Pilots aiming at cockpits?

[dedalos]

I should add that it was probably the just the Germans that called him "The Black Devil" The Soviets probably wouldn't give an enemy pilot that nickname. What the Soviets would have learnt after the war was Hartmann's 352 score since he was in Soviet captivity and this would create his formidable reputation amongst the Soviets and this probably caused them to put him on trial after finding out about his 352 claim

But since they knew he was a liar why to go after him? In that way they only made his claims valid. We lost their time with a fraud

I think we should continue this discussion because it's interesting, but on another thread because we've completely gone off topic from this thread

You murder a character based on assumptions at best.

 

[dedalos]

Not overclaimed by 70% his accuracy was more around 55% Yes he was fantastic his hit accuracy was probably 99% and his assumptions were understandable

I should have been more clear about his 317th kill. He definitely did not fly that day. Luftwaffe sources say this. So in my opinion it was a mistype but it could also be one he made up. I personally don't believe he made it up but I can see why people think he did. That part was my bad writing.

So you say that LW system was reliable and triple checked him , but still accepted one claim he made up without flying!!!!

 

[CHen10]

So your conclusion is. The soviets archives were cancelling hartman claims, but their judges put him on trial anyway because LW falsy credit him with 352. They assumed it was correct despite the fact their archives supposedly were canceling hartman s claims??

But you say that he claimed a victory in a day that did not fly!!!

And as we all know these yaks were flying tanks...

The Soviets put him on trial for things like harming the Soviet economy as a result of destroying aircraft, clearly this trial was an excuse to just sentence a German pilot. The Russian Federation even pardoned him for his crimes posthumously and admitted he never committed a crime. So they probably did look at their archives and conclude that he was no different from other high scoring pilots. It's just that at the time they were desperate to convict a German pilot who told them he destroyed so many of their aircraft.

I never said he claimed a victory on a day he never flew. It was probably mistyped and so happened on another day.

Yaks weren't flying tanks they just appeared critically damaged when that wasn't always the case.

 

[CHen10]

But since they knew he was a liar why to go after him? In that way they only made his claims valid. We lost their time with a fraud

You murder a character based on assumptions at best.

At the time they never knew he had overclaims and genuinely thought it was 352 kills. They didn't care about the accuracy of his claims they just wanted to sentence him based on anything. This is why pardoned him because they admitted the trial was a farce. They admitted that basically they just wanted to convict him because he was credited with so many. Hartmann is not a liar and I'm not calling him one either. His conclusions were made honestly and genuinely.

I've only provided facts

 

[Peter Gunn]

I'm not sure if I'm smarter of lost brain cells reading this thread. I will say it takes A LOT of guts (or narcissism) to pass judgement on the actions of combat veterans that are in combat.

It also takes a lot of hutzpah to call them out if:

A. You're doing it from the comfort of your home living in the free world they fought for.
B. Not understanding what that man may have just gone through or had been going through.
C. Having no frame of reference of what it's like being in actual combat, on land sea or air, i.e. not a combat veteran.

I've read some interesting takes here on warfare and I think I can safely say to some cupcakes in this thread:

It's WAR, ugly things happen and the men who fight it (land sea and air) are changed forever by it, so passing judgment on them is rather bad form, comprendre?

 

[CHen10]

So you say that LW system was reliable and triple checked him , but still accepted one claim he made up without flying!!!!

I just checked and that victory is not accepted by some sources. Bernd Barbas doesn't list it as a victory. The Luftwaffe probably spotted it and discounted it but the original mistake still crops up sometimes in Hartmann's list

 

[CHen10]

I'm not sure if I'm smarter of lost brain cells reading this thread. I will say it takes A LOT of guts (or narcissism) to pass judgement on the actions of combat veterans that are in combat.

It also takes a lot of hutzpah to call them out if:

A. You're doing it from the comfort of your home living in the free world they fought for.
B. Not understanding what that man may have just gone through or had been going through.
C. Having no frame of reference of what it's like being in actual combat, on land sea or air, i.e. not a combat veteran.

I've read some interesting takes here on warfare and I think I can safely say to some cupcakes in this thread:

It's WAR, ugly things happen and the men who fight it (land sea and air) are changed forever by it, so passing judgment on them is rather bad form, comprendre?

