I remember a passage from a book about the first missions of the 8th USAAF over France where the British liaison officer receives the list of the board gunners' kills, looks over it briefly and says: "Congratulations, you have shot down the entire JG26, twice..." Every time I read about how many planes a pilot has shot down, this passage comes to mind.
gunners claims are EXTREMELY different: firstly every gun position that could see the fighter that actually gets hit is going to swear it's THEIR fire that brought down the bogie-so we got a whole squadron or group's worth of multiple gun positions saying they got the kill. Also, unlike these gun positions, the fighter can 'chase' it's target. In addition many gunners were inexperienced/scared/burned out from the combat. And of course, to help maintain morale in the unit, Intel usually didn't look TOO closely at claims to give the impression that they were 'giving as good as they got'. For actual fighter pilots I think stress and inexperience/unfamiliarity contribute to over-claiming (The RAF during the BOB, as well as the LW operating over unfriendly territory; The 'nonstop offensive' claims by the RAF; the early days of the 8th AF's fighter groups); along with that is when multiple units are involved (multiple pilots claiming the same targets without knowing it) make it too hard to watch your target AND watch your tail/guard your wingie. That being said some pilots were actually VERY accurate in their claims (Helmut Lipfert from JG52 had nearly a 90+% claim accuracy, at least over Hungary);
@@ulfricsombrage exactly the point we're making. Gunner claims are part wishful thinking and part morale Boost Nonetheless, if multiple squadrons and groups attack a bomber stream, you will have "several" pilots claim the same bomber, but at a lower level
*Minor correction* At 08:54 you'll notice that I gave Hartmann +2 credited kills, putting him to 354 instead of the official 352. (The irony is not lost on me) If you run the calculation at 10:32, you'll notice that the accidental +2 has no real impact on the %.
How you cold veryfied Jagdwaffe Ost Front claism, when we do not have even correct number of West Allies air combat casualties (including severely damaged)? I have problems with RAF primary files. You just cant get correct number of combat losses.
A short comparison of RAF and German after action reports on a single raid: 25 September 1940, 58 He 111 from KG 55 with long range fighter escort of 52 Bf 110 from ZG 26 (report also mentions 51 Me 109 from JG 53. Perhaps they turned back due to range issues. "The Bf 109 only had around 10 - 15 minutes of fuel for combat over southern England before having to turn back and head for France.") The raid splits up as it reaches the English coast, with 3 diversionary targets. The RAF faced the main force of 110 aircraft on its return leg from Bristol. RAF claim 19 kills and 14 damaged ; German losses for that raid on Filton Factory, Bristol? 4 He 111 and 2 Me 110 were shot down. The 1st He 111 was shot down by Anti-aircraft fire. All 5 crew parachute out and survive. An element Human error can be seen in the 2nd of the He 111 to be shot down, 4 different RAF fighters (238 Squadron) claimed to have shot it down south of Bath. Only the badly injured pilot Walter Shearer survived. 3rd downed plane was Me 110, Pilot survived, his gunner was already dead. Another He 111 crashed into a house on the coast near Bournemouth after being shot out of the sky by 609 Squadron. 1 survivor, wireless operator Karl Shrapps parachuted to safety. Then 609 Squadron chased the last He 111 to be shot down over Poole harbour. Crew survive with one badly injured. Source : Spitfire vs Heinkel 111 over England - Must See RARE Actual 1940 Footage by Wingleader Films (here on RU-vid) He has published dozens of 200 page archives following research at Kew.
The British have always claimed that the German fliers number of kills are highly overrated (except for Josef Priller, who kept meticulous notes). But look at the number of missions per kill for Richard Bong (40 kills, about 200 missions), Hartman (352 kills, about 1400 missions). Bong had one kill about each fifth mission, Harman had a kill about every fourth mission. Unfortunately you cannot make comparisons for Allied fighters flying over Europe in 1944-1945, since in order to get a fair number of kills, there have to be a fair number of enemy aircraft available to shoot down, and reading biographies of Allied pilots, there were very few Axis aircraft encountered during their fighter sweeps from mid 1944 on. This is why, about that time, P-47's were assigned to ground attack almost exclusively. If there had been a real fight for air superiority in 1944 we would have had every available aircraft trying to kill German planes. But it is easy to take pot-shots at someones record, and after the war the Allies determined that the number of aircraft claimed shot down by Allied pilots far exceeded German records of aircraft lost in combat or unknown. This is quite possible, asking an over adrenaline pumped pilot to take calm rational notes on what is going on while people are trying to kill them is asking a bit much. See also on The Chieftian about Allied claims of tanks destroyed by their aircraft and actual German losses, the ratios are very high. Once again in general I do not believe it is dishonesty, just trying to track a chaotic situation.
Yes, absolutely. For an even starker illustration of this you can look at the Vietnam War, where North Vietnam produced significantly more fighter aces than the US or South Vietnam. Some might see this as evidence of the inherent superiority of Homo Sovieticus, but what was probably going on is that no North Vietnamese (or Soviet or Chinese) fighter pilot who took off on a combat sortie had a shortage of US aircraft to tangle with, while US pilots often went their whole tour without seeing a single enemy plane.
Well, on Eastern Front Germans were waging war against "Soviet subhumans" so it was expected for every German soldier (tanker, airman ...) to destroy hordes of enemies. Later, after the WW2, when Cold War started, West was buying into German propaganda because it suited them. In WW3 their "superior weapons and training" would do the same. Residue of this remains even now in Ukraine : Western "experts" were unpleasantly surprised when Leo 2 and Bradley didn't just scatter Russian soldiers.
@@MisdirectedSashaAlso, the Vietnamese Air Force was primarily operating fighter aircraft on bomber interceptor missions, while the USAF, USN and USMC were mostly focused on tactical bombing and attack missions.
Main issue about high kill counts is a bit more subtle, it showed that many nations' airforce like the germans, and the Japanese keep their pilots out and refuse to rotate them out to teach the next batch of pilots, so the it created a heavy top down imbalance in terms of skills and experience, and as shown through out the war, and this was not a good solution in the long term
That's organizational, doctrinal problem. Western Allied air forces rotated pilots and crews after a tour with many becoming either the nucleus of a new unit being organized or being sent to training establishments. I believe in the US at least, flight training hours were increased throughout the war so the new pilots joining a unit later in the war had much more experience than many early war veterans. I don't know if the Soviets rotated their pilots.
By rotating RAF and USAAF pilots out they would be sent to pass on their experiences to the new pilots, which gave them more of a chance when they went into action. This, as we know, was not done by the Germans and the Japanese. Which meant their new pilots had a much lower chance of surviving long enough to gain the experience they needed.
