Having read the book I don't see the authors (father and son) as biased , and it's a number of eksperten's scores that are analysed not just the one with big scores. I agree that the criteria for when a victory is verified is very strict, but I think perhaps that is to better compare the reliability of the pilots in claiming kills. There is a very big difference between the most and the least reliable., and Hartmann wasn't the worst in this period over Hungary.
Erich Hartmann and his victories and overclaims over Hungary
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Having read the book I don't see the authors (father and son) as biased , and it's a number of eksperten's scores that are analysed not just the one with big scores. I agree that the criteria for when a victory is verified is very strict, but I think perhaps that is to better compare the reliability of the pilots in claiming kills. There is a very big difference between the most and the least reliable., and Hartmann wasn't the worst in this period over Hungary.
Regarding Bismarck the British forced the Germans into scuttling by inflicting overwhelming damage to the rudder and superstructure. Opening the watertight doors and igniting the scuttling charges resulted in a fast sinking of the otherwise sound (minus 1-2 earlier torps hits) hull.
Well technically they didn't sink her indeed. Which is not a very useful technicality, apart from maybe propaganda purposes. But they were victorious over the Bismarck, which actually is the only thing that matters in the end.
Bismark was pummelled from pillar to post and ceased to be functioning warship, a sound hull may be stretching things a little.
i totally Agree with Marcel, in the very technical sense, Bismark was scuttled but it was only a matter of a few hours before the Royal Navy sent her to the bottom.
rather like a football team losing 1 - 0 to an own goal and celebrating as they stopped the other team from scoring.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
I'm a big TR fan myself.
Holtzauge
Airman 1st Class
First of all, the concept of blindly trusting Soviet era records is naïve at best: Soviet records also claimed that the Katyn massacre of Polish Officers was done by the Germans and not by Russians themselves, and that the 1939 war with Finland was instigated by the Finns repeatedly shelling towns on the Russian side thus "forcing" the Soviets to "respond".
In addition, the pages of the book posted here do not talk of possible or probable overclaims but the authors boldly use capital letters formatted in bold and repeatedly proclaim "Hartmann's 332nd: OVERCLAIM, Yak-9" etc. as in these suppositions by the authors being undisputable facts. So here the author tells us we are dealing with a repeat offender, who just keeps on filing these overclaims on and on. And IMHO this is pure defamation because they include no caveats at all: They simply present their suppositions as facts. But these are not fact: Because all they have done is to shown that some of Hartmann's claims are not found in the Soviet archives they looked at. And first of all, these may not even be complete, and even if they were, I already pointed out how naïve it would be to take them at face value and use them as the sole source to discredit Hartmann.
I could go on but what's the point? I said it before and I'll say it again: Hartmann is credited with 352 victories. If Soviet records of the time do not tally with this then it's up to the persons who vouch for those records to convince the rest of the world of their completeness and veracity. It's not the rest of us that have to prove that they're not true. That's not how this works.
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SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
That is an apt description. I'm ticked off that, as an English speaker, I didn't think of phrasing it that way.
CHen_10.
Let's consider the following real life situation:
P-51 Squadron at 27k Ft escorting B-17 at 18k Ft.
Box is attacked by Fw-190 at the German border.
P-51 Engage the Wurgers
A pair of P-51 catch one at 22k Ft, shoots, Big Holes in the Wurger, parts flying and fire from engine cowl.
Wurger invert and goes vertical with fire and smoke trail.
P-51 do not follow as the mission is to escort the bombers to target.
P-51 Pilot report a victory (confirmed by wingman) after landing.
IS this considered a victory for Usaaf? normally Yes.
...and meanwhile the Wurger landed , is 50% damage (repairable ) and the pilot is alive.
For you this doesn't count...
IF we apply this logic, 50% (wet finger in the wind) of claims in WW2 are gone.
The claims will never match the real numbers, never. Especially if strict parameters are applied to the definition of "aerial victory".
Now, let's review the RaF claims for the jan41 to dec43 period on the channel front, this one is also laughable if we apply your definition...and actually even without it.
Let's consider the following real life situation:
P-51 Squadron at 27k Ft escorting B-17 at 18k Ft.
