% of Verfiable Victories of Various Aces.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

I think you can divide the claims into three categories:

1) valid ones: the target is identified and went down, or the unit is identified and has as many losses than the claims of its opponent
2) invalid ones: the target is identified, or his unit, and wasn't destroyed
3) incertain ones: target not identified, at least one loss known but more claims than losses.

Most of the cases will be in the 1st and 3rd category, with a majority of the latter. When you have one side claim 70 victories and shooting down 50 aircraft, you will probably have something like 10 valide claims and 60 incertain ones.

A method to try to get closer to the real score of WWII pilots will be to use the US method of using fractions for claims.

For example, in the above case, the 10 pilots having claimed identified targets (location and time corresponding, away from the main battle and so on) will be given full credit (1 claim = 1 victory) and the 60 other claims, corresponding to the remaining 40 losses, will be valued each 40/60 = 0.666 victory... This is as close as you can get in many cases.

For example, RAF overclaiming in 41-42 over France was often very high, and you will find more combat reports with clear 'proof' of the destruction of the enemy than real German losses, so I doubt one will ver be able to say which claim are valuable and which should be rejected.