Isegrim,I'm talking figures taken from Hooton, who got them from the Luftwaffe archives. You areusing figures that the RAF puts every time as "estimates"
They could count radar signitures on the screen, wasn`t that the core of the whole brit defenses?
No, counting numbers on a radar screen was not easy at the time. Raid after raid the strength was miscalculated.
What was Hooton`s number for LW fighter sorties, 1800 or so?
No, Hooton's numbers were around 4000 last week of Aug, 3200 first week of Sept for purely fighter sorties. Add some fighter bomber sorties to those, and bomber sorties.
They had already done about of those sorties on a single day (7th) of the 1st Week of september. Not to mention by that time every bomber sortie was supposed to be followed by 3 fighter sorties... Hooton`s numbers are plain BS.
So you say they did over 1800 sorties on the 7th Sept? The RAF estimates you want to rely on say 700 Luftwaffe sorties on the 7th Sept.
Make your mind up.
Care to post those " original Luftwaffe figures" day by day then for the 1st week?
I don't have them day by day, I have the weekly totals. Note you are contradicting your own source, by claiming 1800 sorties on the 7th Sept when the RAF estimate 700.
Nah-nah-nah
So I take it you'll accept RAF estimates of Luftwaffe losses from now on then?
Then let`s stick to the fact : Caldwell does not questions the validity of Groehler`s numbers. Only you do, and you don`t even know his works.
No, Caldwell and Les Butler have the following on their joint site:
"It is clear from his text that Groehler's objectives were: (1) to show that the German-Soviet front was the most significant source of the Luftwaffe losses that ultimately led to Allied air supremacy, and (2) that the Luftwaffe could not afford to weaken its forces in the East, even when pushed hard by the USAAF strategic offensive and the Normandy invasion. Groehler did make these claims, to the undoubted pleasure of his Soviet masters, but his data, when examined carefully, don't back him up. Most Luftwaffe losses between mid-1941 and mid-1943 were, of course, incurred on the Eastern Front - that's where most of the fighting was! But starting in late 1943 the number of losses in the West increased sharply. Half of these losses were day fighters, the single weapon most responsible for the maintenance or loss of air superiority."
Regardless, Tony Wood has every single claim listed.
I used a spreadsheet, too, and realized there are hell of a lot of spaces in it, it includes all other types, like nightfighter claims, the Recih, France area etc., not to mention these are claims list, some of them were accepted, others were not, which simply puts your claim about the "official Jagdwaffe claims being 2000+" right into the trashcan.
Spreadsheets exist to organise data.
Open the Doc from Tony Wood's site.
Scroll down to the 10th of July
Select the first claim on the 10th of July. It's by Ludwig Lenz
Scroll down to the 30th Oct, and holding down shift, select the last claim, by Leo Matserer.
If you held down shift, the whole block between the 10th July and 30th Oct should be selected. Right click and select copy.
Open up a spreadsheet application (I'll assume Excel). Select the first 7 columns and select paste.
You should now have a list of all the claims during the BoB in your spreadsheet.
Select all 7 columns, and click the data menu (this might be different if you have a different version of Excel). Select Sort, and choose to sort by the fourth column, aircraft type.
This will give you a list of all claims sorted by victim tpe. It should begin with Oskar Strack claiming an albacore, and end with Hans Georg Mandelsdorf claiming a Whitley.
All the headings that bothered you so much will now be beneath the last claim. You now have an unbroken list of claims from the BoB.
It begins at row 1 and goes down to 2127
Go back to the top and scroll down past the Blenheims until you reach the Curtis'. It should be on line 99 (we'll ignore the Bloch the Luftwaffe claim they shot down on the 17th Oct over Faversham (wtf?)) However, no less than 14 claims are made for Curtis fighters, despite none being used (AFAIK). Galland, Wick and Molders all have claims in for "Curtis".
Select the lines with the Curtis' and Defiants, it should go from 199 to 135. Select copy. Click on sheet 2, and select paste.
Now scroll down to the Hurricanes, which begin at 149. (It's Ludwig Lenz' claim)
Scroll down to the end of theHurricane list, and continue down with the 7 or so Moranes. Thatshould take you down to 870.
Copy these and paste them to the end of the list on sheet 2.
