# LUFTWAFFE EXPERTEN Claims vs. Kills



## Anonymous (Apr 23, 2005)

> LUFTWAFFE EXPERTEN, Fact or Fiction?
> 
> By Jeff Kenneday
> 
> ...



Very interesting ain't it?

=S=

Lunatic


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## delcyros (Apr 24, 2005)

Luftwaffe kills overrated? Yes, they are. As in other countries (Britain at BoB for example) or in other services. Kind of propaganda if you ask me (worst have been for tank vs tank and bomber vs. fighter kills as I know). But still one point has to be added:
Define "losses". 
Losses are defined not commonly but for each country in an own way. For BoB for example a downed spitfire doesn´t mean necessarly a loss as long as some parts of the plane can be recovered. This is even more important for Africa.
Some US bombers, which have been forced to make emergancy landings behind russian lines in late 1944/1945 are missing in the losses, too.
I do agree in this, claims doesn´t reflect real losses 1:1. From the soviet side I have a number of Luftwaffe losses, also: 101.283 planes (!)
After a little digging, I found out that these numbers include all planes lost by enemy fire, accidents, bombings, trainings, testings and industrial misproductions. Plus it also includes damaged planes from 100% to 10 % and all planes beeing outdated and therefore scrapped or self destroyed. I expect that almost 95% of all Luftwaffe planes suffered minor damage at any time because of any reason during ww2. So, it should be worthy to find out what a "loss" specificly mean.


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## Soren (Apr 24, 2005)

RG just as far out claims were made by the allies ! Actually the U.S. were some of the worst at making such claims !


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## delcyros (Apr 24, 2005)

I disagree. In general spoken, the US claims show differences, but if you compare fighter claims you will find it hard to generally note overrated numbers. Most overrated numbers come from the bomber crews, which is a very general statistic appearence (for the RAF and Luftwaffe also, just compare at BoB how much Spits and Hurricanes lost by Heinkel, Junkers and Dornier fire...). Overratings did happen to the US also, sure, but most of it belongs to the bomber crews, which isn´t very surprising.
The claims for their fighters on the other hand are not as much overrated as you may think...


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## Soren (Apr 24, 2005)

The system of confirming kills was actually more strict with the Germans ! Although the W-Allies had comparable confirming methods.

Just take a look at the U.S. kill claims during the early years against Japan ! They are absurd !


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## trackend (Apr 24, 2005)

There really is only one claim that is irrefutable as nearly all others have been denied, dismissed or re-assesed at some time or another (including shipping,aircraft and human losses) by all sides. That is the final victors of the war having said that in the long term some people claim that the Axis country's came of better.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 24, 2005)

The system for confirming kills by the Luftwaffe was more strict then most but ofcourse they were overinflated just like everyone else. The RAF, USAAF, and the Soviets did it also. All in all I would say the allies lied more about what they lost then what they shot down. It was a moral issue plus they could not admit it to it, just like the Hitler could not admit defeat even until the very end.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Apr 24, 2005)

but some were genuine mistakes for example 5 men might take a shot at a plane that's going down an they may all claim it as their won kill, so between them they think they've downed 5 planes when they've downed one.............


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## Anonymous (Apr 24, 2005)

Soren said:


> The system of confirming kills was actually more strict with the Germans ! Although the W-Allies had comparable confirming methods.
> 
> Just take a look at the U.S. kill claims during the early years against Japan ! They are absurd !



Look at US fighter kills credited, it's far more accurate than Luftwaffe' figures. To get credit you needed to:

1) have guncam footage clearly showing a kill. Often this meant turning on the guncam and filming the wreckage on the ground.

2) have the plane hitting the ground, exploding, engulfed in flames, or the pilot bailing out witnessed by TWO witnesses (on some occassions one witness was deemed sufficient).

3) locate the wreckage.

Lots of "claims" were made, but that is not the same thing as what was finally credited. Many "kills" were revoked after the war was over.

The document above shows that the Luftwaffe' fully endorsed false claims as kills, and of course having lost the war they never had the chance to go back and rectify this. Had they not lost the war, who can say if they would or would not have?

=S=

Lunatic


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## Anonymous (Apr 24, 2005)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> The system for confirming kills by the Luftwaffe was more strict then most but ofcourse they were overinflated just like everyone else. The RAF, USAAF, and the Soviets did it also. All in all I would say the allies lied more about what they lost then what they shot down. It was a moral issue plus they could not admit it to it, just like the Hitler could not admit defeat even until the very end.



Adler, USAAF (and USN) post-war reports accurately record all losses. What was reported to the public during the war is kinda irrelevant.

=S=

Lunatic


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## Anonymous (Apr 24, 2005)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> but some were genuine mistakes for example 5 men might take a shot at a plane that's going down an they may all claim it as their won kill, so between them they think they've downed 5 planes when they've downed one.............



Hmm... if in order to record the kill you must either see it burst into flames, expload, crash into the ground, or the pilot bail out, how could this happen? Clearly the group would know that only one plane had gone in.

This might account for an occassional false kill claim - it does not account for 2-3:1 overclaiming.

=S=

Lunatic


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## Soren (Apr 24, 2005)

RG_Lunatic said:


> Soren said:
> 
> 
> > The system of confirming kills was actually more strict with the Germans ! Although the W-Allies had comparable confirming methods.
> ...



Point number 1) and 3) are false, and I know this ! Gun-camera footage wasnt at all needed to confirm a kill, but if it was available it would offcourse be used, the same goes for the Germans who also would use gun-camera footage as proof IF POSSIBLE.

One could easely locate wild U.S. claims aswell RG, and the guy who wrote your presented document is obviously very biased towards the Allies, and forgets varius key facts. 

Btw RG if you don't want people to start thinking that your very biased towards the U.S., then you should stop making such posts like this one ! Your trying with all your might to make the Germans look like dishonest bastards who highly exagerate their scores, when infact their confirming methods were even more strict tha our own system of confirming kills at that time.

_In the light of post-war investigation, it is now conceded that overclaiming occurred in every airforce. Mostly this was attributable in the heat and confusion of battle. Sometimes it was a case of genuine error - the retail of smoke emitted by a Bf-109 diving away at full throttle fooled many an Allied fighter pilot or air gunner into believing that his oppponent was mortally hit. Only in very rare instances was it a matter of deliberate deceit. And any pilot suspected of falsifying his victory claims was given very short shrift by his peers. 
Each of the combatant airforces tried to regulate claims by a strict set of conditions. None more so than the Luftwaffe, wich required written confirmation of the kill by one or more arieal witnesses to the action, plus - if possible - back-up confirmation, also in writing from an observer on the ground. Given the amount of paperwork this engendered back at OKL in Berlin, it is little wonder that it could sometimes take a year or more for a pilot's claim to recieve official confirmation. _

Source: John Weal who has written alot on the subject.


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## Anonymous (Apr 24, 2005)

Soren said:


> RG_Lunatic said:
> 
> 
> > Soren said:
> ...



Soren - I did not mean to say that all 3 conditions need to be met, rather that any one of them had to be met.

As for the contention that Luftwaffe' kills were more accurate, it just does not hold water given the overclaiming that occured where the downed planes would be locatable on German soil.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 25, 2005)

RG_Lunatic said:


> DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
> 
> 
> > The system for confirming kills by the Luftwaffe was more strict then most but ofcourse they were overinflated just like everyone else. The RAF, USAAF, and the Soviets did it also. All in all I would say the allies lied more about what they lost then what they shot down. It was a moral issue plus they could not admit it to it, just like the Hitler could not admit defeat even until the very end.
> ...



And why is that? Its still not the truth and having won the war whos to say they never rectified it, which I am sure they did not. Polotics comes into play everywhere not just in the Nazi regime. Sorry RG it goes both ways. 

The Luftwaffe system was very accurate up until late 1944. I am sure there are many discrepencies in the Luftwaffe claims but it goes both ways.


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## Anonymous (Apr 25, 2005)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> RG_Lunatic said:
> 
> 
> > DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
> ...



Kill were overclaimed by all sides. Losses however, were accurately recorded but often inaccurately reported during the war. Post-war inaccuracies in the loss data from the USAAF/USN and RAF were rectified because the data existed. For the Luftwaffe', much of such information was destroyed in the late part of the war.

Politics clearly played a huge role in Luftwaffe' kill credits too. Experten claims were "rushed through" where other pilots had to wait up to a year to recieve official credit. Marseille is a case in point, and it is clear from the document above that he was overclaiming by at least 2:1.

I agree all sides overclaimed, the point is that the contention that the Luftwaffe' overclaimed less than other air forces appears false - it appears they overclaimed at least as much. And no other air force motivated their pilots to overclaim as much as the Luftwaffe'.

=S=

Lunatic


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## Soren (Apr 25, 2005)

RG_Lunatic said:


> Politics clearly played a huge role in Luftwaffe' kill credits too. Experten claims were "rushed through" where other pilots had to wait up to a year to recieve official credit. Marseille is a case in point, and it is clear from the document above that he was overclaiming by at least 2:1.



Oh please !


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## kiwimac (Apr 26, 2005)

Fact of the matter is that to trust that a fighter pilot in the middle of a dogfight with adrenaline rushing about his system and in mortal fear of being killed will accurately assess their kill rate is extremely foolish.

Kiwimac


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 26, 2005)

RG_Lunatic said:


> Politics clearly played a huge role in Luftwaffe' kill credits too. Experten claims were "rushed through" where other pilots had to wait up to a year to recieve official credit. Marseille is a case in point, and it is clear from the document above that he was overclaiming by at least 2:1.



I just dont believe that Marseille overclaimed that much. Overclaimed some just like every pilot yes, but not that much. Sounds to me that htis document is just BS and trying to put down some of the greatest fighter pilots of all times because they did so well against the victor. Pure Politics to me! Overclaiming happened yes. Some more then others deffinatly, some way more then others but that is like saying that Erich Hartmann did not even get half of his kills that he claimed. Sorry but I can not believe it to that extent. POLITICS


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## Erich (Apr 26, 2005)

soley depends on whether or not the Luftwaffe pilots was active in the party. Other than that he had an even chance as any other pilot exclusion of rank. Ture some performers who had the "knack" of air combat were given other pilots victories later in the war. We have proof of Kurt /Welter and his night jet claims.....that is in our book.

Marseille was hot pure and simple, he could feel his way through an air battle where few could even dare to dread.

Anton Hackl was another as well as Heinz Bär. although Hartmann, Barkhorn and Rall had extreme scores none of these contended with western forces like the others I mentioned. Rall even had his thumb shot off while in II./JG 11 though his air battle he was not one ven scale with the Jugs chasing his butt. When Rall served as CO of JG 300 in 1945 he did absolutely nothing as to flying as an active member of the Reich defence unit which indeed pisses off many JG 300 veteran today.

E ~ overclaiming was done by both sides an evident fact to boost home moral. All sides; fighter groups, etc. needed heroes............

To claim that the Luftwaffe was worse than Western Allies/{kills} is plain bogus, I've been studying these from both sides, angles, call it what you wish since the early 1960's.....

♪


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## Udet (Apr 26, 2005)

Erich:

Still Rall sent 2 Jugs down to bite the ground -on real quick succession-.


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## wmaxt (Apr 26, 2005)

I think the point that is being made is that it occured everywhere. It has been stated in this forum that the German credits are Much Closer to the Truth has been made several times and as RG has shown this is probably not true. 

The worst overclaiming was US bomber crews where 50 gunners got a shot in. They were counted because if the truth were known nobody would get back in the planes the next day! Thats an exageration they were exceptionaly brave men! But I'm sure you get the point.


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## Soren (Apr 26, 2005)

wmaxt said:


> I think the point that is being made is that it occured everywhere. It has been stated in this forum that the German credits are Much Closer to the Truth has been made several times and as RG has shown this is probably not true.
> 
> The worst overclaiming was US bomber crews where 50 gunners got a shot in. They were counted because if the truth were known nobody would get back in the planes the next day! Thats an exageration they were exceptionaly brave men! But I'm sure you get the point.



German claims aint MUCH closer to the truth, only a very tiny bit, *if at all*.

I generally considder U.S., British and German claims equally reliable, eventhough some did overclaim more than others, but it wasnt in any substantial way.


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## Erich (Apr 26, 2005)

guess my point is big deal !

Udet, Rall scored 1 Jug as his 275th kill on 12 May 44. 1 P-51 and 1 Jug were scored by his II./JG 11 for a loss of 2 killed, 5 wounded and 11 Bf 109G-6's lost...........

Germans lost 79 a/c with 28 killed and 24 wounded in the days action


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## Anonymous (Apr 26, 2005)

Erich said:


> To claim that the Luftwaffe was worse than Western Allies/{kills} is plain bogus, I've been studying these from both sides, angles, call it what you wish since the early 1960's.....♪



Erich, I'm not claiming that the Luftwaffe' was "worse" than the W. Allies about overclaiming, only that they were not better about it. And also and that their claims were never adjusted post war as many allied claims were.

And that evidently politics had more to do with it because of the nature of the German system of medals and honors based upon scoring of kills - no other nation had such a formalized system of rewards. Such as system clearly encourages "cheating", especially for those working on a rack.

=S=

Lunatic


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## Anonymous (Apr 26, 2005)

wmaxt said:


> I think the point that is being made is that it occured everywhere. It has been stated in this forum that the German credits are Much Closer to the Truth has been made several times and as RG has shown this is probably not true.
> 
> The worst overclaiming was US bomber crews where 50 gunners got a shot in. They were counted because if the truth were known nobody would get back in the planes the next day! Thats an exageration they were exceptionaly brave men! But I'm sure you get the point.



Exactly!

And I agree, bomber gunner kills were way over-claimed. But we really don't care so much about that do we?

=S=

Lunatic


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## Erich (Apr 26, 2005)

Ich verstehen RG.

Soviets were the worst of supplanting their "Aviation heroes". heck all you had to do was survive a day of battle and you were awarded something. Funny elite air units. compared to what ?

the Luftwaffe system was painstaking according to surviving vets whether fighter, bomber, ground attack, recon, etc. As we have chatted about confirmation of claims during the fall of 44 to wars end watered done to nothing we will ever fully know what was confirmed or not so we cannot even compare ideas of whom did what on an equal basis. this was so markedly evident on the Ost front during 1945. There are listings of pilots just given kill credits by stating single engine a/c on certain dates.


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## delcyros (Apr 26, 2005)

I am convinced that we don´t have that distant positions here. Just remember, the Luftwaffe had a system of official confirmation. However, it could take years for some individuals and days for others, indicating that a few have been handled in a suspect way. Further we have the position that most late war claims haven´t been confirmed either. There is just a kind of official registration with the general insurance that concrete invetisgations will be done after wars end. The verification of these claims is task of historicans, or isn´t it?
By the way, Hartmann was officially accused by the Soviets in 1948 for the destruction of 345 of the peoples fighters...


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## Anonymous (Apr 26, 2005)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> I just dont believe that Marseille overclaimed that much. Overclaimed some just like every pilot yes, but not that much. Sounds to me that htis document is just BS and trying to put down some of the greatest fighter pilots of all times because they did so well against the victor. Pure Politics to me! Overclaiming happened yes. Some more then others deffinatly, some way more then others but that is like saying that Erich Hartmann did not even get half of his kills that he claimed. Sorry but I can not believe it to that extent. POLITICS



Well, lets look at the info presented:



> Marseille, The Star of Africa, was awarded his first kill on 8 September for a Spitfire, on the same day 4 other Spitfires were claimed though the RAF only lost 1, was Marseille mistaken and he destroyed a Hurricane, OKL awarded 8 Hurricane kills but Frank's details only 4 as being shot down!! Marseille went on to claim 6 other victories over the Channel, none of which are detailed in any official records but go to make up his tally of 158 "kills".



Okay, so lets assume that Marseille scored either the 1 Spitfire or one of the 4 Hurc's lost that day. But that still leaves the 6 false claims over the channel.



> 12 Oct 1941
> Allied losses, 2 P-40's were shot down, 1 crashed on landing, 1 crashed inside Allied lines.
> 4 kills were awarded, 2 to Marseille, 1 to Sinner Franzikest



Well, it's getting a little sketchy but lets assume both claims were legit (meaning Sinner Franzikest's kills were not).



> 3 September 1942
> 2 P-40's shot down, 1 crash landed at base.
> 6 kills awarded, 3 to Marseille 3 to Stahlschmidt (including a Spitfire, not present)



Well, here Marseille's could only have a maximum of 2 legitimate "confirmed" victories, and we have to assume then that all 3 of Stahlshmidt's claims were false.



> 5 September 1942
> 2 Spitfires shot down, 1 P-40 shot down and 1 damaged
> 9 Kills awarded, 4 (All P-40) to Marseille, 2 to Stahlschmidt and 3 to Rodel



This time, a maximum of 3 legit kills were possible, assuming that all 5 other claims were false and Marseille mis identified Spitfires as P-40's.



> 15 September 1942
> 5 P-40 shot down and 1 shot down by own LAA
> 7 kills for Marseille, 4 to Krainek, 3 to Schroer (incl Spitfire)2 for von Lieres and singles to Homuth, Bornger, Grube Stuckler.



A maximum of 5 legit kills assuming all 13 other kills were false.

So in the best case, of 23 awarded kills Marseilles could have had at most 13 kills, an overclaiming rate of 77%! And that assumes most of the claims by other Luftwaffe' pilots were false.

The sources for this data are available if you want to argue it is inaccurate. The only way the OKL data can be correct is if British loss records were very very wrong - and that is unlikely given the nature of such internal wartime reports.

=S=

Lunatic


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## Anonymous (Apr 26, 2005)

Erich said:


> Ich verstehen RG.
> 
> Soviets were the worst of supplanting their "Aviation heroes". heck all you had to do was survive a day of battle and you were awarded something. Funny elite air units. compared to what ?
> 
> the Luftwaffe system was painstaking according to surviving vets whether fighter, bomber, ground attack, recon, etc. As we have chatted about confirmation of claims during the fall of 44 to wars end watered done to nothing we will ever fully know what was confirmed or not so we cannot even compare ideas of whom did what on an equal basis. this was so markedly evident on the Ost front during 1945. There are listings of pilots just given kill credits by stating single engine a/c on certain dates.



Well, it serves them to have had the confirmation system be as legitimized as possible. This does not make it so.

My point is just that the Luftwaffe' claim system was no more accurate than the British claim system, and probably less accurate than the US claim system which generally required definative guncam proof of a kill, but "probables" were awarded pretty causually. Even kills "withnessed" by a wingman were often credited. If you didn't get it on film and the flight leader didn't see it, you usually didn't get credit unless the wreck was located and there were no other claims in that area at that time. Some kills that were awarded during the war under less than stringent proof were revoked after the war.

=S=

Lunatic


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## Soren (Apr 26, 2005)

RG_Lunatic said:


> My point is just that the Luftwaffe' claim system was no more accurate than the British claim system, and probably less accurate than the US claim system which generally required definative guncam proof of a kill,



RG Gun-camera footage wasnt at all needed to confirm a kill, and was only used IF POSSIBLE ! (The exact same goes for the Germans)


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## delcyros (Apr 26, 2005)

Since the claims of Marsaille are that important for the chain of clues I will check it´s sources. I read a few years ago this particular article and some contrary articles about it. I am sure, these loss rates have been highly misinterpreted by the authors, who didn´t take losses by auxilary forces (South African, Australian) into account. However I cannot proof in the moment but I check it in within a week. Anyway, I believe that there have been overclaiming in the Luftwaffe fighter force, sure.


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## Erich (Apr 27, 2005)

Dr. Jochen Priens volume on I./JG 27 should give you plenty of information from the German archiv's and the JG 27 Gemeinschaft.

♪♪


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 27, 2005)

Soren said:


> wmaxt said:
> 
> 
> > I think the point that is being made is that it occured everywhere. It has been stated in this forum that the German credits are Much Closer to the Truth has been made several times and as RG has shown this is probably not true.
> ...



This I completey agree with and is what I have been trying to say the whole time.



RG_Lunatic said:


> So in the best case, of 23 awarded kills Marseilles could have had at most 13 kills, an overclaiming rate of 77%! And that assumes most of the claims by other Luftwaffe' pilots were false.
> 
> The sources for this data are available if you want to argue it is inaccurate. The only way the OKL data can be correct is if British loss records were very very wrong - and that is unlikely given the nature of such internal wartime reports.



I am sorry but I simply just can not belive this. Maybe because it is written by the side that was getting shot down by him, but I have just read to many other accounts that state his kills. I am sure he overclaimed some however I doubt by 77 percent. 



RG_Lunatic said:


> My point is just that the Luftwaffe' claim system was no more accurate than the British claim system



The problem here is no one here is disputing what you are saying here. Just that it was done just as much as others. Polotics my friend, polotics again. For someone who seems to know so much about polotics running the military you dont seem to understand this. The allies poloticians and higher ups ran the propoganda just as much as the Nazi's did.


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## Anonymous (Apr 27, 2005)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> RG_Lunatic said:
> 
> 
> > So in the best case, of 23 awarded kills Marseilles could have had at most 13 kills, an overclaiming rate of 77%! And that assumes most of the claims by other Luftwaffe' pilots were false.
> ...



Addler, to make that 77% over-kill number look at the number of other Luftwaffe' pilots who had to be totally making false claims. That figure is based upon Marseilles having gotten all the kills possible. The number is very conservative - it was in fact probably much higher.

The problem I see with relying on those accounts is they all had a vested interest in supporting his claims, and once they'd done so a vested interest in not changing their stories. 



DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> RG_Lunatic said:
> 
> 
> > My point is just that the Luftwaffe' claim system was no more accurate than the British claim system
> ...



The Nazi's were huge on propoganda - in Spring 1944 most of the German army believed that NYC was being bombed by the Luftwaffe' on a regular basis, and the German army in Italy was being told that the German army on the E. front was winning against the Russians. While it is true the US and Britain ran their own propoganda campaigns, they were no where near as outragous as the German's.

