In the fog and chaos of war just how reliable are fighter pilot kill scores ?

CobberKane said:

That sounds reasonable to me. Anything else just introduces to many variables. For example, if the aircraft is only moderately damaged but unable to be repaired due to supply shortages, is it a kill? If 50% of the aircraft can be salvaged for re-use, is it half a kill?
To my mind its a kill if any of the following can be verified via camera or witnesses (wherein of course lies the devil in the detail).

1. It hits the ground, including crash landings
2. The pilot bales out
3. it breaks up or catches fire in the air.

Some verification procedures seem pretty dopey. During the Korean conflict the USAAF decided (with what justification I know not) that 15 .50 cal hits should be sufficient to knock down a Mig. As one round in every five was an API, if gun camera footage showed five visible hits they concluded the Mig had been hit fifteen times in total and it was therefore credited as a kill, irrespective of whether it was seen to crash, flame or fly merrily on it's way. Just possibly such criterion might have contributed to the Sabre's amazing kill/loss ratio in that conflict

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That would be the USAF during the Korean WAR, not the USAAF.

We were still using .50 cal with Korean War era date of manufacture, or even earlier in 1967 while I was in SEA.

The belt mix was 4 api and 1 tracer.

Have you got any source for that USAF policy?

Did "Pappy" Boyington have Six kills when he was a Flying Tiger?
Did Erich Hartmann really shoot down Three hundred and fifty two?
Bob Tucks Twenty nine?
Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, One hundred and two?
At one time it may have mattered, but not now.
Let the scores stand as they are. A testament to a generation such as we will never see again.

meatloaf109 said:

Did "Pappy" Boyington have Six kills when he was a Flying Tiger?
Did Erich Hartmann really shoot down Three hundred and fifty two?
Bob Tucks Twenty nine?
Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, One hundred and two?
At one time it may have mattered, but not now.
Let the scores stand as they are. A testament to a generation such as we will never see again.

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I don't know if it's true that the World War 2 generation are something such as we will never see again. Most of the soldiers back then had no choice in whether to go to war or not, these days it is only volunteers out in Afganistan and unlike World War Two opinion is divided about this war. Just an observation not a complaint.

tyrodtom said:

That would be the USAF during the Korean WAR, not the USAAF.

We were still using .50 cal with Korean War era date of manufacture, or even earlier in 1967 while I was in SEA.

The belt mix was 4 api and 1 tracer.

Have you got any source for that USAF policy?

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Ah the dreaded extra A!
Four API to one tracer sounds right. The source is an account by a F-86 ace from Fire in the sky II: the American aces speak if I recall correctly. I'll dig up the account and post a quote. Possibly my memory is playing tricks on me, but I recall thinking it seemed a very generous system.

CobberKane said:

To my mind its a kill if any of the following can be verified via camera or witnesses (wherein of course lies the devil in the detail).

1. It hits the ground, including crash landings
2. The pilot bales out
3. it breaks up or catches fire in the air.

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In the RAF system a good forced landing, if witnessed and with no subsequent damage being inflicted would be unlikely to be classified as 'destroyed' as the aircraft obviously survived.

An aircraft diving away, forced out of combat, smoking heavily, which I understand that GregP would credit as a kill to the attacking pilot(s) would not be considered such. It would be recorded as 'damaged' and might be back in action very soon.

An aircraft diving away, heavily damaged, or seemingly out of control would be recorded as 'probable' and again the attacking pilot(s) would not be credited with a victory. This category is self explanatory. The intelligence officer wasn't expecting to see that aircraft back in action any time soon, but it remained a possibility.

Cheers

Steve

OK, found it.

"The "kill rules" were that if you got seven hits on a MIG they would give you a kill. The MIGs didn't torch at high altitudes...So our intelligence people would count the incendiary hits on them. They figured that if you got seven hits on the fuselage, the odds were the MIG was dead, and they'd give you a kill...They knew every third round was an incendiary, so if you got three incendiary hits on a gun camera film, they would say it was a dead MIG."

