Hartmann victories almost exclusively fighters. Why?

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T

Tinku

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Mar 27, 2017
I was surprised to see that the vast majority of Erich Hartmann's victory claims were for LaGG 3s, P-39, and La-5s, with a sprinkling of Yak-9s, P-51s etc.

Only very few Il-2 and even fewer twin engined aircraft were claimed.

Is this representative for the "mix" of Soviet aircraft that the average German fighter pilot in Hartmann's unit would encounter? Or was Hartmann for some reason concentrating specially on fighters, and letting other pilots in his formation concentrate on attack aircraft / bombers?

On a related note: I also know from various Luftwaffe pilot memoires that fighter missions over the Eastern Front usually involves small formations. Does anyone have any info, or would wager an estimate, of what the average formation size was? Rotte / Schwarm or bigger?
 
Hartmann may indeed have avoided the IL-2, but bear in mind most of his victories were at high altitude, whereas the IL-2 flew a lot lower down. Certainly he avoided dog-fighting and took few risks, a quick bounce from out of the sun if poss and gone..His Staffel comrades may have resented this according to at least one expert on Eastern Front combat..
I wrote a piece about the 'cult of acedom' in the Luftwaffe and there's a couple of paragraphs dealing specifically with Hartmann towards the end of the article

FalkeEins - the Luftwaffe blog: notes on the cult of the 'fighter ace' in the Luftwaffe -why the Luftwaffe failed (3)
 
15 IL-2s , his first victory was a IL-2.
About 10 other non'fighter aircraft, ( PE-2, Bostons, etc.)

If his list had a lot of Pe-2s and Bostons on it then some would accuse him of cherry picking.
 
Hartmann seemed to approach his tactics from a longevity view. I flew fighters for long enough to know much more than 90 degrees of turn in a fur ball was an open invitation to get whacked.

I approached furballs with caution and would pick off spitters all day long due to their low SA.

Cheers,
Biff
 
The same ratios were noted of the German aces in North Africa. The Desert Air Force always escorted their bombers with a lot of fighters. There weren't a lot of Germans, so they would dive in, pick off Tail-end Charlie and zoom up to try again. Easy pickin's. Getting to the bombers was a lot harder, and unless the formation broke up, were fairly safe from interceptors.
 
For us noobs, what's a "spitter" ?
 
Tieleader said:
For us noobs, what's a "spitter" ?
Click to expand...

A spitter is someone/s exiting a developed fight. They are focused on survival, in a defensive crouch, and concentrating on what they are leaving / can easily see and not on an adversary who is more difficult to see and not "in" their fight. They also leave the fight in an almost predictable manner.

From their point of view they have to survive the gators closest to their canoe and are focused on that. The transition from the gators they can see to the ones they can't or have yet to see is their most vulnerable time both mentally and physically. And that is the time and place to bounce, tap them, and or employ weapons.

Cheers,
Biff
 
It may depend on how somebody viewed the war.
Was it a long war of attrition where maximizing the enemy losses while keeping your own low was a viable goal or were a few individual battles of such importance that they justified high losses in order to win? Losses that would take a long time, if ever, to recover from.
 
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I've read that a few times as well - most recently in James "Stocky" Edwards' book. They got the impression the jagdflieger were 'doing their own thing' apart from the rest of the German war effort in the desert.
 
Sounds like Eight AF Fighter Command in the early days, flying useless sweeps at 30,000 ft while the unescorted heavies were getting there butts handed to them.
 
As far as i know there s not a good biography of Hartmann . Through studing the available sources my thoughts, which very well may be wrong, about Hartmann are
He had glider training from pre war days. He had early war lw training. He did not like the military way of life
He was very good day, good weather , single engine pilot.
He was good tactician and very disciplined while on air.
He was extremely ambitious. When Rall left jg52 for jg11 , told hartmann " well, now you will become number 1, as you wish."
In my opinion, without doubt, choose when would engage the enemy and where. It may sounds reasonable, but it depends on the criteria he used. I tend to believe that personnal safety and personnal succeses had an important place in his mind.. His 15 il2 claims look very low number. Lipfert had 39 il 2s among his 203 claims. Brendel 90 among his 189 claims
It appears he was not very popular within jg52. He certainly was not a particularly good leader like Barkhorn
He was not a coward. He asked to return in combat , after his 300th victory and the ban he recieved. Overclaiming or not, he kept flying until the last day of the war. Others were waiting the end of war ,idle, in jv44. He stayed with his unit,after the surrender , and his story in soviet prison is very known.
I find difficult to accept that he was a lier, but i do believe that he had a personnal agenda .
I consider him very very good fighter pilot, but certailnly not the best.in fact i would not include him in the top 10 german fighter pilots
 
Thanks for clearing that up!
 
