Erich Hartmann and his victories and overclaims over Hungary

Juha3 said:

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.

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I don't understand either what's so difficult about all this. But I will make one last attempt to reiterate the point I made earlier: Someone has written a book which boldly says that many of the victories Hartmann is credited with are "overclaims". And this is based on ONE source only: A Soviet era archive that many now seem to have high opinions of but even so how do we know it's complete? For example, if I consult Russian archives and don't find the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact referenced there does that mean there never was such a thing signed?

In addition, no Meta-analysis trying to weight together different sources like witness accounts etc. was done by the authors either: Just a check in a Soviet era archive (that may or may not be complete) has been used as the sole litmus test and to determine if a person's reliability has been found wanting or not. And this is the main problem for the authors in my opinion: I find their use of absolutes, never even contemplating if Hartmann actually did get a kill but that he misidentified the plane (I even posted an example of this earlier where a Tempest pilot claimed a Bf-109E destroyed when he actually shot down a Ta-152H), or if he may have misremembered the date, and that the type of aircraft he claimed is marked as lost either the day after, or the day before. And words matter: Seriously researched history and papers will more than often contain caveats like probable or possible and statements of why the authors came to the conclusions they did. This in combination with the authors usage of bold font and capital letters to drive home "OVERCLAIM" do not instill confidence in me. Rather the opposite.

But as always, opinions may vary, and if someone else is willing to go along with the "Hartmann overclaimed and had maybe 190, not 352 victories" then fine, do so, knock yourself out. Just don't expect me to go along for the ride. And this is of course not directed at you Juha3: I found your post quite informative. It's just that at some point you have to stop answering the same questions and leave the train, and this post looks very much like the end of the line for me.

Holtzauge said:

I don't understand either what's so difficult about all this. But I will make one last attempt to reiterate the point I made earlier: Someone has written a book which boldly says that many of the victories Hartmann is credited with are "overclaims". And this is based on ONE source only: A Soviet era archive that many now seem to have high opinions of but even so how do we know it's complete? For example, if I consult Russian archives and don't find the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact referenced there does that mean there never was such a thing signed?

In addition, no Meta-analysis trying to weight together different sources like witness accounts etc. was done by the authors either: Just a check in a Soviet era archive (that may or may not be complete) has been used as the sole litmus test and to determine if a person's reliability has been found wanting or not. And this is the main problem for the authors in my opinion: I find their use of absolutes, never even contemplating if Hartmann actually did get a kill but that he misidentified the plane (I even posted an example of this earlier where a Tempest pilot claimed a Bf-109E destroyed when he actually shot down a Ta-152H), or if he may have misremembered the date, and that the type of aircraft he claimed is marked as lost either the day after, or the day before. And words matter: Seriously researched history and papers will more than often contain caveats like probable or possible and statements of why the authors came to the conclusions they did. This in combination with the authors usage of bold font and capital letters to drive home "OVERCLAIM" do not instill confidence in me. Rather the opposite.

But as always, opinions may vary, and if someone else is willing to go along with the "Hartmann overclaimed and had maybe 190, not 352 victories" then fine, do so, knock yourself out. Just don't expect me to go along for the ride. And this is of course not directed at you Juha3: I found your post quite informative. It's just that at some point you have to stop answering the same questions and leave the train, and this post looks very much like the end of the line for me.

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You always have to be critical of what you read, mistakes can be found in almost all books, some of them few, some of them are downright rubbish. You should always check with at least a couple of independent sources. Perhaps I was misled by the fact that in your message to which you replied, you justified your skepticism by saying that the Soviet historiography was not reliable. However, the documents within the system are a different matter, although one must know the original purpose of the documents and the reason for their creation in order to assess their reliability. During the Soviet Union, the internal documents of the armed forces were only open to a few "reliable" Soviet researchers. The surprising and rapid collapse of the Soviet Union quickly opened up many of them, first to Russian researchers in general and then to foreigners who had connections or some other "perks". Under Putin, the situation has changed, and I suspect that the good situation of the 1980s and 1990s will not be reached again, because now the Russians in power know that they'll lose control of history if the archives are opened again.

