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Re: Erich Hartmann: 352 victories or... 80?
hello Kari
surely the JG 5 wasn't the only JG overclaiming but IMHO it was rather extreme case. On that Finnish AF case, as You know Luukkanen, the CO of LeLv 34, was against the reining of the "hunting" because he was afraid that it would undermain the agressiveness of his pilots. IMHO he rightly thought that the agressiveness was one of the main ingredients of good fighter pilot but in this case the higher echelons were probably right, it wasn't very productive to try to "hunt" I-153s with Bf 109Gs over such a well defended place like Lavansaari. Especially for the FAF which was entirely dependent from Germany for resupply of combat capable fighters.
On claim accuracy, in west one problem are the air-gunners, their claims were heavily inflated but they shot down a lot of planes and one must figure out some sort of estimete of their share before it is possible to begin calculate an estimate on the accuracy of Allied fighter pilots claims.
Juha
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