Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Christer Bergström
Official figure of German fighter losses attributed to enemy action on the Eastern Front in 1944: 972.
Here are the official loss figures for the VVS KA in 1944:
|
Thanks, but if I read the Soviet table correctly, a real kill ratio would seem to depend greatly on the actual fate of the large category "did not return from sortie". I wonder how many of 972 German losses would be to AAA or losses on the ground (or would those be included?).
Do you doubt the German figure because Soviet claims were much higher, or some general reason about known German loss accounting practices? In the Korea case it's my observation that it's often the following combination: some assume various known quirks in US loss accounting must have had a very major statistical impact because official losses are so much at variance with opponent claims. But actually at the primary record level, while a few examples of the expected quirks can be found it's not significant %-wise: the often quoted official figures are not that far from correct, insofar as can be determined by the large volume of records that are declassified, and the specific claims. Of course this is not necessarily the same for German loss records. However the same assertion of loss undercount is made about 1939 Japanese losses, so there is something of a recurrent pattern of questioning VVS opponent loss records, and therefore value IMO in discussing the three cases comparatively.
Joe