[Johannes]

Hi Guys

Personally I think a lot of the Tolliver/constable book is not based on fact. I very well remember the "four Mustangs" story, that certainly never happened.

With the KBT papers for 1945, Hartmann is mentioned, but JG52 claims or some season weren't given times, other units, and by memory I think all other units times were given. Other high scoring pilots were mentioned by name, and the claim given a number i.e Hartmann 343.

The Hartmann claims that were not mentioned during 1945 in the KBT papers should not be regarded with any hope of being accurate, in fact most could be weeks or a month wrong in there date, and type could also be incorrect.

With the Hartmann claim 352 I should think that the pilot himself might remember his last being on the last day of the war, and the Toliver/Constable book states that it came down in a square in the centre of Brünn.

I am suspicious of any high scoring pilot that didn't have any unconfirmed. or A.S.M claims, Rall is lacking, but we are not questioning his, Nowotny also lacking. but his are certainly questionable, with Hartmann there were a few early on, then they abruptly stop, I would imagine that earlier on he must have been honest, as with Wilhelm Batz.

All those pilots that claimed ten or more a day in the east seem to be questionable, and the guy thought to be the most accurate in the "200" club has a best day of five(Lipfert). There are certain patterns to "over-claiming", but there can always be exceptions to the rules I guess.

Hartmann's preferred attack method was from above, the Bf109 had pretty bad visibility at best, and not surprisingly "Il-2 experten" seemed more accurate, I would guess they attacked from below where their aircraft had better visibility. Hartmann had one of the lowest Il-2 percentage amongst his claims, perhaps here is another topic, why should he be given the privilege of being safe away from ground-fire, while others seemed to be taking higher risks at low-altitude hacking down these heavily armoured ground-attack aircraft?

Kind Regards

Johannes