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Re: Lev Shestakov
The big number of shared air victories (31) may reflect the total of air victories of the air unit in which Shestakov served in the Spanish Civil War during his service time. If he was a active pilot and took part in many air combats it is not all strange if his "shared kills" score is high. However it is difficult to tell how big his part was in those air combats in which he was credited with a "share kill". He might have actually contributed something to the "unit kill" or he may well have been just flying around without contributing anything significant to the kills credited "officially" as "shared kills" to him.
The system of shared air victories was very generous in Spanish Republican Air Force as well as in some other air forces - compare for example the French Air Force in WW2. Pilots of patrullas (swarms) or even whole escuadrillas (squadrons) could be credited by downing the one and same enemy aircraft. Thus many pilots could be credited by shooting down a enemy aircraft in a combat in which actually one enemy plane was shot down. I remember to have read about one French case in which as many as 8 pilots were credited with a "share kill" from a combat in which just one enemy plane was shot down. In that case there were pilots of two units involved so it produced 2 "unit kills" which even that was overclaiming 2:1. From the Soviet-Finnish Winter War I have read about one case in which as many as 12 Soviet pilots were credited with a "shared" air victory from the combat in which just one Finnish aircraft was shot down (claims of 25 IAP on 2.2.1940, IIRC). Later these shared claims were "upgraded" to the highly exaggerated claim that as many as 12 Finnish planes were shot down in that single combat!
With the shared claims it is difficult to tell if the pilot actually contributed to some significant way to the combat or was just flying around without getting a single shot on enemy aircraft claimed to be shot down. The generously given group/shared "kills" are known to lead to confused and often highly inflated air victory records.
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