FAF Me-109G had 25:1 and Brewsters 33:1 and Fiat G-50 44:1.
All thanks to good quality planes and excellent pilot education/training.
highest kill ratio (2 Viewers)
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All thanks to good quality planes and excellent pilot education/training.
Yes but also Fokker D-21 pilots had 15:1 - 16:1 killratio.
Kill ratio is curious phenomena.
Even polish AF with PZL-11 planes and dutch pilots with Fokker D-21 had a higher kill ratio than the lost ratio against overhelming enemy.
In 1931 the polish PZL-11 was a superior fighter aircraft compared to any contemporary aircraft.
[History] Fokker D.XXI | War Thunder Wiki
The Fokker D.XXI was a single-seat fighter aircraft designed and manufactured by the Dutch aviation company Fokker. It served primarily with the Netherlands’ Luchtvaartafdeeling (LVA) (Aviation Department) during the late 1930s, the Finnish Air Force in …
wiki.warthunder.com
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andrewgeorge
Airman
- 49
- Mar 20, 2024
Take all those numbers with an enormous grain of salt. Those are claims against known combat losses.
Just about everyone who has dug into the veracity of combat claims by cross checking against loss records from the opposing Air Forces has found significant overclaiming, with a claim to actual enemy loss ratio anywhere from 2:1 to 6:1 being common.
WW2 air combat was fast and chaotic with limited situational awareness. People's eyes play tricks on them in those situations. Also, there were a lot of incentives (morale, career, ego, etc) for over-optimism.
Overclaiming was a known phenomenon, but even still it sometimes misled strategic planning—in Summer, 1940, the Germans believed their fighter pilots were inflicting far more damage on Fighter Command than they actually were. In 1941-1942, the RAF mistakenly believed its fighter sweeps were doing far more damage to Luftwaffe strength in France that they actually were. In 1943, Yamamoto believed his air offensive the Solomons had dealt a significant blow to allied air strength in the South Pacific, when in fact he had just exchanged about an equal number of aircraft and lost a large number of pilots against the much larger, and rapidly growing allied Air Forces—a clear strategic defeat. It got him killed when he flew down to Bougainville to congratulate his air crews.
It is possible...I recall Haartmann wingman had no kills at all....but got a lot later. Maybe 200 of Eric Haartmann kills belonged to his wing man. Go figure.
I know for sure several of our aces had a lot more kills than they were even credited for....for instance Kyösti Karhila. He jus didn't have a wing man to proof it. After the war an infantryman was able to vefify the kills....of downed 5 Il-2s ( also Soviet archives were able to proof them ).
So what ever happened in Pacific or in Normandy may not necessarily apply on the Karelian Istmus...how much ever you want to down play our aviators work in saving our nation.
andrewgeorge
Airman
- 49
- Mar 20, 2024
No downplaying anyone's service during the war!
But it was more than 80 years ago now, and I think it's okay with this amount of distance that we let go of some of the mythologies surrounding the war.
Overclaiming by fighter pilots was pretty much ubiquitous, and I don't see any reason to believe the Finns were an exception. It's one thing to look at one side's claims, and assess the methodology and protocol of how they were made and "confirmed."
But at this point, with the individuals deceased, there's no reason not to cross check those claims against actual losses recorded by the opposing Air Force. And when folks have done that, almost without exception they come up with an overall pattern of significant overclaiming. Far more than can be explained by gaps in operational record keeping.
Really, the simple question is this: if the claims don't match the losses—sometimes more claims than existing enemy aircraft—who is likelier to have been mistaken? Eager, ambitious, adrenaline-soaked aircrew in a chaotic, uncertain aerial combat situation, or the administrative officers at airbases recording planes returning from sortie?
Hence the grain of salt. It shouldn't invalidate or undermine anyone's assessment of the men (or women, in the case of the Soviets) who flew the aircraft or the importance of honoring their wartime service.
Ok...I have a funny feeling you did not read very carefully what I just wrote yesterday to you.
