WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO_XTOjpUEo

I watched this last night on YouTube and really enjoyed it. It is rare to focus on a single ace, even the much proclaimed Hartmann, without getting a lot of hyperbole and mythology. The only part of the lecture I thought needed clarification was the part that covered Luftwaffe rules on claims. What the presenter appears to say is that the Luftwaffe originally at least, only credited the victories that were verifiable (i.e. on German controlled areas of the battlefield). Much like they (sort of) allowed WW1 aerial victories. And that only those that fell the other (Russian in this study) side of the German lines and were verifiable losses can be accepted as "kills".On these criteria I wondered how the Luftwaffe allowed aces such as Wick, Moelders, Galland and others to claim Spitfires and Hurricanes shot down over England in 1940 or indeed those claimed over the English Channel in 1940-41 where wreckage is not available? Perhaps many of the claims made by Luftwaffe pilots were just a marrying up of RAF losses - by historians post-war?

This main argument for Hartmann or others does not really cover other eventualities. Is a "kill" only acceptable as an aircraft loss? In most cases this is true but what is the pilot is killed or severely wounded, what if the aircraft lands with a mortally wounded pilot? I would regard the loss of an airman more substantial a loss than an aircraft but even more so a pilot. All of this requires a post-war examination of enemy records (something that is difficult for the reasons that in WW1 and WW2 Axis records are fragmentary because of war damage).

It is equally evident in the German Panzer "Aces" claims for Russian and other Allied tanks in WW2 where a single knocked out tank could be claimed by any number of crews until it is destroyed completely.

That said I enjoyed the presentation and recommend the "Verified Victories" book which is exceptional.

best regards

Keith

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

Daniel goes into this in detail in his book "Verified Victories" (Helion, 2022) and it's far from simple!

See my last line, "That said I enjoyed the presentation and recommend the "Verified Victories" book which is exceptional."

Yes Nick, I have the book and it is very, very good. What I was hinting at was that the Germans disregarded a lot of their rules very quickly after war began and, as Daniel and many of our fellow forumites have made clear is that by 1944 they'd loosened them to such a degree that the claims have gone from inaccurate to ridiculous.

I wonder if the Germans had tried a little less at making so much of their "aces" they might have looked at while the perpetual picking off of inexperienced enemy fighter pilots might raise individual scores they needed to get better results from attacks on bomber formations. I assume that was the reason the points system for decorations was introduced?

Not surprisingly there are parallels with WW1. The Germans rarely ventured far over enemy lines and instead of attacking the British and French airfields waited for formations to appear and picked off a lot of stragglers. This of course meant that the British and French were able to damage transport and installations behind German lines. Once again allowing their "aces" to build up scores and promoting them in the print media. Towards the last year of the war they again relaxed their confirmation system to bolster the "aces" tallies.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

It's common knowledge that all participants engaged in massive overclaiming for propaganda purposes, not a specifically German phenomenon.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

Vince? Here we are again on another forum :) I think you are right but you must agree that British/Commonwealth claims in the ETO are much more accurate as the war progresses whereas the Germans are wildly inaccurate on the Russian Front and among certain "aces" who came to the ETO after serving on the Russian front showed the same behaviour, and in many cases became casualties. I am leaving out the USAAF in the ETO because ...well ...just because. After all they wiped out the Luftwaffe in 1943, then again in 1944 and again in 1945. Don't ask me about what the US Navy/USMC and USAAF did to the Japanese because they wiped them out completely every year of the war (apart from 1942) :)

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

And as we know from the films they did it on their own... despite arriving late for the war - again.

https://www.google.com/search?q=john...9BKilYk9Q,st:0

:)

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

Back on topic, I thought Daniel’s talk was excellent—25 minutes very well spent.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

Hello all, this is Daniel using my fathers account (I unfortunately do not have one).
THANK YOU for your support :) The show tried to cramp in a couple big myths about Erich Hartmann into a very short time span so obviously not everything could be covered ... that's why I kept suggesting the book because its 215 pages and ~560 footnotes can better answer those questions with raw facts.

