X

[ROK-BIRDMAN]

X

 

[taly01]

Not as impressive as what the 8th Air Force B-17 B-24 bomber gunners claimed but not bad work at all wink..... wink...

There is probably a force ratio..... like if you fight 10 vs 1 your side is going to score 98% of the time, quantity vs quality? The worst scoring ratio for US WW2 fighters i've seen is for F4F Wildcats, yet they won the campaigns they were involved in!

 

[Reluctant Poster]

Claims not kills. There is a difference.
Also about 2/3 of the ground claims were made in the last 6 weeks of the war. At that time the Luftwaffe had virtually ceased to exist. The aircraft were never going to fly again and were parked undefended in the open.

 

[ROK-BIRDMAN]

Not as impressive as what the 8th Air Force B-17 B-24 bomber gunners claimed but not bad work at all wink..... wink...

There is probably a force ratio..... like if you fight 10 vs 1 your side is going to score 98% of the time, quantity vs quality? The worst scoring ratio for US WW2 fighters i've seen is for F4F Wildcats, yet they won the campaigns they were involved in!

Than why yaks, la-5s couldn't achieve 10:1 kill ratio? Why shermans and t-34s couldn't achieve more than 10:1 kill ratio against Panther?
I'm embarrassed by your ridiculous words;;;

 

[ROK-BIRDMAN]

Claims not kills. There is a difference.
Also about 2/3 of the ground claims were made in the last 6 weeks of the war. At that time the Luftwaffe had virtually ceased to exist. The aircraft were never going to fly again and were parked undefended in the open.

That was not a claim, it was a kill.
56th Fighter Group claim more than 1000+ kills but actual kills were 984.5 and this chart showing correct kill numbers.

 

[buffnut453]

That was not a claim, it was a kill.
56th Fighter Group claim more than 1000+ kills but actual kills were 984.5 and this chart showing correct kill numbers.

No...the table shows claims that were awarded (it's right there in the column heading). That's not the same thing as a confirmed kill which requires analysis of enemy losses (dates, times, locations, cause etc) to be accurate.

 

[ROK-BIRDMAN]

No...the table shows claims that were awarded (it's right there in the column heading). That's not the same thing as a confirmed kill which requires analysis of enemy losses (dates, times, locations, cause etc) to be accurate.

Don't read roughly, but read it correctly.
Are you saying Maxwell AFB Historical Research Center was just credit all victories with just pilot's claims?
Allmost all of wikipedia ww2 aces credits are based on Freeman's research, so you are saying allmost all of aces credits are just not confirmed kill.
I think Freeman is the expert of the ww2 credits. Then who do you trust?

 

[buffnut453]

Don't read roughly, but read it correctly.
Are you saying Maxwell AFB Historical Research Center was just credit all victories with just pilot's claims?
Allmost all of wikipedia ww2 aces credits are based on Freeman's research, so you are saying allmost all of aces credits are just not confirmed kill.
I think Freeman is the expert of the ww2 credits. Then who do you trust?

I am reading it correctly. The analysis was "developed from raw data from Eighth AF Victory Credits Board" and "operational statistics for each Fighter Group from Maxwell AFB Historical Research Center." Those original source documents only come from USAF sources. There are no German sources cited. Therefore we are looking at confirmed claims by the USAF and not actual losses sustained by the Luftwaffe.

The "Victory Credits Board" was a formal organization to evaluate pilot claims. They reviewed all available information, including the claimant's report as well as any other witnesses. This could include ground forces who saw an aircraft crash. However, just because multiple people saw an enemy aircraft apparently diving out of control does not mean the aircraft actually crashed. The Victory Credits Board was reviewing reports based on split-second impressions during the heat of combat which are seldom reliable. That's not to say the aircrew were lying. Rather, what they perceived as an enemy aircraft damaged and out of control may not have been hit at all.

Many more balanced studies across multiple combatants have shown considerable overclaiming on all sides during WW2. For example, the Luftwaffe claimed to have destroyed more RAF fighters during the Battle of Britain than were actually in the front line.

Freeman may be an expert in WW2 credits but if he hasn't ploughed through German archives (and I have a number of his works, none of which cite German sources), then those credits do not equate to actual German losses.

And, yes, every ace's credits are just that...credits not confirmed kills. The only way to confirm kills is to go through enemy records and identify which specific aircraft was shot down on a given date and time. This is seldom possible but when it has been attempted, as noted above, it generally shows considerable overclaiming...and that's a common feature of all belligerents.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Don't read roughly, but read it correctly.
Are you saying Maxwell AFB Historical Research Center was just credit all victories with just pilot's claims?
Allmost all of wikipedia ww2 aces credits are based on Freeman's research, so you are saying allmost all of aces credits are just not confirmed kill.
I think Freeman is the expert of the ww2 credits. Then who do you trust?

