ace to ace confrontations

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However, if we read the action report, there was not a turning fight where "G"s could be a reason for misidentification, he was in a diving (closing) attack which allowed him time tomconfirm his ID of the enemy aircraft.

In his defense, he may have encountered Italians, as they were present during the Battle of Britain and would had a different profile.
 
It is rather useless to discuss the aircraft recognition abilities of the WWII fighter pilots, it was often rather poor, USN pilots saw Bf 109s during the early Pacific combats, RAF pilots sometimes claimed Do 17s as Bf 110s, nothing prevented some USAAF fighter pilots attacking their own Mossies, RAF pilots shot down Typhoons and P-51s, the last victory of the war on 9 May 45 was a F-5 (recon version of P-38 ) shot down as Fw 189 by a Soviet P-39 pilot etc. IIRC the first kills by RAF fighter pilots were two Hurricanes shot down by Spits from 74 Sqn on 6 Sept 39.

juha
 
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Overzealousness can cause a miriad of judgement problems also, the brain will just skip small details that are extremely important. That being said, time was not always on your side to allow you to calm down and annalize what it is you actually shooting at. Mistakes will be made, we are human. We are meant to make mistakes, it is how we were designed. I'll get off my soap box now.
 
GrauGeist said:
............
In his defense, he may have encountered Italians, as they were present during the Battle of Britain and would had a different profile.
Click to expand...
Made in Italy, on the Channel in those times there were only Fiat CR 42 (biplanes) and Fiat G 50 (radials).
 
The poor pilot has to remember, rationalise and report what happened hours before while he was fighting for his life. Pilots used to open fire at 400 yards that is a long way away to be sure about a S/E plane. The battle of barking creek showed if someone expects to see an enemy he will.
 
thanks for your replies guys. I was away for the weekend and did not have internet.

yes to make it clear...it was a 5 kill ace vs 5 kill ace that can be verified. I am sure it happened a lot and the victor/victim were never matched. but some were and even in the cases of experten...just looking for ones that can be confirmed.
 
Gents,

On the missed or incorrect VIDs (visual identification) it's actually more difficult than it would seem. If you notice most gun footage from WW2 show what is called low aspect or angle off tail shots. When looking at a SE fighter during that time, from dead astern, it can be very difficult ascertain those key ID features until very close range, and even then under the crush of adrenaline it is easily screwed up.

Cheers,
Biff
 

agreed. that is more often the case than not. there were several cases where the victor watched his kill roll, spin, etc., into the ground and was able to describe distinguishing marks. most of the combat reports I have seen do not have that info....several have. wingmen supplied some of that info as they had a different angle on the prey. other times there were eyewitness' who saw a battle or an incident and were able to supply a small detail...red 7...blue nose mustang...etc. it may be known that X pilot shot down a certain type of ac in a particular location. records review may be able to whittle down which pilots were known to have crashed or been killed in that location on that exact date. its not 100% accurate but that doesn't mean it is incorrect either.
 
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ac recognition is difficult especially when everything happens in a blur. the one finnish ace claimed he shot down 2 Russian mustangs and even stated they were the ones with an Allison engine iirc.
 
I bet everyone in here saw the movie "12 O'Clock High." In that movie there was a scene where a fighter group leader was complaining to Frank Savage about some of the bomber gunners firing at his planes as they chased German fighters through the formation on the last mission.

During the talk, Frank Savage was showing the fighter group leader flash cards of aircraft and asking him to identify them quickly. When the complaint was finished, Frank says they'll try to do better, but that the group leader misidentified three (if I recall right ... maybe it was two) of the 10 flash cards, and that his B-17 gunners had done better than that on the mission.

Said fighter group leader left a bit chastised.

In the real world, they would probably have simply declined to go into the bomber box, but it gave you a feeling of what "quick ID and then decide to shoot or not" might produce.

After I saw that, we tried it ourselves (2 or 3 of us were real WWII airplane fans at the time) with WWII fighter flash cards. I still have the deck around somehwere. We did about as well as the fighter group leader because the "see and identify" was about 1.5 seconds. Naturally, if we could look for 3 - 4 seconds, we were 100% right. It's the "quick look" time that generated the mistakes; a quick look at a small, fast-moving profile isn't exactly an easy ID without a LOT of practice. Even then I'm sure mistakes would be made. The question would be how many mistakes would be made ... not whether or not they would make any mistakes.
 
I can see that bomber gunners would have had a challenge with aircraft flashing past, that's clear. A lof of friendly fire though seems to involve an initial faulty assumption / decision at long range, which is then carried through even at closer range when more info is clearly available, but is simply not being processed.
 
I'd bet you are spot on there. I think that once you are shooting, you continue to shoot and only refine your aim ... you don't tend to look at the plane for continuing ID, but rather tend to adjust so you get more hits.
 
Major George Preddy comes to mind. Back to the main topic of this theme... Gerhard "Gerd" Barkhorn (250 Victories(not gonna argue about who's right or wrong about actual victories)) shoots down Lev Lvovich Shestakov(26 Victories).



Geo
 
Keep in mind this is from that powerhouse of info, Wiki..."On 9 January 1943, Barkhorn claimed his 105th kill. His victims included Lieutenant Vasiliyev, and Hero of the Soviet Union Podpolkovnik Lev Shestakov of the 236 IAP Fighter Regiment. Barkhorn strafed their Yakovlev Yak-1 fighters until they caught fire."



Geo
 
Thanks!

I updated my kill list with a note about the accuracy of same. Wiki isn't exactly a great source, is it? It seems to be as accurate as campaign promises are.

I have Barkhorn with 301 victories in 1,104 combat missions. 76 of his 301 victories were Yak-1s. It's funny, I have the altitude of most of Hartamann's Rall's victories ... but no altitudes at all for Barkhorn. That seems funny to me.

If anyone is interested I have a breakout of victories for most of the top 10 aces.
 
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