Kieth, I believe I responded to your very question in the comment section but did not make the connection to TOCH. Yes the claiming system is very complex. I believe we have written perhaps the most comprehensive material on the Luftwaffe claiming system in the English language to date, yet even I have some remaining questions about it particularly for 1945. Long story short, the system kept changing over time to reflect the war, cracks would naturally appear and opportunistic individuals would take advantage of it. Correct and complete filed paperwork is less important than arrive home safely.

Nick, thank you as well for your support :)

I hope you enjoy/ed the episode and if anyone on TOCH who is comfortable with the English language wishes to appear on WW2TV Paul is a great host!

All the best,

Daniel (using Gabor's account)

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

Fully agree. An excellent presentation

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

So did I, even if I usually take a more lenient view regarding claims vs victories.
Always nice to put a face to a text since I have your book, Just wished Gabor
would have dared to show his.... :)
May I also commend your for an excellent English. Very important in a presentation like this!

As I see it, the Luftwaffe verification system during 1939-45 was basically a modified WW 1
system. Not strange since basically all the top brass was individuals from that war.

The system itself fell apart very rapidly. During BoB for instance there were no way
anyone could verify claims over Britain or the Channel, so what was left was to either trust
what the pilots and their back ups said when getting back or not. It was either that or
you would basically have say to the only arm actually fighting the war, we don't trust you!
Since nobody was prepared to do that, the fighting over enemy territory became their
first exception. Now as soon as you are prepared to accept exceptions, you immediately
become prone to pressure from within to accept exceptions elsewhere.

The British came up with a quite genius idea during WW 1, the so called OOC (out of control)
system. Unfortunately historians have interpreted all OOC claims as a officially verified
victories, which they were not!
Also unfortunately the Germans did not come up with a similar system during WW 2.

With regard to Erich Hartmann I believe he was the equivalent of the Canadian Billy
Bishop during WW 1. The "kid who couldn't miss". While Germany more and more rapidly
went downhill, the state and PR machine needed someone who went uphill.
Hartmann fitted that bill perfectly. Young - blond - handsome - daring, you name it.
In other words a perfect National Socialist raw model, this time not on posters, but
in real life. Probably a good choice since his myth still lives on today.

Very little has been said about Hartmann's post war career. As far as I know nobody from his
old unit ever said anything bad about him. He never reached any higher rank in the new Luftwaffe,
Oberst I think, and that was that. Not even after his early death did anyone (as far as I know)
speak up about him. Out of pity? Never "kill" a legend? No idea.
But he is interesting, even to me (my interest is focused on aircraft) since it shows what one
can achieve with a propaganda machine in full swing.
It is still done today in Social Media day after day with an Industry always ready to support
an "influencer".
The less I say about the latter phenomena the better, since I would probably be banned
from TOCH forever.....:D

Thanks again Daniel
Cheers
Stig

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

Fair points. Daniel the area of your research is a rare sideline for me (until recently the Luftwaffe on the Russian Front was always too vast and far too badly reported to get my focus) but when I have dipped in your Dad has been both very informative, patient and courteous. Hence I grabbed a copy of the book as soon as it was released. I hope there's more to come in print, forums and on YouTube :)

best regards

Keith

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

Yes Keith, it's me again. I know I'm not popular with certain individuals, so be it. Regarding overclaiming and propaganda, it is certainly a fraught topic, with most of the analysis coming from the 'allied' side of the historical fence, with its implied bias. Most of my interest stems from purely personal reasons, as my uncle was 'Abschuss-Offizier' for JG27 during the Sawallisch-Bendert-Stigler brouhaha, and the fallout from that had far-reaching consequences. I'm definitely no expert on the overclaiming issue in general, but I'm certainly up to speed on propaganda tactics during wartime.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

On the Eastern Front, many LW pilots used guerilla warfare tactics, strike fast and disappear. Not necessarily a bad tactic when the opponent has a clear or overwhelming numerical superiority. It tied the opponent's fighter forces to protective tasks and caused losses to the opponent while keeping own losses down, even if it did not produce a decisive benefit for own side, it kept the enemy on his toes. And if Hartmann claimed only 15 Il-2s, out of 267 Otto Kittel's claims 94 were Il-2s and e.g. Lipfert claimed 39 Il-2s. So there were fighter pilots who risked their lives going low to hit ground attack planes to help poor Landsers.