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Here is once more the known data of the polish AF statistic during the battle of Poland:
During the 1939 September Campaign (the Battle of Poland), the Polish Air Force claimed approximately 105 to 126 German aircraft shot down while losing around 79 to loss/destruction figures exceeding 70% of their operational fleet. [1, 2, 3]
Campaign Details (September 1–6, 1939)
- Initial Claims: In the first six days of the invasion by Nazi Germany, Polish fighter units (flying aircraft like the PZL P.11) claimed 105 German aircraft. [1]
- Luftwaffe Strength: Faced a vastly superior German force of over 1,300 modern aircraft against roughly 400 operational Polish combat planes. [1]
- Tactics: Relied on decentralized, secret satellite airfields to survive longer than the myth of a "three-day destruction" suggests. [1, 2]
- Soviet Front: On September 17, following the Soviet invasion, Polish forces managed to shoot down an additional 8 Soviet planes amidst the collapsing defense.
- Dutch startistics:
Campaign Context and Air Combat
- The Force Disparity: The Dutch entered the German invasion on May 10, 1940, with roughly 155 operational aircraft facing the much larger Luftwaffe, which deployed over 830 aircraft. [1, 2]
- Operational Successes: Despite being heavily outnumbered, Dutch Fokker D.XXI fighters and bomber crews managed to shoot down numerous German transport planes (such as Ju 52s) carrying paratroopers during the Battle of the Hague at airfields like Ypenburg and Valkenburg, alongside several Messerschmitt fighters.
- Overall Losses: The Luftwaffe lost between 225 and 275 aircraft total during the brief 5-day campaign over the Netherlands—suffering heavy losses from both Dutch air-to-air engagements, ground strafing, and fierce anti-aircraft artillery fire. [1, 2, 3]
During the five-day invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940, the Royal Netherlands Air Force (Luchtvaartafdeling) was credited with 38 confirmed aerial victories. Out of those, exactly 16 confirmed kills were achieved by pilots flying the Fokker D.XXI. [1, 2]
Despite being much slower and more lightly armed than standard German fighters, the D.XXI relied on its exceptional low-altitude maneuverability to achieve a positive kill-to-loss ratio in direct dogfights. [1, 2]
Breakdown of Confirmed Kills by Type
Historical data from sources like War Over Holland breaks down the 16 confirmed D.XXI aerial victories as follows: [1]
- 5 × Messerschmitt Bf 109 (German front-line monoplane fighters)
- 5 × Messerschmitt Bf 110 (Heavy twin-engine escort fighters)
- 2 × Junkers Ju 88 (Twin-engine medium bombers)
- 2 × Junkers Ju 52 (Three-engine paratrooper transports)
- 1 × Heinkel He 111 (Medium bomber)
- 1 × Dornier Do 17 (Light bomber) [1]
So both polish and dutch fighter pilots had positive kill ratio over an 8-10 fold enemy....with totally obsolete fighters.
OTOH FAF fought with Fokker D-21s when they were still capable against biplanes and I-16s.
FAF pilot Rinkineva even shot down a Bell P-39 Airacobra with a war booty I-152 Tchaika.
The 1600 + kill FAF scored during the battles were possibly not totally accurate as some claimed kills over P-51D and Spitfires as there were officially none there.
The Finnish Air Force shot down 1,621 Soviet aircraft during World War II while losing only 210 of their own. [1]
Overall Statistics
Total Soviet aircraft claimed/shot down: 1,621Total Finnish aircraft lost: 210Victory ratio: Roughly 7.7 to 1 overall, and significantly higher with specific modern aircraft like the Brewster Buffalo (32:1). [1, 2]
Eino Ilmari "Illu" Juutilainen: Finland's top ace with 94 confirmed victories (top non-German ace of all time).Hans "Hasse" Wind: Second highest score with 75 confirmed victories.Urho Lehtovaara: Achieved 44 confirmed victories.Oiva Tuominen: Achieved 43.5 confirmed victories. [1, 2]
Brewster B-239 Buffalo: Achieved an exceptional victory-to-loss ratio against Soviet planes, with top pilots like Hans Wind scoring dozens of kills in the type.Messerschmitt Bf 109G: Flown later in the war by top aces like Juutilainen to maintain air superiority.Curtiss Hawk (Sussu): Credited with 190⅓ kills during the Continuation War. [1, 2, 3, 4]
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I forgot AI on P-36/A-75:
The Finnish Air Force achieved 190 1/3 aerial victories (kills) using the Curtiss P-36 Hawk (Hawk 75) during World War II. [1]
Operational Details
- Dates: Fought between July 16, 1941, and July 27, 1944.
