# Aces with 200+ victories: how do they stack up in 2012?



## tomo pauk (Apr 16, 2012)

Many of the German aces were credited with great a number of kills. I wonder how well the number they are credited with stands the test of time? Is there any significant number of the kills that are not corroborated with Allied losses?

The thread should be a politics-free zone, thanks


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## cimmex (Apr 16, 2012)

What do you expect beside a flame?
cimmex


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## Jenisch (Apr 16, 2012)

tomo pauk said:


> The thread should be a politics-free zone, thanks


 






Now for the subject: think I already read somewhere that only 60% of the German claims against the Soviets were true. I also read it was a little common the Germans bring down an IL-2 - and consequentely marked it as victory - only to the Russians recuperate it and bring it back to work. Other consideration is for those aircraft which were so heavily damaged in the mission that need to be write-off.


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## tyrodtom (Apr 16, 2012)

Almost all of the big scores was racked up against the Russians, and a lot of that during the chaotic early years. Just how good a records did the Soviets keep in the early war, and then how much of that survived Stalinist revisions ? 

Stalin needed the truth told to him to successfully carry on the war, but after the purges of the late 30's, how many of his subordinates had the courage to tell him the whole, unvarnished truth?

For that reason I would suspect ANY Russian WW2 records.


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## Jenisch (Apr 16, 2012)

Yeah. In fact, Stalin ordered "improved historiography" after the war.


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## PJay (Apr 16, 2012)

Would have been fascinating to ask this in (say) 1950.
Pity about the Internet being too late.


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## Juha (Apr 17, 2012)

Hello Tomo
at least Barkhorn, Rall and Lipfert of those claiming 200+ seemed to have been reliable claimers.

Juha


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## Denniss (Apr 17, 2012)

I don't think the claims from Hartmann are far aways from his real victories (unless someone inflated them for political reasons). From his tactics, finish them from very close range, there shouldn't be a lot of error margin.


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## Juha (Apr 17, 2012)

Denniss said:


> I don't think the claims from Hartmann are far aways from his real victories (unless someone inflated them for political reasons). From his tactics, finish them from very close range, there shouldn't be a lot of error margin.



Hello Denniss
in fact some Russian researchers seem to think that maybe just because of his tactic Hartmann overclaimed. While the tactic, fast attack from above and immediate disengagement, was very effective it easily produced overclaims, because some of the targets were shot down, some were hit but only damaged and some were miss altogether. AVG used same kind of tactic effectively against JAAF but overclaimed badly. Of course situation was different, AVG was a voluntary group, pilots of which got bounty if they got confirmed kill but still.

Juha


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## GregP (Apr 17, 2012)

Hartmann's wingman stated categorically several times after the war that Hartmann did not overclaim. Some Luftwaffe pilots also doubted him and at least one, if not more, was temporarily assigned to Hartmann as wingmen for several mission and witnessed his claims. They also stated taht they were sorry for doubting Hartmann.

I'll stick with 352 for Erich Hartmann unless verifiable facts can be made to say otherwise.


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## Denniss (Apr 17, 2012)

This research by at least one russian "researcher" has been widely dismissed as history revisionism.
BTW he preferred to attack from below as attacking Il-2 from above was really dangerous.


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## Juha (Apr 17, 2012)

Denniss said:


> This research by at least one russian "researcher" has been widely dismissed as history revisionism.
> BTW he preferred to attack from below as attacking Il-2 from above was really dangerous.



Now I didn't mean Khazanov but other Russians. And under 10% of his kills were Il-2s. He clearly concentrated on fighters. And Khazanovs main error was that he used T's&C's Blond Knight as his source for Hartmann's claims.

Juha


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## Juha (Apr 17, 2012)

GregP said:


> Hartmann's wingman stated categorically several times after the war that Hartmann did not overclaim. Some Luftwaffe pilots also doubted him and at least one, if not more, was temporarily assigned to Hartmann as wingmen for several mission and witnessed his claims. They also stated taht they were sorry for doubting Hartmann.
> 
> I'll stick with 352 for Erich Hartmann unless verifiable facts can be made to say otherwise.



Now the main point is that there simply are too little Soviet losses in several cases when Hartmann made multiple claims. But anyway Hartmann shot down many Soviet planes, how many who knows. I wonder where the 352 confirmed kills originated, it seems that there are documentary evedence only for 324, of which 3 are probably duplicated or 337 in RLM docus depending the source. But there was a chaos in Germany during the last months of the war, so those figures were probably too low.

Juha


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## Njaco (Apr 17, 2012)

and some people still aren't satisfied with 324 or 337.


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## fastmongrel (Apr 17, 2012)

I have never understood why people get so stressed by numbers, or why they take it so personally if there favourite pilots numbers are questioned. Its numbers and numbers never lie but neither do they tell the truth. It seems to me from my reading of various airwar books that all claims are on average 25% out but I very much doubt if many pilots deliberately overclaimed. 

I remember watching a documentary where a Soviet pilot very dryly said "The fascists shot down every aircraft we had in the first 2 months of the Patriotic War...(pause for effect)...twice" then he laughed before admitting that the LW very nearly did wipe out the VVS in the first 2 months of Barbarossa.

Revisionist History seems to be a dirty word in some quarters but history is always being revised and rewritten. If we simply say that the first person to write the history is always right then new knowledge will never come to light. A true historian never claims his/her take on things is the right and final word, new information will always surface often just before a new history book is published. History is always out of date from the moment the ink is dry or the electron is well whatever electrons do.


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## fastmongrel (Apr 17, 2012)

Njaco said:


> and some people still aren't satisfied with 324 or 337.



Whichever way you do the numbers it doesnt take away from the fact that he was amongst a small handfull of the greatest.


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## Erich (Apr 17, 2012)

suggest reading the Black Cross books by Christer Bergstrom. obvious that no wingman of any pilot no matter who it is can sit on his leaders tail 24 x 7. chaos occurs in a heavy air-gun battle, we do not have gun cam footage from many of the German aces the cameras arrived to late in the war and were not given to everyone. so we have to take an eyewitness account which was not always accurate nor up to date. this is not revisionist thinking at all but truth that is starting to come about because of the high tech age we live in the past 15 years, archiv's are being accessed not by just the privileged well known author anymore. whether you can trust Soviet archiv's that is your decision the point in fact is they are opening up slowly and must be used to cross-examine LW fighter ops on the Ost front.


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## jim (Apr 17, 2012)

Soviet archives... 
I like reading not just aviation history, but general history of all ages. Its the duty of any serius history fan to try and read the point of view of both parties ( in fact that s why i am on this forum with the ... supersonic P- 51s!) . I posses books about ww2 written by soviets. I am sorry but they are so biased that cannot be considered reliable historical sources.
Do you know whats the official position of the soviets about the Ordennes offensive ? Hudrends of thousands of americans throwing their weapons and running towards the sea, and the offensive stopped only because soviets attacks forced the germans to transfer their forces to the east ! This is the normal scale of history falsification on every book from the stalinist period that i posses. And not about ww2. From 1921 to 1953 there was a massive control of historiography. Actually most communist parties like such methods. ( to be fair dictatorships too)
We also know that there were political commisaries in all soviets units, and also commanders heads were in danger in case of heavy casualties. Do all these helps on reliable reports?
You read Lipferts memoirs , or Clausterman nmemoirs, or Johnson ( the englishman) memories and all have something good to say about enemy s abilities , bravery , equipment, and hard fighting. You read soviets books and all that you read is about soviets triumphs, massively superior soviet equipment, superior soviets bravery and skills , huge enemy losses and minimum soviets losses. 
How can anyone take soviets archives seriously is a mystery to me
Barckhorn and Rall are considered reliable claimers. Yet Hartmann spent most of its carreer under their command , how they allowed him to cheat?They even flew together!Lipfert also flew with him late in 44 in Hungaryand considered him excellent . You can cheat the superiors but not your comrades!
Some people are ready to believe a writer that use Stalin s archives and not a man who ignored orders to avoid captivity and proved his word for ten years of especially great suffering in Soviet prison camps . ( Even if some of its victims did manage to return to base or repaired after belly landing what does that mean?)


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## Erich (Apr 17, 2012)

Jim some the LW pilots cheated out the system as well as their fellow staffel Komeraden. this is a proven fact. the claims system was not without fault and for one we do not have the truth about so many 1945 claims from the LW fighter groups, the info is lost, the losses are not.


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## Juha (Apr 17, 2012)

Hello Jim
I have also read the books of Progress Publishing and know the stories on "burgeois history falsifiers" but we are not talking about books published in 60s and 70s but modern Russian books and researchers. And because SU was very centralized state it needed massive amount of documents to function. And because they believed that their system was superior they didn't think that it would fall, so they archieved massive amount of docus, also very sensitive, for ex info on the secret annex to Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty. So in Russian archives there are vast amount of info, still partly secret and some others difficult to access by foreigners.

And think yourself as CO of aviation regiment, which had just lost 8 a/c, shot down by Germans. So you needed 8 replacement a/c. How you think you can get them without informing your superiors that you have lost 8? One could make a small "adjustments", that kind of things happened also for ex. in LW, but not much, because if you claimed that most of them were lost because of technical failures or because of pilot errors, you will also be in deep trouble, because those kind of losses meant that you was failed as CO. Only ways were to tell the thruth, maybe inflating number of German opponents, tactical difficulties etc, maybe also taking a very positive look on your pilots claims and so to show that even if your regiment took losses it also achieved results. While Soviet system of claim confirmation was very strcit indeed in theory, thos above you knew the tight spot you were in and also knew that their achievements looked better if they did not look too closely the claims. So if they thought that you was a decent guy with some ability, or at least with better ability than your possible successor and that you was capable to learn on your mistakes, you would have good chances to survive at least a while. Of course if you has a string of failures, you probably got sacked. And of course if you altered reality too much you might well be caught and then you would be in really deep trouble.

Juha


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## Juha (Apr 17, 2012)

Hello Njaco
IMHO whether Hartmann really shot down 325 or 150 enemy a/c he was still one of the greatest fighter pilots ever lived. Only interesting thing in the question of the exact number of his kills is was he number one of all times in kills. Personally I doubt that, probably Barkhorn was number 1 with well over real 200 kills. But anyway say 100 WWII top aces in kills were all Germans. And in all AFs there were reliable claimers and those whose claims were less accurate.

Juha


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## Jenisch (Apr 17, 2012)

jim said:


> Soviet archives...
> Do you know whats the official position of the soviets about the Ordennes offensive ? Hudrends of thousands of americans throwing their weapons and running towards the sea, and the offensive stopped only because soviets attacks forced the germans to transfer their forces to the east ! This is the normal scale of history falsification on every book from the stalinist period that i posses.)



Post Stalinist line follows a similar fashion. This what I don't like from those people that claim the West minimized the participation from the Soviets during the Cold War. God, the Soviets did much worse with the West, and the Russians are treated like poor victims!


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## Jabberwocky (Apr 17, 2012)

A US post-war study of German combat films (~700) and claims found a direct correlation between the rank of the claimant and the likelihood that the claim would be awarded as a kill.

Basically, the higher the rank, the greater proportion of claims that were awarded. What was interesting was that the claim/kill awards for higher ranks didn't necessarily line up with the amount of damage inflicted on the targets - primarily US four engine bombers - and the US assessment of what was most likely to result in a downed target.

While there may be some correlation between rank, pilot experience and skill and the overall likelihood of a kill, I'd suggest that the German claims system had a bias towards awarding kills to pilots with higher ranks.


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## Njaco (Apr 17, 2012)

Bias was in the system. When a schwarm went onto the offense, the higher ranking pilot (usually the Schwarmfuerher) got first crack at the enemy while the less excperienced pilot covered his rear. It was the dynamics of the tactics at that time.


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## Jabberwocky (Apr 17, 2012)

Njaco said:


> Bias was in the system. When a schwarm went onto the offense, the higher ranking pilot (usually the Schwarmfuerher) got first crack at the enemy while the less excperienced pilot covered his rear. It was the dynamics of the tactics at that time.



This is not bias in the combat tactics, but in the claim confirmation system.

I'll dig up the document and post the stats when I can find it.


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## Njaco (Apr 17, 2012)

I only meant that while what you suggest may have happened, its also possible that the majority of claims also came from higher ranked pilots because of the way tactics were implemented. If I have 50 pilots making 2 or 3 claims while 10 pilots are making 100, its a good possibilty that a high perecntage of those high rank pilots will recieve the majority of kill awards.


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## GregP (Apr 18, 2012)

Fastmongrel,

It's not the number, it's the fact that someone who wasn't there and is operating on what could easily prove to be incomplete data (or could be incomplete, but no way to prove or disprove it) wants to change it. Revisionists are everywhere, their research is very questionable, given the fact that the kills were awarded at the time by the people who were there and the revisionists (who weren't there) want to check claims against reported losses.

Their errant assumption, at least in my book, is that reported losses were accurate while reported claims were not. My contention is that if the claims were reported wrong, what makes you think losses also weren't reported wrong, too? Also, the reported losses may be incomplete ... unless you have ALL the reports of loss, your data are wrong. And how do you know you have them ALL? Nobody has ever answered that one, at least to me.

I simplty feel the awarded victories are the totals their contemporaries thought were correct, and that is a good enough yardstick.

As for the probability of an award being tied to rank, I think that in most cases, the higher rank was usually there longer, was a veteran, and his kills were very probably reported more correctly than some junior birdman fresh from pilot school who hadn't flown 10 missions yet. Experience tends to straighten out the problems, not increase them. if problems persist, the pilot doesn't survive to a ripe old age, and he MAY not even if he is a great one. He could be doing it right and still get killed. But doing it wrong for a long period of time seems unlikely for survival.


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## Jabberwocky (Apr 18, 2012)

Ok, the data.

Not as comprehensive as I remembered unfortunately (only 170 claims analyses), but its been a few years and a few beers since I read the report.



> Percent of Claims Allowed According to Rank of Pilot
> 
> Rank No. Cases % Claims Allowed
> 
> ...



The few cases for 'Lt Cols' and corporals would discount them as statistically insignificant, but the other three rank classes would appear to be statistically significant.


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## Tante Ju (Apr 18, 2012)

Lt. Col = Galland?


