Here is the modern Russian view on those kill ratios.
"Soviet Aces" by Nikolay Bodrikhin, general editing: Lt Col P.I. Muravyev (42 kills total, 3 in Karelian War, 39 in 2nd Great Patriotic War), Moscow, 1998, ISBN 5-89883-001-4
From the Foreword
"
...
The rules of counting shot down enemy aircraft were always extremely strict
in VVS RKKA. Aviation Marshal S.I.Rudenko mentioned in his memoirs that at the beginning
of the war even the plate with the factory number from the enemy aircraft engine was required as confirmation. In the vast majority of cases the written documents from the ground troops about the exact position of the crash site were required. The dispatcher functions were assigned to officers of ground control stations located in the advance positions of ground troops. It was much harder for the "free hunters" who got their victories hundreds of kilometers behind the frontline. Usually their victories were not counted. The victory was counted only if the pilot indicated the coordinates of the crash site and the remnants of the enemy aircraft were found there by ground troops. The witness accounts and guncamera footage were never enough grounds for counting a victory - only the wrecks of the shot down aircraft.
...
The book uses materials of Central Archive of Ministry of Defense (TsAMO), Russian State archive of cinema-photo-documents, photo libraries of ITAR-TASS, Central museum of Armed Forces, Museum of VVS in Monino. With the feeling of pride and gratitude I am calling out the names of Soviet fighter-pilots who read fragments of the manuscript and made corrections:
I.N. Kozhedub, K.A. Yevstigneev, V.D. Lavrinenkov, N.M. Skomorokhov, F.F. Arkhipenko, N.A. Arkhipov, G.A. Bayevsky, P.V. Bazanov, V.F. Bashkirov, I.M. Berezutsky, P.M. Baykov, N.V. Buryak, L.A. Bykovets, P.F. Gavrilin, G.G. Golubev, S.D. Gorelov, A.A. Grachev, V.I. Davidkov, V.S. Yeliseev, A.S. Zakalyuk, L.N. Ivanov, V.P. Ivanov, A.F. Kovachevich, V.S. Levitan, A.S. Makarov, V.V. Maslov, I.V. Maslov, E.P. Mel'nikov, P.I. Muravyev, G.D. Onufrienko, D.P. Os'kin, E.G. Pepelyaev, M.G. Petrov, P.A. Pologov, B.M. Rivkin, D.A. Samoylov, A.P. Silantyev, O.N. Smirnov, A.P. Smorchkov, N.L. Trofimov, I.V. Fedorov, N.V. Khudyakov, I.I. Tsapov, A.E. Shvarev, P.F. Shevelev, A.D. Yakimenko, P.G. Yakubovsky.
Important information was given by the widows of the famous aces: V.N. Kozhedub, M.K. Pokryshkina, N.I. Gulaeva, M.I. Yevstigneeva, M.I. Markova. Their help in preparation of this edition was invaluable.
Col (Ret) V.F. Valuysky did a huge amount of technical work in the archives of TsAMO that was reflected in the published materials.
"
Excerpts of chapter summaries:
The Red fighters in China
In Chinese-Japanese War the Soviet pilots participated at the side of China.
The Soviet Union delivered to China 985 airplanes - fighters and bombers. The air combats
were nevertheless intense and nearly 200 member of flying staff were killed in action.
The most succesful Soviet fighter pilots in China were: Peter Kozachenko (11 victories),
Alexey Blagoveschensky (8 plus 2 shared), Konstantin Kokkinaki (7), Anton Gubenko (7).
The aerial combat on Khalkhin-Gol
In June of 1938, in a short period, VVS RKKA created the air supremacy in the battle on
Khalkhin-Gol. The Red Army was thus able to stop the Japanese aggression on Mongolia
and smash the ground forces of Japan. The fighters played a dominant role in the air war
on Khalkhin-Gol.
In accordance with the Soviet data in the battle of Khalkhin-Gol 589 Japanese
aircraft were shot down, 57 were destroyed on the ground. The war losses of the Red Army
Air Force were 207 aircraft.
The most successful Soviet fighters on Khalkhin-GOl were Nikolay Zherdev (11 victories), Mitrofan Noga (9 personal and 2 shared victories), Victor Rakhov (8 personal and 6 shared victories), Stepan Danilov (8 victories), Anton Yakimenko (7 victories).
The battle on Karelian Isthmus
In accordance with the Soviet data the Finnish side lost 362 aircraft, the losses of the Soviet Union were 261 aircraft. But already in 1940 the Finnish VVS had 300 aircraft that
were mainly supplied by Britain and France.
