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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?
Good question - I do know Col. Don Blakeslee flew over 400 sorties and although claiming 15 aircraft (I know JoeB might be watchingThis 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.
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.
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.
Does anyone know how many combat missions Marseille flew? I'm guessing that he had a very high ratio.
Can you narrow it down to a top 10 list?
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.
Then you had Bob Hansen - 20 enemy planes in six consecutive flying days.
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?
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.
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.Not bad, but Marseille shot down 17 enemy planes in one day (Sept. 1st, 1942) during which he flew three sorties.
Scoring is great but how long and how much ammo it took I think should be considered.
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.