Erich Hartmann - how did his comrades regard him?

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Becouse Hartmann I fought side by side in the summer of 480 BC at the Hot Gates. Pokryshkin asked for a gift of 'earth and water', he promised peace, there was this big fight, never trusted him after that.

Just kidding of course. I would have to see proof that those 100 planes went missing over the black sea. Most of Hartmann's claim are easy to check. notice I didn't say all. =)
 
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Ok, have Hartmann's wingmen been identified and questioned? I am sure he had 1-3 steady guys he would trust with his arse to cover him over the years.
I'd bet being one of the top dogs he had someone pretty sharp looking after his 6.

I'd think anyone overclaiming would be shunned by his peers. All 352 kills really all shot down? Doubt it. But the number has got to be way up there to allow him to stand proud among his peers. I say you're still a bad SOB for even damaging 300 planes or being in a position to shoot at 200
 

Now if you read my messages more carefully you'll find out that Pokryshkin didn't claim that he shot down 100 a/c over Black Sea but that some of the 100+ planes he shot down were those he shot down while flying alone above Black Sea and he didn't bother wrote combat reports on these cases because he had no witnesses to confirm his claims and so didn't have any chance to get them accepted. And the problem with many Hartmann's claims is that it SEEMS to be that there were not corresponding losses on Soviet side.

To clarify, certain extent of overclaiming was the norm, it got worse during bigger fight with many planes from several units participated. That goes to all AFs but it was a bigger problem in some than in others. But in the end its up to how realistically pilots could see their own actions. One problem is that a good fighter pilot should have strong self-confidence and strong belief on his own abilities. And the accuracy in one's claims did not necessarily correspond with his skills as a fighter pilot. There were excellent fighter pilots with accurate claims as Barkhorn, Rall, Lipfert and Marseille but also excellent fighter pilots whose claim accuracy wasn't as good as those mentioned. Even at least some of those who seemed to have made clearly fraudelent claims were excellent fighter pilots and formation leaders.

Juha
 
The problem with the fraudulent overclaiming on the side of the Luftwaffe must be related to the reward system. It became established that at certain numbers of victories certain "gongs" would be awarded.
There are many cases of clusters of claims appearing as a pilot approaches such a landmark. This could be entirely coincidental and does not convict anybody of anything but it does raise suspicion.
The German attitude to scoring is also reflected in the points system (not the number of victories) that was operated.
On the allied side (Western,I am ignorant of Soviet practices) there were not dozens of pilots claiming 40,80,100+ victories.
Evidence at least from RAF pilots suggests that personal competition was somewhat frowned upon and certainly not encouraged.
Cheers
Steve
 
Agreed, but do you think I would let that one past the keeper. Personally, I think both men were exceptional pilots, and quitre decent human beings to boot.
 
Hello Stona
there might well be some connection with the German reward system but IMHO the question is more complicated. There was pressure from the members of one's unit to achieve round figures, 10th, 50th 75th, 100th etc kill. One can also think a fighter unit as a pack of alpha males with whom the number of kills is very important, but not the only one, status symbol. Some are simply more vain than others etc, there can be multiple explanation to fraudulent overclaiming but of course the culture and values played a role in that.

Juha
 

Hi Juha,I agree. The reward system was just a manifestation of the culture that existed within Luftwaffe units. Your pack metaphor is probably accurate. It stems from an earlier era. When Von Richthofen was a national hero in Germany the British were still agonising over whether to publicly name their successful pilots under intense pressure from the press. The R.F.C. was very much against it. A different culture.
This culture did not exist on the allied side and,at least in the RAF,was actively discouraged. Air fighting was a cooperative activity. Take a look at the tactics devised by U.S.pilots to counter the agile Japanese fighters. You can't do a Thach weave on your own!
Cheers
Steve
 
I know from my limited sampling of conversations with Rall, Galland and Steinhoff that Hartmann was held in serious respect,

Fighter pilots of all nationalities are brutal on over claiming, self agrandizement, boasting, and losing wingmen/leaders.

I know overclaiming existed but have enough historical perspective the understand hitting an opponent very hard and having to break w/o seeing a wing fall off or a ball of fire - making the call a judgment call.

I know that the USAAF 8th AF Victory Credits Board was pretty hard on claims that were not verified by wingman or film - hence many 'Probable's' which really didn't exist as far as I know in LW awards.

I also know from my own research in a smapling of perhaps 25 major air battles between the LW and 8th AF that the ration of actual LW losses in the category of 100% destroyed as recorded by LW records ranged in the 85-100 percent match BUT that discounts losses that the Bomb groups inflicted! And further many credits awarded for a film confirmation of a crash landing did Not account for the resourcefulness of LW repair capabilities. That was one point of significant deviation between Credit and Claim.
 
The Luftwaffe never had an efficient salvage and repair system comparable to say the British Civilian Repair Units. Figures published in the Strategic Bombing Survey for aircraft production INCLUDED aircraft repaired after serious damage.
It was another case of too little,too late. It wasn't until March 1944 that the following message was decrypted (ULTRA)

The extraordinarily difficult situation in the air defence of the homeland recquires with all emphasis:
1. The speedy recovery of all fighter and heavy fighter aircraft and their immediate return for repairs.
2. The unrestricted employment of salvage personnel for salvage tasks. Subordinate units are expressly forbidden to employ them for any other purpose.
3. That spare parts be acquired by repair and salvage units by removal from aircraft worth salvaging only in case of absolute necessity.
4. That repair of aircraft in your area be energetically speeded up in order to increase seviceability and to relieve supply.

