Luftwaffe Kills in Tunisia Compared to Recorded USAAF P-38 losses

[Rob Romero]

-Mark thanks for your thorough research. It is welcome by many to be sure.

I would add . . . that these "dishonest", "unreliable", "overclaimer" and similar derogatory epithets tend mostly to be thrown at German pilots. Perhaps as a faint effort to vent frustration over the fact that there were so many successful German fighter pilots, whose reputation must be tarnished by suggesting that many of those 'kills' did not (could not) actually happen...

In my case the focus stems not from a desire to denigrate experten, but rather from my admiration of and intense interest in the Jagdwaffe, which due to prolonged combat exposure produced –IMHO- the finest combat pilots the world has ever seen. However, this interest has led to a desire to make a more than superficial examination of their claims, be they accurate or otherwise. Though the samples provided are too small to make generalities about particular pilots, a few famous experten such as Bühligen (112), Grasser (103), Ubben (110), Friedrich-Karl Müller (140), Goltzsch (43) & especially Rüdorffer (224) -cough, cough- do stand out negatively. Conversely the reputations of, Heinz Bar (221) Anton Hafner (204) and Crinius (114) have not suffered from this examination. If that’s offensive to the sensibilities of some; O.K. –then let’s say we take personalities out of it! By examining combats where it was possible to isolate units to combats where firm losses or lack thereof have been determined by Mark, the results reflect particularly poorly on JG 2 (22.7%); the other four units scored in a rather consistent range of 63.6% to 76%. That one unit (JG 51 @ 76%) was making claims at a rate almost 3½ times more accurately than JG 2 might have been of interest to the Luftwaffe high command, don’t you think? And it should be of interest to historians as well.


JG 51 19/25: 76.0%
JG 27 -2/-3: 66.7%
JG 53 19/29: 65.5%
JG 77 -7/11: 63.6%
JG 2 -5/22: 22.7%

[Kryten]

I have always considered individual claims to be nothing more than an interesting statistic and often a nationalistic flag to wave for those with an agenda.

the real decider in all air campaigns has and will always be who controlled the battle space at the end , whether through sheer force of numbers or technical superiority it's the strategic outcome that will in reality decide which force was most effective!

An example of which is the huge disparity between the recorded losses of Soviet to Axis aircraft, yet in the end it was the Soviets who achieved air superiority over thier Axis counterparts!

the ability to to produce enough effective aircraft and crews nearly always out weighs the tactical advantages of the foe that cannot!