Jagdflieger unconfirmed victories and official confirmation of claims

[Nikita Egorov]

Originally Posted by Dénes Bernád

To say that Luftwaffe on average overclaimed 3:1 during the whole war is simply not true, and its sounds as historical revisionism.
As it has been discussed here previously, a few units on a few occasion indeed overclaimed to a rather high degree, but that was the exception rather than the norm. Of course, overclaim in the Jagdwaffe did exist, but to a much lesser degree than Shikhov alleged.
In one instance when I could check both the claims and the other side's losses (over Transylvania, in the Autumn of 1944), for every Luftwaffe fighter claim there was almost always a matching Rumanian loss. And that was fairly close to the war's end, when Luftwaffe air victory confirmation wasn't that strict as previously...

I should say that Luftwaffe overclaim in my opinion depended on two factors: activity of combat and personal characters of individual pilot. I know some examples when Hartmann overclaimed vastly and to the contrary I have not faced any such occasion as regards to Lipfert.
Here is the example: August 9, 1942 pilots of JG3 and I/JG53 claimed 50 enemy planes around Kalatch and Stalingrad. In fact 8 VA and 102 IAD PVO lost 19 planes. If we presume that all of them were shot down by fighters we will have overclaim ratio at 2,6. At the same time on August 11, 1942 all German fighter claims correspond with matching Soviet losses.

[Nikita Egorov]

Originally Posted by Csaba Becze

Nikita,

BTW to me, the Soviet method is more interesting, because I know less about the Soviet system.
I am sure, that the Soviet authorities know the German official loss reports (mostly via radio and the gap between the VVS fighter claims and the German losses was evident instantly) How was it possible, that high number of overclaims were confirmed so easily? And if the Soviet authorities confirmed kills just over own territory in the first part of the conflict, what about the not found German wrecks (to me, the found wrecks would be the main cause of this rule)?

Csaba

Soviet authorities knew about German losses mostly from recon reports and POW interrogation. As regards to overclaim confirmation in 1941-43 that did not have much importance, since there were huge losses and claims were getting confirmed primarily to offset losses. Besides, in the mess of first two years of fighting authorities did not pay much attention to claim verification procedure. Though, in theory Soviet confirmation rules were very strict. But they were observed only in formal way. Thus, a group which was aimed at finding wrecks of shot down planes could collect evidence of local inhabitants for one plane and confirm several as shot down. Only in 1943-44 with the appearance of guncameras situation went better somehow.

[Csaba B. Stenge]

Nikita,

well, my opinion is the same as yours regarding the German (and Hungarian) overclaims, as I described it in my aces book.
BTW another cathegory, over Hungary there were many Hungarian-German 'collective' air victories, and these planes were confirmed individually many times in both sides (in Hungarian side with less points and with the mentioned German claims, at the Luftwaffe, as 'full own' kills). Sometimes even shared with the AA artillery as well (but confirmed separately as a full kill). It happened at night too (same plane was confirmed to German night fighters and AA artillery separately).

Dénes,

in few occasions, over Transylvania, the AA artillery claimed the same planes as the Jagdwaffe, so they are overclaimed there as well (fighters or AA artillery, or both).

[Dénes Bernád]

Originally Posted by Csaba Becze

Dénes,

in few occasions, over Transylvania, the AA artillery claimed the same planes as the Jagdwaffe, so they are overclaimed there as well (fighters or AA artillery, or both).

The air combats I was referring to took part away from so-called 'sensitive centres', so there was no established flak over there. One may assume that there was light troop flak in the combat area; however, chances are slim. I believe that the Rumanian aircraft the German fighters claimed were shut down in air combat, not by flak (there are other Rumanian losses too, which do not have Luftwaffe fighter claim equivalents, those might have indeed been shot down by flak).

[marsyao]

Originally Posted by Dénes Bernád

To say that Luftwaffe on average overclaimed 3:1 during the whole war is simply not true, and its sounds as historical revisionism.
As it has been discussed here previously, a few units on a few occasion indeed overclaimed to a rather high degree, but that was the exception rather than the norm. Of course, overclaim in the Jagdwaffe did exist, but to a much lesser degree than Shikhov alleged.
In one instance when I could check both the claims and the other side's losses (over Transylvania, in the Autumn of 1944), for every Luftwaffe fighter claim there was almost always a matching Rumanian loss. And that was fairly close to the war's end, when Luftwaffe air victory confirmation wasn't that strict as previously...

Denes, that depend on theatre, in the battle of Britian, in the aircombat over Italy and Balkan after 1943, and over Western Europe after Normandy, the overclaim rate of Luftwaffe were at least 3:1

[Dénes Bernád]

Originally Posted by marsyao

Denes, that depend on theatre, in the battle of Britian, in the aircombat over Italy and Balkan after 1943, and over Western Europe after Normandy, the overclaim rate of Luftwaffe were at least 3:1

Marsyao, can you support your claim with concrete numbers (incl. the sources you're relying on)?

[marsyao]

Originally Posted by Dénes Bernád

Marsyao, can you support your claim with concrete numbers (incl. the sources you're relying on)?

Of course, John Foreman's "fighter command diary", Morton Jessen's " The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 in North Africa", Nick Beale's excellent researchs about air war over Italy, Christopher shores's "2nd tactiv air force", Francis K. Mason's "battle for Britian".
Denes, according to my reading about air war in WWII, NONE of nation's airforce had an overclaim rate less then 2:1, Luftwaffe certainly did not submit more overall accurate claims than other airforce such like USAAF or RAF, to be fair, claims submitted by other airforce were not more accurate than Luftwaffe's either.

[Dénes Bernád]

Originally Posted by marsyao

Denes, according to my reading about air war in WWII, NONE of nation's airforce had an overclaim rate less then 2:1, Luftwaffe certainly did not submit more overall accurate claims than other airforce such like USAAF or RAF, to be fair, claims submitted by other airforce were not more accurate than Luftwaffe's either.

Marsyao, such generalizations don't lead anywhere. Although 'everyone was the same, everyone overclaimed to the same degree' sounds very politically correct, it simply doesn't reflect historical reality. That's why I asked for concrete numbers for concrete time periods, to see if we can collectively analyse them and to realize where we can go from there.

[marsyao]

then Denes, I suggest you read those books I mentioned above, all you need is there

[Boris Ciglic]

Well, Luftwaffe claims over Yugoslavia during the April War in 1941 were almost 100% matching Yugoslav losses. On other hand, IV./JG 27 wildly overclaimed in late 1943.