I've already admitted I went too far with what I said about Beurling. However I can still judge someone even though I haven't experienced what they went through. Yes war is really bad, but like I mentioned before about serial killers, should we never criticise serial killers if we never experienced the abuse they did? Is it bad to criticise serial killers because they suffered abuse? We don't know what they went through so we can't judge serial killers. It's this ridiculous idea that if you're a victim you can't also be a bad person. So I apologise for my previous comments on Beurling. I'm still gonna criticise and judge him though.

 

[SaparotRob]

It also takes a lot of Chutzpah to call them out if:

Fixed it.

 

[33k in the air]

If I was at 20,000ft doing 350mph closing in on a He111 I'd aim for the pilot and crew because they sat in the largest part of the plane, center mass.

I'd aim for the engines. Aiming for the fuselage may or may not take out something important. If you knock out an engine, the aircraft is definitely in trouble. It may not go down right away, but it is significantly wounded and thus easier to pick off later if necessary.

The foregoing assumes a stern approach. If the approach is head on, then yes, aiming center mass fuselage makes a lot of sense as it stands a good chance of taking out the flight crew.

 

[SaparotRob]

I'd spray and pray.

 

[Clayton Magnet]

I'd aim for the engines. Aiming for the fuselage may or may not take out something important. If you knock out an engine, the aircraft is definitely in trouble. It may not go down right away, but it is significantly wounded and thus easier to pick off later if necessary.

The foregoing assumes a stern approach. If the approach is head on, then yes, aiming center mass fuselage makes a lot of sense as it stands a good chance of taking out the flight crew.

WWI pilots said you had to hit "Metal or Meat" if you wanted to destroy the enemy aircraft.
Basically, in the age of fabric skinned fuselages and wings, a rifle caliber bullet would pass right through, and cause minimal damage. If you were to make a kill, you had to hit it in either the engine, metal, or the pilot, meat.

 

[special ed]

I have mentioned in another thread about the only WWI pilot I have met. He was at the VA facility Denver and told us the reason he was in a wheelchair was because someone stole his stove lid. The new, in 1918, Fokker D.VII tactic was to dive at you head on, firing, then pull up sharply and from below let you fly through his bullets. That tactic was because the D.VII had enough power to hang a few seconds. The answer was to find a stove lid from the old wood burning kitchen stoves and sit on it while flying. As they were in short supply, the pilots who had one slept with it under his pillow. Stove lid theft in the barracks was the problem, and the veteran told us he had too much to drink and someone stole his stove lid. Shortly after, a D.VII encounter left him with a bullet dead center in his spine. He said his greatest flying feat was flying back and landing without using the rudder. He had been paralyzed since he was 18 and we met him in 1960, a ward of the Veterans Admin as he had no family.

 

[OldGeezer]

I'll put this out here, from "Luftwaffe Fighter Ace," the autobiographical memoir by Norbert Hanning. Describing one engagement: "Our twelve FW-190A-6s had been sent up against a force of some 250 American B-17 bombers escorted by dozens of P-51 Mustang fighters. And the result? One fighter landed undamaged with engine trouble, two returned damaged - Heino's and mine - five made emergency or crash landings, their pilots wounded or dying, and four pilots baled out; two being shot and killed in their parachutes by enemy fighters... One of the two pilots who took to his parachute and lived to tell the tale later described what had happened to him: 'My machine was hit and caught fire as I flew through the bomber formation. I baled out but didn't open my chute until I had fallen well clear of everything that was going on. I finally landed in a potato field. I quickly got out of my chute and cleared off as fast as I could. Then I saw a Schwarm of Mustangs coming down in a line. I dived between two furrows of potatoes and made myself as small as possible. The Mustangs strafed my parachute one after the other and shot it to shreds. Fortunately they didn't spot me.'"

 

[GregP]

Explain this

"These records also support many German Aces. Barkhorn had about 80% accuracy over Hungary while Lipfert had an outstanding 90+%. This was because Lipfert usually stayed behind to see what would happen to his victims."

So yeah Luftwaffe claims are accurate and that's why Soviet sources support them when it comes to these two pilots for example

"These records" do not constitute a reference. You are stating your opinion unless and until you have a credible primary reference.

 

[CHen10]

"These records" do not constitute a reference. You are stating your opinion unless and until you have a credible primary reference.

