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

The Allies were in a position to write off aircraft which were slightly damaged, particularly in the latter stages of the war. The Germans were not and a great deal of effort was put into salvaging and reconstructing aircraft, some of which were severely damaged. Even salvage for spares was considered essential. A series of orders and directives to this effect were issued from early 1944 until the end of the war.

From an 'ULTRA' decrypt of March 1944.

"The extraordinarily difficult situation in the air defence of the Homeland requires with all emphasis:

1) The speedy salvage of all fighter and heavy aircraft and their immediate return for repairs.

2)The unrestricted employment of salvage personnel for salvage tasks. Subordinate units are expressly forbidden from to employ them for any other purpose.

3)That spare parts be acquired by repair and salvage units by removal from aircraft worth salvaging only in case of absolute necessity.

4)That repair of aircraft in your area be energetically speeded up in order to increase serviceability and to relieve supply."

Many aircraft listed by the Luftwaffe as 40/50% damaged flew again, or at least a major part of them did. These would have been write offs to the RAF or USAAF. This is why I disagree with the premise that an aircraft which force landed in friendly territory, even with moderate damage be considered a 'kill' or 'victory'. It had not been destroyed, and it is only the destruction of an aircraft which the air intelligence branches of the allied air forces would consider a 'kill'. As I've already said, what individual pilots considered a victory is not relevant, awarding them victories was a secondary role for the system and not the reason it existed..

Cheers

Steve

The Germans considered anything over 60% damaged as a write-off.

Milosh said:

The Germans considered anything over 60% damaged as a write-off.

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They did in 1940. That's why I wrote that aircraft with 40-50% damage flew again. Orders were that parts were not to be removed from these aircraft for salvage unless absolutely necessary as they would be repaired.

60% damage on the Luftwaffe scale was extensive damage. These aircraft could be salvaged for parts rather than repair. It is clear from the orders issued from 1944 onwards (including the one I cited) that an effort was supposed to be made to do just that.

The point is that the allies were simply writing off aircraft with a collapsed undercarriage leg by late 1944. Such an aircraft on a German airfield would not even leave the Luftwaffe and enter the repair system. The repair would take place either at the unit (when possible) or at Operational Aircraft Command level at a first line 'Fliegerhorste'. This was technically under the administrative rather than operational division of a Luftflotte, but the aircraft might not need to physically go anywhere.

Only severely damaged aircraft left the Luftwaffe and where returned to the aircraft industry where they would be broken or repaired by a manufacturer or one of the specialised repair, salvage and overhaul companies.
Once repaired such an aircraft would be re-introduced to the Luftwaffe (and re-accepted by it). A mongrel aircraft like the Bf 109 at the AWM is a perfect example of the sort of thing that could result.

Cheers

Steve

stona said:

They did in 1940. That's why I wrote that aircraft with 40-50% damage flew again. Orders were that parts were not to be removed from these aircraft for salvage unless absolutely necessary as they would be repaired.

60% damage on the Luftwaffe scale was extensive damage. These aircraft could be salvaged for parts rather than repair. It is clear from the orders issued from 1944 onwards (including the one I cited) that an effort was supposed to be made to do just that.

The point is that the allies were simply writing off aircraft with a collapsed undercarriage leg by late 1944. Such an aircraft on a German airfield would not even leave the Luftwaffe and enter the repair system. The repair would take place either at the unit (when possible) or at Operational Aircraft Command level at a first line 'Fliegerhorste'. This was technically under the administrative rather than operational division of a Luftflotte, but the aircraft might not need to physically go anywhere.

Only severely damaged aircraft left the Luftwaffe and where returned to the aircraft industry where they would be broken or repaired by a manufacturer or one of the specialised repair, salvage and overhaul companies.
Once repaired such an aircraft would be re-introduced to the Luftwaffe (and re-accepted by it). A mongrel aircraft like the Bf 109 at the AWM is a perfect example of the sort of thing that could result.

Cheers

Steve

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But didn't the Germans have more of a problem with a shortage of well trained pilots rather than a problem with a shortage of aircraft? I know the Germans were forced to go to great lengths to continue aircraft production but had they of had better trained and more experienced pilots then surely this would have reduced aircraft losses and so the need for replacements.