@@bigblue6917 it's not quite that simple when speaking of countries other than Germany, Japan and USSR, Finland for example didn't really rotate veterans either, but that didn't mean the new pilots were defenseless, I recall Hans "Hasse" Wind, arguably FiAF's best fighter pilot (he was credited with second-most kills after Ilmari Juutilainen) for example never lost a wingman, put a rookie on the wing of a super ace like that for a handful of missions, rotate the next rookie in & rinse and repeat & chances are those rookies will survive longer than if they were taught by that man in a classroom and/or flying on his wing in ancient biplane fighters at Luonetjärvi, and Hasse actually WAS pulled off the front at one point to become an instructor, but was sent back to the front in the spring 1944.
This is a limited view as well. The reason the pilots were not rotated was because they were needed because they had a massive manpower problem. Additionally the German doctrine wanted short wars because they knew that given the geostrategic position Germany will always lose a war of attrition when isolated from the global markets. To say it is not a good solution is wrong. It was the only solution to a problem that by default led to defeat. Rotating pilots would have led to a faster defeat. That Britain and USA could rotate their pilots was a luxury available to them due to their manpower advantage and a very limited frontlines where they could choose how much pressure they want to build up. What would have happened if the US and UK had paused their air campaign to recuperate their pilot pool? It would have prolonged the war, nothing else. You would not have 1000 bomber raids by Germany all of a sudden because those bombers were all elsewhere. Inversely germany would have lost air superiority over the Reich and on the front lines faster and more deceisively No, the lack of rotation is a symptom of other problems that forced this choice.
I read a book on the Polish 303 Squadron in the RAF. The British didn't trust the Poles to fly fighters for a long time, despite their experience from Poland and France, and when they did finally get fighters, the British didn't believe the Polish kill claims. So much so that a British Major accompanied them on a sortie but when he arrived back to base, he said something like "By God, they are actually doing it!".
The RAF equivalent to a Major would be a Squadron Leader. And it took a lot of political pressure to let the Polish airmen in the UK to have a combat role. In the end they had the highest kill/loss ratio of the BoB.
Poland was the whipping boy of Europe for over a century. Marie Curie was mocked because she was Polish, until she proved her theories by discovering Radium and Polonium She then silenced the critics by being awarded a second Nobel Prize in science. Finally she made supporters of her critics by being credited with saving about 100,000 lives in WWI through her actions.
Not surprising at all, if you think about it. You have to be racist to colonize foreign people. The British built an empire justified by racism. So the fact that many British people were racist towards Polish people shouldn't be surprising to anyone. The fact this racism was unfounded shouldn't surprise anyone, either.
@@burnttoast111Racism isn’t just a European thing either. Anyone who thinks so hasn’t visited Africa or Asia and knows nothing of the Chinese, Indian, Mongol, Ottoman (Muslim) & Bantu (Zulu) etc etc empires.
I recall reading one line of thought towards claims, not sure if US or UK or some other air force, was multiple friendlies shooting at the same enemy - either in a furball, or the first pilot hits the enemy, it trails smoke heading off (pilot unable to follow to confirm) and a second pilot sees same plane later, still trailing smoke but not crashing, and fires upon it, at which point there's now two pilots thinking they got the kill.
@@MilitaryAviationHistoryGerman pilots did not share kills in WW2. The pilot who got the last rounds into the enemy got credited with the kill. The allies split kills amongst pilots
During the Battle of Britain Three British pilots each claimed to have shot down a German Bomber. They were each credited with a third of a kill as it was the same bomber.
@@copter2000 Cameras, you had cameras synchronized with the weaponry on the planes and clocks synchronized with the cameras . So you had it documented.
Easy to believe. You read enough accounts from WWII about one side's kill claims, but when someone actually digs into the other side's records of losses for an event... The numbers often don't line up. It's happened with all sides. During a wartime brief, Emperor Hirohito was briefed by his military that carrier USS Saratoga was sunk. But Hirohito remarked something like: "Isn't this the third time that ship was sunk?"
I remember watching an old British TV show called Piece of Cake (based on a novel of the same name) that had an episode about overclaiming. After the fictional squadron has gun cameras fitted to its aircraft for the first time, it is revealed that three of them claimed to have destroyed the same German fighter after they all shot at it during the same sortie. I suspect this probably happened a lot and not just with aircraft. Imagine a unit of tanks rolls into the field of fire of a battery of anti-tank guns, loses one or two vehicles, then pops smoke and retreats. Each AT gun crew probably remembers pointing their gun at a tank, shooting, then seeing the tank explode or brew up. Unless they are able to immediately secure the battlefield and go count the destroyed tanks, they're probably going to claim a kill each.
Further, the top American ace in Europe Francis Gabreski (28 kills) completed his combat tour, but went on one last mission, crashed and became a POW. The number one US Marine ace, Gregory Boyington (26 kills), completed his combat tour, but went on one last mission. Shot down and POW. To shoot down large numbers of planes, you must fly large numbers of missions.
actually there are some german pilots like Leutnant Werner Schroer. wich flew a comparable amount of missions to the western allies and still got more confirmed kills. Schroer for example flew 197 missions (114 kills). Gabreski flew 165 missions
Important: Many German aces were shot down on multiple occasions! They then simply kept on flying until they were killed, wounded, captured or the war ended.
Not necessarily. Germans did try to "shield" most famous pilots as much as possible. Example are Galland and Nowotny. Only at the end of the war, when things went south, every man was thrown into combat regardless.
@@aleksazunjic9672okay and? You don’t say not necessarily unless the statement they have said is incorrect. They’re correct many German aces were shot down on multiple occasions survived and went back to flying. They may take breaks in between but many didnt take to long to being out of the sky
My father flew in 332 RAF - as wrote several books about the war - he claimed that once, when they escorted some American bombers, the bomber shoot down 4 German planes, but that was inflated to 16 when he read the report - as every bomber that shot at the ones that went down, was credited with a kill !!! And when he though he had a kill - 2 canon hits on a 190 - parts of the wing and most of one of the vertical tail wing came off + smoke from the engine - but he could not verify it, as the next German fighter was on his tail !! And that somehow seemed to focus his attention !!! He described dogfights, as a terrible mess, with airplane parts raining down on you, and from being in the center af the maelstrom - you would suddenly find your self - absolutely alone - and have no idea where every one was ?? But of course when 2 planes flying more than 600 km/hour pass each other head on, they will part with a speed of over 1200 km/hours, that's 20 km a minut !! just 15 seconds is 5 km. And you had to look at the fuel gage most of the time as well !! check the engine temp, open cooling valves (On the mustang that was automatic, but not on the mark V spitfire). No wonder that kill ratios were often off.
The topic about the poor reliability of Hartmann''s claims is not new. In 2005 the magazine Le Fana de l'Aviation published the article 'Hartmann contesté. 352 victories, ou 80?' written by author Dmítriy Khazanov (who is known as a Luftwaffe enthusiast in Russia, so no bias towards the Soviet side in this case). Khazanov cited multiple cases when Hartmann's claims exceed the total Soviet losses for that day, not to speak for the claims of other JG 52 pilots.