There's a book called Verified Victories by Gabor Horváth which analyses German claims over Hungary from 1944-45. He uses information from Soviet archives to confirm if there's an overclaim or victory. Soviet archives are a primary source. It's solid proof. In the book it's really clear how accurate Soviet records are. In some cases, the author finds the registration of an aircraft in the Soviet archives, and then he goes to the actual crash site, finds the wreckage, and finds the exact same serial number as in the records. So Soviet records are incredibly reliable, in fact I would say their detail is excellent. Hartmann has about 30% accuracy over Hungary. That's a fact. Primary sources in the form of Soviet archives prove this, and they are 100% reliable because we can see the crash mentioned in the archives and then find the wreckage in real life.

Assuming that Soviet records are unreliable is ridiculous. If that's the case, how do we back up the archives with evidence in real life? If the Soviet records were unreliable, then absolutely no one could ever talk about the Soviet Air Force since all of it would be made up! Hartmann's real score is about 190 not 352. If we count a damaged aircraft as a victory, then he would have like 340 kills, but of course a damaged aircraft is not a destroyed aircraft.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Assuming that Soviet records are unreliable is ridiculous.

Regarding them as accurate strikes me as unwise.

 

[Greg Boeser]

Here we go again.
A nation is going to record their own losses fairly accurately. Unless the records are lost/destroyed. But there are multiple layers of reporting, so a complete loss of records is unlikely.

 

[GregP]

Of course the USA and UK for example, weren't communist dictatorships but the argument you make is that the Soviets didn't want to upset the government, so for example could we assume that the Americans deliberately didn't mention about many of their losses? Maybe they were trying to make themselves sound better, and so if they lost a plane there's a high chance they wouldn't document it. If this is true, then every single aviation book which analyses victories and losses is completely wrong. For example, Genda's Blade.

28 May 1945
N1K2-Js vs P-47N over Kyushu
N1K2s claim 4 P-47s while P-47s claim 7 N1K2s. Up until now I only found a damaged P-47 and four N1K2s lost but if loss records are unreliable then maybe four P-47s were shot down and they just weren't documented.

5 July 1945
N1K2s were credited with 1 P-51 and even though I can't find a corresponding loss, we can assume that it's real because people lied to government about how many aircraft were being lost?

Of course the USA wasn't ruled by a dictator, but we could say that maybe American military personnel wanted to make themselves sound better for pride so they deliberately left out losses in their reports

The point is that simply just saying one country was reliable and another wasn't is quite silly and I believe I know why people like to say this for Hartmann.

People are often very impressed with Hartmann's "352" because it's a huge number and it sounds cool for someone to be that good. They don't like to hear the facts because it ruins this image of the pilot they have in their head.

Genda's Blade is not a primary reference. Primary references would be mission departure records and mission debrief records, preferably from both sides. Someone's collected memoirs are not a reference. They are, instead, his or her opinion. The Japanese were quite serious about NOT keeping aerial victory records for individual scores. About all we have for them are individual memoirs, so Japanese aerial victory lists are ALL suspect.

I have a very nice aviation library. The only things that might be construed as references for victories instead of opinions are books by Frank Olynyk, Christopher Shores and Clive Williams, and the like. And they do not address Axis victories at all. What I have seen for the Axis side are claims, not vetted lists. I have posted my claims list in Microsoft Excel in this forum on several occasions, one in a sticky thread. I already did all the work to get them into a readable format for all to see.

I DO have some references for the aircraft themselves, but few for aerial victories. Books like "General View of Japanese Aircraft in the Pacific War" from 1946 (Nippon Gubyoki No Zenbo) and "Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War" from 1970 (Francillon) are gold mines for the specifications on Japanese Military aircraft of WWII but they don't mention aerial victories.

I'll not get into the accuracy of US and British records versus Soviet records with you or anyone else. Opinions vary. Having interfaced with several Russians, a couple of which were formerly VVS MiG pilots, I can say I'm not overly impressed with the accuracy of Soviet records. You opinion may vary, and that's OK.

Look, guy, I'm not saying your posts are wrong. I'm saying that nobody in here other than personal friends will take your word for outlandish claims that smack of personal bias or moral outrage without VERY good references that specifically back up the claims. And, if they exist, then they would have come up by now, considering I have been around this forum for more than 15 years. So, citing a reference that only you can find or only you have ever seen will not very likely work.

We all know there was overclaiming, very much done in good faith. There were a few "glory hounds," to be sure, but they are the exception, not the rule. I also have a great deal of skepticism about victories until we can agree on exactly what a victory was.

