Percentage of Verfiable Victories of Various Aces -INSTRUCTIONS.

[Rob Romero]

CAVEAT: I’ve started what I think is a fun and potentially important thread: While I recognize this endeavor will be imperfect (in some cases greatly), it may provide a SENSE of the actual success of various aces. Hopefully, it will expand and eventully (perhaps WELL into the future) provide us with a fairly comprehensive and reliable database. I am relying on the contributions of others and cannot vouch for the accuracy or even the sincerity of their submissions –I am relying on the web community to keep tabs and bring debatable data to light. Perhaps in cases of great controversy, a range could be established (i.e., pilot X claimed 100 aircraft and from documents/records it is possible to veryify that he shot down 40 with another 30 Possible and of these ‘Official’ Victories 10 were really only Damaged etc.).

INSTRUCTIONS: TO MAKE THIS PROCESS EASIER, PLEASE COPY THIS CHART AND THEN MAKE YOUR ADDITIONS/CORRECTIONS IN THE FORMAT ALREADY USED. IF YOU STONGLY DISAGREE WITH ANOTHER POSTER, PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE THEIR CALCULATION, BUT RATHER PASTE YOUR REVISED FIGURES BENEATH AS A BASIS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH/DEBATE –THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS!

WWI Aces
74 of 80 Claims ( 92.5%) Manfred von Richthofen
35 of 36 Claims ( 97.2%) Francesco Baracca - KIA 19 Jun 1918
33 of 40 Claims ( 82.5%) Lothar von Richthofen
31 of 57 Claims ( 54.4%) James McCudden (Possibly 36 of 57 Claims 63.2%)
17 of 17 Claims (100.0%) Edmund Nathanael (German-Jewish Ace)
14 of 22 Claims ( 63.6%) Hermann Göring (Possibly 15 of 22 Claims 68.2%)
14 of 15 Claims ( 93.3%) Max Immelmann (2-3 additional Verifed Victories)
?? of 72 Claims Billy Bishop (Ooops did I jus open a can of worms?!?) ;-)
?? of 48 Claims Werner Voss

What about Voss guys –that should be easy for those of you who have Franks’ book.

WWII Aces
??? of 101 Claims Josef ‘Pips’ Priller -largely verified by Johnnie Johnson (38)
100 of 151 Claims (~66.2%) Hans-Joachim Marseille (158) 151 Afrika + 7 Battle of Britain
~80 of 352 Claims (~22.7%) Erich Hartmann –Ace of Aces? –based on claims of Russian Researcher
25 of 40 Claims ( 62.5%) Richard Bong USAAF PTO Ace of Aces.
21 of 28 Claims ( 75.0%) Gabby Gabreski USAAF ETO Ace of Aces
15 of 64 Claims ( 23.4%) Saburo Sakai –top scoring surviving IJNAF ace
9 of 31 Claims ( 29%) Heinz Knocke (–research continuing @ heinzknokewebsite.com)

Also does anyone have a sense of Walter Schuck (206) Hermann Graf (212) and Alfred Grislawski (133) verifyable victories from Christer Bergström’s recent cross referenced works?

Thanx,

Rob Romero