GregP
Major
I finished my list in Excel of the combined Luftwaffe aerial victory claims from 1939 through 1945. The results surprise me a great deal. I got the files in almost non-useful form as locked, non-searchable .pdf files. I subsequently unlocked them and imported them into Excel and used Excel to parse the records. The records have the Date, Rank, First Name, Last Name, Staffel, Unit, Victim Type, and Comments that are usually a location and altitude.
The file accounts for 63,324 aerial victory claims and runs from 1 Sep 1939 through 8 May 1945, with Erich Hartmann having the second to the last victory over a Yak-9. Some of the victories are recorded without a name and, in some case, a last name but no first name. In fact, no first name (nf) and no last name (nn) accounts for 1,187 claimed victories, which could easily include the victories missing from Hartmann, Barkhorn, and Rall plus quite a few others. Some have no rank (nr). Sometimes the "crew" of a flak battery was credited with the victory, and sometimes the victim was "unidentified" or "unknown." Since they amount to the same thing, I changed the "unknown" group to "unidentified" (50 such claims) so they would all be in one group. Some of the victim types were "4 engine aircraft, fighter, tethered balloon, biplane, 4 engine torpedo plane, single engine, passenger plane, Twun engine, "BSch" (whatever that is), and a few others.
Sometimes there is no Staffel but there is a unit. Occasionally there is no rank for the person identified as the victorious pilot.
We know that the German tracking of victories broke down at some point.
Despite the above, the list gives a great deal of insight. Top 10 were as follows:
1) The most claimed aircraft of WWII by the Germans was the Spitfire, with 4,997 claimed. That tends to throw a wrench in the "best fighter" thread. There were some 20,367 Spitfires made and 4,997 were claimed. That is 24.5% of production.
2) Number 2 was the Il-2 with 4,850 claimed. I expected that one. There were some 36,183 built so about 13.4% were claimed as downed. It really WAS hard to shoot down!
3) Number 3 was the B-17 with 4,296 claimed. There were 12,731 built so 33.7% of production was claimed as downed, mostly in daylight, mostly over Europe.
4) Number 4 was the LaGG-3 with 3,381 claimed. I expected that one, too. There were some 100 LaGG-1's built and about 6,528 LaGG-3's built. So about half of the LaGG-1/3's were claimed as shot down.
5) Number 5 was the B-24 with 2,192 claimed. There were about 18,482 built so about 11.9% of production was claimed as downed. Seems to be significantly safer than either the B-17 or the Lancaster.
6) The Lancaster was number 6 with 2,038 claims. There were some 7,377 built so 27.6% of production was claimed as downed, mostly at night.
7) The Hurricane was number 7 with 2,033 claims. There were about 14,533 built so about 14% of production were claimed. It was apparently safer to fly a Hurricane than a Spitfire if you were fighting Germans.
8) The I-16 was number 8 with 1,975 claimed.
9) The Pe-2 was number 9 with 1,918 claimed.
10) The Yak-1 was number 10 with 1,892 claimed.
The P-51 Mustang had 1,034 claimed, making it 21st on the list. There were about 15,586 P-51's built so 6.6% were claimed. It was MUCH safer to fly a P-51 than a Spitfire against the Germans.
The Martin B-26 suffered 203 claims and the Mosquito suffered 194 claims. There were 5,288 B-26's built and 7,777 Mosquitoes built. They were close but the Mossie was a bit safer than the B-26, but not significantly ... 2.5% versus 3.4%. So both were VERY safe most of the time. The Germans claimed 3 F6F Hellcats. Seems like it was a pretty safe thing to go flying in an F6F against the Germans, overall. Of course not many sorties were flown. I can't find how many as yet.
There are still a few records to clean up ... mostly of the variety of a the last name being repeated in the first name, such as "Zien Zein" instead of "nf Zein" (nf being my abbreviation for no first name). It doesn't affect analysis of counts or types.
I have asked and if I receive no objections from the staff of this site, I'll post the file in zip format ... but I need to wait and hear first whether or not it is OK to post it. They know where I obtained the data. We'll see.
