Hi all,
Recently got myself Ospreys book about Griffon Spitfire aces, fantastic read with great colour plates. But what I found interesting is it mentions Spitfires lost on operation (20, 7 of which were accidents) and, furthermore, attributes only 3 or 4 of these to enemy aircraft. This is concordant with the information provided here http://www.airhistory.org.uk/spitfire/index.html. It also says that the XIV shot down about 150 aircraft. So the kill ratio of the XIV (against enemy aircraft) was at least 35 to 1! A lot of places give the kill ratio as 7 to 1, which takes into account the aircraft destroyed by flak, friendly fire and mechanical failure/accident.
It's possible, some of these figures are inaccurate, however, two sources (the book and spitfire.ukf) both agree on the number of Spitfires lost to enemy aircraft as being 3 or 4. And various internet sources, as well the book, cite the number of XIV air to air kills as 146-150.
Just some interesting info for any Spitfans.
Regards,
Ben.