Reading the post on the Flying Tigers in the Weapons forum made me post this.

A WWII fighter pilot's score represents his aerial 'victories', not his aerial 'kills'.

A 'victory' is not necessarily a 'kill', i.e. a destroyed enemy aircraft.

A victory is when a fighter pilot shoots at an enemy aircraft and damages it so severely that he believes that it will crash. So he goes back to base and reports this in his combat report. However an enemy aircraft going down out of the fight trailing smoke or spinning down out of control, may recover at low level and limp back to its airfield. This aircraft is NOT a 'kill', but it IS still a 'victory'.

The highest scoring fighter pilot of WW was Erich Hartmann with 352 victories. This does not mean that Erich Hartmann had 352 kills - he probably didn't have that many.

Probably very few WWII fighter pilots actually destroyed as many enemy aircraft as they claimed, simply because combat is very chaotic and it is VERY difficult to be absolutely sure of the complete destruction of an enemy aircraft when you are quite rightly more concerned with covering your wingmate's tails and looking after your own. Also you may have fired at an enemy aircraft that has already been damaged by someone else.

If you believe that you have damaged an enemy aircraft so badly that it is no longer a current threat to you or anyone else, then you've done your job and deserve to file a victory claim if you believe that the enemy plane will not make it back to its base. You have won a victory in your battle with the enemy. That is what counts.

This is why victory claims in all WWII air forces outstrip actual enemy destroyed aircraft losses by between 150-400%. And this does not mean that the pilots deserve to have their scores reduced or their medals taken away - they did their job and 'defeated the enemy' in the same number of aerial combats that they claimed.

Winning the air battle, i.e. driving the enemy from the sky, is more important than the actual number of enemy aircraft destroyed. At the end of the war Germany and Japan still had thousands of aircraft, but they still lost the air war.

The air war is no different to the infantryman's war in this respect. To an infantryman, it's winning the battle that counts, not the number of enemy soldiers he's shot dead in the battle. The same applies to pilots.

[ 19 October 2002, 03:34 PM: Message edited by: vonManstein39 ]

v M:

don't think victory is the term you want to use. The offical name would be "claim". Claims for the Luftwaffe via 1944-45 had to go through a tedious process and many pilots even with gun camera footage did not receive the claim to their over all count of kills. They had to have confirmation from another pilot as well as ground confirmation.

E

"The major difference between the German and Western Allies' method of scoring victories was that the Germans were not allowed to share a victory. Their cardinal rule was: "One pilot-one kill." In contrast Allied pilots were allowed to share victories. If two pilots fired at an enemy and it went down, each Allied pilot received one-half of the kill. Carried to absurdity, it is conceivable that an Allied pilot could become an ace with ten or more half-victories, never scoring any victories of his own! The Luftwaffe system of awarding victories was impartial, inflexible, and far less prone to error than the American or British method. That is not to say that errors were not made, history shows that both sides during the "Battle of Britain" tended to overclaim victories on a scale of 2:1.

The German's recorded victories in one of three categories: Abschuss (Destroyed), Herausschuss (Seperation), and endgueltige Vernichtung (Final Destruction.) These three categories were used for assessing "points" towards awards. Only an enemy aircraft in an Abschuss was counted towards the pilot's overall victory tally. A pilot that brought down and enemy plane with a Endgueltige Vernichtung or Final Destruction of a damaged aircraft was not awarded credit for the "kill", however he did earn "points" for the aircraft's destruction.

The point system existed for the purpose of award qualification only. "Victory claims" and "points" were two distinct statistics. The requirements for the verification of victory claims remained unchanged; only the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM) could confirm a claim, and this proceedure could take more than a year. The practice of claiming "Herausschuss" (seperations) died out in 1944 and many "seperation" claims were eventually awarded as "victories"; occassionally claims by other pilots were allowed for the "final destruction" of the same aircraft. This system led to a claims duplication by a factor of as much as two."

Interesting....

http://www.netstorm.net/jg11/luftscor.htm

__________________

Possibly......

Since in 1944 much of the Luftwaffe losses and victory claims are lost forever.....similaiar expereince for 1945 records as well. Case in point are ground attack victories which were not added to overall victory scores, but were kept seperate. It will be most likely an unknown of all the ground attack victories scored against Soviet MT by Me 262 JG 7 and the German night fighters during March through May of 45.

E

To add to the already confusing process of sorting out Luftwaffe claims......

VNE vernichtung nich erwiessen Destruction not proven

ASM anerkennung später moglich Confirmation to be later decided

w.b. wirklich beschossen Well shot up or damaged.

As can be seen by the listings of Kai and myself, a long awaiting period for pilots did arise and some pilots did not receive the proper rank advancement or awards for destruction of so many a/c until some time later.....months .....

E