A few things -

While Freeman is highly respected, he's not the "end all" with regards to claim accuracy. A lot of researchers have found updated information that may either dispute or confirm some of his research, the same goes for Maxwell AFB Historical Research Center. There were "overclaims" by all combatants during WW2, the best is to match up official combat records of both sides.

 

[33k in the air]

A few things -

While Freeman is highly respected, he's not the "end all" with regards to claim accuracy. A lot of researchers have found updated information that may either dispute or confirm some of his research, the same goes for Maxwell AFB Historical Research Center. There were "overclaims" by all combatants during WW2, the best is to match up official combat records of both sides.

One could add to that plain old typos and mathematical errors. In an era where everything was written on typewriters and figures added manually or by adding machine, errors in reported totals should be expected.

 

[taly01]

The P-51 may have been the best plane, but almost all USAAF in NW Europe transitioned to it during mid to late 1944, so almost all victories were going to be for P-51 just as there were so many of them. P-51 pilot losses for ground attack is rather grim statistics, and shows why the pilots complained about those missions of low strategic value in 1945. But yet in Korea 1952 USAAF still thought P-51 as ground attack made sense.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

The P-51 may have been the best plane, but almost all USAAF in NW Europe transitioned to it during mid to late 1944, so almost all victories were going to be for P-51 just as there were so many of them. P-51 pilot losses for ground attack is rather grim statistics, and shows why the pilots complained about those missions of low strategic value in 1945. But yet in Korea 1952 USAAF still thought P-51 as ground attack made sense.

That's because the P-51 had the logistic infrastructure to support it.

 

[Glider]

Found in the National Archives, a complaint/observation about the USAAF claims from some civilians.

 

[buffnut453]

Found in the National Archives, a complaint/observation about the USAAF claims from some civilians.

View attachment 677746
View attachment 677747

Thanks for sharing that fascinating letter. There are a few comments in there that still resonate today...and I'll leave it at that.

 

[Glider]

I have found the response to the letter. What I find interesting is that in the middle of a war where the outcome is far from certain, Churchill spent time into following up on letters like this.

 

[GregP]

Found in the National Archives, a complaint/observation about the USAAF claims from some civilians.

View attachment 677746
View attachment 677747

I'd still like someone to tell me exactly what a victory credit IS. I don't care if an aircraft gets recovered in whole or in part to fly later. If someone shoots it out of the fight enough to make it land or crash land, then he or she deserves a credit. So, before we address all the stuff above, we seriously need to address what constitutes a victory credit.

Perhaps they DID exactly that and the difference in opinion between the victory credits board and the author above is what all the commotion is about.

Our credits, or anyone else's for that matter, don't have to add up to their losses. If we shoot down a plane that is later repaired and flies again, it STILL got shot out of the fight. If it landed with damage enough to prevent further flight at that time, then it got shot down. Shot down does not necessarily mean "destroyed," it means shot down.

If someone shoots down a plane and it belly-lands, if that doesn't count as a victory, what do we want the pilot to do, expend his small store of ammo destroying the crashed plane for sure and hunting down and killing the pilot? Or maybe the crash landing is enough and he needs to get back to his wingman, escort, mission, or whatever.

Any comments?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I'd still like someone to tell me exactly what a victory credit IS. I don't care if an aircraft gets recovered in whole or in part to fly later. If someone shoots it out of the fight enough to make it land or crash land, then he or she deserves a credit. So, before we address all the stuff above, we seriously need to address what constitutes a victory credit.

Perhaps they DID exactly that and the difference in opinion between the victory credits board and the author above is what all the commotion is about.

Our credits, or anyone else's for that matter, don't have to add up to their losses. If we shoot down a plane that is later repaired and flies again, it STILL got shot out of the fight. If it landed with damage enough to prevent further flight at that time, then it got shot down. Shot down does not necessarily mean "destroyed," it means shot down.

If someone shoots down a plane and it belly-lands, if that doesn';t count as a victory, what do we want the pilot to do, expend his small store of ammo destroying the crashed plane for sure and hunting down and killing the pilot? Or maybe the crash landing is enough and he needs to get back to his wingman, escort, mission, or whatever.

Any comments?

