Spitfire

[knusel]

Good morning Gentlemen,

I cannot confirm that the high scoring Commonwealth pilots scored more heavily in the Hurricane than in the Spitfire:
http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=43338
http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=43337

Kind regards,

Michael

[knusel]

Edward Rippeth has written a very convincing study about the Spitfire being the top-scoring aircraft type of the Allies:
https://www.quora.com/How-many-aircr...ot-down-in-WW2

[MW Giles]

Quick sum for NW Europe from my database Sept 39-May 45

Hurricane 2750/916/1160

Spitfire 4654/1464/2920

Destroyed/Probable/Damaged

The Med is going to have to do a lot of heavy lifting to reverse those numbers

If there are supposedly only 11400 claims, the claims above add up to 13864.

If we take only destroyed the Spitfire gets 40.1 % (4654/11400) of the claims just from NW Europe

My own list has a minimum of 10322/2664/5538 for NW Europe (Spitfire, Hurricane, Typhoon, Tempest, Defiant, Mosquito, Beaufighter, Mustang). I stopped listing at that point

Lies, damn lies and statistics. Hmmm

Martin

[knusel]

Maybe not reverse but possibly Med claims lift the Spitfire score above the P-51 score ?

[knusel]

Herewith, I add another version of the Edward Rippeth study:
https://hushkit.net/2021/12/13/which...ow-the-answer/

[knusel]

Good morning Gentlemen,

I'll try to extrapolate if any Soviet plane might have more kills than the Spitfire. Therefore I need to know the numbers of planes in use. Can anybody tell me how many of the 4848 Ya-3's and how many of the 5753 La-7's were built before the end of the war ?

Cheers,

Michael

[Franek Grabowski]

Such a study would make little sense without break down per engagements. Eg. Hurricane kills in Europe are more less until the end of 1941, plus nigh intruders, but a different league. Spitfire ones since mid-1940. Additionally, the one should look at the actual losses inflicted, and this may vary, indeed.

[knusel]

As I said, I only want to make a statistic extrapolation. The Soviet WW2 fighter types add to 91804 built, lend-and-lease-types included. But not all were built before the end of the war. Of the 16769 Yak-9's 14579 were built during the war.

But how many of the 4848 Yak-3's and the 5753 La-7's were built before the war was over ?

[MW Giles]

Even if I could tell you the numbers (wihich I cannot) it would be a useless exercise because you would be assuming that all types were used equally, had an equal chance of scoring and were equally effective

Sorry but you may as well just flip a coin.

Again my advice is if you want to know the answer you are going to have to do the hard work.

MG

[knusel]

The Spitfire really was an international ace maker. The top aces of Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Poland used it to score most of their kills.