- Unit: Flown primarily by Lentolaivue 32 (Flight Squadron 32).
- Losses: Only 15 aircraft were lost in combat.
- Pilots: 58 different Finnish pilots achieved victories with the type.
- Nickname: Affectionately called "Sussu" ("Sweetheart") by Finnish pilots.
Top P-36 Aces in Finland
- Kyösti "Kössi" Karhila: Scored 13 1/4 of his total 32 1/4 victories in the Hawk.
- Altto Kalevi "Kale" Tervo: The highest-scoring Hawk ace, credited with 15 3/4 victories in the type. [1]
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andrewgeorge
Airman
- 49
- Mar 20, 2024
Those are all fascinating histories, and I don't want to beat a dead horse but I think they sort of illustrate the point: I suspect if you look at the German claim/loss exchange ratios against Polish and Dutch fighters you'll find that the Germans also thought they got the better of the engagements—probably by an even bigger margin!
MIflyer
Captain
I have an article somewhere that says the FM-2 Wildcat had a tremendous kill ratio. But by the time it got into combat it was relegated to escort carriers and it's main targets were bombers coming after the carriers. I'd guess that the chance of a Japanese bomber scoring a kill against a souped up Wildcat had to be pretty low.
andrewgeorge
Airman
- 49
- Mar 20, 2024
By sheer numbers mostly kamikazes I suspect!
No there is no discrepancy in german claims...germans destroyed bombers and liasons planes but lost fighter to fighter combats against PZL 11s.
Nazi German propaganda claimed that the Luftwaffe completely destroyed the Polish Air Force on the ground within the first three days of the 1939 invasion. [1]
The Reality vs. German Claims
- The Three-Day Myth: Nazi reports and later repetitive documentaries claimed the Polish air arm was wiped out immediately. [1]
- Actual Duration: The Polish Air Force dispersed its planes to hidden, decentralized satellite airfields before the attack. It resisted effectively for nearly a week and continued combat operations at a reduced capacity for over two weeks. [1, 2]
- Actual Losses: The Luftwaffe lost about 285 aircraft destroyed and another 279 damaged during the campaign, while Polish losses totaled around 333 aircraft. [1]
- Fighter Effectiveness: Despite flying aircraft that were slower and older than German Messerschmitts, Polish pilots shot down numerous German planes, proving the Nazi claims of a swift, effortless annihilation to be false propaganda. [1]
Polish pilots also saved Great Britain later.
PZL 7 was more vulnerable against Me 109s.
Equipment in 1939
- Fighters: Primarily flew the gull-winged PZL P.11c and older PZL P.7a. Though outpaced in top speed by newer German Messerschmitts by 1939, they were highly maneuverable. [1, 2]
- Bombers and Reconnaissance: Utilized the modern twin-engine PZL.37 Łoś medium bomber and the PZL.23 Karaś light bomber/reconnaissance aircraft. [1, 2]
- Strength: Had roughly 771 total aircraft, though only around 421 were combat-ready and dispersed to field airstrips when the German invasion began
PZL 7s were worn out...engines unreliable and lacking hps.
PZL P.7 - Wikipedia
They had 3:1 loss ratio.
Pilots flying the P.7a claimed to have shot down seven German aircraft (two Heinkel He 111s, two Dornier Do 17s, one Henschel Hs 126 and two Messerschmitt Bf 110s), against 22 losses.
7 had a weak engine to start with:
- Powerplant: 1 × Polish Skoda Works Jupiter VIIF 9-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engine, 393 kW (527 hp) for take-off
- Propellers: 2-bladed Szomański fixed-pitch wooden propeller
The PZL 7 engines produced visibly less than their original 480–520 hp capacity. [1] Possibly less than 400 hp.
Estimate of 350–400 hp is a highly realistic and text-book accurate deduction for a worn-out PZL P.7a engine in 1939.
While official, exact test bench figures from that chaotic period do not survive, this represents a 20% to 25% drop in performance from its original 480–520 hp capacity. This exact level of power degradation aligns perfectly with the historical complaints of the Polish pilots for several key reasons:
- Inability to intercept bombers: At 350–400 hp, the aircraft's top speed likely dropped from its factory 327 km/h down closer to 270–280 km/h. This made it physically slower than the German Heinkel He 111 and Dornier Do 17 bombers it was trying to chase.
