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Originally Posted by Christer Bergström
Graham,
Absolutely. I am only studying the case of 4 - 6 August 1944 because I am studying the case of 4 - 6 August 1944 as such. As mentioned previously, I agree that most sources seem to indicate a considerably higher general claim accuracy for the USAAF in late WWII. That is, in Europe. . .
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US claim accuracy I think was more a function of period of the war than theater. Late war Pacifict claims were fairly accurate too. Rather than time as a magic variable, the US air arms tended to have the upper hand against their opponents late in the war (for quantitative and qualitative reasons we could debate, but anyway they had the upper hand) and the having the upper hand tends to lead to more accurate claims, among variables affecting claim accuracy. But there was also more organization and development of the intel function to cull claims, this is specifically written about in the USN's postwar analysis of its results v. Japanese records.
Back to the main (hijacked from La-7
) point, if we wish to compare the effectiveness of mid 20th century USAF (as a proxy for "Western") and VVS, it seems to me much more direct to look at the Korean War than to try evaluate each's performance against the LW correcting for variations in intra-LW quality, relative numbers and such. This is not to say studying WWII air combat is not a far larger and richer topic in general overall, of course it is, but for that particular comparison, late war effectiveness (assuming it didn't change alot a few years postwar) Korean War performance seems just much simpler and more direct, head to head.
And while the claim/loss results of that war may be controversial still to some, on the level of primary source research I think it's actually pretty clear. There is no situation comparable to loss numbers to "unknown" several times as high as those actually attributed to fighters or AAA (as you provided for VVS losses 1944), nor a major question of loss record accuracy that hasn't been researched yet (as you said for the German overall losses in air combat v. those of just one JG).
Joe