Kill Ratios

Ah, I found it !
I was drinking beer and it happened

Although I made a mistake, not 5 but 3 were published.

No. 1 - 海軍零戦隊撃墜戦記１: 昭和１８年２月－７月、ガダルカナル撤退とポートダーウィンでの勝利 (IJN Zero battle diary #1 - Victories and losses for Zero over Solomon from February to July 1943)


No. 2 - 海軍零戦隊撃墜戦記2: 昭和18年8月-11月、ブイン防空戦と、前期ラバウル防空戦 (IJN Zero battle diary #2 - Victories and losses for Zero over Rabaul from August to November 1943)


No 3 - 海軍零戦隊撃墜戦記3: 撃墜166機。ラバウル零戦隊の空戦戦果、全記録。 (IJN Zero battle diary #3 - Victories and losses for Zero over Rabaul from December 1943 to February 1944)


Those books have a very good reviews, although as every material they also are not free from mistakes. Sometimes the lack the data, a few times the author chooses in certain cases when the US plane might be shot down by AA fire or by the fighter (Zero namely), and the author tends to credit it rather for a fighter pilot without further explanation. But overall it has very good reviews and according to Japanese readers it "busts" some myth of a Zero, apparently some Japanese readers learned that Zero was not ultimate fighter in that period anymore.
It is considered very highly because covers a crucial period of combat in Solomons, from the evacuation of Guadalcanal and strengthening of bases on Bougainville or else, through the Allied operations to weaken and effectively neutralize the Rabaul with eventual success in February 1944.

Thanks Hiromachi. I shall have to look for that. I have a very good friend who is native Japanese and maybe he can find a set. About your posted list of sources above ... that is a list for what book or document? I didn't see that info in the post.

I do NOT see how anyone knows a lot about Luftwaffe real losses without Luftwaffe loss records, and those are not complete, meaning the loss records are also not complete.

As for my data files:

I found a LOT of Luftwaffe claims on Jan Safavick's online website as one source. His sources are listed there, or were at the time if you are curious and are or were more than numerous. I replaced things like "Bell 39" and "Airacobra" with "P-39" and made similar changes to planes described multiple ways. For instance, I turned "Liberator" and "Consolidated" into "B-24" if it was over land, and I don't think I turned any Catalinas into B-24's as I cross-checked with other files to be sure on every record but one (couldn't find it except in one file).

Sometimes a victory was by a Flak unit so there was no name or rank. Some air units also had no name shown. Sometimes a rank, first name, and last name were missing. So "nr" means no rank, "nf" means no first name, "nn" means no last name, "ns" means no Staffel. Some victims were described as unidentified and some were described as unknown. I lumped them all into unidentified in my files.

The top ace's score do not add up. I believe this file accounts for 321 of Erich Hartmann's popularly held 352 victories. But there are also about 1,181 records where the pilot's name and rank were not listed, so many scores can be made up with the unidentified ones if anyone wants to go through the victories of the top 1 - 10 aces and try to fit them to unnamed pilots claims. I decline to do it myself at this point just due to time constraints, though I DID find at least 15 more of Erich Hartmann's victories in the records without a name ... at least the units, dates, times and areas matched up. This has been a lot of work and I still don't know how useful it will turn out to be.

One source of some frustration is that almost no files seem to have the type flown by the victor and also the type of the victim in one file.

For the Soviet Aces, I used Air Aces Home Page: Air Aces Homepage as well as about 4 other sources.

For a lot of Japanese victories I used files compiled by Allan Magnus (http://users.accesscomm.ca/magnusfamily/mailto.htm) and a file I got from a good Japanese friend who lives near Nagoya close to where the Yokosuka arsenal was. Ny friend's file was easily readable, though you have to do some work on most of the internet files to make them reasonably importable into Excel.

For some of the USAAF victories I used a very good pdf file from Maxwell AFB USAF Historical Society back when that site was a useful resource. It is not so much anymore and has been "under construction" for more than 5 years now. Probably "sequestered."

I cross-checked with 404 Not Found , Fighter Pilot Aces List, 404 Not Found, and http://users.accesscomm.ca/magnusfamily/airaces1.htm .

I see one of my sources above is no loner a vaild URL ... it happens.

I got a lot of Korean victories from the Korwald site, among other sources.

This is a partial list. I have enough work into it that a complete list of references will not be posted. As I have more than 15 years of work in my files, I have no intention of publishing everything unless I get paid for it and this is NOT my occupation.

But the above will give anyone seriously interested in it a very good place to start.

I have not verified that files I downloaded more than 10 years ago are still there and still free.

We have previously posted USAAF studies and some US Navy pfd files. If you cross-ceck and the file agree, everything is OK. When they don't there will be a considerable tie spent deciding which, if any, of the files are correct, and I doubt any team of 2 - 3 people working independently would come to the exact same conclusions.

stona said:

You really need to read all posts properly. I wrote earlier,

In the early stages of the war pilot claims were taken very seriously and used as a basis for intelligence assessments. By late 1940 both the British and the Germans, who both also had fairly rigorous systems, were realising just how unreliable the data were.

