VMF-121 victory claims

[Franek Grabowski]

This does not apply to Pacific only, China is a nightmare, but even ETO & MTO are difficult at times. Certainly USAAF paperwork is not as useful for researchers as the RAF one is.

[keith A]

I think what can be said is that the ratio of three claims to one loss by Allied pilots is fairly accurate in almost all theatres from the Battle of Britain onwards. At times it was much less accurate (e.g. the Channel Front 1941-42). The richness of a combat environment led to several pilots claiming the same aircraft, with "aces" adding another level of enthusiastic descriptions of damage.

Both Russian and German claims throughout the war appear, after post-war research to be bizarre.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Ratio between claims and real enemy losses vary widely between various fronts, sides and units. Situation in Pacific was especially complicated by the fact that most of the battle happen over no man's land (jungle, sea and so on) so no confirmation could be done from the ground most of the times.

Such confirmation was not always a confirmation of real kills. In BoB, much of the German losses happened over Britain, still the authorities awarded a number of victories for above the number of known wrecks...

Keith, by reading your post, it seems to you you are implying that Soviet and German claims were wore than the 3 to 1 ratio. I won't comment on Soviet claims because I have no data, but for most of the war (I will exclude 1945 where data is very scarce) Germans claims were below a ratio of two to one. Individuals or units may have a far higher ratio, but this is counterbalanced by some aces having a very good one.