Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II
 

Just recently I noticed in JFV 9/II that it has "10.08.42 8./JG 52 Oblt. Guenther Rall LaGG-3 (46) 06:09 Pl.Qu. 05232/ S. Krasnodar". That location and S. of Krasnodar doesn't match. In Tony Woods list I believe its 85 232. Is there a confirmation in Rall's log book?

Re: Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II
 

Hi

tony Woods is correct in his reading of grid quadrant 85232 altitude 1800 metres, which I worked-out to be East of Stawropoliskaja. But there would be several places with this reference as the grid quadrants reoccure, but they are just about as far apart as can be......it all depends on where the unit is at that time. Also Southwest of Boston would be the same place as Northeast of New York!

Kind Regards

Johannes

Re: Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II
 

Thank you Johannes! The 85 is probably the correct Pl.Qu. even though the Lutwaffe was flying in the 05 and I have found claims in this area on occasion. The S. of Krasnodar seemed kind of wrong for that Pl.Qu. I found Stavropolskaya to the south of Krasnodar. Now I need to verify the Soviet pilot's location and time that I suspect.

Re: Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II
 

Hi

Rall was particulary meticulous in claiming, he never really had large numbers of claims in a day as he "didn't take risks"! Sad thing is that he lamented the fact that his closest competition Graf, Nowotny and Hartmann received the Brillianten, and he only the Schwerter, yet he would appear to be the only honest claimer amongst them. The Author Bernd Barbas questioned him about the confirmation of number 275, and it would appear that Rall didn't complete the paperwork as he was incapacitated at the time, so 274 it is! All others are confirmed on the micro films, and numbers 199 and 200 are duplicated exactly a month later, which proves that the micro films do harbor mistakes!!!

You will find that if a pilot makes huge daily claims that he is usually being dis-honest, but it's not always the case!

Regards

Johannes

Re: Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II
 

Hartmann wasn't a honest claimer? I beg to differ on that. The Russians tended to lie more about there losses. Easier to do that then to end up in the Gulag.

Re: Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II
 

If you read the Lipfert war diary, he talks of intercepting the Russian weather reconnaissance flights on many occasions and getting kills that way.
Then go through Rall's victory list and look at the altitudes of some of his kills...

...It starts to become clear that he made kind of a 'career' out of shooting down single aircraft flying at relatively high altitude in comparison to most of the eastern front combats e.g. the weather reconaissance fighters that Lipfert wrote of.

Re: Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II
 

Looks like a cold war stereotype. Info about losses moved by several ways. It wasn't possible to hide the losses. And military archives (TsAMO, TsVMA) contains huge amount of documents with info about losses, and they suitable for cross-checking.

Documents with personal losses are available on-line, in contrast with German NVM, which still unavailable after the closing in the end of Eighties.

Re: Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II
 

Where? What's the link?

Regards
Rasmussen

Re: Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II
 

http://obd-memorial.ru/flash/

Regards,
Andrey

Re: Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II
 

Doubt that very much. Things like that to hide is easy to do, in fact, its still common place today.

Re: Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II
 

Hide the loss of the aircraft and the crew??? Systematically?
It was a complot of commanders, engineer service, personnel branch, political officers (an independent channel of info) and osobists (2nd independent channel) of all levels?
One day some regiment lose his last aircraft but continue to report on the evening that 20-30 aircrafts are ready for action next morning?

Let's take in to account, that bulk of everyday papers, monthly reports and so on survived the war and available now. And available for the multiple cross-checking. In contrast with Luftwaffe documents, whose ~96 per cents of documents were destroyed.

Re: Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II
 

Nick, I don't think that Helmut Lipfert was just hunting "weather" planes for his score. He seems to have been pretty good at "dogfighting". Take 02Dec43 he claimed at 06:39 a Yak-1, 06:48 a LaGG-3 and 06:55 another LaGG-3. Losses suffered by the VVS ChF were three LaGG-3 of the 25 IAP ChF (Ml.Lt. Viktor Ivanovich Verishchenko (KIA), Ml.Lt. Ivan Grigor'evich Gordievskiy (KIA), Ml.Lt. Dmitriy Andreevich Kusenko (KIA) all in air combat).

Re: Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II
 

Hi Mikhail,

I take your point. I probably chose terms that were too general when trying to express the opinion that there seem to be quite a few aircraft carrying out that mission when you look at the altitudes and locations of many of Rall's victories.

Nick

Re: Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II
 

Hi Guys

Whatever I say about Hartmann don't believe the "only 80" conclusion, as we do not no much about his 1945 claims, it's impossible to reach a conclusion about these. Also his earlier ones seem sound! Hartmann though was a big daily claims merchant which is usually a pretty good indicator of overclaiming.......but not always.

Johannes

Re: Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II
 

... also, I believe that it was not without risk to shoot down a Pe-2 with is good defensive weapons when it can see you coming from miles at these high altitudes...

Re: Question of J. Prien on Rall in JFV 9/II
 

Yogy,

I'll wear that one, mate. I think you're 100% correct with that statement and it's borne out by the fact that a lot of the Luftwaffe's top-scorers victory lists ARE made up of single-seat types. Christer Bergstroem pointed that out a few years back in his Black Cross + Red Star series and I have always agreed with him.