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 RUclips) 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.
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.
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.
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
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?"
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
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.
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.
To expand on the tank example, imagine a few hours later or days then a unit moves up sees tanks in the distance jumps for cover gets on the radio and asks for Artillery support. Look at that 5 tanks destroyed more than there were tanks in the first place. Then a group with a bazooka roll through a little later and fire that off, they've just created a lot of smoke they are not staying that position, so they run for cover happy they got that tank. Then some aircraft with rockets and oh look at that 2 tanks in that field they got for a run and that's another 2 added. Now we have 8 tanks claimed taken out, and this can carry on. This doesn't even get onto decoy's I read about one that was hit 27 times. During the Yugoslav wars they had a huge trouble knowing what had taken out any tank, as it would have marks from every type of ordinance known to man. In the 1999 NATO bombings of Yugoslavia Nato thought they had destroyed 120 tanks 220 APC's and 400 Artillery pieces. In reality it was 13 tanks, 8 APC's and 8 Artillery pieces.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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......
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.
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.
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 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?
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
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 RUclips 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?
@@ВячеславСкопюк 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
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.
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?"
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.
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.
Interesting in The Battle of Britain, The Royal Airforce did presume over claiming in it's calculations for german aircraft availability. Whereas Germany didn't and this therefore caused huge issues in under estimating the Royal Air force strength.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Although not WW2 and not shooting down aircraft but a good example of how large overestimating can get. During the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia in 1999. NATO thought they had destroyed 120 tanks, 220 APC's and 400 Artillery Pieces. In reality 13 tanks, 8 APC's and 8 Artillery pieces had been lost to all causes. There was a Mig-29 that the Serbian's couldn't repair as they didn't have the parts so they just put it out as a decoy it got hit 27 times. Another is HARMS anti radiation missiles NATO fired over 1,000 and took out a single anti-aircraft Tel. One SAM team had taken 8 old Mig-21 radars and would set them up around their site so that HARMS would target those. In addition switching on the radar for 30 seconds then off and once more on, after those 2 or 3 short sweeps, they would then pack up and move to a new site and this garentueed the total failure of wild weasels during the campaign (Although did make the SAM units much less effective). But forced US aircraft to have to drop Ordnance at non optimum height which bascially meant mostly misses.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@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.
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...".
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.
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?
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.
Thanks for this. Really interesting data to present. Not sure what I should think, but it's interesting that they really tried to verify each claim and they get such discrepancy. Thanks again.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 RUclips and worth a lookup.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 :)
Good analysis, but the VVS did have horrendous losses too! That said, i think there's something like a 30,000 difference between claimed Luftwaffe victories and VVS official losses.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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?
The variance between the pilots could easily be a temporary variance as well, one which evens out to closer to 50% for each pilot over time. That'd be my null hypothesis. Of particular note is that only two pilots have more than 40 (approximately where law of large numbers starts to kick in) claims in this data set. One of those is very close to 50%. So it's not surprising that Haas or Batz have a huge gulf between their percentages. The only huge outlier in this data set is Lipfert, who not only has a very high confirmed percentage but also a very large overall number.
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.
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.
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.
I would've thought 2/3 to 3/4 of claims are most likely but you're far better read than me, so I'll use the 1/2 guideline. I know in certain periods overclaiming was a systemic issue such as in the UK during 1941, not just overclaiming victories or performance achievements but also wildly exaggerating enemy action and aircraft capabilities essentially due to a new crop of inexperienced cadets pressing into a western Europe which was no longer a period German focus and often being soundly handed their arses by the air wing from as little as 2-3 experienced German squadrons in response, particularly around the early field testing of the new FW190 fighter type of which German impressions (unreliable, overheats constantly, can't use standard fuel without blowing the motor, can't sustain any high power settings, must rotate with shipmates in and out of combat to be effective, relies upon Me109 höhenjäger for high altitude support), and British impressions (total air domination, unmatched aerial performance, incomparable speed characteristics, totally outclasses current Spitfire model), were not only vastly different but stretched the very boundaries of different perspectives, particularly during a period where the MoD became aware of tremendous unreliability in after action reports and forced a big shake up of the RAF, from inconsistent production quality in aircraft to poor reliability on mission and in any kind of official reporting from their crews, even the loss rate due to navigational error had become unsustainable and needed fixing. It was a big period of change, after the initial phase of the emergency situation in the Battle of Britain and a lot of things needed changing. There are similar stories across Europe, where Germany had been preparing already with very serious intent for years so had the jump start.
