[GuerraCivil]

Soviet vs. German claims:

The Soviet top naval ace Boris Safonov was credited with 20 individual "kills" + 6 shared in WW2. However it seems that his real tally was 7-8 individual air victories. The overclaim ratio of about 3:1 in his case does not seem to be more or less than the "average" in WW2 in my opinion. I´m not at all sure if we can say that LW / Western combat records are "much more" accurate than Soviet combat records in all cases or even as a general rule.

I have some doubts on big German claims at the Eastern Front - without doubt the Soviet losses were heavy but were they as heavy as Germans claimed? Despite the numbers claimed by Hartmann & Co. the air activity of Soviet Air Force was not considerably diminished but continued to increase. Soviets had it of course easier to replace their losses than Germans but German overclaims may also have given a false image of the efficiency of LW fighter units and helplessness of Soviets in air.

Luftwaffe was well able to overclaim as much as their Soviet counterparts have been so often accused despite the "strict" confirmation standards. I would be skeptical on their air victory records specially during the later stages of war. As an example the air combat records of III/JG 5 against Soviets in far north during the summer of 1944 based on solid research (Valtonen - Rautio):
- on 17.6.1944 12 Soviet planes destroyed (actual losses 0)
- on 4.7.1944 26 Soviet planes destroyed (actual losses 2)
- on 17.7.1944 37 Soviet planes destroyed (actual losses 5)
- on 17.8.1944 40 Soviet planes destroyed (actual losses 12)
- on 23.8.1944 29 Soviet planes destroyed (actual losses 2)

The German claims were "impossibly high" also in the view of strength of Soviet air units allocated to the operational area of III/JG 5. If they would have been true, III/JG 5 would have destroyed over 40 % of the combat strength of VVS SF (Soviet Northern Fleet aviation) and that would practically stopped or diminished in great extent the Soviet air activity at the northern flank of German Eastern Front. The losses would have been so high that even with Soviet resources they could not have been replaced easily. However as Germans themselves noted their "big victories" did not reflect in the Soviet air activity and thus the usual explanation of "infinite" Soviet resources was provided to make claims "possible/legitimate".

The III/JG 5 claims during the summer of 1944 were quite the same scale as the ill-fated Soviet claims during the Winter War - the exaggerated claims against Finnish Air Force were "legitimazed" with the assumption that Finns imported planes (and pilots) from abroad to replace their losses more than 100 % (this indeed happened but nothing near of the scale of Soviet assumptions).

Details: Valtonen, Hannu 1996: Luftwaffen pohjoinen sivusta - Saksan ilmavoimat Suomessa ja Pohjois-Norjassa 1941-1944. Luftwaffe´s Northern Flank - German Air Force in Finland and Northern Norway 1941-1944, p. 353-355 - Pajari, Risto 1971: Talvisota ilmassa - Winter War in Air)