Aegean Beau Killers

[GrauGeist]

The Ar196 was very maneuverable and as was posted above, able to turn and fight with Spitfires.

If a Beaufighter attempted a turning fight with an Ar196, it would be a foolhardy mistake.

Aside from the rear flexible mount 7.92mm MG, the 196 had two wing mounted 20mm MG/FF cannon and a cowl mounted 7.92mm MG17 which could (and did) inflict serious damage to anything in front of it.

 

[Sluff]

All claims are for low altitudes (only the first line in the table is ambiguous, 2800 m and 50 m).
Probably, in some cases, higher flying Ar 196s dived and attacked Beafighters that were either damaged by flak or dropped speed before the torpedoes launch and had not accelerated yet. Otherwise, it's hard to explain how Arados could catch Beaus.
Another explanation - gunner's claims (impossible to verify by any means), as S Sluff suggested.

Dont think they used torps in the Aegean/Adriatic. All info I've seen indicates cannon/ RP-3s. Occasionally bombs. Torps seem to have been a North Sea/ Norway thing.

 

[andrewgeorge]

As a rule of thumb overclaiming increases markedly over water.* My guess is there's a bunch of that going on here.

If you really want to know whether or not those claims are valid, find out the location of the purported shoot-downs (you might have to go through German records for this), then find out which Allied units were flying Beaufighters or aircraft resembling them in the area at the time, and then go through their loss records for possible matches.

*EDIT: Here's a couple of examples:

14 June – 31 December 1941, the RAF claimed to have shot down 731 German fighters over the English Channel.

The reality? 103 German fighters shot down.

19 August 1942, or thereabouts (Dieppe Raid), the RAF claimed to have shot down 96 German fighters. This was then upped to 160 by Leigh-Mallory because French intelligence claimed they'd intercepted German loss communiqués stating as much.

The reality? 20 German fighters shot down. Note that this was probably partly over land, more so than the first statistic!

Sources:
-John J. Vasco & Peter D. Cornwell (1995): Zerstörer: The Messerschmitt 110 and its Units in 1940
-Donald Caldwell (2013): JG 26: Top Guns of the Luftwaffe

This is a good rule of thumb. Also applies to remote areas, or any operational units in which over-claiming was condoned or tacitly encouraged by command (See: 5th Air Force/Gen. Kenney).

Few if any ground observers or documentable crash sites means nothing to press the brakes on over-optimism and/or fabulism.