[Ruy Horta]

Not only Ford and Lindstrom, but also Shores with his team in Bloody Shambles and Boer with his work on the 1942 Air Campaign for the Neth. East Indies show similar numbers. The early allied overclaiming is fairly consistent, with the exeption of the AVG together with US defensive gunners and Dauntless claims. Japanese overclaiming is generally high.

However Ford is quite flawed in his sugarcoated article.

Instead of ending his argument based on a/c lost in air to air combat, combat losses on the ground and non-combat operational losses, he compares AVG pilot lost in combat with (all) Japanese air crew combat losses. Even when we disregard RAF claims, we have a more serious flaw. To compare aircrew losses without taking into account the type of a/c or aircrew leads to skewed figures, since a Ki 21 Sally carries 6-7 (?) aircrew compared to the single AVG pilot, which leads to a 1:6 margin. He goes on by comparing these flawed figures with modern air combat (against a/c with 1 or at the very most 2 aircrew) gives even more inflated results, a single Sally would be the same as 6-7 MiG-21s!!

IMHO complete nonsense.

Judging by the final analysis of Ford's article every B-17 shot down would give the German Jagdwaffe a margin of 10:1, perhaps true in terms of men, but if judged by specialist aircrew that margin would drop to 4:1 and by economic output perhaps even lower. Regardless, the orthodox method would compare planes and not aircrew to give significant numbers, taking into account the type of a/c (bomber, fighter, recon etc).