Hi Franek
Your bogus stories item is actually most interesting, I am sure that some pilots made up such stories, but many others had things made up about them, and probably never ever knew about it in their lifetime.
I had looked at Rudorffer's claims, actually whenever he claims just one or two his rottenflieger doesn't claim, so I would suggest these are genuine, and I also don't think that Hugo Broch was involved, in fact I am thinking he was a genuine witness to Rudorffer's little days.
Have just completed my Lang/Hoffmann and Gross cross-examination, Seems that Gross was not Lang's rottenflieger with St.II./JG26, and Lang in each case was the only claimer, so we need a more informed TOCH member to advise on if a Kommandeur is treated differently whilst claiming(though so was Rudorffer, but still used Tangermann). Now TOCH looked into Maximilian Stotz, and we concluded that again over a very short period his claims became spectacular, and we concluded he was influenced by hisKommandeur Hans Hahn, then on Hahn's lose reverts to unspectacular claiming, well Lang flew with Stotz
...and Tangermann before his spectacular phase. Lang's rottenflieger were generally Reinhold Hoffmann and Alfred Gross, I am not at all sure that Gross was involved in the overclaiming, pretty sure that Hoffmann was, all this including Stotz was with 5./JG54, when Lang,Gross and Hoffmann move onto III./JG54 their claims are unspecatular, in fact Gross's never were!
Regarding Lang's super seventeen(eighteen by press) Norbert Hannig states these were achieved in four sorties two, seven, five and four making eighteen, in reality it was seven, one, five and four making seventeen, Hannig states that on the first sortie his rottenflieger was Peschke, the second Gross, the third Gross and Hoffmann, and the four Hoffmann, yet in reality Hoffmann would have been on all four, Peschke the first, Gross the second. Hannig also states that on the first sortie ALL of Lang's four cannons jammed and he returned with "two kills", yet it looks like this was the second mission(with Gross anf Hoffmann) which resulted in just "one kill", again I believe personally that this was a legitimate claim, and again Lang is not alone with Hoffmann. Hannig's statement is roughly matching the fact, but a little mixed-up, also it seems that Peschke would be mixed-up in the false claims(see attached.
With Nowotny we have been informed for decade of the famous schwarm with Dobele, Rademacher and Schnorrer, yet there is little evidence for this, again like Lang when with the St.I./JG54 Nowotny is claiming alone, but during his spectacular period he's claiming with Gerhard Loos and Anton Dobele, and when they part company both of these rottenflieger return to unspectacular claiming(see attached) don't think that either Schnorrer or Rademacher are involved.[ATTACH][ATTACH][ATTACH][ATTACH][ATTACH]
Attachment 17525[/ATTACH][/ATTACH][/ATTACH][/ATTACH][/ATTACH]
Same can be said about the Graf schwarm, don't think that Alfred Grislawski was involved, and he was the only one of the four who did anything outside of 9./JG52...
..coincidence ?
Actually I had heard good things about III./JG54, if true this might explain the very obvious decline in the Lang gang's claiming. Hopefully a Russian loss expert can cross-examine my thoughts here.
As for Bader, fact he came up alone behind a whole staffel of Bf109's, didn't want to attack so dove away, another Spitfire came up behing the same staffel and saw one dive away, which he nailed...
..it being Bader, Bader never fired a shot, claimed he shot down two Bf109's and collided with another, Bader's victor was them himself shot down, whilst a prisoner and talking to Bader he realised his mistake and apoligised to Bader, yer Bader still maintained he was rammed by a Bf109, I believe he also avoided paying tax on his autobiography because he was a National hero...
...you need gal.
Kind Regards
Johannes