Box is attacked by Fw-190 at the German border.
P-51 Engage the Wurgers
A pair of P-51 catch one at 22k Ft, shoots, Big Holes in the Wurger, parts flying and fire from engine cowl.
Wurger invert and goes vertical with fire and smoke trail.
P-51 do not follow as the mission is to escort the bombers to target.
P-51 Pilot report a victory (confirmed by wingman) after landing.
IS this considered a victory for Usaaf? normally Yes.
...and meanwhile the Wurger landed , is 50% damage (repairable ) and the pilot is alive.
For you this doesn't count...
IF we apply this logic, 50% (wet finger in the wind) of claims in WW2 are gone.
The claims will never match the real numbers, never. Especially if strict parameters are applied to the definition of "aerial victory".
Now, let's review the RaF claims for the jan41 to dec43 period on the channel front, this one is also laughable if we apply your definition...and actually even without it.
Andrew Arthy
Airman 1st Class
I believe I've posted this on the forum previously, but the Soviet records are available online, free to access. You can use Google Translate on this site: Память народа::Документы частей, and type in the search bar "1-я воздушная армия" for 1st Air Army, "2-я воздушная армия" for 2nd Air Army, etc. Use a transcription program like Google Keep, then a translation program, and you can get a decent idea of what has been written.
Having researched both sides of aerial combat over the central and northern sectors of the Eastern Front in 1944 and 1945, I can confirm that the Soviets very carefully recorded the fates of their aircraft in combat. As previously stated in this thread, if you don't report your losses up the chain to your higher headquarters, you very quickly run out of aircraft.
Below is a transcription from the records of 3.VA (3rd Air Army) for a single day in August 1944, kindly translated and transcribed by a colleague of mine. You can access the relevant Corps, Division and Regiment records to get further details on the missions and losses. The section in black is from the 3.VA War Diary, and the section in red is from the 3.VA Operations Report.
Below are some Division records from that same day, from the 5th Guards Fighter Division. The subordinate Regiment records have even more detail.
Hartmann was as optimistic as most Second World War fighter pilots - two aircraft actually destroyed or badly damaged for three victory claims is a typical ratio for any Second World War fighter pilot. Some pilots and units were more optimistic than others, the astronomical Soviet claims above being a very good example - the Luftwaffe lost a dozen or so aircraft on that sector of the front on that day, but 3.VA claimed 52 victories!
Cheers,
Andrew A.
Having researched both sides of aerial combat over the central and northern sectors of the Eastern Front in 1944 and 1945, I can confirm that the Soviets very carefully recorded the fates of their aircraft in combat. As previously stated in this thread, if you don't report your losses up the chain to your higher headquarters, you very quickly run out of aircraft.
Below is a transcription from the records of 3.VA (3rd Air Army) for a single day in August 1944, kindly translated and transcribed by a colleague of mine. You can access the relevant Corps, Division and Regiment records to get further details on the missions and losses. The section in black is from the 3.VA War Diary, and the section in red is from the 3.VA Operations Report.
Below are some Division records from that same day, from the 5th Guards Fighter Division. The subordinate Regiment records have even more detail.
Hartmann was as optimistic as most Second World War fighter pilots - two aircraft actually destroyed or badly damaged for three victory claims is a typical ratio for any Second World War fighter pilot. Some pilots and units were more optimistic than others, the astronomical Soviet claims above being a very good example - the Luftwaffe lost a dozen or so aircraft on that sector of the front on that day, but 3.VA claimed 52 victories!
Cheers,
Andrew A.
Holtzauge
Airman 1st Class
Good point. And added to this, I don't think anyone here is claiming that there is always a 1:1 between what the pilots believed they shot down and were credited with, and what resulted in a totally destroyed airplane. And I think forum user bada made a good point with the USAAF example above. And maybe we should ask our Russian friends in the forum how we should judge Ivan Kozhedub's claims of 64 aircraft? Are all of those accounted for in German records? And Vasilij Zajtsev's purported 225 sniper kills during the Battle of Stalingrad? Did Zaitsev crawl over the lines and collect the German's dog-tags?
