French, Italian, and Belgian victories

[leo]

I have seen german, American and british claims for victories in WWI. I have never seen those figures for France, Italy, or Belgium. Does anyone have that information.

Thank you

[Romani]

The following statistics were taken from one of the following French sources

Histoire de l' Aviation Chambe, R Paris 1964
Histoire de l' Aviation Col Que sais Je? Issue 172 Paris 1966
Histoire Mondiale de l' Aviation Paris 1967

Is the only set of figures I could find and these are interesting because they are far lower than what's usually mentioned. Maybe they list only confirmed victories (no OOC or probables) and counts shared victories only once. If you added up aces scores without taking that into account, you get far higher numbers. Maybe the list gives only scores of ace pilots... I checked Belgium score and it matches the Aerodrome list , so it does count balloons as victories so that further lowers the number of airplanes shot down. Perhaps one of the French members of the forum could check these sources?

Germany 2108
Great Britain 1629
France 847
Italy 193
USA 121
Belgium 77
Russia 38

[Pips]

Am I reading those figures correctly Romain? That is that Germany claimed 2,108 victories, Britain 1,629 etc; throughout the whole War?

They do indeed seem extremely low.

[Graeme]

I think someone's having a laugh.

In terms of the Western Front, I have details of more than 11,000 British claims (half of which fall into the out of control category) and Belgian aircrews received credit for at least 107 victories (out of at about 240 claimed) - check out "Above Flanders' Fields" by Walter M Pieters.

The data I have for German and French victories is, as yet, incomplete but I have 4,908 for Germany and 1,635 for France. Similarly, what I have for the USAS is a "work in progress" but I've got up to 682 claims (by 1,033 crews) so far.

Graeme

[rammjaeger]

In fact these numbers are ridiculous.

According to Above the War Fronts Italians recorded 633 claims but I think I also have seen higher numbers in other sources.

[Romani]

I don't know wich standard was followed to compile the figures I mentioned. I do know that they were most likely taken from the first book mentioned, and that the author , Rene Chambe was a WWI fighter pilot, who rose to general rank author of a very good memoir about the first escadrille de chasse that used 2-seater Morane Parasols armed with rifles, in 1914-15, so he deserves some credit.

Yes, I agree that the numbers are too low just by taking a look at the victories. But my intention was to spurr you people into providing a rebuttal, hey it worked

Perhaps those lists are incomplete as they were done in 1967.. but more likely I think they are a list of confirmed kills, that is, victory claims that have been matched with the corresponding loss on the other side

We all know or should know that a "claim" is not the same thing as a "hard kill" (destroyed, captured, dead crew, written off). But even the Germans, with all their strict rules and meticulous book keeping overclaimed, thought not at the same extent as British or Americans. If the actual victory scores of the other biplane conflict, the Spanish Civil War can be extrapolated to World War I (similar tactics, weapons, and dogfights, and analogous levels of lethality and vulnerability) I have the lurking suspicion that the fighter arms of all the nations in WWI did inflict relatively low casualties, and whatever air supremacy was gained was temporary and local, and based as much as on the effect on the morale of the enemy aircrews and the deterrent effect of fighters prowling around than though attrition. Does that make any sense ? I hope so.

Air supremacy is more a question of achieving overwhelming superiority in numbers (Allies in both world wars), or as a exception when there's an huge and decisive advantage in pilot quality and/or technology, like the Bf109 during the Blitzkrieg, the Zero in 1941, or the US Navy Hellcats in the Marians Turkey Shoot in 1944.
But despite how glorious the feats of fighter aces are, the most efficient way of achieving air supremacy is bombing and strafing the enemy air force on the ground, the best examples of this could be the invasion of the URSS in 1941, and the opening of the Six Days War in 1967.

I would take the figures I presented as a minimum estimate. I reckon that with the chaos and confusion of war, despite the ever present overclaiming there are many real victories that weren't confirmed, thus driving up the numbers. For example, the French get always short changed because only enemy airplanes that were seen to fall on the Allied side of the lines or witnessed by ground observers were confirmed as victories. Or the Russians because of the vastness of the Eastern Front.

On the other hand, total aerial victories are padded by including balloons, with all due respect to the feats of the balloon busters, I don't feel they should be included, and sometimes by including airplanes shot down by antiaircraft artillery or ground fire.

For all that's worth, another source (that I don't have at hand right now regretabbly) stimated total French victories in air combat at 2,500.

[Billy9]

One good source for statistice is the book "The World War I Data Book by John Ellis and Michael Cox. Very interesting.


Bill

[Graeme]

Romani

IMHO, inclusion of balloons within each nation's total of claims/victories hardly amounts to "padding", except, perhaps, in the case of the Belgian air service. By my count:

the British flying services claimed 377 (about 7.5% of "decisive" claims),
the Belgians 48 (44.9% of victories),
the French 256 (15.7% of the total victories I've calculated so far)
the Americans 57 (8.4% of claims).

I've got the Germans down as having claimed/flamed 424 balloons (8.6% of victories).

None of my figures include aeroplanes brought down by anti-aircraft or ground fire.

Let's not forget that balloons were legitimate targets that had a greater capacity for death and destruction than heavier-than-air bombers and their value may be determined by the lengths to which each nation went to defend them.

Graeme

[rammjaeger]

Romani,

I don´t think the Frenchmen had the opportunity to do this victory matching in the early 60´s. - If they did not accidently own better sources than all other countries or researchers together - and that is hard to believe for me.
I have heard a lot of the French material "vanished" like the German files in WWII.

As well a number of ca. 2500 victories is excluding the French equivalent for the British DDOOC and is excluding victories against ballons or victories credited to AAA.

Nevertheless thanks for the info.

[De Petrowski Alexander]

I am of the opinion that the claims for balloons should be allowed, I can agree however to the fact that this can only apply to WW I and other Air Wars of the period, and not to later wars fought with more developed aircraft.

Were one had in WW I, the balloons (manned), on had in WW II, the flying bombs "vergeltungswaffe 1" (unmanned), starting with the Vietnam war and until today, there have been a number of claims against Military UAV's of various sizes, and especially since the Americans recently put some in service carrying weaponry, I feel that UAV's can also be accepted as claims.

As there have been Balloon Aces, there also have been V1 Aces, some with very notable scores. Nicknamed "Diver Aces"

British Berry Joseph DFC and two Bars (59 V1) + 3 aircraft
British Mellersh Richard Lee DFC and Bar (41 V1) + 8 aircraft + 1 probable
Belgian Van Lierde Remy DFC and two Bars (37 V1) + 6 aircraft + 1 damaged + 1 destroyed on the ground

So far as I know there has only been one claim during WW II against a zeppelin, and this was made by a German U boat, U 615 shot down Navy Blimp K-68 (CO : Lt(g) W. Wydean) of ZP 21 Sqn USN on 6th august 1943 (no fatalities)

I have no knowledge about pilots ever being able to shoot down long range missiles, perhaps some of you know more ? Missiles starting with the "vergeltungswaffe 2" and going all the way to the Iraqi "Scud" and beyond .....

I know that anti-aircraft units have made claims against Missiles, Who can provide details ?

My point is that apart from manned aircraft, (still the prime target) armed or not, pilots from the beginning have also been shooting at other aerial targets, starting with balloons and zeppelins, to flying bombs, missiles and drones.