Rudolf Mueller: claims vs actual 'kills'

[Sanchez]

Alexandr Mardanoff (the russian historian) researched with great care almost all victories that had been claimed by Rudolf Mueller (and some other famous aces too). See "Aviamaster" ("Авиамастер"), 2006, № 1,2: "Четыре пишем - два в уме" and "Восемь пишем - два в уме" (can be translated more or less like "We say 'four', we have in mind two" and "We say 'eight', we have in mind two" ).

I hope this information may be very useful.

About so-called 'shared victories'. For example, three pilots of JG 5 shot down 3 enemy aircrafts and claimed 8 victories. In this case we can't surely say who exactly shot down the aircrafts and these actual victories we must call a 'shared victories'.

1 12.9.1941 - I-16 I-16 of 72 SAP, damaged (mladshiy leitenant Plotnikov)
2 17.9.1941 - DB-3 overclaim
3 17.9.1941 - I-153 overclaim
4 27.9.1941 - Hurricane overclaim
5 28.9.1941 - SB-2 SB-2 of 118 RAE
6 2.11.1941 - SB-2 SB-2 of 137 KSBP
7 2.11.1941 - SB-2 SB-2 of 137 KSBP
8 4.11.1941 - I-16 overclaim
9 1.2.1942 - Hudson overclaim
10 16.2.1942 - Hudson Hudson of 48 SQN (FTR)
11 23.4.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 20 GIAP
12 23.4.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 20 GIAP (shared victory)
13 23.4.1942 - SB-2 SB-2 of 137 KSBP
14 23.4.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 768 IAP (serzhant Kolentsov, killed)
15 23.4.1942 - Hurricane overclaim
16 24.4.1942 - Hurricane overclaim
17 26.4.1942 - Hurricane overclaim
18 26.4.1942 - Pe-2 Pe-3 of 95 IAP
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Day losses: 5 Pe-3 (twin-engine fighters) - 5 Pe-2 claimed by Mueller, Carganico, Pfranger, Tetzner and Dahn. Additionally Mueller, Carganico and Pfrenger claimed 3 Hurricanes - very strange because Pe-3s operated without any cover.
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19 28.4.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 2 GKAP (leitenant Godelevich, killed)
20 28.4.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 2 GKAP (shared victory)
21 28.4.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 2 GKAP (shared victory)
22 28.4.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 2 GKAP (shared victory)
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Day losses: 4 Hurricanes lost (starshiy leitenant Obuvalov, serzhant Ivanov, serzhant Leshchenko, leitenant Godelevich), 2 Hurricanes damaged. Mueller, Pfranger, Carganico, Tetzner, Schumacher claimed 12 victories (all Hurricanes).
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23 29.4.1942 - I-153 I-153 of 27 IAP (shared victory)
24 29.4.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 78 IAP, damaged (starshiy leitenant Nikolaev, wounded)
25 29.4.1942 - Hurricane overclaim
26 18.5.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 197 IAP (shared victory)
27 18.5.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 197 IAP (shared victory)
28 18.5.1942 - Hurricane overclaim
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Day losses: 1 P-40, 2 Hurricanes lost (starshiy politruk Seleznyov, starshiy leitenant Yarkin, starshiy leitenant Levchuk). Mueller, Schumacher, Scholz, Doebrich, Stratmann, Klante, and Kirchmayr claimed 11 victories (10 Hurricanes and 1 P-40).
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29 19.5.1942 - Hurricane overclaim
30 19.5.1942 - Hurricane overclaim
31 19.5.1942 - Hurricane overclaim
32 25.5.1942 - Hurricane overclaim
33 26.5.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of VVS 14 Army
34 26.5.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of VVS 14 Army
35 26.5.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of VVS 14 Army
36 28.5.1942 - Hurricane P-39 of 19 GIAP (kapitan Kutachov) (shared victory)
37 28.5.1942 - P-40 overclaim
38 30.5.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 2 GIAP, damaged
39 2.6.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 768 IAP or 2 GKAP (shared victory)
40 2.6.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 768 IAP or 2 GKAP (shared victory)
41 13.6.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 78 IAP (shared victory)
42 13.6.1942 - Hurricane overclaim
43 13.6.1942 - Hurricane overclaim
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Day losses: 1 Hurricane lost (starshiy leitenant Shalayev, belly-landing). Mueller, Ehrler, Doebrich, Todt claimed 6 Hurricanes.
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44 17.6.1942 - I-180 overclaim
45 17.6.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 769 GIAP (shared victory)
46 17.6.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 769 GIAP (shared victory)
