Best WWII fighter pilot....?

[P1234567890]

And many German pilots also flew over 1000 combat missions - ever look into how many missions were flown by the average combat pilot in the ETO?

This is a very good point. Even the most experienced Allied pilot didn't have a fraction of the combat experience that literally dozens of German pilots had. It's impossible to become a great pilot if they rotate you state-side to become an instructor as soon as you've flown a few dozen sorties.

By the way, who was the most experienced Allied pilot in terms of combat missions flown?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

This is a very good point. Even the most experienced Allied pilot didn't have a fraction of the combat experience that literally dozens of German pilots had. It's impossible to become a great pilot if they rotate you state-side to become an instructor as soon as you've flown a few dozen sorties.

By the way, who was the most experienced Allied pilot in terms of combat missions flown?

Good question - I do know Col. Don Blakeslee flew over 400 sorties and although claiming 15 aircraft (I know JoeB might be watching ) He spent most of his time "directing: the battle.

I also remember reading that some of the pace of kills by allied pilots closely matched their German counterparts, this being on the Western Front.

 

[marshall]

P1234567890, once more time, I haven't said that Urbanowicz was the best pilot of ww2. I said that I'm not able to say who was the best. If you have problem with that I voted on the poll not on the best one because I don't know who was the best one, I can't help you.

 

[P1234567890]

Good question - I do know Col. Don Blakeslee flew over 400 sorties and although claiming 15 aircraft (I know JoeB might be watching ) He spent most of his time "directing: the battle.

I also remember reading that some of the pace of kills by allied pilots closely matched their German counterparts, this being on the Western Front.

Kill-pace is a reasonably good measure of skill. Hartmann flew 1404 combat missions and shot down enemy 352 planes, which is 0.2507 kills per mission.

With 400 sorties and 15 kills, Blakeslee had a ratio of 0.0375 kills/mission. Even if you consider that Hartmann was flying against Russians, that's one heck of a difference.

Does anyone know how many combat missions Marseille flew? I'm guessing that he had a very high ratio.

Also, does anyone know who had the highest ratio of all pilots in the war? (Let's say with a minimum score of 15, or else there'll be a bunch of pilots who only flew a couple of missions and got lucky and shot down a few planes.)

Another point to be made is that by the end of the war the Germans had run out of pilots and were sending totally green kids up into the air, so kills against Germans at the end of the war aren't as impressive as during, say, the Battle of Britain.

 

[P1234567890]

P1234567890, once more time, I haven't said that Urbanowicz was the best pilot of ww2. I said that I'm not able to say who was the best. If you have problem with that I voted on the poll not on the best one because I don't know who was the best one, I can't help you.

Can you narrow it down to a top 10 list?

 

[ToughOmbre]

This is a very good point. Even the most experienced Allied pilot didn't have a fraction of the combat experience that literally dozens of German pilots had. It's impossible to become a great pilot if they rotate you state-side to become an instructor as soon as you've flown a few dozen sorties.

There's no reason to think that American pilots would not have had more impressive victory totals if they had not been rotated back as instructors. But the object was not to see who could shoot down the most aircraft, the object was to gain air superiority and win the war. The American aces were far more valuable instructing new/replacement pilots, and that policy paid off when the new pilots got into combat. Germany could not afford that luxury, nor could Japan. I'm taking nothing away from the great German pilots, (I voted for Hartmann, could have voted for Marseille).

TO

 

[P1234567890]

Does anyone know how many combat missions Marseille flew? I'm guessing that he had a very high ratio.

I found the answer to my own question. Apparently he flew 388 combat missions. He had 158 kills, so that's a ratio of 0.4072. That's a lot higher than Hartmann's ratio, AND he was flying against Western pilots rather than Russians. He died in 1942 just when he was really getting going. Who knows how many total kills he might have had if he hadn't died in that freak accident.

Here's a picture of him; he was a skinny little guy!

 

[marshall]

Can you narrow it down to a top 10 list?

I was thinking about it earlier but I haven't come up with any good, in my opinion, system of ranking the pilots. Maybe I will have some idea how to do it well, till then I will hold to that I'm not able to say who was the best.


If anyone would be intrested about the ranking system, I was thinking about something like that:
(the numbers are just examples)
1 point for a kill in a superior aircraft, 2 poinst for a kill in a inferior aircraft (maybe different ammount of points for fighters and bombers)
plus some extra points for the skills of enemy, I mean more points for fighting with early Luftwaffe pilots than with late Luftwaffe pilots, or more points for shooting down west Allied pilots then Soviet pilots, then all diveded by sortie number
as you can see the system would be quite complicated and I'm not sure if it would have worked.

 

[P1234567890]

That's an interesting scoring system, but I guess my claim is this: Marseille and Hartmann (and the other top Germans) will be at the top of *ANY* reasonable scoring scheme that anyone could possibly come up with.

Barring that, all we could do determine if one pilot is better than the other is to somehow bring them back to life, put them in identical planes, and starting in identical conditions let them dogfight it out. Repeat this experiment a thousand times, and then look at the score. In my opinion, all of the evidence suggests that Marseille would do the best in this experiment.

