In aerial warfare, the term overclaiming describes a combatant (or group) that claims the destruction of more enemy aircraft than actually achieved. The net effect is that the actual losses and claimed victories are unequal.
Overclaiming by individuals can occur when more than one person attacks the same target and each claims its destruction, when an aircraft appears to be no longer in a flying condition but manages to land safely, or when an individual simply wishes to claim unjustified credit for downing an opponent. In some instances of combat over friendly territory a damaged aircraft may have been claimed as an aerial victory by its opponent while the aircraft was later salvaged and restored to an operational status. In this situation the loss may not appear in the records while the claim remains confirmed.
Overclaiming can also occur for political or propaganda reasons. It was common for both sides to inflate figures for "kills" or deflate figures for losses in broadcasts and news reports. Most of the examples listed below are overclaiming during World War II has been the centre of much scrutiny, partly because of the significant amount of air combat relative to other conflicts.
German methodology for confirming aerial victories
The Luftwaffe's aerial victory confirmation procedure was based on directive 55270/41 named "Confirmation of aerial victories, destructions and sinking of ships" (German: Anerkennung von Abschüssen, Zerstörungen und Schiffsvernichtung) and was issued by the Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe. This directive was first issued in 1939 and was updated several times during World War II. In theory, this approval process for the confirmation of aerial victories was very stringent and required a witness. The final destruction or explosion of an enemy aircraft in the air, or bail-out of the pilot, had to be observed either on gun-camera film or by at least one other human witness. The witness could be the German pilot's wingman, another in the squadron, or an observer on the ground.
In the 1990s, the German archives made available microfilm rolls of wartime records, not seen since January 1945, available to the public. These showed that while in theory the Luftwaffe did not accept a kill without a witness, which was considered only a probable, in practice some units habitually submitted unwitnessed claims and these sometimes made it through the verification process, particularly if they were made by pilots with already established records. In theory the Luftwaffe did not accept shared claims, but it happened. In theory each separate claim should have referred to a particular aircraft, but in practice some victories were awarded to other pilots who had claimed the destruction of the same aircraft. In 1943 the daily OKW communiques of this period habitually overstated American bomber losses by a factor up to two. Defenders of German fighter pilots have always maintained that these were reduced during the confirmation process. But the microfilms prove this not to be the case. 80 to 90 percent of the claims submitted were confirmed or found to be "in order" for confirmation up to the time the system broke down altogether in 1945.