[@irnimal]

Hi Getlemen,
This is a great thread, very interesting discussion. Of all of us participating in this debate, I'll bet I'm the newest guy in town.
Many things have been mentioned here about the reasons why overclaiming occurred. Not going into that that because it is fairly obvious the various reasons for it to have happened (and if the cenario repeated itself today the same things would have happened again).
For me and , do I dear to suppose, for most of us it's to know how the war, and it's individual combats, panned out. Nothing can be known without proper research.
That is why I love the works of Christopher Shores, Brian Cull. Christer Bergstrom's work is also amazing. But when it comes to the Eastern Front the work needed to have something resembling the style of Chis Shores will be herculean. The amount of data that needs to be checked will take forever. Don't know how many of you Gentlemen are actually doing research in the area (and what I mean is, actually researching Soviet Loss/Combat Reports), but if we don't get together and actually do it, this will never be possible in our lifetime.
I've been researching mainly the Loss Files (the quickest way of building up data, and a picture of what happened), for the last 6~7 years. From time to time I also take a look at the combat reports, but that is vero time consuming task for someone that doesn't speak Russian (but that doesn't stop me).
Unless some of us actually come together and work towards this goal, if possible with Russian speaking people to help and do this, we will continue with these fruitless discussions about this topic.
Myself, I would like to see for future generations something like a ''Chris Shores like'' chronicle of the Eastern Front Air War.
Sorry about my bluntness, but I think that we need to get something done.
In the meantime, I'll continue with my own research, enjoy all the discussions that do go on in this site and contribute with whatever I can.
Cheers,
Paulo