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.
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).
Some variation may stem from different styles of fighting. Some pilots choose to shoot at long distances and other pilots choose to get close in before shooting. Some pilots shoot and scoot while other pilots shoot and maneuver to keep on the target. Damage assessment in all forms of warfare is very hard. The individual has to make a snap judgement about the damage they cause and act accordingly. An individual soldier shoots at an individual enemy, but can't tell if the shot was successful and either keeps shooting or assumes the enemy is still alive and keeps in cover and/or concealment while going on to the next target. That's in ground warfare where there is cover and concealment. In air fighting, there is very little concealment and no cover.
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.
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 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...
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.
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.
I had read in a memoir by an American WWII fighter pilot who flew for the RAF that Germans didn't use gun camera footage to verify kills. Anyone care to comment and/or elaborate on this? What exactly were the verification rules for the various allied nations?
Yes they did. Germans also always required a witness to confirm. Other major air forces to my knowledge had no such rules and people could make the numbers up. Most German footage and documentation was destroyed during the bombing of Berlin when the air ministry was utterly destroyed. With that material I am sure Chris' fazit would be quite different.
I wikied Lipfert before the clip was done. I found it curious he had more kills in Hungary than Hartmann, but had less total kills - 203. I figured he was late to the war and bingo - started flying combat in 1943. (He invaded Poland as a member of the 1st Panzer Division, switched to Luftwaffe in early 1941.)
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Oh just math. And maybe going through "Fire in the Sky" and all its kill claims and theory derived got me attuned or something. But it was pretty obvious from very few numbers. The obvious implication here was that maybe Lipfert was the best, just late. However, he might have also ended up like Marseille on a longer timeline, unlike the 4-year experten, who maybe lived to tell the tale by not being that aggressive for such an extended period of time. We'll never know. As an afterthought, I think you'd recommended that book... or maybe MHV. Not sure, it's been a few years. Great book!
Total MIA planes / Total Claimed Kills by the other side = Approximate average reduction amount to anyone's kills. Can even do that over time if you can get numbers per month or year from the various countries or even units.
It is interesting that this book highlights the aces (even if one reduces the claimed number of kills by 50%, these men still seem to have shot down over 100 aircraft each, making each pilot an ace 20 times over) of JG 52...because the unit itself stood apart from all comers. Credited with over 10,000 aerial victories from 1939-45, JG 52 was the most successful fighter wing in history...and proof that this doesn't matter unless the military branch that generated the unit can spread that capability across the entire force. JG 52's secret was an extremely successful mentorship model, where veteran pilots would turn the young, brash pilots that would arrive into disciplined professionals. While other wings, chiefly JG 5, JG 7 and JG 54 would also turn out mega-aces with regularity, none could match the JG 52 tendency to turn out professional fighter pilot aces that would survive the war. The top three aces by kills claimed were JG 52 veterans--Hartmann, Barkhorn and Rall; and all three would serve and retire from the West German Air Force between the 1950s and 1970s. Most of this was probably due to the fact that JG 52 wasn't redeployed to the Defense of the Reich mission. There is evidence that Goring had issued orders that any Luftwaffe fighter pilot returning from engaging the Combined Bomber Offensive without damage to his plane or evidence of an aerial victory would be immediately court martialed, and should a Luftwaffe fighter over the Reich run out of ammunition that pilot was ordered to ram a CBO bomber. These orders almost certainly were issued and carried out--see one Heinrich Ehrler to peruse how this would affect an ace with over 200 claimed victories.
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.
Is it me or was the audio incredibly low on this video?
It's not you.
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);
Too true, Allied higher command allowed the claims to stand unchallenged as a morale issue.
Allied gunners claims have nothing to do with axis fighters claims. Do you imagine 25 fw190 pilots claiming the same plane as a victory ?
@@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
@@ulfricsombrage It was meant to show the (extreme) example of overclaiming, not to equate fighters and bomber gunner claims.
*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.
I see that in wikipedia Lipfert had also 27 UNconfirmed victories.
You should probably pin this
Axi/Allied/soviet gun cameras how wide spread was it inthe years of WW2 ??
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 RUclips) 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.
Kettle pot black!