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Steve,

The RAF commenced hostilities with Germany in September 1939. Thus by May 1942 they were no longer in "the early stages of the war". But Fighter Command was still taking their pilot claims very seriously through the reporting system.

One man's "early" is another man's "way too late."

This is just one of the many reasons we may never see an end to arguments about skill, claims, real victories, and "what ifs."

One reason for the huge discrepancy between shoot down reports and loss reports was that Daimler Benz aircraft engines emitted a plume of black soot at full power. Possibly this was due to limits of the fuel injectors, chemical properties of the fuel, octane rating, etc. Allied pilots and air crew often assumed that this trail of thick exhaust smoke from German fighters must have been caused by battle damage.

I'm not sure if BMW and Jumo aircraft engines also smoked heavily from the exhaust stacks.

EKB said:

But Fighter Command was still taking their pilot claims very seriously through the reporting system.

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This was just for score purposes though, no? I thought British Intelligence had a good idea of overall Luftwaffe numbers due to being able to read German code.

EKB said:

One reason for the huge discrepancy between shoot down reports and loss reports was that Daimler Benz aircraft engines emitted a plume of black soot at full power. Possibly this was due to limits of the fuel injectors, chemical properties of the fuel, octane rating, etc. Allied pilots and air crew often assumed that this trail of thick exhaust smoke from German fighters must have been caused by battle damage.

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Indeed I've also read many accounts where the British thought German aircraft were mounting smoke dispensers to feign damage and escape.

I've watched DB-powered Bf 109 startup, taxi, take off and fly. He didn't leave smoke to speak of, but he also most very probably was nowhere NEAR full power, and was certainly not burning WWII German aviation gasoline.

I've also seen clips when they did leave a small dark trail and when they didn't, much the same as with other engines. The trails they left would not be mistaken for damage, but I also may never have seen a clip at "full rattle" ... I don't know and the film didn't elaborate.

Worth looking into, though.

I've read combat reports from both sides that said they got into a fray over a cloud deck, managed to get on the losing side, snapped into a spin, and escpaed by spinning down through the clouds to recover under the layer. That looks pretty covincing to someone who thinks they hit you. All it is missing is the fire and really heavy dark smoke from a plane actually badly damaged.

GregP said:

Thanks Hiromachi. I shall have to look for that. I have a very good friend who is native Japanese and maybe he can find a set. About your posted list of sources above ... that is a list for what book or document? I didn't see that info in the post.

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That's a list of a mentioned on a previous page book - Eagles of the Southern Sky which portrays the combat actions of Tainan Kokutai over New Guinea.

EKB said:

Steve,

The RAF commenced hostilities with Germany in September 1939. Thus by May 1942 they were no longer in "the early stages of the war". But Fighter Command was still taking their pilot claims very seriously through the reporting system.

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Yes, but the RAF knew that the system was deeply flawed after 1940 and various attempts were made to make the system more rigorous. Knowledge of the flawed nature of the system meant that the figures for pilot claims were no longer assumed to match actual German losses. Ministry propaganda for public consumption was another thing altogether.

The US system was initially considered by the British, and admitted by the Americans who quickly changed it, to be far too lax and lacking in rigour.

The correspondence above reflects a far deeper resentment by the British of the portrayal of the European war and the relative roles of the two major allies in the US media. It is more about US propaganda than actual concern over claims.
This is an on going grievance. There were more Lee Enfields than Garrands hitting the beaches on D-Day. The film 'Objective Burma' was banned in the UK in 1945 and not given a general release until 1952. Many Brits were somewhat offended by the story of enigma as portrayed in the film U-571 as late as the year 2000! There are many other examples in which Hollywood's American centric view of the European war and to a lesser extent the war in the Far East, have caused raised eyebrows across the pond. Arguing that Hollywood is in the US and making films for a US market (which isn't strictly true, particularly today) doesn't really cut it.

Finally all air forces suffered from vast over claiming by their pilots. Possibly one of the worst examples would be claims by 2nd TAF pilots for armour destroyed on the ground following the break out from Normandy. In this case an ORS was able to actually examine the battlefield (obviously not possible in aerial combat) and establish that 99% of the claims were incorrect. No matter how rigorous the claims system, and until late 1944 the Luftwaffe, often maligned for excessive over claiming, had arguably the most rigorous system, the data gathered in this way are inaccurate. The British, in 1943, were just keen that the Americans should admit it.

