[Andrey Dikov]

Thank you for posting these translated excerpts (as far this article wasn't issued in Russian ever), but certainly I'm not impressed by critics.

All contras presented by these respectable researchers regards to Hartmann's claims. Details from a German point of view, again. And they gave no comments from Soviet side.

Obviously they couldn't, as far their experience in Soviet documents research is poor, I think.

In this light the words "a) the disparate & incomplete nature of the Soviet archives precludes any objective analysis - who shot down who, a "dangerously romanticised" version of the air war. " looks strange at least.

Soviet documents are rather complete and detailed. Those I dealed with are more informative than German ones I saw in Western publications, at least.

Both sides made overclaims - it's just a matter of fact that we, historians, should cope with calmly. As for German overclaims, me and Russian researchers I know who researched German claims in particular operations, combats etc. have an overall impression that German overclaiming rate was about 2-3 times. Of course it depended much on pilot personality, war period and other factors.

Best regards,

Andrey Dikov