Huge Luftwaffe Victories over USAAF?

[ArtieBob]

Correction on line 4 of my previous post, the date should Jan 1944!

AB

[kolya1]

I think that if you want to find scores largely in the LW's favour, you should look at North Africa...

I.E.: II/JG2, during its stay there scored more than 100 kills against the RAF, the USAAF, and the Armée de l'air, losing only 8 aircrafts in combat... (additional losses were 2 planes by accident and 10 on the ground).

I don't know exactly the scores of other units like JG 77 and so on, but a few units were able to inflict quite serious damage on the allied forces while suffering comparatively light losses...

[George Hopp]

The problem with the kills in North Africa is that the GAF fighters shot down mainly Allied fighters, and let the Allied bombers get through to their targets. This might be one of the reasons for the GAF High Command getting antsy about shooting down bombers and not fighters in the European air war.

[Graham Boak]

Re the successes in North Africa - kills or claims?

It might be worth noting that in the JG 26 history, for the time they were fighting next to JG2, there are a number of barbed comments on which unit had the strictest approach to claims.

[George Hopp]

The amount of overclaiming tended to depend on whether you were fighting offensively or defensively, since when a/c went down over your territory you could count the wrecks and so justify/void the claims accordingly. On the offense you needed to justfiy claims with witnesses and/or gun-camera footage, neither of which was 100% reliable.

[drgondog]

Kolya - what are some specific days and totals claimed over USAAF fighters by either JG52 or 77 in North Africa/Sicily in 1943?

[drgondog]

Kolya - do you have any specific examples for the North African campaign in which the Luftwaffe matched the beating they inflicted on 4th FG on 18 August 1944 - when the 4th was caught on the deck strafing?

[kolya1]

I can quickly mention a handfull of dates where LW fighters achieved clear successes against their allied counterparts, but I can't get into details without doing a little more research, the days I can think of are (for II/JG2 only) :

- 9 frebruary 1943 : II/JG2 : 15-16 kills (including at least 12 P-40s and 3 P-38s) against (AFAIK) no losses - 8 on that day for Erich Rudorffer.

- 15 Feabruary 1943 : II/JG2 : 11-13 (I have diverging sources...), against, it seems, no losses...

I will look for more detailed accounts, and one must keep in mind that these are german claims which are not always confirmed by allied losses, and to make the matter worse, it appears that the allied loss list regarding combats in africa, are largley incomplete because a part of the documents were lost during or after the war...

[marsyao]

kolya1, these victories was claimed by JG 2 in North Africa, fro comparing to real Allied losses, you could read Morten Jessen and Andrew Arthy's excellent book "Focke-Wulf Fw 190 in North Africa"
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...176206-8353421

you would see in that time period, pilots of JG 2 submitted some very wild overclaimes

[Eagle0025]

I don't know if you would consider this lopsided, but the 474th FG did lose 11 of 23 P-38s on 25 Aug 44. It is surprising they all weren't shot down considering they were up against 75 plus Bf109s and Fw190s, some flown by top Luftwaffe aces such as Emil Lang. Cheers, Gary