Lucky13
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Would probably have been credited as Damaged or Probable in some places me thinks....
Erich Hartmann and his victories and overclaims over Hungary (1 Viewer)
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- #122
If it was written off after being crippled and downed then it's a victory.
Finding the wreckage 80 years later is just a nice bonus which proves reliability
I am personally not counting a victory if the aircraft was downed but repaired afterwards. The Soviet report clearly states if it was repaired after.
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- #123
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Militaries see it differently.
If the combatant was taken out of action, regardless of disposition, then the primary objective has been met that day.
special ed
2nd Lieutenant
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- May 13, 2018
Didn't Gunter Raul say he was shot down five times? In fact, he credits the last time with saving his life as he was in hospital when Germany surrendered. So, he has accounted for five victories in various logs.
All these aren't ''kills'' then by definition.Spitfire P7350 repaired 80 years ago at No.1 Civilian Repair Unit | RAF Memorial Flight Club
Header image: This is not actually Spitfire P7350, but 234 Sqn Spitfire Mk 1 ‘AZ-V’, which made a wheels-up landing at RAF St Eval on 9th October 1940. P7350 would have suffered similar damage after being shot down and force-landed, wheels-up, on 25th October 1940. In last month’s newsletter we...memorialflightclub.com
If it was shot down/force landed by an enemy pilot, yes.
Now if the pilot breaks off contact and returns to base there is likely no way the other pilot would know, so then probably not.
I think it all depends. If a plane is hit and seem losing altitude with smoke trailing that would be enough evidence for a kill.
No offense, but that is nothing more than your personal opinion, which from a military and fighter pilots point of view does not mean much. Not trying to be an ass, but it is what it is.
Did another pilot beat another pilot in air to air combat? Yes or no?
Main thing is, was the pilot repairable ?
GregP
Major
Verified Victories seems like it would be an interesting read, and I may well buy it and read it, but it is written from what I genuinely believe is a flawed premise.
It is written assuming that if a victory were to be real, and thus verifiable, then there is a corresponding loss report from the Soviet side. I doubt this premise in the extreme, having conversed with 2 former Soviet VVS pilots about the completeness of their records.
I also am not OK with saying a pilot only has a victory if the aircraft is completely destroyed. From my perspective, if a pilot shoots an armed enemy down, then he gets a credit whether or not the armed enemy is completely destroyed because that pilot caused that enemy to be removed from the day's mission / fight. I would also track individual victories and damaged victories. Also, generally, I like the Soviet practice of counting shared victories.
So, in an ideal world, a pilots records would consist of the number of missions flown, number that resulted in engagement with the enemy, number of individual victories, number of shared victories, number of damaged, and pilot awards. In the data records, they should also include the aircraft type flown on the mission and the victim type downed or damaged, location, height, and time of victory. None of that data is hard to get when the mission had been just flown but, for some reason, it is not generally saved. It SHOULD be.
You assume we have questions this book will answer and that may or may not be the case, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to see and peruse the book. From the few pages posted above, it was rather obviously written by a person with a bias against German WWII pilots with big scores. A bias which is that openly displayed does not bode well for objective writing / conclusions. Having said that, I have not yet read the book that sentence may or may not be very relevant with regard to Verified Victories. The only way to tell for sure is read it and see if it generates a desire to look at some of the references cited in the book.
Cheers.
It is written assuming that if a victory were to be real, and thus verifiable, then there is a corresponding loss report from the Soviet side. I doubt this premise in the extreme, having conversed with 2 former Soviet VVS pilots about the completeness of their records.
I also am not OK with saying a pilot only has a victory if the aircraft is completely destroyed. From my perspective, if a pilot shoots an armed enemy down, then he gets a credit whether or not the armed enemy is completely destroyed because that pilot caused that enemy to be removed from the day's mission / fight. I would also track individual victories and damaged victories. Also, generally, I like the Soviet practice of counting shared victories.
