Highest scoring allied squad?

[janneh]

USA's principle of awarding kills was totally different to luftwaffe. USA pilot could became an ace (with 5 kills) without actually shooting any nmy fighter down.
Also if fighter was 2 seated , both were awarded with kill, not sure about that, but I recall something like.And this was the case in vietnam too. Perhaps today also ?

[Sancho]

 

[GRUNHERZ]

Lol look at those 5 inch thick gear doors, if all else is blown to hell at least you know P47 wont have flat.  

[BlauK]

If I remember right, the USAAF pilots scored kills from strafed planes as well, not only from air kills.

But in any case all kill counts are always exaggerated. Far too many kills were reported by all sides, especially when kills occured over enemy territory.

[janneh]

CC that blauk. But according to Galland, this wasn't the case in luftwaffe. No eye witness -> no kill. Galland had to abandon many kill claims because of this.

[eddiek]

BlauK,

Depends on the theater of operations there.........ETO policy was hit it, kill it, destroy it, and you got credit for a kill......

In the Pacific, no credit for a kill was given if the enemy plane was not airborne......planes destroyed by strafing were not credited as kills there.

[funked]

No Santa I was not wrong.  Both you and Kirin had inaccurate knowledge of English military terminology.  I'll forgive you this time, because I'm so nice.

[Hangtime]

Yup. gotta say.. 1 fer 1, LW pilots usually had the edge in skills early on in the war. Better trained, better teamwork, better tactics, better planes, better discipline. No question about it. Their adversaries were out-numbered, out gunned, out flown.. and the russian pilots took a bloody beating for a while... the british fought damn hard and managed to make a trip to london a pricey affair, but still could not put enuff pilots into the planes they had... and hurri's and spit 5's were poor matches for the 109's in those days.

Then the tide came in... and cresting the flood were p47's p38's and p51's.. in numbers, such vast numbers... the skill of our pilots did not begin to come to parity with the LW's till late war... and then attrition worked to our advantage. Sure LW pilots were common enuff with 50+ kills... but they flew for YEARS while an allied pilots tour was significantly shorter.

Yes... the allies DID come to patrity eventually in skills and kills; but NEVER in disipline. I suspect the LW never did learn how to have fun.  

 

Hang

[funked]

Oh man I know how that commander feels sometimes!  Frikkin' voice comms smartasses!

[Hangtime]

hehhehhee.. rgr that Funked. Flyin with yer crews had me laffin.. (havin Mickey Mouse call my six was a novel experience).. but for true appreciation of voice coms mayhem I'd have to say that nothin comes close to toppin flyin with the FDB's while on voice. I've augered more than once laffin so hard that I couldn't see a damn thing.

It would seem that 'radio silence' is as much an okymoron now as it was way back when...

 

 

Hang

[funked]

That cartoon is unfair!  I never say bad words on voice comms!  

[Dune]

A couple of things

BlauK - The 8th AF was the only US unit that gave credit for ground kills, but this was only during the war.  None of the other AF's did this.  They did this to "encourage" pilots to straffe the LW on the ground (I believe Gabreski said he'd rather face a hundred 190's than straffe)  However, after the war, the USAF Claims Board went through all kills claimed by USAAF pilots and removed the ground kills claimed by 8th AF pilots.  Therefore when you see an 8th AF pilot's kill credits, for instance Col John Meyer is credited with his 24 air to air kills, you know that is how many he scored air to air.  If his ground kills were still counted, his score would be 37.

AFA the unit sizes are considered.  The normal USAAF fighter group was made up of three fighter squadrons of 12-16 planes for a total number of 38-48 aircraft.  Compare that to a jadgeschwader which could have anywhere from 90-120 planes at full strength.  Rougly 2 to 3 times the size.  So if you really wanted to compare kill totals you'd compare I/JG 54 to the 352nd FG (for instance)

For relative unit sizes; I took these numbers from Spades' excellent 12 O'Clock High website.

Formation - USAAC/F - RAF - Luftwaffe - No. a/c (US)
Administrative - Wing - Group - Geschwader = 5 groups
Operational - Group - Wing - Gruppe = 3 squadrons
Operational - Squadron - Squadron - Staffel = 16-24-36 a/c
Tactical - Section - Section - n/a = 8 a/c
Tactical - Flight - Flight - Schwarm = 4 a/c
Tactical - Element - n/a - Rotte = 2 a/c

So you can see a JG is much bigger than a FG.

Some of the USAAF's highest scoring FG's were the:

49th  - 678
31st  - 570
354th - 701 (first unit in ETO to fly P-51B's)
475th - 552

The five highest scoring 8th AF FG's were (in terms of air to air kills)

56th  - 674 (128 losses)
357th - 609 (128)
4th   - 583 (241)
352nd - 519 (118)
355th - 365 (175)

However, to get a true comparison, you'd have to compare the scores of a whole wing to those of a Jadgeschwader.  The 8th AF was made up of 3 Fighter Wings, the 65th, 66th and 67th.  The 67th Fighter Wing was made up of the 20th, 352nd, 356th, 359th, and 364th FG's.  Their combined air to air victories equal 1441 kills.  The 65th Fighter Wing (4th, 56th, 355th, 361st and 479th) scored 2003 kills while the 66th FW (55th, 78th, 339th, 353rd, 357th) scored 1832 kills.

Of course all of this must also be weighed against things like when the FG's went into service:
4th   - 10 Mar 43
20th  - 28 Dec 43
55th  - 15 Oct 43
56th  - 3 Apr 43
78th  - 12 Apr 43
339th - 30 Apr 44
352nd - 9 Spt 43
353rd - 12 Aug 43
355th - 14 Apt 43
356th - 15 Oct 43
357th - 11 Feb 44
359th - 13 Dec 43
361st - 21 Jan 44
364th - 3 Mar 44
479th - 26 May 44

So I think it'd be fair to say that the LW units got a head start  

------------------
Col Dune
C.O. 352nd Fighter Group
"The Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney"

"Credo quia absurdum est." (I believe it because it is unreasonable)
- The motto of the Republic of Baja Arizona

[This message has been edited by Dune (edited 03-29-2001).]

[llbm_MOL]

Hey Dune you have any ties to the 352nd in WB's?

LLB OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Nath-BDP]

Actually, on 19th of February Feldwebel Kittel scored the 4000th victory of JG 54, the 5000th in July and 6000th in October by Nowotny. These victories were scored at a time when the Soviet's regained air supremecy, especially in JG 54's operational areas in the Southern sectors of the Russian front.

The rest of JG 54's 5,400+ kills would be scored up until 8th of May 1945 when Oberleutnant Thyben, 4th Staffels Staffelkapitaen scored the last victory of the Geschwader during I, II Gruppen's return flight to Germany. The last victory was a Pe 2 recon aircraft.

Another notable fact is that JG 54 shot down 400 enemy aircraft from 1 January '45 to the 8th of May, which very little losses to themselves.

------------------
Nath_____
9./JG 54 "Grünherz"
 

"He just slapped me around like a yard dawg. First time Ive ever been shut out in a ladder, here or WB's. Tha Bastige!" -hblair

[This message has been edited by Nath-BDP (edited 03-29-2001).]