Erich Hartmann and his victories and overclaims over Hungary

When some amateur claims that Hartmann's total tally is actually 20-30% or later "magnanimously" allows maybe 50% of the 352 victories he is credited with, they better bring something better to the table than what has been presented here which IMHO is built on such an amount of supposition about the veracity of Soviet era archives, what Hartmann's witnesses actually saw and reported, and the structural properties of the late Soviet fighters he fired on and what that would have meant, that it frankly boggles the mind.

This has been tried before and comes up repeatedly against Manfred von Richthofen as well: Always someone new who has "new" proof that the Red Baron over claimed as well. And it's always the same story: "I'm not saying he was actually over claiming or lying! He probably thought his opponent went down! I'm just asking questions!"

Well these "questions" take the honour away from people who are long dead and can no longer defend themselves. And before you engage in such activities you better bring something good and new to the table and not just some feeble supposition.

If Hartmann were alive today I think he would have a very good defamation case in court. And note : I'm not saying that Chen10 is what during the Soviet was referred to as a "useful idiot" or running errands for history revanchists: I'm just asking questions!

dedalos said:

Says who?

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Oh dear.

think you need to invest in recents books about this. It cross checking german files against soviet. The soviet files being the accountants for higher up.
One can not debate accountants they have no bias. There are a lot of files still around.
Over claiming was a thing. Read up on Lang and others.
Now just spraying some" i think so wont do."
State your source. Counter that book with your wealth of knowledge about soviet pencil pushers.

If not well its an opinion.

The stab at chen10 as a usefull idiot is comming right back at you.

Snautzer01 said:

I think you need to invest in recents books about this. It cross checking germ
One can not debate accountants they have no bias. There are a lot of files still around.

Over claiming was a thing. Read up on Lang and others.

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And maybe you need to get off your high horse? What do you know about me or the books I read?

Holtzauge said:

And maybe you need to get off your high horse? What do you know about me or the books I read?

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I know about the ones you didnt. Not a high horse just books and research.

Snautzer01 said:

I know about the ones you didnt. Not a high horse just books and research.

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So which ones didn't I read?

Thumpalumpacus said:

Y'all need to learn how to disagree without being disagreeable.

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Agreed. Several individuals in this thread are about to take a short break if they cannot disagree in a civil manner. The part below is not directed at you.

To all parties involved:

PLEASE KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE INSULTS AND PERSONAL ATTACKS. DEBATE AND DISAGREEMENT ARE OK, BUT ONLY IN A CIVIL MANNER

.

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:

Agreed. Several individuals in this thread are about to take a short break if they cannot disagree in a civil manner. The part below is not directed at you.

To all parties involved:

PLEASE KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE INSULTS AND PERSONAL ATTACKS. DEBATE AND DISAGREEMENT ARE OK, BUT ONLY IN A CIVIL MANNER

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I have no beef in this other then attacks on a member who is qouting a research i have followed. And the book that followed out of it. Besides that it was almost case by case reviewed by peers. Not a guy with an attitude.

I do not swear, not use big lettersfonts , nor try to put anyone down for his sometimes passionate opinion.

I have been wrong and i am proud of it.
Because someone told me. Not opinions but facts, pictures reasons, stuff i did not know was around. Thank Wurger for one.

Therefore will not be silent against phone jockeys with attitudes.
Certainly directed and aimed against newish members.

Snautzer01 said:

.

I have no beef in this other then attacks on a member who is qouting a research i have followed. And the book that followed out of it. Besides that it was almost case by case reviewed by peers. Not a guy with an attitude.

I do not swear, not use big lettersfonts , nor try to put anyone down for his sometimes passionate opinion.

I have been wrong and i am proud of it.
Because someone told me. Not opinions but facts, pictures reasons, stuff i did not know was around. Thank Wurger for one.

Therefore will not be silent against phone jockeys with attitudes.
Certainly directed and aimed against newish members.

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Everyone can "not be silent" in an adult and civil manner. Period.

Anyone doing so the post was not directed at that. Simple as that.

Holtzauge said:

When some amateur claims that Hartmann's total tally is actually 20-30% or later "magnanimously" allows maybe 50% of the 352 victories he is credited with, they better bring something better to the table than what has been presented here which IMHO is built on such an amount of supposition about the veracity of Soviet era archives, what Hartmann's witnesses actually saw and reported, and the structural properties of the late Soviet fighters he fired on and what that would have meant, that it frankly boggles the mind.

This has been tried before and comes up repeatedly against Manfred von Richthofen as well: Always someone new who has "new" proof that the Red Baron over claimed as well. And it's always the same story: "I'm not saying he was actually over claiming or lying! He probably thought his opponent went down! I'm just asking questions!"

