drgondog
Major
Yep - and we can agree that a loss is also not an award.. fighter got away after damage and went down later - on both sides - and recorded as a loss for 'unknown' reasons or weather, or mechanical, etc.
And your point is what?
'44 fighter lost
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Yep - and we can agree that a loss is also not an award.. fighter got away after damage and went down later - on both sides - and recorded as a loss for 'unknown' reasons or weather, or mechanical, etc.
And your point is what?
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- #22
i fighter the go back with damage it'll be repaired and if after go down it's not surely related at damage take before.
i think we are not agree at this point, i try with examples the awards of luftwaffe on usaaf are claims of loss of usaaf, the usaaf awards on luftwaffe are claims of luftwaffe loss
i think we are not agree at this point, i try with examples the awards of luftwaffe on usaaf are claims of loss of usaaf, the usaaf awards on luftwaffe are claims of luftwaffe loss
drgondog
Major
Your english is far better than my italian - but communication between us seems to be 'difficult'.
Luftwaffe claims and awards are based on the review processes of the Luftwaffe - It turns out they are significantly overstated on a consistent basis with actual losses incurred by USAAF.
USAAF claims and awards have very much the same procedure as Luftwaffe and result in similar over claiming - very specifically huge difference for USAAF bomber claims and somewhat for fighter claims. In theory the USAAF was hindered by not being able to examine locations of crash sites of German aircraft on the continent.
What I cited to you is one specific area of 'disconnect' between a German acknowledgement of a loss that did not match a corresponding claim/award when USAAF fighter combat film and witness saw a german fighter crash but the LW was able to repair it... ditto a discovered Luftwaffe crash site on a day with bad weather.. bad weather, mechanical failure or Allied fighter? This is why matching up Claims and Awards is so interesting.
My own sources for LW losses are the extensive works of Prien, Mombeek, Caldwell, Price, Mueller plus laborious compilations by Tony Woods and local experts occasionally on this forum like Erich, and Kutscha, Weber, Falkeins, Laurent, Goyat, Brekken, Rizzotti, etc.
It is an on going WIP and there are zero TRUE sources for LW losses due to extensive record loss. Neither Michael Holm, Caldwell or Dr Prien are exceptions.
I am not THE source for US losses, not even 8th AF - but I will match favorably with any other expert who claims that title.
What is less clear is how the LW overclaimed so many USAAF bombers and fighters since they had access to every claimed downed aircraft and total access to the crash sites? Do you have an explanation for that?
So, if you think your research passes scrutiny of a Dr Prien for example, it shouldn't be difficult for you to put together something similar to my own work, modest as it is, with tables by Staffel, Gruppe and JG and research sources to validate them?
I personally would be delighted to find a central repository of accurate data.
Kurfürst
Staff Sergeant
I have some doubts about the validity of your statement to begin with - do you have evidence for it in the first place?
Let us not mix the number of (over)claims filed by the pilots, who made them on the basis of a brief and intensive combat engagement, and had, of course no knowledge and 'total access to the crash sites' when they filed that report after landing, with that of the lenghty awarding process ending in refusal or acceptance of the claim, which was making use of evidence provided by eyewitness reports and sites of crashed US planes.
To get some idea of the accuracy of Luftwaffe awards (and not the claims!)At the very minimum, it would be required to have knowledge of the various USAAF/RAF units operating in the area, the number of aircraft FtR, damaged, and written off, crashed due accident etc, against the number of claims made by LW aircraft in the given timeframe, and the number of claims that were finally accepted.
drgondog
Major
Having said this if you wish I can cite example after example.
Truly notable days of gross 'over award' for LW if you believe Prien/Wood compilations include April 24, 1944 and November 26, 1944 where the over award ratio is more than 40 percent of the TOTAL 8th AF losses including crashes into the Channel (inbound), mid air collisions on assembly, etc.as well as losses attributed by flak per eyewitness Macr reports.
Kurfurst - if you wish to do your own research there are several excellent compilations (which also have some errors) for you to have and use.
