Fair questions, but I think we addressed most (if not all) of these in the book. Loss reports are much more reliable than claims, simply because if they were not reported, they got no re-supply from the factories and aviation schools. As simple as that. Especially the Soviets who had a full dept. in the Air Armies to do the paperwork of planes and plane engines +/-, writing re-supply orders. You would be blown by their details. Same numbers cross-referenced in regiment-, division-, air army levels - no room for hiding anything. Again: in 1944-45. Not to mention that at least in 1944-45 the Soviets could preserve all of their records as opposed to the Germans, whose offices burned down with all of their records in RAF night attacks where tons, I mean tons of 'victories' were approved afterwards without any re-investigation!!!! Simply because it was impossible to re-investigate. So these records afterwards worth next to NOTHING to me!!! All claims got approved in the 2nd turn, simply because they lost most of the original papers in RAF bombardments. Read the book if you want to know how 'precise' this German verification system was, which, by the way changed several times... On the other hand I do not trust the Soviet victory claims either. The only piece of information that I can take seriously from them is the name of the claimer and the fact that he (and his unit) flew there and then and they met some enemy planes. That's it. I do not care about the rest. Especially because the Soviets could not differentiate the Bf 109s and the Fw 190s in the air, especially in the dark fall/winter months in poor visibility conditions. So imagine the mess in their claims.... Germans too. The loss records are different. Those are super precise. For all nations I trust their own loss reports and ignore their claims for these very reasons. We can play with claims, we can make all kinds of statistics, but according to the wise saying: 'From sh.t you cannot build a castle.' In 1945 the Germans burned several tons of their own military records in order to avoid their capture! No wonder that their records are so incomplete. Funny, but many German records were saved by the Soviets who preserved them and they are also kept in TsAMO RF.
Long story.... And no, this is just my -lifelong- hobby.
Cheers,
Gabor