- Loss of compression: Six years of intensive training flight hours, lack of high-quality replacement piston rings, and scarce spare parts meant the Skoda-Bristol Jupiter VIIF engines suffered from severe compression leaks and worn superchargers.
- Fuel constraints: In 1939, Polish ground crews often had to use lower-octane fuel or poorly mixed substitutes, which caused engine knocking and forced pilots to run the engines at lower throttle settings to prevent them from seizing entirely.
Further more if you compare Messerschmitt 109 B ( Yes even those were used in Poland ) to PZL 11:
The Messerschmitt Bf 109 B ("Berta") was the first mass-produced variant of the iconic German fighter, powered by a Junkers Jumo 210 engine. [1, 2, 3]
General Characteristics
Performance
Armament
- Bf 109 B-1: Two 7.92mm MG 17 machine guns in the upper engine cowl
- Bf 109 B-2: Added a third engine-mounted MG 17 firing through the propeller hub (though often unreliable or removed due to vibration/overheating)
You will realize that it was only marginally faster then the polish best fighter.....and had more than double the wing loading.
Emils were in the majority....which was 10 kph faster.
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Finnish biplanes weren't any worse in kill ratio....except that that they were completely of guard in the opening days of the Winter War when soviets were able to attack a Gladiator base in a surprise attack.
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Finnish Air Force pilots scored 45 to 46 aerial victories flying the Gloster Gladiator biplane during World War II. [1, 2]
Key Facts and Statistics
On February 29, 1940, during the Winter War, 23 Soviet fighters from the 68th Separate Fighter Aviation Regiment (68 OIAP) launched a surprise attack on the Finnish Air Force base at Ruokolahti, resulting in the heaviest single-day aircraft loss for Finland of the war. [1]
Overview of the Attack
Outcome and Losses
The Finnish Air Force (FAF) operated the British-built Gloster Gladiator biplane fighter during the Winter War and the Continuation War, achieving a highly successful combat record against Soviet forces. [1, 2]
The exact figures for the FAF Gladiators are as follows:
Gloster Gamecock sole "kill":
On 29 January 1940 during the Winter War, a Finnish Gloster Gamecock (locally nicknamed "Kukko") achieved an unusual operational victory by strafing and forcing the capture of a Soviet Ilyushin DB-3 bomber. [1, 2]
The Engagement Details
So I counted 52 kills with biplanes and 15 lost. Kill ratio is thus 3.5:1.
Bristol Bulldogs scored 2 kills with one plane lost.
So the total biplane fighter tally is then 3.4:1.
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Finnish Air Force pilots scored 45 to 46 aerial victories flying the Gloster Gladiator biplane during World War II. [1, 2]
Key Facts and Statistics
- The Aircraft: Finland acquired 30 Gloster Gladiator Mk II fighters from the United Kingdom (20 purchased, 10 donated) during the Winter War in early 1940. [1, 2]
- The Kills: Over 22 Finnish pilots achieved victories using the type. This included 37–45 kills during the Winter War and a final recorded biplane kill in February 1943 during the Continuation War. [1, 2, 3]
- Swedish Volunteers: The Swedish voluntary unit Flygregement 19 (F 19), operating under Finnish markings in northern Finland, flew 12 Gladiators and contributed 8 of those total aerial victories. [1, 2]
- Top Biplane Aces:
- Oiva Tuominen: Finland's top biplane ace, credited with around 6.5 victories in Gladiators (part of his total 44 overall career victories).
- Paavo Berg: Credited with 5 victories flying the Gladiator. [1]
- Final Victory: The very last combat kill by a Gloster Gladiator anywhere in World War II happened under Finnish insignia on February 15, 1943, when Lieutenant Håkan Strömberg shot down a Soviet Polikarpov R-5.