=S=

Lunatic


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 27, 2005)

RG_Lunatic said:


> DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
> 
> 
> > RG_Lunatic said:
> ...



So you are saying that Marsailles overclaiming was more than 77% and so lets say he probably actually shot down less then 20 out of 100 of his claims? If that is what you are implying then I am implying that you are full of #$%@. I hope that I do not have to imply this, and that I am mearly just misunderstanding you. 



DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> RG_Lunatic said:
> 
> 
> > My point is just that the Luftwaffe' claim system was no more accurate than the British claim system
> ...



I am not implying that the Nazi propoganda was not crazy. It most certainly was and easily a second to the communist Soviet propoganda but the US and British propoganda altered the truth probably more then you want to admit to support there stories and claims. Allies pilots today still over exagerate there stories just to make them sound and look much better then they truely were and to downplay the Luftwaffe's ability.


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## Erich (Apr 27, 2005)

RG really do not think your statement about NYC as being valid. Even in the spring of 44 German Heer, Luftwaffe, W-SS truppen were fighting for their lives and they knew they were not on the winning end, but they did their duty as best they could

getting back to the star of Afrika:

http://www.jg27.de

another site to check out for other German viewpoint. Marseille was a crowd pleaser and was used as a major propaganda tool all over Europe. could be quite true that some of kills were from other I./JG 27 pilots and the points and zum Wohl toasts were to his favour.

Preddy of course was used as an instrumental propaganda tool while with the US 352nd fg 'Blue Nosers" as the top Mustang pilot to beat in the ETO, and many fighter groups tried in their best way to meet his able score.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 27, 2005)

I will not discount that some of his kills were overclaimed or propaganda. I have stated taht before however I dont think it was as high as 77 percent as RG believes as his bible.


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## Erich (Apr 27, 2005)

I do not think that any of I./JG 27's kills in Afrika are pure propaganda myth. JG 27 besides JG 77 were the only Luftw wings able to counter Allied US and RAF-Aussie threats.

Marseille was brilliant as a pilot but there is some serious debate even from German hoistorians as whether or not some of his kills, and it is known how many, but that some may have been scored by wingmen and others of his staffel-gruppe. On the other big hand maybe we have some pure Allied B.S. to cover some victorious ass as Afrika was lost by German forces. We cannot discount this no matter what has been claimed as pure fact written into Allied documentive texts. I have seen many and it is not add up.

Ground line is that we may not get anywhere trying to compare notes if available of whom shot down who and the final outcome when the indivdual air battles are conceaded.

♪


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## Anonymous (Apr 27, 2005)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> So you are saying that Marsailles overclaiming was more than 77% and so lets say he probably actually shot down less then 20 out of 100 of his claims? If that is what you are implying then I am implying that you are full of #$%@. I hope that I do not have to imply this, and that I am mearly just misunderstanding you.



20 - No, but perhaps as few as 80 of his 158 claims? Quite possible.



DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> I am not implying that the Nazi propoganda was not crazy. It most certainly was and easily a second to the communist Soviet propoganda but the US and British propoganda altered the truth probably more then you want to admit to support there stories and claims. Allies pilots today still over exagerate there stories just to make them sound and look much better then they truely were and to downplay the Luftwaffe's ability.



Allied pilots definitely - wartime propoganda yes - but the statistics and raw data of the post-war military studies - I think not. If you look at them, they are very generous of German capability. It was important to be as accurate as possible to assess the situtation w.r.t. the Russians.

And as far as "making themselves sound and look much better...", what makes you sound better - that you defeated a weak foe or that you defeated a strong one?

=S=

Lunatic


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## Erich (Apr 27, 2005)

RG I think you will find that by sitting down with many US fighter pilots and talk with them about late 44 till wars end you can safely say the vets think the Luftwaffe pilots were all crap. Ego ? maybe, maybe not.

As for the star of Afrika it appears that maybe 25-30 kills can be attributed to other German pilots but ya know none of us were there so that pretty much squelchs it. As for the Allied histories well at least for RAF there are practically none. It has been only the last 5 years after serious digging that RAF night heavy groups/the net: are just coming out with "official" statements to true losses and they were more than what was given during the war and after until now.


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## Anonymous (Apr 28, 2005)

Erich said:


> RG I think you will find that by sitting down with many US fighter pilots and talk with them about late 44 till wars end you can safely say the vets think the Luftwaffe pilots were all crap. Ego ? maybe, maybe not.
> 
> As for the star of Afrika it appears that maybe 25-30 kills can be attributed to other German pilots but ya know none of us were there so that pretty much squelchs it. As for the Allied histories well at least for RAF there are practically none. It has been only the last 5 years after serious digging that RAF night heavy groups/the net: are just coming out with "official" statements to true losses and they were more than what was given during the war and after until now.



I guess my point is that I think that just about all the high scoring aces of all nations overclaimed by about 2:1.

In general, I think the first 5 kills were very carefully scrutinized except where real propaganda value was immeadiately involved. Beyond that, it was still fairly accurate to between 10-20 kills, but after that to an increasing degree the "Ace's" claims were credited with less and less scrutiny since he became a propaganda and moral tool - a "star" of sorts. 

=S=

Lunatic


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## delcyros (Apr 28, 2005)

All Possible. There is a strong conjunction between claims and confirmed kills for top pilots. And there is good evidence that the reason was propaganda. But I think you cannot rate claims to real kills, lets say- 2:1 in general. This is a question, which has to be answered from case to case. And it can be done, since we are talking about individuals with specific combat records. 
By the way, thanks Erich, for the hint of Dr. Priens book, it provides some vital informations about the specific times of Marsailles claims.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 28, 2005)

I do agree that a lot were done for propaganda sources and I do believe that it was done by all pilots. I think a lot more were done out of mistake though. Sometimes it is hard to establish a clear kill for someone when lets say everyone is gunning for it. 

Trust me RG I am not argueing the truth that it was done just to what extent by some pilots and by what nations.


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## Anonymous (Apr 28, 2005)

delcyros said:


> All Possible. There is a strong conjunction between claims and confirmed kills for top pilots. And there is good evidence that the reason was propaganda. But I think you cannot rate claims to real kills, lets say- 2:1 in general. This is a question, which has to be answered from case to case. And it can be done, since we are talking about individuals with specific combat records.
> By the way, thanks Erich, for the hint of Dr. Priens book, it provides some vital informations about the specific times of Marsailles claims.



When talking about any specific pilot that is true. But when talking about all the high scoring aces as a group it is certainly possible to make a generalization such as that as many as half the claims were false.

=S=

Lunatic


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## Udet (Apr 29, 2005)

RG Lunatic:

Sometimes after reading some of your postings i do think you honor your nickname, especially the Lunatic part.

So German people were convinced New York was being bombed?
That is very great information. I will take that as something you actually meant. Aftermath: i will put into doubt everything you have said when participating in all threads.

As Erich correctly put it, many USAAF veterans will speak fluently on the issue of " how easy" were late war German pilots. They will be glad to appear in some crappy history channel documental, speaking with a big smile on their faces: "You have to understand German pilots in 1944 where totally different from those of 1940 or 1941..."

It appeared more a process of catharsis to me rather than an honest and straight presentation of their experiences.

The big smile on the face of one of those veterans appeared being one of relief even 40 or 45 or 50 years after the termination of world war II.

I wonder if those veterans could ever explain their very high losses in Europe. What kind of stuff would they display in attempting to come up with any rational argument?


They really want to implant the notion the war the USA waged against Japan and Germany had identical patterns. 

Absolutely flat and plain illiterate hogwash.

The only identical thing about fighting in both Europe and the Pacific was one: the outcome, total victory.

The path followed to gain victory was not identical though. Fighting Germany in the air was an extremely tough and vicious thing.

Unlike you and your veteran friends i do not care about the opinions of the all of you. Unlike you and your friends, I am not to repeat the same stuff over and over again wondering if it ever might become the truth.

If you continue to believe all this things it is absolutely great for me.

You apparently need some memory refreshing: throughout mid-late 1944 a bunch of "undertrained" kids became experts in digesting USAAF heavy bombers. Sturmbock.

Perhaps the propaganda of your country has never informed you of the big number of psychiatric cases amongst USA aircrews after meeting with the Luftwaffe throughout the "easy" year of 1944.

I will close this posting by reminding of you of some facts:

(i) The first nation to put a jet fighter in operation was Germany -not the USA-,

(ii) The very first jet aces in the history of this planet are guys of the Luftwaffe -meaning not from the USA-.

(iii) Several of those jet aces -Germans, not from the USA- shot down more planes than the bulk of the aces of your country.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 29, 2005)

Wow


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## Anonymous (Apr 29, 2005)

Udet said:


> RG Lunatic:
> 
> Sometimes after reading some of your postings i do think you honor your nickname, especially the Lunatic part.
> 
> ...



I didn't say "all" the German people, or that they were "convinced". But, of German soldiers captured in Italy after Anzio, a large number believe NYC was in fact being bombed. These were mostly very young soldiers, not the older vetrans. One must assume the civilian population was being fed the same crap.

And where did I say the German's were "easy" kills in 1944 (or even in 1945)?

As for the rest of it... Udet you have the worst case of vanquished syndrome I think I've ever seen. Face it, Germany fought badly and they lost. They did well when they attacked, but once the nations they sucker punched started punching back Germany never had another significant victory.

Be thankful for it - unless you fancy yourself as a would be Nazi elite, your life is better than it would have been had they won!


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## delcyros (Apr 29, 2005)

Is not necessary to discuss general european air war, or isn´t?
And I think nobody here wants to be a nazi or something ueberhuman. 
We do have a very good question here to answer, how much was overclaiming for the top 100 Luftwaffe aces? RG states 2:1 if we count them all together. (I still disagree in generalizations, RG -you can too easily draw wrong conclusions from them, just an opinion) This question can - in case we do a lot of research- be answered over years, do not await an overall agreed solution now.
I still search for better loss lists of RCAAF, RAF and RAAF as well as USAAF (plus minor countrys) in Africa (best would be with specific times). Can anybody help me out? I have the list based on the article, mentioned by RG above, but there are lots of datas missing (some plane simply disappears there, not all reinforcement is listed and times are missing).


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## Anonymous (Apr 29, 2005)

Well, I was just stating that 2:1 seems about right for the aces of any country credited with more than about 10-20 kills. Once they got up into the double/triple/quadruple ace catagory they became rock stars of a sort and the normal rules for accrediting claims went out the window in favor of moral and propoganda.

I'm not saying that this number was applicable to every pilot. As individuals they should each be investigated individually. But as a group...

=S=

Lunatic


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## wmaxt (Apr 29, 2005)

I don't know what the reallity of this is but I have read sworn statements of pilots flying with Tommy Linch, Bong and Maguire that at least twice the number of aircraft "Claimed" were seen to be Dammaged/probably destroyed (in flames, missing parts, etc) by these pilots. They wern't claimed because the actual crash was not witnessed.

The truth in these matters will never be found.


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## Anonymous (Apr 29, 2005)

wmaxt said:


> I don't know what the reallity of this is but I have read sworn statements of pilots flying with Tommy Linch, Bong and Maguire that at least twice the number of aircraft "Claimed" were seen to be Dammaged/probably destroyed (in flames, missing parts, etc) by these pilots. They wern't claimed because the actual crash was not witnessed.
> 
> The truth in these matters will never be found.



That was a special situation - two pilots going for the record in a sort of personal contest. I think their kills, at least the last 10 or so each, were probably accurately accredited just because of the nature of that competition. It was a very unusual circumstance.


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## delcyros (Apr 29, 2005)

I do understand your argument, RG, and I would agree in most, since it seems to be logical. Propaganda, claims, some short official confirmations and some long lasting ones, this really indicates some suspect handling. No doubt. Some pilots will have less and some will have more historic kills...
What I want to say is following: 
From mid /late 1944 on, the Luftwaffe credited kills very generously -with the regularization that post war investigations will follow to confirm them or not. This doesn´t happen till today (and probably will be a hard matter for a long time). I am looking forward to read about Welters claims in Erichs book. This could underline much of your arguments, since all of his kills are a bit suspect. I do have no problems with downrating the kills if the sources clearly indicate this on an individual. This must happen. I just don´t like generalizations, you will need to prove them on a very good base without too many exceptions and I don´t believe this is possible with our avaiable sources, not for Luftwaffe nor for RAF, USAF, JAF or even the Soviets. Explenations can be generalized but also the subjects? [/b]


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## Anonymous (Apr 29, 2005)

Well, it's not like I'm publishing the 2:1 overclaiming figure in a book as fact! Clearly it's just speculation w.r.t. this particular article in this thread.

The point is just that the very high kill figures of even the most reputable Luftwaffe' aces have to be taken with a large grain of salt. But lets face it, even if HALF their kills were false, they still had tremendously more kills than the aces of other nations.

=S=

Lunatic


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 30, 2005)

I still doubt it was 2:1 though. If it be that way then lets just say the British and US aces. They would have only have about 20 to 30 of there confirmed kills be true. And everyone on all sides who scored 20 kills actually only had 10. I doubt it was as high as 2:1. Just my belief.


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## Soren (Apr 30, 2005)

How about the pilots who actually shot 50 planes out of 50 confirmed claims ? There were actually some of those !

There are even aces who's scores have been increased during the postwar years by looking in Allied or Axis loss records !

Only very few German/U.S. and British aces intentionally overrated their scores, as if it was discovered, they would be given very short shrift by their peer's !


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## Udet (Apr 30, 2005)

Has anyone in here -ever- believed absolutely no mistakes were made when claiming and confirming air victories -in all sides-?

I find this whole debate entertaining.

Unlike Mr. Lunatic, i do not only see mistakes in the numbers of confirmed kills of a given pilot cutting down his record; i am also convinced many pilots shot down planes who were not claimed, much less confirmed.
On that we might never know the truth.

I see Lunatic thinking Erich Hartmann did not shoot down 352 enemy planes but just half -following his 2:1 overclaim logic-. In his mind Erich Hartmann is very likely to have destroyed only 176 enemy planes.

I´d tell i believe Hartmann did not destroy 352, but some 375 enemy planes in combat.

I have detected cases of Jagdgeschwadern in the eastern front claiming a number (high) of destroyed enemy planes which happened to be inferior to losses suffered presented by the soviets for the same area and period of time.


The point would rather be how these people -Lunatic as the flagship- present their aguments: "Luftwaffe experten claims vs. kills: myths and facts."

I detect an entirely different agenda here. The actual goal is not clearly defined from the outset. After reading the posted article it looks more like a poorly disguised attempt to bring up a "thorough discussion" of facts and positions on the issue.

The word "myth" is rather implemented to induce people from the beginning to believe the records of German pilots of World War II are tainted with tales.

Sure propaganda played its role. Curiously some of them fail to detect how similar the propaganda systems of Germany and the USA were during the war, and that there is not substantial difference between one another.

What is it that makes them so sure USAAF aces have confirmed victory scores that would not allow doubts? What if many USAAF aces, say, with 10 confirmed kills, actually shot down only 4, 5 or 6 enemy planes?

An ace with 10 kills in the victorious side... against an ace with 352 kills in the defeated side...It is kind of easy for me to detect their actual intentions when trying to find their "logical-rational" explanations for the deeds of the experten. 

I do not fret at all Lunatic. I am not a dictator to tell people what is to be read and what is not. Read and hear as much as you can, even from persons like you.


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## Anonymous (May 1, 2005)

Excess losses over kills claimes are easily explained - Operational losses (mechanical failure and pilot goofs) often made up a higher % of actual losses than enemy action, and of course there were also those lost to ground fire. Often the cause of Soviet losses would be unknown as it was not uncommon for Soviet pilots not to have (working) radios.

As for Hartman's 352 kills, I suspect the actual number was less than that. But there is no real logical basis for your assertion that his actual number of kills was even higher - just wishful thinking. I would not presume to say his kill total was half the 352 awarded unless it were possible to compare his kill claims, kill claims of other Luftwaffe' pilots in the same general area, and enemy losses on the dates in question.  However, the evidence that Marseille, one of the most respected of Luftwaffe' Experten, was awarded a significant number of false kills implies that this was likely with other high scoring Experten.

The only point I'm trying to make is that the claim that the Luftwaffe' system for awarding kills was more accurate than that of other nations is unsupported by the evidence.

=S=

Lunatic


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 1, 2005)

Either way there is no way that we are ever going to tell what is the truth and what is not. RG knows the truth though so dont argue with him on it. I too believe that Hartmanns kill were more then 352. I do believe that overclaiming did happen. I also believe that in some rare cases underclaiming did happen. But RG's 2:1 ratio is completly obsured. If that were the case then half the aircraft that the allies reported as losses were never actually lost because know one shot them down! Remember RG there were other countries reporting losses too other then the RAF and the USAAF.

If this is what we are striving for here then I will have to say that even for Bong and McGuire only actually shot down half of there kills because they were trying to get over one another. I know exactly what you are going to say that they had a reason only to claim legit kills but I am going to go ahead and say they lied to get the edge on one another. There now I spiced things up and well see RG go crazy and say it can not be true because the allies did no such thing.


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## Anonymous (May 1, 2005)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Either way there is no way that we are ever going to tell what is the truth and what is not. RG knows the truth though so dont argue with him on it. I too believe that Hartmanns kill were more then 352. I do believe that overclaiming did happen. I also believe that in some rare cases underclaiming did happen. But RG's 2:1 ratio is completly obsured. If that were the case then half the aircraft that the allies reported as losses were never actually lost because know one shot them down! Remember RG there were other countries reporting losses too other then the RAF and the USAAF.



So you are saying that Hartman was somehow more honest about his claims than Marselles?



DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> If this is what we are striving for here then I will have to say that even for Bong and McGuire only actually shot down half of there kills because they were trying to get over one another. I know exactly what you are going to say that they had a reason only to claim legit kills but I am going to go ahead and say they lied to get the edge on one another. There now I spiced things up and well see RG go crazy and say it can not be true because the allies did no such thing.



The point about Bong vs. McGuire is that this competition, especially after they passed 30 kills, was very carefully scrutinized. There were only really two pilots involved, so it was not so easy a thing to "cheat", and the consequences of getting caught cheating were extra severe. Before about 30 kills, who knows?


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 1, 2005)

I am saying that Hartmann had no reason to lie just like your allied pilots who supposably did not either.

As for Bong and McGuire I was just making a point. Whether they did or not I do not know nor care because it was done on all sides.


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## Anonymous (May 1, 2005)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> I am saying that Hartmann had no reason to lie just like your allied pilots who supposably did not either.
> 
> As for Bong and McGuire I was just making a point. Whether they did or not I do not know nor care because it was done on all sides.



I'm not saying Bong and McGuire did not have a reason or motivation to make false, or overly optomistic claims. I'm saying that these two pilots were scrutinized like no others as they reached the 30+ kill levels, so making such claims would have been much more difficult and risky.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 2, 2005)

No argument here, just making a point here that just because you scored a lot of kills does not make you a cheater.


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## delcyros (May 2, 2005)

Any idea, anyone, where I can get the losses for Africa (all allies) june-october 1942 with reliable sources???
For Hartmann, the soviet veterans, I did used to speak last year, do not question Hartmann´s claims. In fact he was officially accused by them to shoot down more than 340 soviet airplanes. 
I doubt that the soviets have reliable loss sources anyway, this is making the whole question very hypothetic. Maybe if they open their archives at St. Petersburg and Smolensk for histoirians, but I doubt we will see this over the next years...


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## Erich (May 2, 2005)

Del :

PRO-Kew in London for RAF losses / the Austrailian government archiv's for Aussie losses in Afrika. Again proven or not or not even listed. It is like this everywhere..........

viele Glück !

Erich ♪


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## Anonymous (May 2, 2005)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> No argument here, just making a point here that just because you scored a lot of kills does not make you a cheater.



It's not so much a matter of "cheating" as of having been overly optimistic about the fate of a given target or making a claim on the same plane another pilot made a claim on.

Sabaru Sakai for instance claimed a bunch of kills that are proven to have in fact survived. In his judgement (and those of his wingmen) the plane was hurt bad enough that it could not survive - when in fact it did survive. If it had been a Japanese plane it almost certainly would have been a kill. The Japanese just didn't recognize how much tougher US planes were until quite late in the war.

=S=

Lunatic


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## evangilder (May 2, 2005)

But the Japanese never had an official accounting of enemy kills. They felt it lead to units not being cohesive and created competition. So all we have to go by are log books. Not exactly the same for the Germans.


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## Anonymous (May 2, 2005)

Agreed. But the point is that pilots made frequent mistakes regaurding kills, even when there was no real incentive to make false claims.

=S=

Lunatic


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## evangilder (May 3, 2005)

True, but at least with American and German accounting, there were confirmations by other pilots or crews in theory anyway. But for Japanese kills, you can only really go by their personal logs. There is no confirmation to speak of. I am not speaking of false claims, in the heat of battle, things move at an incredible rate of speed. You can read battle accounts from guys that stood right next to each other and get very different reports. Neither are necessarily wrong, just processed differently. This can lead to "false claims", or to just seeing things differently than they really occured.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 3, 2005)

RG_Lunatic said:


> DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
> 
> 
> > No argument here, just making a point here that just because you scored a lot of kills does not make you a cheater.
> ...



And you will have that. As Even said combat is very fast pased and mistakes like this happen. The only real way to account for all this is to take the official loss records and compare them with the official kill records. I think if this were done there would be a vast majority of overclaiming found no matter which country we were checking for the stress and speed of combat does not change because of the flag that fly under.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 3, 2005)

RG said:


> The Japanese just didn't recognize how much tougher US planes were until quite late in the war



well that's not true, why would it take them so long, for the first few years all those planes that were hard to shoot down were one offs?? or just because they're not american they're too stupid to realise that the planes they shoot at everyday are hard to destroy??


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## Anonymous (May 3, 2005)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> RG said:
> 
> 
> > The Japanese just didn't recognize how much tougher US planes were until quite late in the war
> ...



