.
> 
> Can somebody explain



How many sorties did he fly?

Compare the answer to that to how many were flown by the German aces and you will probably have your answer.


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 28, 2005)

Chiron said:


> I meant even the leading British ace James E. "Johnny" Johnson, only shot down 38 German aircrafts.
> 
> Can somebody explain



Compare that with sorties and missions. Robert Johnson, Gabby Gebreski, Don Gentile all had the same kill pace of the Germans, I would guess the top British aces had the same. Germans had little or no R&R - they fought till killed, wounded or captured.

An author, last name Tolliver (can't remember his first name) wrote some books in the early 60s pointing this out.


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## DAVIDICUS (Apr 28, 2005)

The same reason they had such a low record scoring with women after the Americans came on the scene.

Under pressure, they lose their mojo.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Apr 28, 2005)

it had nothing to do with the skill of the pilots, it was the low number of sorties they flew.............


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## Nonskimmer (Apr 28, 2005)

DAVIDICUS said:


> The same reason they had such a low record scoring with women after the Americans came on the scene.
> 
> Under pressure, they lose their mojo.


  
Hey, don't forget us now. The American-like accent, with the British uniform. What a combo.


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## BombTaxi (Apr 28, 2005)

It is also forgotten that the leading Luftwaffe experten operated mainly on the Eastern Front - a 'target-rich' environment. There were so many Russian a/c to attack that 100+ tallies were not that hard to achieve. By contrast, British pilots operated in theatres with fewer enemy a/c committed - hence the lower kill rate


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## Gemhorse (Apr 30, 2005)

Yeah, Bombtaxi's kinda right there, and not just the Russian Front being target-rich, but also the Europe that Hitler intially conquered...none of those countries really had anything to match the, by then, very experienced Luftwaffe....They clobbered Britain pretty hard in the run-up to Dunkirk, but some of our Hurricane pilots were blooded there, and that was the experience that was passed on to new RAF pilots in the run-up for the BoB....
I think if you subtracted all the Luftwaffe fighter pilot kills from before then, that over the period of the BoB onward, the respective kill-rates between the RAF and Luftwaffe, that were on the Continent, you'll find that they're probably similar....They were both fairly evenly matched in combat....The continental Luftwaffe pilots did get R R, I have read of some of their off-duty exploits, plus they got time off for recovery from injury. These guys were the cream of the German Forces, and they were looked-after pretty well, at least until things started to get pretty desperate for Germany.......
In a nutshell, the Luftwaffe and the Japs enjoyed an intial period of total Air Superiority during the start of their respective Wars, and both had built up previous battle-experience before the War kicked-off proper; the Japs in China, and the Luftwaffe from the Spanish Civil War and then 'Blitzkreig Europe', before they started to tackle the Allies.......


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