[Johannes]

"Boom and Zoom", what you are basically saying is that Hartmann thought he had made a "Kill", but both he and more so his wingmen did not follow protocol regarding making a claim, this dictates that actual witnessing the crash had been made. Friedrich Obleser we(Bernd Barbas) questioned him about the lack of mikrofilm evidence of his USAAF claims he supposedly made, his reply was "I was in such danger myself that I didn't wait around to witness the crash".... therefore he submitted no official claim. Though I cannot really find any evidence that Hartmann had a "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" thing going whilst famous, or earlier on in his claiming, there is a marked period in mid-1943 that I would say he could have, and probably did employ this method. Mostly during his fame he alone is claiming, therefore this method could not have been employed, well unless some other form of bribery was employed.

With Walter Nowotny the "scratch" method was employed practically throughout his claiming, no thinking they had crashed! As A Kommandeur he just used an old wingman from his previous staffel, not so with Hartmann.

Kind Regards

Johannes