On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:58:27 +0000, Alan Dicey
wrote:

Paul Saccani wrote:
wrote:
British aerial victory claims are vastly exagerated in the BoB.
Indeed, to say the least.

*Were* exaggerated, at the time, because of confusion (even though both
sides were quite rigorous in their verification) and to help morale.

Actually, the poms didn't exaggerate their claims to help moral. They
understated their losses instead.

Their exaggerated claims continue to be used even today. An
interesting issue is that Hurricane units exaggerated their claims
three times more than Spitfire units.

And the biggest exagerators of them all were Defiant units.

The motivations would appear to be more those of the individuals
concerned than any official attempt to exagerate.

Even today, those grotesque exagerations result in difficulties in
understanding the lessons of the battle, particularly the relatively
greater exageration by the Hurricane units versus Spitfire units, and
by "Big Wing" formations versus the smaller formations.

Even today, there are still people who think that the Balboas were a
successful tactic.

We still won.

The Germans also overclaimed - their intelligence system several times
reported that the RAF was down to its last few aircraft.

They did, but your juxtaposition of the intelligence assessment is
illogical. They thought they had dramatically curtailed production
of fighter aircraft. They were mistaken.

It's one
reason why the appearance of the formed-up Big Wing on September 15th
was such a shock.

I would've said that the biggest shock was that it that it managed to
be formed in time - that was only because of careless planning by the
Germans, who neglected to make any feints and allowed their intentions
to be clearly determined whilst they were still over France.

You know the real losses were only 56 to 27, don't you?

"Here they come again, the last 20 Spitfires..."

Cheers,

Paul Saccani,
Perth,
Western Australia