Overclaiming was endemic for all nations, and establishing actual losses even 70 years on , even for whole units remains problematic. Different authors will give you different numbers. Even primary records of own losses is problematic, because of differences in reporting when a loss is a loss. And when that loss becomes a loss. Example...say an aircraft makes it back but never flies again. that may or may not be recordede as a loss, depending on the time the damage was suffered, and who that record was meant to be seen by. Say the aircraft is written off, taken off strength, but rebuilt. It was not unknown for an aircraft to be listed as a loss, go away for many months rebuilt, lost again, rebuilt and lost again. Is that a loss, if so, is it a loss of one aircraft, or a losss of three.

Forsyth is very clear that claims are not an accurate outline of actual losses. Its more an indicator of air activitiy. He seems to think that the "real" losses to claims was about 67-80%. as a rule of thumb, the more desperate the fighting was, the less accurate the claims. Maybe.

There is zero evidence to support one way or another that one nation was more accurate than another in loss records. I used to think otherwise, but Im convinced now that this is not the case.

stona said:

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.

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Cheers

Steve

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I would maintain that all the factors I mentioned contribute to the manner in which kills were confirmed and the degree which inaccuracies were present. A case in point was the claims of USAAF gunners over Germany during the initial stages of the daylight bombing campaign. The people in command believed fervently in the idea of the self protecting bomber and the crews needed to believe they were hurting the LW as much as the LW were hurting them. Losses were undeniable. The result was a system that drastically overestimated the number of LW fighters being shot down, one geared towards hope rather than reality. Similarly, the contemporary RAF night bombing campaign. Huge resources were dedicated to Bomber command, which was taking heavy losses. This was justified with the crews accounts of factories levelled and industry devastated. Later analysis showed damage to be marginal at best. In both these cases the systems for estimating damage to the enemy was designed, knowingly or not, to support hopes and ambitions rather than actuality.

CobberKane said:

I would maintain that all the factors I mentioned contribute to the manner in which kills were confirmed and the degree which inaccuracies were present. A case in point was the claims of USAAF gunners over Germany during the initial stages of the daylight bombing campaign. The people in command believed fervently in the idea of the self protecting bomber and the crews needed to believe they were hurting the LW as much as the LW were hurting them. Losses were undeniable. The result was a system that drastically overestimated the number of LW fighters being shot down, one geared towards hope rather than reality. Similarly, the contemporary RAF night bombing campaign. Huge resources were dedicated to Bomber command, which as taking heavy losses. This was justified with the crews accounts of factories levelled and industry devastated. Later analysis showed damage to be marginal at best. In both these cases the systems for estimating damage to the enemy was designed, knowingly or not, to support hopes and ambitions rather than actuality.

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The damage done by Bomber Command was marginal early war, but most considerable later in the war.

pattle said:

The damage done by Bomber Command was marginal early war, but most considerable later in the war.

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Absolutely - I used the word 'contemporary' to indicate I was speaking of the RAF and USAAF campaigns in the same initial periods.

Hi Steve,

You are correct ... we are splitting hairs. To me, if a pilot shoots an enemy plane down, even if it is lightly damaged but cannot continue, then he has a victory. He put an enemy down and out of action. That is where we disagree, and there is nothing saying I am right and you are wrong. It's just my point of view.

In point of fact, you may well be more in concert with the way it was supposed to be done but, if so, and if I had been there and a fighter pilot, I would have made damned sure any downed plane was burning before I left it in order to get the victory. That would have been counter-productiove and is probably the rason that the victory should be allowed if the plane goes down.

A pilot may not start off wanting to keep track of his kills but, after he makes ace and a few more, it would start to become someting of a point of pride unless the victories were awarded when an enemy went down and was seen to do so.

Just saying ...

CobberKane said:

Similarly, the contemporary RAF night bombing campaign. Huge resources were dedicated to Bomber command, which was taking heavy losses. This was justified with the crews accounts of factories levelled and industry devastated. Later analysis showed damage to be marginal at best. In both these cases the systems for estimating damage to the enemy was designed, knowingly or not, to support hopes and ambitions rather than actuality.

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Later analysis (a post war RAF post action report, (released in either 1946 or 1947) in fact is far more accurate than any of this speculation. it showed the BC efforts were responsible for a loss of around 17% of German productive capacity. This correlates pretty well with the USSBS which estimated overall production loss from bombing to be about 40% of overall German capacity.....thats 17% to the RAF and 23% to the USAAC

Westermann in his work on German flak defences shows also that BC was soaking up over 38% of LW expenditures in 1943 alone.

