Percentage of Verifiable Victories of Various Aces –Updates & Recommendations

[Rob Romero]

Verifiable Victories of 29 WWI Aces / 9 WWII Aces / 1 Korean War Ace

CAVEAT: I’ve started what I think is an interesting and potentially important thread: While I recognize this endeavor will be imperfect (in some cases highly), it may provide a SENSE of the actual success of various aces. Hopefully, it will expand and eventually (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 authenticity of 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 the documents/records STRONGLY SUGGEST he shot down 40 with another 30 Possible and of these ‘Official’ Victories 10 were really only Damaged etc. and 5 were Phantom (No Historical Basis) Claims).

Already I think it is safe to say that we can reach a historical conclusion! So far the results reflect exceedingly well on Jasta 11 -it seems the unit maintained an exceptional degree of integrity in making claims –and bestows even further credit on their ‘meister’ Manfred von Richthofen. Perhaps this is consequent to MvR’s mantra to “Bring them down burning!” At 82.5% Lothar comes out as a relative braggart! LOL This contrasts with a liberal outlook on claiming, allegedly taken by some JGs in WWII.
These results will also undoubtedly place an even greater gap between Jasta 11 and any rival unit in terms of its status as an elite unit (is Bölcke already starting to tarnish Jasta 2’s luster? -he was still nevertheless a great combat leader and a father of air combat tactics).

Richthofen’s Jasta 11 ‘Bloody April’ 1917 Gang
33 of 33 Claims (100.0%) Kurt Wolff *
30 of 30 Claims (100.0%) Karl Allmenröder *
74 of 80 Claims ( 92.5%) Manfred von Richthofen
11 of 12 Claims ( 91.7%) Sebastien Festner
25 of 30 Claims ( 83.3%) Karl-Emil Schäfer
33 of 40 Claims ( 82.5%) Lothar von Richthofen
206 of 225 Claims ( 91.6%) EXCEPTIONAL CLAIM VERACITY!

I’m a bit perturbed by the low percentages attained by such legendary figures as Udet and Bölcke –any explanations - they make Göring look good!

29 WWI Aces
1) 74 of 80 Claims ( 92.5%) Manfred von Richthofen
2) 60 of 61 Claims ( 98.4%) Edward ‘Mick’ Mannock (Possibly 61 of 61 Claims 100.0%)
3) 46 of 48 Claims ( 95.8%) Werner Voss
4) 35 of 36 Claims ( 97.2%) Francesco Baracca - KIA 19 Jun 1918
5) 33 of 33 Claims (100.0%) Kurt Wolff *
6) 33 of 40 Claims ( 82.5%) Lothar von Richthofen
7) 32 of 45 Claims ( 71.1%) Fritz Rumey
8) 31 of 57 Claims ( 54.4%) James McCudden (Possibly 36 of 57 Claims 63.2%)
9) 30 of 30 Claims (100.0%) Karl Allmenröder *
10) 30 of 62 Claims ( 48.4%) Ernst Udet
11) 27 of 54 Claims ( 50.0%) Erich Lowenhardt
12) 25 of 44 Claims ( 56.8%) Rudolf Berthold
13) 25 of 48 Claims ( 52.0%) Josef Jacobs
14) 24 of 44 Claims ( 54.5%) Bruno Loerzer
15) 22 of 35 Claims ( 62.9%) Goodwin Brumowski positive or possible ID –Top Austrian WWI Ace
16) 28 of 31 Claims ( 90.3%) Paul Billik
17) 26 of 28 Claims ( 92.9%) Friedrich von Roth
18) 26 of 40 Claims ( 65.0%) Franz Büchner (Possibly 34/40 Claims 85%) REQUIRES FURTHER EVALUATION –SEE BELOW
19) 25 of 30 Claims ( 83.3%) Karl-Emil Schäfer
20) 23 of 40 Claims ( 57.5%) Oswald Bölcke
21) 22 of 43 Claims ( 51.2%) Paul Baumer
22) 17 of 17 Claims (100.0%) Edmund Nathanael (German-Jewish Ace)
23) 15 of 32 Claims ( 46.9%) Julius Arigi (15+ are Verified) Austrian
24) 14 of 15 Claims ( 93.3%) Max Immelmann (2-3 additional Verifed Victories)
25) 11 of 12 Claims ( 91.7%) Sebastien Festner
26) 11 of 26 Claims (42.3%) Eddie Rickenbacker including 2 “grounders” –2 Crash Landed?
27) 9 of 22 Claims ( 40.9%) Hermann Göring Possibly 14 of 22 Claims (63.6%) or 15 of 22 Claims (68.2%)
28) 8 of 28 Claims (28.6%) Benno Fiala Ritter von Fernbrugg -Austrian
29) 2 of 72 Claims ( 02.8%) Billy Bishop (billybishop.net/bishopP.html) REQUIRES FURTHER EVALUATION –SEE BELOW