Meanwhile if there are questions I can answer from the list that are reasonable, and if the number of them isn't too many, I'll do the analysis and answer in here.
The file accounts for 63,324 aerial victory claims and runs from 1 Sep 1939 through 8 May 1945, with Erich Hartmann having the second to the last victory over a Yak-9. Some of the victories are recorded without a name and, in some case, a last name but no first name. In fact, no first name (nf) and no last name (nn) accounts for 1,187 claimed victories, which could easily include the victories missing from Hartmann, Barkhorn, and Rall plus quite a few others. Some have no rank (nr). Sometimes the "crew" of a flak battery was credited with the victory, and sometimes the victim was "unidentified" or "unknown." Since they amount to the same thing, I changed the "unknown" group to "unidentified" (50 such claims) so they would all be in one group. Some of the victim types were "4 engine aircraft, fighter, tethered balloon, biplane, 4 engine torpedo plane, single engine, passenger plane, Twun engine, "BSch" (whatever that is), and a few others.
Sometimes there is no Staffel but there is a unit. Occasionally there is no rank for the person identified as the victorious pilot.
We know that the German tracking of victories broke down at some point.
Despite the above, the list gives a great deal of insight. Top 10 were as follows:
1) The most claimed aircraft of WWII by the Germans was the Spitfire, with 4,997 claimed. That tends to throw a wrench in the "best fighter" thread. There were some 20,367 Spitfires made and 4,997 were claimed. That is 24.5% of production.
2) Number 2 was the Il-2 with 4,850 claimed. I expected that one. There were some 36,183 built so about 13.4% were claimed as downed. It really WAS hard to shoot down!
3) Number 3 was the B-17 with 4,296 claimed. There were 12,731 built so 33.7% of production was claimed as downed, mostly in daylight, mostly over Europe.
4) Number 4 was the LaGG-3 with 3,381 claimed. I expected that one, too. There were some 100 LaGG-1's built and about 6,528 LaGG-3's built. So about half of the LaGG-1/3's were claimed as shot down.
5) Number 5 was the B-24 with 2,192 claimed. There were about 18,482 built so about 11.9% of production was claimed as downed. Seems to be significantly safer than either the B-17 or the Lancaster.
6) The Lancaster was number 6 with 2,038 claims. There were some 7,377 built so 27.6% of production was claimed as downed, mostly at night.
7) The Hurricane was number 7 with 2,033 claims. There were about 14,533 built so about 14% of production were claimed. It was apparently safer to fly a Hurricane than a Spitfire if you were fighting Germans.
8) The I-16 was number 8 with 1,975 claimed.
9) The Pe-2 was number 9 with 1,918 claimed.
10) The Yak-1 was number 10 with 1,892 claimed.
The P-51 Mustang had 1,034 claimed, making it 21st on the list. There were about 15,586 P-51's built so 6.6% were claimed. It was MUCH safer to fly a P-51 than a Spitfire against the Germans.
The Martin B-26 suffered 203 claims and the Mosquito suffered 194 claims. There were 5,288 B-26's built and 7,777 Mosquitoes built. They were close but the Mossie was a bit safer than the B-26, but not significantly ... 2.5% versus 3.4%. So both were VERY safe most of the time. The Germans claimed 3 F6F Hellcats. Seems like it was a pretty safe thing to go flying in an F6F against the Germans, overall. Of course not many sorties were flown. I can't find how many as yet.
There are still a few records to clean up ... mostly of the variety of a the last name being repeated in the first name, such as "Zien Zein" instead of "nf Zein" (nf being my abbreviation for no first name). It doesn't affect analysis of counts or types.
I have asked and if I receive no objections from the staff of this site, I'll post the file in zip format ... but I need to wait and hear first whether or not it is OK to post it. They know where I obtained the data. We'll see.
Meanwhile if there are questions I can answer from the list that are reasonable, and if the number of them isn't too many, I'll do the analysis and answer in here.