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## Juha (Apr 18, 2012)

Thanks for sharing Jabberwocky
Very interesting. I knew that some younger LW fighter pilots felt that the system favoured higher ranking pilots, but because there are always “grumblers” I have not give much thought on that. On the other hand several top LW aces began their career as NCOs, for ex Bär and Schuck and some stayed NCOs through their careers like “Rudi” Müller, Rossmann and Marquardt. Also their claim accuracy seemed to have varied but some of those not the most reliable claimers served in JG 5, which seems to have been particularly optimistic in its claims, but it operated mostly in real wilderness and fought many combats over water, both of which were factors which in many AFs tended to increase overclaiming. So there seems to have been tendency to favour higher ranks in units serving in Defence of the Reich, because in neutral evaluation hits and fires in the target should have been the determining factor in granting of claims. But also at least in many units there seems to be good possibilities that also NCOs got their claims accepted. IIRC I have read from somewhere tat at lest in some units young NCOs had first difficulties to get their claims accepted but after they had established themselves in the eyes of their superiors, the problems disappeared.

In FiAF the 1., 4., 5. and 8. ranking aces were all NCOs and the 9. got most of his kills while being NCO. Also here there were/are rumours that higher hierarchy wanted a regular officer to be the number one and there seems to be some truth in that, the chosen one overclaimed rather badly. The irony is that it might well be that another regular officer in fact got highest number of kills in real world.

Juha


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## Juha (Apr 18, 2012)

Tante Ju said:


> Lt. Col = Galland?



Now Galland wasn't the only Lt. Col serving in Reich Defence, in fact probability is that his films were not included in that survey, think on his career.

Juha


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## Njaco (Apr 18, 2012)

Juha, who is "the chosen one"?


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## GregP (Apr 18, 2012)

I see vague inuendo about Erich hartmann (aka the chosen one) but nothing substantiated. "There seems to be" doesn't cut it. Tell it like it is.

if you think he shot down less than he received credit for, which kills are you disputing specifically? All of his are dated and most also have the time. About 2/3 have the victim type. I have no quarrel with the truth, so be specific and tell us which of Hartmann's kills you think are bogus.

Also, if you knock down Hartmann successfully, you have a HUGE research project ahead of you to check the other guys, too, from all countries ... becasue if you manage to downgrade Hartmann's victories, I for one won;t take any heed until you also examine the rest for verification to the same standard. Selective scrutiny is not a good thing.


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## Kryten (Apr 18, 2012)

claims are never going to stack up unless you saw every one of your opponents bail out, blow up or crash, the higher the altitude the less reliable the known outcome!

an aircraft seen going down smoking may well recover to a friendly strip, or may be attacked by another pilot, therefore doubling the loss claims, an aircraft seen diving away apprently unharmed may have a dead pilot at the controls, there are so many unknowns it becomes a minefield!

add to this the german system, where if five pilots attack an enemy aircraft, only one of them is credited for it's destruction, rank having it's priveliges, its easy to see the shared kill system of the allies being more realistic let alone fair!

kills may be an indicator as to a pilots abilities, but in reality there would have been pilots who shot down an enemy but never got home and would get no credit, it does'nt address tactical, numerical or airframe advantages or even pilot skill, knocking down a rookie with no combat and little flight experience is a very different proposition to dealing with an experienced opponent!


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## renrich (Apr 18, 2012)

The overclaiming was not necessarily a pilot claiming something he or his wingman knew was untrue. Most overclaiming was just the result of the "fog of war." If one does not believe that the pilot or witness could not make a mistake and " claim" a kill that was not legitimate, I suggest you are not realistic. Air battles took place very quickly, often in seconds, not minutes. Visibility could be poor. Mutiple air craft could be involved. Following a target all the way to the ground and seeing him crash was the only sure way to know if a shoot down took place and even then someone else could have been the cause of the kill. In combat, I doubt if a veteran pilot often followed a prospect to see the crash. It only makes sense also that the most successful pilots would get more latitude when it came to claims. If you read Lundstrom's books where he researched both Japanese and US records the numbers of kills and the types shot down almost never matched up. Almost always the IJN pilots claimed more shoot downs than US records showed and the reverse was the case also.


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## tomo pauk (Apr 18, 2012)

I see no problem with stuff being re-researched. 
Many books, even the ones printed in 1990s, let alone in the 1960s, have many things flatly wrong. Eg. that Bf-109G was capable to make 620 km/h, or that Italians on battlefield were incompetent people lacking courage, or that French soldiers were cowards (despite dying in thousands), or that Soviets were using P-39s for tank busting, or that rockets were great vs. tanks, or that Sherman tank was good for nothing, or that V-1710 had no supercharger etc. It took plenty of research to debunk many of 'theories', and some of those still resurrect once in a while. So I'd say the new research is a great thing, either because it can reinforce something published before, or to debunk what was published. I can accept that it's easier to redo the technical-related stuff, than the man-related one (any observer can jump into a conclusion that a result of the new research is just throwing the mud at the man), but the said above still stands.


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## Njaco (Apr 18, 2012)

I see far too many grey areas when it comes to trying to gauge how humans record events in history. Things sometimes aren't what they seem at the time and may - innocently - be recorded as such.


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## Denniss (Apr 18, 2012)

Even the soviets had no doubt in Hartmann's victories - he was sent to prison for the 345 soviet aircraft he shot down.


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## Kryten (Apr 18, 2012)

the soviets jailed him for being a Nazi fighter pilot, thats hardly conclusive evidence of claims!


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## Marcel (Apr 18, 2012)

There is always doubt, especially with personal claims. From what I learned studying the exploids of Dutch pilots in war is that there is no way that pilots can really keep track of what is happening around them during a fight. They're human after all. Hence the overclaim from all parties during the war. That Hartman shot down many aircraft is beyond doubt. How many it really were? I would say that chances of 345 being the exact number is very slim. Might be less, might be more for whatever I know. This of course counts for all claims during the war. We'll have to live with the fact that we'll never know for sure how many were really shot down by a particular pilot. We'll just know that the number written down doesn't say much.


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## Juha (Apr 18, 2012)

Njaco said:


> Juha, who is "the chosen one"?



Wind, now he seems to have been a very good fighter pilot and formation leader and his immediate superior valued him very high. But his claims were inaccurate.

Juha


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## Juha (Apr 18, 2012)

Denniss said:


> Even the soviets had no doubt in Hartmann's victories - he was sent to prison for the 345 soviet aircraft he shot down.



Hello Denniss
have you seen the court papers or is your source T's and C's Blond Knight, in which they didn't got even his claim list correct. What I have heard from Russin researchers, that story is a myth.

Juha


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## fastmongrel (Apr 18, 2012)

New research often knocks down some cherished facts. 30 years ago I thought I knew everything about the Battle of Britain and Operation Sealion now with new research I realise a good 50% of what I knew is now shown to be bunk. I look forward to new research showing that facts we know to be unimpeachable today are so much bunk tommorow. We will never have the ultimate 100% final answer which is good because it would be a boring world with nothing new to learn.


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## tyrodtom (Apr 18, 2012)

I've been circle track racing for over 20 years, i'm not going to compare it with combat, and I do have a little experience there too. 

Since i've been racing one of my sponsors was a video photographer, he videoed all my races. A lot of times, what I thought happened, and what actually occured, would be different. When under stress the mind is occupied with survival, sometimes just getting thru the next few seconds, not keeping a accurate record of what happened. Then the longer you wait after the stressful event to piece together what happened, the more inaccurate you may get. That's why debriefings were done as close to after a mission as possible.

I remember when I was in Vietnam, I might see something happen, but someone else there might describe the same event, but it 'd be different. I'd worry, is he lying, or am I crazy? But the human eye is not a video camera, and the human mind is not is not a perfect recording device.


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## Juha (Apr 18, 2012)

GregP said:


> I see vague inuendo about Erich hartmann (aka the chosen one) but nothing substantiated. "There seems to be" doesn't cut it. Tell it like it is.
> 
> if you think he shot down less than he received credit for, which kills are you disputing specifically? All of his are dated and most also have the time. About 2/3 have the victim type. I have no quarrel with the truth, so be specific and tell us which of Hartmann's kills you think are bogus.
> 
> Also, if you knock down Hartmann successfully, you have a HUGE research project ahead of you to check the other guys, too, from all countries ... becasue if you manage to downgrade Hartmann's victories, I for one won;t take any heed until you also examine the rest for verification to the same standard. Selective scrutiny is not a good thing.



For the chosen one, see my answer to Njaco, nothing to do with Hartmann. Now I'm not very interested in Hartmann's career or claims but have seen conversations on the topic by Russian and Eastern Europen researchers, who seems to be thorough and reliable men, and they seem to think that the claim accuracy of German top aces varied greatly. Studing the claims of LW aces is easiest to Russians because they had easiest access to VVS docus. 

Of course it would be good if someone who is interested in the claim accuracies of individul pilots would study for ex Pattle's, Tuck's and Bader's claim accuracies. Pattle's claims should be easy to go through using Shore's et al's books and crosschecking that info with German unit histories.

On Hartmann, try to find suitable Soviet losses to his 23 and 24 Aug 44 claims.

Juha


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## Juha (Apr 18, 2012)

tyrodtom said:


> I've been circle track racing for over 20 years, i'm not going to compare it with combat, and I do have a little experience there too.
> 
> Since i've been racing one of my sponsors was a video photographer, he videoed all my races. A lot of times, what I thought happened, and what actually occured, would be different. When under stress the mind is occupied with survival, sometimes just getting thru the next few seconds, not keeping a accurate record of what happened. Then the longer you wait after the stressful event to piece together what happened, the more inaccurate you may get. That's why debriefings were done as close to after a mission as possible.
> 
> I remember when I was in Vietnam, I might see something happen, but someone else there might describe the same event, but it 'd be different. I'd worry, is he lying, or am I crazy? But the human eye is not a video camera, and the human mind is not is not a perfect recording device.



I agree completely, overclaiming was a norm, IMHO even 90% claim accuracy was an exception. And most overclaiming were made in good faith, a good fighter pilot should have a strong self-confidence and in bigger air combats it was very unhealthy to follow one's victim down to make sure that it really crashed. There are cases where deliberate overclaiming seems possible and a few cases in which deliberate falsifying of victories was prooven. But IMHO trying to quess motives is rather fruitless and I'm more interested in real results in unit level than that of individual level because the later is much harder to establish just because many times there was overclaiming and so many of especially LW docus were lost during the war.

Juha


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## fastmongrel (Apr 18, 2012)

tyrodtom said:


> I've been circle track racing for over 20 years, i'm not going to compare it with combat, and I do have a little experience there too.
> 
> Since i've been racing one of my sponsors was a video photographer, he videoed all my races. A lot of times, what I thought happened, and what actually occured, would be different. When under stress the mind is occupied with survival, sometimes just getting thru the next few seconds, not keeping a accurate record of what happened. Then the longer you wait after the stressful event to piece together what happened, the more inaccurate you may get. That's why debriefings were done as close to after a mission as possible.
> 
> I remember when I was in Vietnam, I might see something happen, but someone else there might describe the same event, but it 'd be different. I'd worry, is he lying, or am I crazy? But the human eye is not a video camera, and the human mind is not is not a perfect recording device.



Very true I used to race motorbikes not in anyway proffesionally just as an enthusiastic amatuer. I was once third in a 3 way battle for position riding right up the tail pipe of the man in 2nd spot. The leader of our little pack of mid race warriors had got a small lead of about 20 feet he went into a 50mph bend too hot on the brakes lost the front wheel and both he and the bike did a cartwheel in the middle of the track. Apparently he missed me by inches,everyone in the crowd thought we were both gonners and couldnt believe I didnt even back off. I just carried on and rode till the race was flagged. My mate who meched for me asked me why I didnt take any action to avoid the bouncing bike and rider "What bike and who fell off" I never even noticed a bike upside down in the air right in front of me.


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## Kryten (Apr 18, 2012)

I watched a programme the other day about human observation, twelve people were brought together to watch a film being made and whilst waiting for the filming to start they were witnesses to an argument followed by a robbery, the argument/robbery was a setup but the witnesses had no idea they were being set up, once the incident was over the witnesses were interviewed privately, then as a group, they started with twelve differing accounts totally innacurate in details but when brought together thier accounts were slowly morphed into one "truth" about what happened untill they were all in agreement as to what they saw, the incident was then replayed to them and thier combined statement was so far out it would have been useless in a court of law, it ws at this point that two of the witnesses put thier hands up and admitted they were part of the setup, and thier job was to infiltrate inaccurate informatuion into the account, they succeded spectacularly when they started agreeing with each other, the other ten witnesses accounts were then manipulated by the flase information!

it proved three very important facts,
1, humans are rubbish at taking in details when subjected to suprise or stress.
2, the story of a group is manipulated by the strongest personalities of the group!
3, people actually convince themselves what is "fact" irrespective of what they really saw!

to say the duped ten were flabbergasted they were so wrong was an understatement!


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## jim (Apr 18, 2012)

Juha said:


> For the chosen one, see my answer to Njaco, nothing to do with Hartmann. Now I'm not very interested in Hartmann's career or claims but have seen conversations on the topic by Russian and Eastern Europen researchers, who seems to be thorough and reliable men, and they seem to think that the claim accuracy of German top aces varied greatly. Studing the claims of LW aces is easiest to Russians because they had easiest access to VVS docus.
> 
> Of course it would be good if someone who is interested in the claim accuracies of individul pilots would study for ex Pattle's, Tuck's and Bader's claim accuracies. Pattle's claims should be easy to go through using Shore's et al's books and crosschecking that info with German unit histories.
> 
> ...


 
Mr Juha
Pattle claimed 50 kills but today we can say that actually scored about 30. However i have read , and not from anglosaxon sources, that he was a very skillful pilot and very very brave. I have great respect for him and i am very sad that his body has not been discovered to have a proper burial. 