At Guadicanal the Japanese estimates of the numbers of US planes killed wasy typically inflated more than five fold, often ten fold. The Japanese thought America was replacing the losses when in fact they were not suffering the losses in the first place.

They knew US planes were tougher than Japanese planes, but they did not realize nearly how much tougher they in fact were.

=S=

Lunatic


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 3, 2005)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> RG said:
> 
> 
> > The Japanese just didn't recognize how much tougher US planes were until quite late in the war
> ...



Oh Boy here we go again.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 3, 2005)

he started it.........


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 3, 2005)

Im not arguing it.


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## cheddar cheese (May 3, 2005)

Im not gonna make any comments about anything. I figure its for the best (for me)


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 3, 2005)

do you realise however that in saying you were not going to comment you were in fact commenting??


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## cheddar cheese (May 3, 2005)

I wasnt commenting about the argument. I was saying in general why I never get into these arguments.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 3, 2005)

Boy it amazes me how quickly things get off topic.


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## cheddar cheese (May 3, 2005)

Yeah. I expected lanc to make a smart-assed comment such as he did though. I shouldnt have replied


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 3, 2005)

but you did, and anything further you say, unless on topic, will only drag us further into this pit of shameless spamming.........


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 3, 2005)

And you are the king of Spam, Lanc.


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## cheddar cheese (May 3, 2005)

There was a time where I would want that title. But I dont anymore


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 3, 2005)

ah it's nice to have my old title back........


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## cheddar cheese (May 3, 2005)

lanc I was just looking at your profile, whats this?


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 3, 2005)

Woah what are you not telling us here Lanc.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 3, 2005)

I DIDN'T WRITE THAT!!


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## cheddar cheese (May 3, 2005)

How can you not have? Its your profile


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 3, 2005)

yes, which admins such as yourself also have access to, besides i've changed it again and am off to see if you've altered it again.........


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 3, 2005)

I think someone has someones password or they are just real good at manipulating photos.


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## Anonymous (May 3, 2005)

If you read bios of Japanese pilots and translated diary excepts it is quite apparent they didn't realize how much more survivable US planes were than Japanese planes. Simple as that.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 3, 2005)

alder, admins can go anyware, including your own profile, nowhere is safe..........


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 3, 2005)

Really I am an admin, how do I do that.


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## Anonymous (May 3, 2005)

I'm seeing a lot of Admins and Junior Admins on this board. From past experiance, this is a bad idea. There should really not be more than 3 admins for a board this size. Moderators can handle most tasks that are needed without the vulnerabilities that each additional admin opens up.

=S=

Lunatic


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 4, 2005)

well alder do you have broadband??


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## cheddar cheese (May 4, 2005)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Really I am an admin, how do I do that.



Well right at the bottom of the page is an option to go to "Junior Admin Panel". You can do a whole range of things there.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 4, 2005)

and you guys get your own forum


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## cheddar cheese (May 4, 2005)

No we dont


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 4, 2005)

sorry, my mistake


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 4, 2005)

RG_Lunatic said:


> I'm seeing a lot of Admins and Junior Admins on this board. From past experiance, this is a bad idea. There should really not be more than 3 admins for a board this size. Moderators can handle most tasks that are needed without the vulnerabilities that each additional admin opens up.
> 
> =S=
> 
> Lunatic



Why is that? What vulnerabilites are there? Just wondering what you mean.



chedder cheese said:


> Well right at the bottom of the page is an option to go to "Junior Admin Panel". You can do a whole range of things there.



I dont see that.


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## DAVIDICUS (May 4, 2005)

Lanc said, "_I DIDN'T WRITE THAT!! _"

Lanc, you wouldn't happen to have one of these in your wallet do you?  






Here's a new sig for you Lanc. Maybe you can superimpose a Lancaster flying in the background.


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## cheddar cheese (May 4, 2005)

TOO funny 


Adler, it is located here:


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 4, 2005)

Okay under my screen name it says Junior Admin and then under the bullets it says Administrator but I do not have any of that stuff at the bottom.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (May 6, 2005)

right let's get aq roll call of the admins here........


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## Erich (May 6, 2005)

getting back to topic.............

Are we conversing about Luftwaffe pilot day fighter claims only > or are we including the Nachtjagd as well... ?

♪


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 6, 2005)

I think RG is disputing all Luftwaffe fighter pilots.


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## Erich (May 6, 2005)

hmmmmmmmmmmmm I probably should make some sort of comment in relationship to the former Night crews that I know, but I won't at this time.

Am waiting for friend and author Dr. Theo Boiten to release his works on the night air war and another one and hopeful much more concise than has been written.....German night fighter claims that will include some first hand accts. and new fotos. Maybe once this volume due in 2006-2007 gets in more hands we can discuss the German night boyz.

Funny although not unheard of, there are still RAF bombers and crews un-accounted for, shot down during 1945 and never placed in a losses list nor memorial


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 6, 2005)

Does not surprise me, it happened on all sides also.

Will be interesting to see some of those works.


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## Anonymous (May 7, 2005)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> I think RG is disputing all Luftwaffe fighter pilots.



No, I'm saying for all pilots with high numbers of kills the validity of the claims must be considered with great skepticism. That includes Brit pilots with more than maybe 15 kills, USA pilots with more than maybe 8-10 kills, and Soviet pilots with more than about 15-20 kills. Once they got up into the higher ranks of the Aces for their respective nations, the rules for validating a claim tended to become less strict. For the Luftwaffe', this probably didn't become an issue till perhaps 50+ kills.

It would also be influenced by the "need" at the time of the country in question for propoganda hero's.

The only point I'm really trying to make is that the common claim that the Luftwaffe' confirmation system was beyond reproach seems bogus - it was no better than any other nations.

=S=

Lunatic


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 7, 2005)

RG_Lunatic said:


> DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
> 
> 
> > I think RG is disputing all Luftwaffe fighter pilots.
> ...



Then maybe the thread should be titled: *HIGH SCORING ACE* Claims vs. Kills.


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## Anonymous (May 7, 2005)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> RG_Lunatic said:
> 
> 
> > DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
> ...



Perhaps, but the point behind the post was specifically that the common assertion that the Luftwaffe' claims were better validated than those of other nations was the focus of the thread. No one has ever disputed the fact that other nations over-claimed, but it has generally been put forth that the Luftwaffe' did not.

=S=

Lunatic


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 8, 2005)

I have never read any sources that claim that the Luftwaffe did not overclaim. I also have never heard of anyone claim that they did not.


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## evangilder (May 8, 2005)

What I do find confusing is that you say that the Luftwaffe over-claimed, which I do believe as I beleive that everyone did, but for Germany you say it was at 50+ kills, but for everyone else it was between 8 and 20. Following that, it seems like you are saying that Luftwaffe claims are more reliable.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 8, 2005)

Hmmm..... good point there even. It does appear to be that.


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## Anonymous (May 8, 2005)

evangilder said:


> What I do find confusing is that you say that the Luftwaffe over-claimed, which I do believe as I beleive that everyone did, but for Germany you say it was at 50+ kills, but for everyone else it was between 8 and 20. Following that, it seems like you are saying that Luftwaffe claims are more reliable.



How is it confusing? Luftwaffe' Experten had claims running well over 100, no other nation but the Soviets had claims running over 50. It's a matter of ratio.


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## delcyros (May 8, 2005)

I viewed quite a bit of books for that matter. Without proper loss listings (there are no for No.5 south african squadron in 1942, accessable for me..) it is unprobable to verify Marssailles claims on a reliable base. I hope that a friend in London will help me with some sources, but this will take additional time to do so.
What I found out is that most concernings come from Marssailes claims at 17th of september ´42 ( in german books as well). Price wrote something in his book to confirm his claims but they remain questionable. The recorded british losses are highly suspect in this specific timeframe / region. 
The claims of JG 27 doesn´t fit well in detail. On the other hand there are lots of datas, where I do not doubt in the claims (specificly at kills over german held airfields, since you can verify kills easily) without very good reasons. This could also underline overclaimings! It needs more investigation to decide. 
(By the way, RG, if you still want the translation of the Bf-109 F manuel than tell me, I would go starting it next week)


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## Anonymous (May 8, 2005)

I'm attaching the 109F files, a translation would be excellent!


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## Glider (May 8, 2005)

The Numbers game was is and probably always will be a bone of contention. I think we all agree that it happened in all the Air forces of the war often for good reasons, Confusion panic, you see hits, planes break away smoking but to follow it down to see it hit the ground was close to suicide. Sometimes they got away sometimes a second pilot fired at it. Sometimes you didn't hit anything and the smoke was exhaust fumes as they gave it all they had to get away. Its nature to claim,

It becomes contentious when it becomes policy or dare I say it deliberate. No doubt when Germany started to suffer reverses the temptation to exagerate is almost undertstandable. The same is likely to happen in other airforces.

The following is a quote from The Eagles War. It refers to a quote from Dixie Alexander, an American who served in the RAF, then in an Eagle Squadron and finally in the 8th Air Force. A man who knew all the tricks.

'I broke in several of the later real big aces, and without mentioning names, they never showed me that much. They were not good shots and were not the best in the thought department - two very necessary items. Some of the huge scores were run up on the confirmation such as A confirming two for B, and B confirming three for A. This went on and on when the same people worked together.
After 168 sorties of various types in combined operations I finally wound up with 6 destroyed and 1 probable. Don Blakeslee, who was just about the best, had 12 in 450 missions.

Alexander makes some critical points about unit effectiveness in terms of the kill ratio.
The British kill ratio in the whole of the war was about 3.5 dsestroyed to 1 lost. The record on the 4th Fighter Group, Blakeslee's outfit showed a ratio of 4.5 to 1. This was the oldest, most experienced fighter group in the ETO studded with experienced and accomplished leaders. It doesn't make sense to believe that the 56th Group, a younger, less experienced outfit flying in the skies, with the same type of aircraft could achieve a record of 8 to 1.

What I have quoted is contentious enough and I will not quote the rest as names are named.

However what strikes me is the way it was worded. Where deliberate overclaiming was made the view of their fellow pilots is little more than contempt.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 9, 2005)

Good reading there.


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## Tim (Jan 18, 2007)

Are there any books or sites that authoriatatively attempt to reconcile the claims of one side with the losses of another? 

This is a fascinating discussion of special interest to me these days. Like others here I accepted the integrity of the OKL claims verification protocol, but at least in the case of Marseille and apparently in the BoB there seems to be some considerable doubt. 

I understand that the Russians have still not allowed public access to VVS records of the period. Is this why the high scores of the Eastern front Jagdwaffe stand more or less unchallenged - because each cannot be reconciled with Soviet losses?

Does the accounting of claims versus losses all have to be done from scratch from original sources?


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## Erich (Jan 18, 2007)

well if you are wishing for something as to day fighter claims get on the stick and visit the Freiburg archivs in Germany and the Pro archive in England. At least it is a start to try and paste the information together. Realize that by November 44 German fighter pilots were not given total credits for the downing of Allied a/c and records are sadly lacking, thus we have for the high scoring experten the what ifs of the probable claims.

for night fighters I am looking forward to the Nachtjagd War Diaries which will cover many many German night fighter pilots with cross checks of RAF equipment downed by them ............ years of research with many helping on this huge project will make it the ultimate for the night air war afficendo's


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 19, 2007)

I dont think it will ever be possible to really piece it all together and verify each claim, for any nation as a matter of fact.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Jan 20, 2007)

and it'll certainly only get harder as time goes on.............


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## Chingachgook (Jan 21, 2007)

I was doing a bit of cross ref on Channel Front 1941...

22 June 1941, JG 2 and JG 26 claim *9 Spits* shot down and 2 Blenheims.
RAF losses for the day, 2 Spits.

7 July, 1941 JG 26 claims *five Spits*.
RAF losses for the day, 1 Spit.

19 July, 1941 JG 2 and JG 26 claim *3 Spits* and 1 Sterling.
RAF losses for the day, 2 Spits (one to flak).

27 Aug, 1941 JG 26 claims *8 Spits* - AND GETS IT RIGHT!
RAF losses for the day, 7-8 Spits. (RAF claims 6 109s)

29 Aug, 1941 JG 2 abd JG 27 claim *9 Spits*.
RAF losses for the day, 0.

27 Sep, 1941 JG 2 and JG 26 claim *17 Spits* and 1 Blenheim
RAF losses for the day, 8 Spits, 1 Hurricane (claim 14 109s)

13 Oct, 1941 JG 2 and JG 26 claim *20(!) Spits *and 2 Blenheims.
RAF losses for the day, 2 Spits, one Blenheim (claim 5 109s).


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Jan 21, 2007)

that just highlights the problem, but it was a problem for all combatants............


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## Tim (Jan 21, 2007)

Please pardon my ignorance - if I understand, you are saying that the basic documentation to reconcile Luftwaffe claims and British losses is available in the German Freiburg and British Public Records Office archives. Are you also saying that nobody to your knowledge has published an honest attempt at correlating these, and if I'm that interested I'm going to have to do it myself? 

Does the same apply to Luftwaffe claims of USAAF shootdowns?

AFAIK the official records of Soviet losses have still not been released.

I'm also trying to understand the implications of your comment "that by November 44 German fighter pilots were not given total credits for the downing of Allied a/c". Do you mean that the OKL claims verification system had broken down to such an extent by then that these claims were never officially confirmed, and claims arising from this period are potentially suspect?

Thanks, Tim


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 21, 2007)

Tim said:


> I'm also trying to understand the implications of your comment "that by November 44 German fighter pilots were not given total credits for the downing of Allied a/c". Do you mean that the OKL claims verification system had broken down to such an extent by then that these claims were never officially confirmed, and claims arising from this period are potentially suspect?
> 
> Thanks, Tim



The problem is that toward the end of the war. The OKL stopped taking officail claims and there was no one recording them. It was just a fight to survive situation.


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## Tim (Jan 22, 2007)

So claims made after Nov 1944 are not officially confirmed, and we just have to take the claimant's word of honour? 

Was anyone assuring the reliabililty of these claims - e.g. Gruppe commander, Staffel commander, etc., or was the situation so chaotic by then that even this was not possible? 

Is this where allegations that the top scoring aces claims were inflated come from?


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## Erich (Jan 22, 2007)

unless copied for posterity sake by the JG or NJG official historian, then yes


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## drgondog (May 25, 2009)

Glider said:


> Alexander makes some critical points about unit effectiveness in terms of the kill ratio.
> The British kill ratio in the whole of the war was about 3.5 dsestroyed to 1 lost. The record on the 4th Fighter Group, Blakeslee's outfit showed a ratio of 4.5 to 1. This was the oldest, most experienced fighter group in the ETO studded with experienced and accomplished leaders. It doesn't make sense to believe that the 56th Group, a younger, less experienced outfit flying in the skies, with the same type of aircraft could achieve a record of 8 to 1.
> 
> What I have quoted is contentious enough and I will not quote the rest as names are named.
> ...



Glider after a long and arduous effort to parse Macr's and Accident Reports - with collaboration with Ted Damick - I have nearly finished my 8th AF tabulation of Awards (air and Ground) to Losses (air, unk-air, strafing, unk-strafing, Mechanical, Weather, Accidents).

The 'unk-air' and unk-strafing is taking the case of a MIA pilot which was last seen in an area where LW aircraft were present, and unk-strafing is where a pilot was lost but not known whether pilot hit by flak or lost control - but seen to crash while strafing.

All other categories (Mechanical) were identified to engine failure/coolant loss or oxygen system failure, weather or running out of fuel or an unknown where a pilot was simply seen to go down in clear view of everyone with no enemy air or flak present.

I have the tables in Excel if someone has Adobe Acrobat to convert to Pdf (my copy mysteriusly went TU last week).

Summary, the 4th FG of the top five in air to air scoring (56th, 357FG, 352, 4th and 355FG in that order) had an Air Award to air Loss ratio of
56--------- 664/60....... 11:1
357------- 595.5/55.....10.8:1
4 --------- 550/86 ....... 6.4:1
352------- 504.5/41 ......12.3:1
355------- 341/42 ..........8.1:1

The 4th was at best in the middle of the pack in air to air statistics, right with the 78th, 352nd and 353rd flying P-47's and maintained their 6:1 air to air ratio when they transitioned to Mustangs - all the other Groups did far better with Mustangs in context of air to air.

The 479th (Old's group) had the best air to air ratio with 155/11 -----> 14:1 and managed extremely good results in the P-38 (52:4--> 13:1). That probably was a combination of a.) late entry after many of the spring 1944 air battles were fought, and b.) they were flying the P-38J-10's and above which were retrofitted with dive brakes and had manuevering flaps. The 339th, 361st were close to 479th in Mustang air to air~ 13.5:1 

The 56th was king relative to P-47 by a wide margin at ~11:1. All the rest of the P-47 Groups were in the 5-6:1 range before converting to Mustangs.

The 356th and 20th were on the bottom with ~ 5:1 air to air.

Interestingly (?) the destroyed to loss ratio for strafing for the P-47s was lower than the P-51's in 8th AF. The P-38 had a huge loss ratio strafing and the P-51 had the lowest loss ratio strafing - so the rugged Jug and twin engine P-38 absorbed more losses per enemy aircraft destoyed on the ground (and air).

Ground award/loss -strafing ------------award/loss- air to air

P-47------ 740/200 .......3.7:1 ------1550.5/324.......7.2:1
P-51 -----3328/324 .......5.6:1 ------3328/324 .......10.3:1 
P-38 ---- 161.5/109 ......1.5:1 --------278.5/101 ..... 2.8:1

This is not a claim total summary but an award summary based on the best compilation from USAF 85, the 8th AF Victory Credits Board -post WWII and the Accidents Records and MACR's by Group, by Fighter type.

I am close to finishing the Details on Group Awards by Type Fighter flown and by type LW aircraft destroyed. The number of 109s shot down were 3:2 over FW 190's. The number of German jets (125) shot down were mostly Me 262's with Ar 234's next.

Does anybody have a similar compilation on LW loss/damaged in Combat? seprated by Theatre?

I have not weighed in on the great debate simply because the art of Claims processing, and hard validation of same, varied all over the map not only in rigor but timing. From my own research the LW seemed to be as good as it got until 1944. From that point the LW claims to awards were significantly overstated when matching against actual USAAF losses on a day by day basis. 

ALL USAAF bomber claims were trash, collectively - 8th, 9th and 15th FC awards seemed pretty close when matching against total daily LW losses if you discount 90% of the bomber claims (and I do).


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## Erich (May 25, 2009)

too many records lost Bill I am afraid for the LW day fighter as well as the LW nf's. this is also the same for victories confirmed from October 44 till wars end


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## drgondog (May 25, 2009)

Erich said:


> too many records lost Bill I am afraid for the LW day fighter as well as the LW nf's. this is also the same for victories confirmed from October 44 till wars end



I once knew that but I keep on hoping. The best source is still unit records and thankfully Prien/Woods, etc have rolled them up in at least a format we can all pick on.


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## lesofprimus (May 25, 2009)

Great info u posted up Bill, really interesting and eye opening..... Thanks for posting it...


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## Juha (May 25, 2009)

I seconded Les,
very interesting and also partly somewhat surprising info.
Thanks a lot, Bill!

Juha


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## drgondog (May 25, 2009)

lesofprimus said:


> Great info u posted up Bill, really interesting and eye opening..... Thanks for posting it...



Dan - as soon as i get Adobe back up I will convert and post to Mike Williams site (and here).

Assuming (a big leap) that all the award data is fairly close, one still has to take into account many factors to figure out why one group did a lot better in the same ship at the same time... or scored more during a specific period than others.

Don Blakeslee and Hub Zemke are the two individual leaders that I like to explore. Both great leaders but I think Zemke matched tactics to airframe strengths and weaknesses better than anyone in 8th AF. No question Hayes, Kinnard, Meyer and others were also excellent Group leaders but those two stand out for different reasons.

Blakeslee basically said 'see a snake kill a snake'. The 4th would bounce everything they saw and sometimes the bombers suffered but I have to say from a historical perspective there was a lot better unit cohesion in the 56th with much better flight and squadron discipline. Zemke was a brilliant tactician and the Zemke Fan was a very effective tactic to seek and find the LW - hence the significant difference between air to air scores despite the 4th fighting for nearly a year longer and having a better airplane to help it catch up (Mustang).

My godfather Clay Kinnard went to 4th FG to replace Blakeslee and in general thought the 4th was largely mouth and assholes with English affectations. He self confessed 'failure' at his attempts to instill better unit discipline and cohesion - but he did follow a legend and had a different (but excellent) style of leadership.

I have zero doubt that the 56th, had they had Mustangs in Feb 1944, would have FAR outscored the rest of the USAAF across all theatres. Zemke as much as admitted it after the war that he may have made a mistake in retaining the Jug when he was offered the first of the Mustang conversions (then 4th and 355th).

So, the early Jug/Lightning guys had a tougher time against old hands of the LW, learned to adjust tactics and gain experience - then exploded when Doolittle lifted the curtain and let the 8th FC loose in January 1944.

Oh well.The 8th AF fought three stages and different groups adjusted as older experinced leaders and pilots rotated out and new blood came in. Some of the new blood in June-August was much better than others but lack of opportunity from August forward is the reason that so few aces, percentage wise, were made than the 'first wave' despite easier competition and better local superiority of numbers.

The 355th slowed way down in May when most of the original cadre rotated home for leave or out to new assignments, while others like the 352nd and 357th kept up the pace in air to air scores.

What I have found most interesting is that despite the built in survivability predjudice of twin engines for P-38 and rugged radial engine for the P-47, both lost more airplanes strafing for every aircraft destroyed than the 'vulnerable Mustang'. Go figure.


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## Airbone Bunny (May 25, 2009)

drgondog said:


> Dan - as soon as i get Adobe back up I will convert and post to Mike Williams site (and here).
> 
> What I have found most interesting is that despite the built in survivability predjudice of twin engines for P-38 and rugged radial engine for the P-47, both lost more airplanes strafing for every aircraft destroyed than the 'vulnerable Mustang'. Go figure.



