LUFTWAFFE EXPERTEN Claims vs. Kills

I dont think it will ever be possible to really piece it all together and verify each claim, for any nation as a matter of fact.

and it'll certainly only get harder as time goes on.............

I was doing a bit of cross ref on Channel Front 1941...

22 June 1941, JG 2 and JG 26 claim 9 Spits shot down and 2 Blenheims.
RAF losses for the day, 2 Spits.

7 July, 1941 JG 26 claims five Spits.
RAF losses for the day, 1 Spit.

19 July, 1941 JG 2 and JG 26 claim 3 Spits and 1 Sterling.
RAF losses for the day, 2 Spits (one to flak).

27 Aug, 1941 JG 26 claims 8 Spits - AND GETS IT RIGHT!
RAF losses for the day, 7-8 Spits. (RAF claims 6 109s)

29 Aug, 1941 JG 2 abd JG 27 claim 9 Spits.
RAF losses for the day, 0.

27 Sep, 1941 JG 2 and JG 26 claim 17 Spits and 1 Blenheim
RAF losses for the day, 8 Spits, 1 Hurricane (claim 14 109s)

13 Oct, 1941 JG 2 and JG 26 claim 20(!) Spits and 2 Blenheims.
RAF losses for the day, 2 Spits, one Blenheim (claim 5 109s).

that just highlights the problem, but it was a problem for all combatants............

Please pardon my ignorance - if I understand, you are saying that the basic documentation to reconcile Luftwaffe claims and British losses is available in the German Freiburg and British Public Records Office archives. Are you also saying that nobody to your knowledge has published an honest attempt at correlating these, and if I'm that interested I'm going to have to do it myself?

Does the same apply to Luftwaffe claims of USAAF shootdowns?

AFAIK the official records of Soviet losses have still not been released.

I'm also trying to understand the implications of your comment "that by November 44 German fighter pilots were not given total credits for the downing of Allied a/c". Do you mean that the OKL claims verification system had broken down to such an extent by then that these claims were never officially confirmed, and claims arising from this period are potentially suspect?

Thanks, Tim

Tim said:

I'm also trying to understand the implications of your comment "that by November 44 German fighter pilots were not given total credits for the downing of Allied a/c". Do you mean that the OKL claims verification system had broken down to such an extent by then that these claims were never officially confirmed, and claims arising from this period are potentially suspect?

Thanks, Tim

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The problem is that toward the end of the war. The OKL stopped taking officail claims and there was no one recording them. It was just a fight to survive situation.

So claims made after Nov 1944 are not officially confirmed, and we just have to take the claimant's word of honour?

Was anyone assuring the reliabililty of these claims - e.g. Gruppe commander, Staffel commander, etc., or was the situation so chaotic by then that even this was not possible?

Is this where allegations that the top scoring aces claims were inflated come from?

unless copied for posterity sake by the JG or NJG official historian, then yes

Glider said:

Alexander makes some critical points about unit effectiveness in terms of the kill ratio.
The British kill ratio in the whole of the war was about 3.5 dsestroyed to 1 lost. The record on the 4th Fighter Group, Blakeslee's outfit showed a ratio of 4.5 to 1. This was the oldest, most experienced fighter group in the ETO studded with experienced and accomplished leaders. It doesn't make sense to believe that the 56th Group, a younger, less experienced outfit flying in the skies, with the same type of aircraft could achieve a record of 8 to 1.

What I have quoted is contentious enough and I will not quote the rest as names are named.

However what strikes me is the way it was worded. Where deliberate overclaiming was made the view of their fellow pilots is little more than contempt.

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Glider after a long and arduous effort to parse Macr's and Accident Reports - with collaboration with Ted Damick - I have nearly finished my 8th AF tabulation of Awards (air and Ground) to Losses (air, unk-air, strafing, unk-strafing, Mechanical, Weather, Accidents).

