This type of situation was documented in Soviet reports many times. They would often say that an aircraft has been damaged but that it was repaired and returned to service. So even if an aircraft was damaged, crash landed and repaired, the Soviets still documented this. We have evidence that it was repaired as it's stated in the report. The author of that book also mentions this. In the loss tables, it mentions damaged aircraft that were repaired.
Actually, I was going to ask you the title and author of the book you scanned above.
And I am not really sure if a "victory" is over the airplane, the pilot, or both. We'd need to answer:
1) What is the exact definition of a victory for the armed force the victor belongs to? This is important before we can begin to count victories.
2) we need agreement on whether or not an aircraft has to be totally destroyed to be awarded a victory. If so, then pilots would likely abandon their mission to pursue damaged aircraft down. If we required them to kill the pilot for the victory to count, would they be a force of murderers fighting for a rogue country?
3) Words matter. We need to consider many situations that arise in combat to produce good definitions of what a victory is.
In the real world, some countries awarded "points" based on number of engine the victim had. That is, they awarded points, not victories.
Bulgaria comes to mind.
The Bulgarian Air Force used a point based system as follows:
individual claim for a four engine bomber destroyed = 3 points.
individual claim for a four engine bomber damaged = 2 points.
individual claim for a fighter aircraft destroyed = 1 point.
individual claim for a two engine bomber damaged = 1 point.
shared claim for a four engine bomber destroyed = 1 point.
shared claim for a four engine bomber damaged = 1 point.
individual claim for a fighter aircraft damaged = 0 points.
France had a different system for WWII. A pilot was given credit for a victory by personally shooting down an enemy aircraft, helping with the shoot down, or by claiming a probable victory. As a result, the brief Battle for France produced a plethora of aces. . Many pilots served not only with the Armee de L'Air, but when France capitulated to the Germans in 1940, many went on to serve with the Vichy Air Force, the RAF, the VVS and even with the Free French forces. Each of these air forces had their own aerial victory criteria, and as such pilots serving with more than one air force may become an ace through their accumulation of claims for each service they flew with.
Germany supposedly used "one pilot, one victory" principle. However, occasions are known, when the German pilots claimed a number of victories much bigger than actual Soviet losses and even bigger than the number of Soviet planes engaged. An example: On 4 July 1943, 7 Soviet planes (2 Hampden, 3 DB-3F of 9GMTAP and 2 Il-2 Shturmovik) attacked German ships. They were intercepted by six Bf109s leaded by commander of 7/JG5 Theodor Weissenberger. One Il-2 was shot down, and one Il-2, two Hampdens and one DB-3F had to ditch on a return route because of the combat damages. Only two torpedo bombers managed to land at an airdrome. German pilots claimed 16 "victories", including 7 "kills" by Weissenberger.
UK and Commonwealth: Used the mathematic principle. A kill divides by the number of pilots claiming it, and each pilot gets a part of a kill (0.25 , 0.33 , 0.5 and so on). There would be no-fractional figures for individual confirmed kills.
Hungary: For the Hungarian aces, individual and shared claims are shown as separate entries. This latest update was from the book, Hungarian Aces of World War 2, Osprey Aircraft of the Aces #50 by Gyorgy Punka. I have found that this book has not done much to clear up the confusion regarding the scores for the Hungarian aces of World War Two.
Italy: Used "collectivist" principle, especially during Spanish Civil War and the begin of WW2. An enemy plane shot down by a group of pilots counted as shared kill (group victory). Individual kills (personal victories unshared) were also awarded. So, the total score of a pilot is a sum of two figures: personal + shared.
Romania: In February 1944, the Romanians implemented a pointing system for victories. Victory points were awarded for confirmed and unconfirmed shoot downs, and for aircraft destroyed on the ground. Points were also awarded for shared victories. This system was retroactively applied to all claims prior to this date and followed these rules: - 3 victories for a 4 or 6 engine aircraft - 2 victories for a 2 or 3 engine aircraft - 1 point for a single engine aircraft With the publication of Dénes Bernád's book, Rumanian Aces of World War Two, a much more complete break down of Romanian ace's claims can be found.
The point is that there is no good way to directly compare the scores from all countries because they were counted differently from one another and going back to consolidate them under one system would be a monumental task at this point, made even more difficult due to there being nobody alive who could answer even basic questions about conflicting data. It would wind up as a "best guess" type of analysis, leaving any conclusions open to serious question quite easily ... so why go to the effort?
I collected a list of world aces and share it here. I make no claim that this is definitive, just the best I could find over many years of trying.
Cheers.
