A look at German fighter Ace kill claims

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

It's not a victory if the aircraft isn't destroyed since the criteria for a victory is destruction of the aircraft

Negative, because there was no way in 1943 for the pilot making a claim to know which aircraft was repaired and which ones were not.

That is a fact.

One final question, are you guys going to review Grigory Rechkalov's claims? How about James Johnson's? Richard Bong's.



Sorry, you have done zero to change my mind. And on that note, back to just moderating and not participating. No point in wasting my time (or yours for that matter). And I honestly do not mean that negatively, or wish to insult you or anyone and their research, just that we will not agree, so we must agree to disagree.

 

[BiffF15]

Interesting thread.

First, thanks Luft for your research and willingness to share.

Second, and this is my opine, is the military publishes Rules, Procedures, manuals and guidelines on damn near everything. And then doesn't hold everyone accountable. Also those Rules, procedures etc. can be or are routinely broken by those governed by them.

Examples: Manifold pressure on Allison engined aircraft often exceeded in combat. Personally I would exceed those limits if I thought I or my wingy was going to die or be seriously injured. Nothing like taking a good engine into the ground when maybe while over stressing it might have saved a life. Aircraft were easier to produce than a pilot.

If I read things correctly the Luftwaffe and the USAAF said a plane needed to be destroyed to count as a kill. If that's truly the case then how did so many kills get awarded because they damn sure didn't have proof of destruction (other than a verbal from a wingman).

On top of this is / are the pilot reports. I would give them a large window of skeptical accuracy. A pilot who reports this or that happened at a certain time May or may not be anywhere near accurate. I have flown in many exercises that simulate heavy combat. You would not believe how wrong pilots can be, either by time of occurrence or what really happened. And that's after a cursory review of the tapes. And this is with modern aids (Inertial Navigation, audio and video tapes, GCI, digital watches). My predecessors had none of those. Time dilation / compression is another huge real event.

Chen you exhibit ironclad confidence that this or that happened at a given time or geographic region. I would at best describe those as probably happened. Been there, done that way too many times to approach it any other way.

Also if you used encounter reports (Hartman or whomever), and loss report (Russian / US) was that as far as you dug? Did you look at all losses, attributed to anything, within 50-100 miles? Did you account for every time he pulled the trigger? Did every time he pulled the trigger get reported? There are multiple ways to slice this, and accounting for every aircraft lost would be a good start.

Also, having been in combat coded squadrons for the majority of my 29 years, I have seen too many times the USSR / Russia exaggerated or outright lied. It's a hugely complex and corrupt place, and has been for a long time. I would take not only the pilot reports but the loss reports with a huge grain of salt. Look at the Yamamoto shoot down and who got the kill as what should be simple yet wasn't.

I'm perfectly at ease with the kill credits standing as they were awarded in WW2. Do I think they are perfectly accurate. Nope. Do I think someone can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt otherwise? Nope.

Cheers,
Biff

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Not enough bacon to give…

 

[GregP]

Otto Fönnekold
View attachment 791826



Helmut Lipfert
View attachment 791827



Walter Wolfrum
View attachment 791828


Gerhard Barkhorn
View attachment 791829

Günther Rall
View attachment 791830


Just some photos of the pilots I mentioned as being accurate

Yes, some pilots destroyed most of their kills and they were recorded as losses. Statistically, it's bound to happen a good deal of the time. Conversely, there are pilots who didn't have their victories recorded as total losses. it ALSO happens. Statistics predicts what generally happens some percent of the time; statistics cannot predict an individual outcome.

But ... most people in here already know that ... likely whoever reads this does.

 

[CHen10]

Did you look at all losses, attributed to anything, within 50-100 miles?

Yes

Did you account for every time he pulled the trigger? Did every time he pulled the trigger get reported?

I examine the victory claims

and accounting for every aircraft lost would be a good start.

I can account for every single aircraft lost in a given area. Just look at the VAs in the area for example.

Chen you exhibit ironclad confidence that this or that happened at a given time or geographic region. I would at best describe those as probably happened.

Exactly. I take that into account. A person's victory claim doesn't need to be 100% accurate, it just has to be reasonably close enough. Today I was researching a victory claim and the time was slightly off but everything else was a match. I consider this to be a victory because it doesn't have to be exact, just reasonably close.

When we say Hartmann has an overclaim it's because none of the losses reasonably match.

The time difference could be too big or the location could be too far.

Too much to be accepted.

Also, having been in combat coded squadrons for the majority of my 29 years, I have seen too many times the USSR / Russia exaggerated or outright lied. It's a hugely complex and corrupt place, and has been for a long time. I would take not only the pilot reports but the loss reports with a huge grain of salt.

I examine Soviet archives from 1943-45 and the ones in this time period are the best archives I have ever seen. The details, events and the overall thoroughness are very clear and so I don't understand how they can be labelled as exaggerated or lies.