Interesting.

That could be explained by any number of reasons, but one hypothesis could be that in the case of the P38 it was a bigger target than the smaller P51.

And in the case of the P47 another hypothesis could be than the radial engine was a bigger frontal target and more vulnerable to ground fire. I read somewhere that it was also considered a problem by the germans in the case of the FW.


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## Juha (May 26, 2009)

My hypothesis would be, leaving P-38 out because lack of knowledge, that longer ranged P-51s could strafe less well protected a/fs farther from Allied airbases where LW had evacuated much of it’s a/c which were less well dispersed and camouflaged than those at a/fs nearer to frontlines, which were targets of shorter legged P-47s

Juha


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## Juha (May 26, 2009)

Bill most probably know this but one book from which one might find some clues is Osprey’s A/c of the Aces 51 Special ”Down to Earth” Strafing Aces of the Eight Air Force. It is based on the training manual compiled by battle-seasoned USAAF fighter pilots during the war. IMHO with Osprey’s A/c of the Aces 31 Special VIII Fighter Command at War “Long Reach” and Osprey’s A/c of the Aces 61 Special ”Twelve to One” V Fighter Command Aces of the Pacific, which both are also based on same kind war time material, it is the most important book published in that series. They give a good insight of thinking the leading USAAF aces and of course some inkling to their ability to transfer their thoughts onto paper.

Juha


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## Hop (May 26, 2009)

Is it possible to break the strafing claims down by date? Looking at the USAAF statistical digest, 3,703 of the 6,796 strafing kills in Europe occurred in April 1945. I'm guessing by that date German resistance was collapsing and many of these attacks saw little or no flak opposition. Weren't the 8th AF almost totally converted to Mustangs by April 1945?


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## Timppa (May 26, 2009)

Perhaps the better yardstick for vulnerability is loss/sortie. ETO numbers 1942-1945:
P-47: 0.7%
P-51: 1.2%
P-38: 1.4%

The P-47's dropped around 20 times as much bombs as P-51. So it was the dedicated late war fighter-bomber, where as P-51's could seek more lightly defended targets.

See the data in this page:
P-51 Mustang by Ray Wagner - Page 3


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## drgondog (May 26, 2009)

Hop said:


> Is it possible to break the strafing claims down by date? Looking at the USAAF statistical digest, 3,703 of the 6,796 strafing kills in Europe occurred in April 1945. I'm guessing by that date German resistance was collapsing and many of these attacks saw little or no flak opposition. Weren't the 8th AF almost totally converted to Mustangs by April 1945?



I have a WIP to break it our by month for the 8th AF and about halfway converted. 

The 56th FG remained with P-47 throughout the war but all other P-47 groups fully converted by Nov 1944.

The ground scores were quite high in April but it was with accompanying high losses to heavily defended airfields. Having said that the award to loss ratio in April WAS ~ 3:1 over prior period of combat ops.

The 8th destroyed ~ 1724 on the ground for losses of 127 (all causes). The 56th lost 7 for 147 destroyed the 339th lost 4 for 271 destroyed and the top 8th AF strafing group (355th) lost 13 for 171 destroyed - all causes.

I have the sorties/loss/award statistics for the 355th 100% complete

Total 17222 sorties, 341 air awards, 508 ground awards, 180 lost to all causes including accidents ,write off's, ops.

P-47 --------2,912 sorties 39 air awards, 8 ground awards, 31 of the 180 lost

P-51 -------14,310 sorties, 302 air awards, 500 ground awards, 149 of the 180 lost

Loss per sortie------------award per sortie
P-47 .. 0.0106 ............. 0.0161

P-51 .. .0.104 .... ......... 0.560

I haven't finished but for German aircraft destroyed on a per sortie comparison the 339th and 355th are at the top of the 8th AF.

The 356th is near the bottom (awards per sortie) in this comparison and the 4th and 56th (in the upper third) but the 4th is nowhere close to the 56th in loss per sortie. The 56th will be at or near the top in lowest loss per sortie... which seems to favor the Jug but have to be careful as the 56th was by and of itself an 'elite' group. We have to get the rest of the Jug Ops under scrutiny.

The difficulty in playing the statistics game arises when comparing aircraft flown versus the timeframe and mission profiles from 1943 through early 1944 - then spring 44 through Jan 1944 - then ops thru the EOW. There was a different complexion to LW, the transition to Mustangs, the focus on long range attacks against enemy airfield which precluded the Jug from scoring much on the ground.

Then you have to consider the variables when comparing the 339th or 357th versus the 56th and 4th FG. The 4th and 56th were in operations for more 8 months to a year longer, had far fewer opportunities to both score and lose aircraft, as the airwar had a totally different complexion in 1944 from 1943 - and the biggest killer of 8th AF fighters was flak by far. Strafing didn't start until Feb 1944 and really wasn't significant until April 1944.

At any rate I am still looking for the holy grail which has the most accurate compliation of sorties per group for the 8th AF. So far unit histories seem to be the root that we all look at to try to develop the information

I speculate when I complete the project that that the P-47 will have approx 30% lower loss per sortie ratio compared to P-51 for 8th AF but, as I have shown, the P-47 was significantly less effective at destroying enemy aircraft than the Mustang (in all USAAF commands) - and the P-47 was significantly more expensive to produce.


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## drgondog (May 26, 2009)

Timppa said:


> Perhaps the better yardstick for vulnerability is loss/sortie. ETO numbers 1942-1945:
> P-47: 0.7%
> P-51: 1.2%
> P-38: 1.4%
> ...



Timppa - the same data is shown on p 133 of his book "Mustang Designer". 

I suspect the loss per sortie statistics for the 8th AF will fairly closely mirror the above ETO (includes 9th AF) figures for the USAAF Statistical Digest even though the blend of mission profiles for 9th AF was materially different (except for Pioneer Mustang 354FG)

The P-38 in the MTO closely approached the P-47 in the 9th with a mixture of escort and fighter bombing missions throughout the 1943-1945 timeframe so the P-47 did not have that role entirely or dominantly for all of Europe (USAAF).

So, what is your definition of 'lightly defended targets'? Airfields around Munich, Berlin, Brunswick, Hannover, Prague, Leipzig? What made them lighty defended in contrast to your notions of 8th AF P-47 strafing targets? (restricted to airfields in France, Belgium, Holland, western Germany until late 1944)..

I don't have my arms around the bomb tonnage dropped by 8th AF P-51's, P-47's and P-38's but a.) not many fighter bomber sweeps other than Normandy Campaign were flown by 8th AF. When they did occur the 47 and 38 could carry twice the bomb load but most of those missions were flown with parafrags, 250 and 500 pound bombs. 9th AF flew a significant amount of missions with 1000 pound bombs - particularly when attacking bridges... 

But during the Normandy campaign there were more Mustang groups than Jug Groups and only two P-38 Groups remained.

So back to the point of this particular discussion - namely 8th AF P-47 versus P-51. 

The loss per sortie rate of the P-47 is superior to the P-51
The award of enemy aircraft destroyed to the loss in air to air is superior for the P-51 by 43%.
The award of enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground to the lost while strafing favors the P-51 by 51%
The loss of bomber crews to enemy aircraft was greatly reduced by the P-51 over the P-47

The P-47 was slightly superior in Awards to Total a/c lost (all causes ops and accidents) 2.88:1 vs 2.64:1 perhaps reflecting more Mechanical related (i.e Coolant loss, engine failure, etc) issues with the 51.

PS - I apologise for taking this thread away from the Experten - we'll set up something later or move it to P-51 vs P-47 as a subtopic?


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## drgondog (May 26, 2009)

Juha said:


> Bill most probably know this but one book from which one might find some clues is Osprey’s A/c of the Aces 51 Special ”Down to Earth” Strafing Aces of the Eight Air Force. It is based on the training manual compiled by battle-seasoned USAAF fighter pilots during the war. IMHO with Osprey’s A/c of the Aces 31 Special VIII Fighter Command at War “Long Reach” and Osprey’s A/c of the Aces 61 Special ”Twelve to One” V Fighter Command Aces of the Pacific, which both are also based on same kind war time material, it is the most important book published in that series. They give a good insight of thinking the leading USAAF aces and of course some inkling to their ability to transfer their thoughts onto paper.
> 
> Juha



Juha - I have them. Scutts made a lot of mistakes in his particular contributions so I don't reference him so very much.

The prime sources (ground) for me are 8th FC Victory Credits Board from which the USAF parsed and extracted dubious awards (air to air) to compile the USAF Study 85. USAF is prime source for me because it remains The Official Source - but I believe Olynyk's scholarship.

Dr Frank Olynyk further researched returning POW Questionnaires as well as as complete a set of encounter reports for all services to compile his totals. The difference being awards cited and substantiated After USAF 85 was published. But he remains THE source for USN/USMC details.

The only 'official' ground award source for 8th AF is 8th AF VCB developed after WWII in 1945. It has bot omissions and errors (some double entries, name mispelling, etc, as well as some conflicts with final totals from original VCB Awards reports - which are mystifying but a very small % of the total.

Kent Miller did a fine job of rolling those up in his Fighter Units and Pilot of 8th AF. I have found errors but only a small percecentage. His totals and mine and Olynyk and USAF are at variance +/- about 10 awards over 5,170+ air awards


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## Timppa (May 26, 2009)

drgondog said:


> So, what is your definition of 'lightly defended targets'?



Defined by those P-51 bomber escort pilots who had no specific orders to strafe any target after they were released by other escort groups. It was their call.

Versus fighter-bomber groups who were under orders to attack a predestined target, whatever the resistance or cost.


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## drgondog (May 26, 2009)

Timppa said:


> Defined by those P-51 bomber escort pilots who had no specific orders to strafe any target after they were released by other escort groups. It was their call.
> 
> Versus fighter-bomber groups who were under orders to attack a predestined target, whatever the resistance or cost.



You may wish to research 8th AF FC Field Orders a little more. There were Many FO's directing individual Fighter Groups to attack specific airfields. Examples include such attacks on airfields during a bombing attack on the same airfields.

8th AF mustangs had the leeway to strafe airfields and targets of opportunity after relief from escort - true. Equally true is that Sweep assignments often included specific orders to sweep certain airfields 100 miles out in fron of the Task Forces or simply attack specific airfields.

Just as an example look at FO 288 in which the 355th was directed to attack Oberphaffenhofen, Landsberg, Ottingen. On that same FO, the 4th FG was directed to Freidersdorf, Stendahl, Brandenburg, Plaue and Pottsdam a/d near Berlin. All 8th AF FG were on airfield attack fighter sweeps to specific airfields all over Germany.

In a two week period alone the 355th had assignments to strafe Biscarrosse a/d, Dijon a/d, Munich area a/d, Bourges a/d, and Oberphaffenhofen (again). These were specific orders either as a stand alone fighter sweeop or directives following break escort.


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## Juha (May 26, 2009)

Hello Bill
I agree on Scutts, that’s why I didn’t mention his books. Osprey’s series is rather uneven but there are some very good books in it.

On losses, I agree that strafing remained dangerous right to the end of war. For ex some a/fs in Czech were very well defended and strafing P-51s suffered accordingly. IMHO one cannot say that P-51 jockeys lacked aggressiveness.

Juha


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## Spurius (Mar 7, 2010)

Hi there in Oregon!
I am looking for a good book which logs the losses incurred by the 8th 9th USAF Bomber Groups during their European ToO.

Also, having recently read "Bomber Command" by Max Hastings, do you know if there is a comparable book about the USAF Bomber Groups. I am particularly interested in Government v USAF strategy on such things as area bombing of German cities.

Thank you

Spurius


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## vanir (Mar 7, 2010)

I found the article OP controversial. It's funny, I was just discussing on another forum the problem of using a closed system in research, which garners assumption about discrepencies without considering tangential explanations not related to the method of research.

For example wrt the daily records of the DAF in North Africa, many of Marsielle's kills were SAAF machines which may not have been entered as RAF losses. His 6 P-40 kills during one mission on 5 June 1942 were variously confirmed by fellow pilots and German ground forces, who noted they had SAAF markings, but what was remarkable to the propaganda machine was his ground crew report that only 10 twenty-millimetre shells and 180rds of 7.92mm ammunition had been used from his magazines during that mission.
This was the momentum of his legendary status rather than the presumption of supreme killing capabilities in terms of numbers downed. His precision, defining the term experten. Marsielle himself was somewhat humble, he attributed his success to a familiarity with low speed manoeuvring and like other Luftwaffe experten-celebrities was quick with tips for fresh cadets. He was also well liked and respected among peers, a perfect media celebrity and role model. He even had an unsavoury past to keep hidden just as many media celebrities today.
So it's not just a case of goose stepping German propaganda inflating kill records in an attempt to make Allied pilots shake in their boots. It would be an entirely ridiculous project because of patriotism and the attraction of the underdog. The thing to remember about propaganda is that it is aimed at your own population. Modern political media is for example propaganda, American media is inherently Americentric, British is (Anglo-) Eurocentric, etc. It will always only view things from that nation's cultural point of view, that is in point of fact the true target market. German propaganda has a target market of the German public. Naturally it exaggerated when things went poorly, but there was no reason to when things went well, that is simply when it becomes topical and personal, talking less about sweeping strategic successes and more about individual personalities involved in specific instances.

What is also odd is that the kill reports distributed officially between nations in part involved the politics and adminstration regarding downed, captured aircrews. I believe there is some code of military conduct to inform enemy nations of those combatants captured and incarcerated. Generally speaking it is in every belligerent nation's best interests to be relatively faithful with combat records distributed to the enemy, a practise infamously ignored by the Japanese although in this case a good intelligence network filled a lot of blanks. Generally speaking Germany had a reputation of adhering quite well, as did all the Allies. I don't think it unlikely that combat records would then be contested in media for the benefit of patriotic civilian morale, but official (closed) military records really shouldn't differ greatly or else there really ought to be some reasonable explanation for the discrepency other than flat out lies. It's just not in a military's best interests to do this.

I think it is a given however that kill claim awards and related decorations for individual pilots are more a propaganda (read: morale and media) device than an official military documentation, irrespective of the nation's reputation. Anecdote would claim Hartmann had downed more than 352, whilst other figures less than their record suggests.

Notably, the USSR had a prohibitively strict method of recording pilot kills: the enemy aircraft had to leave a wreck within Soviet held territory for the kill to be recorded, irrespective of pilot and peer claims or ground observer correlation. Hence among Soviet pilots their actual kills are likely to be almost always much higher than their individual records suggest. Decorations by comparison were given largely by patriotic examples, many were posthumous and all are largely propaganda related. Some individuals hailed as heroes of the Soviet Union are completely fictionalised, such as the famous Vasili Zaitsev (whose story is really the combination of three unrelated, successful snipers operating around Stalingrad and the entire duel with the Wehrmacht Oberst is totally made up, he never existed).



> Russell Brown also states,
> 
> The inability of the German Fighter force to support its ground forces effectively, contrasted sharply with the evolution of the RAF's tactics and operational procedures as the Desert War progressed.
> The tactical use of Medium Bombers, and the highly effective Kittyhawks which were able to offer direct support to the troops with their bombing and strafing was never matched by the Luftwaffe. The fact that many of the fighter pilots ran up big personal scores was irrelevant to the prosecution of the war and the undue emphasis placed on such achievements was an indication of the failure by German Commanders at all levels to understand the principles of Air Power.



Claims like this are definitely the product of propaganda. It is in complete reverse of the events by theme, including the general consensus of dozens of historians, and is deliberately and entirely misleading. This Russel Brown sounds like a poster boy.
The "inability of the German forces to support its ground forces effectively" was a wholly circumstantial conclusion, misleading because the prelimenary statements ought to be a time frame, this was only the situation from about mid-1942, was directly the result of the inability of the German forces to maintain usable and adequate supply to the Front, which is celebrated as the primary focus of the North African campaign, also the nature of maintaining usable airfields throughout the campaign (easier during retreat, next to impossible during fast advances), and the industrial situation in Germany with no adequate replacement for the Stuka which required air superiority to function, it had nothing whatsoever to do with Luftwaffe aerial doctrine and is in fact claims a direct reverse of what that doctrine entails.
It is agreed by the majority of historians in publication that it was the Allied air forces which only began to understand the necessity of combined operations between land and air (and sea) which leads to successful operations. This is clearly stated in documentation surrounding the rewriting of the American military handbook of 1943, which was the first time a notation stressing the importance of Army and Air Force cooperation was officially made by the United States or Great Britain. The official aerial doctrine of Great Britain was that Army and Air Force operated completely independently.
Once again the success of the DAF was entirely circumstantial, it most certainly had not the slightest thing to do with doctrine. It had to do with winning superiority in supply and proliference during 1942. Even at the very end, the Luftwaffe managed to keep air superiority over Tunisia for example (but not anywhere else), and this whilst hopelessly outnumbered. In North Africa it is my contention the DAF approached Army support operations like ants rushing a dead bird, when numbers weren't overwhelming DAF ground attack missions died off whilst Luftwaffe ones soared. You could say in fact the Luftwaffe was built around Army support operations as a primary edict where this is not at all true for the Allies or GB until much later in the war.


If you ask me the whole thing seems like a simplistic, post modern, patriotic German bash. Let's attack the experten celebrities. Thing is, they were just media celebrities, there's no need. I don't think their awards are actually exaggerated, all things considered they aren't unrealistic, so much as their faults are absent which makes them seem superhuman. Luck played a huge part, for example. They were driven half mad. They got downed a lot but were lucky about that too.


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## mhuxt (Mar 8, 2010)

Spurius said:


> Also, having recently read "Bomber Command" by Max Hastings, do you know if there is a comparable book about the USAF Bomber Groups. I am particularly interested in Government v USAF strategy on such things as area bombing of German cities.
> 
> Thank you
> 
> Spurius




There's a good docco here:


http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Indexes/author_ndx_bks.htm

with supporting spreadsheets etc here:

http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/catalog/books/Davis_B99.htm
http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/books/Davis_B99/Davis_B99.pdf
http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Davis CD/Pages/i.htm
http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Davis CD/Pages/IIb.htm


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## Vincenzo (Mar 8, 2010)

for me the pages linked give a not exist error


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## Spurius (Mar 8, 2010)

mhuxt said:


> There's a good docco here:
> 
> 
> http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Indexes/author_ndx_bks.htm
> ...


Thank you forthe reply Mhuxt. However I can but concur with Vincenzo that the link comes up with an error stopping any investigation on the site you pointed me to. Any thougts?

Spurius


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## mhuxt (Mar 8, 2010)

Try this one:

http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Books/Davis_B99/Davis_B99.pdf

You may have to hunt around that site for the supporting spreadsheets.


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## Vincenzo (Mar 8, 2010)

thank you this is ok


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## JoeB (Mar 8, 2010)

vanir said:


> For example wrt the daily records of the DAF in North Africa, many of Marsielle's kills were SAAF machines which may not have been entered as RAF losses. His 6 P-40 kills during one mission on 5 June 1942 were variously confirmed by fellow pilots and German ground forces, who noted they had SAAF markings, but what was remarkable to the propaganda machine was his ground crew report that only 10 twenty-millimetre shells and 180rds of 7.92mm ammunition had been used from his magazines during that mission.
> 
> Notably, the USSR had a prohibitively strict method of recording pilot kills: the enemy aircraft had to leave a wreck within Soviet held territory for the kill to be recorded, irrespective of pilot and peer claims or ground observer correlation. Hence among Soviet pilots their actual kills are likely to be almost always much higher than their individual records suggest.
> .


The claims of the Germans in Western Desert in time of Marseille were pretty accurate, not the most accurate claiming or even most accurate German claiming ever seen, but pretty good. Of course it's always hard to determine from opposing records exactly who shot down which plane, but the total German credits often didn't exceed the total Allied losses by that much, and Marseilles' claims often a significant % of total German claims, so implying he was a relatively accurate claimers. This has beed seen ever since "Fighters Over the Desert" by Shores, an old book now (1969).

I actually doubt German victory credits were affected specifically by propaganda concerns in the era when most of the German super-aces built up most of their scores (Hartmann of course built most of his score relatively later). As you say, the nature of propaganda depends in part on what facts need to be emphasized or nelgected to present a favorable picture, and for the first half of WWII the Germans were generally the best at fighter combat in the European/Med theaters. At higher levels the Germans made some serious mistakes in the employment of air power (like BoB and other episodes). But just on the matter of whose fighter pilots were likely to score more kills and suffer few llosses in fighter combat, through 1942 at least, it was the Germans rather than their opponents (we could debate German success v that of their allies).

So actually Allied propaganda, the long after-echoes of which we still read and hear in English sometimes, was the more distorted in emphasizing the (honestly claimed) successes of the best Allied fighter pilots which were not in line with the overall balance of fighter quality, whereas of course the exceptional German pilots were exceptional, but even on average German pilots and their a/c as units, with the tactics they used, etc, were generally the more effective. So the German propaganda accounts of experten were particularly favorable examples of a basic truth, not examples of exceptions to the basic truth as Allied propaganda about fighter aces tended to be. So for example when it come to Tomahawk/Kittyhawk in DAF v Bf109, some will to thise day characterize it in terms of the most successful Allied pilots' claims, as Allied public account did at the time, and are surprised to learn that the overall fighter kill ratio was several to one in the Germans' favor.

In general I think there are relatively few cases in history where individual official credits were strongly influenced by propaganda considerations, though there were certainly some such cases. For example the first USAAF ace of WWII, Buzz Wagner, seems to have been officially credited with victories he didn't originally claim (and there's no evidence the Japanese suffered) to get somebody up to the 5 kill mark quickly in the disastrous early campaigns. But again once things got going on a larger scale there was no reason to exaggerate kills when you could just focus on the pilots and units honestly claiming success (accurately or not is another issue) and neglect those who were having a tougher go.

