Dornier tail flamethrower

[Fuzzy Bunny]

Originally Posted by Von Mudra

Damn, those guys have an impressive tally going....

I know I'm going to get the Luftwaffe fanboys into a huff with this, but German kill score verification was generally pretty, ahem, liberal. To be fair, other countries' pilots (and naval units!) also frequently came up with some pretty outrageous claims.

http://www.1jma.dk/articles/1jmaarti...2luftwaffe.htm

has a nice summary of German claims in North Africa and during the Battle of Britain, compared with actual registered British losses. Same for ship kills. So don't take that all too seriously. The RLM "points" system for "Abschuesse", "Herausschuesse" and one other category I don't remember was fairly strict, but the actual verification/proof mechanism was pretty lacking.

Also from what I can see, only some of their claims are "ships sunk", as opposeed to maybe ships damaged or attacked or whatever.

[Von Mudra]

That happened in all armies. As I recall, more Tigers were destroied by the American Army then actually existed.

[Commie]

And Erich Hartmann, the top German ace, scored 352 victories. Compared to (American) Richard Bong's 40 victories.

[Wooly_Bully]

The reason Hartmann got that many was the Russian air tactics, they were pretty much just like the human wave stuff but with planes instead.

[Von Mudra]

Originally Posted by RussianComrade

And Erich Hartmann, the top German ace, scored 352 victories. Compared to (American) Richard Bong's 40 victories.

Considering he fought longer, and in far more intense battles, its very obvious he would have that many kills.

[Gauntlet]

Regarding overclaiming. The Jagdwaffe was actually one of the most reasonable airforces when it comes to claiming. The OKL was very strict when it comed to claiming. Alot of kills were denied, for example; I belive Adolf Galland himself didn't get any of his kills approved while he was flying in the JV 44 to the end of the war.

I will quite Mike Spick on this one:

The real problem is, what constitutes a victory? An enemy aircraft destroyed qualifies perfectly, but proving that this is the case is another matter. A badly damaged aircraft that had to force-land away from the base could be repairable. At the other extreme, ana enemy aircraft claimed only as a damaged might crash unseen, or be struck off charge on its return to base.
If a nonsense on the subject of scores are to be avoided, we must eschew the controversial and emotive word 'kill' and work on the principle that an aerial victory occurs when an enemy is defeated in combat in circumstances where the victor believes that it will be a total loss.

The simple reaon for the truly insane victory tally by the Jagdwaffe is the following:

- Opportunity. The allied powers simply had more planes in the air during most of the war, and it was therefore more likely for a German pilot to meet enemy planes while flying than it was for a Allied pilot to meet a German plane! In the words of Johnny Johnson when he was comparing himself to the German Ace of Josef Priller: "We both flew in the same area for aprox. the same amount of time [Western Europe, middle to late war]. The remarkable thing is that I scored 'only' 38 kills, while Priller scored 101."

- Numbers of flights. Allied pilots were much more often circulated to get leaves and other things. The Germans didn't have this kind of system. The pilots usually fought a long time before getting a leave home, often not before they were awarded the Iron Cross or Knights Cross. For example, Erich Hartmann flew no fewer than 1425 sorties, while the American Ace Bob Johnson flew as little as 91 sorties, but still managed to get 28 confirmed kills before he was rotated back to the US in May '44, flying well under a year.

- The top-scorers leads the attacks. The Luftwaffe operations were usually lead by the highest scorer regardless of rank, and they therefore had the first opportunity to open fire at the enemy. Altough Hartmann was for most of the time 'only' a Staffelkapitän of 9./JG52, he frequently lead attacks on even Gruppe sizes.

[Commie]

Very well put, Gauntlet!

[Fuzzy Bunny]

...Which doesn't change the fact that Luftwaffe kill verification required confirmation from 1 other pilot (usually the shooter's wingman, see where this is going?) Not gun camera footage (during most of the war), not ground observers. During the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe overclaimed by ca. 3 to 1. This is understandable in the light of (a) the unavailability of wrecks (they crashed on British soil) and (b) the desired propaganda effect (both on the home front and on units' morale) of having high kill scores.

Interestingly, many of the really high-scoring German aces did not participate in the early-Barbarossa "turkey shoots" of hordes of I-16s and their ilk.

Regarding gun camera footage, interestingly enough German kill accuracy actually seems to have degraded in 1944-45 when they used GC kill verification, while USAAF claim accuracy (bomber gunners, who did not have gun cameras, and tended to shoot at anything moving aside) actually apears to have increased.

What's interesting is that, while on the whole RAF kill claim accuracy seems to mesh most closely with reported Axis sorties and plane deployments, kill claim accuracy for all countries involved varies very widely with by period.

Interestingly, kill granting for "high-profile" German aces seems to have been percentually very high; According to Tony Wood, Galland, for example, claimed ca. 100 kills by the end of 1941, of which 94 had been granted (97 by another account.) A 94% grant ratio is kind of dodgy, until you consider the context in which he was presented as a national hero, etc. etc. Makes sense then.

I stand by my original point that German kill verification during large parts of the war was vastly exagerrated. What _was_ strict, paradoxically enough, was their points allocation for kill-derived decorations (iron cross, etc.)