Cheers

Steve

Hello Greg
IMHO the best internet source for the LW claims was, maybe still is Tony Woods lists, based on microfilms of the original O.K.L docus. Now Leslie Sawyer's site seem to have disappered but Tony's list can still be found here https://web.archive.org/web/20130928070316/http://lesbutler.co.uk/claims/tonywood.htm

On the LW system, e.g. JG 5 from mid-1942 onwards once again showed that man can always beat manmade system. JG 5 was classical case, fairly independent unit far away from the GHQ fighting mostly over sparcely habitat areas, over sea or over enemy held territory. Of course JG 5 wasn't the only one, same goes to II./JG 2 in Tunisia, British AA in UK (in this case the main factor was were the claimed victims crashed, coastal AA batteries claims were less accurate than those in Midlands), the FC/RAF claims in 41-42 were far less accurate than those made during the BoB, also IMHO USAAF claims in MTO and those of 5th AF were less accurate than those of 8th FC etc. On the other hand the claim accuracy of II./JG 51 against P-38s during the Tunisian Campaign was excellent (76.0%), and those of JG 53 (65.5%) and JG 77 (63.6%) very good when that of II./JG 2 was only 22.7%. That of JG 27 was also very good but with only 3 claims vs 2 real losses the sample is too small. So in general the claim accuracy of the Jagdfliegern was still very good in 1942/43 but there were units and individuals whose claim accuracy was well below the average.

Juha said:

So in general the claim accuracy of the Jagdfliegern was still very good in 1942/43 but there were units and individuals whose claim accuracy was well below the average.

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But there were also some men in some units (JG 27 being a proven example) who deliberately falsified claims. There was some pressure on Luftwaffe pilots to achieve scores which were in turn linked to the award of decorations. Several experten (and I'm not naming names, if you're bothered do the analysis yourselves) have suspicious patterns of claims as they approach certain landmarks. Suspicious is not necessarily malicious, but it provides food for thought.

There were surely a very small minority in all air forces who made false claims rather than erroneous claims in good faith, but in the Luftwaffe the incentive to 'cheat' was greater. It's just as well that it had a fairly rigorous system right up until late 1944.

Cheers

Steve

Hi Juha,

Tony Woods was and is one of my sources, but thank you very much. Tony together with Jan make a very strong set of data, with only a few "disagreements" between them.

The LW also had the problem of Hitler and Goring who were impatient when it came to aircraft readiness rates. Luftwaffe aircraft would often get shot up but could take some months before they were finally written off by the Quartermaster. In the meantime they would remain on the effectives list even though it was fully understood these airframes would never fly again. Keeping them on the effectives list kept the boss happy, who was only ever interested in numbers, not the details.

The other thing that seems to be played down here is that the RAF was gaining very good reports on LW actual strengths and losses via enigma. They would know when the Germans were fudging things, which was often because they had access to those daily strength reports. When the LW would list an a/c as "effective" but with more than 50% damage, you can safely assume its another LW con job. That a/c is a loss and its entirely reasonable to list it as such in RAF returns and claims. Over claiming keeps the pilot morale up. What was important were having good information on the strength returns via enigma (and other sources. If the claims were vastly out of kilter with the SIGINT, it might require some further cross checking

The following are some excerpts from Piercing the Fog: Intelligence and Army Air Forces Operations in World War II
By Robert C Ehrhart, Jr Alexander S Cochran, Robert F Futrell, Thomas A Fabyanic, John F Kreis, AIR FORCE HISTORICAL STUDIES OFFICE WASHINGTON DC, Williamson Murray

ricardo said:

Hi everybody.

I'd wish to know if someone has info about kill ratios (air to air victories). I understand that Hellcats has an astonishing 19:1 over the IJN. I've read that during BoB in fighter versus fighter dogfights, the Bf-109 was the undisputed champion. 333 Bf109 lost compared to the 272 Hurricanes and 219 Spitfires.

Against Spitfires: 219 to 180
Against Hurricanes: 272 to 153

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I have no idea if this is still active, I didn't read all of but it was very interesting. One thing I didn't see discussed were basic fighter tactics. One reason for USA's success were its tactics. Superior tactics allowed inferior plane to succeed even against the Zelenograd.

FLYBOYJ said:

In today's world the F-15 is something like 110 to 0!

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104 to Zip.

Cheers,
Biff

Reb Bacchus said:

One reason for USA's success were its tactics. Superior tactics allowed inferior plane to succeed even against the Zelenograd.

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I'll assume your phone auto-corrected a 'Zero' typo there ...

I can't remember where I read it, but I think it was Saburo Sakai that had a good line about the US Air Forces ... saying that while the Japanese mindset approached air combat as duels, the US squadrons were like a football team and focused on teamwork.

Question for Buffnut and all the people who feel a kill means total destruction of the aircraft or the pilot.

Consider the PTO. Assume you are over water.

I would say that any damage causing the aircraft to ditch was a confirmed kill since the aircraft was lost completely to the bottom of the ocean and was not worth recovering for parts, unless it ditched in a shallow bay, right next to a crane on a barge. Some pilots were lost, some not, but planes that were lost over the ocean seem almost certainly a valid kill, even if the damage was only a bullet through a fuel line. Once in the ocean, it CAN fly gain, but not without more effort than is required to build up a plane from scratch.

The ONLY reason I can think of you would DO that is when no other option is available, such as 75+ years later when no new production is possible. If you can recover one, you can at LEAST use it as a template for making new parts. But I wouldn't call it economically a good deal to recover a working warplane if new production is still coming off the line or available in the boneyard.

Any comments on it or thoughts to the contrary?

Greg, I have read 'stories' of Luftwaffe pilots working the throttle to produce black smoke so that an e/a would break off the attack thinking the airplane was fatally damaged.