ACE RECORDS REQUIRING FURTHER EVALUATION
Franz Büchner
11 of 40 Claims ( 27.5%) –as per Barret (source Above The Lines?)
26 of 40 Claims ( 65.0%) –strict accounting as per Rammjaeger (this seems to utilize more up to date info than ATL)
34 of 40 Claims ( 85.0%) –a more liberal accouting by Rammjaeger

Billy Bishop
2 of 72 Claims ( 02.8%) -It seems impossible to me that such exaggeration would be tolerated by his squadron.
20 of 72 Claims ( 27.8%) -more recent evaluation of German Records than at billybishop.net/bishopP.html as per ?
~43 of 72 Claims (~60.0%) –as per ?
~58 of 72 Claims (~80.0%) –as per ?
~61 of 72 Claims (~85.0%) –as per ?

9 WWII Aces
1)??? of 101 Claims Josef ‘Pips’ Priller -largely verified by Johnnie Johnson (38)
2)100 of 151 Claims (+66.2%) Hans-Joachim Marseille (158) 151 Afrika + 7 Battle of Britain
3)~80 of 345 Claims (~23.2%) Erich Hartmann (352) -Ace of Aces? –based on claims of Russian Researcher
4) 74 of 121 Claims ( 61.2%) Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer -Top NJG Ace (much higher verification % has been indicated)
5) 25 of 40 Claims ( 62.5%) Richard Bong USAAF PTO Ace of Aces.
6) 21 of 28 Claims ( 75.0%) Francis ‘Gabby’ Gabreski USAAF ETO Ace of Aces
7) 15 of 64 Claims ( 23.4%) Saburo Sakai -top scoring surviving IJNAF ace
8)~9.5 of 26 Claims ( 36.5%) Gregory ‘Pappy’ Boyington - PROPORTIONAL METHOD JoeB
9) 9 of 31 Claims ( 29.0%) Heinz Knocke (–research continuing @ heinzknokewebsite.com)

Korean War
Nikolai Sutyagin
1.46 of 21 Claims (07.0%) PROPORTIONAL METHOD JoeB
5 of 21 Claims (23.8%) PROPORTIONAL METHOD with ‘Benefit of Doubt’ JoeB


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?


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!


Laurent Rizzotti’s PROPORTIONAL METHOD:

Claims can also be divided into three categories (this applies mainly to large scale fights in WWII):

1) Verified: the Target is Identified and Went Down, or the Unit is Identified and has as many losses than the claims of its opponent.
2) Uncertain: Target not identified, at least one loss known but more claims than losses.
3) Invalid: the target is identified, or his unit, and wasn't destroyed though perhaps damaged

When you have one side claim 70 victories and shooting down 50 aircraft, you will probably have something like 10 valide claims and 60 Uncertain ones.

A method to try to get closer to the real score of WWII pilots will be to use the US method of using fractions for claims.

For example, in the above case, the 10 pilots having claimed identified targets (location and time corresponding, away from the main battle and so on) will be given full credit (1 claim = 1 victory) and the 60 other claims, corresponding to the remaining 40 losses, will be valued each 40/60 = 0.666 victory... This is as close as you can get in many cases.

THE PROPORTIONAL METHOD MUST REMAIN AS AS SUB-CATEGORY TO VERIFIED CLAIMS –EXAMPLE BELOW

31 of 57 Claims ( 54.4%) Pilot X (PROPORTIONAL METHOD 36 of 57 Claims 63.2%)