[F19Gladiator]

Dear 'Kildlawyrs',

As you seem to have studied the subject more than what your first provocative postings would lead one to assume, you have perhaps already read this:
http://www.bergstrombooks.elknet.pl/bc-rs/text.html

I suppose you are familiar already to Mr. Christer Bergström's acknowledged research easily accessible in his published books on the air war over the Eastern Front. This text contains bits and pieces of what other members have already commented on earlier and also underlines some of the factors creating the huge difference between the number of claimed victories by Luftwaffe pilots and Allied pilots, also discussing the differences between the Eastern and Western fronts.

As mentioned here earlier some of the Luftwaffe pilots, later to become some of the highest scoring aces in history, achieved small or moderate achievements during their part of their early career corresponding a normal combat tour (or two) by the USAAF aces.
Would this lead to the conclusion that the RAF and USAAF claims as a consequence would be fakes or regarded as hardly being possible to achieve in such a short time period when comparing with some of the excellent Luftwaffe aces with a slow start? Hardly, as the matter is so much more complicated!

Time in battle was definitely a very important factor which allowed the Luftwaffe aces to gain the excellence needed as well as the number of target opportunities to reach the very high number of victories accumulated. Their main feat and achievement was perhaps their ability to survive long enough to give them this skill level and number of opportunities presented why even luck is also a factor to count in!

I suppose you might also have studied the Finnish pilots and their achievements already, as they can claim one of the very best kill to loss ratios in WW2. The best FAF aces also by far outperforming the very best USAAF and RAF fighter jockeys. The Finnish war archives never became destroyed or captured why with the help of the opening up of former Soviet AF archives they now and in the future will produce interesting comparison material.
Another subject I can recommend you to study is the Hungarian pilot's performance and also compare how they performed in 1944-45 compared to Luftwaffe pilots in the same area of conflict.

Over claiming was as an occurrence on both sides, the RAF over claiming can even be argued to be worse in 1940 than with the Luftwaffe. Several interesting articles have been written on the subject only in the last few years, making the over claiming an established fact as such. This can, however, not lead to the conclusion that the victories of the highest scoring Luftwaffe aces are more unreliable than any other fighter aces in the annals of WW2 pilot achievements.

I am sure we will in time find adjusted victory lists of the highest scoring Luftwaffe aces on the Eastern Front which have been painstakingly researched and matched to data found in the now accessible former Soviet Red AF archives. We will never get to a 100% reliable listing and I do not expect them to change the achievement of the top Luftwaffe pilots dramatically in relative terms when compared to their peers in the RAF and USAAF as over claiming is not only connected to pilots of only one particular air force.
You might in connection with this remark want to enjoy another thread here at TOCH:
http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=661

Back to the top Lw Aces:
Flying 700-1000 and even up to 1500 combat missions and by using the average of victories/flown combat mission of the highest scoring 100 German, Finnish and Hungarian fighter aces will show you that by the law of numbers some victory tallies are not completely unrealistic.

Have a nice weekend! And don't forget to have an eagles' view on the subject

Best regards
Göran Larsson