On February 29, 1940, during the Winter War, 23 Soviet fighters from the 68th Separate Fighter Aviation Regiment (68 OIAP) launched a surprise attack on the Finnish Air Force base at Ruokolahti, resulting in the heaviest single-day aircraft loss for Finland of the war. [1]
Overview of the Attack
- Date: February 29, 1940
- Location: Ruokolahti air base, Finland
- Attacking Force: 23 Soviet Polikarpov I-16 and I-153 fighters from 1. and 2./68 OIAP
- Defending Force: Finnish Air Force (FAF) aircraft, including Gloster Gladiator biplanes and Fokker D.XXI fighters belonging to Lentolaivue 26 (LLv 26) and Lentolaivue 24 (LLv 24). [1]
Outcome and Losses
- Finnish Losses: Six fighters were destroyed (five Gloster Gladiators and one Fokker D.XXI), with three pilots killed in action and three wounded. [1]
- Soviet Claims vs. Actual: Soviet pilots claimed around 20 aerial and ground victories during the brief 15-minute engagement, though actual Soviet losses confirmed included two I-16 fighters (one pilot killed and one taken prisoner) alongside several damaged aircraft. [1]
The Finnish Air Force (FAF) operated the British-built Gloster Gladiator biplane fighter during the Winter War and the Continuation War, achieving a highly successful combat record against Soviet forces. [1, 2]
The exact figures for the FAF Gladiators are as follows:
Gloster Gamecock sole "kill":
On 29 January 1940 during the Winter War, a Finnish Gloster Gamecock (locally nicknamed "Kukko") achieved an unusual operational victory by strafing and forcing the capture of a Soviet Ilyushin DB-3 bomber. [1, 2]
The Engagement Details
- The Incident: Two Soviet DB-3 bombers landed on Finnish soil after mistaking it for Estonia to transfer fuel between themselves.
- The Attack: A Finnish Gamecock (from Täydennyslentolaivue 35) spotted and strafed the grounded bombers.
- The Result: Panic-stricken, both Soviet crews piled into the single aircraft that still had enough fuel and escaped, abandoning the second DB-3.
- The Capture: The abandoned Ilyushin DB-3 was captured intact by Finnish forces. [1, 2]
So I counted 52 kills with biplanes and 15 lost. Kill ratio is thus 3.5:1.
Bristol Bulldogs scored 2 kills with one plane lost.
So the total biplane fighter tally is then 3.4:1.
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FulmenTheFinn
Airman 1st Class
The official KLRs that have been thrown around in this thread are sheer nonsense, as cross-analysis between kill claims and loss records of opposing sides around the world has shown that the vast majority of credited aerial victories for all nations are nothing but air, as in phoney, as in didn't happen. Rarely out of intentional lying, although doubtless that also happened, but normally because of the nature of aerial warfare; it's usually impossible to actually track a "kill" all the way to the ground or water below in the middle of a dogfight, and most kill claims were made on the assumption of "that guy is surely going down". Often however an aircraft thought to have been shot down in reality made it back home. Often you'd also have multiple people unknowingly claiming the same aircraft. Another problem is that generally official KLRs don't factor in aircraft shot down by enemy air forces that were logged MIA, because their fate wasn't known at the time. Many of these MIA cases have since been solved, yet the same old outdated KLRs get thrown around.
Brewster 239
Some of the numbers mentioned in this thread aren't even official KLRs, but misunderstandings on what the official KLR would be. Take for example this claim about the Brewster Model 239 having a KLR of 33:1. This appears to be a version of the old 32:1 that also gets thrown around. It's been so many years since I looked into what constituted this figure specifically that I've forgotten the details, but it's essentially based on the official kill claims of Finnish Brewster pilots c. 1941-43 (that the FAF accepted and credited them with) vs. aircraft shot down, minus cases listed as MIA at the time. It was never purported to be the aircraft's KLR for the entire war, but for some reason gets thrown around as such. The official KLR for the entire war has traditionally been cited as 26:1. Again, this is wrong as well, and is, interestingly enough, missing not just lost Brewsters but also 20, sometimes 22 or 23 kill claims.