Lets not forget that Hartmann had over 1400 sorties starting from mid 1942 to end of war in 1945. Which is more than Barkhorn's 1100 who started flying in 1940. That alone is an impressive feat. Out of the 1400, supposedly of about 800 of them saw combat with enemy aviation, when you start to divide number of sorties by number of kills, Hartmann has a roughly 4 sorties per kill, which is on the very low end of the spectrum compared to Germany's other super aces (200+ claimed kills). Furthermore I have seen a cross examination of parts Hartmann's claims in 1943-early 1944, of which about 50-70 was comfirmed if I recall correctly. Later from 1944-45 German records were more diffcult to survive so it would be hard to examine but I think Hartmann's capabilities have already been proven enough to dispute doubts of his skills as a pilot even if his claims in the later stages becomes muddy. Personally I have been convinced about Hartmann's position as the top ace pilot, he wasn't super human, he was simply lucky enough to survive the war to the end while flying an extraordinary number of sorties in a target rich environment which also saw very frequent sorties due to the nature of aviation combat on the Eastern Front compared to West or Pacific (low altitude, close to front lines, short sortie times equals more sorties per day). It is that simple when you think about it, no need of accusation of propaganda or bad faith inflation etc.
One of Hartmann's benefits as a fighter pilot, beside long-term flyer and "target rich" environment, was that he flew as a wing-man of other "ace pilots", who missed targets, which he could bring down by his own marksmanship.
I don't see how you can say you think his 352 confirmed kills are accurate considering they could hardly verify any of them. Am I missing something? Did this video not just show how inaccurate claims for Hartmann were? You can't confirm a kill without confirming it. That's the hard part about every giving a "most kills" award to just about anyone because it's extremely hard to verify kills. From infantry to tanks to aircraft, it's very difficult and is full of over claims.
@adamg7984 This video is based on Hungarian research, which relied on Soviet sources. Do you really believe Soviet bookkeeping was that accurate? Just one example: you are fixing aircraft by salvaging parts from several other planes equals x lost, but y recovered.
@@adamg7984 This video showed a certain period during 1944. It doesn't cover all of Hartmann's activities. I have seen cross references of Hartmann's claims compared to Soviet record of losses, obviously not all but if I remember correctly at least 50+ can be matched from 1943 to early 1944. This was compiled by many other aviation enthusiasts years ago, so I don't have the sources with me. You don't have to take my word for it, i am just saying personally I am convinced Hartmann is not a fraud like some people claims. Furthermore, I am not stating that all his 352 kill number are to be taken at face value. I don't know if you have read what I wrote, but I said he had an insane sortie rate in just 3 years, in a target rich environment flying multiple missions per day given the nature of Eastern front Aviation combat being at low altitude and close to front lines revolving around CAS. It would be harder to believe that Hartmann didn't have a high kill count considering these factors. Hartmann would have had 1 kill per 4 sorties, that is much lower than ALOT of other super aces of Germany like Marseille, Nowotny, Backhorn, Rall etc and the list goes on.
Günther Rall mentioned that in the latter part of the war, there were always plenty of targets for German pilots. Many American fighters flew several sorties without seeing a German fighter. This made it easier for skilled German pilots to get high scores.
The cross examination of loss and operational records always tells a more accurate and telling picture of what happened. While there are cheats, most file their claims in good faith. Alas combat is confusing, and accurate recollection and testimony should be treated with some skepticism. An excellent and informative video, Chris.
Many years ago, I read an account about some kill claims made by Marseilles in North Africa. On the day in question, he went up and after landing claimed 2 kills, the problem with his claims, the ground crew logged 60 rounds of ammo expended which was about the number expected to be used when clearing the guns after takeoff, further the British showed no loss that day for the aircraft type claimed by Marseilles.
@@brucenorman8904 What's that, "clearing the guns"??? Nonsense in a fighter plane. You forget completely the competition between the pilots. This story is nonsense......
Hartmann said himself, the Russians usually flew straight ahead. The IL2’s also relied on the tail gunner to defend them, and Hartmann said he wasn’t worried about these tail gunners, as they were poor shots with a small calibre gun. He also said, he wouldn’t have survived the Western Front.
IMHO if Hartmann really says so, it is an empty fanfarronade. At least 2 out of 14 times he was shot down he fell by the Il-2 Shturmovik. The first time on 7 November 1942, when he fell victim of the rear gunner (both his Bf.109 and the Il-2 shot down each other), and then again on 20 August 1943 by the Il-2 Shturmovik pilot Pavel Yevdokimov. And excluding the only time he was downed by an Western fighter (308 FS USAAF's P-51 Mustang ace Robert Goebel) over Rumania on 24 June 1944, all the remaining 13 times fell by Soviet airmen, not Western ones.
@@ElrusoargentinoErm.. Who claims he was ever shot down? AFAIK he was never shot down, but had 16 forced landing incidents due to either debris damage from his victims, or mechanical failure.
I remember seeing a claim @20 years ago that after the battle of the Coral sea it was found that many reports of attacks on air craft carriers were coral reefs with both American and Japanese pilots making the same misidentification.
I agree that "Verified Victories" is an excellent book, read it a couple of years ago. I was quite surprised at the disparity of claim accuracy between different pilots of JG52. I will try to find the link but there was an excellent article by a Russian author who examined the aerial battles over the Kuban in October-November 1943 and he came to similar conclusions as the Horvats - that Gerhardt Barkhorn's claim accuracy was consistently high.
I love your dedication and clear love for all things aviation. It's refreshing to see someone willing to do the research and hard work to make videos like this.
Overclaiming may be a thing for everyone, but NO ONE took it to the levels of Imperial Japan. The survivors of the Marianas Turkey Shoot claimed several ships sunk, while there was actually only one relatively minor hit scored on one ship, BB South Dakota
I just read a book about the 1943 Japanese air raids over Australias Northern Territory and the RAAF/RAF Spitfire wing defending it. The Japanese pilots supposedly overclaimed by a huge number, claiming over 100 spitfires shot down, when the real number was 20 something. The Allied pilots also overclaimed, though not to the same extent, claiming about 3:1(confirmed by Japanese records) of all types.
The Soviets were close - they claimed more Finnish aircrafts shoot down during single day than whole Finnish Air Force had... When in reality they shoot down two od three aircrafts this day. Soviet propaganda just didn't have any limit.
I am staring to have some issues with the claim that the German pilots flew until they died. I have read several cases of pilots making a "time out" on an Ergänzungsgruppe, for a time of course. Some, the older ones, being taken out of combat and promoted to a desk job. KG pilots rotating a lot to the IV Gruppe of their Geschwaders too
Yes, there were many cases where a fatigued Expert was given a desk job or a training unit assignment. However, the Luftwaffe did not have a policy on that and these cases were more of an exception to the rule.
