Originally posted by Nath[BDP]
Don't think those claims for the Marianas Turkey Shoot are overclaimed, they have been gone over and over by historians throughout the years.
I do, however, give the Ki-84 kill claims a second thought.
Typically, the worst over-claiming was found in the Soviet and Japanese tallies. It was commonplace for the Russians to claim as much as 4 times the actual enemy losses. Japanese pilots were generally more optimistic, frequently claiming 6 times as many aircraft than were actually shot down. A good example of both sides can be seen when we examine the numbers claimed during the Soviet-Japanese border war of 1939, usually referred to as the Nomonhan Incident.
At the conclusion of the brief war, Russia claimed to have shot down 654 Japanese aircraft. Actual Japanese losses counted were 162. Soviet losses would total 207, but Japanese pilots claimed 1,162 communist planes shot down, with another 98 destroyed on the ground.
I have researched some claims involving American and Japanese air engagements, and have found that the Japanese continued their tradition of grossly over-estimating enemy losses right through the conclusion of the war. Indeed, postwar examination of American claims against Japan shows that over-claiming by U.S. pilots averaged out to just 1.3 times actual Japanese losses.
So bad was the Japanese "honor" system of confirming kills, that even Japanese historians have revised down individual pilot claims to roughly 50% of their initial numbers. However, comparing their revised totals to the American loss records indicates that Japanese victory credits are still likely to be as much as 30% too high.
Following up on the Soviets, we see that they were still grossly over-claiming during the Korean War. Since most of the MiG-15s flown in Korea were piloted by Russians, we know who made what claims. In a nut shell, the Soviets claimed to have shot down more than two times the number of F-86 Sabres than actually served in Korea during the whole of the war. Add to this the inflated claims of the Chinese and North Koreans and we find that they must have been shot down every F-86 produced as late as 1954, to get their totals as of June of 1953:rolleyes:
My regards,
Widewing
