A look at German fighter Ace kill claims

GregP said:

The book "Verified Victories" is based on the notion that a victory for one side means the other side records a loss. That is not always the case, and many records were destroyed in war. There are any number of reasons why this is not the case, but the main one is exceedingly simple.

Suppose pilot A shoots an enemy plane from the sly by simply hitting his fuel line or carburetor. The airplane is recovered, repaired, and flies in combat again. Whether or not with the same pilot is immaterial.

1) Fact: The pilot claiming the victory shot an enemy airplane from the fight, and so SHOULD be awarded a victory.
2) Fact: The enemy shot from the fight was not completely destroyed. In my mid, completer3 destruction is not a requirement anyway.
3) Fact: The enemy side did not record a loss, nor SHOULD they have recorded it as such.

So, we have a victory without a corresponding match.

I have a very basic issue with "Verified Victories" premise (each victory must be matched by a corresponding loss) , and believe there are many cases where a victory is warranted when there is no recorded corresponding loss.

Sorry, Hartmann stands at 352 for me. It was his wartime total as awarded. I'll happily look at the aces for countries that used a point total for victory awards, such as Bulgaria. They used a point system:
individual claim for a four engined bomber destroyed = 3 points.
individual claim for a four engined bomber damaged = 2 points.
individual claim for a fighter aircraft destroyed = 1 point.
individual claim for a two engined bomber damaged = 1 point.
shared claim for a four engined bomber destroyed = 1 point.
shared claim for a four engined bomber damaged = 1 point.
individual claim for a fighter aircraft damaged = 0 points.

Others used points, too, such as Romania: 3 victories for a 4 or 6 engined aircraft - 2 victories for a 2 or 3 engined aircraft - 1 point for a single engined aircraft. I cannot agree with "points" when we are talking about victories over individual enemy aircraft, but they DID have some good pilots.

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GregP said:

I have no way to verify Hartmann's victories

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GregP said:

Of course, I don't HAVE and do not see how I can GET German primary

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GregP said:

You may apply whatever logic you want. Hartmann was almost exclusively, but not 100%, on the Russian Front, where confirmation of anything that went missing was not easy nor necessarily in any record.

I take the WWII totals as they were awarded during the conflict by the various air forces, except for ones that used a points award system.

You are free to take them as you want, but you make the classic statistical mistake of thinking that everyone's efforts will follow the Normal Distribution. That is rather emphatically not the case. You also have to remember, Hartman hunted alone a lot of the time, with only his wingman tagging along. The other top 2 weren't nearly as much of lone hunters as Hartmann was. I'm pretty sure that had a lot to do with it.

I have no way to verify Hartmann's victories, but if I were wondering about the top aces' victory lists, I'd look at Hartmann (352), Barkhorn (301), and Rall (275); aces 1, 2, and 3, and then look at, say, aces number ... say ... 25, 26, and 27, which would be Schack (174), Lang (173), and Schmidt (173) and see how their lists compared with primary sources. Of course, I don't HAVE and do not see how I can GET German primary sources. What percent "stack up" for these three?

If they came out significantly different from one another, then I'd say to look at something like the top 30 aces (all Luftwaffe) and see how much variation seemed normal. It would entail a significant study, which is something I'd actually DO if I could find the primary sources to do it with. To date, I cannot find those sources, and I am left with the scores as awarded. I will NOT arbitrarily change someone's score because his victory list seem to be abnormal to someone in a forum.

By the way, when you say 25% certification rate for Erich Hartmann, what sources are you comparing his kill list with that show a 25% verification rate?

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