Indeed, with Hartmann and some other top aces, it has been difficult sometimes to find a suitable loss, while with Lipfert, for example, there is a suitable victim for almost all his kill claims. I don't think it's credible that the Russians would have purged the victims that fit Hartmann's Abschussmeldungen from their archives, which they didn't think "improper" researchers would ever have access to, but left the papers of victims of some other enemy aces in place. Especially when it would have required quite a lot of work, which would have been pointless, because the "most progressive society of mankind" could not just suddenly collapse like that. The "rotten capitalist exploitative societies" were the ones that would collapse.

Maybe I've just watched "A Few Good Men" too many times, but the Soviets tried to discredit Hartmann for over a decade. Updating a few documents on behalf of Mother Russia would be a fine make work project for someone with an axe to grind. And they weren't trying to discredit every German ace just the top scoring one i.e. very hard to persecute Lipfert given he was in the West.

And there's been a couple other threads about Hartmann, which concluded that he probably incorrectly claimed a few.

p.s. The objective in war isn't to obliterate your enemy - 1st because if he thinks there is no chance of surrender, he will fight to the death and often take a few more of your side with them; 2nd because today's enemy might be tomorrow's ally and you might need them against tomorrow's enemy. I.e. It wasn't necessary to shoot down every German bomber during BoB, just enough to discourage the Luftwaffe.

It DOES tend to get a bit discouraging when you die in aerial combat ...

The guys who make it back are either relieved or angry, but rarely unmoved by it.

BiffF15 said:

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.

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"I haven't researched Hartmann that much" and "I won't change my mind" in the same post?

Yeah, there's some sloppy thinking happening there. I might be weird or crazy, but if I haven't researched a particular topic, I hold an open mind. Even if I have done a deep dive, intellectual honesty demands that I should stand liable to correction with sufficient evidence and change my mind accordingly.

Holtzauge said:

(I even posted an example of this earlier where a Tempest pilot claimed a Bf-109E destroyed when he actually shot down a Ta-152H)

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The first kill a Spitfire ever made was a Hurricane so misidentifying an aircraft has no basis for refusing a claim.

Thumpalumpacus said:

Maybe Rodney and KGV should've taken Winnie's advice and kept shooting until they were out of fuel? Yeah, no. There's not many armchairs on battleships, or fighter-planes.

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What it does in fact do is exactly that, you want to claim we didn't sink your ships, fine let Rodney close in and give you 9 16'' broadsides until your ship and all it's crew is obliterated, people who play stupid games, win stupid prices.

Denniss said:

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.

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Marcel said:

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.

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No, the Bismarck was no longer an operation warship, no control, no power, nil functioning guns, the British ordered a cease fire because she was no longer a threat, reading about her she was past the point of recovery so her scuttling is a mute point, she would have been torpedoed or towed back for scrapping, either way she was destroyed and sunk by the RN, her crew just shortened her misery.

GregP said:

It DOES tend to get a bit discouraging when you die in aerial combat ...

The guys who make it back are either relieved or angry, but rarely unmoved by it.

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I know there was a French WWI ace who believed it was more discouraging for the whole squadron to just shoot up a German aircraft but let them make it home, than to shoot it down.

The ground crew having to repair the damaged plane being worse than just replacing it with a new one, the rest of the squadron seeing pilot wheeled away in ambulance or hearse being worse than thinking they might just be prisoners behind enemy lines (his opinion)

In WWI, a fight was most often a fight to the death.
There were no parachutes available for the large part of the war and the aircraft were highly flammable as well as prone to catastrophic failure if struck in certain areas (spar failure, control line failure, etc.) which meant certain death.

Marcel said:

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.

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Back in the days of sail when battles were fought on the decks the worst defeat was to e captured as a prize, because they could and were re used by the enemy. I suppose they avoided that but by the time it was scuttled Bismarck was scrap steel.

don4331 said:

Maybe I've just watched "A Few Good Men" too many times, but the Soviets tried to discredit Hartmann for over a decade. Updating a few documents on behalf of Mother Russia would be a fine make work project for someone with an axe to grind. And they weren't trying to discredit every German ace just the top scoring one i.e. very hard to persecute Lipfert given he was in the West.

And there's been a couple other threads about Hartmann, which concluded that he probably incorrectly claimed a few.

p.s. The objective in war isn't to obliterate your enemy - 1st because if he thinks there is no chance of surrender, he will fight to the death and often take a few more of your side with them; 2nd because today's enemy might be tomorrow's ally and you might need them against tomorrow's enemy. I.e. It wasn't necessary to shoot down every German bomber during BoB, just enough to discourage the Luftwaffe.