Re: Soviets, in Korea they *theoretically* had the same standard, but in reality their claims were highly exaggerated according to evidence in opposing secret records. And serious holes are apparent in the 'wreck confirmation' of Soviet claims in Korea as soon as you look at them closely. In the 1939 war with Japan the Soviets overclaimed about as much as in Korea (6+ *times* as many official victories credited as actual opposing losses in air combat). So while I've never seen a comprehensive accounting for WWII for the Soviets, my bet would be their credits in that war too were also exaggerated more than most otherAF's, not less. The theory of the claim verification process is only one part of the story. The theory of the German process didn't change explicitly later in WWII either, but the actual results clearly became a lot more exaggerated than in Marseille's time.

Joe


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## mhuxt (Mar 9, 2010)

Vincenzo said:


> thank you this is ok



The spreadsheets and instructions are here:

New Page 1


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## fastmongrel (Mar 9, 2010)

I dont want to denigrate Luftwaffe claims but how does the so called best system manage to have so many aircraft shot down in the Battle of Britain. I dont know the exact figures but didnt the Luftwaffe claim about twice as many victories as the RAF lost, just as RAF claims were about twice the Luftwaffe losses.

I have no experience of flying or combat but I used to race motorbikes and I know how hard it is to see things happening that arent in your focus. Once a guy dropped his bike just in front of me under hard braking for a corner at around about 100 mph, according to eyewitnesses his bike cartwheeled in front of me narrowly missing me I never even noticed. It took several people to convince me it happened.

Perhaps this is how claims get doubled up 2 pilots are attacking the same aircraft both honestly think they hit it both think they saw it go down.


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## riacrato (Mar 9, 2010)

You have to take into account that the RAF was fighting over own territory, hence claims were much easier to verify by ground crews or even better the wreckage. LW had the channel in between, making claim verification much harder. If hte ratio was indeed 2:1 for both sides (I think it was worse for the LW fighters, iirc) that does imply the LW system was better.


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## JoeB (Mar 9, 2010)

fastmongrel said:


> I dont want to denigrate Luftwaffe claims but how does the so called best system manage to have so many aircraft shot down in the Battle of Britain. I dont know the exact figures but didnt the Luftwaffe claim about twice as many victories as the RAF lost, just as RAF claims were about twice the Luftwaffe losses.


Seems like maybe you are talking about two different 'systems', 'system' of actually shooting down more planes than you lose, and 'system' of claim verification so number of planes you credit your pilots with doesn't exceed the actual number shot down by too wide a margin.

On the first as I referred to above the Germans obviously failed in their overall objective in the Battle of Britain, and that's certainly important. But that wasn't just a function of relative effectiveness of the two fighter forces. It was also heavily influenced by the German decisions about how to use bombers and fighters, the nature or their bomber force as well as fighter force, nature of the overally British defensive system not just fighters, basic geogrpaphy of the campaign, etc. But still in BoB German fighters downed more British fighters than vice versa, as had been true in the campaign over France before that to a greater extent, and as was true in the campaign over France after that through 1942 to greater extent still (so there was not even any trend against the German fighters until later on). It was also true over Malta, the Western Desert, etc. It was true in most cases through 1942: German fighters generally shot down more British fighters than vice versa, and similarly against all the other major German opponents. 

On the system of claims, or the reality of the result of that system, again if we don't equate '1939-42 air combat =Battle of Britain', but look more broadly, German claims were more generally accurate than British in the first half of the war. German claim accuracy deteriorated seriously late in WWII, and Allied tended to improve. In general the side that's actually doing better tends to claim more accurately. But the Western Allies, driven by the British particularly but it tended to rub off on US air arms too, specifically tried to get more rigorous in claim verification based on intel information like Utra intercepts that told them how far off their total credits were v real German losses in some the early campaigns, llike over France ca. 1941, when Brit claims were considerably less than 1/2 accurate. Enemy losses=1/2 of destroyed claims was actually pretty good claim accuracy in WWII, the average accuracy for all claims by all AF's fighters* for all of WWII was surely lower.

*claims accuracy by bombers against attacking fighters is a whole different ball of wax, way less accurate across almost known cases. Also I'm not quibbling overthe terms 'claim' v 'credit' or 'victory'. Whatever the most official statistic an AF produced for how many it said it shot down, call it a claim or a credit or victory, the question is how one side's number compares with the real loss on the other side.

Joe


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## vanir (Mar 9, 2010)

Your bring up a good point here Joe,



> Re: Soviets, in Korea they *theoretically* had the same standard, but in reality their claims were highly exaggerated according to evidence in opposing secret records. And serious holes are apparent in the 'wreck confirmation' of Soviet claims in Korea as soon as you look at them closely. In the 1939 war with Japan the Soviets overclaimed about as much as in Korea (6+ *times* as many official victories credited as actual opposing losses in air combat). So while I've never seen a comprehensive accounting for WWII for the Soviets, my bet would be their credits in that war too were also exaggerated more than most otherAF's, not less. The theory of the claim verification process is only one part of the story. The theory of the German process didn't change explicitly later in WWII either, but the actual results clearly became a lot more exaggerated than in Marseille's time.



I do recall the claimed victories at Nomohan/Kalkin Gol and surrounding conflicts (the Chinese border prelimenary to this) were terrifically overblown on both sides according to postwar researchers. Modern thinking is that losses were in fact about even on both sides (ref. Robert Jackson).
What I had assumed is that during the Great Patriotic War the Soviet kill claim system was toughened. Then following this, such as in Korea the Cold War situation I should think makes such matters suddenly highly political, there were strict engagement rules and no fly zones, the Soviets themselves weren't supposed to be directly involved, it's an environment for exaggeration and untruth especially considering many pilots in the field just went ahead and ignored their official guidelines. Intelligence reporting in Korea I think was murky at times.

All this aside, according to Soviet WW2 pilots in recorded interviews the kill claim system was conservatively harsh and frequently didn't recognise celebrated victories, one pilot described how he desintegrated a Messerschmitt with the heavy gun of an Airacobra so it wasn't recorded as a kill, the wreckage was strewn across some German lines despite the whole squadron talking about it later.
Similarly Soviet aces, notably Lydia Litvak could not be awarded decorations posthumously unless their body was located and in Soviet hands, so she didn't get her Hero of the Soviet Union award until her crash site and body were found, which didn't happen until 1986 (decorated with the award in 1990).
The thinking seems to be, if it didn't happen within Soviet influence, it didn't happen.


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## FLYBOYJ (Mar 9, 2010)

JoeB said:


> In general I think there are relatively few cases in history where individual official credits were strongly influenced by propaganda considerations, though there were certainly some such cases. For example the first USAAF ace of WWII, Buzz Wagner, seems to have been officially credited with victories he didn't originally claim (and there's no evidence the Japanese suffered) to get somebody up to the 5 kill mark quickly in the disastrous early campaigns. But again once things got going on a larger scale there was no reason to exaggerate kills when you could just focus on the pilots and units honestly claiming success (accurately or not is another issue) and neglect those who were having a tougher go.



I believe in the book "Peter 38" Dick Bong was being pressured to accept a credit for shooting up a transport plane on the ground after a mission he and Tom Lynch flew. According to the text Bong refused.


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## vanir (Mar 9, 2010)

I think it is a fascinating subject taken in the right light, certainly I'd like to explore the atmosphere of pilot combat further along these lines to really get a feel of sitting in the cockpit and common regard for the authorities on your own side and the enemy military machine.

I can't help thinking the individual pilot awards/claim system is somewhat political. It seems to me the purposes of the propaganda department behind individual Luftwaffe experten was to promote effective training techniques in the same way modern celebrities are sometimes thought of as role models. Graf, Hartmann, Marsielle, Mölders, all had active roles in the modelling of fresh cadets by third party representation. They were the people to emulate to win victories and more than this, just to survive combat. Everybody has heard of Hartmann's famous reiteration of Immelman's maxim to let your opponent fill the window before firing, variously echoed from Boelcke to von Richtofen. Marsielle said to learn how to control your Messerschmitt at low speed handling to be a success, this is important not just for combat but consider the airfield accident record of the type, it is probably the best advice a Messerschmitt cadet could possibly receive.

It would seem logical those best suited to role modelling for combat pilots are going to be well decorated, promoted and awarded, even in some cases exempted from further combat missions or given full reign on their career development. Meantime some others like Wilcke remained largely unsung heroes in the public limelight despite a terrific combat record which cannot be denied. He did after all tell Göring to go jump off a cliff. Similarly Hartmann held Nazi protocol when meeting Hitler in sheer contempt but in this case remained luckily favoured by the leader himself (he refused to remove his sidearm, declaring if Hitler could not trust his own fighter pilots then he would prefer a jail cell, he remains one of few regular military personnel to be in the leader's presence in the later war when armed).

It's all very interesting to me.


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## Spurius (Mar 11, 2010)

mhuxt said:


> Try this one:
> 
> http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Books/Davis_B99/Davis_B99.pdf
> 
> You may have to hunt around that site for the supporting spreadsheets.


Thank you very much! Ca marche!!

Barry


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## ppopsie (Mar 11, 2010)

mhuxt said:


> Try this one:
> 
> http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Books/Davis_B99/Davis_B99.pdf
> 
> You may have to hunt around that site for the supporting spreadsheets.



Thanks. I will read this 600+ pages stuff.


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## Jeffro (Dec 5, 2010)

Double post

is that 2 on my list of posts


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## Jeffro (Dec 5, 2010)

As the one guilty of the original article, I thought I'd add some more comment.

As I made pains to point out, I wasn't attacking anyone, it was the system that was at fault. Maybe HJM got a lot of mention, he flew in a theatre which I had a lot of interest in.

I also brought up numbers from 18 Dec 1939, The BoB, Dieppe, Schweinfurt and of the RAF over France.

I only saw this today, on the 12 O'clock High Forum

_The most notable example of the Luftwaffe ace culture’s impact in North Africa was the falsification of victory claims by a small group of 4./J.G. 27 pilots in mid-1942. Few Axis aerial victories were claimed in August, with the exception of these 4./J.G. 27 pilots, who claimed numerous victories almost daily. Other J.G. 27 pilots had their suspicions, and these were confirmed on 16 August when a 2./J.G. 27 pilot came across five 4./J.G. 27 pilots shooting off their ammunition in the desert in a mock combat. Slipping away unnoticed, the 2./J.G. 27 pilot landed at base. When the 4./J.G. 27 pilots returned, they claimed twelve victories between them. Some 58 false victory claims were submitted between 20 June and 12 October 1942, along with others that were suspicious. Most of these occurred in August. As if to confirm their guilt, on the day after they were discovered, one member of the Staffel committed suicide in his Bf 109.[1] This series of events was never reported to the Luftwaffe high command, and one of these pilots later received the Ritterkreuz (Knight’s Cross). This was the only known case of Axis falsification of victory claims in North Africa in 1942, but it is a stark example of how much the ace culture affected German fighter pilots in North Africa.

[1] Luftwaffe Victory Claims Microfilm Material; Shores Ring, Fighters Over the Desert, p.160]

In first days of August 1942 four pilots from the same Schwarm of 4./JG 27 begun to claim big number of victories. Very soon it was called “Experten-Schwarm”. Pilots, who had their successes very rarely earlier, suddenly started to win air combats every day and their accounts started to grow very fast. And so it was :

3 August: 2; Bendert 1, Sawallisch 1,
4 August: 4; Bendert 2, Sawallisch 2,
5 August: 1; Bendert 1,
6 August: 3; Bendert 2, Stiegler 1,
7 August: 9; Bendert 3, Sawallisch 2, Stiegler 2, Vögl 2,
10 August: 8; Bendert 2, Sawallisch 2, Stiegler 2, Vögl 2,
11 August: 5; Sawallisch 2, Vögl 2, Stiegler 1,
12 August: 12; Bendert 5 !, Sawallisch 4, Stiegler 3,
14 August: 2; Sawallisch 2.

Some other, very experienced pilots like Stahlschmidt, Sinner, Börngen – knew, that air combat wasn’t a play and getting so much successes by unexperienced pilots was very suspected.
The pressure in JG 27 was growing till 16 August.
On that day Lt. Hans-Arnold Stahlschmidt from 2./JG 27 with his wingman started from Fuka and shot down 2 P-40 on 8.15 and 8.25 hours. After landing in the base he came to kommodore JG 27, Maj. Edu Neumann, claimed 2 victories and reported that during his second fight saw 5 Bf 109 shooting into sand!
There was only Expereten-Schwarm in the air in that time.
When these pilots landed, they claimed 12 victories ! (Bendert 3, Sawallisch 3, Vögl 3, Stiegler 2, Just 1).
Pilots denied to Stahlschmidt’s report, confirming victories to each other.
Maj. Neumann decided not to inform High Command, because he didn’t want Jagdgeschwader to lose good opinion. All their victories were cancelled, but after official confirmation by OKL in Berlin they have stayed on their accounts. Experten-Schwarm was unformed and the pilots were moved to other staffels. The new Rommel’s offensive was to come and every pilot was valuable.
It supposed to be end of the conflict, but final came very soon. On 19 August Ofw. Erwin Sawallisch started in his Bf 109 after technical check-up, but didn’t come back. It is unknown, if he killed himself or if it was a revenge of angry mechanics, whose hard work was wasted.
His body was found the next day on the beach of Mediterranean Sea.
Ten days later, on 29 August, Uffz. Just was taken PoW. His account has stayed on 1.
The rest survived the war, everybody in officer’s ranks._


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## Jeffro (Dec 5, 2010)

Plus later bits


I only yesterday read this , from "Four Aces" by Lex McAulay.(Page 62)
"The German fighters of JG2 and JG 26 claimed 13 Swordfish, 10 being confirmed by the official Luftwaffe system and a victory credit given to the relevant pilots. The German ships also were credited with the destruction of 6 Swordfish. It is acknowledged by all concerned and accepted by historians and enthusiasts that almost all victory claims for intense combats were exaggerated, but to the author of this book there seems to have been a disproportionate effort at disparaging Allied claims, while Luftwaffe claims have been accepted, partly due to the thorough verification into each claim by relevant Luftwaffe authorities, and the issue of a confirmatory document for an individual claim. These documents appear to have taken on the halo of irrefutable fact. Events such as the Channel Dash call into question the accuracy of the Luftwaffe system. only 6 Swordfish took part and Ted Hall of 129 Sqn saw 3 shot down by ships' fire; but 10 were officially credited to fighter pilots by the Luftwaffe system.

“Luftwaffe Fighter Aces” by Mike Spick (about 30 books published) which is an excellent story of the Experten and their Tactics
He has an interesting slant on this, almost an apology for the over claiming. 
He implies the Luftwaffe claims are multiplied by 2 or 3 times the actual figures. 
He says the claims were made in "good faith", and examined as rigourously “as the circumstances allowed”

He also states “That an aerial Victory occurs when an enemy is DEFEATED in combat in circumstances where the victor believes that it will be a total loss. (I think this is a personal view)
In another chapter he mentions this phrase but ends with “the enemy aircraft can no longer take part in the battle”



Location: Galland's home in Remagen, Germany
Date: 1 October 1991
Interviewer: Don Caldwell
Also Present: Josef Buerschgens, a pilot in JG 26 1938-1940


Caldwell: During the course of the Battle of Britain Reichsmarschall Goering lost confidence in the Jagdwaffe - completely and permanently. The conventional explanations for this are well known, but seem inadequate. Could Goering's bitter feelings toward his fighter pilots have been the result of a suspicion that victory claims were being deliberately overstated?
Galland: Your theory is almost correct, but incomplete. I must defend the really overstated claims of the fighters by telling you that there was an enormous difference between the first claims, right after the mission, and finally confirmed victories. Goering and most of his staff, however, calculated and assumed always the worst for the enemy and the most optimistic facts for our side.



Chris Shores on AVG combat claims
Recently there's been a heated discussion on the AVG veterans' message board about what the British aviation historian Christopher Shores wrote about over-claiming in the Battle of Burma. Soon the argument spread to the Twelve O'clock High forum. In the end, Mr. Shores added his tuppennys' worth, which appears below: 
* * * *
Firstly, those who seek to attack what I have written on the subject should be made aware that I found AVG claims no more or less unreliable than those of most other air forces I have researched. Always the circumstances of each engagement needs to be looked at carefully. In fighter-v-fighter combats the claim:loss ratio always seems to climb rapidly, multiplied by the numbers of aircraft/units involved. In Burma the AVG were often fighting over jungle and attacked in steep dives before climbing back for altitude. Good tactics, but fraught with opportunities for double claiming - or triple claiming for that matter. 
When I wrote ' Fighters over the Desert' way back in the 1960s, I could not understand why I kept finding claims that I could not verify when I seemed to have all the available records to hand. It was only years later, and after I had been attacked by apologists for just about every air force in the world, that I found in the official British war histories published in the early/mid 1950s a clear warning that claim totals were likelty to be inflated and could not be relied upon - and that was admitted within ten years of the end of WWII !! 
Indeed, overclaiming, albeit in the best of good faith in most cases, certainly seems to have been endemic in aerial combat. It happened on every front and with every air force. Some (though not all) Luftwaffe units and Finnish units were considerably more accurate than most, most of the time. Fighter pilots by and large were young, aggressive and optimistic men who knew what they should be seeing and wanted to see. Even now, some still get very upset when it is pointed out that something they were quite certain had happened (and wanted to have happened) had not in fact occurred just as they recalled it. Others are much more pragmatic and realistic - and strangely, it is usually the latter whose claims prove to be easier to verify as having been accurate (or at least reasonably so). 
I always remind myself of the little verse Barrett Tillman recited once - "You can tell a bomber pilot by the spread across his rear, and by the ring around his eye, you can tell a bombardier; you can tell a navigator by his maps and charts and such, and you can tell a fighter pilot - but you can't tell him much !" 
Just for the record, I love it when I can find a loss that fits a claim so that I can properly confirm what actually happened at the time. It gives me no joy at all to have to point out that there was not a loss for a particular claim. I love the world of fighter pilots and have spent more than 40 years of my life researching and recording their exploits. But in doing so if one is to retain credibility as a historian, one must look at the full picture, not just one side. 
In ' Bill; a Pilot's Story' by Brooklyn Harris, the author records how day after day Japanese formations kept returning to targets in the Solomons despite the losses apparently being inflicted on them by the 13th Air Force. It never once occurred to the author that perhaps the reason for the apparently inexhaustible supply of aircraft the Japanese seemed to have available to them - something to which he specifically referred - might have indicated that at least in part the losses they were actually suffering were not as severe as those being claimed. 
To research matters from as wide a perspective as possible and to report the results as accurately as one can, should reflect no shame on those participating except in the occasional and thankfully rare occasions when some individual is deliberately falsifying their contribution. (The latter did happen now and again, but fortunately [sic] not often). From my own researches I can certainly state that the vast majority of fighter pilots (and aircrew generally) of all nations did their duty in an exemplary fashion. If anyone has done them a disservice I would suggest that it was more likely to be those who wrote about them carelessly for sensational and propaganda purposes - not those who have tried to be objective and honest in recording history to the best of their abilities. Personally, I am always pleased to be able to update and correct any statement I have recorded in the past where further or more reliable evidence becomes available. 
If you should feel it appropriate to include these words on the Forum I would be grateful. If you feel it is too long, then fine. 
Kind regards, 
Chris


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## Jeffro (Dec 5, 2010)

Plus later bits


I only yesterday read this , from "Four Aces" by Lex McAulay.(Page 62)
"The German fighters of JG2 and JG 26 claimed 13 Swordfish, 10 being confirmed by the official Luftwaffe system and a victory credit given to the relevant pilots. The German ships also were credited with the destruction of 6 Swordfish. It is acknowledged by all concerned and accepted by historians and enthusiasts that almost all victory claims for intense combats were exaggerated, but to the author of this book there seems to have been a disproportionate effort at disparaging Allied claims, while Luftwaffe claims have been accepted, partly due to the thorough verification into each claim by relevant Luftwaffe authorities, and the issue of a confirmatory document for an individual claim. These documents appear to have taken on the halo of irrefutable fact. Events such as the Channel Dash call into question the accuracy of the Luftwaffe system. only 6 Swordfish took part and Ted Hall of 129 Sqn saw 3 shot down by ships' fire; but 10 were officially credited to fighter pilots by the Luftwaffe system.

“Luftwaffe Fighter Aces” by Mike Spick (about 30 books published) which is an excellent story of the Experten and their Tactics
He has an interesting slant on this, almost an apology for the over claiming. 
He implies the Luftwaffe claims are multiplied by 2 or 3 times the actual figures. 
He says the claims were made in "good faith", and examined as rigourously “as the circumstances allowed”

He also states “That an aerial Victory occurs when an enemy is DEFEATED in combat in circumstances where the victor believes that it will be a total loss. (I think this is a personal view)
In another chapter he mentions this phrase but ends with “the enemy aircraft can no longer take part in the battle”



Location: Galland's home in Remagen, Germany
Date: 1 October 1991
Interviewer: Don Caldwell
Also Present: Josef Buerschgens, a pilot in JG 26 1938-1940


Caldwell: During the course of the Battle of Britain Reichsmarschall Goering lost confidence in the Jagdwaffe - completely and permanently. The conventional explanations for this are well known, but seem inadequate. Could Goering's bitter feelings toward his fighter pilots have been the result of a suspicion that victory claims were being deliberately overstated?
Galland: Your theory is almost correct, but incomplete. I must defend the really overstated claims of the fighters by telling you that there was an enormous difference between the first claims, right after the mission, and finally confirmed victories. Goering and most of his staff, however, calculated and assumed always the worst for the enemy and the most optimistic facts for our side.



