Gunfight

[Pavel]

Yes, Hunter, you got my point. I just don't want to make unnecessary speculations about it. I'm not telling that 352 is incredible number - actually it is absolutely logical. I will add some info regarding it later.

I'm just telling, that far not every shot down plane can be really approved by wreckeges or trusted witnesses in war envirement. It's not up to Hartmann, it's up to counting system in general - for every involved country, more or less.

It was cases when one shot down German fighter was reported as a kill by the gunners of 4 or 6 different USAF bombers. When it is such a mess, it's hard to understand who exactly did what.

And yes, numbers 5% to 90% are really interesting. I was thinking about it, checking statistical data.. and wasn't able neither to approve, no to disapprove these numbers.

Just the number of 20700 fighters combat losses from the Soviet side on the Eastern Front during the WW2 - and that 90% of them were shot down by 5% of the fighter pilots... it's hard to beleive. But need to understand amount of fighter pilots in general.

From the different side - 3260 German fighter combat losses on the same front - it means 5% of Soviet aces should kill about 2934 planes. Let's say in average, ace is somobody who has about 10 kills during the war (in different times it was from 5 to 15 planes to shot down to get Hero of the Soviet Union star, besides there were pilots who still didn't get the rank but had the necessary number). So it means it should be about 300 fighter pilots - heros of USSR.

Any comments? Any information?

[sicsok]

Those planes he shot down were fighters, members of a large formation, heading toward the Lake Balaton vicinity from East of the Danube.
The types of them were known to Hartmann's contemperaries, but I am not that old as they are. My best recollections they could have been MiG-3 or MiG-9 but possibly La-5. But not Sturmoviks.

[HunterFN]

Originally Posted by Pavel

I'm just telling, that far not every shot down plane can be really approved by wreckeges or trusted witnesses in war envirement. It's not up to Hartmann, it's up to counting system in general - for every involved country, more or less.

It was cases when one shot down German fighter was reported as a kill by the gunners of 4 or 6 different USAF bombers. When it is such a mess, it's hard to understand who exactly did what.

And yes, numbers 5% to 90% are really interesting. I was thinking about it, checking statistical data.. and wasn't able neither to approve, no to disapprove these numbers.

Just the number of 20700 fighters combat losses from the Soviet side on the Eastern Front during the WW2 - and that 90% of them were shot down by 5% of the fighter pilots... it's hard to beleive. But need to understand amount of fighter pilots in general.

From the different side - 3260 German fighter combat losses on the same front - it means 5% of Soviet aces should kill about 2934 planes. Let's say in average, ace is somobody who has about 10 kills during the war (in different times it was from 5 to 15 planes to shot down to get Hero of the Soviet Union star, besides there were pilots who still didn't get the rank but had the necessary number). So it means it should be about 300 fighter pilots - heros of USSR.

Any comments? Any information?

Well, there are well over 6000 pilots in the German Luftwaffe who scored more than 5 kills... and several dozen who got over 100... It is very interesting for sure. I remember also reading an aviation article that stated the USAF noted that pilots that lasted 5 (? can't remember how many, was around 5-15) sorties had a significantly better chance of surviving following battles in comparison to rookies with little to no combat experience. This also supports the percentage relationship.

Also, USAF gunners vs kill actual losses. It is a good point but a very extreme one and because of that, not directly comparable to fighter claims and kills.

The reason for this is simple, even in the most hectic dogfight where you are following the enemy plane, you have him in your sights and usually see the damage very well, and see if someone else is shooting at him aswell. In a bomber formation however, hundreds and even thousands of planes, shooting at a few targets, 15 closest ones all see their tracers go towards the target when it suddenly breaks away, result is 15 kill claims.

When planning for the D-Day invasion in Normandy the British almost laughed themselves to death when the Americans boasted how many kills they had over the Luftwaffe. According to their numbers they had destroyed the whole Luftwaffe (East, West and South) several times over. Of course this was not the case in reality, but merely a large mistake in the kill claiming.