Well these "questions" take the honour away from people who are long dead and can no longer defend themselves. And before you engage in such activities you better bring something good and new to the table and not just some feeble supposition.

If Hartmann were alive today I think he would have a very good defamation case in court. And note : I'm not saying that Chen10 is what during the Soviet was referred to as a "useful idiot" or running errands for history revanchists: I'm just asking questions!

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Why do you insult me for no reason? I learnt the hard way that you shouldn't use insults on here even if someone's rude first.

If you think I'm wrong then how do you explain the pictures I provided that show the tables of aircraft losses?

I'll add them here again and I'd be interested to see what your thoughts are on why they say what they do.

Hopefully we can make things more clear

Snautzer01 said:

.

I have no beef in this other then attacks on a member who is qouting a research i have followed. And the book that followed out of it. Besides that it was almost case by case reviewed by peers. Not a guy with an attitude.

I do not swear, not use big lettersfonts , nor try to put anyone down for his sometimes passionate opinion.

I have been wrong and i am proud of it.
Because someone told me. Not opinions but facts, pictures reasons, stuff i did not know was around. Thank Wurger for one.

Therefore will not be silent against phone jockeys with attitudes.
Certainly directed and aimed against newish members.

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Thank you so much for backing me up. I really appreciate your comments and you're clearly very sensible. I think it's best if we just let other people be rude and don't respond back with rudeness. They are risking getting suspended so that's their problem. Once again thank you very much for your support.

pbehn said:

That amused me, the Battle of Britain took place before Barbarossa reclaiming damaged aircraft by the British was on such a scale its very hard to figure out the rate of attrition. Some of the reclamation centres had airfields attached so pilots in damaged planes could land, and refurbished ones take off.

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Could this have resulted in some LW over claiming?

SaparotRob said:

Could this have resulted in some LW over claiming?

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As far as I am concerned, unless a pilot had the destroyed enemy manufacturers plate included with his claim. it was a complete fraud. That is all you need to rebuild it.

CHen10 said:

I think it's best if we just let other people be rude and don't respond back with rudeness.

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This is really the key. Don't let anyone else take you out of your own balance. Don't allow them to make you someone you're not.

CHen10 said:

Well yes, we don't know 110% exactly what happened. But we have lots of data now to get a pretty good idea of what happened. The data is enough to make conclusions which are 90%+ accurate I'd say.

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I wouldn't say that, myself.

We have a vetted USAAF Report 85 and claims files from the rest of the world. I don't know anybody who has the U.S.A. claims files from before Report 85, so I don't know what "adjustments" were made to the original claims. I have a decent file on reported losses by the U.S.A., but I don't have loss files for the rest of the world. Sure, there are a few files with aggregate losses, but no files I have found with losses by date & time, place, and unit. If we had those, someone could spend years comparing the victory claims with the loss files.

But, and here's the rub, many people, including some in here, are under the impression that loss files are somehow more accurate than claims files. I suspect many loss files are not much more accurate than the claims files. If that is the case, what use is it to reconcile the two, especially in favor of the loss files? Answer: not much.

About all it does is give the people who worship loss files a good, warm, fuzzy feeling. It does little for the truth and nothing for the combat records of individual pilots.

I was an electrical engineer and worked on the Navy Standard Missile Program, among others. Somehow, about about 8 of them were unable to be located during an inventory one year, and since they had to be accounted for, they were listed as "Expended in Test." More than 8 years later, they were located in a seemingly-abandoned railroad car outside an ordnance station. When people need to account for something, they find a way to do it.

When we went through the oil embargo in the 1970's I was in the US Air Force. During the oil shortage, the Air Force said we had to have our offices in South Dakota during the summer at 82°F. To enforce this, they put clear plastic boxes around the thermostats. Our solution was to place a small shelf under the thermostat about 15 inches under the thermostat and, when nobody was coming up the hall, we put a candle under the thermostat. Our office was comfortable 70° even though the thermostat was set on 85°. When people need to get around something, they find a way to do it.

If we needed to cool a can of Coke out in the field, we used a shot from a bottle of Freon to cool it. Worked great. If people need to get something done, they find a way to do it.

I'm pretty sure we were not the only people who shaded an inventory, got around a directive, or found an original way to make themselves comfortable. We were "smart," but we almost certainly weren't the only people who were smart. So, I'm not too keen on calling inventories "accurate." I'll just say that when an inventory is done, the boss gets an inventory. It isn't necessarily strictly-related to the state of assets in the warehouse. If it was, people would have a hard time embezzling money, and they don't. People would have a hard time stealing things wholesale from warehouses, and they seemingly don't.