Well there's several factors, 1) German pilots weren't rotated out, so they were in the plane until they died. Which means if they somehow managed not to die, they'd spend a lot more time being able to wrack up kills. 2) How many german planes WERE THERE to shoot down, vs how many american, british, Russian. The reality is if there's less german planes in the air, the kill count at the end of the war is going to be different.
True, but it depended on the theater. The aces on the Channel Front with JG26, even though they flew for much longer and more sorties, still often didnt' have claim numbers that were that different from the Allies--exceptions like Priller, Buhligen and Glunz existed, but guys like Borris, Naumann, Matoni, Crump, Soeffing et al, flew for nearly all of the war or a huge part of it and their vics varried from mid 40s to low 10s. Both sides had radar/ground control to help watch their backs so a pilot could not just "dive in with fangs out and hair on fire" without ending up with a Squadron of Spits/P47s on his tail. There was a lot of 'decide/don't decide' moments and of course the weather on the Channel sometimes made it hard to see anything
While the first point was mentioned in the video, the second (and even the first) isn't relevant to the larger point. That overclaiming is a product of human error for the vast majority of the time, not malice. A RAND study found this same phenomena in the Korean War, and this has been found in the Vietnam War as well. You can be very confident it happened in any war with air combat. It's happening now in Ukraine with Russians seeming to count kills when losing radar contact with Ukrainian planes they shot missiles at, beyond any visual range. Often the Ukrainian plane has gone defensive (going low and traveling perpendicular to the firing aircraft, making the radar ineffective, and the missile miss). I'm not saying every Russian missile misses, but a majority seem to.
This is a very interesting topic. In the Namibian Bush War, a South African Airforce pilot Major Johan Rankin was credited with a Mig 21 kill in 1981 and again one in 1982. The second clash in particular is discussed with Aircrew Interview on RU-vid by Rankin's wingman Cobus Toerien. Rankin fired two Matra R550's at the Cuban wingman, one of which exploded very far away from the target, and the other quite close. Rankin then went after the leader, and fired his 30mm guns. At the time, they thought the Cuban leader must have been dead because his aircraft exploded, and this is also visible on the gun camera footage. Rankin's engine flamed out from the debris ingestion, and he managed to get it started again. In later years there was communication between the Cubans and the South Africans. It turns out that the Mig 21 had a fuel tank explosion, but the the pilot got the aircraft home and survived. His wingman was also badly damaged by the Matra R550 missile, but also made it home. Both aircraft were written off. I highly recommend that you watch this interview. So, on the topic with this video, what do you call a kill? A dead pilot? An ejected pilot? A crash landing at the base? Must the pilot be dead after the crash, or can he survive? What if the pilot bails out 10 minutes after the fight? In this instance, the SAAF Mirages were escorting a Canberra photo recce aircraft, who was ordered back to base immediately when the Migs were detected. So, a mission kill I guess. Does this count? So many variables...
>A dead pilot? An ejected pilot? A crash landing at the base? Must the pilot be dead after the crash, or can he survive? What if the pilot bails out 10 minutes after the fight? what if nothing like this ever happened but your boy Erich claimed a victory nonetheless?
@@user-yj8vj3sq6j I don't think Erich Hartmann knowingly cheated. Please note my story above, Major Rankin and the entire SAAF believed that he splashed that Mig right there, and it crashed right there, no parachutes and the gun camera and eyewitnesses supported that. I have read a lot about Erich Hartmann, and his behaviour during his captivity when it would have been easy to take the easy way out supports his integrity, as well as his behaviour during the postwar years when other people took bribes from Lockheed and he did not.
@@dougerrohmer >I don't think Erich Hartmann knowingly cheated but he claimed non-existent(like, no " dead pilot? An ejected pilot? A crash landing at the base? Must the pilot be dead after the crash, or can he survive? What if the pilot bails out 10 minutes after the fight?") shootdowns for sure. That much we know
I mean I have a question though…Hartmann in his interviews said he wasn’t the best pilot or gunner but would get so damn close that he ‘filled the enemy plane with his sight’ maybe hard to confirm when you just see pieces falling down? Also, those pieces shot him down inadvertently several times confirming his claim.
German pilots like Rudel, Barkhorn, Hartmann and dozens more have around 10 times (!) more combat sorties and many times more flighthous than British, Soviet and US counterparts. And incomparably more occasions to actually fight. That's why it's perfectly understandable, normal and logical German aces have some 10 times more confirmed real air kills.
Glad you liked my book Chris, and an honor to have it presented on your channel (in a very fair way might I add!) Should you want to collaborate on the subject of verification I all for it!
@@AnimarchyHistory hi! The book is published by Helion & Co. Either through them or Amazon, eBay, Barns & Nobel, Chapters, Indigo, etc. I would post links but out of respect to Chris I won't on his channel plus YT does not like links in the comment section. Hope you enjoy should you pick up a copy :)
7:45 There is an example of overclaiming that is very well known. 15th September 1940. After the massed combat that took place that day, the RAF 'claimed' 175 Luftwaffe aircraft shot down. Later research, using German archives and reports, show that the Luftwaffe officially lost 58 aircraft that day, a 3:1 claim-to-kill ratio.
Great video! I have a Flugbuch to a minor ace from JG77, he records shooting down a B24 and his next flight is in a Fieseler Storch to find the wreckage, at which he recorded the kill. He also listed his points totals and clearly was aggressively chasing decorations. Of the 9 kills listed in his Flugbuch I have only found official records of 3 or 4, even though he seems very thorough.
This really makes German “night” aces, with their scores being meticulously verified, even more remarkable. Schnaufer is so underrated it’s laughable. He was the best pilot in Luftwaffe by a wide margin, too.
I do recall reading that Hartmann went down, himself, a handful of times. However, whatever I was reading prefaced that this was "only ever due to debris shed from the planes he was attacking", or similar. I now wonder if he was so focused in the attack and chaos he did not notice a couple of lucky rounds placed by an enemy wingman.
The funny thing with Hartmann is that there is a record of him having to bail from his plane after scrapping with some P51s where he recalls a pilot buzzing him as he was on his way down. On the American side, there's an account of a P51 pilot shooting down a German plane, then coming around to photograph the pilot on his way down. Both took place in the same area at the same time. Coincidence?
I don't like focusing on air kills' numbers, and is the idea of reducing scores of pilots in general any good? The veterans don't deserve a fanboy comparison. 1. Numbers say nothing about pilot's skills. Who was a better pilot - Erich Hartmann, Hub Zemke or Stanisław Skalski? They would defeat each another in particular circumstances (for example good luck in being jumped at ground level). 2. Almost all scores of all pilots could been checked and diminished. But what about novices jumping into a Hurricane cockpit with zero experience and 30 hours of training and climbing into a massive mess over London? They were very brave in a very particular way, and they're virtually absent on any victory list. As many others fightng whoever elsewhere in any uniform.
there was a friendly fire incident where the USMC and USN aviators claimed to have shot up IJN PT boats--but they were USN boats--the irony is they returned and attacked the same boats again for two hours . later they swore the IJN flags --you could not convince them they were shooting USN boats. in the fog of war it is easy to see what you want to see or what you EXPECT to see.