And this is of course only a rhetorical question. Put here with the intention to question if we today really can make a fair call on all these numbers? And that we perhaps should think twice before questioning people's integrity by writing OVERCLAIM with caps and in bold.
Lucky13
Forum Mascot
In USAAF and RAF (and others), how many of his claims would've been credited as Damaged/Probables?
GregP
Major
You've teased us with "this is my final post before."
Is it true this time? Please!
An Hartmann has 352 awarded credits. Nobody except you talks about his "real kills." His awarded credits stand at 352.
Out of curiosity, has it ever occurred to you that very many pilots have more actual real kills than their credits indicate? Many times a victory ws NOT awarded because there were no witnesses or an enemy went into a cloud while going down and on fire, etc.
GregP
Major
You are again making the assumption that a victory is only valid if there is a corresponding loss. That is simply not the case.
Total destruction of an enemy aircraft is not required for a victory to be awarded. No military make loss reports with an eye toward confirming enemy victory claims. If a squadron pilot causes an enemy to force-land for mechanical or fuel starvation reasons (think a shot fuel line) and that aircraft is later recovered and flies again, that squadron pilot is awarded a victory credit.
Why is this so hard to understand?
Holtzauge
Airman 1st Class
You make a very valid point: I have read serveral combat accounts were German pilots apprehensively blurt out the question over the radio if someone saw their "Abschuss" and breathe a sigh of relief when someone did. But likewise never filed a claim when nobody did. So this means that Hartmann's ACTUAL score was probably way higher than 352 then.
Okay, you haven't researched Hartmann but you twice reiterate that his count is "about 190 at most".
Did you research all the aircraft that failed to return by battle or patrol area and correlate them to enemy patrols to figure out who shot someone down but didn't get credit for it?
The confidence you have in your conclusion smacks of many things the least of which is smug arrogance.
That is overclaiming by less than 2 to 1. So it is less less than all of the RAF and all of the Luftwaffe, on average during the whole of the Battle of Britain which had a special force of observers The Royal Observer Corps armed with binoculars and note pads to record things like planes dropping from the sky. However here is the "rub". When you apply the same criteria to all other pilots in all other services Hartmann becomes more remarkable not less. Half of those with one credit get none. Much more than half of pilots who "made ace" have that taken from them, only those with more than ten credits can be reasonably (based on that stat) called a WW2 ace. Hartmann did 1425 combat missions, he was never shot down, but returned to his home airfield 16 times with a damaged or malfunctioning plane. He survived the war and never lost a wing man. If he didnt have one victory credit that is still a great feat of airmanship, in peace time I would say anyone flying ww2 warbirds 1425 times without a crash has had a charmed life. Apply the same criteria to everyone else and who did better? As I understand it he claimed not losing a wing man was his greatest achievement but that must be ignoring the fact that he survived the war, not actually being shot down must rank pretty high too.
I've always wondered what's so difficult about this. The Horvaths used VVS internal reports, they tell a different story than the official history or propaganda of the USSR. The SU was a very bureaucratic state and produced an immense amount of documents. There are gaps in the wartime documentary collections, but mostly from the summer of 1941 to autumn and the summer of 1942.
The VVS, like all military organizations, kept records of their assets, such as airplanes and their engines, and new ones could not be gotten simply by asking that the higher authority would send X new planes, you also had to tell what had happened to the previous ones. And you couldn't put a lot of combat losses to the account of accidents, because then it was easy to be accused of sabotage, which could have fatal consequences, or of assigning pilots to tasks that were too demanding compared to their training or experience. Indeed, the unit commander had to give this kind of assurance when informing losses to higher level at least since 1943, probably earlier.
Of course there is a "grey zone" and we cannot reconstruct all cases anymore.
In fact LW instructions in L.V. Blatt 1941, Number 18, 28/4/1941 says, the translation is from Morgan & Seibel, Combat Kill (1997) simply to give a second source besides Horvaths' very good book "... Forced to land: If an aircraft is forced to land after taking hits either from the air or from the ground, the following will apply - if it landed on the enemy side of the front, this will not count as a claim; if it lands on our side of the front, then this will count as a claim..." Exceptions were if it was possible to destroy the aircraft through artillery fire or bombing before it was removed by the enemy, then this will count as a claim.
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