On 23/24 August 44 hartmann claimed 18 kills (284-301) . By implying that there were not such soviet losses you dont accuse him of overclaiming ,you accuse him of clear ,intentional cheat. So , a Staffelkapitan , (and the airforce s most succesful pilot), escorted by numerous members of its staffel , claims 18 ,scoring actually 0 , and gets away with this. No one notice nothing and everyone celebrates the 300. Or all 9/JG52 took part in the deception Your opinion about Luftwaffe must be lower than that for an African air force.
And a man of such low ethics later insists to lift the ban on operational flying , still later ignores orders to fly to safety, spents 10 years in prison without breaking, and its former commanders (who themselfs are reliable claimers but otherwise not very smart and have been decieved by him) ask him to join the post war Luftwaffe and give him the command of the first post war fighter wing . 
The alternative scenario is that the soviets "corrected" the reports in order to devalue him. Everyone can judge which case is more realistic


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## bobbysocks (Apr 18, 2012)

kryten, you are correct. the human mind plays tricks on itself. part of my job is to conduct investigations and interview people. some people will outright lie to you but others will tell you what i call an "alternate truth". it never happened anywhere but in their mind. they do not intend to decieve but what they remember is 1) what they intended to do or 2) what they wanted to happen. it becomes very real to them and pushes that memory to the front of their minds. if you show them what really happened on video its like waking an amnesiac. i know many will chaulk this up to pure bunk or that the person is a very good liar. but i can say i experienced it first hand. i had to recount from memory a chain of events during a time of confusion. i was accurate up to a high degree but gave a false account for 2 steps. what i "remembered" was the course of action i had planned to take before things distracted me. it was a very good exercise. so i can certainly understand that happening in the stress of a combat situation. due to my job i have to attend courses and seminars and saw this video. i think it may have been posted here before. but it will prove some of the things...well just watch it and tell me if, with all the confusion me you get the count right??


_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo_


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## Juha (Apr 18, 2012)

jim said:


> Mr Juha
> Pattle claimed 50 kills but today we can say that actually scored about 30. However i have read , and not from anglosaxon sources, that he was a very skillful pilot and very very brave. I have great respect for him and i am very sad that his body has not been discovered to have a proper burial.
> 
> On 23/24 August 44 hartmann claimed 18 kills (284-301) . By implying that there were not such soviet losses you dont accuse him of overclaiming ,you accuse him of clear ,intentional cheat. So , a Staffelkapitan , (and the airforce s most succesful pilot), escorted by numerous members of its staffel , claims 18 ,scoring actually 0 , and gets away with this. No one notice nothing and everyone celebrates the 300. Or all 9/JG52 took part in the deception Your opinion about Luftwaffe must be lower than that for an African air force.
> ...



Hello Jim
I also have high regard for Pattle, a great pilot and very responsible man, as seen his actions during his last days. How many kills he actually got I don't know. It seems that at least a couple Do 17s from KG 2 which Shores et al thought were damaged by him, Pattle claimed them as destroyed, were not damaged at right area to be Pattle's targets, that according to the excellent unit history of KG 2.

I didn't say that there were no Soviet losses, but clearly too few for even Hartmann's claims not to speak for all LW fighter pilots claims in that area on those 2 days. If you think that only most careful claimers were good leaders and effective commanders, it's your problem, I think man is far too complicated being to be squeezed so one-dimencional mould. Now on your conspiration theory, when that "correction" would have happened, in Soviet time, when the documents were out of reach from foreigners and "unreliable" Soviet citizens and when those in power thought that that would be the situation more or less forever, or after 1989? 

BYW, you haven't yet answered my question how the soviet regimental CO would have got his replacement a/c if he did not inform his superiors of his losses.

Juha


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## tyrodtom (Apr 18, 2012)

I guess what you're saying does make sense Juha. And really any country treats the truth as conditional during wartime. There's info that you release to the public, and there's information only for a select few with the need to know, if the two agree, it's just a coincident.

Wasn't it Churchill who said "During war you protect the truth with a bodyguard of lies" or something similiar.

With Soviet records though, the truth was sometimes so well protected, that it's hard to tell when you're past the bodyguard of lies.


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## GregP (Apr 18, 2012)

Juha,

You are still being vague; you still don't cite anything verifiable. Your suspicion that Hartmann's victories are bogus is inufficient. What factual documents, available to the world, contradict his victory awards?

I don't have to research it at all. I am satisfied with the facts to date. It is YOU who are not. If you want to dispute his record, do the rsearch and produce the results along with the soruces available to the public ... and then do it for everyone else, too. No selective victory elimination ... do it or don't do it, completely.

Otherwise, you have no basis for your claim that Hartmann's victories were false in any manner whatsoever except your own doubts. I don't have any and I doubt your claim of false Hartmammn victories.

But heck, you could be right. Why not go prove it and show us, with sources?


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## Maximowitz (Apr 19, 2012)

Meanwhile, on a different forum, far far away..

German overclaims in the East. Hartmann and others... - Luftwaffe and Allied Air Forces Discussion Forum

Groundhog Day.


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## GregP (Apr 19, 2012)

Intersting, escecially considering none of us have access to the documents that were alluded to but never identified. Sounds like more personal bias or else an unsubstantiated claim again. This is getting old quickly.

Any documents that are to be considered as proof must be identified, verified as genuine, and then gone through page by page ... not vagurely identified with claims of fraudulent victories. This one is even weaker than the one above.

C'mon, produce evidence that a claim is false or give it up. Making vague statements about Soviet losses won't do it. MANY Soviet planes were shot down every day for a long period of time before they got good planes and experienced pilots. The wartime Societ union was not a monument of truthfullness ... they rewrote history at Stalin's whim.

I'm afraid that Soviet documents are probably less than truthful, unless one could get the original reports from the field. Even then, the field commandrs might have been given orders to change the facts, and that comes from a Russian friend of mine in the 1980's. He visited from Moscow to buy communications modems and uplinks, and we talked extensively. He was a former Soviet MiG pilot (MiG-21's) and was almost in disbelief that he was sitting aorund a pool in the U.S.A. with a capitalist drinking beer and talking about our two countries' old enmity before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Therein lie several stories that are humorous, but unrelated to the subject.

Hartmann still has 352 until proven different by substianted and verified documents. I would not revise HIS totals unless there were a general review of ALL WWII victories to the same standard. Of course, if we did that, we'd eliminate most of the Japanese victories entirely becasue the Japanese government didn't track them at all. We got the Japanese totals through individual war diaries, and their kills didn't even have to go through a peer review! They were simply recorded in a war diary. Now THERE is a system guaranteed to overclaim!


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## drgondog (Apr 19, 2012)

I think there are three facts to deal with, 1.) there were a Lot of airmen who reported air combat as they experienced it, b.) the symtoms of an aircraft destroyed were variable and subject to observational error and 3.) there were a few 'claimers' that overstated the circumstances and received credit for claims that were bogus.

I don't believe Hartmann was one of the latter


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## Juha (Apr 19, 2012)

GregP said:


> Juha,
> 
> You are still being vague; you still don't cite anything verifiable. Your suspicion that Hartmann's victories are bogus is inufficient. What factual documents, available to the world, contradict his victory awards?
> 
> ...



Well, I based my opinion on modern researchers who had used documentary material of both sides, or who had been actively in contact people who had familiar with other side's documents while they themselves have extensively used their own side documents. Books of few of them are now beginning to reach Western readers, like Rybin's and Egorov's books. Rybin is specialized on Far North, Egorov on Southern sector. As far I know Dikov, who had speciliazed on the AF of Soviet Baltic Fleet, has not published anything in English, but he helped much Christer Bergström at least in his BC RS Vol 2 and he seems to be very thorough researcher based on his questions and answers in one site specialized on Finnish AF. Just to name a few. Good Russian researchers seem to be very good. Of course not all modern Russian writers on aviation history are good, some have very nationalistic POV. So I don't need to do all myself I can rely on good modern research based on primary sources. IMHO combat history based on only the sources of one side would not give a full picture, one got as many "truths" of the battle as there were sides, think for ex air war around Guadalcanal 42-43. Even those based purely on US or on Australian promary materials would probably differ and the one based purely on Japanese material would give impression on totally different campaign even if locations would be same and time difference constant.

Juha


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## Juha (Apr 19, 2012)

GregP said:


> Intersting, escecially considering none of us have access to the documents that were alluded to but never identified. Sounds like more personal bias or else an unsubstantiated claim again. This is getting old quickly.
> 
> Any documents that are to be considered as proof must be identified, verified as genuine, and then gone through page by page ... not vagurely identified with claims of fraudulent victories. This one is even weaker than the one above...



Now Egorov mentioned material at TsAMO, ie the Archives of the Soviet Army, more specially they mentioned 5 VA (VA = Air Army) documents and those of air regiments (APs), the basic Soviet AF unit, of air divisions and air corps. I know that they have also went through the material of repair organisations and that of air craft industry because as in UK most badly damaged planes were sent back to factories to be repaired or dismantled for use in new production. IIRC in worst cases the damaged a/c went through 5 levels of damage assesments. As in RAF or in LW the first damage assesment could change later on.

Juha


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## GregP (Apr 19, 2012)

Juha,

I might join you in your beliefs if I had access to the source documents. The modern researchers who make claims againts Hartmann get their sources from where? 

The only one I started to check had about 20 sources listed. I tried to check out the first five of the so-called sources and couldn't locate a single one of them or any proof of their existence. I decided the author should not have published without at least sources that can be foubd somewhere. Perhaps thety exist in the corner of a large library in Moscow. If so, I cannot corroborate them or even check to see if they exist.

Therein lies the main source my doubt ... inability to verify sources.


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## Juha (Apr 19, 2012)

GregP said:


> Juha,
> 
> I might join you in your beliefs if I had access to the source documents. The modern researchers who make claims againts Hartmann get their sources from where?
> 
> ...



As I wrote, the army docus, incl. those of VVS KA ie the Army AF, are stored at TsAMO, in Podolsk near Moscow, naval aviation docus might well be in St Petersburgh at Central Naval Archieves, not sure of that. At least most of material at TsAMO is also open to foreign researchers, I personally know a couple Finns who had used them and know that there are others. There is in net a database of VVS pilot losses, I cannot remember if Nacal Aviation and PVO (Interceptors) aircrews are included. I have looked it only once because of my very limited knowledge on Russian, but IIRC it contains digi photos on original docus.

So if you bothered to contact TsAMO to get a permit, if that is still requested, travel to Moscow, hire a quide, because the archives were not as user friendly as for ex. the NA at Kew, you can check the docus. Not much difference to that of how one had to do several years ago with for ex. RAF docus. Of course one didn't need a guide, if one could read English and had some understanding how to look docus, and the staff of then PRO was very helpful. I know, I made my first visit to PRO in mid 80s.
Or you might take a look on the database, IIRC it is organized by names or by regiments, so you must have some info on VVS KA organization and unit locations to use it effectively.
Juha


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## Kryten (Apr 19, 2012)

I doubt there is any debate as to claims being subject to error, so it stands to reason if you claim over 300 kills logically you will be subject to a greater factor of error, so the 345 or whatever is very probably out by a considerable margin!


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## GregP (Apr 19, 2012)

And the Russians, former Soviets, have interest in corroborating Erich Hartmann's victories? They put him in prison for 10 years after the war for being successful. I doubt they's corroborate anything about a German pilot, and I'm not interested enough in researching just Erich hartmann to go to the expense of traveling to Moscow ... unless someone else wants to pay for it.

So 352 it is until verified as oterhwise with public sources. Thanks for the conclusion.


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## evangilder (Apr 19, 2012)

Interesting topic. I am pretty sure that every air force has more claims than actuals. It isn't a case of exaggeration, but in the heat of combat, one kill can result in multiple claims of that kill. If the pilot of plane x is concentrating his fight on an enemy and the pilot of plane y is also shooting at the same enemy, they may not see each other at all. 

I am reading a book about the Flying Tigers right now that compares the losses of the Japanese units versus AVG kills and vice versa. On both sides, there were battles where each side shot down and/or destroyed more aircraft than were actually in the fight! Add an overzealous press to the formula and the numbers go higher. Even Chennault and some of the pilots of the AVG argue with press statements of the day.


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## wuzak (Apr 19, 2012)

Isn't this about "confirmed" kills rather than claims?

A pilot may claim to have shot down 5 aircraft, but with the evidence at hand his air force may only credit him with 1.


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## GregP (Apr 20, 2012)

Wuzak,

Most of the air forces in question have already credited their pilots with kills, so the kill totals are known.

The issue seems, at least to me, to be that some people want to CHANGE the kill totals because they don't like whoever is number one for some reason. At this time, it happens to be Erich Hartmann who is credited with 352 victories. He had wingmen and detractors who flew with him and later stated they saw his claimed kills and had no more doubts ... but people seem to want to belive Russian detractors who have every reason to discredit Hartmann. They hated him and imprisoned him for being a fighter pilot who attained success.

I have no axe to grind ... the facts are the facts.

But to put Erich Hartmann under scrutiny while ignoring all the other pilots is ludicrous. If you want to dispute the kill credits in WWII, then examnine them ALL ... not just your pet project. I have never met Erich Hartmann (though I saw him live once), but have met Gunther Rall in a hanger in Scottsdale, Arizona along with Ralph Parr and a few other notables. They were a gregarious bunch, laughing and talking about wartime flying by describing their blunders ... not their kills. One got the disctinct impression that the kills were not a subject for discussion since that would lead admitting they were enemies or at least WRONG in their wartime purpose when, in fact, they were trying to be friends at the time. Rall described a landing in an Me 109 when he was distracted and hit a halftrack motorcycle tug while loooking at a visiting woman on the sidelines. He was embarrassed but said ne managed to get a date with her that evening, and he was more proud of that than his combat for the day!

I understand that thinking back on college and the women I dated ... I can recall ONE that was wonderful in all respects. Should have married her, I suppose ... wonder where she is NOW ...

All Ralph Parr wanted was another flight in an F-86.


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## Juha (Apr 20, 2012)

GregP said:


> Wuzak,
> 
> Most of the air forces in question have already credited their pilots with kills, so the kill totals are known.
> 
> The issue seems, at least to me, to be that some people want to CHANGE the kill totals because they don't like whoever is number one for some reason.




The reaon is simply that there are many Hartman's claims for which there are not suitable VVS losses



GregP said:


> At this time, it happens to be Erich Hartmann who is credited with 352 victories. He had wingmen and detractors who flew with him and later stated they saw his claimed kills and had no more doubts.



Heh, first of all, no serious researcher, exept one Swede, has claimed taht vast majority of Hartmann's claims were unfoundered, secondly if you put someone who suspect person X is dishonest, to watch that person do you really think that person x, disregardless is he dishonest or not, would not be extra carefull during the time he is under surveilance by a doubter?