 

[P1234567890]

By the way, Heinz Bär had a ratio of 0.221, which is slightly fewer than Hartmann, and only about half of what Marseille scored.

 

[marshall]

That's an interesting scoring system, but I guess my claim is this: Marseille and Hartmann (and the other top Germans) will be at the top of *ANY* reasonable scoring scheme that anyone could possibly come up with.

There is very high probability of that. But such a system could show some interesting overlooked normally things.

Barring that, all we could do determine if one pilot is better than the other is to somehow bring them back to life, put them in identical planes, and starting in identical conditions let them dogfight it out. Repeat this experiment a thousand times, and then look at the score. In my opinion, all of the evidence suggests that Marseille would do the best in this experiment.

I would like to see some of these fights.


BTW Walter Nowotny had a 0.583 ratio

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Then you had Bob Hansen - 20 enemy planes in six consecutive flying days.

 

[P1234567890]

Then you had Bob Hansen - 20 enemy planes in six consecutive flying days.

Not bad, but Marseille shot down 17 enemy planes in one day (Sept. 1st, 1942) during which he flew three sorties. By the time he got really good, he was shooting down 3 or more planes per sortie on a regular basis.

The really strange and amazing thing about him is that he was *really* good at shooting down several planes within a matter of a few minutes. The guy was absolutely deadly when he tore into an enemy squadron, and being heavily outnumbered didn't scare him at all. Hartmann was much more cautious.

Here is a pretty good write-up on him:

http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/hanstate.html

 

[P1234567890]

BTW Walter Nowotny had a 0.583 ratio

Wow, that's really good! Were his kills mostly soviets?

Is his the highest ratio of all times?

 

[marshall]

Wow, that's really good! Were his kills mostly soviets?

Is his the highest ratio of all times?

255 out of 258 over Soviets (source wikipedia). I don't know if it's the highest ratio ever but I think that for such a scale (number of kills) it is.

 

[P1234567890]

Here's an interesting one: David McCampbell.

David McCampbell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Relevant passage:

On October 24, 1944, he repeated the feat, the only American airman to do so. McCampbell and his wingman attacked a Japanese force of 60 aircraft. McCampbell shot down nine, setting a single mission aerial combat record.

Nine kills in one sortie is pretty darned good, although in fairness he ended the war with only 34 kills, and his famous mission was flown in late 1944, a time when Japanese pilots were hardly getting any training at all anymore.

I'd like to know his ratio. Does anyone know how many combat missions he flew?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Not bad, but Marseille shot down 17 enemy planes in one day (Sept. 1st, 1942) during which he flew three sorties.

Yep -well aware of that feat and that's why I eventually voted for him - but I think if you did a ratio for him (Bob Hansen) he'd be up there with the top German aces although at the time of his feat the quality of Japanese fighter piolts was diminishing.

 

[P1234567890]

Incidentally, there is good reason to believe that in a full-out modern war, U.S. pilots would be able to duplicate the feat of getting 9 kills in one mission.

Check it out:

F-22 Pilot Scores NINE "Kills" On a Single Mission, page 1

Still, it isn't quite the same thing. I'll bet that pretty much anyone who can land would be able to rack up plenty of kills in an F-22; it's technology and not skill which matters today.

 

[Njaco]

I'm trying to find somewhere that I read that with ammo expended and kills who was the most accurate shot in the Luftwaffe. While doing that I found this:

from "Luftwaffe Fighter Aces" by Mike Spick

"The main factor was opportunity. By and large the Experten flew more sorties than thier Allied opponents, and encountered the enemy in the air far more times. In 'Full Circle', British top scorer Johnnie Johnson compared his record to that of 'Pips' Priller: .....with 38 victories, which may be compared with Priller's 101, for we both fought over the same territory for about the same time, but he saw many more hostile aeroplanes than I did....
....At the other extreme, Hartmann entered combat on no fewer than 825 occasions, so, given that he survived and shot straight, his enormous score is hardly surprising. By comparison with some, his sortie-to-victory ratio was realtively modest. Some Allied pilots did much better: to quote but one example, American ace Robert Johnson took only 91 sorties to accumilate his 28 victories. And he flew the supposedly inferior Thunderbolt!"

Scoring is great but how long and how much ammo it took I think should be considered.

 

[P1234567890]

Scoring is great but how long and how much ammo it took I think should be considered.

Well, Marseille was famous for being very frugal with the bullets. He was such an excellent shot that he was often able to shoot enemy planes down using only a few bullets each.

According to this web site: http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/hanstate.html

Facts are that Marseille is still acknowledged as among the best marksmen in the Luftwaffe. The Germans were very meticulous in filing combat reports with all relevant data to include time of battle, area of operation, opposition encountered, as well as an in-depth armorers report. At the end of a mission, the armorers would count the number of bullets and cannon shells expended during the fight. Marseille would often average an astonishing 15 bullets required per victory, and this with a combat resulting in his downing of several allied aircraft. No other German pilot was close to Marseille in this area.