Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military From: denbeste@BBN.COM (Steven Den Beste) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Battle of Britain kill ratios Message-ID: <11029@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 2 Nov 89 04:20:56 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA Lines: 25 Approved: military@att.att.com From: Steven Den Beste [mod.note: Replies via email only, please; no followups. - Bill ] An article posted here gave adjusted kill ratios for German and British fighters during the Battle of Britain, which purported to show that the Germans actually were shooting down more Brits than vice versa. The article attempted to correct for a variety of factors which slewed the numbers, but I didn't see a factor mentioned that I think is pretty important: The German fighters were concentrating solely on hitting the British fighters, whereas the British were primarily trying to knock bombers down, while engaging the German fighters only when they had to. Would this not make the kill ratios come out the way they did? The numbers would have been far more credible if the kill rate of German bombers were also given parallel. Steven C. Den Beste || denbeste@bbn.com (ARPA/CSNET) BBN Communications Corp. || {apple, usc, husc6, csd4.milw.wisc.edu, 150 Cambridge Park Dr. || gatech, oliveb, mit-eddie, Cambridge, MA 02140 || ulowell}!bbn.com!denbeste (USENET)