GregP said:


> ... but people seem to want to belive Russian detractors who have every reason to discredit Hartmann. They hated him and imprisoned him for being a fighter pilot who attained success.
> 
> I have no axe to grind ... the facts are the facts.



From where you had got idea that for ex. Egorov hates Hartmann? IMHO you are basing your arguments on something else than facts.



GregP said:


> But to put Erich Hartmann under scrutiny while ignoring all the other pilots is ludicrous.



If you bothered to read my first message to that thread you would see that Hartmann really isn't the only one under scrutiny, and results varied, some had been very carefull claimers some others not. But nice to notice that you had nothing against the fact that Pattle overclaimed during the Greece campaign.




GregP said:


> If you want to dispute the kill credits in WWII, then examnine them ALL ... not just your pet project.



A bit tall order, I'd say. And as I have written, I'm not personally very interested in Hartmann's kill credits, I just answered Tomo's question.

Juha


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## tyrodtom (Apr 20, 2012)

I'm rereading the book Gotterdamnerung 1945, it's written using unit jounals and personal diaries of the units and people involved in the late war eastern front collaspe.

Various times the author will make the comment that different unit journals won't agree even when talking about the same event, even more so with personal diaries.
Officers were assigned to keep unit diaries or daily journals, but that would not be their only duty, ideally the would write the journal as events occured, or at the end of the day, but some times it may have been a day or days later, and days, numbers, and events may have got jumbled somewhat. It wasn't really anybodies intent to lie or hide the truth, there were just more important things going on at the time than keeping a record.


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## Altea (Apr 20, 2012)

> To Jim



First no soviet union, not soviet archives does not exist anymore. Russian and Ukrainian archives are open to public since 1993. A lot of people from west went there in the meantime as Christer Bergstom, David Glantz, Emiliani and others that are perfectly qualified and clever enough to quote about their reliability. By all means for losses reports they were destinated to internal use only, not intended to be published one day, and were never destroyed or rewroten. Some of them may be lossed durinf 1941 chaos.

In other hand, during soviet aera were published optimistic numbers of the glorious industry of "peasents and workers". Optimistic with some overclaim i would say, as well as all soviet production numbers.

Once that said, it reminds to justify where did the planes, canons, tanks went.

AFAIK, a statistical analysis was made by a team during perestroïka leaded by the historian Krivosheïev.

So what do they say? But before Jim do you know what an ODB is, an inventory?

So from soviet ODB 32.1 thousands of planes were on line (20 thousands of them military) for the 22/06/41.

Do you have a reason not to thrust that. Only 21.9/12 military for the 1/1/42 due to losses.
And 64.2 (47.3) for the 10/05/45

Corroborated more or less by Alexeienko published lists by type of plane. 

Considering western deliveries and local production, soviets recieved 138,5 thousand planes. It makes a resource except i'm wrong of 170,6 thousand planes?

So soviets had to justify a loss of 106,4 thousand planes for all kinds of reasons. 
This think is done by Krivosheiev, 46.1 written off for combat reasons or due to dammages inflicted in combat mission. The others for accidents and usual wear and tear.

This is realy complete and exhaustive. Do you have something approched with same accuracy for RAF, USAF or Luftwaffe? 

Now when the 106,400 list would be available, i don't know. But within few years a group of russian-ukrainian enthousiast had collected an anormous database of more than 40 000 events of accidents losses occured WW2 in 2003 (we are in 2012 now), that is used (against usd) by many of russian historians. 

Nothing secret, only buisness, as the access in russian archives now, you need to corrupt a little...




.


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## tyrodtom (Apr 20, 2012)

To check a pilots claims by checking the opponents losses you need accurate DAILY accounts.

I can see that the Soviets would need to know how many they were losing to replace them, but just how often would they need to report this information ? 

Pilots may not know exactly where they were when they shot down a aircraft, they often miss identify the aircraft, may put the wrong date on their logs, especially if the log isn't updated daily.

I know how things are supposed to be done in the military as to daily logs or unit journals, but I also know how things were done in the real world.


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## jim (Apr 20, 2012)

Altea said:


> First no soviet union, not soviet archives does not exist anymore. Russian and Ukrainian archives are open to public since 1993. A lot of people from west went there in the meantime as Christer Bergstom, David Glantz, Emiliani and others that are perfectly qualified and clever enough to quote about their reliability. By all means for losses reports they were destinated to internal use only, not intended to be published one day, and were never destroyed or rewroten. Some of them may be lossed durinf 1941 chaos.
> 
> In other hand, during soviet aera were published optimistic numbers of the glorious industry of "peasents and workers". Optimistic with some overclaim i would say, as well as all soviet production numbers.
> 
> ...


 "

Mr Altea
You are providing interesting numbers. However I dont understand what proves that that numbers are reliable.All the gentlemen you mentioned worked on soviet era produced documents. And even if they are reliable their seperation as combat losses, accidents, and "general" wear is open to question
About the initial losses reports. I respect your opinion but i dont accept it. My country has a bitter experience about the communist methods of propaganda, and of consequenses on commanders " that failed to serve properly the people s army" . And they were recieving orders and methods directly from Moscow.
Now, writing from memory, german fighter pilots claimed 45000 kills and the flak units ~ 20000
Accepting the soviet opinion of about 46000 kills from all reasons, we can say : About 10000 to flak , about 10000 destroyed or abandoned on ground from/for varius reasons, add additional aircrafts that were written off after returning to base ( and thus not counting as a german air kill) , friendly fire, etc... So according to your data that leaves about 20000 or less kills for the fighters
You can accept these numbers if you want, i dont.
PS I know Bergstom , I have readen extensive pieces of his work. Finally i decided not to buy its books


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## renrich (Apr 20, 2012)

I have already cited the Butch O Hare "ace in a day" episode where he was credited with five bombers shot down and recent records from the Japanese show only three bombers shot down in that engagement. Here is from Lundstrom, page 206, "The First Team" in the early part of the battle of The Coral Sea. The IJN actually had six fighters in their CAP during attacks on Shoho. The Lexington pilots reported engaging 10-12 fighters.. The Yorktown pilots noted the presence of six type 96 fighters and three "VSB' types. The "VSB" types were actually Zekes which they had never seen before. "Total American claims amounted to five fighters and one VSB to F4Fs, and five fighters and one VSB to the dive bombers. Actual Japanese losses were three fighters shot down." In addition, the analysts decided the American groups had sunk one carrier and one light cruiser with damage to one heavy cruiser. Actually one carrier was sunk but no light cruiser and no heavy cruiser was damaged.

The above is an example, repeated over and over again, of "the fog of war." Those pilots were more than likely not knowingly exaggerating their exploits but were just mistaken in their observations.
This forum is very Eurocentric in it's interests about WW2. While I have not had the opportunity to read books as well researched as Lundstom's or Shores's have been which show how inflated pilots claims and credits were in the PTO, I see no reason why the claims and credits of ETO pilots, whether Hartmann, Johnson or whoever are not as inaccurate as those pilots fighting in the Pacific.


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## Juha (Apr 20, 2012)

tyrodtom said:


> I'm rereading the book Gotterdamnerung 1945, it's written using unit jounals and personal diaries of the units and people involved in the late war eastern front collaspe.
> 
> Various times the author will make the comment that different unit journals won't agree even when talking about the same event, even more so with personal diaries.
> Officers were assigned to keep unit diaries or daily journals, but that would not be their only duty, ideally the would write the journal as events occured, or at the end of the day, but some times it may have been a day or days later, and days, numbers, and events may have got jumbled somewhat. It wasn't really anybodies intent to lie or hide the truth, there were just more important things going on at the time than keeping a record.



I have went through hundreds of company level war diaries. Yes, in army units that is a problem but in AFs not so much. AF units were based farther from the front and their ground echelons were much less in contact with enemy, so the clerical work was much more orderly.

Juha


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## Juha (Apr 20, 2012)

tyrodtom said:


> To check a pilots claims by checking the opponents losses you need accurate DAILY accounts.
> 
> I can see that the Soviets would need to know how many they were losing to replace them, but just how often would they need to report this information ?
> 
> ...



Hello tyrodtom
try to buy/loan Antipov's and Utkin's Dragons on Bird Wings The combat History of the 812 Fighter Air Regiment Vol. 1 (2006) so you can see from it thet VVS pilot log book looked much like that of RAF, LW or FiAF corresponding document, also VVS loss report and a translation of it in English, which shows that VVS was very interested in details of the losses etc. A an extr you will get excellent drawnings on Yak-1, -1b, -7, -7B, -9 and -9T, many colour profiles and some info on Soviet radars etc and of course the combat history of that regiment up to June 44.

Juha


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## GregP (Apr 22, 2012)

Juha,

I'm not basing my arguments on other than facts, you are.

The Russians hated and imprisoned Erich hartmann ... not for war crimes, but for being a very successful fighter pilot. That is a fact, not my opinion.

Erich hartmann was creditied with 352 enemy aircraft shot down. That is a fact.

Some people in here claim Erich Hartmann didn't shoot down that many aircraft, and they have no document or documents that can be verified as being an official government document (or documents) from Germany, the Soviet Union, or anywhere else that says different. What we have is vague inendo about TsAIG documents that we cannot see and are taking the word of someone who alledgedly saw it and investigated all of Erich Hartmann's claims? 

Please! If you did that much research, you'd HAVE THE DOCUMENTS, or copies of at LEAST the parts that support your claims, and could post at least some of what you found that verified your claims. Otherwise we have someone who wants to change the official WWII record by making noise about Erich Hartmann's supposed overclaiming on the internet. People lie on the internet every day and also on televisione every day.

Even if someone HAS a Soviet doeument that differs from Erich Hartmann's claims, which document is right? The Soviet loss record or the German claim? We all know that Stallin wanted to see fewer losses. He usually got what he wanted or people died. Who is to say whether the loss report of Erich Hartmann's claim is correct? A person trying to discredit Erich?

As I stated many times before, make your case with publically-available documents and facts or don't make it. If you do, settle in for a long investigation of the victory claims in WWII.

Until you do that, Erich has 352 victories and is the all-time number one Ace in world history, any other earwash or eyewash notwithstanding. If you want to be a revisionist, make your case with real, produceable documents or what you have is your opinion that is in conflict with the official records. In most reasonable people's minds, the official records can be changed, but only with proof. Otherwise the facts usually stand as recorded. In this case, I think the record is intact so far, and it has been 70 years. Finding anyone still alive who remembers the facts will prove increasingly difficult and it is likely Erich's record will stand forever, unless it becomes politically correct to revise it downward. Thankfully, we aren't that far gone yet, I hope.


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## Juha (Apr 22, 2012)

GregP said:


> Juha,
> 
> I'm not basing my arguments on other than facts, you are.
> 
> The Russians hated and imprisoned Erich hartmann... not for war crimes, but for being a very successful fighter pilot. That is a fact, not my opinion .



Now some Russians probably hated him, but not all and yes, they imprisoned him as they imprisoned all successful LW aces they could lay their hands. What was different was that they kept him so long. Graf who did so co-ops with Soviets got out in 1949, most other 1947-49 IIRC, Hartmann amongst the last released German PoWs in 1955.





GregP said:


> Erich hartmann was creditied with 352 enemy aircraft shot down. That is a fact.



I don't know how many of his kills were officially confirmed by the normal confirmation system, which broken down around the end of 1944 but some sort claim allocation system seems to have been functioned to the begining of May 45. But generally status of all 45 LW victory claims is a bit hazy.



GregP said:


> Some people in here claim Erich Hartmann didn't shoot down that many aircraft, and they have no document or documents that can be verified as being an official government document (or documents) from Germany, the Soviet Union, or anywhere else that says different. What we have is vague inendo about TsAIG documents that we cannot see and are taking the word of someone who alledgedly saw it and investigated all of Erich Hartmann's claims? .



Now the Soviet/Russian Central Military Archives is TsAMO, TsAGI is Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute, a bit different thing. You can see TsAMO documents same way than you usually can see most other archival documents, by visiting archives in question. What is lacking as ar I know is the possibility to order and pay for copies of the documents via internet but that is fairly new service even in West. And IIRC it isn't possible even to use the older system to order microfilms via mail which was use in the west earlier



GregP said:


> Please! If you did that much research, you'd HAVE THE DOCUMENTS, or copies of at LEAST the parts that support your claims, and could post at least some of what you found that verified your claims. Otherwise we have someone who wants to change the official WWII record by making noise about Erich Hartmann's supposed overclaiming on the internet. People lie on the internet every day and also on televisione every day.



As I have wrote, I'm not researching the Southern Eastern Front, I have only noticed the conversations between researchers on that area. And at least a couple writers who had wrote books on Axis AFs seem to have high regard on Egorov and the couple Russian researchers with whom I have change messages on VVS vs FiAF have given impression of being very thorough and objective researchers.



GregP said:


> Even if someone HAS a Soviet doeument that differs from Erich Hartmann's claims, which document is right? The Soviet loss record or the German claim? We all know that Stallin wanted to see fewer losses. He usually got what he wanted or people died. Who is to say whether the loss report of Erich Hartmann's claim is correct? A person trying to discredit Erich?



Heh, you are sounding like Ratchel? when he claimed that USAAF documentation had to be in error because to the most of Bartel's Greece claims there were not suitable USAAF losses. VVS internal documents are like those of USAAF, essential to system to work. How system could allocate replacement if it did not know losses? Tell me. Remember those documets were internal armed forces docus, the numbers published during the war were a different thing.



GregP said:


> As I stated many times before, make your case with publically-available documents and facts or don't make it. If you do, settle in for a long investigation of the victory claims in WWII.
> 
> Until you do that, Erich has 352 victories and is the all-time number one Ace in world history, any other earwash or eyewash notwithstanding. If you want to be a revisionist, make your case with real, produceable documents or what you have is your opinion that is in conflict with the official records. In most reasonable people's minds, the official records can be changed, but only with proof. Otherwise the facts usually stand as recorded. In this case, I think the record is intact so far, and it has been 70 years. Finding anyone still alive who remembers the facts will prove increasingly difficult and it is likely Erich's record will stand forever, unless it becomes politically correct to revise it downward. Thankfully, we aren't that far gone yet, I hope.



