Why British Spitfire aces had such low record?

[Chiron]

I meant even the leading British ace James E. "Johnny" Johnson, only shot down 38 German aircrafts.

Can somebody explain

[Anonymous]

I meant even the leading British ace James E. "Johnny" Johnson, only shot down 38 German aircrafts.

Can somebody explain

How many sorties did he fly?

Compare the answer to that to how many were flown by the German aces and you will probably have your answer.

[FLYBOYJ]

I meant even the leading British ace James E. "Johnny" Johnson, only shot down 38 German aircrafts.

Can somebody explain

Compare that with sorties and missions. Robert Johnson, Gabby Gebreski, Don Gentile all had the same kill pace of the Germans, I would guess the top British aces had the same. Germans had little or no R&R - they fought till killed, wounded or captured.

An author, last name Tolliver (can't remember his first name) wrote some books in the early 60s pointing this out.

[DAVIDICUS]

The same reason they had such a low record scoring with women after the Americans came on the scene.

Under pressure, they lose their mojo.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

it had nothing to do with the skill of the pilots, it was the low number of sorties they flew.............

[Nonskimmer]

The same reason they had such a low record scoring with women after the Americans came on the scene.

Under pressure, they lose their mojo.

Hey, don't forget us now. The American-like accent, with the British uniform. What a combo.

[BombTaxi]

It is also forgotten that the leading Luftwaffe experten operated mainly on the Eastern Front - a 'target-rich' environment. There were so many Russian a/c to attack that 100+ tallies were not that hard to achieve. By contrast, British pilots operated in theatres with fewer enemy a/c committed - hence the lower kill rate

[Gemhorse]

Yeah, Bombtaxi's kinda right there, and not just the Russian Front being target-rich, but also the Europe that Hitler intially conquered...none of those countries really had anything to match the, by then, very experienced Luftwaffe....They clobbered Britain pretty hard in the run-up to Dunkirk, but some of our Hurricane pilots were blooded there, and that was the experience that was passed on to new RAF pilots in the run-up for the BoB....
I think if you subtracted all the Luftwaffe fighter pilot kills from before then, that over the period of the BoB onward, the respective kill-rates between the RAF and Luftwaffe, that were on the Continent, you'll find that they're probably similar....They were both fairly evenly matched in combat....The continental Luftwaffe pilots did get R & R, I have read of some of their off-duty exploits, plus they got time off for recovery from injury. These guys were the cream of the German Forces, and they were looked-after pretty well, at least until things started to get pretty desperate for Germany.......
In a nutshell, the Luftwaffe and the Japs enjoyed an intial period of total Air Superiority during the start of their respective Wars, and both had built up previous battle-experience before the War kicked-off proper; the Japs in China, and the Luftwaffe from the Spanish Civil War and then 'Blitzkreig Europe', before they started to tackle the Allies.......