And I wouldn't go as far as to say that Germans in general were overclaiming unusually wildly in the East. Even in the summer of 1944 their claims were generally relatively accurate over Southern Finland and the Northern Baltic, even if for example in the far north with the JG 5 overclaiming was quite wild. And even in the south, where, for example, Hartmann operated, Lipfert's claims were exceptionally accurate.

Although the system and the culture of the unit had an effect, the characteristics of the individual were ultimately decisive in the one’s claim accuracy.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

Great interview Dan - very interesting video thank you.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

I do agree with some of the points pointed out by Vince here regarding the "Allied or other side" of overclaiming. Most of post-war studies focus only on the LW system and the LW airmen who "apparently faked" their claims.
The 8th AF air gunners who, according to the records would have shot down at least twice or thrice the actual number of airplanes of the Luftwaffe on the West between 1943 and 1945 are not even recorded on post-war studies, although some RAF post-war war diaries do mention the "propaganda" purposes of the 8th Air Force at that time (mainly 1943 and early 1944).
Perhaps we will see, on a near futur, a similar book dedicated to the "Other side overclaiming"...

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

IMHO air gunners are a different breed. And I remember that even in late 60s it was generally well known that 8th AF air gunners' claims were highly inflated. And at least from 1969 it was clear that even during the BoB RAF claims were inflated. And at least in 70s it became clear that the RAF claims over France in 1941 were at least at times highly inflated. The difference is that this is given as general info and not so that someone goes through certain aces claims and compared them to surviving German loss records.

On the other hand there are still authors who tried to show that claims of certain German aces are 100% accurate. E.g. the are some rather desperate attemps to make Marseille's claims 100% accurate in Heaton's & Lewis' Marseille book.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

Perhaps on Carl Sagan's principle that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"? Whilst I don't doubt that many claims in every air force did not correspond to enemy losses, it seems reasonable to think that the more claims there are, the greater the likelihood that some are errorneous. And there is another point here, in the Great War the highest German, French and British Empire claimants fell in the 60–80 range. In the Second World War the gap between Hartmann (352), Bong (40) and Johnson (34) is of a quite different order so I can see why people look for explanations.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

For info on WW I claims ect go to theaerodrome.com and the posts 100 years ago today and pfennings from heaven. lets just say Von Richthofen and other pilots don't come out looking to good. as for rene Fonck the top French/Allied ace of WW I less said the better.
I liked the presentation and will read the book one day

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

And in that spirit, I was very careful only to talk about claims, not what actually happened!

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

Good point James, and the conversations get even more interesting when you do a search on Billy Bishop. And there are certain members of that forum, whom I've repeatedly clashed with, who seem to regard it as a sacred duty to discredit the careers, not only of leading lights such as Richthofen, but all members of the Luftstreitkraefte.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

Exactly Nick. On the point of Battle of Britain claims. In the Battle of Britain the RAF had a target rich environment and fighter pilots being fighter pilots shot at everything. Consequently two, three, four, five pilots believed they were solely responsible for an enemy aircraft going down. It may have been so but the others also saw the same picture. Luftwaffe pilots probably did the same.The RAF did overclaim. I believe the stats are about 1:3. I haven't seen the Luftwaffe claims in this period but from memory they were extremely high, leading to extravagant claims by Goering (much like his claims in WW1). In 1941 when the RAF was doing pretty much all the daytime offensive work over the Channel, and consequently were losing escort fighters, rather than bombers, in large numbers it is true that in the main certain squadrons in the Kenley and Tangmere Wings were massively overclaiming. As I stated earlier in this discussion I think the RAF got more accurate as the war went on. Although I am not Vince's main opponent in our other forum (I believe he thought/thinks me anti-German and when I gave him evidence that this was not so he didn't even acknowledge my responses, even when I gave evidence) but that's another discussion:) I think he believes that correcting perceptions of aces is the same as insulting their memory. I hope I am not perceived as denigrating fellows who flew and fought when my most frightening flying experience was in 1987 aboard an Afghan Airlines flight, hitting turbulence at night over Moscow. Bishop was a popular bloke who managed to find a way to work the system, Finucane (and I suspect Bader and Caldwell and many others) did the same in WW2. The Americans used the "Race of Aces" to massively inflate both "ace" tallies and enemy casualties. All we are trying to do is give perspective. 352 kills is a ridiculous number, 301, 275, 250 it's all just numbers and so massively different from those claimed by their opponents that unless you believe in a German gene or a superiority in FIGHTER engineering (let's face it their bombers were poor, their transport aircraft bizarre) that is at least ten times better than the opponent your argument falls apart. Especially as by the latter end of the war Luftwaffe pilots were not being trained over a long period before being committed to battle. Nuff said (by me).

