Aerial victory standards of World War I

During World War I, the national air services involved developed their own methods of assessing and assigning credit for aerial victories.

[3] Ralph argued that 'books about aces create mythologies of good, better and best, portraying air-to-air combat as a kind of international sporting event where bronze, silver and gold medals are awarded based on scores.

'[1] World War I began the historical experience that has shown that approximately five percent of combat pilots account for the majority of air-to-air victories in warfare, thus showing the importance of flying aces.

In some cases, a single destroyed German or Austro-Hungarian aircraft could add to the scores of half a dozen or more French fliers.

Their count system was skewed toward recognizing the moral victory of thwarting enemy offensive actions as well as the physical one of destroying his aircraft.

[citation needed] Every aircrew member significantly contributing to the defeat of an enemy aircraft was credited with a full victory.

[20] At the start of the era of the Fokker Scourge in July 1915, no dedicated "fighter" aviation units existed within what was then called the Fliegertruppe serving the German Army — the pioneering Fokker Eindecker fighters were distributed singly or in pairs, to protect the six two-seat aircraft that each Feldflieger Abteilung Army aerial observation unit used for front-line reconnaissance.

When future "ace" pilots like Leutnant Kurt Wintgens and Leutnant Otto Parschau began accumulating victories over Allied aircraft from their early Eindecker fighters, the downed Allied aircraft had to fall on the German side of the front lines to be counted as a "confirmed" aerial victory, or be seen to fall from the sky by either fellow Fliegertruppe aviators aloft with the fighter pilots, or fellow army ground observers.

[citation needed] The two most famous 1915–16 era aces of the German Empire's Fliegertruppe, Oswald Boelcke and Max Immelmann would achieve a six-victory total each to earn the House Order of Hohenzollern by early November 1915 for those confirmed victories, and when each of their totals reached eight, the much-coveted Pour le Mérite was awarded to each ace on the same day, 12 January 1916.

[22] The Germans did not use the term 'ace' but referred to German pilots who had achieved 10 kills as Kanone ("big gun")[citation needed] and publicized their names and scores, for the benefit of civilian morale – this term is not known to have come into use before May 1916, however, as when a pilot before that time achieved a total of four confirmed victories, they were most likely to start being cited in official Army communiqués.

[citation needed] By 1916, as the dedicated Jasta fighter squadrons were forming within the newly named Luftstreitkräfte in October 1916, every victory had to be claimed in a combat report to his commanding officer.