A look at German fighter Ace kill claims

[Dimlee]

Soviets can't lie about records because everything is accounted for. Pilots, planes, ammunition, fuel, etc. are all documented as being used or lost. If the Soviets lost loads of stuff and didn't report it they would be questioned as to why it wasn't reported.

Sorry, but I have to say again.
To claim that the Soviets can't lie in the records is a very "bold" statement. Or a very naive one.

Such terms as "pripiski", "pokazukha", "ochkovtiratelstvo" were well-known and widely used for a reason.
The Soviet higher leadership itself was involved in the mass-scale forgery of macro statistics. For example, by inflating the total population number by about 8 mln in the last census before the WWII.
As for the accountability at lower levels, - the picture has never been black and white. Yes, responsible commanders were supposed to be questioned and face reprisals in case the losses were unexplained. No, it was not a 100% proof system. The guilty individual could buy his way out by various means. Or could be forgiven due to the circumstances. Or executed under other circumstances.
"Soviets can't lie"... tell this to me and other people who lived in the USSR. To the historians and researchers of the Soviet history.

 

[CHen10]

Such terms as "pripiski", "pokazukha", "ochkovtiratelstvo" were well-known and widely used for a reason.
The Soviet higher leadership itself was involved in the mass-scale forgery of macro statistics. For example, by inflating the total population number by about 8 mln in the last census before the WWII.

I don't know much about Soviet higher leadership because that's not where I look so you're right here.

As for the accountability at lower levels, - the picture has never been black and white. Yes, responsible commanders were supposed to be questioned and face reprisals in case the losses were unexplained.

I assume this is the level of Soviet archives I look at, and as you say, commanders were supposed to be questioned and face reprisals in case the losses weren't explained.

The guilty individual could buy his way out by various means. Or could be forgiven due to the circumstances. Or executed under other circumstances.

Why would the individual choose to buy his way out instead just filing the report?

Just curious what circumstances would mean they would be forgiven?

If they're gonna be executed for failing to document losses, wouldn't that agree with my point there was an incentive to get things correct? Maybe I misunderstood.

"Soviets can't lie"... tell this to me and other people who lived in the USSR. To the historians and researchers of the Soviet history.

I have loads of respect for people who lived in the USSR because of how scary it could be. However, the evidence seems to suggest that they were actually under pressure to get things more exact than usual. This is supported by the fact that the archives are very detailed.

 

[Escuadrilla Azul]

If they're gonna be executed for failing to document losses, wouldn't that agree with my point there was an incentive to get things correct? Maybe I misunderstood.

Gulag Archipiélago.

They don't know if they were to be executed or just years as inhabitants of the archipiélago.

There was no way to know if telling the truth was good or bad.

You could told the truth in good faith but maybe someone didn't like it upwards, so you could get in trouble.

 

[CHen10]

Gulag Archipiélago.

They don't know if they were to be executed or just years as inhabitants of the archipiélago.

There was no way to know if telling the truth was good or bad.

You could told the truth in good faith but maybe someone didn't like it upwards, so you could get in trouble.

But they knew they would face reprisals if they didn't get the truth.

If you know that fact, you're more likely to tell the truth than lie.

 

[CHen10]

Also I really like Erich Hartmann

I'd say he has roughly 170-190 victories based on research done by myself but mainly by others. This is a very good score.

As I said previously, a fair amount of his victories are actually against very skilled and capable Soviet pilots who were themselves aces.

A reason why he has more overclaims than normal could possibly be because he liked ambushing his opponent in a "hit and run" style. This would make it harder for him to see exactly what happened to his victims.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Gulag Archipiélago.

They don't know if they were to be executed or just years as inhabitants of the archipiélago.

There was no way to know if telling the truth was good or bad.

You could told the truth in good faith but maybe someone didn't like it upwards, so you could get in trouble.

I haven't read it in a long time, but in the book of the same name, Solzhenitsyn uses (iirc) the word nalevno, meaning (again, iirc) "on the left" -- meaning, a construction-boss who was stealing concrete, say, from a new building would doctor the paperwork so that his superiors would look at the books and not initiate legal action.

Then one or more of the workers might pinch a piece of lumber or two, and the supervisor would be on the hook for that, so again would massage the numbers so that his superiors would be none the wiser.

Then the building would be opened for inhabitation, and five years later be falling apart because parts of it were weak.

Not saying this was the state in wartime USSR in the military, but it was a common enough practice that it had slang for it. Dimlee , please correct any or all of this post.

We see this same sort of graft in the current war in Ukraine.

 

[tyrodtom]

But they knew they would face reprisals if they didn't get the truth.

If you know that fact, you're more likely to tell the truth than lie.

What got you into trouble was disagreeing with the "official " version. The truth didn't matter.
People spent years in the gulag just for telling inappropriate jokes about the party, Stalin, etc.
The truth was what the Party said was the truth, often no relation to the actual truth, and most under the Stalin rule knew this.

 

[GregP]

No you couldn't be more wrong

I can post memes if I want

I posted that picture because it's hilarious how you think Verified Victories is full of opinions because it's actually just facts in the book.