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Day losses: 3 Hurricanes lost (mladshiy leitenant Kotov, starshiy serzhant Bogush, serzhant Olin). The pilots of 5, 6, 8./JG 5 claimed 13 victories.
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47 23.6.1942 - I-16 I-16 of 27 SAP (starshiy serzhant Mal'chenko, killed)
48 4.8.1942 - I-16 overclaim
49 4.8.1942 - Hurricane overclaim
50 4.8.1942 - Hurricane overclaim
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Day losses: no losses
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51 13.8.1942 - I-153 I-15bis of 27 IAP, damaged (serzhant Laptev)
52 13.8.1942 - I-16 I-16 of 27 IAP (serzhant Lebedev, baled out)
53 13.8.1942 - MiG-3 overclaim
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Day losses: 1 I-16 lost, 1 I-15bis damaged. Mueller, Ehrler, Bartels, Kaiser, Dylewski and other pilots claimed 15 (!!!) victories.
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54 21.8.1942 - Yak-1 overclaim
55 21.8.1942 - I-180 overclaim
56 21.8.1942 - Yak-1 overclaim
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Day losses: 2 LaGG-3 lost (mladshiy leitenant Samarkov, mladshiy leitenant Bagrayev), 2 I-16 damaged. Mueller, Ehrler and other pilots claimed 14 victories.
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57 22.8.1942 - Fighter overclaim
58 22.8.1942 - Fighter overclaim
59 22.8.1942 - Fighter overclaim
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Day losses: no losses
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60 25.8.1942 - Yak-1 Yak-1 of 20 IAP (serzhant Sulimov, killed) (shared victory)
61 25.8.1942 - Yak-1 overclaim
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Day losses: 1 Yak-1 lost. Mueller and other pilots claimed 5 victories (3 Yak-1, 1 MiG-3, 1 P-40).
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62 29.8.1942 - E/a overclaim
63 29.8.1942 - E/a overclaim
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Day losses: no losses, no combats (!). So how the hell Mueller could claim his victories???
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64 2.9.1942 - Fighter Fighter of 27 IAP or VVS 14 Army (shared victory)
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Day losses: 1 P-40, 1 I-16 lost (serzhant Silayev, serzhant Yemelyanov), 2 P-40, 1 I-16 damaged. Mueller, Doebrich, Stolz, Bartels, Kaiser, Herzog, Norz, Kunz and other pilots claimed 17 (!) victories.
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65 4.9.1942 - E/a shared victory
66 8.9.1942 - Fighter Hurricane of VVS 14 Army (shared victory)
67 9.9.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 837 IAP (shared victory)
68 9.9.1942 - Hurricane overclaim
69 9.9.1942 - Hurricane overclaim
70 9.9.1942 - Hurricane overclaim
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Day losses: 1 Hurricane, 1 P-39 (kapitan Kuligin - belly-landing, mladshiy leitenant Krivosheev - killed while ramming enemy fighter). Mueller, Ehrler, Doebrich, Scharff, Bock, Herzog, Bartels claimed 13 victories (11 Hurricanes, 1 P-40, 1 P-39).
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71 15.9.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 837 IAP (shared victory)
72 15.9.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 837 IAP (shared victory)
73 15.9.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 837 IAP (shared victory)
74 15.9.1942 - Hurricane Hurricane of 837 IAP (shared victory)
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Day losses: 5 Hurricanes lost. Mueller, Doebrich, Weissenberger and other pilots claimed 17 victories (12 Hurricanes, 5 P-40)
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75 27.9.1942 - Fighter shared victory
76 27.9.1942 - Fighter shared victory
77 27.9.1942 - Fighter shared victory
78 27.9.1942 - Fighter shared victory
79 27.9.1942 - Fighter shared victory
80 27.9.1942 - Fighter shared victory
81 27.9.1942 - Fighter shared victory
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Day losses: 4 P-40, 2 Hurricanes, 2 LaGG-3, 1 Yak-1 lost. Mueller and other pilots claimed 20 victories.
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82 8.2.1943 - E/a overclaim
83 8.2.1943 - E/a overclaim
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Day losses: no losses
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84 17.2.1943 - Hurricane Hurricane of 966 IAP
85 II.1943 - E/a -
86 II.1943 - E/a -
87 21.2.1943 - P-39 Hurricane of 760 IAP
88 1943 - E/a -
89 1943 - E/a -
90 1943 - E/a -
91 1943 - E/a -
92 13.3.1943 - P-39 500th victory of 6./JG 5; overclaim
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Day losses: no losses. Mueller, Fahldick and Weissenberger claimed 4 victories (2 P-40, 2 P-39).
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In total: 17 actual 'kills' + 3 damaged + 29 'shared victories' + 37 overclaims