 

[CHen10]

One final question, are you guys going to review Grigory Rechkalov's claims? How about James Johnson's? Richard Bong's.

This could be wrong but from what I heard, Richard Bong actually underclaimed a lot meaning he might have more kills than he said.

I don't have much access to Luftwaffe losses though so I can't really check Rechkalov for example.

 

[Escuadrilla Azul]

One explanation of the aparent overclaiming of Hartmann could be his hunting way.

Since his prefered method was lurk, quick shot and fast evade to avoid been a claim for someone, that didn't leave much time to follow a plane down all the way, so a plane hit, with heavy black smoke coming from the exhausts (poor manteinance and poor quality and/or polluted avgas made that easy) and fire coming from those exhausts due to the throttle pushed full forward to escape could be very much claimed as a victory be Hartmann and corroborated as such by the wingman, as all of these signs could be mistaken for a flaming plane diving to its end, as BiffF15 brilliantly explained.

Others could had used other methods, be more reckless following a plane down or had better marksmanship.

 

[Luft.4]

Replying to BiffF15 , YES!
If we take Germany, their RLM set out the rules (see post 97 for a briefer). Were these always adhered to? No (see post 97 again). Why? Because in a demonstrable way humpty-dumpty Goring with his thirst for power created an environment where this could take place (see Verified Victories chapter 1). It provided a way for his Luftwaffe to shine after its failures in the early part of thew war. In addition, a very dramatic event in late 1943 nearly restarted all claiming for the Luftwaffe and introduced the possibility for filing sneaky claims (see chapter 1 of Verified Victories for more). Ex. does Hartmann need 11 more claims to get over the world record of 300, let him have it and broadcast it and give him the medal etc etc etc. Did confirmation by the RLM actually occur 2-3 months after the events, after the medals were handed out and pictures taken and propaganda created, yes, but they let that slide as he is the poster-boy for the Luftwaffe's fight in the east. The are many more cases were the RLM's own rulings were put aside only to increase a pilot's score (staffel captains signing off on their own claim anyone?!). Yes, they went against their own system from time-to-time. But as a dictatorial power this should not come as a surprise.

Why did so many 'kills' get awarded? Well the above is a brief back rounded as to why. One is welcome to read more in Verified Victories or other books. I would recommend 'Combat Kill' by Morgan & Seibel.

In Verified Victories, because we had all the losses, we went over all losses possible (see post 183). We sliced-'n-diced for 18 months, days even on a single claim. At the end of the day one has to realize that not all claims are victories and that no matter how famous a pilot is they too might have over claimed. VV was/is not a witch hunt of pilot X, it is a thorough examination of facts. the facts demonstrate that pilot X was Y% successful over Hungary.

As stated at least 10 times now, no amout of personal opion changes the fact that:
1) during wartime
2) by the countries which fought then
3) destruction was the criteria/threshold for a victory.

Please produce original evicede for the contray. Not hypothetical what-ifs, not opions, but war-time documents.

Who cares if they were repaired?

Literally the Air Force! They were very interested in this for a host of reasons. RLM directives (post 97) word their criteria in such a way to stress that destruction is key. HS-73 and HS-85 do the same.

As for examining other pilots, Those which have an interest in the regions where these other pilots flew are welcome (and I engourage them) to put something on the table using war-time documents. Go for it!
I have a connection to and interest in Hungary, Luftflotte 4, and 1944-1945. I stick to my area of interest. I specialize in it. Hartmann just so happened to fly over my region of interest for a few months and flew with Luftflotte 4.
If say an American with an interest in Richard Bong want to review his stats, go for it!

 

[BiffF15]

50 Shades of Groundhog Grey

 

[GregP]

Groundhog Grey

Caption: What are YOU looking at?

We're coming for ya', groundhog!

 

[Just Schmidt]

Words are important, and so we discuss the nuances of kills, victories etc. Without thinking too much about it, I just conidered it to be a kill if the aircraft was destroyed. If it landed it wasn't destroyed (even if written off afterwards, it could be used for parts at least), if it crashed it was. Now this thread has taken my innocense away, because what if it crash landed? And all the stuff abundantly discussed abowe.

Indeed it becomes a difficult question whether the plane was denied to its airforce for good, sometimes impossible to answer. One alternative could be considering whether the pilot was lost, but that is another can of worms.

But in all the discussing og kills another word has escaped scrutiny, and that is the word overclaim. Objectively it is every claim that does not fit whatever definition we choose for a kill. In the strong sense, with the reservations abowe. But it occurs on several levels. A claim that the pilot makes that is not acsepted higher up the chain of command is an overclaim, but aa portion of the recognized claims can also be overclaims, at a higher level or of a higher order. It is still worth the effort to try and find out, best as we can.

But overclaim dosn't sound good, it has a connotation of exaggeration at best and deliberate lie at worst. Sometimes it was, but at other times it was an honest mistake. And still an overclaim.