The losses inflicted by the RAF were very real, and significant. The amounts of money spent by the LW to try and counter the BC offensive were staggering. RAF expenditures of British defence spending accounted for 12% of the overall defence budget and associated expenditures. In exchange the germans spent something like 45% of their defence budgets on air, and of that about 38% on combatting the British Bombers. that is a substantial effect in anybody's book.

Either that, or the german leadership were a pack of Buffoons who did not see that the RAF was wasting its time. ill take either explanation.

Much is made of British losses in this campaign, and it is undeiable that they were heavy. but it cuts both ways. In may ways German losses were far more terrible and devastating than those being suffered by the RAF. Just to look at aircraft losses alone, total RAF losses were in the order of 20000 aircraft, whilst LW losses were around 150000. Much has been made in the past that this number exceeds the total German production figures, but that simplistic analysis fails to appreciate that many airframes were lost on multiple occasions....written off, repaired written off and then repaired again.

The reall myth being pedalled here is that the RAF bombing campaign had no effect. It did.

parsifal said:

Later analysis (a post war RAF post action report, (released in either 1946 or 1947) in fact is far more accurate than any of this speculation. it showed the BC efforts were responsible for a loss of around 17% of German productive capacity. This correlates pretty well with the USSBS which estimated overall production loss from bombing to be about 40% of overall German capacity.....thats 17% to the RAF and 23% to the USAAC

Westermann in his work on German flak defences shows also that BC was soaking up over 38% of LW expenditures in 1943 alone.

The losses inflicted by the RAF were very real, and significant. The amounts of money spent by the LW to try and counter the BC offensive were staggering. RAF expenditures of British defence spending accounted for 12% of the overall defence budget and associated expenditures. In exchange the germans spent something like 45% of their defence budgets on air, and of that about 38% on combatting the British Bombers. that is a substantial effect in anybody's book.



Either that, or the german leadership were a pack of Buffoons who did not see that the RAF was wasting its time. ill take either explanation.

Much is made of British losses in this campaign, and it is undeiable that they were heavy. but it cuts both ways. In may ways German losses were far more terrible and devastating than those being suffered by the RAF. Just to look at aircraft losses alone, total RAF losses were in the order of 20000 aircraft, whilst LW losses were around 150000. Much has been made in the past that this number exceeds the total German production figures, but that simplistic analysis fails to appreciate that many airframes were lost on multiple occasions....written off, repaired written off and then repaired again.

The reall myth being pedalled here is that the RAF bombing campaign had no effect. It did.

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My understanding is that RAF night bombing 1942-43 in particular was believed to be causing far more damage than actually the case. An analysis was conducted and the true story was revealed: the vast majority of bombs were literally missing their targets by miles. Even in the face of hard data many in BC refused to accept that they weren't doing great damage. Thereafter, tactical and technological advances made the campaign increasingly effective and by the wars end BC were doing terrific damage to the German war machine - and populations. it is a great pity that because of unease over the latter the sacrifice of the men who flew in this campaign has not received more recognition.
In terms of the German allocation of flack defences, I'm not surprised BC got a big share of the pie. For quite a while they were the only thing for heavy flack to shoot at, until the USAAF provided alternative targets

CobberKane said:

I would maintain that all the factors I mentioned contribute to the manner in which kills were confirmed and the degree which inaccuracies were present. A case in point was the claims of USAAF gunners over Germany during the initial stages of the daylight bombing campaign. The people in command believed fervently in the idea of the self protecting bomber and the crews needed to believe they were hurting the LW as much as the LW were hurting them. Losses were undeniable. The result was a system that drastically overestimated the number of LW fighters being shot down, one geared towards hope rather than reality. Similarly, the contemporary RAF night bombing campaign. Huge resources were dedicated to Bomber command, which was taking heavy losses. This was justified with the crews accounts of factories levelled and industry devastated. Later analysis showed damage to be marginal at best. In both these cases the systems for estimating damage to the enemy was designed, knowingly or not, to support hopes and ambitions rather than actuality.

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We'll agree to disagree. The RAF (and Luftwaffe, I don't know how the USAAF operated) went to great lengths to try and get a realistic assessment of the losses they were inflicting. Despite this the estimated losses and the actual losses, as subsequently confirmed by access to the enemy's data, diverged by a large factor.