The 'unk-air' and unk-strafing is taking the case of a MIA pilot which was last seen in an area where LW aircraft were present, and unk-strafing is where a pilot was lost but not known whether pilot hit by flak or lost control - but seen to crash while strafing.

All other categories (Mechanical) were identified to engine failure/coolant loss or oxygen system failure, weather or running out of fuel or an unknown where a pilot was simply seen to go down in clear view of everyone with no enemy air or flak present.

I have the tables in Excel if someone has Adobe Acrobat to convert to Pdf (my copy mysteriusly went TU last week).

Summary, the 4th FG of the top five in air to air scoring (56th, 357FG, 352, 4th and 355FG in that order) had an Air Award to air Loss ratio of
56--------- 664/60....... 11:1
357------- 595.5/55.....10.8:1
4 --------- 550/86 ....... 6.4:1
352------- 504.5/41 ......12.3:1
355------- 341/42 ..........8.1:1

The 4th was at best in the middle of the pack in air to air statistics, right with the 78th, 352nd and 353rd flying P-47's and maintained their 6:1 air to air ratio when they transitioned to Mustangs - all the other Groups did far better with Mustangs in context of air to air.

The 479th (Old's group) had the best air to air ratio with 155/11 -----> 14:1 and managed extremely good results in the P-38 (52:4--> 13:1). That probably was a combination of a.) late entry after many of the spring 1944 air battles were fought, and b.) they were flying the P-38J-10's and above which were retrofitted with dive brakes and had manuevering flaps. The 339th, 361st were close to 479th in Mustang air to air~ 13.5:1

The 56th was king relative to P-47 by a wide margin at ~11:1. All the rest of the P-47 Groups were in the 5-6:1 range before converting to Mustangs.

The 356th and 20th were on the bottom with ~ 5:1 air to air.

Interestingly (?) the destroyed to loss ratio for strafing for the P-47s was lower than the P-51's in 8th AF. The P-38 had a huge loss ratio strafing and the P-51 had the lowest loss ratio strafing - so the rugged Jug and twin engine P-38 absorbed more losses per enemy aircraft destoyed on the ground (and air).

Ground award/loss -strafing ------------award/loss- air to air

P-47------ 740/200 .......3.7:1 ------1550.5/324.......7.2:1
P-51 -----3328/324 .......5.6:1 ------3328/324 .......10.3:1
P-38 ---- 161.5/109 ......1.5:1 --------278.5/101 ..... 2.8:1

This is not a claim total summary but an award summary based on the best compilation from USAF 85, the 8th AF Victory Credits Board -post WWII and the Accidents Records and MACR's by Group, by Fighter type.

I am close to finishing the Details on Group Awards by Type Fighter flown and by type LW aircraft destroyed. The number of 109s shot down were 3:2 over FW 190's. The number of German jets (125) shot down were mostly Me 262's with Ar 234's next.

Does anybody have a similar compilation on LW loss/damaged in Combat? seprated by Theatre?

I have not weighed in on the great debate simply because the art of Claims processing, and hard validation of same, varied all over the map not only in rigor but timing. From my own research the LW seemed to be as good as it got until 1944. From that point the LW claims to awards were significantly overstated when matching against actual USAAF losses on a day by day basis.

ALL USAAF bomber claims were trash, collectively - 8th, 9th and 15th FC awards seemed pretty close when matching against total daily LW losses if you discount 90% of the bomber claims (and I do).

too many records lost Bill I am afraid for the LW day fighter as well as the LW nf's. this is also the same for victories confirmed from October 44 till wars end

Erich said:

too many records lost Bill I am afraid for the LW day fighter as well as the LW nf's. this is also the same for victories confirmed from October 44 till wars end

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I once knew that but I keep on hoping. The best source is still unit records and thankfully Prien/Woods, etc have rolled them up in at least a format we can all pick on.

Great info u posted up Bill, really interesting and eye opening..... Thanks for posting it...

I seconded Les,
very interesting and also partly somewhat surprising info.
Thanks a lot, Bill!