Here are some facts that are also my arguments:

- Soviet records contain a list of the tasks carried out so if there are 7 tasks but only 5 task reports then we know records are missing. This has never happened to me personally and the records are always there. So the records are all there and we would know if they aren't there.

-If some records are lost, it still doesn't matter because losses are recorded at multiple levels and there are multiple copies of those records. There will always be a trace of the loss. It's too far fetched to say every trace of the loss will get lost. There are just too many documents that would have to go.

-Losses are always documented. An aircraft can't go down and there is no record of it.

-Soviets can't lie about records because everything is accounted for. Pilots, planes, ammunition, fuel, etc. are all documented as being used or lost. If the Soviets lost loads of stuff and didn't report it they would be questioned as to why it wasn't reported.

-All ww2 aviation historians that analyse victories always look at opposing losses.

Henry Sakaida
Michael Claringbould
John Lundstrom
Edward Young
Gábor and Dániel Horváth
Nikita Egorov
Christopher Bergström
Ivan Lavrinenko

And many more

Plus all the people that do research and post their findings online

-I actually praise Hartmann as a skilled pilot. He shot down Soviet aces and Heroes of The Soviet Unio

I agree with the fact that some documents won't be 100% accurate. But that's all I agree with.

As long as it's reasonably close enough you can link a loss to a claim.

From the above, it doesn't sound like you are familiar with the steps in how to research or prove a theory. Reading the posts sort of point there anyway.

Of course, that is only an opinion. Your may vary and likely does.

The basic steps of the scientific method are:

1. Observation: Notice and record what's happening through your senses
2. Question: Ask a question
3. Hypothesis: Form a testable explanation, or educated guess, based on observations, theories, and other sources
4. Prediction: Make a testable statement that describes what you think the outcome will be
5. Experiment: Conduct a detailed procedure to test the hypothesis
6. Analyze: Analyze the results
7. Iterate: Use the results to make new hypotheses or prediction.

Iterate until you cannot disprove the hypothesis, then it become a theory. After a long timer, it may be accepted as a general rule. Anyone who disproves it shoots that down as a rule, of course.

If something is generally correct, that doesn't preclude there being a few exceptions, but they must be well-defined and also subject to considerable validation effort. Validation doesn't mean reading it and agreeing with it by checking a story or two,

 

[CHen10]

From the above, it doesn't sound like you are familiar with the steps in how to research or prove a theory. Reading the posts sort of point there anyway.

Of course, that is only an opinion. Your may vary and likely does.

The basic steps of the scientific method are:

1. Observation: Notice and record what's happening through your senses
2. Question: Ask a question
3. Hypothesis: Form a testable explanation, or educated guess, based on observations, theories, and other sources
4. Prediction: Make a testable statement that describes what you think the outcome will be
5. Experiment: Conduct a detailed procedure to test the hypothesis
6. Analyze: Analyze the results
7. Iterate: Use the results to make new hypotheses or prediction.

Iterate until you cannot disprove the hypothesis, then it become a theory. After a long timer, it may be accepted as a general rule. Anyone who disproves it shoots that down as a rule, of course.

If something is generally correct, that doesn't preclude there being a few exceptions, but they must be well-defined and also subject to considerable validation effort. Validation doesn't mean reading it and agreeing with it. by checking a story or two,

I have explained how looking at opposing losses is the only way to see a pilot's true number of victories. Just because someone is credited with a victory doesn't mean they actually shot down another aircraft. If there are any more arguments against this idea I would like to discuss them, but so far none of the arguments have been true and are easily debunked.

 

[CHen10]

What got you into trouble was disagreeing with the "official " version. The truth didn't matter.
People spent years in the gulag just for telling inappropriate jokes about the party, Stalin, etc.
The truth was what the Party said was the truth, often no relation to the actual truth, and most under the Stalin rule knew this.

The guys filling out the reports were the first ones to make a discovery about what happened, so they couldn't disagree with the "official version" because there was no "official version" yet. The Soviet government won't come out in advance and say that this particular plane survived, then if the plane does go down, the people filling the report have to lie and say it's still in service. Why would the Soviet government want to say a certain aircraft isn't going to crash in advance?

Hypothetically of course if the Soviet government did say that this specific plane with this registration won't go down but it actually does, then I could see the people lying about it's fate. However this is a crazy scenario which logically makes no sense and would never actually happen.

Of course maybe I've misunderstood your post which is possible.

 

[Escuadrilla Azul]

But they knew they would face reprisals if they didn't get the truth.

If you know that fact, you're more likely to tell the truth than lie.

They would face reprisals... or not.

The books are full of examples of people becoming inhabitants of the archipiélago because of telling the truth.

I remember one case of a factory manager ending in a gulag for telling the truth in good faith and his disbelief about the whole thing.

 

[Juha3]

What got you into trouble was disagreeing with the "official " version. The truth didn't matter.
People spent years in the gulag just for telling inappropriate jokes about the party, Stalin, etc.
The truth was what the Party said was the truth, often no relation to the actual truth, and most under the Stalin rule knew this.

