Battle of Britain - who shot what down?

[Icare9]

Gents
Thanks for the clarifications
I had rather expected to find that there was already a large body of research, but despite being a familiar here I haven't found anything than individual sets of reports, not as a collective whole.

Thanks for putting me right on that.
As to "expecting a high level of precision" I think you read too much into my post. I was asking if there was a level of research to establish who shot down whom but did accept that in the melee of a dogfight where one victor may shortly thereafter become a victim without the claim being able to be made by the pilot.

It is precisely because of the amount of information that I see daily coming up on the board that I asked the question as there is such a high level of quality information analysing claims. I just hadn't realised that it was all being pulled together in one place.

Thanks for the info, I look forward to doing some more trawling through the threads!

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Icare9

I was asking if there was a level of research to establish who shot down whom but did accept that in the melee of a dogfight where one victor may shortly thereafter become a victim without the claim being able to be made by the pilot.

My experience is that where numerous aircraft are involved, you simply don't have enough information reliably to assign a claim to a particular loss (in the unlikely event that the numbers of claims and losses match up in the first place). The best you can say for a lot of actions is that these pilots made claims and those aircraft were lost but you can't identify personal responsibility.

Also it's worth having a look at Alfred Price's books "The Hardest Day" and "Battle of Britain Day." In one of those he unravels the tale of a stricken He 111 fired on by something like half a dozen different RAF pilots as it tried to get home and claimed separately by all of them.

[Peter Cornwell]

Originally Posted by Icare9

It seems to me that this is one area that hasn't been exhaustively researched ...

I had rather expected to find that there was already a large body of research, but despite being a familiar here I haven't found anything than individual sets of reports, not as a collective whole.

I was asking if there was a level of research to establish who shot down whom ...

One body of research such as you expected to find may be my own. I work with it most days as it is constantly being updated, revised, and enhanced as further information comes to hand. Over the years it has formed the basis for several loss lists published in various authors' books and is currently being further developed for the EOE project as Larry Hickey has indicated. But 'cherry-picking' individual cases to examine is no way forward in my experience. A gestalt approach has to be adopted to the events of any day and one needs to be satisfied that the losses are both accurate and complete before any attempt is made to relate them to specific claims. Hence, as has been already pointed out by others here, it is costly, time-consuming, demanding, and frustrating work. Frankly, it is often about as much fun as sucking the farts out of dead cats (apologies) for any significant change resulting from fresh information can bring down your careful construct of a day's events and lead to a complete reappraisal. So, the subject may not have been exhaustively researched but that is how it often leaves me.