One is The Mighty Eighth Combat Chronology - Heavy Bomber and Fighter Activities 1942-1945 by Andrews and Adams -1997
The other is Kent Miller's Fighter Units and Pilots of the 8th AF.
The reason I cite those (dates) is that these two happen to be lengthy chapters in my book about the 355th and I have been able to collaborate with many current historians to nail both the awards by unit and the losses by unit in those areas.
Lt Col Joerg Dietsch and Don Caldwell were particularly helpful at getting to detailed LW loss lists for April 24 - as well as our own Erich Brown.
Ditto for November 26 with Erich being the authority for the Hannover Misburg battle
Recognizing that bomber claims/awards of the 8th AF truly suck, I have a tendency to look at LW losses and 8th AF awards in the same area to get a feel for accuracy of the 8th AF FC awards... you have to assume that the bombers actually scored some in the big airbattles so you should not assume all the awards belong to Fighters but they should receive the most credit.
If Tony Woods compilations are not reasonably accurate, and you have a credible roll up that is far more conservative, please point me in the right direction. Right now for the big battles the LW awards are FAR too high.
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- #27
the comparison it's actually not on target, the prien caldwell fighters definition isn't same of me. i don't counted nacht and zerstorer (this add 1600 fighters) and after surely they counted as fighter also 110/210/410 and so in others verbande, as aufklarungs and maybe kampf
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- #28
this cleared your position on claims/awards/loss, for me i take air force reports on own loss with high reliability, and on enemy loss with low reliability (some air forces or time maybe best of other).
the tables are on ww2.dk i've only summed, maybe with some wrong.
drgondog
Major
Caldwell/Prien do not count NJG in day fighter tallies.
I would have to dig to see if Day Fighters included the ZG units that were lost against Allied fighters and bombers. Having said this, the losses would have peaked between January and April 1944. After that there were very few ZG units flying daylight missions in West after that.. Most disappeared as day fighters after July - they just could not survive. But if you discount the daylight ZG Me 110, 210 and 410 Gruppe's in your count, should you also remove P-38's from the USAAF counts?
More importantly there were relatively few actual ZG Gruppe twin engine fighters based in LuftFlotte 2, 3 and Reich in 1944 compared to the single engine day fighters.
ZG 1 had only 53 total inventory in LF3, there were no t/e day fighters in LF2 and only ZG26 and 76 still had operational twin engine fighters in LFReich by end of May 1944. That would represent about 12-15% of the total day fighter inventory at its peak.
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- #30
drgondog
Major
That sounds reasonable for 1944 - but still leaves a large gap between 9000+ in your roll up and Caldwell/Prien 13,000+ 'day fighters'.
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- #32
drgondog
Major
nope
drgondog
Major
I just did a quick count of the May 1944 Inventory as presented by Price for LuftFlotte Reich - 846 s/e fighters -
all in JG1,3,5,11,27,53,54,300,301,302,400,plus those in Einsatzstaffel's 104,106,108.
That does not include any of the various Gruppen of JG5,53,54,301,302, etc that were in other LuftFlotte's. It does not include the s/e night fighters in NJG 10.
I will dig up the Caldwell/Mueller and Prien totals when I have time.
all in JG1,3,5,11,27,53,54,300,301,302,400,plus those in Einsatzstaffel's 104,106,108.
That does not include any of the various Gruppen of JG5,53,54,301,302, etc that were in other LuftFlotte's. It does not include the s/e night fighters in NJG 10.
I will dig up the Caldwell/Mueller and Prien totals when I have time.
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- #35
for ww2.dk in this units, w/o the einsatzstaffel, there are 1049 S/e fighters, not counted II/301 was in other luftflottes, maybe price talking of ready fighters and the documents, the ww2 sources, on hand fighters
drgondog
Major
Price has two categories - On hand and Effective. The latter number is much lower.
Correct on II./JG 301 - I did not count them as they were in LF4 at that time. Similarly there were other Gruppe's in the JG's I named that were in other areas - I did not count those earlier either.
BTW - there is no complete agreement between Prien, Caldwell and Price but the table has the closest agreement for 'On Hand' inventory (not effective).
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- #37
