Rudolf Mueller: claims vs actual 'kills'

[Dénes Bernád]

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

What I however do believe is very important is that at least the people serious with regards to documenting the WWII airwar try to do this based on comparing the notes from both or rather ALL sides, as even the more famous of writers among us have made errors, simply because the necessary documents were unavailable to them. And even better, try not to be biased... even if it is hard!

This is exactly what D. Karlenko and myself attempted to do with our two-volume coverage of the air war on the Southern flank of the Eastern Front in 1941. [See details on the book here: http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=9310]

One of the conclusions that personally surprised me was that how different the claims and losses of all sides are. I even aired my opinion, in a footnote, that German pilots must have identified some of the Soviet fighters types as 'DB-3', or 'SB-2', as they almost regularily overclaimed as regards the Soviet fighters, but quite often they actually underclaimed as regards the VVS bombers.

So, there is still lots and lots to research and publish on the air war on the Eastern Front...