The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by GuerraCivil

The more inflated the air victory stats is the more false picture it gives about the efficiency of certain air units, certain tactics and certain strategy.

Hello GuerraCivil,

It has been well established in books such as Lundstrom’s that numbers of claims are in fact the least reliable of all the statistics produced by fighter units. The only way to analyse what you term the ‘efficiency’ of air forces or individual units is to look at the documents of their opponents and check statistics of aircraft and aircrew losses, the number of missions completed successfully and so on. This is best done at the strategic level, rather than for single units, because the success of a single unit did not necessarily have much significance for the war as a whole.

Originally Posted by GuerraCivil

The RAF failed to achieve enough positive results in 1941-1942 with Circus operations and the actual kill/loss -stats were highly unfavourable for RAF - big numerical superiority did not bring the hoped air dominance over Western Europe.

Conflating the raw numbers of losses with operational success is misleading. The RAF tied down and inflicted significant attrition on the two best Luftwaffe Jagdgeschwader at a time when the Geremans needed as manmy fighters as possible in the other theatres.

Originally Posted by GuerraCivil

How much did the inflated RAF kill/loss -stats with these operations effect in the continuing somewhat dubious strategy and committing too many Spitfires in rather futile operations is very interesting question. Many Spitfires would have found better service outside of Britain much earlier like sending them to defend Malta and stregthening DAF in North Africa by late 1941/early 1942.

The main reason for the cross-Channel operations was the perceived need to maintain pressure on the Germans and appease Stalin’s ever more vicious demands for a second front, numbers of claims played very little role in the strategic decisions made. You are correct on the subject of greater utility of Spitfires elsewhere, the problem in the Mediterranean and Malaya was that the British over-estimated the fighting power of their land forces and partly the Royal Navy too. As a result, the RAF had to carry a very high burden in these theatres.

Regards,

Paul

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Juha

A bit more complicated than that, the main question was the grand strategy. Germany's central position allowed it to move units more rapidly than GB. So the main question for British was, could Germany knock out the SU out of the war or even simply stabilize the Eastern Front so that it could move most of the LW to the West maybe with some of the best Heer divs. In that case GB might well to loose the war if most of its Spits were in MTO. In war one should not lightly risk one's power base for gains in secondary sectors.

Hello Juha,

The German advantage of interior lines was not as significant as it may appear. They did not have a significant merchant marine, even on internal seas like the Baltic, so they had to rely almost exclusively on railways for the transfer of large forces. The British were guilty of over-insurance for most of the war, after the shock of 1940. By mid-1941 they could easily have spared a dozen Spitfire squadrons for the Mediterranean without adversely affecting the strategic balance in the West, even if Soviet Union had collapsed by the end of the year. It would have been exceptionally difficult for the Germans to attempt an invasion in 1942, even with somewhat greater resources than in 1940.

Regards,

Paul

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Broncazonk

It's absolutely shocking--the documented Japanese over-claiming in particular--to the point that the constant, daily, every single mission 5x and even 10x over-claiming had (in my opinion) a significant effect on the outcome of the entire Solomons campaign.

Bronc

Hello Bronc,

As you can see from Lundstrom’s book, claims are an unreliable statistic As for the effect of this on the campaign, I am less certain. The Japanese lost air superiority because they did not have enough trained aircrew and good aircraft to decisively win the carrier battles. They might have been able to hang on for an extended period even without a carrier victory, had they been able to knock out US aviation on Guadalcanal. However, that would have required very close cooperation between surface ships and the land-based air forces, which was almost impossible because of the low quality and quantity of Japanese radios. The US victory in the Pacific was over-determined after Midway, the problems encountered during the Guadalcanal campaign can be exaggerated.

Regards,

Paul

[Juha]

Originally Posted by mars

No, that was not true, RAF lost 12 aircrafts shot down or crash landing as a result of enemy fighters or fail to return from mission, causes unknown, these includes at least 2 Hurricances lost in reconnaissance missions that could hardly be the Marseille's "Kills", apart from that RAF also lost 1 fighter shot down by flak and another fighter shot down by "friendly" fire

From A History of the Mediterranean Air War I quickly counted 18 shot down, crash-landed, belly-landed, ditched. And then there was a casualty to flak.

