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Re: justified RAF claims vs hard kills
In 1941-1942, most of the times the German pilots could choose when and how they engaged RAF fighters, and so the British pilots, already under pressure while fighting over enemy territory with fuel to check and with inferior aircraft, had few possibilities to check if the aircraft they hit (or believed they hit) went down or not.
Also the JG 26 diary will usually not list aircraft losses when the pilot was nit hurt (it may be cited in the text, but is not shown on the loss lists).
In this situation, any damaged German fighter had a good chance to land somewhere and be repaired. And pilots shot down may baled out and be rescued. While any Allied fighter hit had a long way to go to return to base.
Last, I had the same reaction than Graham when I read JG26 books. Given that JG2 and JG26 often fought against the same raids, considering that JG2 claims are unreliable and JG26 ones are reliable seems biased to me.
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