[Leo Etgen]

Hello Sanchez

Christer Bergström identifies the five victories claimed by Müller on 23 April 1942 as:

Hurricane of 2 GSAP, VVS-SF flown by Szt Anatoliy Semyonov, killed
Hurricane of 2 GSAP, VVS-SF flown by Szt NF Yepanov, baled out
SB-2 of 137 SBAP, VVS flown by M/Lt Golovanov
Hurricane of 20 GIAP, VVS flown by S/Lt IYa But
Hurricane of 20 GIAP, VVS flown by Szt AI Chibisov

I should add that JG 5 appears to have been rather notorious in regards to overclaiming as compared to the other Eastern Front Jagdgeschwadern.

Horrido!

Leo

[Rob Romero]

Thanks to both for the very interesting information. Can the disagreement as to the victims of 23 Apr 42 be viewed as suggestive of possible room for interpretation of Soviet losses on the other listed dates? I'm sure we'd all be interested in seeing Mardanoff's conclusions on the veracity of other aces claims.
Thanks,

Rob Romero

[Sanchez]

Hello Leo!

According to my sources (Mardanoff's article), serzhant Semyonov and serzhant Yepanov were shot down by Sponeck and Schumacher (they claimed 2 Hurricanes). Rudolf Mueller shot down Hurricane flown by serzhant Kolentsov and claimed 2 victories.

Additionally on this day the German pilots shot down 3 Hurricanes, two of them were flown by starshiy leitenant But and serzhant Chibisov (both killed). After that combat Mueller claimed 2 Hurricanes and 1 SB (SB of 137 SBAP), Weissenberger and Maul claimed 2 Hurricanes (5 claims in total for 4 actual victories).

Another Hurricane was lost on this bloody day when mladshiy leitenant Negulyayev (of 769 IAP PVO, KIA 23.4.1942) rammed enemy Bf109. This was, in fact, Bf109 flown by Florian Salwender (KIA 23.4.1942). Salwender was credited with 1 victory (Hurricane) postmortem.

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi.

Most interesting information, and we surely look forward to finally seeing some russian research on losses with actual original references.

Could you pls post details like aircraft codes and serial numbers as well as original document sources for the actual losses, and also pls a complete list of the units available on the soviet side for each of these dates?

Regards,
Andreas B

[markjsheppard]

Leo

All I can add is that there was definately no Hurricane loss on the 27th September 1941. In fact the RAF claimed 2 Bf109's on this day - confirmed by the Russian Observor Corp which I now believe were possibly daamaged but not lost.

http://lend-lease.airforce.ru/englis...anes/index.htm

As Andreas said, would be interesting to get more information on all of Muller's claims. I am also interested in Carganico's 50+ claims as well from mid 1941-end 1942.

regards

Mark

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi

I for one would be very interested to see the documents concerning the Bf 109's on 27.09.1941 as these would be additional losses that were never recorded by I./JG 77. And since they were observed by Soviet ground based observers, I am sure that they recorded this in detail and would like to see the corresponding documents detailing the information taken from the wreckage.

Sure it wasn't a Hurricane they saw? LaGG? MiG?