The problem is when it becomes a moral question instead of a technical one. And that is probably one reason that the question is so engaging. I for one will still consider it an overclaim, as a demonstrable differense between what has hithertoo been reported, and what can now be demonstrated not to be the case. There is still plenty of room for discussion, but I will use the word in this objective neutral sense, and not as passing judgement of characters. I do belive the present case does the same, but I'm sure we can find plenty of examples of the opposite.

 

[GregP]

I don't care if the enemy airplane was completely destroyed. I care he was shot out of the fight.

In WWII, the pilot who shot someone down could NEVER be certain the airplane was completely destroyed unless he saw if crash vertically into the ground. There being so many cases where that was not the case, we'd have virtually no claims if the criteria was complete destruction. A valid claim is one where an enemy aircraft was engaged in combat and shot down, made to crash into terrain, or the enemy pilot bailed out.

Last seen apparently going down out of control would be probable.

Last seen after observing hits but flying away under control would be damaged.

There can be a lot more words, but the basics are pretty obvious.

 

[Luft.4]

So what you care about are claims. That is fine and good.
Claims and Victories are two different things however.

we'd have virtually no claims if the criteria was complete destruction.

And yet we do, thousands, and we even have the original claiming directives which explicitly state destruction as the threshold. See post 97

 

[CHen10]

we'd have virtually no claims if the criteria was complete destruction.

This is not true because look at all the pilots who submitted claims only if there was a destroyed aircraft. Loads of pilots actually destroyed aircraft.

 

[CHen10]

Last seen apparently going down out of control would be probable.

Last seen after observing hits but flying away under control would be damaged.

Overclaimers would claim these two as confirmed kills.

 

[Retattack]

I'm a bit dubious about the Verified Victories methodology. I watched Horvath's presentation at Dupuy's HAAC (links to this youtube vid), and was struck by the level of detail in the destroyed aircraft record and the vague discussion of access to records. Having a lot of detail on selected incidents is not the same as having a complete record of all incidents, and uncheckable data is inherently suspect.

Moreover, we have data on German kill claims from other sources (most notably, in my opinion, Kursk claims here) that appear to map fairly closely with actual losses. Unless the system changed dramatically late in the war, which it may have, one would expect similar results. And yet here we have overall numbers of nearly 100% overclaiming. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

 

[CHen10]

Having a lot of detail on selected incidents is not the same as having a complete record of all incidents

It's a complete record of all incidents within a specific VA on a certain date or time frame

and uncheckable data is inherently suspect.

The data is not uncheckable because we have many ways to access the archives digitally, or you can visit the archives in Russia in person.

And yet here we have overall numbers of nearly 100% overclaiming.

Only for some pilots. Other pilots have nearly 100% victories and barely any overclaiming.

 

[Retattack]

It's a complete record of all incidents within a specific VA on a certain date or time frame


The data is not uncheckable because we have many ways to access the archives digitally, or you can visit the archives in Russia in person.


Only for some pilots. Other pilots have nearly 100% victories and barely any overclaiming.

Prove it.

 

[CHen10]

It's a complete record of all incidents within a specific VA on a certain date or time frame

The tables here show every single loss for a VA on a specific date

The data is not uncheckable because we have many ways to access the archives digitally, or you can visit the archives in Russia in person.

Here's a digital version:

Память народа::Подлинные документы о Второй Мировой войне

Память народа – Министерство обороны РФ и Корпорация ЭЛАР представляют крупнейший в мире Интернет-портал подлинных документов о Второй мировой 1939-1945 и Великой Отечественной войне 1941-1945.

pamyat-naroda.ru

Подвиг народа

podvignaroda.ru

First link has a lot more data though, so I prefer the first one.

You could also visit in person

Only for some pilots. Other pilots have nearly 100% victories and barely any overclaiming.

Otto Fönnekold had 12 claims over Iasi. 7-8 victories and 4-5 shared victories.

Helmut Lipfert over Hungary has over 90% accuracy and only a few overclaims

For a non German example, Sasai Jun-ichi (笹井醇一) was also really accurate, he had very few overclaims.

 

[Retattack]

First link has a lot more data though, so I prefer the first one.

You could also visit in person



Otto Fönnekold had 12 claims over Iasi. 7-8 victories and 4-5 shared victories.

Helmut Lipfert over Hungary has over 90% accuracy and only a few overclaims

For a non German example, Sasai Jun-ichi (笹井醇一) was also really accurate, he had very few overclaims.

None of which provides one scintilla of evidence the records are complete. Meanwhile, Hartmann has several claims in that Kursk link above . . . and in most cases, Soviet losses on the dates in question exceed German claims (e.g., 8 and 9 July, Hartmann claimed 4 and 3, total German claims 43 and 38, total Soviet losses 60 and 46). So, did Hartmann suddenly start overclaiming in late '44? Or is there something fishy about the numbers?