The account is from Major Jack Bolt, a USMC pilot who was attached to the 39th Fighter Interceptor Squadron flying F-86s. It is recounted in 'Aces at War: the American Aces Speak' by Eric Hammel.

So, my memory as to the name of the book was off, but I actually remembered the verification procedures as being more stringent than Major Bolt recounts. Seven .50 hit to the fuselage seems very little to be confident of destroying a MIG 15. I'd love to know how the number was arrived at.

The belt mix was 4 api, and 1 tracer, that's 4 armor piercing incendiary, and one tracer, then at some point they came up with the M20 .50 cal. round, which was a apit, a armor piercing, incendiary, tracer, all in one round, just not as effective in either role as a round devoted to just one task.

I'm not sure when the M20 apit round was developed, but I think it was between WW2 and Korea.

That 4 api and 1 tracer mix goes all the way back to WW2, thru Korea, and was still the same during Vietnam, and may still be the same.
The belt mix used during training stateside is different, usually 4 ball, and one tracer.

I don't believe Bolt (USMC) is correct. He was one of the six WWII aces that was also a Korea ace.

The USAF policy was the same as WWII. No rational conclusion could be drawn relative to destruction based on hits when no major structural piece was destroyed or pilot remained with aircraft - that somehow got away from the shooter.

I will dig on that one also.

I don't know anything about the USAF claim system in Korea but specifying a number of hits seems strange. It would be difficult to accurately estimate the number of hits and even more difficult to have confirmation from another source. It is also a system that could be easily abused.

It is most unusual to see a WW2 encounter/combat report wherein a specific number of hits was mentioned. I can remember one saying something like managing 'about six scattered hits', but it is an exception.
Phrases like 'some', 'a few', 'many', 'numerous' and variations on that are common. Often the pilots simply claim 'strikes' with no quantification at all.



Cheers

Steve

This from Wiki (yeah, I know!)

After the war the USAF reviewed its figures in an investigation code-named Sabre Measure Charlie and downgraded the kill ratio of the North American F-86 Sabre against the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 by half from 14:1 to 7:1.[2] One of the factors in the inflated US numbers was that because most dogfights took place over enemy controlled area the only way to confirm kills was the gun camera. USAF pilots were credited with a kill if the gun camera showed their guns striking the enemy aircraft even if no one actually saw it go down.[3] This contrasted with Soviet methodology that required other pilots' testimony, ground evidence, gun camera footage and support from the Chinese and Korean ground forces.[3]

I believe Soviet claims however also proved highly exaggerated.

I have never heard of Korean war pilots having their kill totals revised down en masse after the war. If Wiki is correct and the USAF did halve their estimate of the total number of victories, the average USAF pilot would have actually shot down only 50% of the kills credited to him. Food for thought.

The general rule of thumb is the larger the action, the bigger the distortion in claims vs actual kills.

All sides overclaimed, its just part and parcel of the business of air combat. Its not a slight on the pilots, but of all forms of evidence, first hand accounts are the least reliable

Personally, I've found a tendency that where claims were tied to promotions, rewards or other benefits, there was generally a higher degree of overclaiming. Also in cases where individual scores were strongly promoted. The AVG, Luftwaffe, IJN and VVS come to mind in these instances.

I have a post war study where the USAAF found post-WW2 that the Luftwaffe had a bias in awarding kill claims, at least in 1944. The higher the rank of the claiming pilot, the more likely it was the claim of a kill would be awarded, independent of combat footage and witnesses. Now, a higher ranked, more experienced pilot might be more likely to make reliable claims, but that doesn't mean the inexperienced pilots claims are going to be more or less accurate. Even Galland had to start somewhere.

Hi Steve,

You mentioned victory categories. Let's say that some in here have openly stated that if a plane was shot down and crash landed and was later recovered, it was not a kill. I cannot agree with that.