Hi Chris, thanks for the video! Here is another statistic by Iwan Lawrinenko and Michael Meyer on the verification of kill claims by pilots of II./JG 52 during the air war over the Kerch peninsula in 1943/44 (maximum, in some cases probably lower percentage): Batz: 28 % Düttmann: 35 % Sterl: 37 % Sachsenberg: 48 % Sturm: 48 % Ellendt: 50 % Hoffmann: 50 % Ewald: 53 % Waldmann: 54 % Barkhorn: 61 % Lipfert: 75 % Wolfrum: 76 % Fönnekold: 84 % Cheers, Roman
One sometimes hears about 'Halzschmerzen' (i.e. a certain drive/motivation to earn the Ritterkreuz) Could this in itself - along with all the factors you've mentioned in this video - have also played it's part here? Although I feel (cannot substantiate it though) the other factors you've mentioned are far more likely to have contributed to the high kill claims. Staying alive in an intense dogfight (and as a consequence not being able to definitively observe the effect of shots fired into an enemy aircraft) seems more important then chasing some prestigious medal.
Woody from WW2TV has a video with one of the authors, I believe. He mentions Hartmann in that video, but it's also good that you show a comparison with other German aces with a higher verified kills/claims ratio. I do believe they mention it in passing there (how other aces had a higher ratio) but my first thought was "but how verifiable were the kills of other aces?"
Overclaiming is a problem but most is due to human error not someone trying game the system. Franz Stigler noted that often in aerial combat 2 or more pilots/gunners may shoot at the same target. Both could claim at least partial credit for the kill or if the report is vague enough both might get credit for the same kill.
In una intervista con un ex pilota da caccia italiano (mi sembra Gorrini, un “asso” della RA) questi diceva che la tattica della caccia tedesca era molto diversa dalla nostra, in quanto riservava sempre al capo squadriglia il colpo del ko nei confronti ad esempio di un bombardiere, ed inoltre il capo squadriglia era protetto dagli altri aerei della formazione. Un po’ come un “bomber” in una squadra di calcio a cui tutti cercano di passare il pallone nelle condizioni migliori per fare goal. Inoltre era spesso attribuito al capo squadriglia, o all’”asso”, l’abbattimento condiviso di un aereo colpito da più caccia, con un lavoro di squadra. Non so se questo sia vero, ma questo argomento lui lo usava per giustificare l’elevatissimo numero di vittorie attribuite agli assi della caccia tedesca nella 2GM rispetto alle altre nazioni. Ad integrazione del giusto argomento che dici tu (mancanza di rotazione). Viceversa tra i reparti della caccia italiani fino al 1942 era una procedura comune attribuire l’abbattimento genericamente all’unità in modo condiviso, anziché al singolo pilota. Poi dal 1942 anche alla Regia Aeronautica cambiarono radicalmente, più che altro per motivi di propaganda, perché creare il mito dell’ “asso” era utile al regime
I think the Italians, having lightly armed and maneuverable aircraft had a similar problem that Imperial Japanese Army Aircorp and the Imperial Navy had: they'd hit the target (toughly built planes like P40s, F4F Wildcats, or Hurricanes) and the targeted plane would dive away at full throttle trailing a cloud of exhausts. In a furball, it stands to reason you are gonna think you shot down the opposing aircraft.
Bily Bishop, Canadian ace of the Great War, is famous for shooting down five German planes in one aerial combat. There's some question about that, as supposedly German records don't show that. Thing is, records have been lost, only 21 of his 72 kills have been confirmed, he admitted later in his life to embellishing parts, so . . . Thing is, he really was an ace, he worked tirelessly during WW2, so . . . what the hey, 72!
Bob Doe of BoB fame mentioned in an interview that an aircraft would get hit at 20,000 feet and start to go down and another aircraft would latch onto it as it passed through 15,000 feet and give it a squirt, then same thing at 10,000 and again at 5,000 and you would *four* kill claims for the same shot down German. Totally understandable in the orchestrated chaos because each pilot fired at it and it was smoking, on fire or _bits came off it._ Haven't watched the video yet be the audio is so damned quite I have to change to a different machine to hear it (yeah, all volume controls turned to FULL). Was their a mention of Hartman's first combat? Bloody funny when you consider his final score. At the end of the war he had around *six thousand COMBAT hours* of flight time and look at when he made his first combat flight. He had a fairly short war compared to quite a few others.
@markjumper5308 mentioned the book "Horrido! Fighter Aces of the Luftwaffe" (1968) by respected authors USAF Col. Raymond F. Toliver and Trevor J. Constable. This was actually the first book I ever read about the German Fighter aces of WWII and is a must read for anyone interested in this area. I believe that the kill tally for the German experts might be somewhat inflated especially, at the wars end. But as @Praxics0815 and others mentioned, Erich Hartman flew 1404 sorties and claimed 352 planes shoot down. That is on average about 1 plane shoot down every 4 sorties. This seems reasonable based on the many sorties the German experts flew providing them ample opportunities for kills. Couple this with the lack of experience, rigid flight doctrine, and poor aircraft design that the Soviet pilots suffered from in the early years of the war. Factoring all this in makes it quite understandable how Hartman, Backhorn, Rall, Nowotny, Bar, Kittel, and the many others could have racked up so many kills on the Eastern Front.
Book looks SUPER interesting! Thanks for highlighting it!! I think we're too used to video game environments to fully appreciate the difficulties. Not to mention it's hard to understand the personalities, rivalries, and attitudes behind entering claims.
When Finland agreed to Soviet peace terms during autumn of 1944 the Soviets sent Allied Control Commission to Helsinki on September 22nd in order to oversee how things progressed. I remember reading that when the the soviets landed (to Malmi Airport in Helsinki would be my guess) they were astonished by the amount of bf 109's that were visible in the airfield and commented to finns "How is it possible you have so many aircraft left!? Our pilots have reported that all have been shot down...".
One more reason for why pilots overclaimed might be that two pilots shot at the same enemy aircraft, one after another without noticing the other pilot. And then both saw it crash shortly after, and filed their claims. And none of them realized it was the same enemy aircraft they both claimed as a kill. Honest mistake in the confusion and stress of battle.
Great video and subject. If memory serves, a similar theme was addressed with American submariners ( I'm sure the same happened with U-boat commanders' credits too) during WWII. Wartime credit did not match with JANAC credit as stated in the appendix of Silent Victory by C. Blair. Bomber gunners of all nations claims were notorious for overclaiming. I'm sure the overclaiming was not confronted publicly for morale purposes, but most of intelligence branches and higher command had a good estimation of enemy losses. Keep up the great work.
Earlier books on German aces from the 1950’s and 60s stressed the quality of the German verification system. Apparently the authors saw the early documents and assumed it remained unchanged until the end of the war.
