Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Hello Juha,

A case can be made that Soviet claims should be much less acurrate than those of the RAF and USAAF. First of all, gun cameras were very rare in the VVS, even at the end of the war. Second, many Soviet claims were made during large combined-arms operations, where the situation was even more confused than during the Battle of Britain and high overclaiming therefore very likely. Another important factor is the geographical extent of the battlefields, more similar to the Pacific than to Western Europe, which made verification difficult.

The formations may have been smaller on the Eastern Front, but very few of them are as well documented as the ones which flew in the Arctic, you might not quite appreciate this as the beneficiary of so much good Finnish research :)

A few Soviet aces, including Gulaev, have very high ratios of victories to missions flown, which may be a sign of overclaiming. However, I think this and much of the above discussion is not particularly significant. Whether or not some pilots overclaimed or not matters little for the course of the air war, as has often been mentioned on this forum. The more interesting and substantive discussion would focus on why certain air forces were more effective than others and what effect this had on the war as a whole. To give a specific and highly relevant example, the RAF exerted an influence on the Luftwaffe's resource distribution in 1941 which was far in excess of what any discussion of aces would suggest.

Regards,

Paul

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

I agree in that IMHO it seems that in general Soviet claims were more inflated than those of RAF and USAAF but probably not always.

IMHO the main problem is the scarcity of LW docus and also the scarcity of the VVS' 1941 docus. But otherwise VVS seems to have produced same kind of docus as the Western AFs plus a report on every loss that tried to proof that the operation was within the abilities of the participiants ie that the commander wasn't guilty of ordering his subordinates to participate a mission beyond their ability. BTW have you seen Antipov's and Utkin's Dragons on Bird Wings The Combat History of the 812th Fighter Air Regiment. IMHO very informative and in it there are copies of the main types of the VVS docus on air combats with translations (logbook, service booklet, combat report, eyewitness account, intelligence report, combat loss report, regimental ORB and an application to award a Guard rank to a division. 812 operated in the Southern end of the Eastern Front.

I totally agree, the number of individuals' kills are not very important, much more important (and easier to research) are the effectiveness of units and organizations and their effects on overall situation. One can e.g. say that the physical effect of Bader's Big Wing was in reality much smaller than the number of its claims indicates but it still had substantial psycological impact.

Juha

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

I think that the accuracy of claims is not irrelevant when trying to judge the effectiveness of air units, specially fighter units. When looking the stats of certain units, the "top scorers" make a substantial contribution - thus it has some importance. Inflated kill/loss -stats give wrong picture of airwar and can lead to wrong conclusions. The more inflated the air victory stats is the more false picture it gives about the efficiency of certain air units, certain tactics and certain strategy.

The RAF failed to achieve enough positive results in 1941-1942 with Circus operations and the actual kill/loss -stats were highly unfavourable for RAF - big numerical superiority did not bring the hoped air dominance over Western Europe. Effectively just two Luftwaffe regiments (JG 26 and JG 2) tied down much bigger enemy forces and managed to inflict them bigger losses than suffered themselves.

How much did the inflated RAF kill/loss -stats with these operations effect in the continuing somewhat dubious strategy and committing too many Spitfires in rather futile operations is very interesting question. Many Spitfires would have found better service outside of Britain much earlier like sending them to defend Malta and stregthening DAF in North Africa by late 1941/early 1942.

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

IMHO it didn't much matter if the kills were made by Smith or Jones/Hans or Jürgen, what mattered was the real results achieved by the units.

That is self-evident but what matters is the claim accuracy of the unit(s) not so much of the individual(s). And in the end it is the question how much the top brass believed the claims, if they didn't believe badly inflated claims those claims didn't have much effect on tactics etc.

A bit more complicated than that, the main question was the grand strategy. Germany's central position allowed it to move units more rapidly than GB. So the main question for British was, could Germany knock out the SU out of the war or even simply stabilize the Eastern Front so that it could move most of the LW to the West maybe with some of the best Heer divs. In that case GB might well to loose the war if most of its Spits were in MTO. In war one should not lightly risk one's power base for gains in secondary sectors.

Juha

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

RAF night aces claims that are mostly accurate:
JRD Braham
John Cunningham
RP Steven

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

The problem was of course Marseille was not the only Axis pilots who made the claims that day. other than him:
6/JG 27 Oblt Rudolf Sinner 2 P-40s
Stab II/JG 27 Gustav Rodel: 1 P-40
I/JG 27 Hans Remmer: 1 P-40
7/JG 27 Fw Walter Fink: 1 Spitfire
1/JG 27 Obfw Gunther Steinhausen 1 Hurricance
2/JG 27 Lt Hans-Anold Stahlschmidt 2 Hurricance
2/JG 27 Karl von Lieres und Wilkau 1 Hurricance

Italians also claimed 5 P-40s and 3 spitfires

Off Topic, but Relevant
 

I've been reading John B. Lundstrom's, The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign : Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942 which is superlative. (I read it cover to cover, and then immediately began reading it again.)

Lundstrom studied Japanese after-action reports for every day of the campaign (including Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz) and compared Japanese aerial combat victory claims against actual American losses. He also studied American after-action reports for every day of the campaign (including Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz) and compared American aerial combat victory claims against actual Japanese losses.

BUY THIS BOOK.

It's absolutely shocking--the documented Japanese over-claiming in particular--to the point that the constant, daily, every single mission 5x and even 10x over-claiming had (in my opinion) a significant effect on the outcome of the entire Solomons campaign.

Bronc

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

Yes but some 10 other Allied SE fighters were damaged of which several crash-landed and so IMHO it would be understandable if those crash-landed were claimed as kills.

Juha

Re: Off Topic, but Relevant
 

Yes, Lundstrom's books are excellent, I bought my copy of The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign a decade or two ago because his earlier The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway was so good.

Juha

Re: The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?
 

No, that was not true, RAF lost 12 aircrafts shot down or crash landing as a result of enemy fighters or fail to return from mission, causes unknown, these includes at least 2 Hurricances lost in reconnaissance missions that could hardly be the Marseille's "Kills", apart from that RAF also lost 1 fighter shot down by flak and another fighter shot down by "friendly" fire