7 Feb 10 -Overclaimers v Reliable Claimers List

[MW Giles]

I am interested in your criteria for judging someone as "unreliable". Overclaiming was endemic and ran from 3:2 all the way up to 7 or 8:1 on occasion. 2:1 was very normal. Therefore anyone getting confirmed claims better than 50% is a paragon of virtue and a credit to his unit and his training.

Regards

Martin

[Rob Romero]

Here are my thoughts. They are not scientific, but rather based on my years of interest and understanding of air combat. Of course many factors come into play and affect this so as stated this is only a "rule of thumb":

Caveat: Under the high speed, life & death conditions of Air-Combat few pilots approached 100% Claim Veracity.


Alleged Reliable Claimers: Rule of Thumb +2/3 Accuracy
Alleged Moderate Overclaimers: Rule of Thumb ~1/2 Accuracy
Alleged Severe Overclaimers: Rule of Thumb -1/3 Accuracy
Alleged Extreme Overclaimers: Rule of Thumb -1/4 Accuracy

[GMichalski]

I think more or less this:

+70-80% or more is excellent

+60 % is good because the pilots have to try to survive not to look where it falls the plane ... a few days it was lowering +50 and other days up to +70 or more

+50% Not good not even bad completely, but pilot lie enough in some cases

-50 bad-> overclaimer, 2 planes for 5 claims , 3 of 7....

-40 very bad -> big overclaimer 2 planes for 6 claims...


Because they improved the shieldings of the planes, already they are not of fabric and wood like 1WW on the other hand they also improved the weapon .... sometimes the claims only are put by the enemy as damaged or accident, but in low rate %-> 5-10-15%

In other low percentage two pilots shot at the same aircraft and they think that they shoot two different planes-> 10%-5% or less (german case)
(Russia- claim in group/USA and England-0.5 0.25 3/4 1/4...........)

Fog, conditions of combat, you fight between a great number of planes, the enemy makes to himself the dead man ... If there are witnesses in the earth, if it falls down behind of the enemy lines.....

ALWAYS ARE MANY VARIABLES.

a pilot with +70% is equal to almost +90% of trustworthy, but it depends of these variables clearly...
regards

[GMichalski]

I have to rectify this:

two pilots shot at the same aircraft and they think that they shoot two different planes-> 10%-5% or less (german case)

maybe is between 5-20% in most of the squadrons
in special cases like JG5 maybe between 20 and 60%!!
are group kills....

i don´t know the percentage of each overclaims-group kills

12 claimed, 4 shoot down, 11-3, 13-3, 5-1....
good days 20-9, 4-4....
regards

[MW Giles]

I think you have identified for yourself the many factors, circumstances, misperceptions and misunderstandings that can occur in any human activity, not just the highly charged and split second world of aerial combat. I would suggest it unwise to label people as liars unless you have very specific proof that they are knowingly being false. This exists in a few cases but for most you have to give the benefit of the doubt before labelling them

Martin

[Jim P.]

Martin - a voice of reason in this discussion!!!! Hope you have better luck than I in getting through to these guys. I still want someone to explain away the officially acknowledged 3 to 1 discrepancy of RAF claims to actual victories from the BoB or for the AVG group in China in 1941. I'm not trying to defend the LW per se, but only to point out that everybody from every side overclaimed!!! A claim is just that, a claim. It does not in any way equate to an actual loss. The fact that officialdom may have given their stamp of approval to any individual claim is not the decision of the pilot.

[GMichalski]

yes, is really difficult to know how many claims of a pilot corresponds to loss .......the example of JG5 does not mean that the Germans are the most
liars
many aircraft were repaired and included as damaged, no total loss and sometimes you don't know if you were shot down by aa or another aircraft...
too many variables...

