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

Hello GuerraCivil,

It has been well established in books such as Lundstrom’s that numbers of claims are in fact the least reliable of all the statistics produced by fighter units. The only way to analyse what you term the ‘efficiency’ of air forces or individual units is to look at the documents of their opponents and check statistics of aircraft and aircrew losses, the number of missions completed successfully and so on. This is best done at the strategic level, rather than for single units, because the success of a single unit did not necessarily have much significance for the war as a whole.

Conflating the raw numbers of losses with operational success is misleading. The RAF tied down and inflicted significant attrition on the two best Luftwaffe Jagdgeschwader at a time when the Geremans needed as manmy fighters as possible in the other theatres.

The main reason for the cross-Channel operations was the perceived need to maintain pressure on the Germans and appease Stalin’s ever more vicious demands for a second front, numbers of claims played very little role in the strategic decisions made. You are correct on the subject of greater utility of Spitfires elsewhere, the problem in the Mediterranean and Malaya was that the British over-estimated the fighting power of their land forces and partly the Royal Navy too. As a result, the RAF had to carry a very high burden in these theatres.

Regards,

Paul

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

Hello Juha,

The German advantage of interior lines was not as significant as it may appear. They did not have a significant merchant marine, even on internal seas like the Baltic, so they had to rely almost exclusively on railways for the transfer of large forces. The British were guilty of over-insurance for most of the war, after the shock of 1940. By mid-1941 they could easily have spared a dozen Spitfire squadrons for the Mediterranean without adversely affecting the strategic balance in the West, even if Soviet Union had collapsed by the end of the year. It would have been exceptionally difficult for the Germans to attempt an invasion in 1942, even with somewhat greater resources than in 1940.

Regards,

Paul

Re: Off Topic, but Relevant
 

Hello Bronc,

As you can see from Lundstrom’s book, claims are an unreliable statistic :) As for the effect of this on the campaign, I am less certain. The Japanese lost air superiority because they did not have enough trained aircrew and good aircraft to decisively win the carrier battles. They might have been able to hang on for an extended period even without a carrier victory, had they been able to knock out US aviation on Guadalcanal. However, that would have required very close cooperation between surface ships and the land-based air forces, which was almost impossible because of the low quality and quantity of Japanese radios. The US victory in the Pacific was over-determined after Midway, the problems encountered during the Guadalcanal campaign can be exaggerated.

Regards,

Paul

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

From A History of the Mediterranean Air War I quickly counted 18 shot down, crash-landed, belly-landed, ditched. And then there was a casualty to flak.

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

Juha, that would include RAF loss as far as Alexandria, which ought not be counted, there were no more than 12 RAF losses over the battlefield that could be counted as "shot down by enemy fighters". I just am just be a little lazy and do not want to hand written entire list,

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

HelloPaul
yes, but their air units were fairly mobile, if you look how they were tossed from one sector to other. On the other hand GB could get their Spits back from MTO only by the sea, straight from Suez and then around the Cape of Good Hope or flown via Takoradi Road to Takoradi and shipped from there. And that would surely have taken significantly longer than a transfer five Geschwadern of fighters and 6 of bombers from East in spring of 1942. LW also had qualitive edge in fighter equipment at that time and Hurricane was clearly obsolent against 109F. I agree that it would have been possible to send some Spit sqns, maybe 6 -7, to MTO.

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

No need, I thrust your word, if I had time, I would read the 1 Sept 42 part from the book myself but I have relied on my recollection of a decade old thread on the subject. And only took a quick look on the table in the book before my last message. So I have been too lazy.

Juha

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

Not big strategical significance for the WW2 but just curious "female interest" of mine: has there been any serious studies to verify the air victory claims of Lydia Lytviak and Yekaterina Budanova?

The wiki has something about Lytviak & Budanova and states that they indeed made it an "ace" but that is just wiki.

To my knowledge the two top Allied female pilots when it came to shoot down German planes (and also the only known female aces in the history of airwar).

Were there any other female pilots with confirmed/verified air victories than the two above?

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

!! If you get off-list replies to this, will you please post them? You have raised important and interesting questions.

Bronc

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

Hello Juha,

You are right to an extent, that the long naval route consumed a large amount of time. The key issue is that the RAF could afford to send 200 or more Spitfires to the Mediterranean in 1941 and never return any of them home, because of the superior production rates of British aviation industry. The British exaggerated the German threat by grossly over-estimating German production and effective strength, which had a very negative effect on the British war effort. By combining data on production, strength and losses of the RAF and Luftwaffe, it is possible to see that by 1941 'the game was up' for the Germans, unless they could rapidly defeat the USSR and rapidly exploit its industrial resources. This was possible, but Hitler and his henchmen did not see the nature of the problem with sufficient clarity. On the other hand, Churchill was very concerned about British political endurance and felt forced to tolerate the over-insurance endemic in so many Allied operations during the war.

Regards,

Paul