Chris Shores on AVG combat claims
Recently there's been a heated discussion on the AVG veterans' message board about what the British aviation historian Christopher Shores wrote about over-claiming in the Battle of Burma. Soon the argument spread to the Twelve O'clock High forum. In the end, Mr. Shores added his tuppennys' worth, which appears below: 
* * * *
Firstly, those who seek to attack what I have written on the subject should be made aware that I found AVG claims no more or less unreliable than those of most other air forces I have researched. Always the circumstances of each engagement needs to be looked at carefully. In fighter-v-fighter combats the claim:loss ratio always seems to climb rapidly, multiplied by the numbers of aircraft/units involved. In Burma the AVG were often fighting over jungle and attacked in steep dives before climbing back for altitude. Good tactics, but fraught with opportunities for double claiming - or triple claiming for that matter. 
When I wrote ' Fighters over the Desert' way back in the 1960s, I could not understand why I kept finding claims that I could not verify when I seemed to have all the available records to hand. It was only years later, and after I had been attacked by apologists for just about every air force in the world, that I found in the official British war histories published in the early/mid 1950s a clear warning that claim totals were likelty to be inflated and could not be relied upon - and that was admitted within ten years of the end of WWII !! 
Indeed, overclaiming, albeit in the best of good faith in most cases, certainly seems to have been endemic in aerial combat. It happened on every front and with every air force. Some (though not all) Luftwaffe units and Finnish units were considerably more accurate than most, most of the time. Fighter pilots by and large were young, aggressive and optimistic men who knew what they should be seeing and wanted to see. Even now, some still get very upset when it is pointed out that something they were quite certain had happened (and wanted to have happened) had not in fact occurred just as they recalled it. Others are much more pragmatic and realistic - and strangely, it is usually the latter whose claims prove to be easier to verify as having been accurate (or at least reasonably so). 
I always remind myself of the little verse Barrett Tillman recited once - "You can tell a bomber pilot by the spread across his rear, and by the ring around his eye, you can tell a bombardier; you can tell a navigator by his maps and charts and such, and you can tell a fighter pilot - but you can't tell him much !" 
Just for the record, I love it when I can find a loss that fits a claim so that I can properly confirm what actually happened at the time. It gives me no joy at all to have to point out that there was not a loss for a particular claim. I love the world of fighter pilots and have spent more than 40 years of my life researching and recording their exploits. But in doing so if one is to retain credibility as a historian, one must look at the full picture, not just one side. 
In ' Bill; a Pilot's Story' by Brooklyn Harris, the author records how day after day Japanese formations kept returning to targets in the Solomons despite the losses apparently being inflicted on them by the 13th Air Force. It never once occurred to the author that perhaps the reason for the apparently inexhaustible supply of aircraft the Japanese seemed to have available to them - something to which he specifically referred - might have indicated that at least in part the losses they were actually suffering were not as severe as those being claimed. 
To research matters from as wide a perspective as possible and to report the results as accurately as one can, should reflect no shame on those participating except in the occasional and thankfully rare occasions when some individual is deliberately falsifying their contribution. (The latter did happen now and again, but fortunately [sic] not often). From my own researches I can certainly state that the vast majority of fighter pilots (and aircrew generally) of all nations did their duty in an exemplary fashion. If anyone has done them a disservice I would suggest that it was more likely to be those who wrote about them carelessly for sensational and propaganda purposes - not those who have tried to be objective and honest in recording history to the best of their abilities. Personally, I am always pleased to be able to update and correct any statement I have recorded in the past where further or more reliable evidence becomes available. 
If you should feel it appropriate to include these words on the Forum I would be grateful. If you feel it is too long, then fine. 
Kind regards, 
Chris


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## Njaco (Dec 5, 2010)

Excellent reply by Mr. Shores.


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## drgondog (Dec 5, 2010)

I have found Mr. Shores research to be extremely thorough and compliment him for not falling back to 'accepted dogma'. 

Research to match claims to credits, particularly when so many records have been lost, is always a difficult proposition. 

Thank you Chris for the meticulous efforts and contributions you have made in fighter aviation research over the years.

Regards,

Bill Marshall


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## mythbust (Sep 16, 2013)

"Look at US fighter kills credited, it's far more accurate than Luftwaffe' figures..."

After reading the great article about USAF huge over claims tank killings during Normandy operation i have became very skeptical about their air battle claims too. However there is no doubt that biggest liars were surely those in Soviet Union. 

Read article here about "air craft destroying tanks" in Normandy. 

Opeartion Barbarossa: Aircraft vs Armour WWII

"During Operation Goodwood (18th to 21st July) the 2nd Tactical Air Force and 9th USAAF claimed 257 and 134 tanks, respectively, as destroyed. Of these, 222 were claimed by Typhoon pilots using RPs (Rocket Projectiles). " 

...

"They found that the air force’s claims did not match the reality at all. In the Goodwood area a total of 456 German heavily armoured vehicles were counted, and 301 were examined in detail. They found only 10 could be attributed to Typhoons using RPs (less than 3% of those claimed).(5) Even worse, only 3 out of 87 APC examined could be attributed to air lunched RPs. "

Of course this is painful for those believing how "honest" pilots of western allies were. The truth is the opposite. There were many reasons why it was better to lie and tell the truth. Our losses were hidden, enemy losses were exaggerated. And the sky wasn't even the limit of fantasies.


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## stona (Sep 16, 2013)

mythbust said:


> Of course this is painful for those believing how "honest" pilots of western allies were. The truth is the opposite. There were many reasons why it was better to lie and tell the truth. Our losses were hidden, enemy losses were exaggerated. And the sky wasn't even the limit of fantasies.



I'd refer you back to Chris Shores excellent post from a few years back. His observations apply to air to ground attacks too. 
Close Air Support in Normandy is something I have looked at in some detail myself. I can't comment on Soviet claims. 
It is quite wrong to suggest that the pilots of RAF 2nd TAF and US 9th AF were lying in their claims. A far more sober appraisal and attempt at explanation is required. Those pilots would have believed that their rockets were causing the carnage that they claimed. I don't have time to go through my notes at the moment to give you a specific reference, but it was established by testing back in the UK that a rocket exploding within feet of an armoured vehicle did no significant damage. That's obviously not how it looked to pilots zooming past at 250 mph.
A fraudulent claim is not the same as a mistaken claim. The latter was very common, the former extremely rare and even more difficult to prove.
Cheers
Steve


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## Kryten (Sep 16, 2013)

I have always taken claims with a pinch of salt, not because I believe the pilots to be falsifying their efforts but because I don't think enough emphasis is placed on the ability to actually see what is happening around you whilst in a combat inside a aluminium tube with a small often obstructed canopy!

The true picture of air combat is displayed clearly for all in the result of the campaign they are involved in rather than individual combats.


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## stona (Sep 16, 2013)

Kryten said:


> The true picture of air combat is displayed clearly for all in the result of the campaign they are involved in rather than individual combats.



That is so, and it was usually a nasty surprise for both sides of a conflict when compared to the intelligence gathered from the pilots during the conflict.

Cheers

Steve


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## Aozora (Sep 16, 2013)

mythbust said:


> Read article here about "air craft destroying tanks" in Normandy.
> 
> Opeartion Barbarossa: Aircraft vs Armour WWII
> 
> ...



This is an unbalanced and unfair appraisal of 2 TAF's Typhoon pilots and their objectivity, and this website is clearly pushing an agenda - unless there is obvious evidence that pilots and aircrew were deliberately lying it is not up to any armchair experts, who have most likely never been involved in combat, to claim that they were. What is "painful" is to read this type of nonsense about these guys who put their lives on the line every time they flew on an operation.

As it is a far more balanced appraisal of the Mortain claims can be found here;


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 16, 2013)

Unless its about Luftwaffe pilots, then its okay...


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## Denniss (Sep 16, 2013)

There's no 100% kill confirmation from the air unless you see a tank exploding or an aircraft go straight down into the ground and/or explode.
It's especially hard to confirm ground kills from fast aircraft like the usual fighter-bombers, easier to confirm from slower a/c like Ju 87 because they don't overshoot their target that fast and mayhave time to see some devastating effect (or not).


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## Kryten (Sep 16, 2013)

I think you grossly underestimate the amount of dust and smoke obscuring the impact point, it's probably almost impossible to reliably gauge any effect until minutes after, that's my own experience with artillery!


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## Aozora (Sep 16, 2013)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Unless its about Luftwaffe pilots, then its okay...



It's not okay to claim pilots and aircrew were lying, no matter what nationality, and if you look through my posts I have never said that about any of them. About as bad is claiming that all Luftwaffe pilots and crews were dedicated/fanatical Nazis...to requote Chris Shores:



> To research matters from as wide a perspective as possible and to report the results as accurately as one can, should reflect no shame on those participating except in the occasional and thankfully rare occasions when some individual is deliberately falsifying their contribution. (The latter did happen now and again, but fortunately [sic] not often). From my own researches I can certainly state that the vast majority of fighter pilots (and aircrew generally) of all nations did their duty in an exemplary fashion. If anyone has done them a disservice I would suggest that it was more likely to be those who wrote about them carelessly for sensational and propaganda purposes - not those who have tried to be objective and honest in recording history to the best of their abilities.


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## FLYBOYJ (Sep 16, 2013)

mythbust said:


> However there is no doubt that biggest liars were surely those in Soviet Union.


Using the term "liar" is a bit harsh. Those fighting under the Soviet flag were hard pressed to show results and lack of performance could be just as deadly as the enemy. Across the board I don't believe for the most part anyone intentionally "lied" about combat claims. As been stated many, many times on this forum, it was recognized the confusion and stresses experienced during combat breeds a natural bowl of confusion so it would be a natural situation for ALL combatants to over-claim. Not to say that it is possible (and probable) that some individual combatants "padded" their claims, using the word "liar" as a broad brush is a bid narrow (and unfair) within the greater picture of WW2 aerial combat.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 16, 2013)

Aozora said:


> It's not okay to claim pilots and aircrew were lying, no matter what nationality, and if you look through my posts I have never said that about any of them. About as bad is claiming that all Luftwaffe pilots and crews were dedicated/fanatical Nazis...to requote Chris Shores:



Oh I am just going off of this forum's trend...


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## mhuxt (Sep 16, 2013)

mythbust said:


> "Look at US fighter kills credited, it's far more accurate than Luftwaffe' figures..."
> 
> After reading the great article about USAF huge over claims tank killings during Normandy operation i have became very skeptical about their air battle claims too. However there is no doubt that biggest liars were surely those in Soviet Union.
> 
> ...


 
Hi TJ.


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## mythbust (Sep 16, 2013)

http://www.warbirdforum.com/claiming.htm

_"Some (though not all) Luftwaffe units and Finnish units were considerably more accurate than most, most of the time...."_

This is the theory which should be checked and tested. And if there is anybody who have chance to found Soviet claims and loss reports in northwestern front (Leningrad, and north from Lake Ladoga here is are these list of Finnish Air Force Fighter Squadrons:

Fighter Squadron 24: 

https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luettelo_Lentolaivue_24:n_ilmavoitoista_ja_sotatoimitappioista

Fighter Squadron 26:

https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luettelo_Lentolaivue_26:n_ilmavoitoista_ja_sotatoimitappioista

Fighter Squadron 28:

https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luettelo_Lentolaivue_28:n_ilmavoitoista_ja_sotatoimitappioista

Fighter Squadron 32:

https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luettelo_Lentolaivue_32:n_ilmavoitoista_ja_sotatoimitappioista

Fighter Squadron 34:

https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luettelo_Lentolaivue_34:n_ilmavoitoista_ja_sotatoimitappioista


Claims during Finnish-Russo Winter War (1939-40):

Tupolev TB-3	1	bomber
Tupolev SB-2	103	bomber
Iljušin DB-3 ja DB-4	50	bomber
Polikarpov I-15bis	7	fighter
Polikarpov I-153	13	fighter
Polikarpov I-16	22	fighter
Polikarpov R-5	11	fighter

Losses: 47 (35 shut down by enemy fighters and 8 by AA-guns, 4 other combat losses)

translations:

Päivämäärä = Date
Aika= Time
Paikka = Place
Ohjaaja = Pilot
Oma kone = own aircraft type/model
Alasammuttu kone = shut down enemy aircraft type

tammikuu= January
helmikuu= February
maaliskuu=March
huhtikuu=April
toukokuu= May
kesäkuu=June
heinäkuu=July
elokuu=August
syyskuu=September
lokakuu=October
marraskuu=November
joulukuu=December

talvisota = Finnish-Russo Winter War (30th of Nov 1939 - 13th of March 1940)
jatkosota= Continuation War (25th June 1941 - 5th Sept 1944)

One thing is sure and well know - enemy air craft even shut down in real life was many cases wrongly classified and typed. During the Continuation War Finns had claims of 1567 killings + 1 107 shut down by AA-artillery.

On the other hand their own combat losses were (Continuation War):

86 shut down by enemy pilots
66 shut down by enemy AA-artillery
63 other combat losses
--------------------------------
combat losses 215

There is interesting correlation between fighters:AA-artillery losses and claims

86:66
1567: 1107


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## tyrodtom (Sep 16, 2013)

When you have a German tank abandoned on the battlefield, through either lack of fuel, or whatever reason. 
If it's not recovered by the Germans, what will the first allied ground unit do when they first see it ?
Do you think they'll send someone on foot to check it out??

IMO they'd send some armor rounds thru it from a safe distance to make sure it's dead and useless, they'll take no chances.

When the battlefield is surveyed later, how do they determine what made the tank ineffective in the first place ?


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## stona (Sep 16, 2013)

tyrodtom said:


> When the battlefield is surveyed later, how do they determine what made the tank ineffective in the first place ?



The Operational Research Sections (ORS) both US and British sought to establish the cause of destruction of vehicles by examining them. Rockets, bombs and different artillery were usually easily distinguishable for tanks, as were those that had been abandoned. Motor transport was often too badly damaged to assess exactly how it was destroyed and the ORS acknowledged that this weighted their "unknown causes" columns.

The Mortain battle area was examined by two different British ORS between 12-20 August (that's starting a mere 5 days after the battle and as soon as US forces had recaptured Mortain). 

The 2nd TAF had claimed 8 armoured vehicles destroyed and the 9th AF 69. In fact only 46 tanks and self propelled guns were found in the battle area and only 9 were considered to have been destroyed by air weapons. Because, unusually, the 9th AF had used rockets, firing 600, it was not possible to ascertain which air force had destroyed which armour.
The ORS both acknowledged that the Germans may have recovered some vehicles, but this hardly accounts for the discrepancy between claims and actual destruction. German PoWs consistently stated that vehicles destroyed from the air invariably burnt out and that burnt out vehicles were never salvaged. PoW interrogation was also within the remit of the ORS.

Of the 33 Panther tanks destroyed in the Mortain area 14 were destroyed by the US Army, 5 by rockets, 6 were abandoned intact, 4 were destroyed by their crews, 1 was destroyed by a bomb. The remaining 3 were "unknown causes".
Those are pretty typical ratios for armoured vehicles.

Cheers

Steve


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## Juha (Sep 16, 2013)

Hello Mythbust
are you aware Keskinen's Stenman's Ilmavoitot Osa 1 2 or their Suomen Ilmavoimat Osat II -VI, those give at least partial answer to the question of FiAF fighter pilots' claim accuracy.

Juha


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## mythbust (Sep 16, 2013)

Juha said:


> Hello Mythbust
> are you aware Keskinen's Stenman's Ilmavoitot Osa 1 2 or their Suomen Ilmavoimat Osat II -VI, those give at least partial answer to the question of FiAF fighter pilots' claim accuracy.
> 
> Juha



I haven't heard about this book. Is there any new Russian studies about their official losses during Continuation War and Winter War? I think it's the only way to solve thispuzzle. I don't believe that Finns had any special system to confirm the claim like searching the hulk of aircraft. For instance they could be lot of double claims with both pilots and AA-gun crew counting the same Russian aircraft shut down.


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## Njaco (Sep 16, 2013)

Welcome to the forum, Mythbust!


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## Lucky13 (Sep 16, 2013)

I think that the claims, weren't at the top of these gentlemens list, more likely it was get out, do your duty, survive, the pure terror in combat, just to keep on top of the situation, were your comrades are and the enemy, to make sure that you don't shoot down one of your own, which I can imagine did happen, I'm sure that a claim was made more than once for the same victim, which is understandable in the heat of the battle, which I think is more of a honest mistake than a 'lie'....
Come on, how many here, could go through the nerve wrecking times like they did and not make such a simple human mistake as a misclaim?


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## Juha (Sep 16, 2013)

mythbust said:


> I haven't heard about this book. Is there any new Russian studies about their official losses during Continuation War and Winter War? I think it's the only way to solve thispuzzle. I don't believe that Finns had any special system to confirm the claim like searching the hulk of aircraft. For instance they could be lot of double claims with both pilots and AA-gun crew counting the same Russian aircraft shut down.



Altogether 7 books. The FiAF claims are compared to the war diaries and other docus of Soviet air regimets etc and also to the post-war VVS KBF (Baltic Fleet AF) War Chronicle. 
And at least at LeR 3 in 1944 Räty (the GS officer of LeR 3) checked against possible evidences (incl. info from ground troop and radio intelligence info) the claims accepted in HLeLvs and then sent to the regiment, he was clearly fairly thorough man. Ultimately the C-in-C FiAF, Gen.Lt "Lunkka" Lundqvist accepted the claims.

Juha

Juha


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## stona (Sep 16, 2013)

Lucky13 said:


> make sure that you don't shoot down one of your own, which I can imagine did happen,



It happened all too often and there were some illustrious victims of "friendly" fire. Bader springs to mind.

One of the reasons that Leigh Mallory refused to go along with Montgomery's plan for an airborne landing to help take Caen was that the Royal Navy refused a night time cease fire to allow the aircraft to fly over. The Royal Navy had a reputation for blazing away at anything that flew......including Fleet Air Arm aircraft!

Cheers

Steve


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## GregP (Sep 17, 2013)

Well said Lucky15, like your avitar ... nice buns. Most claims were the result of honest observation. 

I personally don't care if the Luftwaffe (USAAC, RAF, IJA, IJN, etc.) salvaged a plane. If you shot it down, it was a "kill," and properly awarded as such. If they got parts from it, I don't care ... a kill means you put the pilot and plane on the ground and out of local combat at that time ... to me.

Purists may agrue, but puttting a live (or dead) pilot on the ground in a plane that cannot continue combat means a kill to me, and that's the way it is.


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## stona (Sep 17, 2013)

GregP said:


> Purists may agrue, but puttting a live (or dead) pilot on the ground in a plane that cannot continue combat means a kill to me, and that's the way it is.



That's up to you, but it's also why most air forces had a category "damaged". To them it wasn't about pilot scores it was about intelligence and trying to assess the effect of their efforts on the enemy's resources. A downed aircraft might very well be counted as a kill (even by these criteria, not just yours) but it was not destroyed. 
Neither RAF nor US airmen claimed kills,_ they claimed aircraft destroyed _and that is an important distinction. Aircraft claimed as "probable" often survived. Aircraft claimed as "damaged" sometimes did not. It was a difficult task for the intelligence officers to make realistic assessments from the combat/encounter reports and they often failed to do so.
Cheers
Steve


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## pattern14 (Sep 17, 2013)

I'm going to have to retire, get divorced, or both to have enough spare time to read through all these entertaining forums. Only got to page 3 of this one before fast forwarding to this point. I find the banter between members more fun than the dry facts by a long shot. Did anyone mention Japanese aces yet????


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## swampyankee (Sep 17, 2013)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> The system for confirming kills by the Luftwaffe was more strict then most but ofcourse they were overinflated just like everyone else. The RAF, USAAF, and the Soviets did it also. All in all I would say the allies lied more about what they lost then what they shot down. It was a moral issue plus they could not admit it to it, just like the Hitler could not admit defeat even until the very end.



"Lie" implies a deliberate attempt to deceive; I don't think that the pilots or air gunners were "lying" by that definition. It's probably a stretch to claim that the victories reported to the media were necessarily "lies," in that the service's publicity machines simply would not evaluate the data given to them.


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## drgondog (Sep 17, 2013)

during my research of 8th and 9th AF Victory credits, I devoted a lot of time researching Prien, Tony Wood, Caldwell, Lorant/Goyat and lot of communication with Erich and others on this site.

Prien was the first to help me sort out overclaims and most could be lumped into category of shot down/Crash landing in which the aircraft was deemed less than 60% damaged - in which case the LW did not report it as a lost a/c. When able to compare I found about 80-100% actual destroyed on the LW books. Having said that, the LW did not differentiate loss to bomber or fighter in air combat

Conversely, the LW Victory Credits with all sorts of film verication was usually 60-100% overstated to the 8th/9th AF a/c which failed to return. I will also comment that there were many a/c salvaged due to battle damage as well as aircraft that sought haven in Sweden and Switzerland. The point about the LW claims process and subsequent awards in the Battle of Germany in the West is this:
1. The LW reviewers had no way of ascertaining whether a salvageable but damaged aircraft went to Switzerland or Sweden. Undeniably the services of the aircraft and crew was denied to the US, but the Claims review process performed correctly would assign only a damaged credit.
2. Ditto 'one that was hit but did not fall and returned to England'. No way the claims reviewer would know whether it was repaired or salvaged.
3. The Only basis for a Victory credit should have been for an aircraft actually destroyed and the LW KJ reports cited many observed crash sites for confirmation as well as film and/or testimonial of witness.

Tony Woods data focuses on 3. as well as Caldwell, Prien, et al. THESE Rollups are at best 50% overstated and frequently 100% overstated to actual NYR records of the USAAF... and gets worse when one reflects that many of the NYR were killed by flak, not fighters... and no records of flak battery credits seem to be available to load up along with fighter VC's. 

For those in doubt of what I posted here, get Tony Wood's LW VC listings as a general basis, and pick up a copy of Freeman's 8th AF "Mighty Eighth War Diary". He has errors as any work that magnitude would have - but it contains on a Field Order by Field Order loss tally by Bomb and Fighter Group as well as Damaged statistics. Andrews and Adams "The Mighty Eighth Combat Chronology" takes it one step farther and cites every combat loss in which the a/c did not return or crashed or ditched for total loss along with a/c serial no., Squadron, Command pilot, loss location, suspected cause, and MACR number.