Really on the other hand some the cases were exaggerated.
15 claimed - 7 losses its good but could be better
15 claimed - 2 losses were perhaps too optimistic with its claims
you know more allied pilots that could go on the list with good or
bad reputation??
regards

[MW Giles]

For someone to be a liar they either have to know what the truth is and say something completely different or not know what the truth is but knowingly make something up to fill the gap. Either way they are knowing being false, lying, though if you repeat a lie often enough your mind can come to believe it is true. Please do not label people as liars unless you have proof.

If I and twenty of my comrads get around the escorts and attack a box of B-17s head on, I get one squarely in my sights and let fly with everything I have before split-S-ing away seconds later. I see strikes (could be mine, could be someone else behind me). When I pull out and having cleared my tail I look out and see two B-17s going down through the cloud below and one in formation billowing black smoke. More may have gone down, but I can definitely see two. Me and four others have a similar experience. When we land we are all going to make a claim aren't we? No one is lying, no one is exagerating, we are reporting what we saw and experienced. The officials look at the evidence and cannot decide between us, they find wreckage on the ground. Multiply that up to the hundreds of a/c and encounters of WW2 and you can see why the system is not perfect

65 years later someone looks at the encounter and says JG999 made an attack and claimed 5 B-17s, actually the USAAF only lost 1 and had another two badly damaged. Those guys must be liars.

You cannot and must not say that

There are so may factors that come into play that in the end claims have to be treated as just that - claims. The hotter and more confusing an encounter, the larger the number of a/c involved, the less experienced the pilots, the higher the number of claims there will be (on average) and the greater the potential disparity between claims and verified losses

It is worthwhile reaearching the encounter and it is worthwhile looking at the different air forces and their criteria for assessing and awarding claims, however it is not worthwhile or achieveable to list all pilots in order of how reliable you think their scoring is and label them liars if they fall below some arbitrary point on the scale.

Martin

[Rob Romero]

If I and twenty of my comrads get around the escorts and attack a box of B-17s head on, I get one squarely in my sights and let fly with everything I have before split-S-ing away seconds later. I see strikes (could be mine, could be someone else behind me).

Strikes from someone else's fire at the EXACT same spot and the EXACT same time as one's own almost NEVER happens.

And while I would agree with this:

When I pull out and having cleared my tail I look out and see two B-17s going down through the cloud below and one in formation billowing black smoke. . . . Me and four others have a similar experience. When we land we are all going to make a claim aren't we?

One of the reasons why HSS (Seperation) claims were created was to allow for such uncertainty. One could only FAIRLY claim a FULL victory, if one was CERTAIN they had shot down an opponent, not if one "thought" or "hoped" they had shot them down.
Moreover, this situation (VICTORY CLAIMS resulting from HEAD ON attacks on Viermots IN FORMATION) are a small minority of overall Luftwaffe day claims (Russian front etc.). I would posit that many of the Viermots claimed as FULL victories were from attacks from quarters other than from head on or else stragglers already seperated.

[John Beaman]

To take this interesting discussion on a slightly different tack, what about "claims" that turned out to be damaged, but repairable? In the 30-60% range should this not count as a "kill" because the a/c might be out of actions for weeks or months, or even salvaged for parts. It was not listed as a "destroyed" by the losing AF, but in effect, it was.

So when evaluating claims, you have to be really careful. A pilot might claim 3 x B-17s, when only one was officially "lost". Perhaps the other two made it back to base but were either repairable or scrapped. A prime example is The famous Sweinfurt raid in October 1943. "Officially" only 60 B-17s were lost, but another 30 that returned to base were damaged requiring repairs or were scraped. Should not these also count to the claimers?

In my own research on George E. Preddy, the leading P-51 ace, he was credited with 6 kills on 6-Aug-44. I set out to find the unit against which he made these claims. Four were definite, but two returned to base with damage and were likely repaired or scrapped. Does that make his claim invalid even though the 2 damaged were not listed as "lost"? I think not.

If you compare a lot of reports from both sides as best you can, it becomes evident that many claims may have been damaged, but were repaired. But if an a/c is out of action for some days or weeks, should not the claim still be valid? It was not "destroyed", but it sure as hell was off the roster for some time: The same effect.