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Originally Posted by Graham Boak
If, on the above figures, Soviet claims were some 50,000 as opposed to Luftwaffe and allies losses significantly over 10,000 (but unlikely to be anywhere near 20,000), then Soviet overclaiming seems to have been much the same order as those of other nations, i.e. about 3:1.
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Hello,
I think that the overclaim ratio may have been much higher. Having found the article from which I took my figures, I can now say that the total number of claims by the Soviet air forces in the air was 57,180 (Of which 48,683 VVS, 3,930 PVO, 4,567 Av-VMF). A 3:1 overclaim ratio would require 19,000 actual Axis losses to Soviet aircraft. I estimate that the highest possible Axis loss total (combat losses in the air) is 16,000, some 3,000 of which can reasonably be allocated to losses due to anti-aircraft fire. This leaves 13,000 aircraft shot down by air forces and a resulkting overclaim ratio of 4.4:1. These estimates are of course highly speculative, but I am using optimistic estimates of Soviet successes.
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Originally Posted by Laurent Rizzotti
Just a question: is the number of 50 000 victories coming from a post-war Soviet book, or from a military document?
It seems to me that many victories described in Soviet books have never been found in official papers researched by Russian historians having access now to former Soviet archives.
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The number of victories comes from an article by Timohovich in a 1973 "Red Star" newspaper, the total number later being quoted again in a 1976 book entitled "The operational art of the Soviet VVS in the Great Patriotic War". He is a reliable historian in the sense that he uses archival data, however spurious, rather than inventing things himself for propaganda purposes.
Regards,
Jack Sanders