[Dénes Bernád]

Originally Posted by Six Nifty .50s

According to Musciano's Messerscmitt Aces, the Jagdwaffe was credited with 45,000 aerial victories -- with another 16,000 aerial victories credited to Germany's Allies.

Csaba was quicker than I (apparently, he wakes up earlier and on a different continent).


The figure of 16,000 is way too high, even in general terms of all air victories scored against all of the small Axis' enemies - not only the VVS alone (by the end of war, most of the small Axis converted to small Allies).

According to my own estimates, the fighter pilots of the Rumanian air force - the largest Axis air force fighting on the Eastern Front - claimed about 1200 enemy airplanes destroyed in air or on ground (VVS, USAF and even Luftwaffe). Bombers and other non-fighter airplanes claimed a few dozens more. Anti-aircraft gunners added almost one thousand more to the overall claim number.

If we factor in variable degree of overclaiming, I believe the Rumanians destroyed overall fewer than 1000 Soviet airplanes, between 1941-1944.

The other small Axis air forces obviously achieved even less, due to their sheer smaller number fighting the VVS.