[Leo Etgen]

Hi Laurent

I've tried my hand at identifying claims and losses and generally it's quite a meticulous and challenging task. Due to multiple claims in the same engagement, not to mention the frequent over-claiming involved to some degree or another, it's rather difficult to match a specific claim to a specific loss. Often, the best one can manage is to identify the unit(s) involved. I've seen some excellent work in this area but also some that doesn't convince me of the objectivity involved. For example, someone will "match" a favored ace or unit's claims to known losses while ignoring competing claims and so forth. I've also seen cases where people will associate all losses to fighter claims while ignoring that Flak or non-combat reasons were involved in certain instances according to the other side's loss list entries as you have mentioned. At any rate, I think that this is a quite interesting thread, especially since units such as JG 51 and JG 54 are prominently mentioned and can help further our knowledge of a very interesting aspect of the air war.

Horrido!

Leo