Pilot claims vs actual enemy losses discrepancy

[Glider]

To lighten things up a bit my personal favourite story about overclaiming. Over Europe a squadron of Tempests saw some 109's about to bounce a large unit of P47's and got in first claiming 3 109's shot down. The thanks they received was the P47's turned on the Tempests and chased them for many miles not able to gain but shooting whenever possible at long range fortunately without hitting anyone. Finally they gave up the chase and everyone went home.

That evening the Squadron leader landed at the P47 base incensed as a huge party was in swing celebrating the 11 kills that had been confirmed and awarded that day.
He pointed out in no uncertain terms that not only could they not see straight, they couldn't f-----g well shoot straight either.

Its detailed in 2nd Tactical Airforce volume 3.

To be fair they had been in action that afternoon and claimed some kills in that action as well (but nowhere near eleven) however the Squadron Leader wasn't in a mood for detail. I would have given almost anything to be there.

 

[JoeB]

I have noticed that ground attack claims are even more inflated than air to air claims. Just 2 examples, during the Falaise Gap battle RAF and USAAF pilots claimed hundreds of tanks and thousands of trucks destroyed yet research on the ground actually seem to have attributed around the low tens of tanks and 2 or 300 hundred trucks knocked out by aircraft. Most vehicles seemed to have abandoned out of fuel rather than destroyed.

I agree that was so, and I think is generally caused by similar factor to what made bomber gunner claims so highly overstated, which is inherent inability of the claimant to properly evaluate the result of the attack. Bomber gunners couldn't follow their targets down, strafers couldn't stop by and evaluate the damage to a truck, and that wasn't as obvious as an airplane hitting the ground or the pilot baling out; and the tendency for more friendlies to be shooting at the same target in case of bomber gunners or ground attack than the case of a fighter shooting at another fighther (though duplication could obviously also factor in that case).

And in case of vehicles, the same a/c were often shooting at the same (perhaps already knocked out or abandoned) targets on different missions, not just the same pilots shooting at the same enemy a/c on a single mission. When the US evaluated NK tank wrecks in UN controlled territory (T-34's) after the NK retreat from SK at the end of the first phase of the Korean War, around 100 T-34's initially attribued to a/c v well over 1000 claims in reports. But they also found that many tanks had been hit by more than one type of weapon, so the attributions of cause were partly guess work. Fliers could seldom tell a dead from a live tank, and it could be playing dead (in fact the NK practice according to tank crew POW's was to abandon the vehicle at the approach of a/c, if possible, and man it again later if it hadn't been destroyed), so it made sense to hit it again if there was no more obviously lucrative target around.

For claims against grounded a/c, it seems to have fallen in two separate categories as illustrated by the following example:
-JNAF claims to have destroyed US a/c on the ground in the initial attacks on Luzon in the Philippines in Dec 1941 were basically correct. Against easily visible real a/c without camouflage or protective revetments devastating losses were claimed and in fact suffered, without great exaggeration by the JNAF.
-JAAF claims to have destroyed remaining US a/c on the ground in the subsequent weeks of the campaign were almost entirely erroneous. They claimed a steady stream of additional a/c destroyed on the ground, a simialr number to the initial Navy attacks, but the US lost very few additional a/c on the ground. The claims were against already destroyed a/c sometimes set back up as dummies, or purpose built dummies, or unsuccessful attacks v real a/c protected by revetments.

On Germans v Soviets in opening weeks of 1941 war, AFAIK Soviet losses of a/c on the ground were very heavy. I don't know the exact accuracy of the German claims in that regard (it's discussed but not really nailed down in Bergdstrom's "Black Cross/Red Star" vol 1) but it apparently wasn't a huge overstatement. AFAIK it somewhat fits the example I gave.

Joe

 

[BombTaxi]

Overclaiming has to be taken as a fact of life in air-to-air combat. It is very easy for us to sit in our armchairs and criticise the methodolgy used and the accuracy of pilot's claims, but we are not subject to the massive stress and adrenalin boost that these guys were in combat. Some pilots may well have overclaimed deliberately - but I suspect the vast majority were sincere and believed they had shot down the enemies they claimed.

8th AF bomber overclaims are easily explained - in a combat box, there might be half a dozen gunners firing at one fighter, and if they see it burst into flame, they are all going to claim it. Several hours later, in an AAR made after a long journey home, maybe with the added stress of a damaged a/c, or the gunner wounded or maybe even dead, intel officers are going to have a hard time compiling an accurate statement from a bunch of confused and contradictory accounts. And of course, they will not err on the side of caution. No matter how rational they might think themselves, they will want to believe that their boys gave the LW a good pasting - and that's before any political considerations enter into it.