Losses above the lines

[BlackSeptember1918]

I have been thinking about the never ending claims debate . A different approach I was wondering about , and was wondering if anyone had ever collected the figuers on is :::

Has anyone ever checked on German claims that fell inside British lines , and how many can be matched to a known fatality , or serious injury ? . It seems to be the only truely level playing field to base a comparison on . While I was reading the book Jasta Boelcke I was a little surprised with more claims for aircraft shot down in British lines than I imagined ( o.k., granted there wasn't huge amounts , but enough to allow a study I thought ). There did seem to also be a trend in these claims of at times no British loss , and or no British casualty . As the Germans did not list there losses unless it led to the death of the aircrew , or a serious injury , then it would be interesting to compare .

Also same as the RFC/RAF , some pilots seem to be more optomistic than others in these claims .

I thought it was an interesting idea anyway .

Phil.

[jhill]

I am sure there must be many studies on this sort of thing. The one somewhat relevant reference I can point to is in S.F. Wise : Canadian Airmen and the First World War. There is a graph showing aircraft losses and claims on the western front, 1918. These use British losses and claimed victories reported in the RFC/RAF communiques, and German losses and claimed victories as reported in the official German history, Der Weltkrieg. As expected, each side's claims wildly exceed the other's losses. Since almost every claim was "awarded" to an individual flyer, there can be no doubt that most of the official "scores" cannot be accurate in any objective sense.

This does not directly address your question, but perhaps it may be of interest.

[Killratio]

Phil,

From work and therefore unsubstantiated, unreliable and completely from

my somewhat unreliable memory....

The German system did allow for claims WOL (jenseit - "their side") and

this sometimes (although not in the nature of OOC, hopless fiction or

imaginary attacks on enemy locations of uncertain identity) led to

claims for which there is no matching British loss.

My understanding is that these claims had to be independently witnessed

by ground or balloon observers.

This is a major difference between German and British verification systems. Further, if a British aeroplane was seen to crash land WOL but be in reasonable condition it was only awarded as a ZLG (forced to land other side) not as a full

victory.

It seems that "independent" observers may have been somewhat maleable

when it came to "big" names. Goering's score, in particular, contains

some very dubious claims.

More later if you are interested.

Darryl

[BlackSeptember1918]

Now there is something to be happy about

The Ace is back in the air !!!.

Darryl

Agreed mate , about the hard and fast rules of German claims system , but as you mention , sometimes it seems that the rules were bent slightly , and also a claim was verified by an independant source , when there was no loss ?? .

I think Paul Baumer and Max Muller could be included in this to some degree .

Your right about never being able to compare claims , with the Germans claim system and the Brit's non existant system , but it just got the old cogs grinding away thinking that losses on the opposite side of the lines was the fairest way of trying to evaluate .

More later if i'm interested ??...... yep mate , i'm very interested !.

Watch out for those novice pilots though mate , you aces are always at greatest risk from some no namer after you have come back to the front from leave !

Your mate Phil.

[duckman]

hi Phil 'n' Darryl,

Ahh, the neverending claims debate. John Keegan's "First World War" has a line in the bibliography that almost made me choke on my Four 'n' Twenty: "The technical literature of air fighting is considerable but there are few books of worth on air forces." You can't say he doesn't have a point.

Gunnar over at the Aerodrome made a comment recently that spun my wheels to effect that "most German claims were for a/c crashing inside allied lines" which makes a mockery of the conventional wisdom that most of the fighting took place over German lines (if true).

So with that in mind, I am currently running a project in slow time to match up "The Jasta War Chronology" and "Above the Lines" with "The Sky their Battlefield" and "The French Air Service War Chronology". Something I do to kill a bit of time here and there. Up to "Sch..." so getting towards the end of the hard part - Soooo many typos!!. It will take a few months more, I figure, but I should be able to answer one aspect of your question by Christmas (?which year?).

I appreciate that that is only scratching the surface, as you would need to cross reference with pilot logs, combat reports, personal diaries, unit diaries, a/c depot reports etc etc etc. But it should give a general framework for assessing this stuff. And then mark two: comparing ATT/OTF/AtWF/AFF etc with "Casualties of the German Air Service" etc.

If you are interested to see the results, let me know, and I'll make sure to shoot a copy your way when the analysis is done.

[Killratio]

Phil,

Was up your way for a flying visit (literally) a couple of weeks ago. Sorry I didn't have time to catch up, or I would have called...next time. (Front bar of The Exchange hasn't changed much!!).

Back from leave but still trying to decide whether I will return to active duty or ask for an instructor's posting. Don't want Brigade branding me LOMF but there is still one very empty chair at the Mess table.

regards

Darryl

[Killratio]

Hello Ducky (sorry, couldn't resist, SHOULD have!!)

I'd be very interested. I've been toying with a database for some time but haven't the computer skills to properly carry it off.