And much the same happened in Nazi Germany but we still think that German armed forces loss reports are reliable if we don't have something that proves otherwise.. Of course the German civil service morale was stronger, the tradition of good civil service was strong there in contrast to the Russian tradition. However, even in Germany there was the tendency to please the king/emperor/führer
And LW pilots overclaimed in every front, as did everybody else*, are you claiming that all Germany's enemies falsified their documents to discredit some of LW aces.
Claims, even confirmed ones, are still just claims if they cannot be confirmed by the opponent's losses. An early example, 24 RAF Wellingtons flew around Heligoland Bight on 18 Dec. 1939, only 12 came back. German pilots made 38 claims of which 26 or 27 were confirmed. So how many Wellingtons were shot down?

* Christopher Shores once wrote that he knows only one campaign where one side did not overclaim, and of all possibilities it was Italians in Abessinia during the WWII.

 

[tyrodtom]

The guys filling out the reports were the first ones to make a discovery about what happened, so they couldn't disagree with the "official version" because there was no "official version" yet. The Soviet government won't come out in advance and say that this particular plane survived, then if the plane does go down, the people filling the report have to lie and say it's still in service. Why would the Soviet government want to say a certain aircraft isn't going to crash in advance?

Hypothetically of course if the Soviet government did say that this specific plane with this registration won't go down but it actually does, then I could see the people lying about it's fate. However this is a crazy scenario which logically makes no sense and would never actually happen.

Of course maybe I've misunderstood your post which is possible.

Of course that would make the most sense, to just fill out the mission report as the pilots state what they did.
Every unit down to company, or squadron size had a Commissar, or party representative, with the power of life or death over each person, backed up by the NKVD.

They were there why? Do you think they might have assisted in the reports ?
That command structure had been in place in the USSR since the early 1920's, everybody bowed to it, or got stood up against a wall.

 

[GregP]

I have explained how looking at opposing losses is the only way to see a pilot's true number of victories. Just because someone is credited with a victory doesn't mean they actually shot down another aircraft. If there are any more arguments against this idea I would like to discuss them, but so far none of the arguments have been true and are easily debunked.

And you have been told MANY times in here more than a few situations which result in a valid victory but do not generate a recorded loss.

That doesn't seem to stop you from spouting about recorded losses that are 100% correct. You do NOT have a 100% correct loss report from anyone, anywhere in the war. A few reports might be 100% correct if that airfield was never attacked and lost records, but that would not be very many forward airfields of the VVS on the front lines. More than likely, virtually none of them.

Just as a reminder, there are very few 100% correct reports or lists from a 4-year war taking in the globe. Again, you can ask even two people to watch an event and then describe it on paper. In real life, they frequently do not appear to have seen the same event. Many times, they get times, dates and descriptions that seem unrelated to one another.

 

[BiffF15]

Deleted

 

[CHen10]

And you have been told MANY times in here more than a few situations which result in a valid victory but do not generate a recorded loss.

Yeah and I explained how this is wrong.

That doesn't seem to stop you from spouting about recorded losses that are 100% correct. You do NOT have a 100% correct loss report from anyone, anywhere in the war. A few reports might be 100% correct if that airfield was never attacked and lost records, but that would not be very many forward airfields of the VVS on the front lines. More than likely, virtually none of them.

Sorry but we do have losses that are 100% correct. There are many times where the opposing sides describe the events exactly the same. I also acknowledge that most losses won't be 100% but they will still be close enough to match to a victory.

Just as a reminder, there are very few 100% correct reports or lists from a 4-year war taking in the globe. Again, you can ask even two people to watch an event and then describe it on paper. In real life, they frequently do not appear to have seen the same event. Many times, they get times, dates and descriptions that seem unrelated to one another.

Yeah I agree that losses and claim details won't be 100% the same all the time. However they are close enough to obviously be a match. And there are times we do get details from the opposing sides which are 100% the same.

 

[CHen10]

Of course that would make the most sense, to just fill out the mission report as the pilots state what they did.
Every unit down to company, or squadron size had a Commissar, or party representative, with the power of life or death over each person, backed up by the NKVD.

They were there why? Do you think they might have assisted in the reports ?
That command structure had been in place in the USSR since the early 1920's, everybody bowed to it, or got stood up against a wall.

There is still no reason for the high command to want to hide losses.

 

[CHen10]

They would face reprisals... or not.

The books are full of examples of people becoming inhabitants of the archipiélago because of telling the truth.

I remember one case of a factory manager ending in a gulag for telling the truth in good faith and his disbelief about the whole thing.

What was the topic about? Which statement made them angry?

 

[Escuadrilla Azul]

What was the topic about? Which statement made them angry?

Something about production, don't recall exactly. Don't forget that also Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was also a fervent communist artillery lieutenant in the GPW and that didn't save him for been an inhabitant of the archipiélago.

 

[tyrodtom]

There is still no reason for the high command to want to hide losses.

Do you honestly mean what you're saying?
Are you being deliberately obtuse ?

There's plenty of reasons for people at several levels to massage the paperwork.
At the lower levels, and all the way up, higher than norm losses can be seen as a indication of incompetence, or as the Soviets termed it, sabotage.
It could easily mean a appointment with a firing squad.
You seem to have no idea was that time in the Soviet Union was like.