With those three you can get very good evidence of Victory Credit Award to claim for LW in actual comparison, side by side, day by day from 1942 to May 1945. Make your own judgments rather than depend on what somebody else 'thinks'.


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## stona (Sep 17, 2013)

drgondog said:


> With those three you can get very good evidence of Victory Credit Award to claim for LW in actual comparison, side by side, day by day from 1942 to May 1945. Make your own judgments rather than depend on what somebody else 'thinks'.



You can also save yourself a lot of leg work by getting hold of the relevant publications, often by the authors cited above. A war diary type of approach (as adopted by Caldwell et alter) will usually give you the figures for both claims and losses, extracted from the various sources, on a mission by mission basis.
Cheers
Steve


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## Glider (Sep 17, 2013)

Its a little off topic but I hope you forgive me. I was once in the NA and came across these letters. I find it fascinating that with the war far from won, they found time to look at a letter from a group of informed civies and it made its way to Churchill.

Edit - Sorry everyone I forgot to check the dates. The two letters were not connected but I think will be interesting.


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## Aozora (Sep 17, 2013)

Thanks for the interesting material Glider - from the National Archives I take it?


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## GregP (Sep 18, 2013)

Do you have a document number? That might help.

I believe everyone overclaimed due to fog of war. Some might have been self-serving, but they were in the extreme minority. I also do not believe the claims of people who SAY they have investigated and found the claims to be 3 : 1, 5 : 1. or whatever. Their writing is as biased as writing the other way.

Most of the records to confirm kills or losses are very hard to find or are, in fact, lost in some cases, and the people who claim to be experts have mostly not proven to be so with time.

The US Navy and US Arny Air Forces did sutdies immediately after the war and came up with awarded victory lists as well as loss lists. I have not seen the equivalent from the UK, Germany, Japan, the USSR, Italy, or anyone else. The reason the US reports are criticized so much is they EXIST and offer a target. 

Try to FIND the same for the other combatants ... you can't. So it's easy to criticize from the point of view that you believe your country and doubt all others. 

I do NOT believe the services of any country were very interested in kills because they could track losses for the enemy. That would only make sense if the accurately knew production by the enemy. They were interested in tracking the cost of war for both sides and making their side look better. Some just wanted to know what was going on, but they were in minority who helped win the war, not the majority who wanted to raise morale and help their side with publicity rather than action.

I am reminded of a poem from the 1967 Egypt-Israeli war ...

Gamal, Gamal, bright as a camel, how does your battle go?
With shot up tanks, shot up ranks, and shot down MiG's in a row.
Gamal, Gamal, brains of enamel, why do you claim success?
Despite defeats and major retreats, we might as well win in the press!

That is from Mad Magazine in 1967 or 1968, I forget which ... but applies today to most wars or "actions."


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## OldSkeptic (Sep 18, 2013)

The usual ratio for fighter to fighter combat of over claiming was between 2:1 to 3:1. It varied according to circumstances. Big 'furball' fighter combat generated the biggest over claims, for obvious reasons.
Individuals varied. Some definitely honestly over claimed, eg the plane was damaged and got away. There are quite a few cases of under claiming. Some, sadly, made things up.

This was in all sides. Luftwaffe, RAF, USAAF, et al.

The bombers over claimed to ridiculous levels, often in the 10:1 or even 20:1 levels, often higher. A lot of that was 'honest' in the sense that 50 gunners (eg in USAAF attacks) all fired at one plane it got hit and went down ... and all 50 claimed it. Therefore one plane taken out and 50 kills were registered.

The most accurate claims, by any side, of the entire war was the Luftwaffe night fighters. Helped of course by the fact that the actual wrecks of downed bombers could be counted. Even RAF night fighters were not that good because some went down in the Channel, some got home after diving though clouds (though they were still very accurate by any day standards).

RV Jones recounts that when he interviewed Kammhuber he congratulated him on the accuracy of his night fighters claims.

By and large, within reasonable levels of accuracy (say +- 10%) the majority of Luftwaffe day Experten claims were pretty good. Helped of course by the fact that the Luftwaffe had geared itself around such people, so normal pilots were just there to watch, admire and cover their leaders backsides. What good that did strategically and tactically is a matter of argument.

Stephen Bungey's book on Alamein is scathing about Marsaille, not about the fact that he shot down a lot of obsolete Hurricanes and P-40s, just that the Luftwaffe never did their job properly. While he, aided by the rest of his mates, ran up incredible scores ... RAF bombers .. untouched .... hammered German soldiers. And people wonder why Rommel was so scathing about the Luftwaffe.

There was lot more to the failure of the Luftwaffe than just individual plane performance and production numbers.


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## stona (Sep 18, 2013)

Good stuff, I've never seen those before. It reinforces the emphasis, particularly by the Americans in this case, on aircraft _destroyed_.
Cheers
Steve


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## pattern14 (Sep 18, 2013)

Anyone want to clarify Chuck Yeagers' first claim to a jet, which he strafed while it was landing? Smith and Creeks' book cast some doubt on it, as the plane ran off the runway, and ended up in a barn. Yeager broke off the attack prior to witnessing this due to AA fire. It's just that the cover painting on one of Hess's book depicts a crashed Me 262, with Yeagers P51 overhead. I've often wondered if planes destroyed/damaged on the ground are used in these tallies?


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## stona (Sep 18, 2013)

GregP said:


> I also do not believe the claims of people who SAY they have investigated and found the claims to be 3 : 1, 5 : 1. or whatever.



Why not? Some very reputable authors and researchers have spent years trawling through the records of both sides to arrive at the most accurate assessments of losses on both sides. These can then be compared with claims. None of them would claim that the numbers are absolutely accurate but they are definitely in the ball park.
It is not these authors who make sweeping statements about ratios of claims to actual losses but others reading their data. It is not unreasonable to take a particular campaign or even individual battle and make such statements. To make such a sweeping statement regarding the entire war and all air forces on all fronts is far too broad a generalisation and a little unwise.
The data is available covering long periods of the conflict between the RAF/USAAF and Luftwaffe. It takes a determined person to try and decipher these records, particularly the often barely legible and error strewn German loss reports. I've done it myself to a limited extent and will be forever grateful and indebted to those who spend more time, effort and money doing it for me. 
Cheers
Steve


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## drgondog (Sep 18, 2013)

pattern14 said:


> Anyone want to clarify Chuck Yeagers' first claim to a jet, which he strafed while it was landing? Smith and Creeks' book cast some doubt on it, as the plane ran off the runway, and ended up in a barn. Yeager broke off the attack prior to witnessing this due to AA fire. It's just that the cover painting on one of Hess's book depicts a crashed Me 262, with Yeagers P51 overhead.
> 
> I've often wondered if planes destroyed/damaged on the ground are used in these tallies?
> 
> *No. If the VCB determined that Yeager hit the 262 before it landed it would be an air combat victory however amusing it might be - and it was to Yeager who freely admits to 'poaching'*



No to ground credits counting as air credits. However, for the 8th AF Doolittle ordered ground and air credits to be caounted toward Ace status. When the USAF compiled the victory credits in USAF Study 85 they stripped ground credits from counting toward Ace status.


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## Milosh (Sep 18, 2013)

OldSkeptic said:


> The most accurate claims, by any side, of the entire war was the Luftwaffe night fighters. Helped of course by the fact that the actual wrecks of downed bombers could be counted. Even RAF night fighters were not that good because some went down in the Channel, some got home after diving though clouds (though they were still very accurate by any day standards).
> 
> RV Jones recounts that when he interviewed Kammhuber he congratulated him on the accuracy of his night fighters claims.



It also helps when there is a giant fireball lighting up the sky.


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## Juha (Sep 18, 2013)

Hello Glider
the topic of claim accuracy was acute already earlier, W.C. was very interested in this during the BoB, see. The main thing isn't the numbers presented but the fact that WC put RAF top brass to probe into it:








View attachment 243352


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## mhuxt (Sep 18, 2013)

Thanks for posting that Juha - rather a breathtaking gymnastic exercise there...

"The numbers work if we accept that 80% of them can't be verified, and even though we're then still 25% off there might be reasons for that and so all the numbers have been very carefully checked."

I may have to go and lie down to recover from the whole thing.


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## Juha (Sep 18, 2013)

Hello mhuxt
the crux of the matter, the calculation. I also doubt the 80% because FC prefer combat over land or at least at the gliding distance from land because its search and rescue system was rather rudimentary at the time of the BoB


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## mhuxt (Sep 18, 2013)

Yes, agreed.

I suppose the number actually lost by the Luftwaffe over that period is known?


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## stona (Sep 18, 2013)

I one week (August 13-19) which falls in the middle of the period the Luftwaffe lost 284 aircraft to all causes (not just combat). For the entire month of August the number was 774.

It is not likely that 743 aircraft were destroyed by the British in the period August 11-24. Newall has done some very creative accounting based on little more than a wild arsed guess as to what percentage of Luftwaffe aircraft fell into the sea.

Cheers

Steve


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## drgondog (Sep 21, 2013)

Glider or Stona - OT but which RAF agency is the repository for the LW KE reports, and how does one research them?

Thanks in advance

Bill


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## pattern14 (Sep 22, 2013)

Udet said:


> RG Lunatic:
> 
> Sometimes after reading some of your postings i do think you honor your nickname, especially the Lunatic part.
> 
> ...


 He has got a point there..........


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## stona (Sep 22, 2013)

drgondog said:


> Glider or Stona - OT but which RAF agency is the repository for the LW KE reports, and how does one research them?
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
> Bill



Not with you, probably being dim  Which reports are you looking for?
Steve


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## drgondog (Sep 22, 2013)

stona said:


> Not with you, probably being dim  Which reports are you looking for?
> Steve



Steve, the LW made a distinction between reporting on RAF crashes and site reports by prefacing the report number with "KE" whereas the USAAF crash site reports were "KJ" or "KU".

NARA was the physical site for the latter combined as attachments to our MACRs, and I believe the Brits have a similar place for such Luftwaffe records on RAF crash sites.


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## GregP (Sep 22, 2013)

Hey Udet,

With reference to your point # 3 above, I think you are exaggerating quite a bit. The top German jet ace was 
Kurt Welter with 20 jet victories. He had 63 total but only 20 in jets, perhaps 21 depending on who you believe. The second leading jet ace was Heinrich Bar with 16 victories in jets. He had 220 total but only 16 in jets.

So if you are talking kills while flying just jets, you are way off base.

If you are talking total kills, the top German aces shot down a lot more than we did but were flying in a very target-rich sky against largely poor opposition, as most people know. They also flew until they won, lost or died and didn’t rotate home. The top three German aces didn't fly against the British or Americans at all ... they flew against the Soviets only.

So what is your point? That they shot down more? We know that but don’t know how many since there is no vetted list of Luftwaffe victories. We KNOW they claimed about 68,000 planes destroyed in WWII, but we also know about overclaiming and don’t know the real number. I would not suspect the Luftwaffe of either more or less overclaiming that anyone else, so their victories can be estimated about like the rest of the counties claims can be.

For reference, from the USAAF Statistical Digest and from the US Navy OpNav—P-23V report, we had a total of 49,730 aircraft losses in WWII counting both the USAAF and US Navy/Marines. 26,362 of those losses were combat losses and 23,.068 were operational losses. That is for the entire war, not the ETO. It includes the PTO, FEAF, CBI, Alaska, and 20th AF. I seriously doubt more than about 15,000 were in the ETO alone.

On our side, the P-51 is credited with 9,081 kills and the P-47m the bulk of which were in the ETO was credited with 6,284 kills. So we weren’t all that far apart. The vast bulk of the German claims were on the Soviet Front and were largely scored early in the war. By mid 1944, the German fighter pilot on the Soviet Front wasn’t doing even half as well as the German fighter pilot on the Soviet Front did in 1941. 

That says nothing about the courage and training of the German fighter pilot. It says more about the training and new equipment of the Soviet Air Force relative to the Soviet pilots and planes in the early war years. It might also say a lot about the weather and who knew how to operate in it.

I don’t know of ANY US veterans who claim the war in the Pacific was anything like the war in Europe. Where do you come up with this? There were very few battles in the Pacific over land and relatively few planes destroyed on the ground when compared with Europe or other non-ocean theaters. There were relatively few land battles at all. Can’t think of one, single tank battle.

About your point that the undertrained youngsters learned to digest heavy US bombers, maybe the facts will help out. From Jane’s Fighting Aircraft of WWII, 1946/1947 and 1989, the highest bomber losses on a loss per sortie basis were in were in 1939 (.068), 1942 (.043), 1943 (.038), and 1941 (.031). The lowest loss per sorties rates were in 1944 (.017) and 1945 (.010), with 1940 sliding in at (.023). The average loss per sorties rate for the war for allied bombers was .023, and 1945 / 1945 were the safest years of the war for bomber crews. 

Sure we had 2,904 bomber losses in 1944, the highest losses of any year, but we also flew 166,844 sorties that year (252,518 long tons of bombs dropped), with the next highest yearly sortie rate being 1944 with 67,483 sorties flown and 708 losses (181,740 long tons of bombs dropped). Flying 100,000 more sorties usually guarantees more losses but, statistically speaking, it was a safe year relative to other war years. In fact, we dropped more tons of bombs in 1944 than in any other three years combined, so I’d expect some losses.

So, I don’t get your point … 1944 and 1945 saw the lowest loss rates of the war. The numbers come from the amount of sorties flown, not from higher danger per sortie. And a LARGE portion were from flak.

The numbers above are for the Allies, not specifically the USA or the UK. For the USA alone, the loss rate per sortie for the B-17 and B-24 were almost identical at .0161 and .0160 respectively, but I don’t have a year breakout.

For the entire war, the loss rate for the B-29 was .0132, a significant portion of which were operational losses. That is from the USAAF Statistical Digest. They weren’t fond of the early R-3350 engines.


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## stona (Sep 22, 2013)

drgondog said:


> Steve, the LW made a distinction between reporting on RAF crashes and site reports by prefacing the report number with "KE" whereas the USAAF crash site reports were "KJ" or "KU".
> 
> NARA was the physical site for the latter combined as attachments to our MACRs, and I believe the Brits have a similar place for such Luftwaffe records on RAF crash sites.



I'm with you now. I've not looked at primary sources for RAF losses reported by the Luftwaffe but rather at Luftwaffe losses reported by their system which you will know are available from the BA Freiburg, at least those that survive.


I'm not sure that we reconciled the losses and German reports like that, I've not seen such or even reference to them. The Public Records Office at Kew, which is a very rough equivalent of your NARA, or possibly the RAF museum would be the best bet.

Cheers

Steve


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 22, 2013)

GregP said:


> Hey Udet,
> 
> With reference to your point # 3 above, I think you are exaggerating quite a bit. The top German jet ace was
> Kurt Welter with 20 jet victories. He had 63 total but only 20 in jets, perhaps 21 depending on who you believe. The second leading jet ace was Heinrich Bar with 16 victories in jets. He had 220 total but only 16 in jets.
> ...



He won't respond to you. He has not been around for many years now...


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## Erich (Sep 22, 2013)

actually Heinz Bär was the top scoring jet killer, Welters kills for the jet against Mossies are incomplete and not totally confirmed, I'll give him maybe 10 with my research that can be associated with also his merry band had their claims given to Welter, sounds strange but it isn't this happened for day fighter aces as well........


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## GregP (Sep 22, 2013)

Sorry Deradler, I looked at the last page and joined the discussion.

OK, it's not all that important anyway. I WOULD like to see a vetted victory list for the Luftwaffe, but don't expect it anytime soon and in reality, I expect kill claims are about as accurate in Germany as around the globe as anywahere. I don't know of an Air Force of liars or cowards.

Though I tend to think there was some overcaliming, I'll support 352 for Erich Hartmann, 301 for Barhhorn and 275 for Rall ... until conclusively proven otherwise by unassailable facts. They were masters of the trade, to be sure, even if they scored HALF their awarded totals. It wasn't for glory for them, it was a fight for their country.


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## drgondog (Sep 22, 2013)

GregP said:


> Hey Udet,
> 
> With reference to your point # 3 above, I think you are exaggerating quite a bit. The top German jet ace was
> Kurt Welter with 20 jet victories. He had 63 total but only 20 in jets, perhaps 21 depending on who you believe. The second leading jet ace was Heinrich Bar with 16 victories in jets. He had 220 total but only 16 in jets.
> ...



I don't know what your point was supposed to be but you have thrown a lot of statistics, particularly fro 1943 and first half of 1944 which do Not reflect the strain on US resources and Will to persevere.


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## pattern14 (Sep 22, 2013)

Kurt Welters status as the supposed ace of aces Jet-wise is still very much a matter of debate. I've read the 20+ thing myself in a number of publications and forums over the years, (for and against) so I'm wondering if it will ever be verified. My main reason for responding to Udets post was I was hoping he would reply with some more info: I had no idea he was not around still. he did seem rather passionate about the subject.......


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## GregP (Sep 22, 2013)

Just in case you missed the point:

1) We did NOT lose a higher percentage of bombers in 1944 / 1945, it was lower. We lost at a rate of less than 1/4 of the 1939 rate in 1944.
2) The top three German aces scored most, if not all, of their kills against the Soviet Union, not the western powers. So comparing them to the sutiation in the west is pointless.
3) The loss rates in 1943 were half of what they were in 1939.
4) Yes, we lost more bombers in 1944 in absolute number but, with 100,000 more sorties the Germans had more than twice the opportunity for kills and shot down MUCH less than in years before on a loss per sortie basis. If they hadn't ... with that many more sorties, they would have ceased to be an effective force.

I didn't post anything at all about the strain on US resources or will to persevere since it wan't part of the discussion. Why bring it up? I also didnt state anything about Obamacare either as it also wasn't part of the discussion. My reply was to Udet, whom I did not know wasn't around anymore. Now I do, so I won't answer anymore of his quoted posts.

From the title of the thread, the Luftwaffe Experten were very good pilots that, as a group, were insufficient to stop the tide of loss that overtook them. They flew and fought well, to the end but weren't the only pilots to fly and fight well. They DID lose the war, so SOMEBODY ELSE also flew and fought well. It is no slap to the Luftwaffe to admit the other side also fought well. As I see it, all countries did a credible job commensurate with their resources to wage war. 

Someone had to win or else we'd still be fighting. Glad we're not or my good friend Romatic Technofreak wouldn't be visiting tomorrow on his way home to Germany.

Cheers.


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## pattern14 (Sep 22, 2013)

GregP said:


> Just in case you missed the point:
> 
> 1) We did NOT lose a higher percentage of bombers in 1944 / 1945, it was lower. We lost at a rate of less than 1/4 of the 1939 rate in 1944.
> 2) The top three German aces scored most, if not all, of their kills against the Soviet Union, not the western powers. So comparing them to the sutiation in the west is pointless.
> ...


 The air war against the Soviet Union has always appeared to be a bit of a dark side of the Moon affair to me; they don't let on much (if at all) in terms of what really happened. And post war they really got their nose out of joint for quite some time. From what I can gather, we can only rely on the Luftwaffe/German accounts of the conflict over Russia, as no-one else is saying much. No offense intended to Russian members of this forum, but the Soviet era powers that be are about as warm and fuzzy as the North Koreans when it comes to sharing data or knowledge. While I have read numerous times that the Luftwaffe pilots "generally" considered the Soviets inferior in terms of pilot and aircraft quality, compared to the RAF and USAAF, I've rarely seen well documented accounts. A German pilot shot down over England was generally treated well, and vice versa, but it does not appear that the Russians held the same mutual affection. Whichever way you look at it, the eastern offensive was horrific.


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## GregP (Sep 22, 2013)

Hi Pattern14,

You can get one person's account of it here:

Air Aces Homepage

Mr. Magnus at least has a place to start for the Soviet Union. How much is correct and / or verifiable is unclear to me. His files show just shy of 66,000 claims for the Luftwaffe. My files show about 68,000 ... but I have no way to vet the list, so it is just claims.

Mr. Magnus also has a list for Japan as well as all the other nations. Again, I could not say how accurate it is one way or the other, but it gives me a place to start.

Good luck with this effort. I have been working on it in my free time for more than 20 years. I have good files, but no way to verify them as factual or not, so they are just for my consumption at this point. No sense in starting an argument for no reason.


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## pattern14 (Sep 22, 2013)

Thanks for that GregP. The ETO gets the bulk of the limelight, for want of a better term. I guess we all tend to think Spitfire/Bf 109, B17/FW190, P47 etc, when we talk WW2 aircraft, while Macchi's and Yaks don't attract the same glamorous attention. I suspect it may be something to do with being some what romanticised by Hollywood and numerous books, although I am probably over simplifying matters. Never seen too many action films where the Italian Air force or the skies over the Ukraine were centre stage. At least back then you knew that blokes like Douglas Bader were on the good side, and the bad guys were the Nazi's. Todays enemies hide in the shadows.


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## Jabberwocky (Sep 22, 2013)

pattern14 said:


> The air war against the Soviet Union has always appeared to be a bit of a dark side of the Moon affair to me; they don't let on much (if at all) in terms of what really happened. And post war they really got their nose out of joint for quite some time. From what I can gather, we can only rely on the Luftwaffe/German accounts of the conflict over Russia, as no-one else is saying much. No offense intended to Russian members of this forum, but the Soviet era powers that be are about as warm and fuzzy as the North Koreans when it comes to sharing data or knowledge. While I have read numerous times that the Luftwaffe pilots "generally" considered the Soviets inferior in terms of pilot and aircraft quality, compared to the RAF and USAAF, I've rarely seen well documented accounts.


 
There are several very detailed USAF post-war studies on the Eastern Front air war available for public download. These are generally from the German PoV, as much of the information is derived from the post-war interviews of interned Luftwaffe personnel or from Germans who continued to serve in the German air force during the Cold War.