Gunnar makes some solid points but emphirically I feel he is mistaken. An afternoon of maps and randomly selected claims came out decidedly against him...and this in 1918, when arguably, a lot of the fighting WAS "this side".

regards

Darryl

[Killratio]

And....

re Keegan. I am a huge fan but IMHO he lets himself down badly with his dismissive attitude to the Air. WW1 is not his best effort by a long way. I also think he is fundamentally against the airpower of the day on the basis of some of his comments.

regards

Darryl

[BlackSeptember1918]

G'day Duckster and Darryl

Count me in for a copy of that study Quax !. That sounds like a very interesting project !. If you need someone to do a bit of extra research for you , just email me a list of item's you want checked out and I would be very pleased to help mate .

Yes , the old claim's debate , well it's a great subject as long as it dosen't turn into another one of those " yes he did ...no he didn't " debates . I notice the grand master here , Dolphin ,won't touch the auguement with a barge pole , but he's been doing this a lot longer than us and he knows how to knock down a C type without getting hammered full of lead .

Nice to see you've been up to Kal-Boulder to check out your old roots Darryl ! ....well , uhmm I mean your heritage ofcourse ....but maybe you checked out a few of your old roots also ? .

O.K....brain power is dwindling ...got the dog's disease ....and my sack is calling .

Oh just one last thing Darryl , I'm going to take Louise to the battlefields next year for her first visit . Ypres , Somme and Verdun ..can't wait !! . Then onto Germany , Austria and Italy , so she can spend all my money !!.

See'ya mates .

Phil.

[Guest stevenbec]

Mates,

What surprises me is this has not been atempted before?

If this info is out there to one degree or another then should this be done in some book form.

One has to look at what has been done by the books "Bloody Shambles" and The Battles over Malta by Chris Shores and his mates.

Has this been done for the Battle of Britan and the airwar during WWI.

Looking at places such as the Airwar in Egypt/Palestine where aircraft were used in small numbers should be good for a start. Claims are there for all British/aussie Sqn's and there is the works on the German Sqn (part of which is shown on the AFC webb site).

I think its some thing worth doing and paying for?

S.B

[Killratio]

Steven,

I have never looked at this per se. The problem with most research is that it focuses on a particular battle or time period. This skews the results badly. My own, for instance shows an almost total lack of fighting WOL.

This is unsurprising as Cambrai was a massive British attack.

Other research can often yield surprising results. An example:

There has long been the image (promoted by TV, movies books) of a pilot slumping forward in his seat after being fired at. Down she goes.

Not unreasonable, fabric and wood do not give a pilot much protection.

Another image and a horrifying one at that is a great plume of flame trailing behind a doomed aeroplane.

Now some figures I did a few years ago showed that about 5% (IIRC) actually caught fire. More surprisingly, a very high percentage of aeroplanes shot down suffered structural or engine failure. The incidence of bullet wounds to the aircrew was relatively small.

This was a sample size of 50 spread over the last two and a half years of the war or thereabouts.

Regards

Darryl

[Dolphin]

Comrades

The proposed study of actual losses against claims sounds fascinating! It should be very interesting reading when complete.

Another factor relating to aircraft losses, especially those over enemy territory, is the affect of anti-aircraft fire. I just had a very quick look at the G serials used by the British on the Western Front for enemy aircraft that landed/crashed on their side of the lines (from December 1916 to February? 1918) and noticed that, of the 79 aircraft that had a note about how they came to be there, no less than 11 were attributed to anti-aircraft fire. However, while the fate of 79 aircraft is mentioned, there were at least 156 G numbers used, so there's a large number of 'unknowns' as well. At least 2 of the 8 Austro-Hungarian aircraft allocated AG numbers by the British on the Italian Front fell victim to AA fire.

In contrast to the above, just about all the [british] airmen's memoirs that I can recall tend to dismiss 'Archie' as not much more than an irritation that sometimes might just possibly hit an aeroplane. I can't remember much comment by German fighter pilots about British AA - perhaps an indication of how much less time they spent over the enemy's side of the lines.

Then there were the aircraft that were hit by their own artillery while carrying out observation duties . . .

It's a complex business, isn't it?

Cheers

Gareth

[Guest Biplane pilot]

I'm still in awe of Sir John Keegan when he addresses land battles. (Though you must wonder whatever possessed him to end "the Face of Battle" with the absurd notion that war seems on the way out...pass the drambuie, mate.)

BUT: he really does need to keep his feet dry, and on the earth. "The Price of Admiralty" examined naval warfare thru the ages and concluded that the capital ship of the 20th century was....the submarine! Yes, subs were a deterrent during the Cold War (it was in all the papers) but, ahem...aircraft carriers were in large part responsible for ending the U-boat threat. Most of the major Pacific battles were largely or wholly carrier engagements: Coral Sea, Midway, the Guadalcanal campaign, Philippine Sea, and Leyte Gulf.