Suppose someone, OK ... maybe a German, got their fuel line shot out and force-landed in a field unharmed. Later, a Luftwaffe mechanic was sent over and fixed it. Said pilot then climbed in and flew back to base. He was 1) actually shot out of the fight and 2) went down, but 3) the aircraft was repaired and flew again with the same pilot. As far as I'm concerned the guy who shot him down got a victory. But, that "victory" would never make the list of admitted losses. So, an armchair quarterback 80 years later makes the case that it was not a victory since the loss never showed up on the German loss list. Poppycock. It WAS a victory for the guy who shot him out of the fight.

Or maybe he should have gone down and strafed the airplane and pilot so it was a total loss and a dead pilot? If he did, did he enjoy it so as to be considered "disgusting?" And, if he did, then he abandoned his mission for personal glory of the kill? Does that make him a good pilot or one who abandoned his mission in the heat of combat? This can turn into a real can of worms without a lot of difficulty in doing so.

I say he got a victory and move on. Also, many German records were lost in bombing attacks during the war and we do NOT have complete German records accounting for everything that happened, good or bad.

Since I seem to be rambling, I'll stop.

Cheers.

 

[CHen10]

Regarding them as accurate strikes me as unwise.

I think they are reliable because Horvath has found several wreckages of aircraft and matched their serial numbers with records in the Soviet archives

 

[CHen10]

Genda's Blade is not a primary reference. Primary references would be mission departure records and mission debrief records, preferably from both sides. Someone's collected memoirs are not a reference. They are, instead, his or her opinion. The Japanese were quite serious about NOT keeping aerial victory records for individual scores. About all we have for them are individual memoirs, so Japanese aerial victory lists are ALL suspect.

I have a very nice aviation library. The only things that might be construed as references for victories instead of opinions are books by Frank Olynyk, Christopher Shores and Clive Williams, and the like. And they do not address Axis victories at all. What I have seen for the Axis side are claims, not vetted lists. I have posted my claims list in Microsoft Excel in this forum on several occasions, one in a sticky thread. I already did all the work to get them into a readable format for all to see.

I DO have some references for the aircraft themselves, but few for aerial victories. Books like "General View of Japanese Aircraft in the Pacific War" from 1946 (Nippon Gubyoki No Zenbo) and "Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War" from 1970 (Francillon) are gold mines for the specifications on Japanese Military aircraft of WWII but they don't mention aerial victories.

I'll not get into the accuracy of US and British records versus Soviet records with you or anyone else. Opinions vary. Having interfaced with several Russians, a couple of which were formerly VVS MiG pilots, I can say I'm not overly impressed with the accuracy of Soviet records. You opinion may vary, and that's OK.

Look, guy, I'm not saying your posts are wrong. I'm saying that nobody in here other than personal friends will take your word for outlandish claims that smack of personal bias or moral outrage without VERY good references that specifically back up the claims. And, if they exist, then they would have come up by now, considering I have been around this forum for more than 15 years. So, citing a reference that only you can find or only you have ever seen will not very likely work.

We all know there was overclaiming, very much done in good faith. There were a few "glory hounds," to be sure, but they are the exception, not the rule. I also have a great deal of skepticism about victories until we can agree on exactly what a victory was.

Suppose someone, OK ... maybe a German, got their fuel line shot out and force-landed in a field unharmed. Later, a Luftwaffe mechanic was sent over and fixed it. Said pilot then climbed in and flew back to base. He was 1) actually shot out of the fight and 2) went down, but 3) the aircraft was repaired and flew again with the same pilot. As far as I'm concerned the guy who shot him down got a victory. But, that "victory" would never make the list of admitted losses. So, an armchair quarterback 80 years later makes the case that it was not a victory since the loss never showed up on the German loss list. Poppycock. It WAS a victory for the guy who shot him out of the fight.

Or maybe he should have gone down and strafed the airplane and pilot so it was a total loss and a dead pilot? If he did, did he enjoy it so as to be considered "disgusting?" And, if he did, then he abandoned his mission for personal glory of the kill? Does that make him a good pilot or one who abandoned his mission in the heat of combat? This can turn into a real can of worms without a lot of difficulty in doing so.

I say he got a victory and move on. Also, many German records were lost in bombing attacks during the war and we do NOT have complete German records accounting for everything that happened, good or bad.

Since I seem to be rambling, I'll stop.

Cheers.

Genda's Blade includes primary sources so it is a primary source.

A damaged aircraft isn't a destroyed aircraft

I think they are reliable because Horvath has found several wreckages of aircraft and matched their serial numbers with records in the Soviet archives