If you read his autobiography you would understand that many of his kills were confirmed by his wingman who was sitting on the perch, so there were often witnesses within JG-52 who saw him shoot down enemies. There is a missing log book that was taken from him by US personnel upon Hartman's surrender but up until 150 kills the squadrons records are quiet detailed. Lastly a fighter on fighter engagement where the pilot is shooting down a single enemy is not the same as a number of bomber gunners shooting at multiple enemy hostiles.
As a Hungarian I need this book. I have to look for it maybe can be purchase it here in Hungary as well? I have a great book about Hans-Joachim Marseille, but in German, and I only can speak English... 🙄
I believe Hartmann and the top German aces. As you say, there was inaccuracy and optimism across the board, kept in check partly jealous peers. Hartmann averaged 1 kill every 4 missions: 1405 missions divided by 352 kills. Robert Johnson, US number 2 ace in Europe, also averaged 1 kill every 4 missions. 91 missions divided by 27 kills. Richard Bong, top American ace averaged 1 kill every 4 missions. 166 missions divided by 40 kills. Hartmann's total is therefore reasonable. Consider this: Hartmann engaged in combat on 825 missions, while the top American ace flew a total of 166 missions. This greatly implies that Hartmann had great skills. At the end of the war, the top 3 German aces flew an average of 1009 missions, and averaged 309 kills. And all three were still alive. The top 3 American aces few an average of 147 missions, and averaged 37 kills. And only one was alive. On crashed in combat, one crashed as a test pilot.
My father, USAF, worked for Barkhorn in the mid seventies in Ramstein. He remarked that he liked him and possessed a somewhat of an arrogant attitude. His one story that I remember is of a meeting of Barkhorn and a British officer. They got into a tiff and Barkhorn grabbed the British officer by the tie. Not much, but Barkhorn retired soon after that.
Having taken a college class taught by an ex-WW2 fighter pilot, his sole claim to high kill numbers by German pilots was simple, the eastern front. Of the 144 claimed kill by my teacher only had one kill after six months on western front and 143 kills after 3 1.2 years on the eastern front. His simple statement was that the Soviets were horrible pilots as a whole, they had some very good ones, but most were not. They always had better superchargers, so they held the higher altitude, they tactic once a Soviet squadron was spotted was to send one and only one aircraft to attack the squadron at a time and go after the trailing or rear aircraft. He claimed they would listen into the Soviet pilot radio chatter and hear them pleading with the political officer for permission to break formation and would be denied. If the German pilots sent more than one plane down at time they could get permission. His words were, they could in effect shot down a whole Soviet squadron in short order without them break formation. By the way he was the piano teacher and the Junior College I attended for the first couple of year of college while studying to be an Engineer.
@awathompson whatever your teacher told you, he was telling you fibs. There was one German ace with 144 kills. That was Albin Wolf. He was killed in 1944.
@@apistodiscus True enough on the 144 kills, back in the very early 80's there was three accepted aces with 144 kills. Today there is one, so there has been an adjustment since then. He was excepted be many WW2 veterans and brought in many quest WW2 pilots as quest speakers. Remember, there is a difference between claims and credited.
This looks a very interesting book and it's going on my wish list. One thing not really addressed in the video is that not being able to verify those kills, especially eighty years or so after the fact, does not necessarily means these were fake or non-existent kills. It may very well be that some of those lacking verification did happen but the evidence either got lost, misplaced or was never received. Does the book address this sort of concern as well?
Even if the numbers are inflated I'm pretty sure that the Luftwaffe guys had high numbers because A: they had air superiority for long periods in many different fronts and that implies that they caused big trouble to the opposite side, and B, most German pilots flew until they got killed or captured, so it's just a matter of chance. The more you fly the more your chances to shot down enemy planes.
Glad to see the Horvath's book getting some attention. I also own it, and I believe Daniel has a youtube channel called WWII Hungary where he talks about some of this stuff. Yeah it is pretty solidly researched, especially using the Soviet Archives. I have seen people try to claim the Soviet loss records are unreliable for this, but I find it ridiculous personally because how could the Soviet Air Force have replaced its losses if it didn't keep track of how many planes it lost? If they constantly under-counted then units would whittle away to nothing as inadequate reinforcements arrived to replace the under-counted losses. Also the broad spectrum of claim verification among the selected aces also kinda shoots the idea down, as if the Soviets were under-repreorting their losses, why would it only impact certain aces and not others? You do have to understand how the loss records work because they can have their own quirks, but it certainly one of the key places you should consult when doing this study, along with whatever else you can find to cross reference.
It's BS If this work should hold any real substance, then the authors had to presume, that the Soviet records were correct, while the German's are pure fiction.
"but I find it ridiculous personally because how could the Soviet Air Force have replaced its losses if it didn't keep track of how many planes it lost?" The Soviet unts had high losses due to accidents. Is there a temptation to book a combat loss as accident in order to look better? Is the bookkeeping of good quality and homogenous? What is the overall German claims vs. overall Soviet combat losses? Is there evidence that the Hungarian numbers can be extrapolated to the air war over Russia?
"but I find it ridiculous personally because how could the Soviet Air Force have replaced its losses if it didn't keep track of how many planes it lost?" Here you make a common mistake: You do not understand that the replacement of losses only requires a very low resulution, you do not have to know exacly on which day or on which front sector the losses happened, only the overall number per month is important. However, for the analysis the authors wanted to do you need a correct bookkeeping with a very high resolution. There is absolutely no proof for that. Hint: for other systems (tanks, artillery guns) it is clears that the Soviet book-keeping is not well resolved, you see writing off of losses at times when there is no combat. N. Zetterling has published at least one good reviewed article on the topic of numbers in WW2 in the east. Strictly speaking: In a serious scientific discussion the only hard statement is, that there are large discrepencies between German claims and Soviet data, this with very high differences for individual German pilots. The video is scientifically weak: It delivers absolutely no proof that the Hungarian data are mainly a result of German overclaiming (personal opinions do not count), nor does it show that the Hungarian numbers reflect the overall numbers (Russia). The work was a good starting point but lacks everything that makes it good science. Almost all the "conclusions" are poor/pure speculations.
German pilots' lack of rotation off operations is given as a reason that the most successful ones shot down more enemy than the Allies. But I think it's not as simple as more time in the air = more chances to shoot something down. After the war some German aces said that at first their performance was unremarkable, even poor, and that they only BEGAN to shoot down planes once they had considerable experience which was AFTER the point that Allied pilots would have already been rotated to non-combat roles. Even after assuming staff officer responsibility, all qualified aircrew on an airfield flew frequent combat missions unless they were undeniably unfit. Commanders who tried to shield stressed pilots were court martialled throughout the war, not just at the end as some comments claim. So pilots' continuous service gave them the time to learn their craft and more importantly the opportunity to use it afterwards.