Two truths can exist at the same time.
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.
@@burnttoast111 'Have to be'? The Romans would like a word . . .
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.
That would definitely happen, hence why some kills were also shared.
@@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.
@@apistodiscusAnd how would you know that you're not the last one shooting?
@@copter2000 Cameras, you had cameras synchronized with the weaponry on the planes and clocks synchronized with the cameras .
So you had it documented.
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.
@@mangalores-x_xpilots are such a small cast that manpower is not a problem. Germans could simply not organise a training campaign
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
@@aleksazunjic9672 The best US WW2 ace, Richard Bong, flew 142 combat missions while Galland flew 705 one and was shot down 4 times.
@@chaosinsurgency6636 Point is, Germans did not have policy of "fly or die" . It was necessity of late WW2 for them.
@@alexfortin7209 True, but Bong would likely fly more if Japanese were for example bombing continental US .
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 think the Emperor knew how the need for approval drove his officer's reports to him. Culture, again. 😊
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
@@karlchenkarolinger5799 If German claims aren't highly exaggerated, I'll eat every hat I own.
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.
It must have been such a wonder to grow up with a father such as yours. I could only imagine the stories he told
Well they are loud and vulgar!
Whoever takes these claims as gospel by any side is naive and doesn't understand the nature of aerial warfare (or warfare in general).
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.
Is this the show where some allied pilots dare each other to fly under a bridge crossing a river?
"Piece of cake"... Len Deighton's book made into a TV show, probably? Or Derek Robinson?
@@The_Modeling_Underdog the British mini-series Piece of Cake was based on Robinson’s book. All episodes are available on RUclips.
@@ppsh43 Thanks, mate. I didn't recall at the time. Much appreciated.
To expand on the tank example, imagine a few hours later or days then a unit moves up sees tanks in the distance jumps for cover gets on the radio and asks for Artillery support. Look at that 5 tanks destroyed more than there were tanks in the first place. Then a group with a bazooka roll through a little later and fire that off, they've just created a lot of smoke they are not staying that position, so they run for cover happy they got that tank. Then some aircraft with rockets and oh look at that 2 tanks in that field they got for a run and that's another 2 added.
Now we have 8 tanks claimed taken out, and this can carry on. This doesn't even get onto decoy's I read about one that was hit 27 times. During the Yugoslav wars they had a huge trouble knowing what had taken out any tank, as it would have marks from every type of ordinance known to man. In the 1999 NATO bombings of Yugoslavia Nato thought they had destroyed 120 tanks 220 APC's and 400 Artillery pieces. In reality it was 13 tanks, 8 APC's and 8 Artillery pieces.
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.
@@austin2407
Compared by whom?
@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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you remember the name of the Russian author, it would be great. I could ask more information on the topic to my Russian friends.
@@Elrusoargentino most likely it a series of articles of Ivan Lavrinenko (Иван Лавриненко)
@@Belsen85 Thank you very much!
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.
Big props to the authors of the book for this study, the numbers shown is all their work.
"most file their claims in good faith" unless they don't, seeing the precision goes from 90% to 20%, it tells us not all pilots are equal.
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......
@@2adamastUnverified doesn’t necessarily mean untrue.
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.
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.
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.
He also claimed lots of non-existent victories. What does it say about validity of his statements?
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.
It had a .50 cal gun-not that small.
@@ВячеславСкопюк Then why did the Soviets charge him with shooting down 345 Soviet planes?
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'm quite certain at least some of that debris came with a diameter of 12.7 mm.
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
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 RUclips 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?
@@ВячеславСкопюк 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
@@ВячеславСкопюк But that's my question: What is a shootdown?
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.
In “A Higher Call” Franz Stigler also mentions that some squadron members also expressed skepticism about some of Hans-Joachim Marseille’s claims.
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?"
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.
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.
Interesting in The Battle of Britain, The Royal Airforce did presume over claiming in it's calculations for german aircraft availability. Whereas Germany didn't and this therefore caused huge issues in under estimating the Royal Air force strength.
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.
> maybe hard to confirm when you just see pieces falling down?
lol. Me-109 armament newer was able to disintegrate targets :D
@@ВячеславСкопюк Right, a 20mm cannon from point blank range just puts tiny little holes in a plane 🤣
@@TBreezy17 it puts large holes in the plane. Nonetheless, Il-2 was able to return back home with said holes. Read a book or two besides memoirs
@@ВячеславСкопюк Except when hitting the oil cooler.