Now some seem to believe, that even if we know that all others overclaimed and that Germans overclaimed in ETO and MTO, Germans didn't overclaim in the East, or what you are trying to say? Or are you claiming that that the overclaiming % was same to all aces, so further research would not change the order of aces? We know from ETO and MTO that that was not the case. As official records, I also believe that it better to left the records stand as they are, but as in for ex BoB, it's enormous improvement that today when talking on losses suffered then, we usually used real figures, not those contemporary official air victory figures, which were badly inflated on both sides.

Juha


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## Njaco (Apr 22, 2012)

> Heh, you are sounding like Ratchel? when he claimed that USAAF documentation had to be in error because to the most of Bartel's Greece claims there were not suitable USAAF losses. VVS internal documents are like those of USAAF, essential to system to work. How system could allocate replacement if it did not know losses? Tell me. Remember those documets were internal armed forces docus, the numbers published during the war were a different thing.



I don't know Juha. Its seems that you are hanging onto records from an unbiased, accurate, non-propaganda infected political system. If I was in charge of a country and my enemy was claiming that he was shooting down just about everything I threw at him, I might fudge the figures. Reminds me of a certain Press Minister at the start of the Iraq war...."The Americans are not in Iraq, the Americans are not in Baghdad, the Americans are surrendering..."


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## Juha (Apr 22, 2012)

Njaco said:


> I don't know Juha. Its seems that you are hanging onto records from an unbiased, accurate, non-propaganda infected political system. If I was in charge of a country and my enemy was claiming that he was shooting down just about everything I threw at him, I might fudge the figures. Reminds me of a certain Press Minister at the start of the Iraq war...."The Americans are not in Iraq, the Americans are not in Baghdad, the Americans are surrendering..."



Now, as I wrote, what is in armed forces secret internal docus is altogether different what propaganda machine said. Same as the LW, even if I know there are at least some cases in which the reason of the loss is wrong, (for good operational reason LFl 5 lied sometimes and claimed that the planes in fact shot down by Soviets had suffered tecnical malfunctions), in general we believe LW documentation, even if we know that Göbbels' produced lot of bs, and we know that Nazi Germany was a bloody political system which killed millions of people of which hundreds of thousend were political opponents, and easily sacked generals who objected the military thinking of der Führer. Same goes to SU, its propaganda was one thing and docus another, we knew what SU claimed as its losses shortly after the Winter War against Finland but we also know that the real losses were much higher. Why? Because from 80s archives are opened and from there researchers, mostly Russians but also some Finns have found the real figures, which were much higher than claimed SU after the war and up to 80s.

Juha

Juha


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## Njaco (Apr 22, 2012)

Yes, I agree. Both sides had propaganda as a means of inflating the success of their regimes. Everything with a grain of salt. But until something concrete comes along, I persoanlly will stick with 352 for Hartmann.


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## Vincenzo (Apr 22, 2012)

overcredit is a real world thing, think that hartmann actually shoot down 352 aircraft is illogic.


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## Njaco (Apr 22, 2012)

Why?


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## Vincenzo (Apr 22, 2012)

i think not need a explain
try a example LW credited around 3000 planes in BoB the actual losses (include w/o after landing) were half or less so all pilots credit are wrong


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## Njaco (Apr 22, 2012)

> .....so all pilots credit are wrong



So the British didn't loose any aircraft from combat, just accidents, landings, engines fires and the odd, inflatable life raft. And this was just the LW, right?


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## Juha (Apr 22, 2012)

Vincenzo said:


> i think not need a explain
> try a example LW credited around 3000 planes in BoB the actual losses (include w/o after landing) were half or less so all pilots credit are wrong



IIRC that 3000 incl bomber gunners credits, they truly shot down many British fighters but overclaimed badly as all air gunners tended to do. And even if LW fighter pilots clearly overclaimed, the extent varied, for ex Mölders and Galland were accurate claimers, not 100% but very accurate. Balthasar wasn't and at least late in his career Wick also was optimistic. So it varied case to case, and because many massive air combats with clear overclaiming, absolute truth is not possible to establish but in many cases it is possible to check claims vs true losses and get a general picture of claim accuracy.

Juha


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## GregP (Apr 22, 2012)

Hi Juha,


So I sound like Ratsel huh? I can accept that. When someone wants to change the official record that has been accepted since WWII, I naturally want to see the objective evidence that the change is warranted. So far, all I have are opinions that overclaiming was rampant and references to documents perhaps available in the former Soviet Union. 

In the US and Great Britain, many WWII reference documents, but not all, are available over the internet. I have even seen some Russian documents available over the internet, too. Unfortunately not many having to do with individual losses or victory claims in the war by land, sea, or air units. Most were losses of troops on the ground summarized.

So I’ll say this in response.

One last time before I ignore this subject entirely, make your case without resorting to your opinion. Erich Hartmann’s credits for 352 victories are not my opinion; that is the official record. Post objective proof that Herr Hartmann made false claims and, after suitable examination of the evidence, the record may be changed or may not be depending on the evidence. From my perspective, I’d not revise Erich’s record unless we look at a lot of other claims, too. However, officially, if it can be shown that certain claims are invalid, then maybe the record can be revised to the satisfaction of historians.

The first thing you’d need to do is to establish the record of Erich Hartmann’s claims. I have two sets of them with dates, times, victims, etc. and they don’t agree with one another! I think you’d need that before you start trying to invalidate them. Then make sure you have copies of the evidence documents, validated and available to anyone trying to recreate your research. It would help if you published the names and addresses and contact information of places where you got your evidence documents. Most historical researchers have that information available when they want to revise history.

Any document can be incorrect, be it a US, British, Russian, German, or Ukrainian document. That means that not only could Erich Hartmann have been credited wrongly, but also the loss records could be wrong. A typical revisionist forms an opinion and tries to prove he or she is right with circumstantial evidence. The scientific method is to form your opinion (theory) and then try to prove your theory is wrong. If you can’t and nobody else can either, then your theory might be right. That’s how the laws of Physics and mathematics got made into laws … through inability to be proven wrong.

So you might start with the theory that Erich Hartmann shot down 352 enemy aircraft and try to prove that wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt. If you can that, you might be onto something. Again, good luck.

I'm not trying to fight with you; I'm trying to get to your objective evidence that Erich Hartmann's credits are wrong. So far, I don't see any, starting with lack of Hartmann's credits with dates, times, and victims from other than an internet source.

But you do seem to have the opinion that overclaiming was rampant in the Luftwaffe and rank helped determine claims in the Luftwaffe. I daresay that new pilots were looked upon with some doubt in ALL air forces. Once someone survived the first 10 - 20 combats and became a veteran, I daresay that most air forces would tend to lean toward any claims put forth by a generally known reliable veteran source. The Luftwaffe wasn't alone in that regard.


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## Vincenzo (Apr 22, 2012)

Juha said:


> IIRC that 3000 incl bomber gunners credits, they truly shot down many British fighters but overclaimed badly as all air gunners tended to do. And even if LW fighter pilots clearly overclaimed, the extent varied, for ex Mölders and Galland were accurate claimers, not 100% but very accurate. Balthasar wasn't and at least late in his career Wick also was optimistic. So it varied case to case, and because many massive air combats with clear overclaiming, absolute truth is not possible to establish but in many cases it is possible to check claims vs true losses and get a general picture of claim accuracy.
> 
> Juha



i googled so LW awarded her fighters pilot near 2000 Spit/Hurri, the RAF declared around 750 Spit/Hurri shoot downs (include losses from bomber but not the fighter landed too damaged for repair, the raf get 1100 fighters w/o all causes)


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## Juha (Apr 22, 2012)

Hello Greg
once again, I'm not researching the air war in the southern part of the Eastern Front, I only refer info given by a couple researchers doing that for their books. As the Hartmann's claims, I'd use the Tony Wood's list, which is based on RLM docus. 

"But you do seem to have the opinion that overclaiming was rampant in the Luftwaffe" Now where I wrote that kind of text, a typical strawman argument, sorry.

"and rank helped determine claims in the Luftwaffe" Sorry again, one other participian of this thread brought up info on USAAF/USAF study which made that conclusion. I only noted that I had seen before some comments from lowe rank LW pilots, who had claimed that that sort of things happened but also noted that there were high claimer NCOs in LW and also hign claimers who had got many confirmed victories while being NCOs before promoted to officer ranks. So again a strawman argument.

Juha


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## Juha (Apr 22, 2012)

Vincenzo said:


> i googled so LW awarded her fighters pilot near 2000 Spit/Hurri, the RAF declared around 750 Spit/Hurri shoot downs (include losses from bomber but not the fighter landed too damaged for repair, the raf get 1100 fighters w/o all causes)



Hello Vincenzo
looked only 3 most easily checked sources, BoB Then and Now Mk V FC 1023, incl FC's Blenheims and Defiants, LW 1887, incl 873 109s and 110s. The other two:FC losses, incl damaged beyond repairs 922 1012, LW losses, again incl those dam beyond repairs, 1767 1918. If I recall correctly RAF combat a/c losses were appr 1600, incl BC and CC a/c.

Juha

Addition: bothered to count up the numbers by types from mothly summaries from F. K. Mason's article in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aviation Vol. 4
that is the fiest of the other two sources 922 vs 1767. FC losses 538 Hurris, 342 Spits, 29 Blenheims and 13 Defiants, LW fighters 591 109s and 261 110s


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## GregP (Apr 22, 2012)

OK Juha, so you don't believe overclaiming in the Luftwaffe was rampant. What, then DO you believe? Are Hartmann's credits valid? Was the Luftwaffe system pretty good? At least, up to the point where it collapsed? I wouldn't want to misrepresent your beliefs, just wanted clarification.

Al least SOMEBODY in here wants Hartmann's credits reduced or we would never have gotten here.

All I was asking for was objective evidance of false claims other than Wikipedia-type internet posting, which are proof of nothing.


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## imalko (Apr 22, 2012)

Here's something related to this topic - an excerpt from interview with Slovak top scoring ace Ján Režňak.

_*After the war Czechoslovak communists were trying to justify participation of Slovak airmen in war in the East by saying that their air victories were made up, that they had evaded combat and sabotaged German aircraft.*_

*Režňák:* That is simply not true. Germans had such sophisticated observation system, that if a dog fight occurred somewhere, they knew about it even before our return to the base. For every aircraft claimed we were obligated to write and sign a statement describing in detail a fight in question. It happened on more than one occasion, that while I was still in the air my air victory was already confirmed...


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## Vincenzo (Apr 22, 2012)

None want reduced the LW credit to Hartmann, this is impossible.
just i tell, like all others credits, are different of actual enemy planes destroyed so Hartmann destroyes less of 350 planes but this is nothing of strange or is a personal fault of Hartmann.


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## Vincenzo (Apr 22, 2012)

Juha said:


> Hello Vincenzo
> looked only 3 most easily checked sources, BoB Then and Now Mk V FC 1023, incl FC's Blenheims and Defiants, LW 1887, incl 873 109s and 110s. The other two:FC losses, incl damaged beyond repairs 922 1012, LW losses, again incl those dam beyond repairs, 1767 1918. If I recall correctly RAF combat a/c losses were appr 1600, incl BC and CC a/c.
> 
> Juha



probably the kill were around 40% of credit (talking only v/s fighters)


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## Juha (Apr 22, 2012)

GregP said:


> OK Juha, so you don't believe overclaiming in the Luftwaffe was rampant. What, then DO you believe? Are Hartmann's credits valid? Was the Luftwaffe system pretty good? At least, up to the point where it collapsed? I wouldn't want to misrepresent your beliefs, just wanted clarification.



LW system was good but overcomplicated, it still allowed fairly wild overclaiming from certain units/individuals. Generally LW fighter pilots claims tended to be more accurate than those of Commonwealth pilots up somewhere in 42 when RAF tightened its procedures. On Hartmann, Soviet researchers have found out that there are clearly more cases in Hartmann's claims to which they didn't have found suitable Soviet losses than for ex in Barkhorn's, Rall's and Lipfert's claims amongst others. Hartmann isn't the only one problematic case, there are many others, there are also many others than the 3 I mentioned, whose claims were accurate.



GregP said:


> Al least SOMEBODY in here wants Hartmann's credits reduced or we would never have gotten here.
> 
> All I was asking for was objective evidance of false claims other than Wikipedia-type internet posting, which are proof of nothing.



At TOCH we have had time to time conversations on LW aces.

Juha


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## Juha (Apr 22, 2012)

imalko said:


> Here's something related to this topic - an excerpt from interview with Slovak top scoring ace Ján Režňak.
> 
> _*After the war Czechoslovak communists were trying to justify participation of Slovak airmen in war in the East by saying that their air victories were made up, that they had evaded combat and sabotaged German aircraft.*_
> 
> *Režňák:* That is simply not true. Germans had such sophisticated observation system, that if a dog fight occurred somewhere, they knew about it even before our return to the base. For every aircraft claimed we were obligated to write and sign a statement describing in detail a fight in question. It happened on more than one occasion, that while I was still in the air my air victory was already confirmed...



The obligation to write a combat report was there in all AFs I have studied, RAF, USAAF, LW and FiAF. At least in FiAF pilot had to write a report from all encounterments, irrespective whether he claimed something or not, LeR 3 was an exception in summer 44, but then its pilots were very hard pressed, trying to give support to army during a major Soviet offensive while badly outnumbered.

Juha


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## Juha (Apr 22, 2012)

Vincenzo said:


> probably the kill were around 40% of credit (talking only v/s fighters)



After all 40% wasn't so bad, better than that of FC in 41-42 over France. IIRC LW day fighter claim accuracy against USAAF heavy bombers in Reich defence was about 50%.

Juha


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## imalko (Apr 22, 2012)

Juha said:


> The obligation to write a combat report was there in all AFs I have studied, RAF, USAAF, LW and FiAF. At least in FiAF pilot had to write a report from all encounterments, irrespective whether he claimed something or not, LeR 3 was an exception in summer 44, but then its pilots were very hard pressed, trying to give support to army during a major Soviet offensive while badly outnumbered.
> 
> Juha



I find more interesting the part where he talks about air victories being noted and confirmed even before pilot's return to base.


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 22, 2012)

Gentlemen, please keep this civil...