If pilots return and claim that they shot down thirty enemy aircraft all the intelligence officer can do is sift and correlate the claims in an effort to eradicate the multiple claims for one victim. If the aircraft are falling on your territory an effort can be made to actually count them. The Luftwaffe certainly did. The RAF did during the BoB, but could make up the large disparity between those found and those claimed by wrongly estimating that large numbers had come down in the seas around the UK.

Likewise if bomber crews claimed to have destroyed a target, in the absence of reconnaissance that might afford accurate bomb damage assessment, the intelligence branch more or less had to take their word for it.

Whether psychological factors, simplistically intelligence officers kidding themselves, came into the equation is a moot point. The British tried to prevent that happening, but I certainly agree with you that there was pressure 'from the top' to provide positive figures. That's a problem that has never gone away. Gun camera and bombing photos were introduced as technological aids to try to prevent this.

To address another point, by mid 1942 bombing within the range of GEE (250-270 miles, they could get Dortmund and Essen) had become much more accurate. The introduction of many new tactics, not least the 'bomber stream', was also contributing to better results. Beyond that range the same problems persisted. Despite the advent of a plethora of other electronic devices the RAF found it difficult to bomb Berlin consistently accurately in late 1943!
Mid 1942 was very early in the war for the USAAF, but the RAF had been scattering bombs over continental Europe since 1939. It had taken that long for the technology to catch up with the task being asked of the bomber force.

Cheers

Steve

Oboe was Q1-43 Steve. '42 was Gee, Luebeck, Rostock, 1,000-bomber raids on Cologne, Essen and Bremen, and ever-larger heavy forces against German cities, all with Harris in charge.

It's true that OBOE Mosquitos were not operational until December 1942.

I meant GEE (Grid) navigation. OBOE being one of those 'other electronic devices', like H2S introduced later.

Thanks for the correction, I'll edit accordingly.

Cheers

Steve

My understanding is that RAF night bombing 1942-43 in particular was believed to be causing far more damage than actually the case. An analysis was conducted and the true story was revealed: the vast majority of bombs were literally missing their targets by miles. Even in the face of hard data many in BC refused to accept that they weren't doing great damage.

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You seem to be refrring mostly to the BC efforts up Feb '42. BC efforts up until that time were miniscule....BC strength up to the end of 1941 did not exceed 400 aircraft. Targetting and accuracy were pretty poor, but this was not a unique problem for night bombing. the efforst of 2 groups day bombing force suggest equally problematic difficulties in accuracy.

The size of the bombing raids were mniscule and the accuracy of the bombs dropped were totally inadequate to achieve very much at all. And its true that many in the RAF failed to appreciate those cold truths.

Roughly speaking, according to Varley (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/r_m_g.varley/Strategic_Air_Offensive.pdf) the operational sortie rate in 1941 hovered around the 1000 mark, with just 3 month of the year....June, July and August reaching 3000 sorties per month, as the RAF strained to try and take some pressure off the Russians. In comparison, in 1944 the average sortie rate was about 10000 per month, with many months approaching 20000 sorties. Accuracy didnt help, but it was the sheer scale of the operation in 1944 that made the difference.

A quick note....it is impossible to determine precisely just how many bombs hit the target, or were dropped, despite butts estimates. We dont even know just how many aircraft made to be over the target..... and recon in 1941 was simply not up to the task of keeping thee BC sommanders properly informed. Ralph Barker in his book "Birth of the Blitz" assesses this failure in some detail. Speaking of the efforts December 1040 to January 1942, he with initial comments on the early raids over mannheim, he states " there was no difference in the accuracy of either the dayligt precision raids or the night bombing missions"....."in spite of the confident tone of the official cimmuniques and over-optimistic ntelligence reports of the effects of British Bombing, Air marshal Peirse and his staff remained highly skeptical. In March 1941, Peirse estimated that for the lomger ranged attacks only 1 in 5 aircraft were able to find their primary target at all.

