Rudel's tank kill count is correct?

[Reluctant Poster]

Bookmarked for later reading, thanks for the link. The "informative" is a hopeful thang.

THE diesel tank engine of WWII. Easily the most produced tank engine of all time. I believe the current Russian MBTs use a derivative of this design

V-2 diesel engine – Tank and AFV News

tankandafvnews.com

Surprisingly sophisticated. Very much constructed like an aero engine, aluminum block, double overhead cams.

 

[pbehn]

In my opinion there are too many references on this thread to Rudels political beliefs. At the time were his claims important to anyone? In the BoB enemy losses were important information, if you knew your enemy's losses accurately, you knew how the battle was going, and the LW overclaimed just as the RAF did by approximately 2 to 1. Rudel made claims for 500 tanks destroyed if the actual figure was 250 that puts him in the "normal for claims" category for air to air combat. On his reports what scope was there for damaged, possibly destroyed etc and who at the time cared? There was no chance of Rudel making any significant impact on the course of the war or any battle, Russia was producing tanks much faster than they could be destroyed. Rudel got his knights cross with golden oakleaves swords and diamonds when Germany was desperate for heroes. The award made no difference to the war at all, but seems he must be discredited, for the same reasons he was awarded it.

 

[ww2restorer]

There cannot be enough references to Rudel's political beliefs, he was a dedicated Nazi, even after the war. His record has always been in question because of his close ties with Hitler and Nazism. At his funeral there were over 200 dedicated Nazi believers who gave the Nazi salute. A better man to honour would be Anton Korol, a JU87G ace with a record more genuine.

 

[GrauGeist]

There was also Rudolf Ruffler, who is credited with 80 tanks out of 200+ missions in his Hs129B.

He did not survive the war, however.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

THE diesel tank engine of WWII. Easily the most produced tank engine of all time. I believe the current Russian MBTs use a derivative of this design

V-2 diesel engine – Tank and AFV News

tankandafvnews.com

Surprisingly sophisticated. Very much constructed like an aero engine, aluminum block, double overhead cams.

I know of this one through reading about the T-34, and yes, one hell of a power-plant. 500 hp driving wide treads helped the T-34 get through the slog.

 

[Denniss]

Thanks to this thread I found the error on en wiki and fixed it, 8/2018 IP vandal had his air claims massively blown up which was only partially corrected later.
Does anyone know how many a/c were claimed by his rear gunner? Are his a/c kills A2A or are they mixed with ground kills?

 

[GrauGeist]

I beleive (and this is going by memory) Rudel had 11 aerial victories to his personal credit, two while flying the Ju87 and nine while while flying the Fw190.

The high aerial victory tally generally attributed to him are those of his rear gunners.

 

[Jagdflieger]

I beleive (and this is going by memory) Rudel had 11 aerial victories to his personal credit, two while flying the Ju87 and nine while while flying the Fw190.

The high aerial victory tally generally attributed to him are those of his rear gunners.

Probably you got mixed up - 9 aerial victories with the Fw190 (....The high aerial victory tally generally attributed to him are those of his rear gunners....)

 

[Ovod]

THE diesel tank engine of WWII. Easily the most produced tank engine of all time. I believe the current Russian MBTs use a derivative of this design

V-2 diesel engine – Tank and AFV News

tankandafvnews.com

Surprisingly sophisticated. Very much constructed like an aero engine, aluminum block, double overhead cams.

It looks very much like an aero engine because in all likelyhood it is based upon one - most likely the Hispano Suiza V12 unit. Many US tanks were also powered by aero engines.

 

[Vincenzo]

Probably you got mixed up - 9 aerial victories with the Fw190 (....The high aerial victory tally generally attributed to him are those of his rear gunners....)

He was referring to the 51 aerial victories wrote early on the thread

 

[GregP]

There cannot be enough references to Rudel's political beliefs, he was a dedicated Nazi, even after the war. His record has always been in question because of his close ties with Hitler and Nazism. At his funeral there were over 200 dedicated Nazi believers who gave the Nazi salute. A better man to honour would be Anton Korol, a JU87G ace with a record more genuine.

His record was in question due to the sheer volume of claims, not because he was an ardent Nazi. Being of a certain political belief does not make one automatically a liar or take away skill, however much we may disagree with that belief. The man you identified as "a better man to honour" was ALSO a Nazi. If Rudel's political beliefs made him not one to honor then, logically, wouldn't Korol's beliefs make him one to not honor also?

As it happens, in Germany, after the war started, if you didn't join the Nazi party, you had a very hard time finding food and other basic necessities. That from acquaintances who were there. So, ALL pilots joined the party, as did all soldiers and almost all civilians. The first thing Hitler did was to disarm the populace. It's tough to overthrow a government by charging machine guns emplacements and tanks with pitchforks and mules.

None of the above makes me like or agree with the Nazi party. But, the fact of someone being in the Nazi party didn't make them suddenly "bad" people. Rudel was, rather obviously, a true believer in the Nazis, not someone who joined out of necessity. He was still a remarkable pilot who succeeded in an aircraft that was considered obsolete by almost everyone who saw it or operated it.

I'm not so sure those who were attacked by it had the luxury of thinking about how ironic it was to be attacked by an obsolete aircraft. I bet nobody on the Bismark thought the Swordfish that sank them were obsolete biplanes, either.

 

[GrauGeist]

Probably you got mixed up - 9 aerial victories with the Fw190 (....The high aerial victory tally generally attributed to him are those of his rear gunners....)

Like I said:
9 victories while flying the Fw190
2 victories while flying the Ju87
11 aerial victories to his personal score.

