[Laurent Rizzotti]

I guess you have to see the victories and claims as quantic physics objects. In this point of vue a fact is not true or false but x% true and (100-x)% false.

Comparing claims and losses, when records allow it, can not answer who shot down who in most cases, only in a minority of cases, especially as the number of aircraft involved grow.

Mos of the times, all that is possible to say is that side A claimed 12 kills and side B suffered 5 losses, while side B claimed 8 kills and side A suffered 3 losses. So each kill of side A is true at 5/12 = 40% and each claim of side B is true at 3/8=38%.

Another way to do that is to list for a given pilot the sure true victories (enemy losses match claims), the sure false victories (no possible enemy loss) and the ones that may be true (there were enemy losses but more claims that real losses). It is the third category that might be judged using "quantic" numbers.

The only real conclusion that I can draw on the subject is that overclaiming was common, either in good faith or not. Another question is how much the hierachy was involved in it, ie does the victory confirmation process work correctly or not ? For example during Curcues in 1941-1942 the RAF commanders knew via Ultra and other intelligence that their pilots were overclaiming a lot, but did nothing to correct that for morale purposes.

So when studying any battle, you can't rely on reports from one side only, but need to have loss and claim reports from both sides.

Things are even worse in land battles where enemy losses are often several times lower than claimed. I have seen several instances for example in Normandy in 1944 where one side claimed to have destroyed several enemy batallions, claiming hundred of enemy killed. Reports from the opposing sides show only some tens of KIA/MIA.