Re: Air War Above Rzhev - Zubtsov
 

I have recently sent robinoc my conclusions for several days of the Soviet Volkhov Offensive for January-July 1942. The German claims are as always “possible” as many times only the times of JG 54 can be factored into the claim. I have also added Soviet claims for that period, which are many more then I could record in such a short period. Not all I-18 and I-61 claims by the Germans were actually the aircraft listed in their scores. I could not find a lot of the Soviet 1 RAG and 1 UAG reports on line. Also many of the reports and journals of Soviet armies and units had gaps in days and months. So if you liked my previous posts, I hope that you will enjoy this article. Bob will post a link to his page when he reads over it and puts it up.

Re: Air War Above Rzhev - Zubtsov
 

Thank you, a link please ?

Re: Air War Above Rzhev - Zubtsov
 

Mars, sorry I can’t provide a link as Bob has not got back with me yet. It is the same JG 54 website as the Air War Above Rzhev- Zubtsov was put up on but just not up as of yet. I will say there are a number of entry for Soviet losses by JG 54 that have no recorded matching claims, so maybe denied in some Flugbuch or just lost with Luftwaffe records. I will provide an example of what is written.

22 March 1942
In the morning hours the U-2 from 662 NBAP flown by Serzhant Petr Severov was listed as missing in action in the area of Novoselitsy.
From the German side in the records of III./JG 54 a possible match is found. Leutnant Friedrich Rupp of 7./JG 54 claimed a RZ (11) at 06:12 at Nowosswlitsci (Novoselitsy).

I put together as many claims as I could possibly find touching on a few of Nowotny, Hans Phillips among the worst claimers. A surprise for me was Franz Eckerle in his last claims of his life. So until Bob gets back with me it’s out of my hands.

Re: Air War Above Rzhev - Zubtsov
 

The link is on Page 6 of this thread.

Re: Air War Above Rzhev - Zubtsov
 

Update on the fate of Unteroffizier Hermann Kübler of 3./JG 52 his Bf 109 G-2 13 497 lost by ramming on 11 September 1942 has been found between 2 - 22 July 2020. Unfortunately, the remains of Kübler were not located in the cockpit.

Re: Air War Above Rzhev - Zubtsov
 

Mars, Robinoc has put up the link in the “Links” section concerning this article. I hope it is useful to you and others.

Re: Air War Above Rzhev - Zubtsov
 

Thank you

Re: Air War Above Rzhev - Zubtsov
 

Hi

What documentation do you have for Günther Schack, I have a copy of his Leistungsbuch.

Rudi Meyer is closely associated with Maximillian Mayerl, and is witness to about half his claims, but at this exact time less than half of Mayerl's claims were being confirmed even though he had witnesses...usually Meyer, in fact Mayerl had five unconfirmed claims alone on 10th August 1942 !, others on 11th, 12th, 19th, 22nd and 24th of August.

Kind Regards

Johannes

Re: Air War Above Rzhev - Zubtsov
 

Johannes, on Günther Schack the claims came from Prien’s JFV series and from the book “Alarmstart”, which are listed in the sources at the end of the article. Kirill verified the Soviet side from Soviet documents. This was the beginning of his career and I was kind of surprised but doesn’t mean that he didn’t get better later.

Sorry, that I didn’t get back to you sooner but I rarely view the threads here as other interests as of late.

Re: Air War Above Rzhev - Zubtsov
 

Hello everyone, I am not systematically comparing claims from German pilots with VVS losses as Michael does. Only in cases when we worked on some separate loss of VVS in this area and clarified the circumstances according to the documents of the other party. I sent some comparisons on the found wreck sites to Johannes. I can, if possible, look at the individual groups of claims and clarify how these individual air battles are reflected in the Soviet records.

Today, incidentally, I recalled the story of 2018, which confirms the claim of one of the mentioned Germans.
15.01.1943 - Seversky - 9./JG 51 - Lt. Mayerl Maximilian - nordnordwestlich Rshew (3766) - 12.08 at 1000m - claim 35

This application corresponds to the circumstances of the death of the Su-2 spotter aircraft from 35 OKRAE 3 VA and the entire crew of three (st.l-t Abusov N.M., l-t Brovtsyn V.N., l-t Pylaev A.V). Despite the cover of 7 fighters from 157 IAP, the Germans managed to take advantage of the mistakes of the covering group. First, one group of Germans tied one "flight" in battle, and already on the retreat from the combat area due to uncoordinated actions (turn in different directions), the second group of Soviet fighters lost their spotter, leaving a lone Su-2 against a pair of FW-190s. This was one of two losses of this type of aircraft in the area (the second was lost somewhat earlier by a separate squadron from 1 VA in the Karmanovo-Sychevka sector.

Best regards,
Kirill