Greg - this is the enigma of aerial warfare. In WW1 the credit was given when the wreck was positively identified, which meant enemy aircraft destroyed. Von Richthofen would sometimes try to find his victim's crash site and cut out the serial number of the aircraft to confirm his kill. WW2 got more complicated as dogfights were faster and sometimes over vast bodies of land and water so we were relying on eye witnesses during the heat of battle. To me if you take the aircraft or pilot permanently out of action either by destruction or death, obviously a kill. The the pilot egresses from a stricken or good aircraft, a kill. It the pilot makes it home but dies of wounds and his aircraft survives, no kill. If the aircraft is shot up, pilot makes it back, lives through the ordeal but aircraft is a write-off, it should be a kill IMO but at the time of war, the opposing side is never going to know this! If the aircraft is shot up, gets the pilot back to base and can be repaired to fly again, no kill.

To muddy the waters more is when it "seems" an aircraft is going down, smoking, burning, but get's it pilot home it shouldn't count as a kill but many times a pilot was given a credit for this situation. It is my understanding that many of Gerhart Barkhorn's "confirmed kills" were actually "damaged" and flew to fight another day.

As we try to make sense of all this, IMO the only way to accurately know for sure is to have eye witness confirmation that can be verified by both combatants, put hands on the wreck for physical evidence, and lastly make comparisons of records from all combatants with an open mind.

 

[GregP]

Greg - this is the enigma of aerial warfare. In WW1 the credit was given when the wreck was positively identified, which meant enemy aircraft destroyed. Von Richthofen would sometimes try to find his victim's crash site and cut out the serial number of the aircraft to confirm his kill. WW2 got more complicated as dogfights were faster and sometimes over vast bodies of land and water so we were relying on eye witnesses during the heat of battle. To me if you take the aircraft or pilot permanently out of action either by destruction or death, obviously a kill. The the pilot egresses from a stricken or good aircraft, a kill. It the pilot makes it home but dies of wounds and his aircraft survives, no kill. If the aircraft is shot up, pilot makes it back, lives through the ordeal but aircraft is a write-off, it should be a kill IMO but at the time of war, the opposing side is never going to know this! If the aircraft is shot up, gets the pilot back to base and can be repaired to fly again, no kill.

To muddy the waters more is when it "seems" an aircraft is going down, smoking, burning, but get's it pilot home it shouldn't count as a kill but many times a pilot was given a credit for this situation. It is my understanding that many of Gerhart Barkhorn's "confirmed kills" were actually "damaged" and flew to fight another day.

As we try to make sense of all this, IMO the only way to accurately know for sure is to have eye witness confirmation that can be verified by both combatants, put hands on the wreck for physical evidence, and lastly make comparisons of records from all combatants with an open mind.

Hi FlyboyJ!

I agree. But, verified as what? Down on the ground and out of the fight? Or destroyed, never to fly again?

If destroyed it is to be, and if a pilot shoots one down, is he/she supposed to follow it down and continue to strafe it until it is certainly destroyed? Suppose he/she DOES that, but enough parts can be recovered to make another one fly? Does that invalidate the credit?

There are a LOT of "what ifs" to be answered before anyone can even START to make a list of credits that make sense.

Until such time, I'll stick with the credits as awarded in the conflict in question.

But, I still would like to get an answer to what exactly counts as a credit. After we have that, is there enough information to affect the list of credits as awarded? In some cases, likely. In very many, likely not.

 

[buffnut453]

I think the focus on the airframe and what might or might not have happened to it later is irrelevant. We could have the same argument about whether the enemy pilot was killed or captured. If not, then he lived to fight another day...so definitely not a "kill" in the strictest sense of the word.

In simple terms, a credit was a victory over an adversary airframe. Plain and simple.

Yes, the enemy may reconstitute the airframe and the pilot could be patched up and put back in the fight. However, both assets were out of the fight for a period...so it was a victory in the sense that it increased the odds of achieving air superiority.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Hi FlyboyJ!

I agree. But, verified as what? Down on the ground and out of the fight? Or destroyed, never to fly again?

Destroyed - never to fly again

If destroyed it is to be, and if a pilot shoots one down, is he/she supposed to follow it down and continue to strafe it until it is certainly destroyed?

I would say so if possible, and some fighter pilots have done that

Suppose he/she DOES that, but enough parts can be recovered to make another one fly? Does that invalidate the credit?

That's where the water gets muddy - how does the other side know that? How much of the original airframe is in tact?

There are a LOT of "what ifs" to be answered before anyone can even START to make a list of credits that make sense.

Until such time, I'll stick with the credits as awarded in the conflict in question.

Agree, but again, if comparison of records that were never available can validate (or invalidate) a shoot down, that should be considered.

But, I still would like to get an answer to what exactly counts as a credit. After we have that, is there enough information to affect the list of credits as awarded? In some cases, likely. In very many, likely not.

See my previous response.