@@EK-gr9gd ^^^
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.
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
The entire IJN had completely disillusioned themselves by war's end.
Americans covered up the loss of their biggest battleship, USS Amogus
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.
@@bazej1080russia claims that they shot down entire ukrainian air force 5 times over. nothing has changed
There must have been many cases where a plane limped back home but crash-landed or had to be written off.
I have the Horvath book! It's a great read-very helpful.
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.
Although not WW2 and not shooting down aircraft but a good example of how large overestimating can get. During the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia in 1999. NATO thought they had destroyed 120 tanks, 220 APC's and 400 Artillery Pieces. In reality 13 tanks, 8 APC's and 8 Artillery pieces had been lost to all causes. There was a Mig-29 that the Serbian's couldn't repair as they didn't have the parts so they just put it out as a decoy it got hit 27 times. Another is HARMS anti radiation missiles NATO fired over 1,000 and took out a single anti-aircraft Tel. One SAM team had taken 8 old Mig-21 radars and would set them up around their site so that HARMS would target those. In addition switching on the radar for 30 seconds then off and once more on, after those 2 or 3 short sweeps, they would then pack up and move to a new site and this garentueed the total failure of wild weasels during the campaign (Although did make the SAM units much less effective). But forced US aircraft to have to drop Ordnance at non optimum height which bascially meant mostly misses.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Thank you Christoph for an excellent presentation.
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.
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.
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.
@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.
Yes blew my mind when I went through actual losses to claims.... brilliant as usual chap.✌️
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...".
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.
Хартман над Яссами: фантазии в погоне за «мечами»Google Translater !
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?
Yes it does ;) Hope you enjoy the book!
Excellent analysis, the human factor always has to be considered. Great video as usual.
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.
Thanks for this. Really interesting data to present. Not sure what I should think, but it's interesting that they really tried to verify each claim and they get such discrepancy. Thanks again.
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.
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.
Yeah. Australia got mentioned 😊
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 wish i could make out the names of the books on your shelf. What is that huuuuge series on the top shelf?
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.
Wise words.
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.
@@stalkingtiger777 this is why he claims are not based solely on pilot statements. You have gun cameras, you have witnesses, and enemy reports.
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.
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 RUclips and worth a lookup.
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.
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
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.
Fact-finding about Erich Hartmann's kills is quite difficult, since he preferred to fly alone and to attack lone enemy aircraft.
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.
>I believe Hartmann and the top German aces
why? They're your bros or something?
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.
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!
G’day Doc! Where can I pick this book up?
@@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 :)
According to Ivan Kozhedub in ww2, he was attacked by US aircraft, and he shot them down in self-defence. Are they included in his total?
Good analysis, but the VVS did have horrendous losses too! That said, i think there's something like a 30,000 difference between claimed Luftwaffe victories and VVS official losses.
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.
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.
Thanks from Canberra AU, Chris.
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?
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?
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?
Good one. Always heard that there could be padded scores.
The variance between the pilots could easily be a temporary variance as well, one which evens out to closer to 50% for each pilot over time. That'd be my null hypothesis. Of particular note is that only two pilots have more than 40 (approximately where law of large numbers starts to kick in) claims in this data set. One of those is very close to 50%. So it's not surprising that Haas or Batz have a huge gulf between their percentages. The only huge outlier in this data set is Lipfert, who not only has a very high confirmed percentage but also a very large overall number.
It would be interesting to compare kill claims for gun sight enabled planes to see what caused the over claiming.
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.
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.
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.
I would've thought 2/3 to 3/4 of claims are most likely but you're far better read than me, so I'll use the 1/2 guideline. I know in certain periods overclaiming was a systemic issue such as in the UK during 1941, not just overclaiming victories or performance achievements but also wildly exaggerating enemy action and aircraft capabilities essentially due to a new crop of inexperienced cadets pressing into a western Europe which was no longer a period German focus and often being soundly handed their arses by the air wing from as little as 2-3 experienced German squadrons in response, particularly around the early field testing of the new FW190 fighter type of which German impressions (unreliable, overheats constantly, can't use standard fuel without blowing the motor, can't sustain any high power settings, must rotate with shipmates in and out of combat to be effective, relies upon Me109 höhenjäger for high altitude support), and British impressions (total air domination, unmatched aerial performance, incomparable speed characteristics, totally outclasses current Spitfire model), were not only vastly different but stretched the very boundaries of different perspectives, particularly during a period where the MoD became aware of tremendous unreliability in after action reports and forced a big shake up of the RAF, from inconsistent production quality in aircraft to poor reliability on mission and in any kind of official reporting from their crews, even the loss rate due to navigational error had become unsustainable and needed fixing. It was a big period of change, after the initial phase of the emergency situation in the Battle of Britain and a lot of things needed changing. There are similar stories across Europe, where Germany had been preparing already with very serious intent for years so had the jump start.
