Doing a bit of snooping for an Arado Ar-196 kit I’m working on and stumbled across this info that Seeaufklärungsgruppe 126 claimed 13 Beaufighter kills. HOW THE HELL did they pull that off??? I could see, MAYBE, 1… IF the Commonwealth pilot drop kicked a black cat through a mirror while walking under a ladder! Or the Beau was damaged or lost an engine. But 13?? True, the Arado had a bite, with 2X20mm cannon and 2-3x 7.92mm mgs. Could be deadly to a PBY or Walrus, but a Beau? It had a 114 mph / 183kmh (320mph/510 kmh vs 206mph/332kmh) speed advantage. How did an Arado catch one? Head on attack would face a wall of 20mm and .303 and not end well.
6 on the same day. Bombing or straffing?
Some are same date/time/altitude (which rules out ground attack.)/location. I think duplicates. Still….how does a Spad shoot down an F-16? Also, Ar-196s were recon/scout/patrol. Not likely to be tasked with airfield attack.
It’s very simple as to how could a Spad could shoot down an F16, the same way a Spad shot down two Mig 17’s in Veitnam, it’s a F%$## Spad and Spads were badass!!! 
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P.s I would love to hear the Spad v F16 story, as it’s new and news to me.
Cheers
Mike
That data looks a bit off.
- altitude and time are reversed.
- The first 2 entries show “Hahlbohm” downing two aircraft at the same time at two altitudes that differ by 2750m supposedly flying an aircraft with a climb rate of 6m/s. If reversed, it’s a max speed dive, acquisition and destruction of a very superior aircraft by a recce bird famous for it’s stable handling in the air and even better handling in the water.
- “Haessler” pulls the same trick (more dramatically) as entries 5 and 7, moving from 5400m to 100m altitude (318km/h).
More telling than anything else is Beaufighter losses for June 1, ‘44. 1 SAAF Beaufighter (NE641, 16 Sqn) caught fire while enroute to Crete (don’t know the cause) and the crew successfully crash landed with no loss of life.
Out of curiosity, where did you come across the “data base”?
Cheers,
Colin
https://asisbiz.com/Luftwaffe/sagr126.html
Related thread : http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=28045
Looks like the SAAF Beaus were shot down by naval AA guns…
H.P.
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Aircraft victories were wild exaggerations by both sides. Tank units were no better, if the Germans destroyed as many Allied tanks as they claimed in the Normandy battles, there would have been none left.
Interesting reading…
Excerpt :
In addition to the loss of a 454 Squadron RAAF Baltimore during the shadowing phase of the operation, 16 Squadron SAAF and 227, 252, 603 Squadrons RAF each lost a Beaufighter, with most crews assumed to have survived and taken prisoner. The German records hold that 4./SAGr. Arado 196 pilot Ofw Günther-Werner Kurth (with Ofw Kurt Chalupka navigator/rear gunner) shot down one of those Beaufighters (documented on June 1st, 1944 at 18.10 hrs). Moreover, an article in the German military newspaper published on Crete, ‘Festung Kreta’ states that in addition to Ofw Kurth’s success, three other Arados 196s shot down a Beaufighter each. While it is entirely possible that one of the four Beaufighters was actually shot down by an Arado 196 rather than less discriminate flak, this second claim is generally considered unfounded propaganda.
H.P.
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