I regard Hartmann, Barkhorn, and Rall as the "best of the best."

If any one of them chose to engage YOU, you were in grave danger of loss of life. The same can be said for many pilots. true ... but not regarding Hartmann as one of the best when he very clearly was at the top of the pecking order seem ludicrous. Still, these are individual opinions, and dedalos' opinion is as valid as mine is. Perhaps I need to go read more about Erich, even though I have read a lot about him. It gives me food for thought, in any case.

I tend to believe that if someone survives the first 90 days of WWII air combat, they develop an "agenda" that amounts to a feeling for which ways to attack that maximize your chances of success while minimizing your chances of being killed. Later it was called "situational awareness." I think it generally marked your change in status from "rookie" to "veteran" when you were making deliberate moves in combat instead of wildly going after ONE airplane (target fixation) or being so scared that you were basically just defensive or flying wing without looking around for potential attackers.

If Rall (or anyone else) had not had a veteran's "agenda," he (they) would likely not have survived the war.

I doubt anyone had "situational awareness," a much later-than-WWII term, when they were new to aerial combat. I doubt anyone who survived to get 30+ victories LACKED situational awareness.

Just my 2-cents worth. Cheers.
 

Rall and Barkhorn could have exceeded 352 kills , if not for injuries and were better leaders(to be fair both had pre war officer training)
Nowotny, Graf, and even Philip could also had achieved higher scores if not transfered from the east
Baer, Ruddorfer, Hackl, Jonsten,Shroer,Muncheberg had amazing careers on all german fronts, with high scores against western allies too
Marseille was probably the most talented of them all (but also a poor officer and leader)
Josef Priller of JG26, was amazing ace and even better leader. Buhligen,Mayer, Glunz had also very long amazing careers against the western alleis . And the list can continue.
Hartmann had a great career because he was lucky not to be injured despite several belly landings , he did not leave eastern front and it appears that he followed a certain agenda. He certainly was among the top 20 personalities pf the Jagdwaffe but that s it
Tactics was extremely important for survival, but if the mission was to protect the ground troops you should find a way,at least a part of the force, to get to the bombers. Lipfert describes in his book how ,quite often, would dive through the escort yaks, ignoring them ,to attack the Il2s . Obviously towards the end of the war ,that was more and more difficult. It s also interesting that Lipfert speak with admiration for the Hartmann s score(they did flew togethr for a short time) without expressing any doubt
 

It struck me that Richthofen has almost the same approach, I highlighted the ones as above
 
Hi Dedalos. As usual, we seem look at things from a different perspective. I wonder if our perspectives might be very much closer if I were to read the same books you obviously have. I agree that all the ones you named above were very good pilots, even great pilots. Interesting to read your thoughts on it, and I find nothing in it I disagree with.

Interestingly, I have read from our side that Thomas McGuire was a terrible leader, if a great fighter pilot ... and I have read exactly the opposite ... that he was a great leader as well as a great fighter pilot. It makes me wonder how the people who wrote the books got their information. From my own viewpoint, I have no way whatsoever to find out which one was closer to the truth.

I have an Fw 190 book by Heinz Nowarra that some Germans have told me is rubbish. They recommend another one. I have difficulty in finding out how they know this, but have no way to refute or agree with them. I use it as a reference of last resort.

It makes reading on WWII aviation a voyage of discovery, even 72 years later, and a great topic for conversation. Perhaps we can PM some source material titles back and forth. Anyway, thank you for the reply that will give me some time to go back, read, and reflect on these pilots.

Cheers.
 
Thanks to all, very interesting replies.

It was precisely the difference in the ratio of Il2-claims vs. total claims between Hartmann and Lipfert that caught my attention.

They had an overlap in front, Jagdgruppe, timeline etc., so should have faced roughly the same "mix" of Soviet fighters, attack aircraft, bombers etc. But their claims structure is very different. That is what got me wondering if the reason could be a different approach to tactics, risk aversion etc.

Personally I don't think think it happened by chance, but rather that it was a consequence of the two pilots' different tactical approach. Lipfert must have more consciously sought Il-2s, whereas targeting Il-2s must not have been so in-line with Hartmann's very calculated tactics of waiting for an opportunity, and then striking fast.

Of course we will never know for sure, but the discussion itself is already fun and enriching.
 
Of course we will never know for sure, but the discussion itself is already fun and enriching.[/QUOTE]
Agreed!
 
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