[Gauntlet]

Originally Posted by FuzzyBunny

...Which doesn't change the fact that Luftwaffe kill verification required confirmation from 1 other pilot (usually the shooter's wingman, see where this is going?) Not gun camera footage (during most of the war), not ground observers. During the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe overclaimed by ca. 3 to 1. This is understandable in the light of (a) the unavailability of wrecks (they crashed on British soil) and (b) the desired propaganda effect (both on the home front and on units' morale) of having high kill scores.

First off, the Battle of Britain is infact a bad example. As you say yourself, the Germans couldnt count the wrecks on the ground so they had to judge right there and then in the air if the plane in question is going down or not. That will ofcourse make some overclaims, and in some cases as high as 3 to 1. However, on most of the other fronts, the Germans had the luxury of beeing able to count the planes on the ground after they've crashed. This ofcourse swings the other way for the Allies: Their claim over Britian will be much more correct thanks to alot of observers and the fact that the enemy planes will crash at is home soil. And when we come later out in the war, while most of the Allied air missions were over occupied France and Germany this will be the complete opposite, other than the fact that we are now talking over a much large time (not just the couple of months the Battle of Britain realy were going on).

Interestingly, many of the really high-scoring German aces did not participate in the early-Barbarossa "turkey shoots" of hordes of I-16s and their ilk.

That is a statement without any facts in it.

If we look at every German ace with over 200 kills, we get this list:
- 352 Erich Hartmann (autumn 1942)
- 301 Gerhard Barkhorn (autumn 1940)
- 275 Günther Rall (spring 1940)
- 267 Otto Kittel (autumn 1941)
- 258 Walther Nowotny (spring 1941)
- 237 Wilhelm Batz (autumn 1941)
- 222 Erich Rudorffer (spring 1940)
- 220 Heinrich Bär (autumn 1939)
- 212 Hermann Gräf (summer 1941)
- 209 Heinrich Ehrler (summer 1941)
- 208 Theodor Weissenberger (autumn 1941)
- 206 Hans Phillip (autumn 1939)
- 206 Walther Shuck (summer 1941)
- 204 Anton Hafner (summer 1941)
- 203 Helmut Lipfert (autumn 1941)

As we see out from this impressive score,many of them started their career before Barbarossa, or the beginning and the few months following. Infact, Hartmann is the only 2nd Century ace who didn't start his career in 1941 or before! Not to mention that most of these guys got a vast majority of its kills on the Eastern Front, the few exeptions beeing Bär, and to a certain degree Rudorffer.

Interestingly, kill granting for "high-profile" German aces seems to have been percentually very high; According to Tony Wood, Galland, for example, claimed ca. 100 kills by the end of 1941, of which 94 had been granted (97 by another account.) A 94% grant ratio is kind of dodgy, until you consider the context in which he was presented as a national hero, etc. etc. Makes sense then.

I can agree to a certain sense here, but please keep in mind that the Germans had the initiative during the BoB: They usually came in higher than the intrecepting Brit fighters, and the Germans were free to attack the enemy fighters, while the Brits had to mostly focus on the incoming bombers. Its no wonder why the German pilots scored as much more than their Allied counterparts during a conflict like this.

I stand by my original point that German kill verification during large parts of the war was vastly exagerrated. What _was_ strict, paradoxically enough, was their points allocation for kill-derived decorations (iron cross, etc.)

So you refuse to take into account any of the 3 main points I've mentioned in my previous post?

[Fuzzy Bunny]

Originally Posted by Gauntlet

First off, the Battle of Britain is infact a bad example. As you say yourself, the Germans couldnt count the wrecks on the ground so they had to judge right there and then in the air if the plane in question is going down or not.

This is also the case for the Germans for most kills that were not scored directly over enemy territory.

That is a statement without any facts in it.

OK, I worded that poorly.

Hartmann shot down his first plane in late 1942. Discounting Hartmann (first kill November 1942):

-Barkhorn reached 100 victories on 19.12.42
-Rall: scored ca. 150 of his victories in 1943, only got to 100 in ca. Nov '42
-Nowotny had 10 kills by end of 1941. Most in 1943

etc., you get the picture. My point is that many of these guys mainly hit their stride in late 1942 and 1943, and did not profit unduly from the hordes of antiques being thrown at them in 1941.

Its no wonder why the German pilots scored as much more than their Allied counterparts during a conflict like this.

Again: yet they over-attributed kills by a factor of ca. 3 to 1 during Kondor when compared against RAF records.

So you refuse to take into account any of the 3 main points I've mentioned in my previous post?

Not at all, sorry if it came across that way. You know I <3 you, Gaunty :-)

My point is twofold: first, that, despite the strict German policy of crediting points, their kill allocation was overly optimistic, and second, that your points, to some degree, go towards explaining this phaenomenon; letting the "star" lead the pack and keeping the "star" in combat would, in any wartime regime in need of heroes, naturally lead to exaggerration of kill counts, even if this might also contribute to a higher-than-normal kill number.

While I maintain the excessive nature of German kill verifications (more so than non-Soviet Allied powers), in all fairness I am actually more inclined to believe kill scores credited to "grunts" rather than the stars you mentioned.


Now where's my uniform pics? :-)

*runs*