All in all the Brewster 239 was credited with 500 kills against aircraft and balloons in the air and on the ground, for the loss of 23 Brewsters to the VVS both in the air and on the ground. This would put the KLR at 22:1. However there is without a doubt a great deal of air in those kill claims, and Soviet records show that the real number is in the 150-200 range, with one source citing 154 confirmed cases (155 actually, but 1 of these has been shown to be incorrect) while another cites 171, all of which were Soviet aircraft shot down. This would put the KLR at a much more reasonable 7:1, still an amazing result. Of the 23 Brewsters destroyed by the VVS 18 were shot down in the air and 5 destroyed in Soviet air raids. Thus if we account for only air-to-air kills, then the confirmed KLR would be 9:1 or 10:1.
Fiat G.50 (in Finland)
Like other aircraft-specific Finnish KLRs, the claim of Finnish Fiat G.50s having a KLR of 44:1 stems from Finnish aviation literature, mostly from the works of Kalevi Keskinen and Kari Stenman et al. that go back to the 1970s. The same problems mentioned above with the Brewster figures persist here, and even a cursory analysis based on modern data will dismiss the 44:1 figure. The trouble is of course that few in the dilettante circles that permiate military aviation history-related social media bother familiarising themselves with the data, hence one still sees this figure in connection to the aircraft all the time. Getting to the gist of the matter, the Fiat G.50 was credited with 98 victories in Finnish service, for the loss of 4 aircraft shot down by the VVS. This would put the official KLR at 25:1. However of those 98 victories only 42 have been confirmed from Soviet records. Thus the confirmed KLR is 11:1. Still an extremely good result, all things considered.
I wanted to go over the Fokker D.XXI as well but I've not finished going over its kills and losses, so that'll have to wait. I might add it into the post/thread later.
Brewster 239
Some of the numbers mentioned in this thread aren't even official KLRs, but misunderstandings on what the official KLR would be. Take for example this claim about the Brewster Model 239 having a KLR of 33:1. This appears to be a version of the old 32:1 that also gets thrown around. It's been so many years since I looked into what constituted this figure specifically that I've forgotten the details, but it's essentially based on the official kill claims of Finnish Brewster pilots c. 1941-43 (that the FAF accepted and credited them with) vs. aircraft shot down, minus cases listed as MIA at the time. It was never purported to be the aircraft's KLR for the entire war, but for some reason gets thrown around as such. The official KLR for the entire war has traditionally been cited as 26:1. Again, this is wrong as well, and is, interestingly enough, missing not just lost Brewsters but also 20, sometimes 22 or 23 kill claims.
All in all the Brewster 239 was credited with 500 kills against aircraft and balloons in the air and on the ground, for the loss of 23 Brewsters to the VVS both in the air and on the ground. This would put the KLR at 22:1. However there is without a doubt a great deal of air in those kill claims, and Soviet records show that the real number is in the 150-200 range, with one source citing 154 confirmed cases (155 actually, but 1 of these has been shown to be incorrect) while another cites 171, all of which were Soviet aircraft shot down. This would put the KLR at a much more reasonable 7:1, still an amazing result. Of the 23 Brewsters destroyed by the VVS 18 were shot down in the air and 5 destroyed in Soviet air raids. Thus if we account for only air-to-air kills, then the confirmed KLR would be 9:1 or 10:1.
Fiat G.50 (in Finland)
Like other aircraft-specific Finnish KLRs, the claim of Finnish Fiat G.50s having a KLR of 44:1 stems from Finnish aviation literature, mostly from the works of Kalevi Keskinen and Kari Stenman et al. that go back to the 1970s. The same problems mentioned above with the Brewster figures persist here, and even a cursory analysis based on modern data will dismiss the 44:1 figure. The trouble is of course that few in the dilettante circles that permiate military aviation history-related social media bother familiarising themselves with the data, hence one still sees this figure in connection to the aircraft all the time. Getting to the gist of the matter, the Fiat G.50 was credited with 98 victories in Finnish service, for the loss of 4 aircraft shot down by the VVS. This would put the official KLR at 25:1. However of those 98 victories only 42 have been confirmed from Soviet records. Thus the confirmed KLR is 11:1. Still an extremely good result, all things considered.
I wanted to go over the Fokker D.XXI as well but I've not finished going over its kills and losses, so that'll have to wait. I might add it into the post/thread later.
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GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
I might mention a few things here:
First, Soviet records were not all that accurate until the fall of the Soviet Union and sealed archives could be accessed for actual statistics.
Second, using Facebook AI is not a peer-reviewed source and *might* be a starting point for research, but shouldn't be used as a source for confirmation of fact.
