Quote:
Originally Posted by Franek Grabowski
...if an aircraft drawn into combat for so long it cannot return home, should be considered an aerial victory or not.
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Such reasoning would open a can of worms.
If a/c operate on the limits of their range, it is a calculated risk that they cannot return to base. It is an operational loss, but not a combat loss, as in "damaged in combat". As such to be taken into account when analysing the events at the end of the day, but not used to inflate combat claims.
If a Naval aviator destroys his a/c in a carrier landing, after tedious flight to target, a short fight and tedious flight back, does that mean he should be claimed by the enemy? It could be claimed that not his fuel but his strength was drained in the combat...
However if his a/c was damaged in said combat and that damage can be linked to the crashlanding, things are different. The same if the Aviator was wounded in combat.
Should every CAM launched fighter be considered a combat loss?
1. It is launched on a combat sortie
2. It eventually runs runs out of fuel and is abandoned
Should all a/c losses that were caused by pilots being unable to land in bad weather or darkness, prefering to bail out instead, be counted as victory claims of those enemy units operating against them?
etc etc etc