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I cannot follow your logic. Why to try to discredit someone by falsifying secret documents that western researchers and not even the vast majority of soviet researchers should not have had the opportunity to even get access to.

And why wouldn't they have tried to ruin the reputations of the top aces living in the West? Otherwise, they couldn't really be reached like those being their prisoners, who could be mistreated in prison camps. For those living in the West, besides an assassination campaign, there was much else they could do but try to ruin their reputation.

pbehn said:

Back in the days of sail when battles were fought on the decks the worst defeat was to e captured as a prize, because they could and were re used by the enemy.

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Yeah, we still have the stern carving of the HMS Royal Charles hanging in the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam

Marcel said:

Charles hanging in the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam

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At least save Camilla.
No part of your Anglo-Dutch wars

Marcel said:

Yeah, we still have the stern carving of the HMS Royal Charles hanging in the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam

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I am sure we have de Winters sword somewhere.

Take two....

Lucky13 said:

In USAAF and RAF (and others), how many of his claims would've been credited as Damaged/Probables?

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Reading WW1 & WW2 books since the mid 1950s, it became obvious that when a pilot is shot down and survives, he learns and becomes a better, more dangerous adversary. Every time thereafter he learns what not to do, as well as what his enemy CAN do. A somewhat similar idea was expressed by a major trucking company employment manager who did not hire drivers who had not had at least one accident, as they had not learned enough. I ask those among us who are pilots, think of the close calls while piloting, and what was learned.

dedalos said:

Says who?

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Anyone who's either read the book or ever done any archival research into Second World War aviation? If you can fault the quality of Horvath's research, show us how.

Nick Beale said:

Anyone who's either read the book or ever done any archival research into Second World War aviation? If you can fault the quality of Horvath's research, show us how.

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I did do and do research. I am sometimes amazed about people having an opinion based on the donald duck of may 1985 and take that as the final word.
Criticism of work not even read let alone studied or even have a copy, but still have a thing to say.
Mostly bad because it make them feel superior.

I dont mind an opinion but buy the ffing book first and study then say what is wrong with it.

Seems a trend sometimes. Cant stand it.

Nick Beale said:

Anyone who's either read the book or ever done any archival research into Second World War aviation? If you can fault the quality of Horvath's research, show us how.

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You don't seem to get it.

Horvath may have done very decent research into ONE source; I can't say. There are no reported references to other sources.

If I were as interested in trying to lower Hartmann's score as he is, it might generate enough interest to look at other primary sources. As it happens, I am satisfied with his 352 credits and have not much use for WWII revisionists who base their revisionist theories on unsound principles. So, I have better things to do than to go try to debunk Horvath trying to revise Hartmann.

It doesn't stop me from noting the fact that his book, while likely entertaining, has a basic research flaw that is touted in the review writeups as a good thing. Excuse me, but I have done enough research papers (electrical engineer) and research into theory questions to know that one source does not a good theory make on most occasions. It might BE a good theory since the source might be impeccable. I doubt it in the extreme.

But, absent a complete review of aerial victories, at least from one country, I find it unacceptable to do a "deep dice" into, say, Hartmann while ignoring other top aces, and then compare my new list with the rest of the pilots on a victory credits list who have NOT had THEIR scores reviewed with the same deep dive research. It simply strikes me as disingenuous to scrutinize someone closely while taking others at face value.

I'll stick with the credits as-awarded in WWII for ALL sides except Japan, and go with the popular numbers for Japan since I have no way to research or refute the popular numbers for Japan. I have never seen a primary Japanese source and, if I did, I'd have to rely on a commercial translator ... most of which are of questionable accuracy. Have you ever done a translation from English to Russian, to German, and back to English? The result read like a demented comedy sketch.

English: I want to verify this fact.

to German: Ich möchte diese Tatsache überprüfen.
to Russian: Я хотел бы проверить этот факт.
back to English: I would like to check this fact.
So , for a 6-word phrase in English, it changes 3 of the 6 words and adds 1; 3 of 6 words changed = 50%. Adds one, less than 50%. The sense is still there, but it's also a very SIMPLE phrase.
Now, imagine trying that with a 3-page document. I have, and it doesn't give you a good feeling that your translation is spot-on. It might get you close, but not really accurate. Go try it with a few technical sentences. Enjoy.