Ace Killers

If Lothar vonRichthofen said that he shot down a Sopwith Triplane, then a Sopwith Triplane must have been lost. The German claims are ALWATS correct and the British ones are ALWAYS suspect, right? I suggest we try to discover who the RNAS criminal is who is covering up the loss of this aircraft in order to embarass a noble German aviator. Now, before you all dump on me, please see my point. BOTH sides made claims that can't be substantiated, and NEITHER side's records are perfect. There were a lot more important things going on in the various headquarters than the soothing of a company grade officer's ego.

[Shooter]

Graeme:

Exactly my point! After Ball's crash, some of Lothar's kameraden are alleged to have shot up the wrecked SE-5 with small arms fire to simulate battle damage which did not occur (Ball most likely suffered vertigo within the overcast and attempted to "pull up" on the yoke while inverted, taking him into an unrecoverable decent). Lothar was "encouraged" to claim Ball by others, and distained such.

If true, that speaks rather well of him, what?

In any case, the non-missing Tripe is a mystery. Hard to confuse the two a/c, I would think. But in combat, the funniest things are known to happen!

VBR

Shooter sends

Personally, I wouldn't like to see this turn into a "did Lothar shoot down Ball?"-thread.
After all, if it is doubtful whether the amount of WW1 ace killers (using above mentioned definition) is in its double digits at all, such a list wouldn't be that hard to construct, right? Besides, LvR would be in it regardless.