The highest scoring aces of the Finnish campaign were Alexander Bulaev (9 in this conflict, 24 total) and Vasily Efremov (7 in this conflict, 19 total).
The aces of the Great Patriotic War
At the beginning of invasion of the Soviet Union, German fighter pilots knew the intoxicating feeling of air supremacy. In the first week of teh assault almost 3000 Soviet aircraft of all types were destroyed. Only after Stalingrad, in heavy battles at Kursk,
air supremacy was won by Soviet fighters.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to compare the real scores of Luftwaffe and Soviet
aces. Mathematically, from the point of view of the theory of probabilities, it is absolutely clear that the huge scores of the German aces had mostly purposes of propaganda and political roots.
Soviet war time losses were 106400 aircraft including all types of the planes. But only 46100 of them were combat losses (shot down in aerial combat, by flak, destroyed on the ground). Germany lost 77000 aircraft in the war with the Soviet Union (data of the Sviet General Staff).
Many of the best Soviet aces were never shot down. Among the first 20 aces, the following were never shot down: I.Kozhedyb, K.Evstigneev, A.Vorozheykin, A.Koldunov, N.Skomorokhov, V.Bobrov, A.Reshetiv, S.Morgunov, P.Muravyev, A.Yakimenko. At the same time many German aces were shot down and killed on the Eastern front. The most famous were Otto Kittel and Anton Hafner. Such aces as Eric Hartman, Gerhard Barkhorn, Gunter Rall, Heinz Bar, Anton Nakl and Eric Rudorffer were shot down by Soviet fighters. Some of them were downed several times.
The Soviet aces of the jet era
The 3 Yaks shot down by F-82s on June 27, 1950 were the first of around 2000 aircraft to be shot down in the three years of the war in Korea. In July USAAF started their favorite "battle work" - "the carpet" bombing.
In October 1950 the first Soviet fighter aviation regiments from 64th aviation corps arrived to the North-East China.
On 3rd of November the first all-jet battle took place. The Soviet fighters reported one F-80 shot down. Americans noted that "one of the MiGs flipped over and fell out of the sky". They decided it was a victory, but all MiGs returned to their base in Antung.
The best fighter regiments in Korea were 196 and 17 (each of them have 108 victories) and 176th Guards fighter regiment (107 victories). Eventually, according to Soviet data 1377 USAF aircraft went down in Korea. The losses of 840 enemy aircraft were verified by ground teams - reports of examination of crash sites were written and complemented by parts of the shot down aircraft together with their factory numbers. The losses of the Soviet Air Force were 335 MiGs and totally (including aircraft piloted by Chinese and Koreans) 566 MiGs. One must note that the air war in 1950-1953 took place primarily over the territory of North Korea, where, consequently, the vast majority of shot down aircraft crashed. So the reports of Soviet pilots had material support (wreckage), while the americans were only left with guncamera footage. Nevertheless, initially, apparently under impression of lessons given, the americans were relatively objective and in serious publications estimated their losses at 2000 aircraft and those of their enemy at 1000. For example on the "black Thursday", April 12 1951, MiGs terminated the american raid on the Yaludzyan hydroelectric powerplant and shot down 10 B-29s not counting the escort fighters. 100 parachutes of bailed out crews of american planes was a phantasmagoric sight. Later, inspired by the apologetics of Luftwaffe, in popular literature, they reversed the loss figures in several times, calling all "U-2s", "Yaks", and "Las" as MiGs. One also has to note that the high command prohibited "illegal" pilots (i.e. Soviet) to fly farther than 100km to the south of the 38th parallel and fly over the sea. The aircraft shot down outside of the North Korean territory were not counted.
The Soviet highest scoring ace in Korea were N.Sutyagin (21 personal plus 2 shared) and E.Pepelyaev (20 personal victories). A.Smortchkov scored 15 victories, L.Schukin and A. Os'kin scored 15 each too.
The names of 50 jet aces who scored more than 5 victories in Korea are known today.
What some Soviet aces think of their scores:
Excerpt from the interview of I.Ye.Fedorov (chief test pilot of the Lavochkin design bureau, first Soviet pilot to break the speed of sound in the La-176, CO of 157th fighter regiment and later 273rd fighter division in GPW) published in "Krylya Rodiny" magazine, issue 7, 2000:
"
...
Q: Ivan Yevgrafovich, how many personal kills do you have ?
