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Allied and Soviet Air Forces Please use this forum to discuss the Air Forces of the Western Allies and the Soviet Union.

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  #11  
Old 16th October 2017, 09:35
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Re: Spitfire

Printing mistake: I meant the La-5 of course, which was produced in large numbers and was flown by so many high-scoring aces.
Michael
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  #12  
Old 16th October 2017, 09:37
Stig1207 Stig1207 is offline
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Re: Spitfire

The P-51 scored the bulk of it's victories in the ETO, in a time period where the accuracy of allied claims was higher than it had been earlier. That might make it the highest scoring
allied fighter.
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  #13  
Old 16th October 2017, 13:25
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Re: Spitfire

Hello there Gentlemen,

it think I read it in a collection called "FASZINATION FLIEGEN" that the Mustang scored the most kills of all the Allied fighters.
Allow me a naive fallacy: according to Tomas Polak
  • the Soviet air force had ~91.000 fighter aircraft
  • 16.000 (17,5%) of these being Yak-9's
  • the Soviet air force scored 40.000 kills
  • 17,5% of 40.000 is 7.000
Thus, 7000 kills for the Yak-9 seem possible, but hardly any of the high-scoring Soviet aces scored heavily in that plane. That might indicate that the Yak-9 grand total is considerably lower. Also the La-5 grand total might be much higher than the calculated ~4400, because there were so many high-scoring La-5 pilots.

If you break down John Foreman's RAF figure (ETO - day and night fighters) of 10,736.5 to the two main British fighters Spitfire (20.000 planes) and Hurricane (14.000 planes) you arrive at ~6300 possible Spitfire kills
  • plus Spitfire kills in the MTO/CBI/PTO
  • plus Spitfire kills by the Americans and Russians
  • minus the RAF ETO kills scored by the Nightfighters
  • minus the RAF ETO kills scored by other types.
Michael
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  #14  
Old 16th October 2017, 14:41
PMoz99 PMoz99 is offline
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Re: Spitfire

The Yak-9 continued to be built after the end of the war. According to Wiki, 'only' some 14500 were built during the war.
Peter
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  #15  
Old 16th October 2017, 14:54
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Re: Spitfire

Good afternoon Peter,

according to Polak, the Soviet Airforce had 11.000 fighters at the beginning of the war
and received 63.000 more during the war.
Thus, 14.500 Yak-9's are 19,5% all fighters availabe during the war.
19,5% of 40.000 kills is ~7800 kills.

Michael
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  #16  
Old 17th October 2017, 08:17
Stig1207 Stig1207 is offline
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Re: Spitfire

IF the Soviets shot down 40000 enemy aircraft, the top scoring Allied fighter(s) would have been a Yak or Lavochin or maybe a Bell.

There would very little left for the Western allies in the ETO and MTO to shoot down.
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  #17  
Old 17th October 2017, 12:03
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Re: Spitfire

The other day I read that the Soviet Airforce score 20.000 kills in WW2.
But I cannot remember where I found it...
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  #18  
Old 18th October 2017, 01:26
Graham Boak Graham Boak is offline
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Re: Spitfire

Francis Mason claimed that the Hurricane scored more than half of the RAF's claims during WW2, but I'm afraid that I don't recall the number quoted, nor the percentage he gave to the Spitfire. I believe that it was in his book for Aston/the RAF Museum, so if anyone has that perhaps they can confirm this.

In this context, it is worth remembering that the Hurricane not only outnumbered the Spitfire 2:1 in the Battle of Britain, but served in several overseas theatres at times when significant numbers of targets were available. The Spitfire spent most of its war in theatres where enemy aircraft were comparatively rare.
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  #19  
Old 18th October 2017, 02:14
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Re: Spitfire

Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham Boak View Post
Francis Mason claimed that the Hurricane scored more than half of the RAF's claims during WW2, but I'm afraid that I don't recall the number quoted, nor the percentage he gave to the Spitfire. I believe that it was in his book for Aston/the RAF Museum, so if anyone has that perhaps they can confirm this.

In this context, it is worth remembering that the Hurricane not only outnumbered the Spitfire 2:1 in the Battle of Britain, but served in several overseas theatres at times when significant numbers of targets were available. The Spitfire spent most of its war in theatres where enemy aircraft were comparatively rare.
Hello,

Whilst I have a copy of the Royal Air Force Museum Edition of Francis Mason's. "The Hawker Hurricane" (1990 - my copy is No.399, with the Tom Gleave bookplate), identical information is also available in Crecy's 2001 edition (p/b) of the same title (pp.210-11):

APPENDIX III Highest-scoring RAF pilots who fought in Hurricanes (Solo victories only).

Those that claimed 15 or more aircraft are then listed, followed by:

The above figures, reflecting the claims by 55 of the RAF's 109 highest-scoring fighter pilots, total 1,044 enemy aircraft claimed shot down, of which 759 (72.7 per cent) were claimed by Hurricane pilots, 161 (15.4 per cent) by Spitfire pilots and 124 (11.9 per cent) by pilots of other fighter aircraft. Compared with the claims recorded in 11,400 traceable air-to-air combat reports (Forms 1151), covering all RAF fighter pilots' claims, 55 per cent were by Hurricane pilots , 33 per cent by Spitfire pilots and 12 per cent by pilots of other fighters. If claims by bomber crews are taken into account the figures are modified to become 51.5, 30.5 and 11.0 per cent respectively, with 7 per cent claimed by the bomber crews.

Col.
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  #20  
Old 18th October 2017, 09:56
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Re: Spitfire

That reasoning is flawed because few pilots scored much victories early in the War whereas a lot of pilots scored less victories late in the War and the Hurricane flew mainly in the former period. That's due to the expansion of Fighter Command and the subsequent consequence that the same pilot is unlikely to encounter frequently ennemy aircraft.

Also the Hurricane fought only early in the War, it have almost deserted the inventory of Fighter Command by Summer 1941 (and they were sent to secondary theaters). If John Foreman did not quote the victories by type, he quote the losses by type and it's quite clear the Hurricane did not score the majority of RAF victories in the ETO because they were withdreaw far more earlier than people generally assume (probably because after the end of the german bomber offensive they did not score much).
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