Kill Ratio

In late 1917 and early 1918: If the Pfalz D3 and Albatros D series were so manifestly inferior to the Spad, Camel, SE5a and Brisfit, how did the Germans maintain a strongly positive kill ratio even when the Fokker Dr1 was out of the picture for structural modifications, and before the D7 appeared in May 1918?

[Billy_Bishop]

Simple, experience. That or elsel they lied a lot.

VBR,

Al Lowe

Try smarter tactics!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[rammjaeger]

McCudden was evaluating German aircraft and was not impressed by the Albatros. After these test flights he was even more admiring the German pilots and how they were able to handle these machines. The German training system was clearly superior to the British training. But not only training plus more clever tactics were responsible for the continued success even against superior numbers of Allied aircraft with better performance. ("Better" is also a relative word - the Camel was a killer for young, inexperienced pilots.) I would like to add that even Arthur Gold Lee - later Vice-Marshal of the RAF - was three times downed (22., 26., 30. November) in the battle of Cambrai despite flying a Camel. He makes Trenchard responsible for heavy losses because of an unfittíng general strategy.

[stephen]

Its true that A G Lee was shot down three times during Cambrai, but this bears no implication on the ability of German pilots or their Albatri. All three times he was downed by either ground fire or a malfunctioning fuel system in his Camel.

I would suggest that

a) the German air service was not as successful at this point as they were in either early '17 or the summer of '18,

B) due to a huge technical disadvantage over the previous year and questionable offensive tactics that wasted valuable veterans, British pilots in particular were far less experienced than their German counterparts, and

c) prior to major changes in the British training system in 1917, the Germans did a far superior job of training novices and put them at much lower risk by operating them within their own lines.

or perhaps even that it is not only better (to quote a famous man), but also easier to have one's "customers" come into his shop than to go out looking for the customers. The offensive tactics utilized by the British was as much responsible for British losses as any hypothesized superiority accredited to the German airmen.

Killratio, why have you not respoded to a thread with your name on it?

[rammjaeger]

For the "observers" at the Forum:

The blood-wasting British strategy was mentioned before already and better training and better tactics are factual and not hypothesized. 8000 dead British airmen, killed at British training fields, can support this statement but a simple comparison of the training schedules of both sides has the same result. I know the truth is hard to admit for some people - they feel annoyed by facts.

Stephen,
yes, he was not victim of Albatrosses but it is also hard to understand that the Britons did not use their superior aircraft to fight AT FIRST for air superiority instead of becoming easy targets
for fighters and ground fire if flying with bomb-load in low altitude?

[Craig]

I would be loathe to say that the Germans ever even had 'air superiority'. They never really stopped the Allies, particularly the Brits, from performing the recce and ground support tasks that were their most important tasks. There were just too many of them; being outnumbered 3-to-1 is not conducive to acheiving air superiority.
What the Germans did manage was to exact a heavy toll, and in so doing racked up an impressive positive kill ratio.
And the original question included a query pertaining to the performance differential between 1917 Allied fighters and their German counterparts. Let's hear some more about that.

The British Air Arm had an entirely different mission than the German Air Arm. Soldiers on the offensive typically suffer greater losses than the defenders. The British command was willing to accept very high, even wasteful losses to accomplish their mission, just like the Russian command of the next war. Both were ultimately successful at a high price.

regards,

MDD

One obveous advantage is the said allied planes are all faster that the german planes at the time. The camel was more manuverable than all the german planes. The se5a and spad held a 20-25 mph speed advantage(huge).
I can understand Camel pilots getting killed in combat, but for a se5a or spad to get shot down, they had to get surprised me thinks. Or they simply did not know how to use their speed advantage.

Would be interesting to note se5a and spad losses during this time period....