[mars]

Originally Posted by Juha

From A History of the Mediterranean Air War I quickly counted 18 shot down, crash-landed, belly-landed, ditched. And then there was a casualty to flak.

Juha, that would include RAF loss as far as Alexandria, which ought not be counted, there were no more than 12 RAF losses over the battlefield that could be counted as "shot down by enemy fighters". I just am just be a little lazy and do not want to hand written entire list,

[Juha]

Originally Posted by Paul Thompson

Hello Juha,

The German advantage of interior lines was not as significant as it may appear. They did not have a significant merchant marine, even on internal seas like the Baltic, so they had to rely almost exclusively on railways for the transfer of large forces. The British were guilty of over-insurance for most of the war, after the shock of 1940. By mid-1941 they could easily have spared a dozen Spitfire squadrons for the Mediterranean without adversely affecting the strategic balance in the West, even if Soviet Union had collapsed by the end of the year. It would have been exceptionally difficult for the Germans to attempt an invasion in 1942, even with somewhat greater resources than in 1940.

Regards,

Paul

HelloPaul
yes, but their air units were fairly mobile, if you look how they were tossed from one sector to other. On the other hand GB could get their Spits back from MTO only by the sea, straight from Suez and then around the Cape of Good Hope or flown via Takoradi Road to Takoradi and shipped from there. And that would surely have taken significantly longer than a transfer five Geschwadern of fighters and 6 of bombers from East in spring of 1942. LW also had qualitive edge in fighter equipment at that time and Hurricane was clearly obsolent against 109F. I agree that it would have been possible to send some Spit sqns, maybe 6 -7, to MTO.

[Juha]

Originally Posted by mars

Juha, that would include RAF loss as far as Alexandria, which ought not be counted, there were no more than 12 RAF losses over the battlefield that could be counted as "shot down by enemy fighters". I just am just be a little lazy and do not want to hand written entire list,

No need, I thrust your word, if I had time, I would read the 1 Sept 42 part from the book myself but I have relied on my recollection of a decade old thread on the subject. And only took a quick look on the table in the book before my last message. So I have been too lazy.

Juha

[GuerraCivil]

Not big strategical significance for the WW2 but just curious "female interest" of mine: has there been any serious studies to verify the air victory claims of Lydia Lytviak and Yekaterina Budanova?

The wiki has something about Lytviak & Budanova and states that they indeed made it an "ace" but that is just wiki.

To my knowledge the two top Allied female pilots when it came to shoot down German planes (and also the only known female aces in the history of airwar).

Were there any other female pilots with confirmed/verified air victories than the two above?

[Broncazonk]

Originally Posted by GuerraCivil

[...] has there been any serious studies to verify the air victory claims of Lydia Lytviak and Yekaterina Budanova? Were there any other female pilots with confirmed/verified air victories than the two above?

!! If you get off-list replies to this, will you please post them? You have raised important and interesting questions.

Bronc

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Juha

HelloPaul
yes, but their air units were fairly mobile, if you look how they were tossed from one sector to other. On the other hand GB could get their Spits back from MTO only by the sea...

Hello Juha,

You are right to an extent, that the long naval route consumed a large amount of time. The key issue is that the RAF could afford to send 200 or more Spitfires to the Mediterranean in 1941 and never return any of them home, because of the superior production rates of British aviation industry. The British exaggerated the German threat by grossly over-estimating German production and effective strength, which had a very negative effect on the British war effort. By combining data on production, strength and losses of the RAF and Luftwaffe, it is possible to see that by 1941 'the game was up' for the Germans, unless they could rapidly defeat the USSR and rapidly exploit its industrial resources. This was possible, but Hitler and his henchmen did not see the nature of the problem with sufficient clarity. On the other hand, Churchill was very concerned about British political endurance and felt forced to tolerate the over-insurance endemic in so many Allied operations during the war.

Regards,

Paul