So, in an ideal world, a pilots records would consist of the number of missions flown, number that resulted in engagement with the enemy, number of individual victories, number of shared victories, number of damaged, and pilot awards. In the data records, they should also include the aircraft type flown on the mission and the victim type downed or damaged, location, height, and time of victory. None of that data is hard to get when the mission had been just flown but, for some reason, it is not generally saved. It SHOULD be.
You assume we have questions this book will answer and that may or may not be the case, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to see and peruse the book. From the few pages posted above, it was rather obviously written by a person with a bias against German WWII pilots with big scores. A bias which is that openly displayed does not bode well for objective writing / conclusions. Having said that, I have not yet read the book that sentence may or may not be very relevant with regard to Verified Victories. The only way to tell for sure is read it and see if it generates a desire to look at some of the references cited in the book.
Cheers.
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- #130
Quite often yes. If the plane is repaired, the pilot would usually be wounded but recover quickly and return to combat.
Was that pilot beaten by another pilot in air to air combat, meaning one was victorious over the other?
Yes or no?
Answer the question…
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- #132
Sakai Saburo was heavily wounded on 7 August 1942 with his eye being hit and he had to fly back to Rabaul with serious injuries and a damaged aircraft. The SBD Dauntless that hit Sakai was credited with a victory even though Sakai landed back at base with a damaged aircraft and wounds. The aircraft was repaired and Sakai only returned to combat in 1944. Would this be a victory for the SBD? They were credited with it. In my opinion no it's not but other people would say it is.
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- #133
Yes that pilot was beaten. One was victorious over another. I said this previously.
Then you agree that it was a kill.
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- #135
I said this in an earlier post:
The definition of a victory can be argued and debated but the author of Verified Victories as well as myself and many others consider this to be a victory:
Someone inflicts damage to an aircraft. As a result, the aircraft crashes or crash lands and is written off. The aircraft is destroyed and no longer available for use. We never need to know the serial numbers to confirm a victory with this definition. The serial numbers just show reliability.
This definition can be considered strict but logically it makes sense. If there's a claim, there has to be a corresponding loss where the aircraft is completely destroyed.
There is another view that people have:
Someone inflicts damage to an aircraft. As a result the aircraft crash lands or returns to base and is repaired. Afterwards the aircraft flies again in combat just like before.
With this, people would say that this is a victory because in the dogfight the person shot up another plane and forced the pilot to retreat with his damaged aircraft. In this encounter the pilot who caused the damage was the winner of the fight since he forced his opponent to give up. So people say this victory in the fight is just as good as destroying an enemy aircraft.
If someone believes that forcing your opponent to give up because you damaged their aircraft, counts as a victory regardless of whether or not the aircraft is destroyed, then this person would consider Hartmann to have no overclaims.
We have different definitions of what a victory is. So as a result we will have different opinions about a pilot's true score. All of our opinions are valid.
Yes, the aircraft was damaged and knocked out of the fight. The SBD pilot was victorious.
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- #137
No I don't. Being victorious over a pilot doesn't necessarily mean a victory in my opinion.
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- #138
If you think being victorious over a pilot regardless of whether or not the aircraft is destroyed counts as a victory then that's fine. I disagree and think that an aircraft has to be destroyed to count.
I often agree that one pilot beat another but this doesn't count as a victory to me if the plane wasn't destroyed
I often agree that one pilot beat another but this doesn't count as a victory to me if the plane wasn't destroyed
GregP
Major
How do you know the Dauntless pilot was credited with it? There is no after-action report that says Sakai's airplane was last seen flying away in a damaged state and I claim that as a victory. There is no way any US pilot could know who was flying what Japanese airplane. It may well have been credited as damaged and it is possible it was submitted as a victory, but we would have no real way of knowing for sure. So, how do you make that claim in here? Not dinging you; just curious about it.
As an aside, I met Saburo Sakai at Champlin Fighter Museum in Mesa, Arizona, U.S.A. in the 1980s and have a signed print that he signed when I bought it. He has just been for a ride in Bill Hane's P-51D Mustang and was in a very good mood. He never ever thought he'd get to fly in a WWII fighter again, let alone a U.S. fighter, and was delighted with it.
Cool guy. My print shows him in an A6M over Mount Fuji.
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