Just a comment;

For the past several years there have been several individuals trying to disclaim Hartman's claims and if I remember correctly there was one "researcher" who stated he doubts Hartman had more than 70 confirmed kills. It was a known fact that the Soviet Union had a bounty on Harman's head and when he was tried for "War crimes against the Soviet People" his captors tried him for the destruction of something like 330 Soviet aircraft and the murder or attempted murder of "thousands of Soviet citizens" (they based those charged against his sorties and the amount of ammunition carried in his aircraft, saying each stray round could have killed a Soviet citizen). If his original captors tried and imprisoned him based on his combat claims, why now the disconnect? I think we are all aware of the Soviet propaganda machine but now that the Soviet Union is a thing of the past, it seems the propaganda machine wants to EXTREMELY swing the other way. 

also consider the aviation writers Toliver and Constable were one of the first authors who have written about Hartman's combat record based on several sources, mainly his peers and close witnesses. Although never 100% verifiable, I think it's safe to say that these two gentlemen had enough circumstantial evidence to believe that folks like Hartman's claims can be considered "somewhat accurate."

Just my 2 cents - spend it wisely.


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## GregP (Apr 22, 2012)

Thanks FlyboJ. I'll stick with 352 for Erich and let it go at that.


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## Juha (Apr 22, 2012)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Gentlemen, please keep this civil...
> 
> Just a comment;
> 
> ...



Hello FlyboyJ

The Russian researcher was Khazanov and his main error was to use claim list in T's and C's Blond Knight as his source of Hartmann's claims. Because that list is so error-ridden it was easy to show errors in Khazanov's article. That also say much on T's and C's book. Now if prosecuters used number 342 in Hartmann's trial, that in fact proof nothing on Hartmann's claim accuracy, Soviets probably would not have bothered to try to find out the number of H's real victories, that would have needed much hard work, for a show trial. That number would has been only clever move from prosecuters, using German figure would has made it hard to Hartmann to dispute it. On the bounty, was there one or is that just one of the myths made by T C? The fact is that Soviet pilots were paid for accepted kills anyway. IIRC the most realist part of the book is the description of H's life in POW camps, he was very harshly treated but he didn't break. 

Juha


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## Altea (Apr 23, 2012)

> FLYBOYJ said:
> 
> 
> > Gentlemen, please keep this civil...
> ...


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## Altea (Apr 23, 2012)

Denniss said:


> Even the soviets had no doubt in Hartmann's victories - he was sent to prison for the 345 soviet aircraft he shot down.



Any source for that please?


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## Altea (Apr 23, 2012)

tyrodtom said:


> To check a pilots claims by checking the opponents losses you need accurate DAILY accounts.
> 
> I can see that the Soviets would need to know how many they were losing to replace them, *but just how often would they need to report this informatio*n ?


J'm not an East-Front Specialist, but every day at 17:00 AFAIK at regimental Level, at 19:00 the repport had to be sent to division, the division to corps, and then corps to air armies and etc...
Note that there are no "lost" mentions in soviet reports, only "write-offs", for pilots and planes.

DAILY accounts are generaly inflated compared to "compilated loss records" established later, cause the same plane and pilot could "daily" be "written-off" for many different times. In general case "did not return", but recovered later. 
There are famous examples of a soviet pilot (i don't remember the name) from the 12th IAP that was "lost" or "written-off" for 5 times in russian archives, even "died" two times in a burning plane. He was still living in 1997!

That kind of exemples are numerous, so i don't thinkany secund that archives were rewritten, in such a "brothel".


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## drgondog (Apr 23, 2012)

Juha said:


> After all 40% wasn't so bad, better than that of FC in 41-42 over France. IIRC LW day fighter claim accuracy against USAAF heavy bombers in Reich defence was about 50%.
> 
> Juha



So far, If Wood publication is correct I would agree that relative percentage when compared to actual losses of bombers that fell in German occupied territory. It becomes closer to 1.5 claims to actual when considering the aircraft salvaged upon returning to Allied territory - ditto fighters. Every deep dive I have made in examining LW credits versus allied loss records seem to point the trend. Our (USAAF) bomber claims never underwent the same scrutiny as the Fighter VC Boards in 8th and 9th AF - and no US combat unit elsewhere seem to have had the same scrutiny as 8th/9th except for AVG where cash was paid for a kill.

Having said this, the bombers did shoot down a lot of German fighters - but I suspect 1:10 to 1:15 would not be too far from actual and that would be on the high side for many battles..

It has been a point of curiosity for me that the Wermacht/LW recovery team reports were not used as a primary source of intitial confirmation..


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## Juha (Apr 23, 2012)

Altea said:


> > About 80, just using the general overclaim of the Luft in times places he faught. Some other russian authors are estimating at about 120...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Juha (Apr 23, 2012)

drgondog said:


> ...It has been a point of curiosity for me that the Wermacht/LW recovery team reports were not used as a primary source of intitial confirmation..



Yes, that is little odd. But Nick Beale once told that in Italy there was a case when intercepting a USAAF raid against their own a/f the defending LW unit overclaimed badly during the fight over and near the field , surprising thing was that all the claims were accepted, even if it would only has needed that one officer would has taken a car and drove through the neighbourhood of the a/f to notice that there were far fewer wrecks around than there should have been.

Juha


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 23, 2012)

Altea said:


> > About 80, just using the general overclaim of the Luft in times places he faught. Some other russian authors are estimating at about 120.
> >
> >
> >
> ...


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 23, 2012)

Juha said:


> Hello FlyboyJ
> 
> The Russian researcher was Khazanov and his main error was to use claim list in T's and C's Blond Knight as his source of Hartmann's claims. Because that list is so error-ridden it was easy to show errors in Khazanov's article. That also say much on T's and C's book. Now if prosecuters used number 342 in Hartmann's trial, that in fact proof nothing on Hartmann's claim accuracy, Soviets probably would not have bothered to try to find out the number of H's real victories, that would have needed much hard work, for a show trial. That number would has been only clever move from prosecuters, using German figure would has made it hard to Hartmann to dispute it. On the bounty, was there one or is that just one of the myths made by T C? The fact is that Soviet pilots were paid for accepted kills anyway. IIRC the most realist part of the book is the description of H's life in POW camps, he was very harshly treated but he didn't break.
> 
> Juha



Toliver did his best to report accurate information and I doubt any of his inital works on Hartman was to be sensationalized unlike some authors of the era (Cadin). He was a USAF Fighter Pilot and was always highjly respectable in his work and within the fighter pilot community. Remember he was among the first western writers to bring Hartman's story to the aviation community and be rest assured for such early work (almost 50 years ago) I doubt there was much exaggeration or myth play


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## Altea (Apr 23, 2012)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Altea said:
> 
> 
> > *Altea - etc*
> ...


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## Njaco (Apr 23, 2012)

Altea, you just got an infraction for that smart-a$$ remark. Keep it civil, bring facts and stay on topic.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 23, 2012)

GregP said:


> Thanks FlyboJ. I'll stick with 352 for Erich and let it go at that.



I do as well. Not because I believe that is the number he shot down. I think it was less, the fog of war makes that almost a fact. But I, nor anyone else can prove his real number, so I will stick with 352. Even if you were take some of his victories away, he would still be the leading ace anyhow. He is the Ace of Ace´s.


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 23, 2012)

Altea said:


> FLYBOYJ said:
> 
> 
> > OK! sorry 8)
> ...


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Apr 23, 2012)

Altea said:


> [
> 
> 
> Keep them for yourself next time, if it's fake money...
> ...



You will be critizised for that. If you don´t want to read what someone posts, then just ignore it. No need to be a rude and pompous ass! You want to act like that, then do it someplace else. 

Just my 2 cents - spend it wisely as well.



Altea said:


> FLYBOYJ said:
> 
> 
> > OK! sorry 8)
> ...



So it is okay for you to insult him, as you did? Oh I forget, you call it humour...

All he did was respond to your insult of him. Treat others as you wish to be treated. If you attack someone, it will come back on you times five. If you attack a moderator, it will come back on you times ten...

*Now lets get this thread back on topic!*


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## GregP (Apr 23, 2012)

Hi DerAlder1stGelanget,

Like you, I doubt the 352 number is totally correct, but it IS official.

Unlike some others in here, I think Erich hartmann was a pretty straight guy, and I doubt he overclaimed intentionally. I see a lot of respect in here for Barkhorn and Rall, but seeming disrespect for Hartmann, and I think that may simply be from not liking the number one guy, who knows?

What I've been trying to say all along is that if anyone can prove overcaliming then we can adjust the record but, otherwise, let's stick with 352 until someone cares enough to dig into it and come up with verifiable differences.


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## Altea (Apr 23, 2012)

Hello GrepP



GregP said:


> Please! If you did that much research, you'd HAVE THE DOCUMENTS, or copies of at LEAST the parts that support your claims, and could post at least some of what you found that verified your claims. Otherwise we have someone who wants to change the official WWII record by making noise about Erich Hartmann's supposed overclaiming on the internet. People lie on the internet every day and also on televisione every day.



I don't have the doc anymore, but for instance considering Tony Wood lists, on june the 7th Hartman obtained 7 kills over airacobras. 
In Iassy aera there were 2 fighter divisions using Cobras, the 9 GIAD and the 205 IAD. Looking at (f22 GIAD op1, d18 provided TsAMO doc) by a forumer in russan vif forum in 2004, the 205 IAD had no losses at all on that day.
The Pokryshkin's (9 GVIAP op1, d22 had two combat losses for the day,
The l-nt Dushanin from the 16th GIAP, that damaged plane made force landing over his territory, plane destroyed. And Buzdin from the 104th IAP, did not return: plane wrote-off, pilot excluded from the lists.
Final faith of this secund pilot is unknown to me, he may return later in unit, with or without his plane later, or may-not...

Considering that germain had also 11 other confirmed claims to 7 hartamn ones, there is some overclaim i would say. 

Are the losses list complete? I can't garantee for myself, but from "Nitsh" and "alshem" and "ramstein" (don't know their real names) there are *no blanks* on both division at all from 1st to 31th july 1944. I mean the balance account = 0 with deliveries/losses of planes and pilots.

Now if the losses lists are complete: are they reliable? This is another debate. I hope thet more of TsAMO archive would be avalaible on line, some already are.

Regards


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## Vincenzo (Apr 23, 2012)

i'm sure that 352 is not correct so i not stay with 352, okl credited 352 is a fact, idk how many planes him shoot down but also if they are only 80 true planes shoot down (and i don't think so few) he is a Ace of Ace's,


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## Njaco (Apr 23, 2012)

Unless your score is one kill, I don't think ANY kill credits from WWII are correct because of a myraid of reasons. But the official record is 352 and like I respect any other pilot and his record, I will respect Hartmann's score and accept 352.

And as stated earlier, why is everyone focusing on Hartmann when there numerous other pilots with high scores? Just because he scored the most?


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## PJay (Apr 23, 2012)

I wonder how much the WW2 practice of recovering aircraft for repair or recycling will affect future Aviation Historians. Another layer of records to chase down.

Or perhaps these records are already used?


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## Vincenzo (Apr 23, 2012)

Njaco said:


> Unless your score is one kill, I don't think ANY kill credits from WWII are correct because of a myraid of reasons. But the official record is 352 and like I respect any other pilot and his record, I will respect Hartmann's score and accept 352.
> 
> And as stated earlier, why is everyone focusing on Hartmann when there numerous other pilots with high scores? Just because he scored the most?



That i told for Hartmann it's right for all. obviously not all are Ace of Aces


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## Altea (Apr 23, 2012)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> *Now lets get this thread back on topic!*



Let's go, but without other misunderstanding!



> So it is okay for you to insult him, as you did?


No. It's OK for "i understand"
It's sorry for "i apologize"
8) for cool down, it was not intentionnaly done
For people that english is not "native or common langage" it's sometimes hard to feel the coarse of some expressions. In all sincerity.




> If you attack someone, it will come back on you times five.


And if you jostle involuntary me in the bus, i should do what? Break you legs, squash your head?

Anyway, if i heart somebody, moderator or not i feel sorry, but nothing is justifying the overinflation of coarseness and insults.

With all my respects...

Back to Hartman, i'm against personnal attacks, since it's impossible to state that during big fights involving a lot of planes and pilots, that his personnal claims are wrong, but right for the other Luftwaffe pilots. 
At least it needs much more reaserch and proves.
There is some important overclaim in the eastern front for both sides. Not sure that is was only Hartman's fault.

Now publishing an attack on Hartman, in a famous french magazine and a vindication to Rall approximatly in the same time, who maybe overclaimed the same even more (who knows?) seems unfair to me.


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## Juha (Apr 23, 2012)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Toliver did his best to report accurate information and I doubt any of his inital works on Hartman was to be sensationalized unlike some authors of the era (Cadin). He was a USAF Fighter Pilot and was always highjly respectable in his work and within the fighter pilot community. Remember he was among the first western writers to bring Hartman's story to the aviation community and be rest assured for such early work (almost 50 years ago) I doubt there was much exaggeration or myth play



T's and C's book is unreliable source, not necessarily because of errors by writers. For ex Mason's Battle over Britain, which was a groundbreaking book in late 60s is now unreliable source because research has gone ahead and we know much more than in 60s, not because of that Mason was/is poor aviation historian. I recall reading/hearing somewhere that Hartmann wasn't overly enthusiant on T's and C's project and gave somewhat lukewarm support to it, so T and C had to fill up some blanks from other sources. And of course they didn't have access to Soviet archives so Soviet part of the story is based on what Germans knew/thought they knew/wanted to tell on that side of the story. And the stories of the bounty and trial not necessarily originated from Hartmann.

Juha


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## Juha (Apr 23, 2012)

GregP said:


> ...Unlike some others in here, I think Erich hartmann was a pretty straight guy, and I doubt he overclaimed intentionally. I see a lot of respect in here for Barkhorn and Rall, but seeming disrespect for Hartmann, and I think that may simply be from not liking the number one guy, who knows?...



I don't know why it is that Russian researchers had difficulties to find suitable victims to many claims of some LW aces but not to claims of some others. There might well have been intentional overclaiming at least in one case but in Hartmann's case it might well have been mostly simply because of his tactic plus somewhat too great confidence to his shooting ability. Why is usually more difficult question to answer than what. But anyway both Barkhorn and Lipfert time to time fought prolonged dogfights so their tactical outlook was a bit different. Lipfert seems to have been a modest man who was liked also by minor axis pilots. I have read the Rall's memoirs but cannot recall his tactical thinking but I got the impression that he was a modest man when I was listening him when he made his first visit to Finland. And I don't have anything against Hartmann why should I?