It would have been nice to hear Marseille mentioned, who was by all accounts an incredible pilot, also quite an eccentric character. Hartmann was known as a very skilled marksman, efficient with his ammunition. It's also worth mentioning that all but seven of his victories were over soviet aircraft, bit of a different arena, particularly early on. In the case of both pilots, they blatantly disregarded a lot of rules and constantly bowled over the rigid walls of bureaucracy that attempted to contain them. Almost without exception, all the great German pilots regarded upper management as complete morons, to the point of throwing all their medals on the table in front of Goering during a heated exchange. The idea of such truly individual people rigorously filling out an application to submit to some straight edge desk dweller, is almost hilarious. I think it would seem absurd to them, I think they'd have a take it as I say it, trust me or don't attitude. Then they'd go have a beer and talk about what had transpired that day with the only people who could really understand it, their fellow pilots
The accelerated verification process for high scorers based on reputation and the requirements of propaganda is a very good point. I see this phenomenon in organized sports such as baseball on a regular basis. Statistics are kept and lineups and starters are determined based on those numbers, but no system is foolproof, and early high achievers benefit from a sort of clout that carries them through slumps when it might have been better for the team to bench them for a spell and play others. Social clout and connections enhance this advantage as well. The same happens in the workplace. These are all "human" endeavors.
Other pilots, squadron staff, even ground crew would soon sniff out pilots who were over claiming. Over occupied territory German claims were on the ground, recorded by police and intelligence staff.
Hartmann's kill score was even doubted by his own pilot camerades in 1944, according to the biographic book 'Holt Hartmann vom Himmel'. He mentioned specifically the pilot F. Obleser. However, according to the book, after having him assigned as his wingman for some flights he managed to convince him and others that his claims were genuine. In general, I'm wondering why such research was not done 20 years ago when a number of the involved pilots and ground crew were still alive. I will read the book nevertheless.
> why such research was not done 20 years ago when a number of the involved pilots and ground crew were still alive because Soviet war archives were opened for researchers about 10 years ago
Air-to-air kills claimed by a pilot were not simply accepted by higher ups. In the U.S. a witness to the shoot down had to verify the kill the pilot was claiming. In Germany it was required that two witnesses verified the kill to count. Gun cameras could also verify a kill. Eric Hatmann flew 1405 combat sorties of which 825 resulted in air-to-air combat. Some of these missions resulted in multiple kills, such a the mission late in the war when Eric Hartmann shot down 4 P-51 Mustangs in one dogfight. He ran out of ammo and was attacked by 6 other Mustangs, none of whom could shoot him down. He finally ran out of gas, undid his seatbelt, opened the canopy, and turned upside down. One of the 6 Mustang pilots claimed him as a kill. Compare his 1405 missions to U.S. pilots. Aircrew were first committed to a tour of thirty operational flights, not exceeding 200 actual flying hours, which could last for any period from four months to a year. Pathfinder crews flew forty-five. A six-month break - usually spent as instructors with training units - was followed by a second and final tour.
My father was a triple ace with the US Army Air Force, 357th FG, in WWII. He said he tracked his own total of planes shot down at 27 e/a, but in the end, due to lack of confirmation of many of them by a wingman or fellow fighter pilot, he was credited with just 15-1/2. His response to this was, "Well, hell, I was there!" I personally know of three planes that were not recorded, but did have a form of confirmation: One was a Ju 52 transport plane that was filmed on his combat film camera as it was driven into the ground and onto a bushy woods adjacent to an open field; the other two were observed by the crew of a B-17 that was being attacked from behind and below (6 o'clock low) by two Me109s. The bomber crew reported that my father dove on the two 109s and shot them both down in the same, single dive, and Canadian artist Len Krenzler depicted the scene based on descriptions he personally received from the bomber crew. Anyway, I'm sure there are odd discrepancies in all reporting.
I read that in the battle of Britain with hindsight of actual German planes down, in small aerial battles there was almost correct kills, but in the mayhem of large Ariel battles there would be more than one British plane hitting the enemy and then was a high over claiming.
The book book Piece of Cake, which was later made into a miniseries has a great segment where the gun cameras were installed to corroborate the high victory claims by the squadron‘s pilots. I won’t spoil it for you, but it is on RU-vid and worth a lookup.
I wonder if the extreme reporting accuracy of some pilots has to do with their visual accuity. Decades ago, I remember watching a story of a pilot who could see and count the bullet holes on his practice targets during training runs. Someone with that skill would probably have very accurate reporting on hits and kills. Also, I'd give everyone some slack on kill claims. War is stressful AF, and taking a few seconds to confirm your kill could mean you don't go home tonight. As long as it was reported in good faith, I think that's fine.
I wonder: How many pilots got killed just trying to verify their own kill, trying to see the enemy crash instead of paying attention what is coming from above, just so they could file a report to claim that kill...
Perhaps this question was answered before Chris, but I'm curious to how the Lüftwaffe handled both verifing and giving credit for four-engined day bomber kills? I assume with night fighters this process would be much more straightforward, with pilots frequently operating as lone wolves, albeit often directed by ground radar stations. But German day fighters often attacked formations in squadron strength, and often adopted the tactic of attacking bombers head-on in line abrest with multiple planes. Damaged bombers too were set upon by more than one fighter, similar to sharks in a feeding frenzy with blood in the water. How did pilots share these victories?
Read of one German ace in North Africa, returned to base, claimed kills . . . beautiful, except the cloth patches over his cannons were still in place!
@@verilyheld Who would that be? I would really doubt that ace would be that dumb. An furthermore, German planes did not wear patches on their guns and cannons. Maybe there is a source for that statement?
Yep, cut the claim rates by 50%. 'Battle of Britain Combat Archive' series of books is a great source of data to show overclaiming in great detail. This title is now on my 'to purchase' list.
I was at a talk about air combat from American and UK perspective. One of the issues in verifying the claims that were made by allied pilots were that two or more planes might have shot at, or even scored hits on a German plane. The plane goes down, you have multiple people taking credit for one kill. It's easy for it to look like 2 or more separate kills. And you would know better than I do , but don't different countries have different requirements for being an ACE? Its 5 in the US, and Britain. I heard that it was different for the Germans, not only by German standards, but they even had different requirements for what theatre you were in. Have you found that to be true? I am a tank nerd, and former armored crewman, not an air guy
I've been reading books on finnish military aviation since I was a wee lad in the 70's and I've always gotten the impression that finns probably were noticeably more strict with getting kills confirmed: basically you HAD to have either a wreck or one of the other pilots, or ground units, needed to be able to verify your kills hitting the ground/sea (tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands if you take smaller ones into account, of lakes in Finland and the Soviet Karelia ain't really different plus quite a lot of action was over the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea). Speaking of aces I think that for example the top scorer Eino Ilmari "Illu" Juutilainen with his 94 confirmed (some 120+all in all when you count the unconfirmed ones too, IIRC) is probably the greatest ace of all time as never did another plane score even a single hit on his plane. Hans "Hasse" Wind with 75 confirmed kills holds the world record of most planes downed with Brewster B.239 (39) plus the Brewster he mainly used (BW-393) apparently is THE aircraft that has shot down most planes in the world. Ever. 41 enemy planes were shot down with BW-393 of which Hasse is credited for 26. Very importantly most of the time finnish pilots were fighting with inferior planes against numerically superior enemy. Luckily the pilot training was something that was really stressed (which sorta reminds me of the polish pilots and how they performed when they finally got their mitts on some proper planes during the Battle of Britain).