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.
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).
Some variation may stem from different styles of fighting. Some pilots choose to shoot at long distances and other pilots choose to get close in before shooting. Some pilots shoot and scoot while other pilots shoot and maneuver to keep on the target. Damage assessment in all forms of warfare is very hard. The individual has to make a snap judgement about the damage they cause and act accordingly.
An individual soldier shoots at an individual enemy, but can't tell if the shot was successful and either keeps shooting or assumes the enemy is still alive and keeps in cover and/or concealment while going on to the next target. That's in ground warfare where there is cover and concealment. In air fighting, there is very little concealment and no cover.
I think it was Greg that mentioned across the board pilots claiming the same plane was not unusual.
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.
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 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...
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.
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.
I had read in a memoir by an American WWII fighter pilot who flew for the RAF that Germans didn't use gun camera footage to verify kills. Anyone care to comment and/or elaborate on this? What exactly were the verification rules for the various allied nations?
Yes they did. Germans also always required a witness to confirm. Other major air forces to my knowledge had no such rules and people could make the numbers up.
Most German footage and documentation was destroyed during the bombing of Berlin when the air ministry was utterly destroyed. With that material I am sure Chris' fazit would be quite different.
I wikied Lipfert before the clip was done. I found it curious he had more kills in Hungary than Hartmann, but had less total kills - 203. I figured he was late to the war and bingo - started flying combat in 1943. (He invaded Poland as a member of the 1st Panzer Division, switched to Luftwaffe in early 1941.)
Good gut feeling
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Oh just math. And maybe going through "Fire in the Sky" and all its kill claims and theory derived got me attuned or something. But it was pretty obvious from very few numbers.
The obvious implication here was that maybe Lipfert was the best, just late. However, he might have also ended up like Marseille on a longer timeline, unlike the 4-year experten, who maybe lived to tell the tale by not being that aggressive for such an extended period of time. We'll never know.
As an afterthought, I think you'd recommended that book... or maybe MHV. Not sure, it's been a few years. Great book!
Total MIA planes / Total Claimed Kills by the other side = Approximate average reduction amount to anyone's kills. Can even do that over time if you can get numbers per month or year from the various countries or even units.
It is interesting that this book highlights the aces (even if one reduces the claimed number of kills by 50%, these men still seem to have shot down over 100 aircraft each, making each pilot an ace 20 times over) of JG 52...because the unit itself stood apart from all comers.
Credited with over 10,000 aerial victories from 1939-45, JG 52 was the most successful fighter wing in history...and proof that this doesn't matter unless the military branch that generated the unit can spread that capability across the entire force.
JG 52's secret was an extremely successful mentorship model, where veteran pilots would turn the young, brash pilots that would arrive into disciplined professionals. While other wings, chiefly JG 5, JG 7 and JG 54 would also turn out mega-aces with regularity, none could match the JG 52 tendency to turn out professional fighter pilot aces that would survive the war. The top three aces by kills claimed were JG 52 veterans--Hartmann, Barkhorn and Rall; and all three would serve and retire from the West German Air Force between the 1950s and 1970s.
Most of this was probably due to the fact that JG 52 wasn't redeployed to the Defense of the Reich mission. There is evidence that Goring had issued orders that any Luftwaffe fighter pilot returning from engaging the Combined Bomber Offensive without damage to his plane or evidence of an aerial victory would be immediately court martialed, and should a Luftwaffe fighter over the Reich run out of ammunition that pilot was ordered to ram a CBO bomber. These orders almost certainly were issued and carried out--see one Heinrich Ehrler to peruse how this would affect an ace with over 200 claimed victories.
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.
Could you please turn up the volume on your videos? It's very hard to listen on mobile without headphones