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

You make some good points Keith. BTW the list of individuals who seem to be on some personal mission to besmirch all things German does not include you, and if I neglected to respond to some points raised, my apologies. Regarding the astronomical claim numbers on the eastern front, I think the early part of the campaign was the 'happy time' for Jagdwaffe pilots, when the equipment and aircrew gaps between the two air forces were fairly wide. Having said that, and only as a general statement, the quality of both aircraft and crews in the Red Air Force caught up fairly quickly.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

My own perspective for what it's worth … when I'm researching, I'm not interested in debunking or denigrating anything or anyone of any nationality but in establishing, as far as I can, what actually happened. And if Hartmann's true score stood, as Daniel estimated in the interview, at perhaps 20–30% of his total claims then he was still a spectacularly successful fighter pilot.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

Many thanks for your responses gentlemen, a belated but no less heartfelt Happy New Year :)

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

Regarding the claims, one need to also have a look at the total combat sorties flown (Feindflug). If memory does not fail me, at least half a dozen LW fighter pilots flew 1,000 or close to that number of combat sorties.
I remember at least one V.V.S. fighter pilot who completed at least 1,000 sorties. On the other hand, the RAF pilots were rotated home, or grounded as Flight Instructors at OTU for some time before rejoining for a 2nd or 3rd or 4th Tour. Some of the most well known RAF fighter pilots chalked more than 500 combat sorties (from memory one reached 600+) and on the US side, at least one of the Fighter boys reached the 500-600 combat sorties range.
MOST of the LW airmen flew without rotation....continuously....Rudel (not a fighter pilot) flew 17 combat sorties once. The LW bomber pilots chalked hundreds of combat sorties, whilst the RAF's top airmen flew 100+ (from memory the recordist flew something around 130 sorties). Some US bomber pilots chalked the 100 mark too...but they soon were rotated home. Batcher you all know flew all throughout the war...and was shot down or hit several times.
BUT, the total tally is not one sided business, one must look beyound the number of combat sorties, to other factors:
1) Luck (be at the right place on the right time and not being shot down before attacking)
2) Number of enemies and favorable position to shoot them down,
3) Marksmanship,
4) Weaponery (guess that if the RAF did have 20mm guns or .50 guns in 1940, their tally at the Battle of Britain would have been higher! And on several books it is said that one 30mm LW shell was suficient to bring down a fighter or a twin-engined machine);
5) Training
6) Ground support (logistic, mechanic support, etc.)

Anyway it is a fascinating subject and maybe the point that Vince put here is WHY only the LW claims are being scrutinized after WW2? Why NOT the other side is being researched too? At least a French Historian is cross-checking all the claims of the Normandie-Niemen unit and the % of positive claims he found (post-war study) is incredibly low...

I believe that with open archives, we will see in the futur a bunch of new books and researches cross-checking those claims and "Oficial" lists. It is an interesting field of researches, still open.

Nice thread by the way.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

My feeling is that if I want to see a particular piece of research done, the only sure way is to do it myself. But I come back to what I said in an earlier post, the biggest German claims are so far beyond what was claimed in any other air force that it is not surprising people would look at them more closely.

