Is this the lowest victory claim accuracy ever? (1 Viewer)

[Gilder]

I mean to this extent where some pilots have 0% accuracy

Absolutely. My personal favourites include:-

RAF - A sargeant pilot who had a lot of claims in a Hurricane. He was never promoted

IJAAF - A pilot who made so many claims for one combat his fellow pilots basically disowned him

USAAF - A squadron of P47's were about to be bounced by 109's. RAF saw what was going to happen and attacked first. Their thanks was to be attacked by the P47's. The Tempests ran chased by the P47's who continually fired at long range. When they landed not one Tempest had been hit at all and the USAAF unit were allowed 13 kills for the days work. ) I admit that this is my personal best)

Luftwaffe - A unit that had a number of concerns raised over the number of claims some of the pilots claimed.

 

[andrewgeorge]

Is this the lowest victory accuracy ever?

(Information comes from the link provided at the top. AI was only used to make the tables look neat and proper with all the information itself coming from the article)

Almost certainly not. I've been reading a lot about the South Pacific, and there are plenty of units (Japanese, but also American) with a frequency of unsubstantiated claims at least approaching this.

 

[andrewgeorge]

No it's not a victory.

(Update: Dukovac should be listed with 6 verified victories not 5)

If the plane crash landed or was a write off from combat damage I think you could call that a victory.

If it was just damaged, that's not a victory but it's at least something worth noting.

 

[andrewgeorge]

Hate those Victory claims topics, unless there is a specific deinition of victory, it's just ramblings trying to descredit the other "party".
Anyway I'm sure i can find a good contenter for this...

Let's see the Raf FighterCommand numbers on offensive operations in 41. (RAF NUMBERS, from official docs, not something calculated by myself)

Period	E/A claimed by F.C as destroyed	FC Pilots lost	German Fighters actually destroyed
20/12/1940->31/12/1941	775	462	193

I think it's an interesting topic insofar as it changes perceptions of what actually happened in an air campaign. E.g. your example of British fighter sweeps over France in 1941.

If German fighter strength had actually absorbed the number of losses RAF fighter command thought it inflicted, the allied day bombing campaign would have probably gone a bit smoother than it did.

 

[bada]

I think it's an interesting topic insofar as it changes perceptions of what actually happened in an air campaign. E.g. your example of British fighter sweeps over France in 1941.

If German fighter strength had actually absorbed the number of losses RAF fighter command thought it inflicted, the allied day bombing campaign would have probably gone a bit smoother than it did.

The FC actually knew perfectly well what were the real losses of the LW as they had decrypted Enigma in 1940, and each JG (or it was the Jafü, can't remember) made daily radio reports to RLM, communications that were intercepted by the british . There were the "official" numbers for the pilots, to keep the morale and spiritis high within the pilots and there were the "real" numbers that the HQ took into account.

 

[CHen10]

If the plane crash landed or was a write off from combat damage I think you could call that a victory.

If it was just damaged, that's not a victory but it's at least something worth noting.

If the plane crash landed or was a write off from combat damage after landing then that is definitely a full verified victory.

Simply inflicting damage to a plane that can be repaired is not a victory.

 

[CHen10]

I've been reading a lot about the South Pacific, and there are plenty of units (Japanese, but also American) with a frequency of unsubstantiated claims at least approaching this.

Which units and examples did you notice

 

[andrewgeorge]

The FC actually knew perfectly well what were the real losses of the LW as they had decrypted Enigma in 1940, and each JG (or it was the Jafü, can't remember) made daily radio reports to RLM, communications that were intercepted by the british . There were the "official" numbers for the pilots, to keep the morale and spiritis high within the pilots and there were the "real" numbers that the HQ took into account.

this is a fascinating sounding history actually.

 

[andrewgeorge]

Which units and examples did you notice

Off the top of my head VMF-214 churned out some notoriously suspect batches of claims. But so did the other USMC squadrons at New Georgia, Vella Lavella, and Bougainville. So I'm not sure if it's really fair to single them out.

Both the Japanese army and naval units tended to over-claim by a lot but none stand out to me...it was ubiquitous. My general impression is that the navy tended toward the more ostentatious overclaims. But I can give you an illustrative example of a significant Japanese navy overclaim in one of the larger air battles of the war in the South Pacific:

Major air battle on November 2, 1943 over Rabaul. 57 Zekes from 11th Air Fleet and 58 Zekes from 1st Carrier Division intercept 80 Lightnings and 75 Mitchells from 5th Air Force. 204 Kokutai fighter pilots claim 19. Shokaku fighter pilots claim 40. Other units (Zuikaku, Zuiho, 201 Kokutai, 253 Kokutai) less, but total claims are enormous. Combined with anti-aircraft crews (land-based and shipboard), total Japanese claims are 101 certain victories (22 B-25s and 79 P-38s) plus another 20 possible (14 B-25s and six P-38s). Actual Fifth Air Force losses are 19 (split more or less evenly between B-25s and P-38s) outright, plus several more crash landed or otherwise damaged beyond repair. At least some of these are almost certainly from anti-aircraft fire, including Raymond Wilkins' Mitchell which was shot down by Japanese ships over the harbor.

(The Americans over-claim pretty heavily too--about 60 or so aerial victory claims between the fighters and bombers, split about evenly. Actual Japanese losses were 14 outright with 5 damaged on landing or otherwise beyond repair).