Percentage of Verifiable Victories of Various Aces –Updates & Recommendations

[alessandro bray]

Hi Craig,

you have emphasized good and, at least for me, shared point of view.
In Tony Wood’s and Prien’s lists we find only a small number of n.b. but for some pilots whose logbooks are preserved, the number of unconfirmed victories is certainly higher; in the case of Radener and W.Meyer for examples probably the real number of enemy aircraft downed is higher than that officially credited to them and certainly the knowlegde of all the pilot’s claims (confirmed and not) can give a better understanding of his status.
I’m searching only to have an idea of how losses sustained from one airforce tally with claims of another. My is not a sentence on the pilot’s attitude to be reliable or not.
Already in other topics we have discussed all the elements of dogfighting that can lead a pilot to think in good faith to have downed an enemy aircraft and then in the case of Hartmann for example should be more prudence before say he is unreliable.
Even in a limited theater of war as Malta in 1942, with small number of units, with only one main type of fighter as opposition (Hurricane till mid 1942 and then Spitfire) is difficult to reach univocal conclusions on claims/real losses, so I can imagine is very difficult for the Russian front...


I have attached a list of Michalski claims with personal notes.