There is also Bergstrom et al's 'Black Cross, Red Star' series which is an excellent account of the theatre, although it is now out of print and very difficult find for less than $200 per volume, of the three-volume set.

Progressively, as the Russian national archives have been opened to Westerners and more post-war Soviet accounts are translated, the Russian side of the story is being re-told in the West. Curiously, the Il-2 video game/simulation also triggered some of the momentum that it responsible for Russian war-time documentation being made available and translated into English.


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## pattern14 (Sep 22, 2013)

Jabberwocky said:


> There are several very detailed USAF post-war studies on the Eastern Front air war available for public download. These are generally from the German PoV, as much of the information is derived from the post-war interviews of interned Luftwaffe personnel or from Germans who continued to serve in the German air force during the Cold War.
> 
> There is also Bergstrom et al's 'Black Cross, Red Star' series which is an excellent account of the theatre, although it is now out of print and very difficult find for less than $200 per volume, of the three-volume set.
> 
> Progressively, as the Russian national archives have been opened to Westerners and more post-war Soviet accounts are translated, the Russian side of the story is being re-told in the West. Curiously, the Il-2 video game/simulation also triggered some of the momentum that it responsible for Russian war-time documentation being made available and translated into English.


 thanks for that info as well! My youngest son plays the Il-2 games on his computer as well, but the Russian planes always seem to come off second best.


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## FalkeEins (Sep 24, 2013)

Jabberwocky said:


> There is also Bergstrom et al's 'Black Cross, Red Star' series which is an excellent account of the theatre, although it is now out of print and very difficult find for less than $200 per volume, of the three-volume set..



.. he re-did the entire series for Ian Allan in the UK, all four volumes still available at sensible prices


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## pattern14 (Sep 24, 2013)

FalkeEins said:


> .. he re-did the entire series for Ian Allan in the UK, all four volumes still available at sensible prices


 And thanks for that as well. I'll look them up. In my Smith and Creek 4 vol series on the Me 262, I can only find two references to Me 262's being downed by Russian pilots, with the second one claiming the life of the Russian pilot as well. The Me 262 was desperately needed on the Russian front, but simply did not have anywhere near the sufficient numbers or trained pilots to make the slightest difference. Interestingly enough, the only "original" Me 262 still surviving, "Black X", is in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, and was used on the eastern front. Their is some evidence of combat as there is a bullet hole in it, but I don't know much more about it than that. Be good to take a trip and see it one day.


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## swampyankee (Sep 24, 2013)

One thing I think any sane person would agree upon: there were most certainly psychiatric casualties among the German forces: Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, even SS. They may not have been reported as such, but they most certainly existed. Whether they were recognized is a separate question. Whether they were medically treated or just punished is a third.


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## Milosh (Sep 25, 2013)

pattern14 said:


> Interestingly enough, the only "original" Me 262 still surviving, "Black X", is in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, and was used on the eastern front. Their is some evidence of combat as there is a bullet hole in it, but I don't know much more about it than that. Be good to take a trip and see it one day.



What do you mean by original?


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## stona (Sep 25, 2013)

I think he means retaining some of its original paint. There are several war time Me 262s extant today. The nearest to me is W.Nr. 112372 at Cosford which was captured at Fassberg along with the one now in Canberra. Cosford's is definitely not wearing original paint!
I dragged SWMBO all the way to Canberra a couple of years ago (it wasn't exactly on our route!) specifically to see the aircraft in the AWM. The Me 262 has been stripped back to reveal substantially the original RLM paint but also the scheme applied after the war by the Air Ministry.
Cheers
Steve.


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## Erich (Sep 25, 2013)

speaking of 262's has G. Mütkes JG7 bird in München been repainted ?


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## GregP (Sep 25, 2013)

Paul Allen has an original Me 262 in his collection, and it runs. It was the one we had at the Planes of Fame until Paul wanted it badly enough.

It does not have original paint but I have never seen anyone try to say that repainting a 70 year old airplane makes it un-original. That's silly.

I understand he might have plans to fly it with the original engines. Can't say for sure, but would love to see even a fast taxi run.


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## stona (Sep 25, 2013)

GregP said:


> I have never seen anyone try to say that repainting a 70 year old airplane makes it un-original.



Except for someone in this thread 
I agree it doesn't make the aeroplane "unoriginal" but original paint, considered of no consequence until recently, is now considered important. The Me 262 and Bf 109 in Canberra are amongst very few WW2 Luftwaffe aircraft in the world wearing any original paint. The Bf 109 is unique and important for that.
Many of these aircraft were initially repainted soon after the victorious allies acquired them and later attempts to return them to something like their original appearance were often less than brilliant. Most of the examples of original colours applied to aircraft come from artefacts rather than complete air frames.
Cheers
Steve


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## fastmongrel (Sep 25, 2013)

In the British Classic Car and Bike world things have changed in the last few years it is now considered to be very important to try and preserve original paint, badges and decals. Until recently any restoration involved the vapour blaster and a trip to a paint shop for a complete better than new paint job. Now that would be frowned on and called over restored and preserved original paint jobs win concours in shows. A friend has an unrestored 1930 Scott Squirrel TT replica and he has been told that if he restores the paint a contract will be taken out on him.


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## GregP (Sep 25, 2013)

I'd do it anyway if it were mine. It isn't.

Original paint is, by now, nowhere NEAR the original color, so what you're looking at today is NOT as it was orginally, color-wise. It retains the otiginal brush strokes or tape edges, perhaps, but all military wartime paint fades after this amount of time. Perhaps if it had been painted with high-quality oil paint, maybe not. But aircraft paint? It is faded.

Someone has their head up a wrong, dark place.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 25, 2013)

pattern14 said:


> And thanks for that as well. I'll look them up. In my Smith and Creek 4 vol series on the Me 262, I can only find two references to Me 262's being downed by Russian pilots, with the second one claiming the life of the Russian pilot as well. The Me 262 was desperately needed on the Russian front, but simply did not have anywhere near the sufficient numbers or trained pilots to make the slightest difference. Interestingly enough, the only "original" Me 262 still surviving, "Black X", is in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, and was used on the eastern front. Their is some evidence of combat as there is a bullet hole in it, but I don't know much more about it than that. Be good to take a trip and see it one day.



Where have you heard that it is the only original Me 262? There are several originals throughout the world. The one you are talking about, is the only one that obtains its original paint job. That does not make the other not original though.

Complete Original Me 262s:

Me 262A, W.Nr.500071 White 3, III./JG 7 (Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany)
Me 262 A-1a W.Nr.501232 Yellow 5, 3./KG(J)6 (USAF Museum in Dayton, Ohio, USA)
Me 262 A-1a/U3 W.Nr.500453 (This is the one that GregP is talking about)
Me 262 A-1a W.Nr.500491 Yellow 7, II./JG 7 (National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC, USA)
Me 262 A-2a W.Nr.112372 (RAF Museum Hendon, London, England)
Me 262 A-2a W.Nr.500200 Black X 9K+XK, 2 Staffel./KG 51 (Australian War Memorial, Canberra, Australia)
Me 262 B-1a/U1, W.Nr.110305 Red 8 (South African National Museum of Military History, Johannesburg, South Africa)
Me 262 B-1a, W.Nr.110639 White 35 (National Museum of Naval Aviation, Pensacola, Florida, USA)


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## swampyankee (Sep 27, 2013)

First aces from the Luftwaffe as opposed to the US? Shocking. After all, the Germans had a multi-year head start in both WW1 and WW2. 

Which air force had the best chance for the last ace in the ETO? Oh, wait. The USAAF, RAF, and Soviet Air Forces may not have had enough German aircraft to shoot down to get the last ace.


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## stona (Sep 27, 2013)

GregP said:


> Someone has their head up a wrong, dark place.



A matter of opinion! 
This is great and not the only one. There are plenty on static displays.







But I was prepared to drive several hundred miles out of my way to see this.






And that is unique. It is the only Bf 109 in the world still to wear almost all its war time paint.....I said paint, not colour. The colours may not be as they were when first applied but there is a lot to be learnt from them. The demarcations between the colours, how they were applied etc can all be established by examining this example. All of this is lost on a shiny restoration, no matter how well it is done. Some are not well done at all.

Cheers

Steve


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## nuuumannn (Sep 27, 2013)

The Me 262 in Canberra is conserved and preserved, rather than restored. That's the difference between it and the others. It shows signs of its British tenure including its Air Min number as well (AM 81). AWM's preservation, rather than restoration of these aircraft makes them quite special.


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## nuuumannn (Sep 27, 2013)

> speaking of 262's has G. Mütkes JG7 bird in München been repainted ?



Not recently; when it was donated to Germany by the Swiss in 1957 it was in a mottled green and brown scheme. The Deutches Museum resprayed it in a more accurate colour in 1983 and it wears III./JG7 markings as when Guido Mutke flew it, but no swastika. I don't know if it was Mutke who gave them the info on its colour scheme, but from an interview he gave, it looks like it.


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## silence (Sep 27, 2013)

swampyankee said:


> First aces from the Luftwaffe as opposed to the US? Shocking.



WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Say it isn't so, Joe!!!


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## silence (Sep 27, 2013)

stona said:


> And that is unique. It is the only Bf 109 in the world still to wear almost all its war time paint.....I said paint, not colour. The colours may not be as they were when first applied but there is a lot to be learnt from them. The demarcations between the colours, how they were applied etc can all be established by examining this example. All of this is lost on a shiny restoration, no matter how well it is done. Some are not well done at all.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Steve



That body grey really reminds me of the RLM 02 enamel by Model Master I use. And the dark green reminds me a lot of their RLM 70. The blue, though, sure looks faded. I think I even see the violet tint (RLM 75) in the paint at the upper wing root area.

Hmmmm... no unit/squadron/etc markings... any idea who flew this and/or which Geschwader?

Good to see someone is preserving history; its like buying a first edition book and revering the old beat-up dustcover.


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## stona (Sep 27, 2013)

It is an unusual aircraft with a remarkable history and the Aussies are lucky to have it.

I'll attempt a brief "over view".

The W.Nr. 163824 tells us that it was built in late 1943 at Regensburg as a standard Bf 109 G-6. There is evidence that the rear part of the bulges associated with the DB605D and DB605AS engines have been removed (from both sides) indicating that the fuselage was adapted to some other version. I have seen mention of a G-5 but can't remember the source.
Sometime in February-March 1944 it was rebuilt as a Bf 109 G-6 with relevant alterations to the nose.
It may have been with JG 1 or JG 11 until damaged in May 1944. The next few months are unclear but in August 1944 it was with Flzg.Uberfuhr.G.1. a headquarters unit and on the 12th of that month was 30% damaged in a collision while taxying.
It was re-built as a standard Bf 109 G-6 by Ludwig Hasen Flugzeug Reperateur Werk in Munster in December 1944. Here it was fitted with the 30mm MK 108 cannon (U4 specification) and provision for a drop tank (R3 from memory).
It was captured in this state by the allies before assignment to any unit, hence the lack of markings.

Most of the above is in Brett Green's "Augsburg's Last Eagles" with some information about the August '44 damage via John Beaman.

I believe the fact that it is still wearing it's "original" paint in the sense of how it left Ludwig Hasen in 1944 to be both amazing and of the utmost importance. It gives a rare insight into how these late war aircraft actually looked. They certainly didn't look like the manufacturers' handbook, RLM approved, drawings. That's just my opinion.

Cheers

Steve


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## Juha (Sep 27, 2013)

swampyankee said:


> First aces from the Luftwaffe as opposed to the US? Shocking. After all, the Germans had a multi-year head start in both WW1 and WW2.
> 
> Which air force had the best chance for the last ace in the ETO? Oh, wait. The USAAF, RAF, and Soviet Air Forces may not have had enough German aircraft to shoot down to get the last ace.



That doesn't explain e.g. following top aces, first combat unit posting mentioned:

Erich Hartmann, 352 kills, first operational posting was to 7./JG 52 on the Eastern Front on 10 October 1942
Wilhelm Batz, 237 kills, he was appointed adjutant to II./JG 52 based on the Eastern front on 1 February 1943
Helmut Lipfert, 203 kills, was posted to 6./JG 52, based on the Southern part of the Eastern front, on 26 November 1942
Joachim Kirschner, 188 kills, December 1941 to 5. / Jagdgeschwaders 3
Gerhard Thyben, 157 kiils, late 1942 to 6./JG 3.
Peter Düttmann, 152 kills, joined 5./Jagdgeschwader 52 on 7 May 1943
Hans Waldmann, 134 kills, was posted to II/JG 52 on the Eastern Front at the end of August 1942.
Heinz Marquardt, 121 kills, From 1 February 1942, he was undertaking fighter instructor duties and operating with the Einsatzstaffel of JFS 5 in support of JG 2 and JG 26 in the defence of France over the Channel front.
Franz Schall, 116 victories, in February 1943 he was transferred to JG 52 on the Eastern Front.
Bernhard Vechtel, 108 kills, 1942?
Heinz Sachsenberg, 104 kills, was posted to JG 52, based in the southern sector of the Eastern Front, in the autumn of 1942


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## stona (Sep 27, 2013)

This is an utterly pointless discussion.
There are many factors to consider and I can't be arsed to even start listing them for the umpteenth time. 
The men above (and many more) were excellent combat pilots but trying to "prove" that they were better than their contemporaries flying for other air forces is childish /pointless/asinine/usually involves a political agenda/will result in a locked thread/......delete as you see fit.
Cheers
Steve.


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## Juha (Sep 27, 2013)

Hello Stona
the only thing I want to make is that the explanation of high scores of many LW pilots clearly isn't that they began to score years before than USAAC/USAAF pilots. There were many LW aces with very high scores who began their combat careers in late 42/early 43. As you wrote reasons are far more complicated than that.

Juha


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## GregP (Sep 28, 2013)

Hi Juha,

Some Luftwaffe aces DID begin to score years before many western aces, but not all did and I don't believe anyone said it was an ironclad rule. Factors that helped the top three German aces were the number and quality of the oppsition at the time, their own skill and equipment, and the fact that they flew until they won, lost, or died. I don't believe anyone as intimating they deliberately enhanced their scores, lied, or anythign else negative. They were the best in the world at that time and place.

So maybe we can agree that we don't want a locked thread because of misunderstanding in here.

There are some people who simply refuse to believe the top three aces' scores. They sometimes claim lies, political bias, etc. I'll stick with 352, 301, and 275 myself and I hope you will, too, while acknowledging that there may be some errors ... and may NOT be any equally as well ... I cannot say with any first-hand knowledge, so I choose to believe the official German victory tally. I heven't seen even ONE of the doubters back that up with research to disprove a particualr victory yet other than some posts about Marseilles that reference documents you can't get to refute their claim of false kills.

The western aces did NOT fly until they won, lost, or died and did NOT fly in a very target-rich environment relative to the environment that Hartmann, Barkhorn, and Rall flew in. German fighters, especially poorly-flown ones, weren't anywhere NEAR as numerous as Soviet fighters on the Russian front in 1942. The flak around German airfields was of a different order of magnitude than the flak around a temporary Russian aifield in the steppes.

So there were a lot of factors involved, but it is safe to say the Germans produced the best aces the world had ever seen no matter which side you are from. Giving credit where credit is due is not wrong nor should it be withheld. If kills are the measure, the top ace in WWI also came from Germany.

That said, there is also nothing saying the top aces for any side were significantly better or worse than the top aces of any other side. If they swapped places, they might well perform about the same as one another in different circumstances. WE can't say with anything like from a position of first-hand knowledge about it.

For me, the top ace will always be Erich Hartmann. I don't care about mission efficiency or any other things, victory total is the top variable in my book, and he is and always will be tops ... unless we see some modern jock fire a MIRV missile that takes out 6 targets with one shot 60 times .... if that happens, Hartmann is still better in my book since he shot them down one at a time ... with bullets and cannon shells from a plane with almost no endurance and performance that was eclipsied even as he was flying it in combat.

Maybe the Soviets would have been better off sending him a case of Brandy, a pretty girl, and avoiding the area where he flew ...


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 28, 2013)

I agree with Greg on this. Until someone can prove otherwise, we have to accept the kill scores. Does that mean there were no errors? Of course not, we just don't habe anything else to go off of.

I however would venture to say that even if we "took away" some of Hartmanns kills, he would still have more than 300 and would still be the ace of aces.


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## GregP (Sep 28, 2013)

Agree wholeheartedly DerAdler. Most pilots came up short against the nest, but Hartmann DID get shot down and DID run out of fuel on occasion. 

So even the best had their bad days. His bad days, at least in WWII, were better than many ...HE came back to fly again. 

I'd bet he had some bad days after WWII in Soviet "friendship camps."


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## nuuumannn (Sep 28, 2013)

Yep, I agree too, Greg and Adler. Target rich environment sums it up. We will never get an exactly accurate picture of victories versus losses, but ongoing research can assist in verifying claims and losses and can only be of benefit to our established knowledge of the subject. Nevertheless, I don't think Hartmann's position at Nummer Eins is likely to be threatened any time soon.


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## DonL (Sep 28, 2013)

For me Erich Hartmann is the best, because of two points:

1. He never lost a wingman and it is known, that he flew with noobies to train them.
2. Only one single of his personal trained pilots of the Jagdgeschwader Richthofen lost his life in a Startfighter as a testpilot (the pilot was grinded to death from his parachute, because there was a force at that day). All of his personal trained pilots had thousands of hours in a starfighter and hundreds of Bunderwehr pilots lost their life at the big starfighter crises of the Bundeswehr, but not the trained pilots from Hartmann.

That is to me the real performance of Hartmann next to his kill numbers, it shows his talent and that he was never a selfish person, instead of this a great leader to his pilots.


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## OldSkeptic (Sep 28, 2013)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> I agree with Greg on this. Until someone can prove otherwise, we have to accept the kill scores. Does that mean there were no errors? Of course not, we just don't habe anything else to go off of.
> 
> I however would venture to say that even if we "took away" some of Hartmanns kills, he would still have more than 300 and would still be the ace of aces.



As I said, within +/- 10% for the day experten, which for the time is pretty good accuracy. With a higher level for the nightfighters (+/- 2% say?).

But it is interesting that you can model the 'experten' by a branch of statistics called 'survival analysis'.
First developed for engineering, particularly electrical engineering now a mainstay in medical statistics. The famous one is the thermionic 'valve' or the light bulb ones (the old tungston ones).
Basically you get a bulge of failures at the beginning, then a drop off in failures, then a slow but steady increase in failures, but never quite to 100%. Taking the valve example with (say) a MTBF of 1,000 hours, then some valves will last a 100,000 hours or even much more, ditto lightbulbs. Funny phenomena.
So given the way the Luftwaffe treated its airmen (fly until die), some were going to survive (not many) but statistically a few would get there. Of that few, some would get high scores.
Obviously certain skills and experience helped a lot (counter balanced by exhaustion), but so did sheer dumb luck..... 
Statistically there were some pilots with even better skills who died a lot earlier, but they just ran out of luck.


I should add there are definite cases of under claiming and I;m sure that applied to the experten too. Some times they'd under claim, others over claim, in the wash it was pretty accurate overall. 

A classic example is the 109 shot down by a Tse Tse Mossies (with the 57mm) in the Banff strike wing (what a wonderful book for data that one is), but the crew never claimed it. Only came to light with research after the war. I'm sure there were many cases like that on all sides.


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## Juha (Sep 28, 2013)

DonL said:


> For me Erich Hartmann is the best, because of two points:
> 
> 1. He never lost a wingman and it is known, that he flew with noobies to train them.
> 2. Only one single of his personal trained pilots of the Jagdgeschwader Richthofen lost his life in a Startfighter as a testpilot (the pilot was grinded to death from his parachute, because there was a force at that day). All of his personal trained pilots had thousands of hours in a starfighter and hundreds of Bunderwehr pilots lost their life at the big starfighter crises of the Bundeswehr, but not the trained pilots from Hartmann.
> ...



Your point 1, I also think that that was very important even IIRC Hartmann lost one wingman in 45, an ex-bomber pilot who did something stupid against Hartmann's order. I have impression that many top aces looked after their wingmen but not all. And there were those who looked after their wingmen but didn't want to flywith newbies even if it was important for the unit and an AF that newbies learned the tricks of the trade and survived their first 20 combat sorties. Also the top ace of FiAF, W/O Juutilainen was well known for his keeness to listen and advice newbies, he seems to have been exceptionally keen in that even if therei were in the FiAF many pre-war regular senior NCOs who voluntarily took newbies "under their wings".

2 Never heard that before, but again a big plus to Hartmann.

Juha


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## stona (Sep 28, 2013)

Not exactly a popular man though, Hartmann 
Steve


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## Juha (Sep 28, 2013)

On the overclaiming, IMHO it was common, even over own territory as was seen during the BoB or during the defence of Reich, and over enemy territory usually more common like the FC claims during 41-42 or LW claims during the BoB. Just a fact of life and at least British knew that already during the war. Partly it can be explained by the crash-landed planes, many of them could be salvaged even if IMHO they were genuine victories even if strickly speaking not totally inside the claiming rules. Much of the overclaiming can be explained by the fact that it was very unhealthy during an air battle to follow the victim until it crashed. One simply shot at a plane hit it or thought that hit it, the target went to downstair, the shooter and his wingman began to look around other victims/threats, after a few moments they saw a flash on the ground and thought that was mine/my leader's. And spending time to follow the victim down wasn't even effective way to do, it was better to shoot at a target, then after thinking it was done to select a next one and attack it without too much thinking what happened the first one.

Juha


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## stona (Sep 28, 2013)

It's why gun cameras were widely used by the British and Americans, much less so by the Germans.
Cheers
Steve


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## Denniss (Sep 30, 2013)

The aussie Bf 109 G-6 was built with standard canopy by MttR in 1943, converted to G-6/AS with Erla canopy in March 1944 and converted again to a G-6/U4 after battle damage in later 1944.


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