First, Soviet records were not all that accurate until the fall of the Soviet Union and sealed archives could be accessed for actual statistics.
Second, using Facebook AI is not a peer-reviewed source and *might* be a starting point for research, but shouldn't be used as a source for confirmation of fact.
FulmenTheFinn
Airman 1st Class
When I speak of what we've learned from Soviet records, I am of course referring to what research into the Russian archives post-1991 has revealed, specifically regarding Soviet losses, and in the case of aircraft that fought against them, the fate of cases logged missing, a number of which research has revealed were shot down by the VVS, thus counting towards any air-to-air KLR.
andrewgeorge
Airman
- 49
- Mar 20, 2024
Do you know if the claims for certain types (e.g. Brewster or Fiats) are cross referenced not just against Soviet losses for that date/engagement, but also against other Finnish claims (e.g. anti-aircraft gunners, other fighter squadrons flying different types) arising from the same engagement(s)?
I assume those are looked at, but I'm curious. Can you point me toward the research?
I ask because sometimes you'll have an engagement with say 10 claims by one fighter squadron, 4 claims by another, and 11 claims by ground units. 25 total claims. The enemy's own records will show they lost, say, 10 aircraft shot down. You're then stuck with the impossible task of guessing which claims to connect to the 10 actual losses.
It makes it really tricky to come up with any meaningful exchange rate for a specific aircraft type or unit. I suppose in the larger sense it doesn't really matter at all—what mattered was mission success and overall attrition rates. But among airplane enthusiasts it's been such a constant topic of interest, that I know people keep trying to isolate specific ratios to evaluate aircraft performance.
FulmenTheFinn
Airman 1st Class
You raise an excellent point, and unfortunately I can't tell you how much cross-referencing to that extent has been done. The source material is extremely poor in explaining how the authors came to certain conclusions. There are no footnotes and most of the time not even a source list, only some names of historians, credible to be sure, who have provided data and other things, e.g. from research into the Russian archives. I've lamented about this here. Most of the data is from Kalevi Keskinen's and Kari Stenman's literature, largely the Suomen Ilmavoimien Historia series, also abbreviated as SIH, but also some of their later works. The data comes in lists of FAF kill claims that the FAF accepted and credited to the pilots or their regiment, that Keskinen & Stenman have printed into their literature. In those lists the unit of the victim is mentioned in a column on the right side if research into the Russian/German archives has confirmed it as a genuine loss, i.e. a genuine kill for the Finns. Counting all the latter cases you get the number of genuine kills out of all the aerial victory claims. I've manually digitised all their data line by line, column by column, and had to count everything myself; the authors don't even provide any numerical totals in these lists! There are also discrepancies: one of the books by both or either of them for instance comes out to the aforementioned 171 confirmed kills for the Brewster 239s, rather than the 155 found in their other books. In other words none of this is dead-accurate, but it's at least indicative of the truth: there was a lot of air in the Finnish kill claims (particularly in the Continuation War), just as there was for everyone else. I'm keeping the list to myself for now, but I have published my Brewster kill list here, which includes British, Dutch and American claims. I intend on still cleaning up some of the Allied tables, and the British tables need to be merged, but the kill claims are more or less all there.
All that being said, there is potentially some overlap between the kill claims of different Finnish aircraft types, but probably not much. There weren't a lot of Finnish aircraft in the sky to begin with. There's probably more overlap with AA units claiming the same aircraft the FAF claimed. There regarding who actually shot down what, I suspect Keskinen & Stenman have favoured the aircraft over the AA, if the official record said that the kill was made by aircraft. In a lot of these cases it's impossible to know who ultimately shot down who. It's also why all the pilot-specific and airframe-specific kills are impossible to verify: if one side claims 20 kills and the records from the other side show they in reality lost only 2 planes, whose kill claims out of the 20 actually count for those 2? As you rightly pointed out even the aircraft type-specific kill claims can be impossible to verify down to a T. I imagine even more so with major countries with a lot of different types of planes in the same engagements.
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andrewgeorge
Airman
- 49
- Mar 20, 2024
That's really helpful insight thank you!
A lot of their flying time was also boring but indispensable reconnaissane and submarine research.
