Talk:Confirmation and overclaiming of aerial victories during World War II

15.9.42
I think the detail is too much and that individual pilots names should be removed, editors should focus on "the big picture". I can see this article being filled with many instances of overclaiming and it becoming very long as a result, so I think perhaps the bare minimum is enough. Dapi89 (talk) 23:52, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I second that suggestion. Less is more.Markus Becker02 (talk) 18:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Undue weight
The whole detailed Luftwaffe Rules of Confirmation (World War II) section needs to be replaced with a note to the effect that these were strict and designed to err on the conservative side, although in fact Luftwaffe (credited) claims on the whole turned out to be at least as optimistic as everyone else's! (A fact bourne out by the rest of the article!!) Othwise we would need to compare these with equivalent rules for at least one other air force (and even this proves nothing really).

The implication that British and American claims were based on "gentlemanly trust" is not only highly offensive (just imagine if we said that Luftwaffe claims were credited on the grounds of the pilots concerned being good party members), but also pure speculation. Because a statement is citable does not make it accurate - even good authors make mistakes, and we need to be aware that some authors are not "good" by any stretch of the imagination. Good articles, especially on aviation subjects, need editors that are widely read, and have sorted out the grain from the chaff, rather than just copying great swathes of other people's text (illegal anyway). --Soundofmusicals (talk) 00:10, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * This problem has been solved. I deleted the section on Luftwaffe overclaiming.

Italian /brit overclaiming
I know about these cases:
 * 11 nov 1940: italian claimed 10 spitfires, vs zero obtained, while loosing 3 BR.20 and 3 CR.42. Next time claimed 5 Spitfires and Hurricanes (vs zero results) with another 2 CR.42 lost
 * Greece: there was a fighting between G.50s and Gladiators: G.50s claimed 10, Gladiators 3, real losses: only one, a G.50
 * 27 feb 1941: RAF claimed 27 italian aircrafts: 13 CR-42, 6 G-50, 5 BR.20, 3 S.79. Losses for Italy: 4 BR.20, 2 CR-42 2 G.50
 * Italian vs british: 14 june 1942, 15 Re.2001 claimed 11 out 12 Sea Hurricane against 1 lost. Real losses: 2 Sea Hurricane (but one crashed in landing) vs 1 Reggiane.
 * 20 April 1943: Italian MC.202 and 205 claimed 15-17 Spitfire, loosing 3 Veltros. Real Allied losses: 0
 * 2 august 1943, Cap Pula: Italian MC.202 and 205 claimed 12 P-38, USAAF 4 fighters; real losses one MC.202 vs zero losses (so italian claimed 12 fighters and did none). Apart the distruction of a Catalina on the sea.--Stefanomencarelli (talk) 22:31, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Suggested move
This article is actually about "Confirmation and overclaiming of aerial victories during World War II". Why not move it there?

Georgejdorner (talk) 02:22, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Isn't it amazing?
According to the contents of this article, overclaiming of aerial victories only happened in World War II. In every other war, apparently a correct count was kept.

Georgejdorner (talk) 05:45, 18 April 2011 (UTC)


 * For WWI there are two big difficulties here.


 * The first concerns loss records. The difference between the detail and explicitness of existing records of the various combatants varies enormously. British records were much better kept and are far more "intact" than almost anyone else's - the French records are a mess, a lot of German records were either lost or deliberately destroyed immediately afer the war or during its closing stages, while Austrian, Italian and Russian (not to mention Turkish) records are simply hopeless. This means that the only records where we can make a realistic check for discrepancies between kills and losses are for German kills over the British.


 * The other problem is that an average squadron on active service would lose aircraft pretty continuously. At this time the accident rate (especially for inherently dangerous types like the Camel) was high. Also - especially in squadrons that did much low flying - quite a large proportion of losses in action were from ground fire. Many squadrons (the Jastas are cases in point) would only actually count a "loss" if the pilot was missing, killed, captured, or too badly wounded to return to his squadron. Definitions of a "kill" or "victory" also varied, as I hardly need to point out - with the British and U.S. definitions being quite liberal.


 * That, I think, leaves us in a situation where any statistics of this nature from WW1 would be a bit meaningless.


 * For Korea and Vietnam, alas, propaganda (on both sides, although we'd like to think the communist side were worse) makes historical assessment of possible overclaiming highly problematic.


 * Even the WWII examples we have here may at times be misleading...


 * Personally, I have to say that I think this whole article is a load of (naughty word) - it is full of what is really speculation, when all is said and done. I think the little note on "accuracy of claims" in the "Air Aces" article affords a perfectly adequate coverage of the subject. In any case, adding "instances" from other wars would make it MORE speculative rather than less, and in no way would constitute an improvement. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 02:06, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

All too true, my tuneful friend. I believe it may be time to PROD this article. Its subject does not match its title. The very instances of overclaiming given illustrate the inaccuracy of the records that were kept. How can one reliably source an article about unreliable sources?

