![]() |
|
Luftwaffe and Axis Air Forces Please use this forum to discuss the German Luftwaffe and the Air Forces of its Allies. |
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Sitzkrieg in air - both German and Allied victory?
I wonder if anyone has made general study of air combats at the Western front during the so-called Sitzkrieg period 3.9.1939 - 9.5.1940?
From the fragments that I have seen it seems that both sides claimed victory - shooting down more planes than lost themselves. Here something on German side during Sitzkrieg: About 150 - 160 air victories for Luftwaffe, more than half of them - 78 - credited to JG 53 (or III/JG 53), which lost only 11 pilots in air combats. Source: Kurt Braatz: Werner Mölders. Die Biographie. Although Bf 109 D or "Dora" was considered somewhat outdated (at the side of "Emil"), the units flying with it showed clearly victorious balance sheet of Sitzkrieg: the loss of 8 Bf 109 D and 5 pilots was balanced by 16 air victories, of which 8 were Allied fighters (5 MS 406 + 3 Hawk 75). However, also French fighter units could show favourable balance sheet of the period of "drole de guerre" of 3.9.1939 - 9.5.1940: 70 confirmed air victories against the loss of 28 fighter planes and 13 pilots. However the recce and bomber units suffered somewhat more. Source: Barry Keitley - French Aces of World War 2. Of the RAF records of "Phoney War" I do not know the official "kill/loss" -scores, but I would not be surprised that they would show that RAF (fighter units) destroyed clearly more German planes than RAF lost in air combat. So both sides won in Sitzkrieg/Drole de Guerre/Phoney War shooting down more planes than lost themselves in air combat? What do researched/surviving loss records of both sides tell? Was it actually German or French/British side which came clearly over the top by downing/destroying more planes than lost themselves? Or was it more or less even? Was possible (or better said usual) overclaiming more or less of the same scale by both sides? |
|
|
![]() |
||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Spitfire vs 109 | edwest | Books and Magazines | 22 | 15th December 2013 23:20 |
Allied air victory over North Italy : 14 February 1944 | canonne | Allied and Soviet Air Forces | 0 | 3rd December 2013 21:50 |
"The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944-1945: Allied Air Power and the German National Railway", by Alfred C. Mierzejewski | Richard T. Eger | Books and Magazines | 0 | 20th October 2013 03:19 |
The Liberal View of the German Soldier | Sylvester Stadler | The Second World War in General | 15 | 22nd March 2009 20:15 |
My library - you rate it! | generalderpanzertruppen | Books and Magazines | 8 | 24th November 2007 02:36 |