In hindsight, who was the top day scorer?

[Nick Beale]

It's all starting to get a bit off-topic now, people.

[VtwinVince]

I don't know, Nick. I'm not trying to hijack this thread, merely show that getting to the bottom of actual Jagdwaffe scores can be a veritable minefield of politics and obfuscation.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by VtwinVince

I don't know, Nick. I'm not trying to hijack this thread, merely show that getting to the bottom of actual Jagdwaffe scores can be a veritable minefield of politics and obfuscation.

My request wasn’t directed at any individual.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

I guess you have to see the victories and claims as quantic physics objects. In this point of vue a fact is not true or false but x% true and (100-x)% false.

Comparing claims and losses, when records allow it, can not answer who shot down who in most cases, only in a minority of cases, especially as the number of aircraft involved grow.

Mos of the times, all that is possible to say is that side A claimed 12 kills and side B suffered 5 losses, while side B claimed 8 kills and side A suffered 3 losses. So each kill of side A is true at 5/12 = 40% and each claim of side B is true at 3/8=38%.

Another way to do that is to list for a given pilot the sure true victories (enemy losses match claims), the sure false victories (no possible enemy loss) and the ones that may be true (there were enemy losses but more claims that real losses). It is the third category that might be judged using "quantic" numbers.

The only real conclusion that I can draw on the subject is that overclaiming was common, either in good faith or not. Another question is how much the hierachy was involved in it, ie does the victory confirmation process work correctly or not ? For example during Curcues in 1941-1942 the RAF commanders knew via Ultra and other intelligence that their pilots were overclaiming a lot, but did nothing to correct that for morale purposes.

So when studying any battle, you can't rely on reports from one side only, but need to have loss and claim reports from both sides.

Things are even worse in land battles where enemy losses are often several times lower than claimed. I have seen several instances for example in Normandy in 1944 where one side claimed to have destroyed several enemy batallions, claiming hundred of enemy killed. Reports from the opposing sides show only some tens of KIA/MIA.

[Leendert]

Referring to the last lines of Laurent's post (#54) I wonder if the question who achieved the most 'kills' only lives in the airwar community?
Have not come across such heated arguments with regards to ground troops as to what unit contributed to the highest 'enemy body count'.

No 'kill', just one or dozens, all pilots did their duty.

Regards,
Leendert

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Leendert

Referring to the last lines of Laurent's post (#54) I wonder if the question who achieved the most 'kills' only lives in the airwar community?
Have not come across such heated arguments with regards to ground troops as to what unit contributed to the highest 'enemy body count'.

No 'kill', just one or dozens, all pilots did their duty.

Regards,
Leendert

There's sense in military organisations trying to assess their effectiveness but whether individual scores are a valid measure of that is open to argument. I'm interested in the who-shot-down-who question from another angle, a reminder that wars are fought between real (and often identifiable) human beings. It's a counterweight to the "Napoleon's armies swept across Europe" style of history writing.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Agree with you Nick, but I will rather say the question is "who died then" or "who was there" than "who shot down who". I myself try to include people who were in the air and on the ground in my stories.

Leendert, there are sniper aces, tank killer aces, tank crew aces, submarine aces and so on. Most of the claims in ground war are very difficult to prove one way or the other. For instance, overclaiming on tanks can be huge because a lot of tanks were recovered and repaired.

Most unit histories will also list their global claims, that are AFAIK often if not everytime too great to be true.

On the other hand what/who sank what has been studied in depth for WWII and is clear for most cases, at least regarding ship vs ship (including submarines). Also crew casualties are available for many cases.

[NickM]

Originally Posted by Laurent Rizzotti

Things are even worse in land battles where enemy losses are often several times lower than claimed. I have seen several instances for example in Normandy in 1944 where one side claimed to have destroyed several enemy batallions, claiming hundred of enemy killed. Reports from the opposing sides show only some tens of KIA/MIA.

That reminds me of a tale I heard on another blog I infest: the subject was the American Civil War and a post recalled how there was an engagement between a Union and a Confed brigade. Looking at the official historical documents: both sides claimed to have inflicted hundreds of casualties on the other while on suffering a handful of dead and wounded, after an intense exchange of rifle fire.

[Stig1207]

In a similar vein, there are also the air combats where opposing units from both sides returned to base claiming victories while suffering no losses.

After action reports from both sides of such encounters would be interesting reading.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Stig1207

In a similar vein, there are also the air combats where opposing units from both sides returned to base claiming victories while suffering no losses.

After action reports from both sides of such encounters would be interesting reading.

If you give rival groups of young men danger, guns, fast machines and benzedrine, you probably won’t get complete objectivity.