Go back to sheet 1 and select the first Spitfire kill, at number 874. (We'll ignore the Skua and the "sperrballon") Scroll down to the end of the Spitfire claims, at 2112 Copy and paste them on to the end of the list on sheet 2.
Sheet 2 should now have a nice long list of claims between the dates selected (10th July to 30th Oct). It should have 5 types of single engined fighters claimed, Curtis, Defiant, Hurricane, Morane, Sitfire. It begins at row 1, ends at row 1998.There are no headers, spaces etcin the list, just a solid list of 1998 claimed kills of single engined fighters.
So, either this doc contains the confirmed kills, or kills were confirmed as a matter of course.
Kills were not confirmed "as a matter of course" in the LW. The procedure was rigid and rigorous, and I don`t want to repeat it again which you refuse to see.
As for the doc, it`s collection of the fighter pilot`s claims. It list all claims, accepted and refused as well, and you can see the reference to the Anerkennung document on the right, which may show it was accepted, denied, postponed, or simply missing.
Isegrim, I've already given you a comparison from the list with Galland, Wick, Oesau, even Groth, who you brought up. Everyone has exactly the same number on this list as their acknowledged kills during the BoB.
Lets try a couple more.
Josef Priller. 14 Kills during the BoB, 6 kills during the battle of France. Tony Wood's doc lists 14 kills during the BoB, 6 during the BoF
Heinz Ebeling. Supposed to have 18 victories before being captured in Nov 1940, including 10 during August 1940. Tony Wood's doc gives him 18 victories in total, 10 in August.
I've only looked at the pilots I've heard of before, because it's easier to find kill records for them. In every case, they've had exactly the same number of acknowledged kills as appears in that doc on Tony Wood's site.
For example, Uffz Schlig claimed a Spit on the 30th Septmber, but it wasn`t accepted for him, being an "ASM" remark, which mean they might acknowladge the claim later on. However, the vast majority is not acknowladged at all (No Anerkennungs number), which means it was either refused or the original doc was lost or missing.
Never heard of him. What's his first name?
Obviously on a list of well over 3000 claims (it covers 39 - 41) there are going to be 1 or 2 discrepancies. However, look at the cases I have been through.
Galland is supposed to have had 50 kills when he joined JG 26. There are exactly 50 "claims" on that document for Galland prior to the date he joined JG26.
Either that document is listing acknowledgements rather than claims, or Galland didn't have a single one of his first 50 claims turned down.
And it's the same story for Oesau, Wick, Priller, Ebelling, even Groth. Either it's listing confirmed kills, or none of them had a claim turned down in 1939/1940. Not one between them.
You, dear Naswan, managed to find something that shows the claims, but doesn`t really give much clue about how many were accepted by the LW.
Give me the names of some well know Luftwaffe aces and how many kills they scored on the west front in 1940, and I will check them against these "claims". Let's see if we can find any "claims" the Luftwaffe turned down, shall we? By the way, they have to be well know pilots so I can verify their acknowledged totals elsewhere, I'm not going to trust the numbers you come up with.
That`s laughable.. "Absence of proof is not proof of absence." After all, it you who claim there were no German reserves at all. Go ahead and prove it. He who claims has to prove..
So in other words you've found proof of 100 reserve fighters before the Luftwaffe got involved in the BoF and BoB, and nobody ever mentions the reserve again in 1940?
Isegrim, you are probably the only person in the world who believes the Luftwaffe had reserves of 109s during the BoB. But then again you believe the Luftwaffe won the BoB, the Nazis didn't start the war, etc.
Go ahead and prove it. He who claims has to prove..
Prove the numbers on the Luftwaffe OOB don't include the reserves. Go ahead, prove.
Out of the ~1400 they supposes to have... great.
Got a source for the 1400 established strength?
The Battle Of Britain by Bickers gives established strength on the 6th September as 816 Spits and Hurris. That's for 51 Spit and Hurri squadrons, 16 aircraft per squadron.
The Right of the Line, by Terraine, gives 19 squadrons of Spitfires, 25 with Hurris, 2 with Defiants and 6 with Blenheims on 7th July, with "an establishement of over 800 aircraft", 644 available for operations.
That's 52 squadrons, 16 aircraft per squadron would be 832 aircraft, Terraine says "over 800 aircraft"