[sicsok]

If you think this was strange - hear the next one please:
In about 1980 the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum had a series of special events held at their IMAX theater. A few of these featured Vietnam War pilots, and a few Korean War pilots, test pilots, astronauts, designers and World War II veteran pilots. They spoke to the public or to each other at a conference table on the podium.
There was moderator too. Walter J.Boyne and others from the leadership of the museum.
This is where Adolf Galland (he was not on the Eastern Front, but in the Battle of Brittain and Western Front) and his one time opponent (Robert Stanford Tuck) talked. After the war they became very close friends, while in the Battle of Brittain they fought against each other many times, and they knew of each other early in the war. I beleive it was in 1944 when Tuck lead a group into France to strafe ground targets. They dove from above the clouds onto the anti-aircraft artillery, Tuck fireing all the way down. But he could not pull ot of his dive, as his target also fired at him and hit his plane. He crash-landed and was captured right away by the Germans who behaved very properly, telling him to wait. Adolf Galland came, because he was nearby and called to the scene. Then they met face to face. That is not as interesting as the reason why the anti-aircraft guys took the courage to invite both to their ruined gun. The reason: One of Tuck's bullets slid right up into the barrell of the anti-aircraft gun that shot his plane down, silencing the German gun for good. Which gave his comrades free skies to roam for a few hours at that area.

[Pavel]

Good point, Janos

When during the combat operations billions of bullets are being fired, different unbelievable things are taking place sometimes, this is true.

Back to the promised information.

Hartmann is only a top of the iceberg. Then it goes Gerhard Barkhorn with 301 victory. And then (attention) it starts to be tsunami -
13 pilots has from 200 to 275 victories
92 pilots has from 100 to 200 victories
360 pilots has from 40 to 100 victories

So we need to agree, Hartmann is not something out of this world, but all the Luftwaffe had such fantastic numbers, comparing to which Kozhedub and Pokryshkin with their 62 and 59 victories looks to be kids.

And again, I think we can understand that this is not because Soviet fighters are simply bad pilots, but the truth is out there.

First and main reason - Hartmann had total 1426 combat missions
and was "the most tired man in the world" by the end of the war. Kozhedub had 330 combat missions.
Easy to calculate, that if Kozhedub would had same amount of combat flights, result would be at least comparable (and do not forget - the more you fly, the more experience you have, so it is not straight dependence, with more experience you shoot down more).

So why Kozhedub and Pokrishkin flew so rarely? Because it was no reason to kill them with such combat load - Soviet Air Forces had enough regular pilots not to close all the holes with several fighter aces.
3 flights in a day for one pilot in SovietAF was quite tough load, usually during huge ground operations. While 6 flights a day in Luftwaffe was something quite regular.

For example, Pokryshkin has missed totally The Battle of Kursk, which was quite hard in terms of aerial combats.

Actually, huge amount of pilots (which affects the average training level, of course) is the second main reason for such big Luftwaffe pilots scores - the more targets in the air you have, the more of them you can shoot down.

Which we can see by the the total numbers - 3260 Luftwaffe losses against 20700 Soviet AF losses on the Eastern Front.

It shows exactly the difference in approach of Luftwaffe and Soviet AF in training new pilots - Luftwaffe has preferred quality, and USSR has preferred quantity.

Which at the end of the day was the way to lose air war. Sounds nice, ha? The more air victories you have, the closer to general defeat you are?

Why is that, I will tell you in the second lesson

[HunterFN]

Also. Doctrine.

Luftwaffe engaged in Free Hunt raids all the time during the war, even in the end when it made no sense whatsoever, these flights were flown. These flights were usually just air to air to score victories. Soviets mostly flew defensively in support of their groundforces and for example Yaks were 90% of the time covering Il2's. Not many Yak aces around, because their job wasn't to kill, but to keep enemies off of the Il2's. This fundamental difference in doctrine is why Allied (primarily Soviet) pilots had such low kill scores compared to Germans who flew alot and almost all the time had the initiative which is absolutely everything in air to air combat.

[sicsok]

Thanks Pavel. I do understand people with bias. In due time and as a last resort - I have my own too. But I prefer objective and factual examination and conversation, not "drunken soccer-fan" noise...
Your evaluation about the not so negligible differences about flying-times, missions and statistics to me seems to prove the same as I also have been trying to emphasize about the combat-flying comparison topics. That is that every nation tried to use the best way the type of advantages they had (training, numbers, experience, tactics and hardware). And the Soviets won despite perhaps larger losses than their opponent. And that is what matters.
Just as a fighter pilot is as good as he can use his kudos - the marshalls can be rated by the same token.
By the way: another topics is the "kill-confirmation" methods and kill-credits differences in various air forces. Worth a forum?

[sicsok]

Well, here is a bit of supporting background. But the "shot into the barrel "was only on the panel-discussion told by both aces. Maybe in his memoires it is detailed.