Juha

lesofprimus said:

Great info u posted up Bill, really interesting and eye opening..... Thanks for posting it...

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Dan - as soon as i get Adobe back up I will convert and post to Mike Williams site (and here).

Assuming (a big leap) that all the award data is fairly close, one still has to take into account many factors to figure out why one group did a lot better in the same ship at the same time... or scored more during a specific period than others.

Don Blakeslee and Hub Zemke are the two individual leaders that I like to explore. Both great leaders but I think Zemke matched tactics to airframe strengths and weaknesses better than anyone in 8th AF. No question Hayes, Kinnard, Meyer and others were also excellent Group leaders but those two stand out for different reasons.

Blakeslee basically said 'see a snake kill a snake'. The 4th would bounce everything they saw and sometimes the bombers suffered but I have to say from a historical perspective there was a lot better unit cohesion in the 56th with much better flight and squadron discipline. Zemke was a brilliant tactician and the Zemke Fan was a very effective tactic to seek and find the LW - hence the significant difference between air to air scores despite the 4th fighting for nearly a year longer and having a better airplane to help it catch up (Mustang).

My godfather Clay Kinnard went to 4th FG to replace Blakeslee and in general thought the 4th was largely mouth and assholes with English affectations. He self confessed 'failure' at his attempts to instill better unit discipline and cohesion - but he did follow a legend and had a different (but excellent) style of leadership.

I have zero doubt that the 56th, had they had Mustangs in Feb 1944, would have FAR outscored the rest of the USAAF across all theatres. Zemke as much as admitted it after the war that he may have made a mistake in retaining the Jug when he was offered the first of the Mustang conversions (then 4th and 355th).

So, the early Jug/Lightning guys had a tougher time against old hands of the LW, learned to adjust tactics and gain experience - then exploded when Doolittle lifted the curtain and let the 8th FC loose in January 1944.

Oh well.The 8th AF fought three stages and different groups adjusted as older experinced leaders and pilots rotated out and new blood came in. Some of the new blood in June-August was much better than others but lack of opportunity from August forward is the reason that so few aces, percentage wise, were made than the 'first wave' despite easier competition and better local superiority of numbers.

The 355th slowed way down in May when most of the original cadre rotated home for leave or out to new assignments, while others like the 352nd and 357th kept up the pace in air to air scores.

What I have found most interesting is that despite the built in survivability predjudice of twin engines for P-38 and rugged radial engine for the P-47, both lost more airplanes strafing for every aircraft destroyed than the 'vulnerable Mustang'. Go figure.

drgondog said:

Dan - as soon as i get Adobe back up I will convert and post to Mike Williams site (and here).

What I have found most interesting is that despite the built in survivability predjudice of twin engines for P-38 and rugged radial engine for the P-47, both lost more airplanes strafing for every aircraft destroyed than the 'vulnerable Mustang'. Go figure.

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Interesting.

That could be explained by any number of reasons, but one hypothesis could be that in the case of the P38 it was a bigger target than the smaller P51.

And in the case of the P47 another hypothesis could be than the radial engine was a bigger frontal target and more vulnerable to ground fire. I read somewhere that it was also considered a problem by the germans in the case of the FW.

My hypothesis would be, leaving P-38 out because lack of knowledge, that longer ranged P-51s could strafe less well protected a/fs farther from Allied airbases where LW had evacuated much of it's a/c which were less well dispersed and camouflaged than those at a/fs nearer to frontlines, which were targets of shorter legged P-47s

Juha

Bill most probably know this but one book from which one might find some clues is Osprey's A/c of the Aces 51 Special "Down to Earth" Strafing Aces of the Eight Air Force. It is based on the training manual compiled by battle-seasoned USAAF fighter pilots during the war. IMHO with Osprey's A/c of the Aces 31 Special VIII Fighter Command at War "Long Reach" and Osprey's A/c of the Aces 61 Special "Twelve to One" V Fighter Command Aces of the Pacific, which both are also based on same kind war time material, it is the most important book published in that series. They give a good insight of thinking the leading USAAF aces and of course some inkling to their ability to transfer their thoughts onto paper.

