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Old 14th October 2019, 10:34
Stig1207 Stig1207 is offline
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Re: French fighter scores, mainly 1939-1940

Quote:
It remains open to discussion whether French Air HQ were right when insisting on complete destruction of enemy aircraft (no pilot was credited with « damaged » aircraft ; there were only victories and probable victories) but it worked : French fighters claimed « victoires sûres » on 90 Do 17s, 124 He 111s, 13 of the still rare Ju 88s and 12 Do 215s, not including the probables so they claimed certain victories on: 227 twin-engined bombers and 12 other twin-engined AC plus 56 Me 110s and 162 Me 109s (the most frequently shot down aircraft type). Certainly part of the victims were misidentified including Me 110s claimed as Do 17s and conversely but this doesn’t matter much. The total number of « victoires certaines » was 594 according to Paul Martin in the book "Invisibles vainqueurs" (1991). I feel the real number is rather over 800 including, for example, E/A which crashed during their return flight or on landing, or came back to base but had to be scrapped. These figures do NOT include about 70-73 victories won during the « Phoney War » (September 1939 through May 9, 1940, see the book "Fledgling Eagles" by Christopher Shores et al).
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/...ftwaffe-2.html see Table III

With total Lw losses of 1129 aircraft due to enemy action May-June 1940, there might be scope for your suggested over 800 total victories, though not leaving an awful lot to the British, Dutch and Belgians.
However, your number of 162 Me 109's would seem a bit to close to the 169 reported lost to enemy action. I would expect RAF fighters to have accounted for more than 7 Me 109's and maybe the smaller airforces claimed some as well?