I could go on, but why?

I already covered above a situation whereby someone shot a fuel line out of an enemy fighter, it forced-landed, was recovered later and resumed a flying career. That would never be covered in a loss report, but IS a victory for the guy who shot shot down the fighter. If its NOT a victory, you might as well scrap any discipline asking pilots to forego personal glory for the mission, and let them abandon the mission to pursue damaged planes all the way to the ground so they can destroy the aircraft and kill the pilot. That strategy doesn't do much for accomplishing a mission, which was almost never to go wipe out enemy fighters and pilots. Usually, there was a target selected for its overall importance to the enemy war effort or for importance to our own war effort. There was little reason to fly at all if there was no reasonable mission.

Let's just say, CHen10, that we see things from back then in a different manner and let it go at that.

Unless someone can figure out how to analyze EVERYONE's wartime combat record reasonably, I'll say Erich Hartmann was credited with 352 and let it go at that.

I also like that fact that he was quoted as saying his most important accomplishment was not losing a wingman. That says a lot about Erich in a very positive way.

Cheers.

GregP said:

I also like that fact that he was quoted as saying his most important accomplishment was not losing a wingman. That says a lot about Erich in a very positive way.

Cheers.

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A most excellent stat.

By the way, if everyone doesn't have it or at least access to it, here are my data files from WWII Report 85 and for WWII German claims, all in one file.

The raw data are from each individual victory claim for report 85. The next tab is the score by pilot and theater of operations. The German data are several claims files consolidated into one list and there is a summary following the claims list.

I'm not saying my analysis of Report 85 is 100% correct, but it's very close. These are NOT data files I got from members in this forum. The files I got from members in here are not for passing along to others; they were sent in confidence and will remain that way.

I make no claim that the German claims files are complete; they're just the best I can get. Some German claims data have simply been lost to war damage, but there are about 67,000 claims, give or take a few. and they have been parsed so you can get things like victim counts, at least for the records that HAVE a victim type recorded.

If someone knows of data that have been vetted for the German claims, please share it!

Cheers.

To make it more interesting - is it a victory if the plane hit returns to it's base and is repaired but the pilot has
injuries which are bad enough to stop him ever flying again ?

Depends on whether victories are over airplanes or pilots. What if they kill a pilot and the plane lands itself?

I never considered that aspect before.

More spice for the discussion.

Thanks for sharing those personal memories about human ingenuity and the frailty of inventory records GregP. Not only were they funny, but they were very illustrative as well. Also, thanks for the spreadsheet. Looks like a solid piece of work. And given those observations, I certainly agree with your take that relying solely on loss records as the gospel truth does not hold water.

And while the conclusion from this may at first seem unpalatable to some (as in there is no single source of absolute truth out there), the only thing one can probably do for those cases which are not slam dunk (as in a pilot shooting down an attacker over the home airfield and recovering the coveted manufacturers plate from the smoking wreck) is probably to do a so-called "Meta-analysis", combining together all evidence such as gun-cam film, witness reports, claims, loss records etc. and make a weighted judgement on each individual claim which seems a monumental task.

And this is not only limited to German claims: For example, how are we to judge all USAAF P-51 and P-47 claims when a Bf-109 is surprised by escorts, engages MW-50 & Notleistung which results in heavy smoke from the exhaust, and then does the traditional half-roll pulling into a near vertical dive to get away. If the film from his gun-camera looks convincing, and his teammates testify that the Bf-109 was lit up with a multitude of sparkling API hits and was last seen diving vertically into the overcast over Brunswick, how should (and was?) that judged? A kill or a probable? Just because Hartmann may have mixed up a date, claimed a Yak when only LaGG's or La's were lost that day, does not mean he did not get a kill. In addition, if Hartmann's claims do not show up in Soviet records is that a result of an overclaim by Hartmann or a sign that the loss records are incomplete? Just to take an example, in late WW2 a Tempest pilot claimed a Bf-109E shot down, but records indicate that on that day in that location, the Luftwaffe actually lost a Ta 152H (Sattler). That Ta 152's flight lead (Reschke) claimed that Sattler was not hit by enemy fire but did a CFIT. Confusing? You bet.

And this brings me back to what upset me with the contentions of this thread and why I may have reacted a bit emotionally yesterday: Those people (Hartmann & Richthofen) are long dead and gone but their legacy remains. And if someone wants to whittle away at that and put in questioning their 352, respective 80 victories, they need to provide the solid proof of this. Consequently, it does not fall on those who accept Hartmann's currently accepted victory count to prove that the Soviet records of the time are either incomplete or lacking in veracity. It's the other way around. And so far I find the "evidence" presented in this thread lacking at best.