Jagdflieger unconfirmed victories and official confirmation of claims

[Nikita Egorov]

Scanning through some of records I found out that the majority of German fighter aces have lots of unconfirmed victores on the their accounts, e.g. Lipfert - 27, Johannes Wiese - 75 (fantastic!). My question is what could be the ground, exept lack of witness, for declining claim during official procedure?
Second question is that as far as I know Hartmann and Barkhorn have no unconfirmed victories (please correct if I am wrong). Does it mean that every claim they filed was confirmed by headquarters and what was the reason for that taking into consideration the fact that in some occasions (ecpecially with Hartmann) they even failed to identify the exact plane type they shot down (unsubstantiated "Lagg" are recorded)?
Third question is that how deep personal relationship could effect the claims confirmation procedure in Jagdwaffe? I mean cases with well-known "neck itching" decease. For example Hermann Graf who claimed fantastic ammount of victories during Stalingrad battle and whose 200th claim is not confirmed by Soviet losses as it is in "Graf-Grislawski" book...

TIA

[Csaba B. Stenge]

Nikita,

Barkhorn had without witness claim, which was confirmed to him (over enemy territory, so there was no chance to find the wreck, or finding ground witnesses, which was a common procedure, if the claim was over own territory without air witness).
I guess, for some high aces, the authorities confirmed more easily victories (as I found in some documents). Another thing: I guess, some of them did not 'force' their without witness or 'probable' claims (like Lipfert), but the others did (like Hartmann).
Unfortunately, most of their detailed Abschussmeldungen went missing, so hard to say now, how were some of their victories confirmed (without witness and/or without real loss form the other side).

Csaba

[Nikita Egorov]

Hi Csaba!

Thanks for info on Barkhorn. So he has victories without witness but they all were confirmed to him?

The issue I have touched upon to my mind is a very complicated one. I know how it went with confirmation on the Soviet side and therefore I can explain high rate of overclaims. But what is going on on the German side. I" ve read lots of descriptions how German pilots claimed a victory in the air and somebody confirmed it by radio report. Now and again I face situations when an ace score is closing to some of the "magic number" (100, 150, 200 etc.) he begins to shoot immensly and the majority of what he claimed can not be found in real losses. Hartmann is a vivid example.

[Csaba B. Stenge]

Nikita,

Well, I stated, that I know one of Barkhorn's kills, which was over enemy territory without witness and it was confirmed to him. Maybe he has more similar ones, but I know exactly only one, I fond just few of his detailed Abschussmeldungen in BA-MA (will check it in details, if you need).

BTW to me, the Soviet method is more interesting, because I know less about the Soviet system.
I am sure, that the Soviet authorities know the German official loss reports (mostly via radio and the gap between the VVS fighter claims and the German losses was evident instantly) How was it possible, that high number of overclaims were confirmed so easily? And if the Soviet authorities confirmed kills just over own territory in the first part of the conflict, what about the not found German wrecks (to me, the found wrecks would be the main cause of this rule)?

Csaba

[marsyao]

Originally Posted by Csaba Becze

Nikita,

Well, I stated, that I know one of Barkhorn's kills, which was over enemy territory without witness and it was confirmed to him. Maybe he has more similar ones, but I know exactly only one, I fond just few of his detailed Abschussmeldungen in BA-MA (will check it in details, if you need).

BTW to me, the Soviet method is more interesting, because I know less about the Soviet system.
I am sure, that the Soviet authorities know the German official loss reports (mostly via radio and the gap between the VVS fighter claims and the German losses was evident instantly) How was it possible, that high number of overclaims were confirmed so easily? And if the Soviet authorities confirmed kills just over own territory in the first part of the conflict, what about the not found German wrecks (to me, the found wrecks would be the main cause of this rule)?

Csaba

Csaba, the Soviet method of air combat victories confirm were theorically more strict than Luftwaffe's, to get a confirmation, you need two witness in the air and/or the confirmation from your gun cammera, even this, a confirmation would not be grant unless the wreckage of the enemy aircraft were found on the ground, so any enemy planes shot down on enemy terriotory WOULD NOT be counted as a personal victory ! But as we know, what real happened usually was much different to what should happened, for example in the first year of Russo-German war, the overclaims of VVS were usually 3:1.
On the other hand, do you really think the claimes of Luftwaffe were accurate ? at least I do not think so, at least, all of Luftwaffe claimes submitted after fall of 1944 were officailly unconfirmed victories, because the confirmation system was broken down at that time.

[Dénes Bernád]

Originally Posted by Nikita Egorov

what was the reason for that taking into consideration the fact that in some occasions (ecpecially with Hartmann) they even failed to identify the exact plane type they shot down (unsubstantiated "Lagg" are recorded)?

The fact that some fighter pilots (of every nation) failed to properly recognize in the heat of combat their victims' aircraft type doesn't mean anything.
The only issue is if the enemy aircraft was actually destroyed or not, and if this was properly recorded or not.

Very interesting thread, by the way...

[Nokose]

Their were some LW pilots who used fighters with a gun camera to confirm there kills. Wolgang Spate still had camera footage after the war of his fights and put some in his book, "Top Secret Bird". In 1944 over Germany some of them wanted the camera planes to verify their kills. Others didn't want them because it "hindered the performace of the plane.

[Shikhov]

Hello Gentlements!
Confirmation procedure and real OKL award situation well described in Y-S Lorant's book "JG300" vol.1.
Seems claims of ASM grade, unconfirmed etc. became rare in 1944 and confirmation procedure extremely simplified. Also he mentioned situation when OKL awarded two or more different units for one plane claimed shot down. For example flak and fighter units should be awarded separately for common plane in first war years and in 1944 seems different fighters units took part in plane destruction could be awarded separately also.
Soviet and German confimation system in reality based only on witness accounts and overclaim generally tha same rate 3:1.

P.S. Gun camera not used for confirmation in Luftwaffe, but only for study films creation.

Regards.

[Dénes Bernád]

Originally Posted by Shikhov

Soviet and German confimation system in reality based only on witness accounts and overclaim generally tha same rate 3:1.

To say that Luftwaffe on average overclaimed 3:1 during the whole war is simply not true, and its sounds as historical revisionism.
As it has been discussed here previously, a few units on a few occasion indeed overclaimed to a rather high degree, but that was the exception rather than the norm. Of course, overclaim in the Jagdwaffe did exist, but to a much lesser degree than Shikhov alleged.
In one instance when I could check both the claims and the other side's losses (over Transylvania, in the Autumn of 1944), for every Luftwaffe fighter claim there was almost always a matching Rumanian loss. And that was fairly close to the war's end, when Luftwaffe air victory confirmation wasn't that strict as previously...

[Shikhov]

Hello Denes.
In fact I am sure that 1:3 is usual overclaim rate and 1:2 is low level.
Actually very difficult and almost impossible to compare for example Geman claims and Soviet losses as most loss categories is "not returned" and "write-offs due to weared". Especially last one. 40% losses due to wearance? For examle in 1944 wroted-off many P-39, Spit IX and Bostons due to this reason. Seems in fact the reason is some combat and/or non combat damages when aircraft became non applicable for combat.
USAF has special damage grade when a/c could be used in OTU only or for ground studies. But VVS RRKKA not.
May be you have on hand Jagdwaffe claims (OKL award) amount in the East for 1944 ? Interesting to compare.

Best regards.