And by the way, Christophe Cony in Avions magazine wrote a very good article about Pierre Clostermann's claims.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

Hello Keith
High number of claims does not necessarily mean high overclaiming. If you look the Helmut Lipfert's part in the Daniel's and Gabor's book, his claims were exceptionally accurate over Hungary. And he had 203 confirmed victories.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

I agree with the importance of judging claims based in part on number of Feindfluege. The Luftwaffe of course had no such concept of 'flying a tour' and getting rotated out, unless you want to believe that these totals are faked as well.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

The LW did not have combat tours but more like the system the RAF had up to the beginning of 1942, i.e. the CO and the Medical Officer observed their pilots and if noticed signs of tireness/too high stress gave if possible a short or longer leave to the pilot. E.g. Marseille had two furloughs, one month and two months in duration in 1941 plus one and half months with his unit in Bavaria when it changed from Bf 109 E-7/trops to Bf 109 F-4/trops. And 1½ months sick leave and furlough 1941/42. In 1942 he had two two months furloughs. I know that several other aces spent furloughs in Germany during the war. Lipfert also spent some time training Rumanian fighter pilots.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

Our friend Geoffrey Sinclair wishes to add some thoughts to the subject!

Using published sources, like Fighter Command War Diaries, Battle of Britain Then and Now, the lists of Luftwaffe combat claims etc.

Battle of Britain 10 July to 31 October 1940. Removing all the known non fighter causes of loss like friendly fire, enemy bomber, crashes etc. but retaining unknown cause, enemy action etc.

Overall the RAF fighters claimed around 2,440 kills, for 1,255 actual, or 1.9 to 1, the over claiming by month July to September was around 1.3 to 1, 1.9 to 1, 2.5 to 1, 1.2 to 1, the heavier the fighting the higher the over claims, 15 September makes a big contribution. The RAF was aware of the over claiming given the number of Luftwaffe aircraft wrecks found.

Luftwaffe fighters claimed just under 2,000 kills of Spitfires and Hurricanes, 1.7 Spitfires per Hurricane and shot down around 700, or around 2.8 to 1, a ratio that is consistent July to September, dropping to 2.5 to 1 in October, throwing in the bomber gunner claims explains the reports of the Luftwaffe over claiming 5 to 1.

In 1941 over France the RAF was over claiming around 5 to 1, Ultra told the British about this. The RAF was also making major over claims in North Africa in 1941 and 1942 which can be seen in the Christopher Shores et. al. books.

January to June 1943, RAF fighter command allowed 249 kill claims against Luftwaffe fighters, the true number of kills was 235, according to British Intelligence in World War II (Hinsley).
Looking at 8th Air Force B-17 and B-24 losses the Luftwaffe fighters quite consistently claimed about 2 B-17 for every 1 shot down by fighters, and under 2 to 1 for B-24 ("B-24 easier to shoot down" ideas). The exchange rate of Luftwaffe fighters shot down by the bombers to bombers shot down by the fighters was around 2 fighters to 3 bombers in 1943 becoming 1 fighter per 2 bombers in early 1944.

Theo Boiten in Nachtjagd War Diaries notes only a couple of nightfighter pilots where he suspects their claims.

Making trouble are reports like the USAAF examining a small number of Luftwaffe gun camera films post war finding the most reliable indicator of whether a kill claim was granted was not visible damage, or visible hits, or a fire, but the rank of the pilot making the claim. (91% Major/Captain, 50% Lieutenants, 47% Sergeant). 6 out of 6 claims by Lt Colonels were granted, 1 out of 3 claims by corporals. Total sample size 173 claims.
Stressing these are broad brush figures to give an idea on the size of over claims, not a statement of absolutes.

Cheers
Stig

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

In a wider context it seems to me that WW1 and WW2 fighter pilots of all nations were of a similar personality; very young, intuitive, well-educated, self confident, often petulant men full of enthusiasm and highly motivated, dutiful and dedicated (tho sometimes fearful) to their task. Yet only a few were gifted enough to become adept at their profession; essentially shooting down or killing other fliers. The Hawks and pigeons scenario.......?


These who regularly claimed enemy aircraft shot down or destroyed were all however at the tender mercy of their respective air force administrative infrastructure; namely the dreaded intelligence departments, who collated their reports, often asked awkward questions and continually doubted their eye witness accounts.