The overall aerial victories (51) usually attributed to him, are mostly to the credit of his rear-gunners.

So: 51 overall, minus 11 personal, leaves 40 victories to rear-gunners.

Hope this helps clarify any confusion...

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

As it happens, in Germany, after the war started, if you didn't join the Nazi party, you had a very hard time finding food and other basic necessities. That from acquaintances who were there. So, ALL pilots joined the party, as did all soldiers and almost all civilians. The first thing Hitler did was to disarm the populace. It's tough to overthrow a government by charging machine guns emplacements and tanks with pitchforks and mules.

Greg, everything I've read (Shirer and Goldhagen each go into this in some detail) indicates that no more than 10-12% of Germany's 80 million citizens joined the NaZi party.

 

[Greg Boeser]

Yet with the Gleichschaltung laws, if you owned a business, you had to have a Nazi on your board, all social organizations other than those supported by the Nazi Party were banned. Churches were regulated by the Reichsbischof, who was appointed by Hitler.
The Luftwaffe was considered the most modern, therefore the most Nazi of the armed services. And there were many true believers. Read Heinz Knocke, I Flew for the Fuehrer.

 

[Jagdflieger]

Greg, everything I've read (Shirer and Goldhagen each go into this in some detail) indicates that no more than 10-12% of Germany's 80 million citizens joined the NaZi party.

Germany - Deutschland when the Nazi's took over power in 1933 actually had only a population of 66 million, and the NSDAP had 850,000 members
Greater Germany - Grossdeutschland, included Sudeten, Rest-Czechoslovakia and Austria from 1939 onward accounted for 80 million and 5,400,000 NSDAP members
By wars-end the NSDAP membership had risen to almost 9,000,000.
Whereby according to German historians and researchers around 5 million were "economic inspired" NSDAP members.

But anyway Rudel was known to be a staunch supporter of the NAZI ideology - and that makes him a NAZI indeed, especially since all the issues became publicly known after the war
and him still being an open "admirer&supporter" for non-repented NSDAP members and post war Neo-Nazi organizations.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Germany - Deutschland when the Nazi's took over power in 1933 actually had only a population of 66 million, and the NSDAP had 850,000 members
Greater Germany - Grossdeutschland, included Sudeten, Rest-Czechoslovakia and Austria from 1939 onward accounted for 80 million and 5,400,000 NSDAP members
By wars-end the NSDAP membership had risen to almost 9,000,000.
Whereby according to German historians and researchers around 5 million were "economic inspired" NSDAP members.

But anyway Rudel was known to be a staunch supporter of the NAZI ideology - and that makes him a NAZI indeed, especially since all the issues became publicly known after the war
and him still being an open "admirer&supporter" for non-repented NSDAP members and post war Neo-Nazi organizations.

Right, citizen participation in the party-- for whatever reasons -- was not as widespread as the post I was answering implied. Thanks for fleshing out my briefer reply.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Yet with the Gleichschaltung laws, if you owned a business, you had to have a Nazi on your board, all social organizations other than those supported by the Nazi Party were banned. Churches were regulated by the Reichsbischof, who was appointed by Hitler.

Sure-- I was simply replying to a specific claim that I believe is not accurate.

 

[Jagdflieger]

Right, citizen participation in the party-- for whatever reasons -- was not as widespread as the post I was answering implied. Thanks for fleshing out my briefer reply.

That depends, since far more citizens were "deployed" into the sub-NSDAP formations, which were only partially voluntary, e.g. the NSFK etc. etc,
Whilst HJ, BDM and RAD were compulsory - (around 15 million members) also e.g. to keep ones job as a teacher membership in the NSDAP was compulsory.

E.g. my aunt, got her stipendiary for University cancelled, since she refused to join any Nazi organization.

Basically around half the population were "involved" in NSDAP organizations.
How many of those were actually "committed" to the cause is something we will probably never find out.

The claim that being in the Luftwaffe meant automatically a membership in the NSDAP isn't correct, since IIRC until the failed assassination onto Hitler, Wehrmacht-members were
not even allowed to join any political party. And my father and his two brothers were Luftwaffe members, and a lot of my family served in the Wehrmacht, but none had been a
NSDAP member.

 

[GrauGeist]

Many years ago, I had a co-worker who was a former SS panzergrenadier.

He had no interest in joining the military and was planning on going to university to study engineering, but when Germany was building up it's military, he decided to join the Kreigsmarine.
However, he was fairly athletic, over 6 foot tall, blone hair and blue eyes. Add to that, his father was a successful business owner in a small town, so he ended up joining the SS after being "encouraged" by local party officials.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

That depends, since far more citizens were "deployed" into the sub-NSDAP formations, which were only partially voluntary, e.g. the NSFK etc. etc,
Whilst HJ, BDM and RAD were compulsory - (around 15 million members) also e.g. to keep ones job as a teacher membership in the NSDAP was compulsory.

E.g. my aunt, got her stipendiary for University cancelled, since she refused to join any Nazi organization.

Basically around half the population were "involved" in NSDAP organizations.
How many of those were actually "committed" to the cause is something we will probably never find out.

The claim that being in the Luftwaffe meant automatically a membership in the NSDAP isn't correct, since IIRC until the failed assassination onto Hitler, Wehrmacht-members were
not even allowed to join any political party. And my father and his two brothers were Luftwaffe members, and a lot of my family served in the Wehrmacht, but none had been a
NSDAP member.

When I wrote "participation in the Party", I meant enrolling in the party, not participating in party-supported functions but lacking a party number.