I'll look into it but I suggest that each side grossly overestimated the losses of the other side.  If you were to to check the losses which each side admitted I think you would find they were about 10% of what the other side estimated.

This gives me a chance to pass on another piece of gory war trivia - on what date in history did the most American military die?  (Hint - it wasn't 6/6/44)

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Not sure what book you're reading there Scorp. I can't guarantee their accuracy but these figures seem more realistic to me.
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http://zhukov.mitsi.com/Kursk.htm

I suppose the BoB might be called a skirmish by comparison to that dreadful slaughter on the Eastern Front. These are the official figures for daylight operations on Sept 15th 1940, now regarded as the turning point of the battle. Note that pilot claims on both sides were usually much higher, often exaggerated by up to 400%.
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http://www.raf.mod.uk/bob1940/september15.html

Well, it had dawned on me that the claimes were a "bit" more exagerated than usual with 173 Soviet claims, vs. 26 actual German losses.  But nonetheless quite impressive.  For that level of claims to take place, there has to be a lot of skirmishing taking place in the sky.  Awesome, even if no one gets shot down!

Duel for the Sky deals only with air power, and my million knowledge comes from le brain, not the book.  Although I find your facts much more probable, Hagar.  Perhaps the USSR lost 1 million armour peices throughout the whole war?  I'll look into it.

My book also covers the BoB, and it states the RAF had a tendency to exxagerate claims much more than the Luftwaffe, whom had much more accurate claims.  In the RAF's defence however, 109s (and perhaps others?) did dive to escape danger, giving RAF pilots the impression they were crashing.

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Relying on one book is not the best way to get at the truth. If you want the full facts I think you need to read as much as possible on the subject. Much will depend on the information available at the time the book was written & first published. Also, not all "historians" are completely unbiased in their accounts of events. I've been interested in WWII & the BoB in particular since I was about 10 years old. 50 years later I've read everything I can find on the subject from both sides. I'm still reading & still learning.

These seem to be the generally agreed figures although by no means definite. There were no specific dates for the start or end of the BoB & opinions vary.
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This contradicts your author's statement: "the RAF had a tendency to exxagerate claims much more than the Luftwaffe, whom had much more accurate claims." If you haven't misquoted him so far this leads me to question the validity of the book as a serious historical work.

I've also read that the two sides had different methods for reporting claims. The RAF had intelligence officers attached to each squadron to debrief crews as they returned from a sortie. The rules were quite straightforward. For a kill to be accepted it had to be confirmed by another pilot or someone on the ground. If nobody had seen it, "Hard luck old boy, I'll put it down as a Possible". (I've heard more than one RAF BoB veteran say that they disliked the system of personal claims. They thought that this encouraged unnecessary competition & thoughts of personal glory when any success should have been regarded as a squadron effort.)

I believe the Luftwaffe had no such system & relied on the pilot's own account. As Felix points out they were also fighting over enemy territory & unable to confirm claims from wreckage or reports from observers on the ground. The Allied pilots had faced exactly the same situation in WWI.

Exaggerated claims are to be expected in this type of combat as the pilots were not encouraged to follow their victim down in order to see it crash. This means that it's common for several pilots to claim for destroying the same aircraft.

The RAF also released the figures to the press as soon as possible to boost public morale. This meant that they were not checked as thoroughly as they might have been. Official figures would have been trusted & possibly exaggerated further by the press although there is no evidence to support this. They would have been forgotten & consigned to history as all attention would be on the events of the moment. These were desperate times & invasion was believed imminent, even by the British government.

PS. Separating fact from propaganda or legend is difficult. Many earlier accounts of WWII events were based on what was known at the time. Much of this was pure propaganda. Some people who were there still believe what they were told & report it as fact. Much of the truth was top secret & not declassified until comparatively recently. Some WWII documentation is still classified. The Hollywood habit of rewriting history to suit its audience does not help & just goes to propagate the myth or create new ones.

PPS. This article by an official RCAF historian shows the difficulty of arriving at the truth even with unrestricted access to official documents. http://www3.sympatico.ca/jimlynch/bharis83.htm
One thing he does not mention is that many "Canadians" fighting in the British services at that time were in fact US citizens. This was long before the US entered the conflict.

You don't need to rely on books. There are many articles on the WWW you can find with a quick search on Google. I use the RAF official BoB site to verify my own information. http://www.raf.mod.uk/bob1940/bobhome.html
Remember that the daily reports are the official records of the time, not the revised figures. There are also excellent documentaries shown on TV but these are not always historically correct. I can't recommend a definitive history as many of them contain inaccuracies. Len Deighton's "Fighter" is one of the better ones but even this has been criticised in some quarters.

In the end you have to read as much as you can on the subject & draw your own conclusions.

PS. I read several reviews on Duel for the Sky. One complaint was that "lack of space prevented the inclusion of a bibliography, which is too bad given that he appears to have done a great deal of research." Not knowing his sources makes the "facts" he based it on dubious to say the least. IMHO

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I was thinking Manassas or something like that, but the Gettysburg battle was worse:

"Gettysburg    
Other Names: None

Location: Adams County

Campaign: Gettysburg Campaign (June-August 1863)

Date(s): July 1-3, 1863

Principal Commanders: Maj. Gen. George G. Meade [US]; Gen. Robert E. Lee [CS]

Forces Engaged: 158,300 total (US 83,289; CS 75,054)

Estimated Casualties: 51,000 total (US 23,000; CS 28,000) "


Note that "casualties" would include wounded, but still...