Just an obvious statement. There is no doubt that the RAF lost more fighters than the Luftwaffe, but to then extend this to say that the Luftwaffe won the fighter vs. fighter engagement on average is an unproven opinion.
The Luftwaffe fighter’s primary target were of course the RAF fighters. The RAF primary targets were the Luftwaffe Bombers who shot down a good number of the Hurricanes and Spitfires that attacked them.
What the split is I do not know and it’s probable that more RAF fighters were shot down by German fighters than vice versa but even there the tactical situation was different. It would be very misleading to look at the losses and assume that fighter/fighter combats resulted in the loss ratio shown on the charts.
Straight fighter/fighter combats where the numbers were broadly even were rare, if only because the RAF avoided such combats, as the bombers were the priority.
There was an interview shown on the TV a few months ago where an RAF BOB pilot was asked if the German bombers were defenceless. He pointed out that he had been shot down by a He111 and had to crash land after being hit by a Ju88 so he thought that they could take care of themselves. Either that or he was a poor fighter pilot but as he had survived the war, he was probably at least average.
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