Juha


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 23, 2012)

Juha said:


> T's and C's book is unreliable source, not necessarily because of errors by writers. For ex Mason's Battle over Britain, which was a groundbreaking book in late 60s is now unreliable source because research has gone ahead and we know much more than in 60s, not because of that Mason was/is poor aviation historian. I recall reading/hearing somewhere that Hartmann wasn't overly enthusiant on T's and C's project and gave somewhat lukewarm support to it, so T and C had to fill up some blanks from other sources. And of course *they didn't have access to Soviet archives so Soviet part of the story is based on what Germans knew/thought they knew/wanted to tell on that side of the story*. And the stories of the bounty and trial not necessarily originated from Hartmann.
> 
> Juha



Exactly - I think before his death Toliver did acknowledge some of this. Again, he was the first to take a stab at it at a time where resources were limited compared to today.


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## Juha (Apr 23, 2012)

Njaco said:


> Unless your score is one kill, I don't think ANY kill credits from WWII are correct because of a myraid of reasons. But the official record is 352 and like I respect any other pilot and his record, I will respect Hartmann's score and accept 352.



I'd not be so chategorial, few minor FiAF aces didn't overclaim but yes, in the claims of all our top aces there are in varing degrees cases to which researchers have not found suitable Sviet losses.



Njaco said:


> And as stated earlier, why is everyone focusing on Hartmann when there numerous other pilots with high scores? Just because he scored the most?



Now for ex I'm not focusing on Hartmann, in my first message to this thread I didn't even mention him

Juha


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 23, 2012)

Altea said:


> Anyway, if i heart somebody, moderator or not i feel sorry, but nothing is justifying the overinflation of coarseness and insults.
> 
> .



You couldn't let it go, could you?!?!? Now go sit in the corner, see you in a few weeks


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## Juha (Apr 23, 2012)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Exactly - I think before his death Toliver did acknowledge some of this. Again, he was the first to take a stab at it at a time where resources were limited compared to today.



Hat off to trail-blazers. For ex Mason revitalized BoB research by his book, of course the BoB film had its effect too. But Mason showed that by using all available material from both sides there was possibility to reconstruct the BoB with reasonable degree of accuracy.

Juha


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## GregP (Apr 24, 2012)

Everyone is saying that of the pane is recovered, it is not a loss. That may be true fron the standpoint of the air force that owns it, but is si still a victory for the pilot who shot it down. 

So ... losses may actually not add up to victories. Whether or not the aircraft was recovered, it still SHOULD be a victory for the pilot if he shoots it down and it crashes or is forced to land dead stick.


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## Edgar Brooks (Apr 25, 2012)

A damaged aircraft uses resources for its repair, just as a wounded serviceman, in a hospital bed, uses more resources than a (buried) body.
This talk of down-grading a man's score is always rather disturbing, since what is it meant to achieve? Will the "researcher" feel a sense of achievement, because he's (in his mind) made that person less of a hero to his country of birth? Will any man, who put his life on the line, day after day, fighting for his country, actually be less of a hero, to his countrymen women? One intriguing question, when this sort of subject appears (again,) is what will the researcher do, if he finds out that there's been a miscount, and the pilot's score is actually higher than was originally thought? Will he immediately say so (the sign of a true researcher, in my view,) or keep it quiet?


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## riacrato (Apr 25, 2012)

As with any research subject there's people who follow a certain trail with an agenda. Maybe Khazanov is such a person, maybe he is not. If his research was faulty and skewed, there's peers who will review it and shed light on the matter. That's how it works and it's completely valid to ask questions about the past in the light of new evidence. National sentiments aside.


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## Siegfried (Apr 25, 2012)

Attempts to discredit Hartmann come across as stinginess and sour grapes. The character and ability of the man comes across in the 1400 missions he flew during which he never lost a wingman. His character comes across when he refused to abandon his unit and the men that needed him to join Gallans elite jet squadron. It comes across in refusing to break under soviet torture and admit to fake war crimes, or indict others for fake crimes or become a trophy commie convert. He returned from over 10 years of captivity, which few survived, to his wife with his baby daughter dead. He then gave years of service to the Luftwaffe and USAF. Finally pushed out of the Luftwaffe because he smelled something up re the Locheed F 104 "bribe of the century".

If Hartmann claims 353 victories then he is correct because the integrity of his character is proven by any standard.


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## Juha (Apr 25, 2012)

GregP said:


> Everyone is saying that of the pane is recovered, it is not a loss. That may be true fron the standpoint of the air force that owns it, but is si still a victory for the pilot who shot it down.
> 
> So ... losses may actually not add up to victories. Whether or not the aircraft was recovered, it still SHOULD be a victory for the pilot if he shoots it down and it crashes or is forced to land dead stick.



Well, that's a well known problem, IMHO they are victories, some researchers agree some disagree. Probably most affected by that problem were liquid cooled SE planes fighting over their own territory. IMHO probably most affected in aircombat with this were Spitfire and 109 because their rather big wing mounted radiators.

Juha


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## Juha (Apr 25, 2012)

Edgar Brooks said:


> A damaged aircraft uses resources for its repair, just as a wounded serviceman, in a hospital bed, uses more resources than a (buried) body.
> This talk of down-grading a man's score is always rather disturbing, since what is it meant to achieve? Will the "researcher" feel a sense of achievement, because he's (in his mind) made that person less of a hero to his country of birth? Will any man, who put his life on the line, day after day, fighting for his country, actually be less of a hero, to his countrymen women? One intriguing question, when this sort of subject appears (again,) is what will the researcher do, if he finds out that there's been a miscount, and the pilot's score is actually higher than was originally thought? Will he immediately say so (the sign of a true researcher, in my view,) or keep it quiet?



IMHO researchers are trying to find out the truth, answering question "what really happened". Standard old fashioned history stuff. I don'y know on Khazanov but for ex Egorov and Dikov are not concentrated on the number of kills achieved by x, y and z, but what really happened during the war years, the kill accuracy info is just a byproduct from very thorough work at archieves.

Some seem to think that the number of kills are the measure of man's worth, I disagree.

Juha


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## Juha (Apr 25, 2012)

Siegfried said:


> Attempts to discredit Hartmann come across as stinginess and sour grapes. The character and ability of the man comes across in the 1400 missions he flew during which he never lost a wingman. His character comes across when he refused to abandon his unit and the men that needed him to join Gallans elite jet squadron. It comes across in refusing to break under soviet torture and admit to fake war crimes, or indict others for fake crimes or become a trophy commie convert. He returned from over 10 years of captivity, which few survived, to his wife with his baby daughter dead. He then gave years of service to the Luftwaffe and USAF. Finally pushed out of the Luftwaffe because he smelled something up re the Locheed F 104 "bribe of the century".
> 
> If Hartmann claims 353 victories then he is correct because the integrity of his character is proven by any standard.



Now H lost one wingman in 45 but he was clearly a man who cared for his wingmen, very appreciatedly trait. IIRC he flew well over 800 combat sorties, but one see both that and 1400 as number of his sorties.

Now ability to withstanding harsh treatment, ability to stand firm behind one believes and ability to claim accurately are different facets of personality. Having one doesn't mean that one has another.

Juha


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## jim (Apr 25, 2012)

Juha said:


> Now H lost one wingman in 45 but he was clearly a man who cared for his wingmen, very appreciatedly trait. IIRC he flew well over 800 combat sorties, but one see both that and 1400 as number of his sorties.
> 
> Now ability to withstanding harsh treatment, ability to stand firm behind one believes and ability to claim accurately are different facets of personality. Having one doesn't mean that one has another.
> 
> Juha


 
Mr Juha
1)That wingman was a former bomber pilot that executed poorly fighter manouvers. Any way he parachuted safely.

2) Mr Juha if some historians claim that Hartmann had actually 280 kills instead of 352 , they discuss his ability to claim with accurancy
But if some ishorians claim that he had 80 or 120 kills instead of 352,then they discuss his honor and his character. Because such big mistake can be only intentional. Liars are liars in every aspect of their lifes.

3) However there are things that raise questions about Hartmann. For example his low claims of bombers and Il2s , or his avoidance of low level combat. Thats quite serious because Lw s primary role was to support and defend the army, . If you shoot down all the escorts but the bombers do their job undisturbed you have failed your mission .


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## tyrodtom (Apr 25, 2012)

He might have taken on the more dangerous opponents , the high escorts, so his men could be safe from attack, and take on the bombers and Il2s


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## Vincenzo (Apr 25, 2012)

With BoB average the 352 awarded are not more that 140/160 kills. i want not tell that this are right numbers but are possible numbers


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## rank amateur (Apr 25, 2012)

jim said:


> Mr Juha
> 1)That wingman was a former bomber pilot that executed poorly fighter manouvers. Any way he parachuted safely.
> 
> 2) Mr Juha if some historians claim that Hartmann had actually 280 kills instead of 352 , they discuss his ability to claim with accurancy
> ...



I don't know much about Herr Hartmann but I do know he was more or less used for propaganda means where he was portrayed as the inspiring heroic boy next door who almost single handed was defeating the bolshewist armada's. In that respect he was a lot more atractive than some one like Barkhorst. Nothing he could do about it though but could it be possible that in that light the Luftwaffe was a bit less critical when it came to judging his claims?

Just a thought


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## Juha (Apr 25, 2012)

jim said:


> Mr Juha
> 1)That wingman was a former bomber pilot that executed poorly fighter manouvers. Any way he parachuted safely.
> 
> 2) Mr Juha if some historians claim that Hartmann had actually 280 kills instead of 352 , they discuss his ability to claim with accurancy
> ...



1) Yes I know
2) not necessarily, as I have wrote, AVG (American Volunteer Group) got rewards for 297 Japanese a/c destroyed but according to Japanese sources they destroyed only 115. I'd not describe them as liars, they used best possible tactic against Japanese but just that tactic might well led to overclaiming. Hartmann used same sort of tactic, it might well be with same level of overclaiming. As I wrote, some Germans also dogfight with VVS fighters, Lipfert surely and Barkhorn at least time to time, staying longer with contact with enemy, while risky, might well improve claim accuracy. In fast moving dangerous situation, where one could not follow long what happened to his target because that would have been too risky, overclaiming is natural and target fixation easily fatal. There were few cases of intentional frauding but one very easily overclaimed unintentionally. Are you claiming that LW fighter pilots in during the BoB were liars or RAF fighter pilots in 1941-42? I don't, aircombat is very fast moving and very stressing to most pilots. There were exeptions, who had exeptional situation awardness and very realistic assesment on their own abilities who were very reliable claimers and few AFs had very effective system of debriefing, which was vital to accurate claiming, more so than that that some byrocrats decided several months later 1000 km away was a claim valid or not based on paperwork made soon after claim. Germans didn't normally use gun cameras. German system had its good points but also its weaknesses.

Juha


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## Njaco (Apr 25, 2012)

I think what he is saying Juha is that an updated score that may be +/- 50 or so kills can be reasonable but a large discrepancy reflects more on the character of the pilot and not innocent claims. That is something we really don't tolerate. Thats Revisionist History at its worst.


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## Juha (Apr 25, 2012)

Njaco said:


> I think what he is saying Juha is that an updated score that may be +/- 50 or so kills can be reasonable but a large discrepancy reflects more on the character of the pilot and not innocent claims. That is something we really don't tolerate. Thats Revisionist History at its worst.



Hello Njaco
so what is your explanation to LW fighter pilots' overclaiming during the BoB or RAF fighter pilots overclaiming in 41-42?

Juha


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## Njaco (Apr 25, 2012)

Or USAAF 8th AF in '43-44? More action = more mistakes. Its the nature of the business and really not an exact science. I can take whatever fudging the numbers that appears - unless its blatant. But I will also accept what the record books say. Hartmann = 352. 'nuff said. And at this stage of the game, does it really matter?


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## Juha (Apr 25, 2012)

Njaco said:


> Or USAAF 8th AF in '43-44? More action = more mistakes. Its the nature of the business and really not an exact science. I can take whatever fudging the numbers that appears - unless its blatant. But I will also accept what the record books say. Hartmann = 352. 'nuff said. And at this stage of the game, does it really matter?



It's not really matter, more like Trivial Pursuit level question, much more important was what III./JG 52 really achieved. Or for ex when one Russian researcher noted that amongst others Horst Ademeit's claims were accurate, one Polish researcher noted that a JG54 veteran claimed that Adameit claimed victories of his young wingmen as his own. IMHO did Ademeit "steal" his wingmen claims or not is impossible to clarify anymore and much more important is that Ademeit's Rotte was very effective also in real world.

Juha


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## drgondog (Apr 25, 2012)

Njaco said:


> Or USAAF 8th AF in '43-44? More action = more mistakes. Its the nature of the business and really not an exact science. I can take whatever fudging the numbers that appears - unless its blatant. But I will also accept what the record books say. Hartmann = 352. 'nuff said. And at this stage of the game, does it really matter?



I have found two things regarding 8th AF FIGHTER claims/credits in contrast with other USAAF units in other theatres. First, the VCB had pretty good systematic processes that a.) described a destroyed aircraft, and b.) required eye witness corroboration or conclusive combat film. There were a lot of downgrades after thourough Intelligence Offcer cross examinations - and even more when the claims arrived at VCB for final judgment.

The second thing I am finding is that while incomplete, the LW accounting of their losses was objective. Where many overclaims result in contrast with a LW review >60% damaged is the infamous crash landing in which the aircraft was ultimately repaired.

Last comment. As I have done many deep dives in various battles I have found the fighter claims are about 100% of the associated LW write offs - the only problem with that is that by gawd, the bombers DID shoot some fighters down so the result has been about 10% overclaim to matching LW losses as a Generalization.


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## Vincenzo (Apr 25, 2012)

drgodong in your work have you checked all others allieds claims that may overlap with those of 8th AF FC?


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## Njaco (Apr 25, 2012)

I only brought the 8th up because I just read where on one of the runs in Nov. 44, there were somewhere in the area of 200 claims made by bomber gunners when the LW lost only about 37 a/c. And I'm going off memory here and please, I don't want this to be construed as a bash on the 8th or any other AF. I just see claims/credits as not a concrete endeavour.


