But you can't just call both 'discredited' as if equally. Plenty of evidence shows bomber credits were much more overstated than fighter credits. Enemy fighter losses to US bombers in WWII era were usually in range of 5-25% of the bomber 'destroyed' credits; enemy losses to US fighters generally in range of 25-75% of fighter 'destroyed' credits.It would be interesting to have a good reference of how much the bomber forces aided in the reduction of the german fighter force as compared to fighters. The discredited number of combined B-17/24 kills of 9276 is more than the combined claimed, and probably discredited, P-51/47 air kills. Even so, the number could be substantial.
In early Pacific it's often easy to see bomber results v Japanese fighters without US fighters around, and with quite complete and detailed Japanese records, and you're talking single digit to 10% accuracy of credits or claims (it wasn't so formal then) by USAAF bombers. For USAAF fighters v Japanse fighters the USAAF claims were like 25-30% accurate.
In late ETO it seemed that USAAF fighter claim accuracy had improved substantially, as high as maybe 75% but no apparent major increase in bomber claim accuracy. But it's very hard to count comprehensively in the ETO, it was so large and some many overlapping combats involving fighters and bombers. In the Korean War it's again easy to count and B-29 claims were around 10% accurate, F-86 claims around 75% accurate. B-29 claims over Japan in unescorted raids were more like 25% accurate, but that was with 'advantage' of suicide rammer fighters whose destruction was obvious.
In USAAF stats digest I added up USAAF fighter credits in ETO/MTO as 9398, heavy bomber credits as 9276, virtually the same, so a reasonably estimate would be that US fighters actually downed several times as many Axis a/c as US bombers did in those theaters, and it would be similar for Pacific, attrition of Axis fighter forces was by US (and other Allied) fighters, not bombers by and large.
Joe