Peirse was hampered in reaching any firm or conclusive resolution primarily due to a shortage of reconn assets at that time. as a result, the truthy about BC inability to hit anything remained partially obscured"

Much is made about the Butt report, and how it was an indicator of British failure. Certainly, the last half of 1941 was about as close as the RAF came to abandoning its offensive, but the Butt repport was perhaps the least important factor in that re-assessment. The bomber offensive had been started purely because at the time it was thought to be the onbly effective means of hitting back at the Germans, but as 1941 other avenues of attacking germany were presenting themselves, so it was only natural that the British should review whether its continuation was worth it or not. Butts report suggested that it was not, but whilst it became painfully obvious that changes needed to be made, the british still reached the conclusion that bombing was cost effective, and they decided to up the stakes and continue.....and they were right to do so. EWven nin 1941, where there was very little to get cheery about the bombing, the Germans were being forced to react. 8 of the 12 major flak formations were forced to remain in Germany, and vast sums of money spent on ammunition, gun replacements. Thern there was the dfevelopment of an integrated night fighter defence system, which turned out to be very effective, but cost the Germans an absolute bucket to develop.

From 1942, things began to slowly change. With nthe arrival of Harris, a new broom went through the BC command and things began to change almost immediately. Sortie rates basically doubled, and Harris abamdomned the pinprick strike in favour of a few devastating hammer blows. The thousand bomber raids still lacked accuracy, but they got the attention of everyone that mattered, including the germans, who were thoroughly alarmed by them.

Thereafter, tactical and technological advances made the campaign increasingly effective and by the wars end BC were doing terrific damage to the German war machine - and populations. it is a great pity that because of unease over the latter the sacrifice of the men who flew in this campaign has not received more recognition.

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Technology did make a difference, but it was the numbers more than anything that tipped the balance. In night fighting, attrition is a very big factor, for both sides....aircraft tend to get lost and crash into things. If the fighters were merely forced to get airborne, they would suffer pretty heavy losses, which was made worse by the lack of blind navigation training in LW crews, even without a shot being fired. It was a similar situation in the RAF...roughly 1 in 3 losses were due to just getting lost

In terms of the German allocation of flack defences, I'm not surprised BC got a big share of the pie. For quite a while they were the only thing for heavy flack to shoot at, until the USAAF provided alternative targets

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Except for the unrelenting pressure applied by the Bombers, the Flak units could have redeployed to the east, where the two Flak units that were spared and sent to the east had done devastating things, and continued to do so. Without the bombers, this massive amount of firepower could have been used to turn the tide in the East and North Africa

Hello, parsifal,
Fine post, just one disagreement: RAF BC went to 880 ("establishment strength in operational units") and 525 (serviceable) bombers by Sept 1941. here; further tables
By 1st Jan 1942, they have had 581 serviceable bomber.

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 am not sure that this belongs in this discussion, but I learned reciently that there have been more instances of personal bravery by American soldiers throwing themselves on grenades than ever before. Does this reflect on their trust of PBA, or something else? Not up to me. Just thought I would make it known.

war eagle said:

We are all aware that the various air forces had different rules as regard registering fighter pilot kill this coupled with the general chaos that ensues during war we see the stats but how accurate are they and furthermore should we calculate them in when assessing a particular aces wartime combat performance ?

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I hear what you're saying. Along similar lines, did Gary Cooper really capture all those Germans in World War I? For that matter, did he even marry Joan Leslie, or did that other guy, while he was away? I think the best one can do is just look at how these "credits," if you will, were reported and confirmed. Then, just draw your own conclusions, perhaps conditioned on the fact, this was hardly an exact science.

I just take comfort that the vast majority of pilots of all nations reported what they firmly believed to be the truth. Exceptions existed in all air forces but they were a tiny minority in comparison and in most cases their fellow pilots, viewed them with almost contempt. When times were tough again for all sides, the PR machine swung into action and tended to exaggerate the situation but that shouldn't be blamed on the pilots themselves.

Eye witness testimony is unreliable.

Air force intelligence services need accurate aggregate losses of enemy aircraft in a given operational area; they don't need accurate scores for each pilot. When pilots exaggerate, they force intelligence analysts to make statistical corrections. Those require accurate counts someplace, and the only way to do that is have somebody count wrecks and captured and killed enemy pilots and compare that number to pilots' claims.

Comparing pilots' scores is fun, and gives individual pilots bragging rights, may improve service morale, and creates heroes for propaganda campaigns, but an air force is probably better served if a squadrons 50 kills were distributed somewhat evenly among all the pilots than just one or two.