Doing it German style

No flames from me, I was only interjecting a comment related to your original question and commenting on the observation of some others.

The answer to your most recent question is that it is impossible to know, since the Brits and Germans did NOT use the same confirmation system. Those who hold the German record as gospel and as COMPLETE might try to tell you different and may try to arrive at a "corrected score" for some of the British aces. While I would not necessarily have a problem with this, I would hope that these revisionists (no animosity intended) would acknowledge that they are really only GUESSING -- surely this would have to be conceded.

No, I meant that the confirmation does not need to be adjusted (for clarity sake), just the types of victories allowed.

[Ron_F]

Above the Lines, Above the Trenches, OVer the Front, Jasta war chronology, The sky their battlefield, The RFC communiques books 3 volumes.

Get those and you wont be asking these types of questions. You cant compare the British scoring system to the German one, differnt rules regarding OOC, DD and the like.

France was more strict, but did allow i believe some shared victories.

The higher French aces, who would have all destroyed claims, would stack up the same as recorded.

American aces the same, as long as they werent using the RAF system.

Your question still doesnt make enough sense, comparing the Entente aces to the German system, but allowing the same prodedure for confirmation? German procedure or the respective countries procedure?
Its too difficult to answer. get the above books and your questions wont become a flame war so easily.

G/L
Ron

[Graeme]

The problem is that even ignoring Out of Control and Driven Down claims, the total number of "Destroyed" and "Captured" claims still far exceeds the number of aircraft the Germans admitted to having lost (a note I scribbled down over 20 years ago suggests that the Germans lost 3,128 aircraft and 546 balloons on the Western Front).

Putting this in perspective, the Belgians claimed a little over 100 "certain" victories, the French 2,049 (307 of them 'captured') and the USAS 756 aeroplanes and 76 balloons; from the list I have compiled of RFC/RNAS/AFC/RAF victory claims (10,929 in total) 5,569 aircraft and balloons fall into the categories 'Crashed', 'Destroyed', 'In Flames', 'Broke Up' or 'Captured'.

I’ve tried matching claims against the losses shown in the “Casualties of the German Air Service” by Norman Franks et al but gave it up as a bad job – no times are quoted for the losses, the Germans recorded the place where their aeroplane came down the Allied pilot quoted the place where the combat took place, not all units are quoted so 2-seater crews are not readily identifiable.

This leaves us with admitted losses of 3,674 aircraft and balloons against total claims for 8,550. If the French, Belgian and USAS claims (2,981) are accepted as being correct because of the supposedly more stringent verification system, the British flying services submitted 5,569 claims for 693 victories, a claim to victory ratio of 8:1. Obviously, all one needs to do is divide the quoted victories for each member of the British flying services by 8 to achieve the actual number of victories credited to each pilot.

Don’t flame me - I said that with my tongue so far in my cheek that it’s difficult to swallow.

Graeme

After reading the MvR Bio, One could add 3-4 victories to his total using RFC system. Couple two-seater(MvR was the gunner) claims and 1 or 2 vague references to unconfirmed pommie pastings. Prolly could add another about 1-10 ahhh hell who knows how many "Shared" victories. Roll the bones. He seemed to let his men handle their opponents on their own, the men of his flight were probably that good, then go on to handle "His man".

So that's my pathetic crack at trying to guess at MvR's RFC victory score. If your wondering why the serious researchers on this forum are not responding, it's probably because they have better things to do than try and locate denied claims of german aces. Not sure how tough a find that is.

[Graeme]

The point I was making was that even the great Von R's score is open to debate with up to 7 victories for which there are no complimentary details on the Allied side but which were "confirmed" by German ground observers. I'm not saying that von R was lying when he made these claims any more than any of the pilots and observers in the British flying services were lying when submitting their claims.

That RFC etc claims were not accepted carte blanche is evidenced by the number of combat reports in which the pilot's narrative gives every indication that the German machine was destroyed only for the report to be annotated "Indecisive" by somebody at either Wing or Brigade level.

Perhaps someone with nothing better to do could trawl through all the papers at the PRO - we could then compare these "false" claims agaisnt admitted losses. I'm not sure what this would prove, however, other than no system of veryfing combat claims in WWI was perfect.

[Ginger.]

If you want a serios answer try this for size.The German scoring system could'nt have been that good.One of their best men,Bruno Stachel,had to get a kill over his own airfield before he was honoured for serving the Fatherland.

[Barrett]

Ginger knows how to draw me out.
DOING IT GERMAN STYLE??? Stachel??? That blue blooded tramp Kati???
Whew...I need a towel...

[wings]

The problem with Bishop is not the system; it's Bishop. He could not have destroyed more than 50 planes without causing several German casualties.

[Craig]

Let’s not Bash Billy Bishop. We all know where that leads: bedlam! And we’ve already skirted wickedness with references to small mammals, and their equation with those who disagree with the Esteemed Author of that post.

The problem is not any one particular ace - the problem is the system, or really the SYSTEMS, for different air forces, and our doomed efforts to measure one ace against another using these different criteria. If a German claimed, you can best believe he likely got his man (though the Germans overclaimed as well, it was far less frequent or extreme). But a Brit? Without the advantage of finding wreckage, they just couldn’t be sure, so they sort of guessed. I mean, what IS an OOC? It’s a guess. “I shot at him, he rolled over and spun out of the scrap”. Bingo, one credit! Never mind that the very same chap may have rejoined the very same go-’round and iced your wingman , you still get credit for an OOC. Unless it was your wingman who was your “confirmation”.

Regarding propaganda, how would it have affected the morale of the Brits if they’d used the German method? They wouldn’t have been able to confirm much of anything. (I am assuming that we all accept the common wisdom placing the vast majority of action over German territory, though I’ve heard that disputed as well). And given the very real and very heavy losses suffered by the RFC throughout 1917-18, the result of getting few confirmations would’ve been more than a little inhibiting to the Spandau-fodder bravely waging an offensive air war against less numerous, but better-trained adversaries.

There. I just agreed (more or less) with Jim on something. Bookmark this thread.

Cliff’s Notes version of this post: German “victories” are hard figures in that their rules were very stringent, and can be trusted to reflect actual damage inflicted; British “victories” are soft figures in that they are in part speculative and cannot be trusted to reflect actual damage inflicted, as their rules were lax due to morale considerations and lack of access to hard evidence.

Craig