I feel a victory was when you attacked a manned, armed and airborne enemy aircraft and:
1) Destroyed it in an aerial explosion.
2) Caused the enemy pilot to bail out.
3) Caused it to crash land from combat damage, there by taking it out of combat.
4) Caused it to crash by killing the enemy pilot and it simply went in.
5) Caused it to crash in maneuvering to escape you as in a low-level turning fight.
6) Caused it to crash land by virtue of it running out of fuel during combat.

My award would not change if the enemy recovered some or all of a downed aircraft. It was downed in combat and should count as a victory for the pilot oir pilots who achieved the victory.

Damaged would be when you attacked a manned, armed and airborne enemy aircraft and:
1) You achieved some hits with visible damage but the enemy aircraft was not seen to crash and the pilot didn't bail out while he was in view.
2) You shoot out an engine or engine in a multi-engine aircraft but did not observe it to crash.

Probable would be when you attacked a manned, armed and airborne enemy aircraft and:
1) The enemy aircraft was going down in flames but you didn't actually observe the crash.
2) The enemy aircraft was shedding pieces and going down but you didn't actually observe it to crash.

I would not count aircraft on the ground as aerial victories, but would award a separate category as destroyed on the ground when you caused it to blow up or catch fire as a result of your attack.

I would award V-1 kills as V-1 kills, but not as an aerial victory over a manned aircraft. It was hardly in a position to defend itself. I am not saying it was less significant, just in a different category from a victory over a manned enemy aircraft.

There is a whole raft of scenarios when an enemy aircraft was attacked by two or more aircraft and a victory was achieved. I would award a single total victory, and apportion it after arriving at a reasonable account of the combat. I would not care to go into that in it's entirely here, but the practice of awarding a whole victory to more than one aircraft introduced automatic errors.

My main disagreement with some folks is that I don't care at all if the victory total matches the enemy losses. If the enemy recovers some or all of a combat loss and manages to rebuild a plane, I feel the victory was still a victory for the pilot or pilots. The fact that the enemy might be good at recovering and rebuilding a crashed plane should not change the awards.

Naturally there will be some discrepancies since a pilot who made one or more kills might himself be shot down and not available to give a combat report. In the case of combat reports that could not be reconciled, the matter should be decided by a committee of peers. If they can't agree, then no awards should be made for that mission.

The intent is to be fair to the combat pilots, not to account for all enemy losses. The enemy would natrually be interested in his own losses, but taking a plane out of combat is what the fighters were trrying to DO in an aerial combat ... if they were not on an escort mission. If they WERE on an escort mission, the intent is to see the bombers safely to the target and back home, not to dogfight with enemy fighters. If they encountered enemy fighters during an escort, the intent is to drive them off without damage to the bombers. Perhaps there should have been a category for enemy aircraft successfully driven off from the bombers, but there wasn't.

The Germans gave points for aerial combat on the Western front.

The more points the more likely to get a promotion.

Aircraft Type Abschuss/Destroyed, Herrausschuss/Separation, Entgültige Vernichtung/Final Destruction
Single-engined 1 0 0
Twin-engined bomber 2 1 1/2
Four-engined bomber 3 2 1

It may well be that the criteria by which kills are confirmed are a reflection of why the information is being gathered. Keeping tabs on kill tallies serves three purposes that I can think of, and unfortunately providing statistics for future forum discussions is not one of them:

1. It contributes to assessment of the enemies strength.
2. It provides propaganda material for the home front.
3. It contributes to morale in the service.

The thing is, the goals are not necessarily compatible. The kind of verification process that is going to boost espirit de corps and churn out gallant heroes for the masses is not going to provide good intelligence, or visa versa
In regards to the USAF policy mentioned earlier, it should be perfectly possible to create a system that gives a reasonably accurate idea of how many aircraft were being destroyed based on observed hits, but only if you have sufficient information to start with. If there were enough wrecks available to determine how many hits on average were required to down a given type, a bell curve could be extrapolated and the number of hits required for a given certainty of destruction – 95% sure, for example – could be determined, and kills allocated accordingly even without witnessing fire or crashes. Lies, dammed lies and statistics. However, in Korea there were few if any MIG wrecks to examine, which makes me wonder which of the above goals were pre-eminent in the minds of whoever formulated the policy.

