Allied bomber kills underachiving?

[CarnageINC]

I've noticed that allied bombers are not getting many kills, I always thought and have heard that they were great fighter killers, the number 30,000 fighter kills comes to mind but don't keep me to that number. Any thoughts on this? Do bomber boxes become more effective as the war goes on?

[Erkki]

I've heard they overclaimed something like 20:1. 30,000 in just Europe? There were 35,000 Bf 109s and 21,000 Fw 190s built, most of them lost in the East front.

[ool]

Myth. Mostly due to the fact that one plane actually shot down would be claimed by several bomber gunners within the formation. As a result totally ludicrous numbers of LW fighters were announced shot down to support the US contention that their bombers could bomb Germany in daylight.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: CarnageINC

I've noticed that allied bombers are not getting many kills, I always thought and have heard that they were great fighter killers, the number 30,000 fighter kills comes to mind but don't keep me to that number. Any thoughts on this? Do bomber boxes become more effective as the war goes on?

They were great overclaimers. [:D]

[Klahn]

I have no idea what total numbers were, but in the case of unescorted B17s they typically killed German fighters to losing bombers at a 1:1 ratio. Escorted raids are much harder to determine because looking at total German reported losses doesn't help with figuring out how many of the Luftwaffe fighters were killed by the escorts as opposed to the bombers. As mentioned above, bomber crew claims were vastly overscored. (As were fighter pilot claims for that matter, but to a lesser extent.)