Billy Bishop

ZZZZZZZZ
HUH?
SNORT, SCRATCH, YAWN
PAD, PAD, STRETCH
CLICK, CLICK, CLICK
HMMMMM
SOME OF THIS #$%%$ COULD WAKE THE DEAD
CLICK, CLICK
PAD, PAD
SCRATCH, YAWN
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[Ginger.]

Sorry Errol sleep tight.Good news is I flamed Von Richter on the next Patrol.
Sizzle, Sizzle, Wonk!

So Ginger, are you then implying that Bishop's victims are as fictitious as a movie?

As for Barrett, THIS is the 99th reply (if someone hasn't beaten me to it right this moment) and we recently did have a century thread. Obviously you haven't forgotten Täger's Dresden entry, have you?

To all fanatical proponents of the decimal system:
"You may fire when ready"

[Billy_Bishop]

Actually J, your last reply was number 102, according to the URL. This is number 103, and as usual, Scot's message thread counter is having problems.

VBR,

Al Lowe

[Billy_Bishop]

My best guess is the confirmation systems went through a system of trial and error.

For the Germans, I would assume that since the majority of aerial combat took place on their side of the lines, it was easy for them to be stricter in their requirements for victory confirmation.

For the British, Belgians, French and later, Americans, I would imagine that being on the offensive, most of the time would lead to rules designed to be more forgiving as well as "overlooking" since most countries found out early the value of air Heroes.

It was probably designed by the same committee that said the Germans would collapse in just a few months.

VBR,

Al Lowe

Touché, Al, in hindsight I remember earlier discrepancies with the counter.

I think the point you're trying to make comes down in stressing the separation between the issue of whether the system of the RFC (as well as those of the other Allies) were significantly inaccurate in portraying someone's effectual achievements to put it mildly (which BTW most people here seem to agree on) AND whether Bishop was purposely abusing it. Of course, those two things aren't entirely separate, because a lenient system may cause pilots to submit claims which they don't bother to back up, because it wasn't (yet) necessary.
However, since you seem to implicitly admit that Bishop's "Real Hard Kill Score™" is probably much lower than 72, I must ask you what your (educated) estimate is, so that people here have something to discuss on.

[Barrett]

J: Point well taken. I shoulda referred to a century WORLD WAR ONE thread, as I sorta gave The Dresden Thread a pass (snivel, crayfish, whine...)
Back to Scoring Systems: presumably the reason for establishing any such program is to maintain a record of progressive ups & downs for analysis of presumed damage to the enemy. Yes, it's been suggested that in some cases there may have been a PR component, but I don't think that's ever been documented. Rather, it seems that the RFC etc formulated its "hard" and "soft" victory categories as a reflection of the tenuous nature of early air combat and did not bother to amend it as the air war "hardened." A "mission kill" (to employ an anachronism) may have been a concept in 1915 but there's simply no way to correlate a spotter plane driven off/down/landed/whatever with a smoking hole in the ground. It just looks like bureaucratic inertia: "We've done it that way since '15, laddie." Individual pilots were caught up in a very imprecise system--not their fault.

Our system had it's faults to be sure.
However, Billy Bishop's score and many others is still the same.
Higher claims to actual losses existed in WW2 and beyond, even with gun camera footage available. On both sides.

RFC

The bottom line is Bishop,shot down about ten and claimed 72.Ball about the same,Modus operandi

[Billy_Bishop]

Actually, I think Bishop's score of "actually destroyed machines" in the vein of Barrett's counting system (That is to say the system used during and since WWII) to be something around 50. That is because he has witnesses for around 25 claims (give or take a few), and given that <bold>I</bold> don't think he lied, and that his total destroyed claims add up to about 55, I'd put his "ACTUAL" score around 50, give or take a few.