Georgejdorner (talk) 14:55, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Perspective
Why are only the german rules explained an critizised? Is this not an over all artikle? --WerWil (talk) 19:07, 12 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Alas - the article was started by someone with a big point to prove (basically, so far as I can gather, that our "air aces" article was unkind to the Luftwaffe). As edited - the article proves nothing of the kind - in fact the generalisations of the air aces article are pretty well bourne out. Personally I fear this article was born of a (probably quite well-meant and sincere) misconception by someone who "goes" for the Luftwaffe rather like some little boys go for a particular football team. All it "proves" in its present form is that everyone overclaimed (which the air aces article always said anyway). The dictatorships of the WWII period (Hitler, Mussolini AND Stalin) were haunted (like all such regimes) by a paranoid terror of sudden overthrow, and one of the ways they tried to counter this was a rigid control of information, to the extent that they eventually tended to believe their own propaganda (a good description of this process can be found in Adolf Galland's book, The first and the last - if one of the top German aces can be counted as reliable, even by the "Luftwaffe Luftwaffe ray ray ray" brigade). We "trust" German, Russian, and Italian loss records here (really, to do anything else would be pure speculation!) but it must be bourne in mind that they were quite often optimistic, and that their definition of a "loss" was also quite elastic. So sometimes the overclaiming of the British and U.S. (not to mention the Germans, at least when they fighting the Russians) may be at a little less dramatic than it sometimes seems from the raw numbers. All in all NOT a good article, and in my view a totally unnecessary one anyway. To salvage it you'd need to add details, not only of the "rules" if any of other countries, but also stats from other wars. All comparing chalk and cheese anyway in my view, and a total waste of time, even from the aviation enthusiasts' viewpoint. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 23:59, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Amen.

Georgejdorner (talk) 17:15, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion
I think it should be deleted. It is pretty much just a list of instances of the type which can grow indefinitely, given that overclaiming occurred every day.

I don't think this article should be deleted for reasons that can be addressed by adding information. The article should be expanded to suit its title. Binksternet (talk) 18:19, 2 October 2011 (UTC)


 * That an article might be currently not presenting a balanced view - is not a valid reason for deletion
 * That an article needs more content from a different time periods does not suggest that other things did or did not happen; it means the article is matching the article title
 * That the article content is not notable may be a reason for deletion - but I don't think it is
 * That the article contains a list of examples of the subject - is not a reason for deletion, though it may be a candidate for trimming or rewriting the section in a better way.
 * So I removed the prod. This in no way stops it from being taken to AfD and being deleted, just prevents a summary deletion. GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:33, 2 October 2011 (UTC)


 * This article actually appeared as a response to what certain very partisan "Luftwaffe fans" felt was an unfair imputation in the air aces article that Luftwaffe fighter pilots were (at least occasionally) credited with destroying aircraft that were not in fact destroyed. It consisted of a long and strident introduction making the point that Luftwaffe pilots were so upright and noble they were incapable of error, and if (as never actually happened of course) they did make a mistake - the Third Reich was so spendidly organised that confirmation of doubtful claims was always witheld. This was followed by a few examples of how lax the degenerate allies were because they sometimes claimed more aircraft destroyed than the Luftwaffe admitted were actually lost.


 * I am exaggerating here for poetic effect - but not (alas) very much. The POV of the original article WAS very blatant indeed. "We" (myself and several other editors) chopped out a good deal of the worst of the schoolboy rubbish (especially that which pointedly abused allied airforce personnel), added a few actual recorded examples of known Nazi overclaiming, and otherwise tried to render the article a little more even-handed, but its basic premise remains something that would have done Dr. Goebbels proud. The facts are neatly summarised in the "accuracy" section of the air aces article - over-claiming was common to all airforces, for all kinds of reason, and official checking of victory claims was often lax, regardless of how strict the theoretical "rules" were. War, especially the kind of total war typified by W.W.II, is not a sporting event.


 * Personally I have never really thought that this kind of thing belongs in an encyclopedia anyway - even most books on air aces tend to soft pedal it a lot. Attempts at accurate determination of how many air victories were actually scored by any given pilot (or the pilots of any given airforce) sooner or later boil down to a good deal of supposition and speculation. Some airforces had very strict rules that were in practice rather loosely applied - especially to pilots who had already established large scores. Other airforces had no real "ace system" at all, or (apparently) much "fluffier" systems - but in practice did not credit air victories lightly (if only because assessment of enemy losses was so important from an intelligence point of view). The only "hard" facts in all this are the scores that ace pilots were actually credited with - personally I think that this is all we should present to the reader in this context - with a brief little rider to the effect that it seems incontravertible that air victories claimed (or confirmed) generally differ from losses recorded (or admitted) on the other side.