Juha

Is it possible to break the strafing claims down by date? Looking at the USAAF statistical digest, 3,703 of the 6,796 strafing kills in Europe occurred in April 1945. I'm guessing by that date German resistance was collapsing and many of these attacks saw little or no flak opposition. Weren't the 8th AF almost totally converted to Mustangs by April 1945?

Perhaps the better yardstick for vulnerability is loss/sortie. ETO numbers 1942-1945:
P-47: 0.7%
P-51: 1.2%
P-38: 1.4%

The P-47's dropped around 20 times as much bombs as P-51. So it was the dedicated late war fighter-bomber, where as P-51's could seek more lightly defended targets.

See the data in this page:
P-51 Mustang by Ray Wagner - Page 3

Hop said:

Is it possible to break the strafing claims down by date? Looking at the USAAF statistical digest, 3,703 of the 6,796 strafing kills in Europe occurred in April 1945. I'm guessing by that date German resistance was collapsing and many of these attacks saw little or no flak opposition. Weren't the 8th AF almost totally converted to Mustangs by April 1945?

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I have a WIP to break it our by month for the 8th AF and about halfway converted.

The 56th FG remained with P-47 throughout the war but all other P-47 groups fully converted by Nov 1944.

The ground scores were quite high in April but it was with accompanying high losses to heavily defended airfields. Having said that the award to loss ratio in April WAS ~ 3:1 over prior period of combat ops.

The 8th destroyed ~ 1724 on the ground for losses of 127 (all causes). The 56th lost 7 for 147 destroyed the 339th lost 4 for 271 destroyed and the top 8th AF strafing group (355th) lost 13 for 171 destroyed - all causes.

I have the sorties/loss/award statistics for the 355th 100% complete

Total 17222 sorties, 341 air awards, 508 ground awards, 180 lost to all causes including accidents ,write off's, ops.

P-47 --------2,912 sorties 39 air awards, 8 ground awards, 31 of the 180 lost

P-51 -------14,310 sorties, 302 air awards, 500 ground awards, 149 of the 180 lost

Loss per sortie------------award per sortie
P-47 .. 0.0106 ............. 0.0161

P-51 .. .0.104 .... ......... 0.560

I haven't finished but for German aircraft destroyed on a per sortie comparison the 339th and 355th are at the top of the 8th AF.

The 356th is near the bottom (awards per sortie) in this comparison and the 4th and 56th (in the upper third) but the 4th is nowhere close to the 56th in loss per sortie. The 56th will be at or near the top in lowest loss per sortie... which seems to favor the Jug but have to be careful as the 56th was by and of itself an 'elite' group. We have to get the rest of the Jug Ops under scrutiny.

The difficulty in playing the statistics game arises when comparing aircraft flown versus the timeframe and mission profiles from 1943 through early 1944 - then spring 44 through Jan 1944 - then ops thru the EOW. There was a different complexion to LW, the transition to Mustangs, the focus on long range attacks against enemy airfield which precluded the Jug from scoring much on the ground.

Then you have to consider the variables when comparing the 339th or 357th versus the 56th and 4th FG. The 4th and 56th were in operations for more 8 months to a year longer, had far fewer opportunities to both score and lose aircraft, as the airwar had a totally different complexion in 1944 from 1943 - and the biggest killer of 8th AF fighters was flak by far. Strafing didn't start until Feb 1944 and really wasn't significant until April 1944.

At any rate I am still looking for the holy grail which has the most accurate compliation of sorties per group for the 8th AF. So far unit histories seem to be the root that we all look at to try to develop the information

I speculate when I complete the project that that the P-47 will have approx 30% lower loss per sortie ratio compared to P-51 for 8th AF but, as I have shown, the P-47 was significantly less effective at destroying enemy aircraft than the Mustang (in all USAAF commands) - and the P-47 was significantly more expensive to produce.