So surely if some 'aces' were making exaggerated claims it was the job of the ever pragmatic Intelligence Officer to moderate these claims and restore reality?
But in the case of overclaims it could be deduced that the IO's were more lax or tolerant in allowing claims (due to pressure from COs, high command, for the sake of morale or being simply bullied?)

All fighter pilots over-claimed, to me it appeared most IO's allowed them to?

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

Cheers Stig :)

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Did it? I have not read the ULTRA 1941 (except for one message!) but I would be quite surprised if regualr fighter loss reports were being recorded from France where the units could use long-established landline communications. I have looked at several months of 1942 and found that material from the Western Front is very rare, most of the traffic coming instead from the Mediterranean.

Re: WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation
 

I think it's a bit unfair to claim the Luftwaffe is being unfairly scrutinised. The desire and popularity of researching aerial claims is relatively new and the investigation of the Luftwaffe does yield valuable information about how accurate British Commonwealth and American (as well as Russian, French, Polish etc.)were. Often it can be seen that the death of an aircraft is claimed by both sides in the same air battle.

To ignore the credibility of the claims of the Luftwaffe aces because the RAF, USAAF is not being researched to the same extent is not a valid argument. From my own reading the RAF has been evaluated, discussed and published in a myriad of books and other media, to the extent that we are able to identify where overclaiming has occurred. However the RAF aces such as Johnson, Finucane, Bader, Stanford Tuck, Malan, Beurling, Caldwell etc do not have the same world-wide interest as Hartmann and Barkhorn. The details of their combats are easily found and consequently their records are easily investigated and explained (I would recommend Anthony Cooper's books on the Kenley and Darwin Wings for forensic examination of overclaiming). The 100s and 100s of claims by the high scoring Luftwaffe aces until recently have been accepted despite some obvious issues as to their accuracy. Russian records now allow us to examine how accurate they really were. The lack of desire or interest to investigate American air aces to the same extent may have a number of reasons.

What I would say is if you are interested in researching the allies overclaiming there's no better resource than this forum and the books, blogs and websites of it's many authors and contributors. The advantage is that unlike the Luftwaffe very few Allied pilots shot down five or more in a single mission (and almost all of those are Americans), let alone seventeen in a day! If you are not then THAT is the reason the Allies do not get the same focus. Those of us who spend a lot of money and time buying and reading the works in print already know a lot of the answers because we asked the questions. There's still work to do on the RAF but the scores are already in. Faced with an intelligence requirement that after the 1941 campaign (overclaiming still allowed Allied bombers to hit targets with minimal losses, while Luftwaffe "aces" chased Spitfires around the sky to put another bar on the tail) demanded reasonable accuracy. As the war progressed the RAF could address issues such as effectiveness of it's pilots and it's aircraft. Massive overclaiming by fighter pilots chasing "ace" status does neither of these.

best regards

Keith

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Well, not JUST the East had a 'happy time' for the Jagdwaffe: When the 109E7s and F4s reached North Africa, the DAF was still stuck flying Hurricane MkIs and MkIIs--and the various P40 variants didn't quite close the gap either. Over the Channel The Spit Mk V was badly outclassed by the early mark FW190As (that being said, being careless or overworked on the Channel front could get a fellow killed very quickly--even before the Spit Mk IX arrived). And I am not even factoring in the the large number of very experienced German Pilots who were still serving in the units on the Channel and North Africa.

NM

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Good points Nick, although like any ongoing technological contest, there was a swing back and forth when one side 'caught up' with the other, not unlike the first conflict.

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Yup, the tech advantage traded hands several times throughout the war, but the number of experienced pilots only went one way for the Jagdwaffe after 1942

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Yes; if I read the book correctly it was over 90-something percent accurate which is extraordinary given the circumstances. I don't know if his other earlier claims were as accurate; I'm not sure of anybody has been able to check his records against Russian/USSR records from his arrival at the front (late 42/early43). There are some adventures that Lipfert had (sometimes on the receiving end of the gunfire) that make for fabulous reading. I've said it repeatedly that his 'War Diary' is one of my favorite personal war memoirs, though I get the feeling that the English language version left quite a bit out from the 'original'.