Is it just me that thinks that the RAF way of awarding kills sometimes was a bit unfair?
As from Ospreys Typhoon and Tempest Aces of World War II:

Beaumont's No 2, "Lefty" Whitman, came to the end of his tour before the V-1 campaign was over, and recalls his alst sortie;
"Just as I turned over Goodwin Sands, tracers crissed-crossed the estuary, tracking the course of my target. It was about 1000 ft, just visible above the fog banks. Starting off at full throttle, I was quickly in a firing position, but not a moment too soon. There, direvtly in front, was the balloon fence. A short burst blew number 14 to smithereens; another few seconds and the Battersea power station would likely have been hit as it lay dead ahead. As I circled to report my "kill", people rushed out of the row of houses, waving, and I knew that my victory roll would help help keep the morale up."
As the above passage indicates, "Lefty" Whitman claimed 14 bombs destroyed (7 solo and 7 shared), yet "official" records indicates he was credited with "5 solo and 5 shared". Many pilots involved feel their claimes were unfairly adjusted, and "Lefty" has this to say;
"It was a combination of luck, plus some "claim jumping", that translated into high scores and high decorations for those who practised the art.
Claimes were constantly being adjusted at squadron level, and, as I was to discover later, at Command level as well.
The "Guns" were occasionally given credits for "kills" for morale boosting and, we suspected, for boosting of other sorts. It was not unusual to discover that you had been given a half credit, or one quarter, or some other fraction of a "kill" that you thought you had made alone."

Would all this hassle have made the pilots annoyed, fed up? I know that, at that point they weren't doing it for the glory and all that. It was a job that needed to be done and someone had to do it.
Was it just the RAF that had 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4 kills, beside the damaged, probable and destroyed? I know that the USAAF had kills added to those that made strafing kills since that was a dangerous business with flak, small arms fire etc...
How did the VVS, Luftwaffe, Imperial Japanese Navy and Army Air Force and Regia Aeronautica award their "kills"?
And, how about tank crews and their victories?

I know that the US Navy awarded partial credit for kills in the Pacific. But one thing has become obvious to me as I've been reading a number of books about the Coral Sea, Midway and Guadalcanal battles. The number of claims by BOTH sides was totally out of line with actual losses. Not available at the time of course, but actual records on both sides comparing the claims granted to pilots on both sides after engagements with the actual number of plane sent out and recovered by the other side shows that the claims were way out of line to actual losses, in some cases exceeding the total number of aircraft on the other side known to have been engaged.

Tom

I would say that giving partial credit is perfectly fair, but that giving somebody credit who doesn't deserve it is totally wrong. Personally I'd say that ALL scores, both the very high ones of German aces, and the very low ones of some Allied pilots, have to be taken with a grain of salt.

I don't know how the other nations worked it, but RAF pilots were not allowed to claim simply on their own evidence, there had to be confirmation from another source, whether another pilot or ground forces etc. Pilots were debriefed immediately after a sortie by the unit Intelligence Officer, & where claims for aircraft conflicted, a pilot would be awarded a share. There were three categories of victory, aircraft destroyed, aircraft probably destroyed (ie in the pilots opinion, it was unlikely the aircraft would make it back to base), & aircraft damaged (where hits were observed, but it was not clear that the damage was serious enough to prevent it returning to base). Despite these checks & balances, it was found after the Battle of Britain, that the claims were still wildly optimistic. As against that however, these claims were as nothing compared with Luftwaffe claims in the same period, which led Luftwaffe Staff to the conclusion that there were only 50 fighters left in the RAF at one period of the battle. The Luftwaffe bomber crews, with black humour referred to the attacking RAF fighters as "here come those last 50 Spitfires again!"
The Allies tended to rotate their units & pilots, so that they were not in constant service. This did not happen on the Eastern front particularly, where German units were left in the line until they were either destroyed, or so reduced that they had to be withdrawn for refit. In these circumstances, pilots & tank crews were able to run up very high scores by Western standards, if they survived, that is. One also has to factor in, especially in the early days of Barbarossa, the almost suicidal tactics employed by the Russians, & the somewhat obsolescent design of many of their aircraft.
Naturally, in the whirl of aerial combat, it was quite possible for several pilots to claim the same aircraft, & if the claim was backed up by their colleagues they could all be credited with the same aircraft.

Assuming that everyone who submitted a claim did so with the best of intentions and belief at the time, research then & now has shown them to be inflated. This was known at the time and is even more evident now. See also debate about Bishop and validity of his claims ...

Allied pilots flew for periods then rotated to other duties; German pilots flew always, a shortfall in that experience never trained newbies. Allied pilots faced experienced Germans, Germans faced widely varying quality. I don't doubt Germans could have much higher scores.

Opinion follows.
-- Scores are nice, but it isn't about the pilot, it's about the war effort.
-- Awarding kills for strafing is BS, might as well start giving kills to bombardiers ...

If you want an example of how difficult it is to pin down truth in some cases, go to Aeroscale / Campaigns / Bloody April and see my notes about who shot down Vfz Sebastian Festner -- A Strutter from 43 Sqn or Flak or BE2's from ? or did he just "crash" -- over Oppy or Gavrelle -- and his aircraft markings. Bottom line, authors are inconsistent not only within a single books, but across books ... and other books draw from there, further muddying the water ...

John

PS: I see Steve snuck in a minute before me ...

I take it that all the fighting nations Allied and Axies had gun cameras...?
So that should help things out, shouldn't it?

The confirmation and awarding of aerial victories has always been a complex and vexing issue. . .To give one example from WW 2 many
German aircraft were claimed shot down in good faith because of the clouds of black smoke which issued as they dived away, particularly at altitude. Often flames were mentioned as coming from the cowling. Few Allied pilots realised that the clouds of black smoke were endemic to German aircraft when the throttle was slammed wide open - this was because German aviation fuels were low octane ( the most usual Octane rating was 87 compared with the 100 to 150 octane fuels* available to the Allies) and full of impurities. In addition the most widely used German aero engines often burnt a lot of oil. Lots of black smoke plus a glimpse of (exhaust) flames from an aircraft diving steeply away, just after you've attacked? Few pilots could afford to dive after their quarry to witness the actual crash - many who did ended up as victims themselves.

Unlike WW1, where pilots could often fly solo missions, WW 2 air-to-air daytime combat was almost invariably a team effort - two or more pilots combining against the enemy. Few pilots could work as loners for any length of time and survive (on the Allied side, Canadian George 'Screwball' Beurling sometimes flew solo.**) When several aircraft fired at the same target and shot it down there was a need to 'divvy up' the claim.

It's true that most Allied fighters were equipped with gun cameras, but they weren't always a reliable witness because they could only see the target for as long as the trigger was pressed. Hits could be confirmed, but
unless the opponent clearly broke up, or the pilot bailed out during the burst it was still left up to other sources of information to confirm an actual kill.***

* http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/150grade/150-grade-fuel.html
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1981/jul-aug/becker.htm

** http://www.acesofww2.com/Canada/aces/beurling.htm

*** http://guncam2002.tripod.com/