Hartmann: claims vs. victories

[Juha]

^while true one much remember that planes were also lost because of operational reasons: mechanical, weather, pilots errors etc. So not all of those which "failed to return" were shot down by Axis forces. Same to forced landings. And one must know to which class of repair shops the plane was sent. You probably meant mobile aircraft repair shops or PARMs. PARM-1s were subordinated to mobile aircraft repair bases for administration, and to the Chief Engineer of the Air Regiment to which they were attached for operations. So planes transferred to PARM-1s were not badly damaged, those went to to PARM-4s or -5s. To my understanding PARM-1s operated at same airfields as the air regiments they were attached, so it was not a big deal to transfer a plane to it.

[HGabor]

Very true! Many empty and parking planes were also lost on their own airfields when returning planes with damaged breaks, or hydraulic system lost control at touch down and ran into them along the landing strip! If one checks only the number of the aerial claims and the number of losses on the other side without checking the actual cause of the losses can go down the wrong path with incorrect conclusions.

Gabor