The Italians were the worst for over claiming (Shores, Cull & Malitzia). However, the reason is not always for the obvious reason. Many Italians claimed kills in order to imply that they were ‘doing their best up there’ when they were completely ambivalent about the war and just wanted it all over with.
Propaganda is the reason; the Germans needed their heroes to keep up morale. If Pilot X made a claim that wasn't "confirmed" higher HQ would confirm it. If 3-4 pilots put rounds in a plane no one knew for sure who fired the kill shot but if pilot X fired at it, he got the victory. Rene Fonck is credited with 75 victories in WWI but he most likely had many more because the allies flew over German lines many times and those victories were next to impossible to confirm. The Germans seldom flew over allied lines, so their kills were easier to confirm. In the end it doesn't make any difference just something to argue about many years after the fact. Very good video.
Interesting video! I recall that Luftwaffe claims used different metrics from RAF/USAAF. From memory you got 4x points for shooting down a four engine bomber and aircraft destroyed on the ground were credited the same as aircraft destroyed in the air. If I'm remembering this correctly, this must have made a huge difference given the vast number of Soviet aircraft destroyed on the ground in 1941. In "The Most Dangerous Enemy", Stephen Bungay discusses that larger formations tended to inflate their claims more than smaller ones. Several pilots may shoot at an aircraft and see it crash, and each one claimed a kill. This was a problem because it overestimated the effectiveness of e.g. the Duxford Wing in the battle of Britain when later on it emerged that smaller formations were more effective.
I usually follow the same assumption. Not only because of the data analysis but because of the very nature of aerial combat. You are going 300 MPH, pulling 7G turns and firing at targets going a closing speed of in excess of 700 MPH in a sky full of upwards of 200 planes. You can see gun camera footage from the pacific war where F6Fs are sweeping in front of each other engaging the same target or you see tracers coming in from off screen at the same target. There is absolutely no way with this much sensory input that you can make an accurate assessment. Though I would say that earlier war claims from the Luftwaffe were far more reliable. I personally think Marseille was the best of the “Great Aces” not just due to his superior nigh inhuman skill but because he achieved what he achieved in the early war and even then he had a ton of extra scrutiny placed upon him. Great video on a great subject.
Interesting thoughtful video. I can imagine if I was in fighter combat, verifying claims would not be my top priority. Dealing with the adrenaline gushing out of my ears like a broken water main would be my top priority. Afterwards I would make a guess at what had happened, which I may or may not be diligent about.
Another way to gauge claims accuracy might be 'time on the job' for pilots making claims. It seems reasonable to assume the longer serving pilots would have higher verification percentages? Barkhorn worked the task over a year longer than did Hartmann. Perhaps the reference book you cited addressed this?
Very good analysis. Some pilots might put priority on watching behind them, or finding more targets, while others would look at a plane to see if it crashes. Different people are different and that will have a big effect on making reports of kills.
I appreciate the emphasis on human error rather than malice. I've also read about a RAND study on the Korean War with the F-86 v. MiG-15, which was determined to be around ~1.6:1, not 10:1 (broken further down to ~1.3:1 against Soviet pilots, and ~1.8:1 against North Korean pilots), IIRC. In Vietnam, the kill ratio between the F-4 and MiG-21 was also much more even (IIRC ~1.2:1, not 4:1). Cross referencing data gives much better results than just accepting claims from any single source.
I mean not verified does not necessarily mean not true. And an untrue claim was not necessarily made in bad faith. Even if we slash every number in half the German aces are still far more numerous than the allies. And the reasons are obvious and most of them unrelated to pilot skill or the aircraft. German pilots faced a target saturated sky, they flew until they could no more (death, injury, mental break down or end of war), they flew more missions and in the early war on the eastern front they faced severely outdated aircraft like I-15 and I-16. I would expect the German numbers to be higher. I mean Hartman flew 1404 sorties and claimed 352 planes shoot down. That is on average about 1 plane shoot down every 4 sorties. When you look it at from that perspektive the number seems rather reasonable when you compare it for example to Richard Ira Bong the highest US ace. He claimed 40 downed aircraft and he flew some 200 missions. That is 5 missions per kill. Ultimately we have to take the numbers with grain of salt. But that is true for everyone. The numbers also don't actually indicate who was the better pilot. Marseille was arguably the better pilot than Hartman. But Hartman was careful and lived an Marseille was a daredevil that died.
Absolutely agree yeah. And from everything taht i ahve read about Marseille and Hartmann is that Marseille was the best dogfighter of ww2 and maybe also in history. But Hartmann was more succesfull. He has been detailed to sneak up on enemies from behind and retreat soon as he got them down, he has said to been relying on his mates to have his back or dogfight the enemies because he wasnt a very good dogfighter himself. In short Marseille was the best dogfighter and Hartmann the better at getting kills and keeping himself as safe as possible
Postwar comparison of the ratio of total claims to total losses for single days in a specific area seem to indicate that there are three claims for each loss (this seems fairly stable regardless of the countries involved.) Other studies that I've seen indicate that (broadly) high-claim pilots tend to have a better correlation between their claims and the losses that can be attributed to them than low-claim pilots. Which makes these numbers for Hartmann particularly ... interesting. The Barkhorn numbers here seem more typical for a multi-ace.
Interesting video. During your video, you see a B17 falling out of formation. Another German fighter engages it. Which one filed the claim? The one who knocked it out of formation, or the one engaging it as it drops, or both?
Does anyone know the quote about Experten and dead wingmen? It implies that the aces got the kills at the expense of the wingmen! I heard it one time but I’ve forgotten the exact quote.
The major difference between RAF and Luftwaffe fighter pilots was opportunity. Recall reading a biography by a RAF Spitfire pilot who had done a tour flying sorties over France 1941/42 and never fired at an enemy plane , because there was nothing to shoot at. He volunteered for overseas duty and ended up in Malta after flying off the USS Wasp. In the late fifties worked with a chap who was a Commando in WW2 , he told me his brother a Spitfire pilot changed to being a bomber pilot flying Bostons , because it was so boring . In peacetime he became a schoolteacher in Sevenoaks Kent. This is not an isolated case , read the accounts of Spitfire Mk XII pilots moaning about escorting USAAF B-26's over the low counties , hitting the same target time and time again. Truth is we enthusiasts , have a deluded understanding of the aerial war. The men that flew fighters over western Europe were more likely to be shot down by light flak then the Luftwaffe.