A: Arithmetic is simple and accurate. So write it down without any doubts: in Spain I shot down 24 aircraft, in China - 2, in Finnish war - 4, in Great Patriotic war - 96, in Korea - 7. So the total is 135 shot down.
Q: But officially you are credited only with 49 personal kills and 47 shared ??
A: You can ask any ace and he will tell you a number that will be very different from the official one. And the thing is that I couldn't get confirmation for any kills that crashed over the frontline.
...
"
http://www.airforce.ru/awm/ivanov/part2.htm "On August 20th (1952) the 726th regiment participated in a difficult fight with "Thunderjets" escorted by "Sabres" in which Nikolay Ivanov got his third victory, so to speak. Namely, "so to speak". He fired at short range and a large aspect angle, so the moment of the damage was not registered by the guncamera. The victory was confirmed by radio-intercept that heard the report of the american pilot about his ejection. The enemy was shot down by him personally, but it was not counted for him. This could only be explained if to consider that a pilot received 1500 rubles for a kill. The division HQ simply didn't risk to "waste" the "people's" 1500 without having required documentation for it...."
".. When I was taking off - I kept one hand on the ejector seat. Dropped the fuel tanks at the take-off run. I was never taught this, never talked about it, but when I was shouted at: "You are attacked!" - and I was about to roll up and get into the air I couldn't stop, - I would crash into the hills, - so I pressed the tank's release button. Probably that's what helped me. Those who were on the ground told me later that my take off made a strong impression on them. I don't know... it didn't make an impression on me.
Everything went OK. Only one round hit my plane and the wingman had no holes at all. On that day the cloudiness was of 5th-6th grade. I punctured the clouds and a pair of "Sabres" flies fast over me, going in direction of the gulf. And I shot down one, for certain. This was over the airbase and everyone saw it.
I landed and got out of the plane, the anger still boils in me, and here Ivan Yevdokimovich Godin runs up to me. Started hugging me, - you are a hero etc. Then the superiors asked me what is better for me, the next rank or the order of Lenin. Of course, I said: "Both the rank and Lenin". And very soon, the next day, the chief of the political department calls me: "Major Ivanov!" - I continue sitting as I was a Captain and he: "Ivanov, - it's you who is Major Ivanov".
But that "Sabre" was not counted as shot down! The pilot was firing against the sun and the "Sabre" crashed into the Korean gulf. Only the sun is on the footage and the material clues sank to the bottom. As the document of 133rd IAD says - the fall of the shot down "Sabre" was observed practically by the whole Antung - from pilots and mechanics to sentry soldiers. Apparently, just like it was on the 20th, the monetary renumeration played its role. It's nothing that I shot it down, that the whole airbase saw it. As the chief said: socialism is accounting; no material clues - no money and no victory in addition to that."
Pokryshkin claims an additional 20 victories that were not credited to him in the beginning period of the war. He mentions that in his memoirs. e.g. "In the skies of the war" or "Test yourself in combat" (available in Russian in electronic format at
http://www.aviation.ru/contrib/Andrey_Platonov/Memoirs/Pokryshkin.htm ).
F.F. Arkhipenko in his "Notes of figher pilot" (Moscow, 1999, ISBN 5-900824-02-0) mentions (p. 135):
"By the end of the war I have accumulated ... 44 shot down aircraft: 30 personally shot down, 10 personally shot down in the Belgorod area, but not credited to me, and 4 shared with my wingman (Footnote: according to the documents of 205th IAD in TsAMO, F.F. Arkhipenko is credited with 32 personal victories)."
etc. these are just some I recalled.
http://aces.boom.ru/all1/all1.htm gives the statstics of the victories by Soviet aces (official vs claimed by pilots)
One can definitely see that the Soviet HQs were not easy to convince of victories.
BTW, I.Ye. Fedorov is apparently the Soviet pilot whom Hartman mentioned in "Blonde knight" - the one with over 80 kills and not liked by the party officials. Fedorov indeed was not disciplined at all based on what I read about him. No wonder superiors "kept him down".
For those interested in getting proofs and verifying information here are addresses of the archives:
Russian State Military Archive (Russian acronym: RGVA)
125884, Moscow, Admiral Makarov St, 29
Russian Federation
Central Archive of Ministry of Defense of Russian Federation (Russian acronym: TsAMO SSSR/RF)
142113, Moscow district, city of Podol'sk, Varshavskoye highway, 9A
Russian Federation
[This message has been edited by Wisk-=VF-101=- (edited 03-21-2001).]