[MW Giles]

John

I agree about the importance of damaged aircraft (particularly those beyond the scope of the unit to quickly repair and get back into the air, Cat Ac and Cat B in RAF terms). In theory if you could cause enough damage to enough a/c to exceed the rate of repair and replacement then you reduce the fighting capacity of the enemy. However this may not have the same effect as the total destruction of an aircraft on crew availability. It depends on what the critical factor is - men or machines

I can understand why Air Forces would not get as excited about celebrating someone that had damaged 10 aircraft, compared to another that had shot down 7, but the RAF did acknowledge Destroyed, Probables and Damaged in someone's score (there was also a "probably damaged" category that appears occasionally but that is going too far - I usually read it as probably not damaged at all). Anyway just imagine the controversy we could generate on this forum arguing about who might have damaged who and the possibility that lots of claims all related to damage to the same aircraft.

Rob.

Full marks for the most spectacular misunderstanding of my previous post, rather than taking the example I gave and expanding the idea to make a general point that could be discussed, you dived in and attacked the specifics and ignored the real point of the message. Thanks

Preddy was not clairvoyant, of course he claimed 6. He and the 8th AF had no way of knowing about the two that were only damaged. You are mistaking claims (even ones confirmed by 8th AF) for definite kills that are verifiable in the historical record. The two are not the same

Martin