Just as an aside, on the subject of overclaiming, Canadian Great War ace William Avery 'Billy' Bishop is regarded as one of the most controversial since post-war researchers have claimed that not one of his kills can be officially verified. From Wikipedia:

"After years of controversy over Bishop's record, mainly due to the fact very few of his claimed victories were witnessed by anyone else or could be confirmed from surviving German records, the show led to an inquiry by the Canadian government in 1985. The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology discredited the documentary, saying it was an unfair and inaccurate portrayal of Bishop. There is some dispute about whether Bishop or Mick Mannock had the highest score of any British Empire First World War fighter ace. The Canadian Encyclopedia states: "Investigation by a Senate sub-committee exposed a number of minor errors in this apparent 'documentary' and confirmed that statements had been wrongly attributed and incidents shifted in time for dramatic effect. However, the senators were unable to demonstrate that Bishop's claims were valid, and consequently recommended only that the film be labelled as docu-drama".

Some of Bishop's other claims have also been challenged. While combat reports and claims of both sides are littered with well-intentioned errors and accidental duplicate claims there are two phases of Bishop's life where German records can provide no supporting evidence. In his book on Victoria Cross airmen of WW1, author Alex Revell quotes aviation historian Philip Markham's view that German records of the events of June 2, 1917 (the day of Bishop's VC award) show: "Not a shred of evidence to support Bishop's claims". Referring to Bishop's claims in early to mid-1918, Revell says another aviation historian - Ed Ferko - carried out extensive research on Germans records in 1987. Revell says he (Ferko): "Failed to match a single victory claim made by Bishop against a known German loss for the day, time or place in question".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bishop

Just a thought victory versus kill
If a defending fighter attacks a bomber on route causing it to dumps its payload over open country side and turn for home eeven if it does not shoot the bomber down is this not a victory although not a kill . Reverse situation if say 4 escort fighters engage an enemy fighter formation preventing them from engaging the bombers once again no kills but perhaps a victory ?
Fighter versus fighter may be glamourous but unless it aids /prevents bombing or recon it is unproductive .

CobberKane said:

It may well be that the criteria by which kills are confirmed are a reflection of why the information is being gathered. Keeping tabs on kill tallies serves three purposes that I can think of, and unfortunately providing statistics for future forum discussions is not one of them:

1. It contributes to assessment of the enemies strength.
2. It provides propaganda material for the home front.
3. It contributes to morale in the service.

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I don't agree.

You are conflating two different things.The reason that the information is being gathered is essentially your point number one. That same information might well be used for other purposes, and certainly was for your points two and three, but that was not its 'raison d'etre', nor why it was being gathered.

The excessive claims trumpeted in propaganda footage were not usually inflated from the 'real' figures used by the air intelligence branches, they were the same.

Cheers

Steve

Hi Greg. To be honest are difference of opinion is extremely small. I think we are in agreement about what constitutes 'probable' or 'damaged' aircraft and almost entirely over what constitutes a kill. I would classify your points three and six as damaged unless the forced landing was catastrophic. Many aircraft made forced landings with damage of around 10% (by the Luftwaffe system) which was easily repairable.
We're starting to split hairs though
Cheers
Steve

"In war, truth is the first casualty". A quote from Aeschylus a Greek dramatist 456 BC.

Just saying.

Just because an aircraft was able to return home and even land damaged this does not mean that it was not in actual fact destroyed, for instance how many Eigth Air Force B17's landed back home with large chunks missing only to be written off as beyond repair? Granted these aircraft were able to be salvaged for spares. I think by far the most important thing here is that the crews of such aircraft were able to return home. Aircraft were less valuable than there crews, how many FW190's or Me109's would need to be destroyed on the ground to equal the damage caused by the loss of an experienced pilot such as Pips Priller or even a novice pilot?