How do claims work?

[Materia 0]

Sorry for posting that often, but I learn as I play, and not everything is obvious. 

When should I claim, when not to, what is taken into consideration for a claim to get accepted, etc. I am using normal difficulty, but I think I will switch to easy, for more comfort, fun, and sanity.

I just got my claim rejected, when I was surrounded by members of my flight. I selected a guy 10X meters away from me as a witness, that was below/behind me. This is only just one of a couple examples, and it does frustrate me quite a lot, to have so many kills earned this way, or another, only for them to be rejected, but this example here... is literally a total BS, not to mention it happened close to my airfield, with ground units column below me, plenty of eyes to witness, but nope. I can understand me being far away, being the only one engaging, no witnesses around, I get it, but this one here is just madness. The last nail in the coffin, a feature that I was looking forwards in the game to be using, just mentally exhausting me. Kill - nope, kill - no, kill - what?

I only claim what I shoot down, when I am sure it was me, even when alone.

I thought that by selecting the nearest flight member, I have a higher chance (if not 100% chance) for the claim to be accepted, because... I though AI can see, but it seems, it does not. I'm just speechless now. 

Anyone here still dealing with normal, or is easy to go for?

[Graf11 9]

Having the same issue.  I'm starting to have more 2x claims as I do victories.  I'll have wingmen less than 500m away and the enemy hit the dirt and still get no credit.  Don't get me started on going lone wolf...very frustrating but understand.  Definitely something that might need looking at.

[Rick Rawlings 173]

I think the general consensus that we came to years ago is that it is weighted randomness. The game knows who you killed but the devs had to find a way to fudge it a bit for claims purposes. It could be cleaned up but I'm sure would entail a lot of work for two people to really dial it in. Even real pilots complained about their claims being rejected. I recommend easier over normal to avoid some of the frustration. Since I don't think the original game code tracks shared kills, having it on easier will have the game tell you how many it thinks you got. Some of these will still be rejected but it will be a more historical percentage.