French fighter scores, mainly 1939-1940

[Stig1207]

It remains open to discussion whether French Air HQ were right when insisting on complete destruction of enemy aircraft (no pilot was credited with « damaged » aircraft ; there were only victories and probable victories) but it worked : French fighters claimed « victoires sûres » on 90 Do 17s, 124 He 111s, 13 of the still rare Ju 88s and 12 Do 215s, not including the probables so they claimed certain victories on: 227 twin-engined bombers and 12 other twin-engined AC plus 56 Me 110s and 162 Me 109s (the most frequently shot down aircraft type). Certainly part of the victims were misidentified including Me 110s claimed as Do 17s and conversely but this doesn’t matter much. The total number of « victoires certaines » was 594 according to Paul Martin in the book "Invisibles vainqueurs" (1991). I feel the real number is rather over 800 including, for example, E/A which crashed during their return flight or on landing, or came back to base but had to be scrapped. These figures do NOT include about 70-73 victories won during the « Phoney War » (September 1939 through May 9, 1940, see the book "Fledgling Eagles" by Christopher Shores et al).

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/...ftwaffe-2.html see Table III

With total Lw losses of 1129 aircraft due to enemy action May-June 1940, there might be scope for your suggested over 800 total victories, though not leaving an awful lot to the British, Dutch and Belgians.
However, your number of 162 Me 109's would seem a bit to close to the 169 reported lost to enemy action. I would expect RAF fighters to have accounted for more than 7 Me 109's and maybe the smaller airforces claimed some as well?

[keith A]

This is a very long discussion but I am not sure where it leaves us. The French claims/awards of aerial victories are confusing but this seems to have bled into a very verbose justification of French claims to the detriment of the RAF and others. In truth the Hurricane was a much better fighter than all but the Dewoitine D520 and therefore it seems certain that the RAF claims were a substantial part of Luftwaffe losses in the Battle of France. Credits to French pilots are difficult to compute because of the official attitude to these credits. In the end French pilots fought well but their fighters were very poor and were barely able to compete with even the poorest of the Luftwaffe designs.

[Stig1207]

Just in case I came across wrong, I agree Keith, if French victories are 800 + as proposed in the above posts; there is very little left for the Hurricanes (and Spitfires and Defiants) or for anyone else.

[keith A]

I believe the French pilots made their claims honestly, as did the RAF and Belgian airforces, and an element of hope was, as always, included as to the fate of their opponents. The Polish pilots who flew the Caudron CR714 may indeed have shot down several LW aircraft but in the absence of confirmation I sincerely doubt this was the case. The Caudron was underpowered, undergunned and unmanoevreable. The fact that Polish pilots took to the skies in these abominations says a great deal for their bravery. They fought hard, and perhaps if they ganged up on a German bomber would succeed but the Bf109 pilot who was shot down by this aeroplane 9if that ever happened) is not the well-trained, well-armed fighter pilot we know they had in 1940.... by the end of the Battle of Britain, faced with no territorial advantage and a fighter force that at least could match them, this was a very different case. In fact after 1940, although they were defending their conquests and faced with demands on several fronts where they did not have such an advantage the LW was playing with a deck of cards with less aces, and a lot of jokers....

[keith A]

By the way Stig1207 I think your contribution to the discussion was valuable. Why does this forum not allow members to approve posts? "The aerodrome" does and it's a good method of gauging opinion on topics. I add to reputations on the forum but I know that other members do.

[keith A]

By the way "so, as my brother used to put it, they had pretensions ”like a drunk woman”. is about the most offensive thing I have ever seen on this forum. I am surprised that no-one else commented on this but maybe it's because your posts are so so very long. Your brother, and you are morons if you think this is an appropriate argument. I am astonished the moderators failed to notice this. I HOPE this is an oversight on their part. You, however neeed to grow up....is your brother twelve?

[keith A]

In case my response wasn't clear rof120 is the object of my comments.

[ClinA-78]

Aaaahh Is the terrifying rof120 coming back?

Beware forumers.

ClinA-78

[Stig1207]

Originally Posted by keith A

By the way Stig1207 I think your contribution to the discussion was valuable. Why does this forum not allow members to approve posts? "The aerodrome" does and it's a good method of gauging opinion on topics. I add to reputations on the forum but I know that other members do.

Thanks keith, I feared I had expressed myself in way that could be misunderstood, I seem to be a master at that

When it comes to the subject of overclaiming, there still seems to be an element of:

'They all overclaimed, except for........(insert favourite ace, unit, airforce, etc).

Otoh, maybe it would be a boring subject if it wasn't the case

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Do you have cases where a French pilot not having fired was credited with a victory. From my readings, victories were given after analysis of the combat reports and given individually to each pilot. But the total number of enemy aircraft claimed was inferior to the sum of individual claims, each aircraft being only counted once, so overclaiming was not increased by this system. Still overclaiming existed in French Air Force too, of course.

Sharing victories between all pilots of a formation, whatever happened in the battle, was something done in Japanese and Italian airforces at least in a part of the war.

IMHO there is no good system or fair system. Shooting down a B-17 with a Bf 109 was probably far more difficult that shooting down a Bf 109 with a Mustang, but still it is one victory in both case.