OOC Debate

[cam]

Cobby was pretty agressive in destroying planes. In one instance he fired 400 shots into a Pfalz after it had crash landed, to ensure it and the pilot were dead.

"He then dived three times at the wrecked Pfalz firing in 400 rounds at close quarters. Cobby wrote, " I shot the pilots cockpit and the centre section to pieces, the pilot did not move after crashing ". "

On another occasion he attacked a flight of four Fokker triplanes and downed one but lost it in the clouds. He got chased back to the lines by the other three but after they left him alone he flew back to where the orignal triplane lay crumpled on the ground.

On another occasion he was flying with his partner Watson ( a Kiwi ) in a balloon attack mission. Watson fired on the observer who was floating down after their attack and shot the parachute line away.

Q: how many of the pilots with high DES to OOC claims were aggresive in that manner making sure there wasnt any confusion as to how they destroyed a plane? Most of the higher OOC to DES ratios seem to be pilots who flew in the earlier part of the war. Did the definition of OOC change after mid 1917? Was an OOC harder to get in 1918? or was a DES easier to get?

What was the definition accepted by the RFC/RAF/RNAS when a spinning plane became an OOC? What was the official definition of when a plane could be claimed as destroyed?

Squadron figures in June of 1918 were carved up into, flamed, crashed, OOC, driven down and balloons. Was OOC anything that wasnt crashed or flamed?



cam

[Barrett]

As I understand it (emphasis added) from talking to folks like Chris Shores and Norman Franks, who have read hundreds of combat reports and know the institutional background, OOCs became easier to get credited as the war progressed. Evidently in some units, in 1918 an OOC claim sometimes was almost automatically confirmed, though perhaps recording officers then realized the huge majority of OOCs were meaningless and therefore "no harm done."
It may be that the most aggressive pilots went to the lengths of a Cobby to avoid an OOC, but others clearly just weren't concerned. Mannock comes to mind. But Barker, Woollett, Gillet, etc, with very high destroyed ratios were active in '18 while Ball, Collishaw, Little, Fullard, etc. had most of their combat in '16-17.
A word of explanation: my denigration of OOCs is based on the fact that to include them gives a hugely skewed picture of RFC/RAF scores not only in comparison to other WW I air arms, but with WW II as well. Yet we still see books being published referring to Bishop's 72 "kills" (55 credited destroyed) and Fullard's 40 (15 were destroyed.) One of the values of this forum--apart from being a lot of fun--is the means it provides of disseminating more detailed info than is generally available in print.

[cam]

>>> OOCs became easier to get credited as the war progressed. Evidently in some units, in 1918 an OOC claim sometimes was almost automatically confirmed, though perhaps recording officers then realized the huge majority of OOCs were meaningless and therefore "no harm done." <<<<

That ios interesting, which units had the most easy going adjutants? and which units had the stiff adjutants?. Were OOC's used as morale boosters?

80 Wing RAF had the following scores from Jul - Sept 1918:

Flamed Crashed OOC Driven Down Balloons
4AFC 19 57 36 7 22
88RAF 20 33 53 15
2AFC 10 30 48 16
46RAF 3 11 5 4 1
54RAF 2 2
92RAF 4 15 8 1
103RAF 5 12 30 3

2 AFC and 88 RAF were the high flying squadrons in the wing formation and as most of their battles were above 10 000 ft they also have the higher amounts of OOC's. 4 AFC was the low cover and more likely to see an aircraft crash too. Balloons are boolean, either destroyed or not.

To throw a spanner in the works, Elwyn King was credited for destroying two Fokker DVII's that were in a forced collision while attacking his Snipe. King wrote, " (I) zoomed up through their formation and turned across infront of the highest enemy machine, which I had not previously seen. This machine fell over on it's back avoiding collision , and , so doing , fell on a second Fokker which was zooming up at me below him. These two machines fell to pieces and crashed."

[Darryl]

Hi guys,
The high proportion of "aircraft kills" and particularly the high number where the pilots survived, suggests to me that OOC (whilst distorting the results in hindsight) was a fairly reasonable catagory. (that is not to say that it was administered reasonably).

When you look at the number of German confirmed kills which amount to an aircraft forced down out of control (and crash landing on their side of the lines), it is not unreasonable to assume many allied OOC's ended up in the dirt as well. Obviously history shows us that the claims were anywhere from optomistic to fraudulent (please Al don't flame me, I'm not pointing fingures*G*).

What we have overlooked in many of these debates is that WW2 "Confirmed Kills" did not produce a significantly better result under some circumstances. The Battle of Britain claims by both British and German pilots were overstated by up to 100% after a strict "witness" criteria.

Again I suspect the problem is administrative more than anything. They were better at it, "probables" were awarded rather than kills in some cases, but it is over simplistic to knock out all OOC's then compare pilots to their successors on the basis of "Confirmed Kills".
(The usual disclaimer regarding Mission vs Aircraft Kills applies)

Best regards

Darryl

(Barrett, those details ARE on the way, sorry for the delay)