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## tyrodtom (Apr 25, 2012)

The 8th AF knew when they were giving credits for aircraft shot down by bomber gunners that there could be no relation between the totals credited, and aircraft actually shot down.

They wanted to give every encouragement possible to those gunners going thru misery, and danger to man those guns. Every aircraft thru a bomber formation got shot at by multiple gunners, if anybody saw a aircraft go down, everybody who fired on it, or thought they did, got credit. Not 1/20th or whatever, but 1 whole credit. Very few people would be checking their watches and logging when they fired, or logging when they saw a aircraft smoking or explode. 
Everything was sorted out in the debriefing, a really hopeless way to sort out the facts of how many were actually shot down.


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## drgondog (Apr 26, 2012)

Vincenzo said:


> drgodong in your work have you checked all others allieds claims that may overlap with those of 8th AF FC?



Yes - the important questions regarding Allied calims other than 8th and 9th AF for ETO are Spitfire claims from August 1942 through Dec 1943 because the RAF was continually supporting Penetration and Withdrawals for both USAAF units - as well as TAC claims for sweeps etc... Then fast forward to Post D-Day ops through the Battle of the Bulge when more RAF Wings were in contact with LW.

To eliminate such noise, I then dove into air combat engagements in Germany where the combatants were majority 8th/9th FC Mustangs and 8th AF Lightnings from December 1943 through September 1944... when neither RAF nor 8th/9th AF Thunderbolts were significant factors in Most of the air battles for which there is a lot of data.


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## Raymond Kemp (Sep 2, 2012)

Juha said:


> T's and C's book is unreliable source, not necessarily because of errors by writers. For ex Mason's Battle over Britain, which was a groundbreaking book in late 60s is now unreliable source because research has gone ahead and we know much more than in 60s, not because of that Mason was/is poor aviation historian. I recall reading/hearing somewhere that Hartmann wasn't overly enthusiant on T's and C's project and gave somewhat lukewarm support to it, so T and C had to fill up some blanks from other sources. And of course they didn't have access to Soviet archives so Soviet part of the story is based on what Germans knew/thought they knew/wanted to tell on that side of the story. And the stories of the bounty and trial not necessarily originated from Hartmann.
> 
> Juha



I've been reading this thread with great interest since becoming a brand spanking new member here; however, this post raised my eyebrows and I felt compelled to respond. I am the grandson of the late Col. Raymond F. Toliver who has many of you know is one of the authors of the book "The Blond Knight of Germany". Since my grandfather's passing I've recently come into possession of my grandfather's research papers for "The Blond Knight of Germany". Included with the papers are the original hand signed letters and documents (over 100) between my grandfather and Erich Hartmann starting in 1956 when my grandfather's research for the book officially got off the ground with his very first letter from Erich Hartmann written in German dated January 14, 1956. The letter was sent to my grandfather while he was stationed at Wethersfield Air Force base in Essex, England.

Although I'm still researching the documents, one thing I can say for sure is that any reference that you've heard or read that Erich Hartmann wasn't "enthusiant" and only gave "lukewarm" support to the Blond Knight project is completly false. The letters between my grandfather and Erich clearly show that there was a very close working relationship and Erich was very cooperative and enthusisatic for the project. The letters support this without any doubt including the letters after the book was published. Many of the letters are personal in nature and it is very evident there was a bond between my grandfather and Erich. 

There is a historical aspect to the documents that shows the work and research my grandfather devoted for over 12 years in writing the "Blond Knight of Germany". The letters between my grandfather and Eric have never been made public. I plan to release many of the letters and documents as I continue my own research. In an age when there were no faxes, internet, etc., I find it remarkable the amount of research my grandfather was able to gather into making "The Blond Knight of Germany".


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## buffnut453 (Sep 2, 2012)

Hi Ray,

Welcome aboard! There seems to be a common thread that "modern" histories are somehow superior than older works. Part of the problem lies in the lack of source identification in many histories from the 50s and 60s. Equally problemmatic are incorrect statements made in some older histories that have since been accepted as "fact" - just because something is published does not make it correct. Unfortunately, it's a tangled web for those of us who strive to gain deeper understanding and bring the best of "old" histories with the wider access to "new" source material that the internet and the opening of new source material has made possible. 

Personally, I'm amazed at what your grandfather managed to achieve in an era without ready access to the internet. You should, rightly, be proud of his accomplishments. 

Cheers,
B-N


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## Raymond Kemp (Sep 2, 2012)

Hello Buffnut,

Thank you for welcoming me aboard. You're right about the old and the new as it pertains to early historical works and today. One thing is for sure, my grandfather was meticulous at documenting and organizing his research for the facts. As I go through what I will call the "Hartmann Papers", I can see numerous instances where my grandfather would strive for accuracy and investigate Erich's documentation, particularly if Erich was uncertain about dates. One instance that comes to mind was Erich's encounter with P-51s and my grandfather's ensuing research through fighter unit records to assure date accuracy. Again, these are documents that have never been made public and I plan to make them available soon.

Thank you again for the welcome! I appreciate your thoughts and time!

Raymond Kemp


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## Rogi (Sep 2, 2012)

Raymond Kemp said:


> Hello Buffnut,
> 
> Thank you for welcoming me aboard. You're right about the old and the new as it pertains to early historical works and today. One thing is for sure, my grandfather was meticulous at documenting and organizing his research for the facts. As I go through what I will call the "Hartmann Papers", I can see numerous instances where my grandfather would strive for accuracy and investigate Erich's documentation, particularly if Erich was uncertain about dates. One instance that comes to mind was Erich's encounter with P-51s and my grandfather's ensuing research through fighter unit records to assure date accuracy. Again, these are documents that have never been made public and I plan to make them available soon.
> 
> ...




I wish in the near future that we youth keep to taking care of such valuable historical records. I'm reminded of how I had a passion for aviation when I was younger, when kids were out watching the newest shows I was with my father building model aircraft, that fueled a passion for history and aviation that I still have today, I can recal some of those weekends and weekdays like they were yesterday. Granted I did have a huge passion for Beast Wars back when I was a kid  

I just hope that in this world of texting and acronyms we don't end up writing full historical records in acronyms, can you imagine the horror? 

I'm glad that someone like your grandfather kept those records well after his book was released, and am glad that you have a chance to share these true treasures with the rest of the world.  

Thank you your posts made my week,

Igor 


P.S. Welcome to the forum! I can't beleive I forgot that


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## Njaco (Sep 2, 2012)

Welcome to the forum Mr. Kemp! I have a very well worn copy of "The Blonde Knight of Germany" (bought in 1972) along with "Horrido". Very glad you could shed some light on the research process your grandfather went through!


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 2, 2012)

Welcome, and I look forward to hearing more about your grandfather and Erichs research.


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## Raymond Kemp (Sep 3, 2012)

Thank you Igor and Njaco!

I'm looking forward to sharing these newly found treasures of my grandfather's research and Erich Hartmann's life. A few years before my grandfather passed away he told me he had an extensive collection of letters from Erich Hartmann dating all the way back to 1956. I found the letters a few months ago and had no idea just how many letters there were and the detailed information they contained. He was a very meticulous record keeper and all of the original letters are in date order and in many cases coupled with his own notes, etc. I've already located some documentation that I don't believe has surfaced within the historical community.

I've met Erich Hartmann a couple times when I was a boy. Looking back I never gave it too much thought who all those people were coming to my grandparents house while I was visiting during summer break at school when I was a youngster. Rall, Galland, Steinhoff, Hartmann plus a gaggle of other German and American aces were all guests at my grandparent's home over the years. Looking back I wish I got to know them better!

Again, thank you both for welcoming me aboard!


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## Raymond Kemp (Sep 3, 2012)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Welcome, and I look forward to hearing more about your grandfather and Erichs research.



Thank you!! I'm looking forward to sharing it!


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## drgondog (Sep 3, 2012)

Raymond Kemp said:


> Hello Buffnut,
> 
> Thank you for welcoming me aboard. You're right about the old and the new as it pertains to early historical works and today. One thing is for sure, my grandfather was meticulous at documenting and organizing his research for the facts. As I go through what I will call the "Hartmann Papers", I can see numerous instances where my grandfather would strive for accuracy and investigate Erich's documentation, particularly if Erich was uncertain about dates. One instance that comes to mind was Erich's encounter with P-51s and my grandfather's ensuing research through fighter unit records to assure date accuracy. Again, these are documents that have never been made public and I plan to make them available soon.
> 
> ...



Raymond - I met Adolph Galland and Hans Scharff through your father and crossed paths several times at various Fighter Aces Reunions. He was a very good man for a Hun driver.. (a joke BTW, the F-100 was notoriously hard to fly)

Regards,

Bill Marshall


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## FalkeEins (Sep 3, 2012)

..some new documentary evidence from Hartmann himself would indeed be interesting!

...just a comment regarding Hartmann's 'official' score - as it has been referred to throughout this thread..

.. 289 of Hartmann's 'victories' were 'officially' confirmed before the German claims sytem broke down in early 1945. Since the German claims system broke down it follows that Hartmann never filed 352 claims 'officially'. In fact 307 of his claims were 'officially' filed before the end of the war...


FWIW I've detailed some of the Russian research into Hartmann's claims at the link below. I thought it would be interesting to actually see what the Russian research was saying about how Hartmann over-claimed and on which dates/encounters this is most evident 
http://falkeeins.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/erich-hartman-352-victories-or-80.html


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## Juha (Sep 3, 2012)

Raymond Kemp said:


> I've been reading this thread with great interest since becoming a brand spanking new member here; however, this post raised my eyebrows and I felt compelled to respond. I am the grandson of the late Col. Raymond F. Toliver who has many of you know is one of the authors of the book "The Blond Knight of Germany". Since my grandfather's passing I've recently come into possession of my grandfather's research papers for "The Blond Knight of Germany". Included with the papers are the original hand signed letters and documents (over 100) between my grandfather and Erich Hartmann starting in 1956 when my grandfather's research for the book officially got off the ground with his very first letter from Erich Hartmann written in German dated January 14, 1956. The letter was sent to my grandfather while he was stationed at Wethersfield Air Force base in Essex, England.
> 
> Although I'm still researching the documents, one thing I can say for sure is that any reference that you've heard or read that Erich Hartmann wasn't "enthusiant" and only gave "lukewarm" support to the Blond Knight project is completly false. The letters between my grandfather and Erich clearly show that there was a very close working relationship and Erich was very cooperative and enthusisatic for the project. The letters support this without any doubt including the letters after the book was published. Many of the letters are personal in nature and it is very evident there was a bond between my grandfather and Erich...



Hello Raymond
thanks for correcting the claim of Hartmann's "lukewarm" intrest to the Blond Knight project.

Juha


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## Raymond Kemp (Sep 3, 2012)

drgondog said:


> Raymond - I met Adolph Galland and Hans Scharff through your father and crossed paths several times at various Fighter Aces Reunions. He was a very good man for a Hun driver.. (a joke BTW, the F-100 was notoriously hard to fly)
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Bill Marshall



Hello Bill! Your name sounds familar. Were you by chance at the St. Louis reunion around 1970? Nice to meet you here!

Ray


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## Raymond Kemp (Sep 3, 2012)

FalkeEins said:


> ..some new documentary evidence from Hartmann himself would indeed be interesting!
> 
> ...just a comment regarding Hartmann's 'official' score - as it has been referred to throughout this thread..
> 
> ...



Thank you for taking the time to bring me up to speed on this subject. I've been following the threads on this subject here and on other sites for several months now. I do have some perspectives that I want to share on the subject, but I'll wait a bit while I complete my research. I have some interviews scheduled in California in a couple weeks on this and other topics as they pertain to my grandfather's work.

Again, thank you for taking the time in sharing some of your insights.

Ray


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## Raymond Kemp (Sep 3, 2012)

Juha said:


> Hello Raymond
> thanks for correcting the claim of Hartmann's "lukewarm" intrest to the Blond Knight project.
> 
> Juha



You're most welcome! It is a pleasure to meet you here on the forum and I look forward to future correspondences!

Ray


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## Njaco (Sep 3, 2012)

> ... Rall, Galland, Steinhoff, Hartmann plus a gaggle of other German and American aces were all guests at my grandparent's home over the years. ...



Man, that gave me goosebumps!


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## mike siggins (Sep 4, 2012)

i remember seeing some place about a recoverd p40 not beeing taken off the books for a while by the russian air force i think it was the on found behind a rr in murmansk


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## mike siggins (Sep 4, 2012)

that would be why some dates didnt match


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 4, 2012)

Njaco said:


> Man, that gave me goosebumps!



That makes two of us.


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## Erich (Sep 5, 2012)

welcome Ray to the forums, will be interesting too see the correspondence with Erich and if it shed any pertinent "new" information to his very high score. in all the years have been following this with interest since the 1950's as Neil said more materials have shown the high scorers were not just that, nothing really stands out above 250 kills proven except for a wingman and then possibly if fortunate a late war gun camera installed didn't matter whether day/night fighter aces, ground attack you name them, what has been highly accepted in the 1970's into early 1980's now needs to be re-worked as new light is shed.

fun to research

E ~


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## Raymond Kemp (Sep 5, 2012)

Erich said:


> welcome Ray to the forums, will be interesting too see the correspondence with Erich and if it shed any pertinent "new" information to his very high score. in all the years have been following this with interest since the 1950's as Neil said more materials have shown the high scorers were not just that, nothing really stands out above 250 kills proven except for a wingman and then possibly if fortunate a late war gun camera installed didn't matter whether day/night fighter aces, ground attack you name them, what has been highly accepted in the 1970's into early 1980's now needs to be re-worked as new light is shed.
> 
> fun to research
> 
> E ~



Hello Erich and thank you for the welcome! Yes, it is fun to research!

You mentioned Neil and I assume you would be talking about FalkeEins? I did find his blog on the topic very interesting. I already started to do some checking against the actual documentation that Erich Hartmann sent to my grandfather in the 60's to cross check some dates that were called into dispute from FalkeEins blog about the Russian research from Khazanv. As a result of some of my initial research, I may have discovered the reason why dates and or aircraft claimed are in dispute from Khazanv. I hope to offer some evidence when I return from California in which I will retrieve more hard information as well as an interview I have scheduled with someone on this very subject.

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts!

Ray


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## meatloaf109 (Sep 5, 2012)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> That makes two of us.


Make it three!


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