 * Personally I would delete this article, and several others in broadly similar vein, as fundamentally too speculative for an encyclopedia, and in any case unnecessary. We are interested in aviation history, and most of us have been so since we were schoolboys. None the less - the subject needs to be approached (here at least) in a reasonable, mature manner, not in an atmosphere of schoolboy hero worship. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 23:19, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Generally, I am an inclusionist, not an exclusionist. In my three years in WP, I have never before instigated a deletion of an article. I did not intend summary deletion. Indeed, I took great care to inform every editor remotely involved with this article of the proposed deletion (except for the several who have been banned from WP). If I have in some way erred in the deletion process, I hope you forgive my bumbling.

Now, to answer the above screeds:

The article only fits its present title because I moved it there. As I noted in my deletion notices, it used to be "Confirmation and overclaiming of aerial victories", even though it only instanced WWII examples. Attempts to broaden the scope of the article to fit this previous title were rejected. I then moved the article to its present title so the article would fit its title.

Non-notability = triviality. This is not a book of trivia; it is an encyclopedia. The central conceit of this article is trivial to the point of nonsensicality.

Prejudice/bias does not belong in an encyclopedia, either; however, this article has never remotely approached a neutral stance. Objectivity is the gold standard of an encyclopedia, and it has never shown itself in this article.

Lists and articles are two different critters here in WP. This platypus of an article was neither and both.

To top it all off, no one is working on this article. It just rots here in cyberspace, except when editors are fighting about it. Scroll up, read the shameful flame war above, and you can see that this piece of trash is a sinkhole of bad behavior.

All this to illustrate the stunningly obvious fact that warfare is confusing. Wow. Who would have guessed that without this article?

Georgejdorner (talk) 13:53, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The article was the outcome of a mediation attempt over a dispute, see Curtiss P-40 here. The article was not intended to drive a POV but rather the opposite was the case. MisterBee1966 (talk) 14:45, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Very interesting, MisterBee1966,

The mediation result was to transfer the ongoing arguments about the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk to another, ill-considered, article whose focal subject did not match its title. In the process of writing the new article, non-NPOV postings again emerged. So did the arguments, to the extent it led to some bannings.

Let me make it clear that I do not object to the rules of comfirmation portion of this article, per se. I believe that writing about aerial victories without understanding how they became adjudged as such is foolish. That's why I created Aerial victory standards of World War I. The lack of an equivalent article for World War II undercuts all the WWII articles dealing with the subject of aerial victories.

Georgejdorner (talk) 18:40, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi George, thanks for the notification about this discussion, even though I have not had a great deal to do with this article directly. While it is flawed, it does contain good, interesting and non-original research. Why not move/rename this article to Aerial victory standards of World War II and address the issues identified? Grant  |  Talk  04:11, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Grant,

My area of expertise is WWI, not WWII. Why don't you rename it instead?

And our opinions on the worth of this article as constituted are widely divergent. The only confirmation standards contained in it are the German ones.

Georgejdorner (talk) 08:17, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Good evening everybody. Chris Shores has a written a new book, "A History of the Med. Air War". It is an updated and extended version of "Fighters over the Desert/over Tunesia" and it pretty much and very accurately answers the question of who made incorrect claims. Usually everbody did. To underline the regularity of incorrect claims Shores has detailed claims/losses tables for each day and both sides. Case closed as far as I'm concerned. Markus Becker02 (talk) 15:23, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Hello,

I hope your recommended source also covers the Pacific Theater. If it doesn't, the case is still very much open.

Georgejdorner (talk) 15:39, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Extensive "revision" of stats.
These are presumably taken from reliable sources? If so these sources need to be cited. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 00:58, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

This article is useful, even if it seems vague
I think that this is a handy explanation of how air victories are overclaimed, especially in World War 2. I know that the vagueness and inherent inaccuracies can offend military aviation enthusiasts or sticklers for Wikipedia accuracy, but that in itself should not be grounds for deletion. There should just be a caveat at the top or in the introduction. Casual readers who may be learning about WW2 may want to know about how aces are counted and some of the problems in overclaiming, along with examples. The point of Wikipedia is to explain and elucidate with every scrap of knowledge available. I found this article useful.