Aircraft were still expected to be returned,by rail,to major facilities or manufacturers. Much of the above is wishful thinking.
By way of example on August 14th 1944 Luftflotte 3 was down to 75 operational fighters. By early September most of its units were back on German airfields in complete disarray having abandoned vast amounts of materiel,spares,supplies and aircraft.


Cheers
Steve
 
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Juha,

I understood perfectly what you said. Pokryshkin at some point said he shot down 100+ planes over the Black Sea. He was alone, no witnesses, so he didn't bother making a claim for them. I get it. I say BS, unless some record of those missing 100+ planes surfaces.

Hartmann on the otherhand, was almost never alone when he shot down enemy a/c.

Now, how did the russians mark there a/c as lost? only if it didn't come back? What if the plane made it back but was too damaged to fly again? was it still marked as a writeoff? russian records seem to swing wildly from from extreme to the other.

Stona,
the most productive year for a/c manufature in Germany was 1944... planes they had.
 
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Ratsel said:
Stona,
the most productive year for a/c manufature in Germany was 1944... planes they had.
Click to expand...

It doesn't make the slightest difference how many aircraft you produce if the enemy is destroying them at a higher rate. You will still run out of aircraft.
It is a credit to German production that as late as September 1944 they still had 1600 single engined fighters (less than the 1850 of July). Only 70% were serviceable compared with 85% for July.
Considering the way that Luftwaffe losses escalated from mid 1942 onwards (between January and June 1944 they lost nearly 3000 fighters!) it's amazing they could field any at all.
Of course the signal I reproduced above might not reflect the desperation of the Luftwaffe to "increase seviceability and to relieve supply". You read it how you like. They were short of aircraft in 1944. Luftflotte 3 could field 75 operational fighters,some of its units had lost 200% of their strength in one month (August 1944). Infact they were short of aircraft throughout the entire war but that's another story.
Cheers
Steve
 
I was looking at the Luftwaffe Strength Report for 12.12.1944 for ten different JG units (West Front) they had around 1500 a/c on hand with 1000 ready to fly. with about 1200 pilots ready to go. I guess agree to disagree. agreed?
 
Your figures are okay. It's less than a few months previously. They were by now failing to replace aircraft as quickly as they were lost.
In 1944 the German's much vaunted aircraft production total was 36,000,a mere 8,000 more than the Japanese in the same period. The numerical increase over 1943 was an impressive 55.9% but as almost all this production was fighters the actual increase in airframe weight was only 23.9%. It still kept them fighting. To put this in perspective Milch's forecast for 1945 was 80,000 aircraft.
According to a document of 3/11/44,after "Big Week" Galland claimed he only had 250 fighters to meet the next American onslaught and demanded "fighters,fighters,nothing but fighters" from the industrialists and managers present at a meeting chaired by Karl-Otto Sauer (Speer's deputy and head of the "fighter staff").
Cheers
Steve
As an interesting aside the percentage of aircraft lost to non combat causes actually fell in the final months. Some cynics suggest that this was because the allies were shooting the new aircraft down before the inexperienced pilots had a chance to crash them!
 
Hello Drgondog
very true but in the most famous case of fraudulent claiming, exposed by other pilots, at Geswader level the only punishment was dispersing the schwarm, all fraudulent claims staying in force. Now, the Schwarm leader died a few days later in an accident during a test fly and we don't know was it accident, suicide or sabotage, but other tree continued their career without any black marks, one of them becoming a RK traeger later on.

One other fairly well known case, which SEEMS to had at least some truth in it, again others in the Gruppe got enough leaned hard on X's wingman who eventually confessed ( after being unable to found wrecks of X's latest claims which he had confirmed when forced to fly a sortie with an another officer who demanded that the wingman should show the wrecks to him) that X had coerced him to confirm also some false claims. Again, higher up the case was hush-hushed at higher level and somewhat later X got transfer to another unit. But X being a good leader and an excellent fighter pilot at least I don't know was the transfer because of the claim scandal or simply that someone in OKL decided that X was a right man to his new job.

On those enemy planes which were hit and then crashed but later repaired. I have always think that they are real victories even if they don't fulfil kill criterions of at least some AFs.

Juha
 

Hello Ratsel
Now you clearly don't understand. Once again Pokryshkin claimed that altogether he shot down 100+ planes and SOME OF THOSE were shot down while he flew alone above Black Sea and he didn't bother wrote combat reports on these cases because he had no witnesses to confirm his claims and so didn't have any chance to get them accepted. So he NEVER claimed that he shot down 100+ a/c over Black Sea. he What is so difficult to understand in this.

And if the plane got back even if written off later it didn't fulfil confirmation ctiterions of LW and many other AFs, which demanded that the destruction of the victim was observed by the withness. Soviet docus are not perfect but that goes to docus of all nations. How you explain that Hartmann's claims seems to hit sometimes into those holes in Soviet docus but Barkhorn's, Rall's and Lipfert's not? All flew in same Geschwader.

Juha
 

Names please, names.What are you afraid of?
 
aight.. if he didn't claim them, then he didn't shoot them down. goes for anybody who did the same. see what I posted elsewhere on how Luftwaffe pilots made their claims. agree to disagree. Thanks Juha.
 
The 4./JG 27 schwarm of cheats was composed of Vogel, Sawallisch, Bendert and Stigler.
They aroused suspicion with their high rate of claiming at a time when the British had retreated to El Alamein and RAF activity was very low. Experienced men like Sinner and Boerngen already had their doubts.They were caught when another experienced hand,"Fifi" Stahlschmitt of 2./JG 27,saw them strafing sand dunes only to return and make claims.
Steve

Edit. Bendert ended up with the RK.
 
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