Also, though it appears biased at first glance, I don't think there is anything wrong with singling out the Luftwaffe. The kill counts for the Experten are freakishly high in comparison to aces of all other combatants. That begs for an explanation of WHY that should be the case. In fact, I think an expansion might be in order, for instance how the Rotte tactical patterns encouraged senior pilots getting high counts while their wingmen got nothing. Pete71 (talk) 17:28, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Please note that the above assertions are unsourced and speculative.Georgejdorner (talk) 07:28, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Continues to be NPOV. Tagged article.
This article offers confirmation of victory procedures for only the German Air Force. What about the Brits, Americans, Australians, Italians, Japanese, New Zealanders, et cetera? How can an article discuss "aerial victory" without defining the term? And if some editor does dig up all these air forces procedures, what is the result? Trivia.

Georgejdorner (talk) 07:26, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Recent edit
I restored the cited material (diff). The article requires expansion, not removal of cited information. K.e.coffman (talk) 22:55, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Replaced
I removed the statement from Hugh Morgan & Jurgen Seibel, as both appear as non-notable author's and also because the statement is superseded by Caldwell & Muller as cited below. There's also an apparent altered statement about the overstated American bomber losses.
 * Caldwell & Muller p. 95-96:
 * "The daily OKW communiqués of this period habitually overstated American bomber losses by a factor of up to two. Defenders of the German fighter pilots have always maintained that these initial values were sharply reduced during the confirmation process. But the microfilms prove that this was not the case. Some 80–90 percent of the claims submitted to Berlin were eventually confirmed, or were “in order” for confirmation when the system broke down. Confirmed German claims for the destruction of heavy bombers are more difficult to reconcile with Allied losses than claims for any other aircraft type; it is probable that part of the explanation lies with the point system itself, and the rest lies with the Ziffernkult, or worship of numbers, promulgated by the Luftwaffe leadership." Dircovic (talk) 14:54, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Removed
I have removed that suspicious statement by author Richard Townshend Bickers, as he doesn't appear notable in academic works; writing novels and fictional books. The listed RAF Fighter Command losses of 915 aircrafts are based on Churchill's war memoirs, not recorded by the RAF itself, as Swedish historian Christer Bergström "The Battle of Britain: An Epic Conflict Revisited" p. 280 notes:


 * "For a long time the dominating image of the Ballte of Britain was the one presented by Winston Churchill in his War memoirs, published in 1949. According to these, 1,733 German aicraft and 915 British fighters were lost during the period 10 July to 31 October 1940. These figures-which are the basis for the widespread belief that the Germans lost two aircraft for each downed British fighter - have been corrected by modern research in British and German archives."

However, he goes further:


 * "Fighter Command reported the shooting down of a total of 2,692 German Planes - The actual German combat losses - i.e. even to ground fire - was only about half as many. During the same period, the Germans reported they had shot down about 3,600 British aircraft, which is nearly two and a half time higher than the actual British losses." Dircovic (talk) 16:04, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Section edit
How does the cited information not meet NPOV and balance? It is a neutrally worded and well cited section: diff. Also, please note WP:BRD -- the edit has been reverted, so I suggest a self-revert while the matter is being discussed. K.e.coffman (talk) 06:51, 9 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Since the editor did not come to the discussion, despite the ping here and a Talkback message, I'm restoring the long-standing version. K.e.coffman (talk) 17:01, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Example of overclaiming

 * 18 Dec 1939|| Luftwaffe vs RAF|| Germans claimed 38 Wellingtons Bombers shot down {actual loses were 12 out of 22} Likewise the bombers claimed 12 Germans shot down {actual loses were 3}

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How functional and useful is this article?
I claim that most if not all air forces in WWII and in other wars, carefully verified their kill claims, when it was feasible to do so. Accuracy deteriorated wildly in large, intense combats, and when it was logistically not feasible to check claims. The extreme example of this is American B-17 and B-24 air gunner claims during the strategic bombing of Germany, when there were dozens of gunners shooting at anything that was seen going down. The Germans, flying at the limits of range of their aircraft in the Battle of Britain, over-claimed badly.

Was anyone particularly egregious about kill claims? Is it worth the effort to examine all possible kill claims (why restrict this to WWII and to aircraft?) to make this article balanced? Is this article useful? JHowardGibson (talk) 21:13, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Finnish claims
I realize there isn't room in the article to discuss every pair of combatants in WW2, but I'd be interested if anyone is aware of any academic research on Finnish aerial kill claims.

The Fins used obsolete equipment during most of the conflict (e.g Brewster Buffalos etc), and yet claimed some of the highest kill ratios in WW2. Unlike most other kill claims, secondary sources seem to take these claims at face value, perhaps because the "underdog" narrative is so appealing. Has anyone looked into this? 82.10.40.148 (talk) 18:17, 13 January 2022 (UTC)