I thought I should really spark this discussion by adding the following: As we know the German fighter pilots were almost flawless with regards to their claims, while the poles, americans and brits have been documented again and again to have been notorious with regards to filing falsified claims, I do believe we have to be very cautious when reading the claims list of pilots of said nationalities.

But as I know from previous experience, certain members of the board does not seem to have a developed sense of humour or the ability to spot what is supposed to be ironic, I thought it would be best not to do it

What I however do believe is very important is that at least the people serious with regards to documenting the WWII airwar try to do this based on comparing the notes from both or rather ALL sides, as even the more famous of writers among us have made errors, simply because the necessary documents were unavailable to them. And even better, try not to be biased... even if it is hard!

I do also believe we should stop using the word KILL entirely, and rather use the term CLAIM. There are thousands of reasons that it is hard to verify a claim - several of them connected to the fact that it is not always easy to find documentation at all - simply because this kind of information has always been sensitive and thus more or less kept secret by the armed forces. We discuss here single incidents with regards to how many soviet fighters were lost on a given day, when the russian researchers of today cannot even agree rounded to the closest million how many soviet citizens 'disappeared' under Stalin.

I have been waiting for years for publications to appear stating the details with regards to soviet aircraft losses during WWII, as I have heard that they are supposedly well recorded and detailed. To date no such research (at least in english and to my knowledge) has appeared, with original sources stated, but I will continue to wait and I am really looking forward to cross reference the claims and losses when and if such publications finally appear.

Regards,
Andreas B

[Dénes Bernád]

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

What I however do believe is very important is that at least the people serious with regards to documenting the WWII airwar try to do this based on comparing the notes from both or rather ALL sides, as even the more famous of writers among us have made errors, simply because the necessary documents were unavailable to them. And even better, try not to be biased... even if it is hard!

This is exactly what D. Karlenko and myself attempted to do with our two-volume coverage of the air war on the Southern flank of the Eastern Front in 1941. [See details on the book here: http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=9310]

One of the conclusions that personally surprised me was that how different the claims and losses of all sides are. I even aired my opinion, in a footnote, that German pilots must have identified some of the Soviet fighters types as 'DB-3', or 'SB-2', as they almost regularily overclaimed as regards the Soviet fighters, but quite often they actually underclaimed as regards the VVS bombers.

So, there is still lots and lots to research and publish on the air war on the Eastern Front...

[Nikita Egorov]

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

Hi

I for one would be very interested to see the documents concerning the Bf 109's on 27.09.1941 as these would be additional losses that were never recorded by I./JG 77. And since they were observed by Soviet ground based observers, I am sure that they recorded this in detail and would like to see the corresponding documents detailing the information taken from the wreckage.

Sure it wasn't a Hurricane they saw? LaGG? MiG?

I thought I should really spark this discussion by adding the following: As we know the German fighter pilots were almost flawless with regards to their claims, while the poles, americans and brits have been documented again and again to have been notorious with regards to filing falsified claims, I do believe we have to be very cautious when reading the claims list of pilots of said nationalities.

But as I know from previous experience, certain members of the board does not seem to have a developed sense of humour or the ability to spot what is supposed to be ironic, I thought it would be best not to do it

What I however do believe is very important is that at least the people serious with regards to documenting the WWII airwar try to do this based on comparing the notes from both or rather ALL sides, as even the more famous of writers among us have made errors, simply because the necessary documents were unavailable to them. And even better, try not to be biased... even if it is hard!

I do also believe we should stop using the word KILL entirely, and rather use the term CLAIM. There are thousands of reasons that it is hard to verify a claim - several of them connected to the fact that it is not always easy to find documentation at all - simply because this kind of information has always been sensitive and thus more or less kept secret by the armed forces. We discuss here single incidents with regards to how many soviet fighters were lost on a given day, when the russian researchers of today cannot even agree rounded to the closest million how many soviet citizens 'disappeared' under Stalin.

I have been waiting for years for publications to appear stating the details with regards to soviet aircraft losses during WWII, as I have heard that they are supposedly well recorded and detailed. To date no such research (at least in english and to my knowledge) has appeared, with original sources stated, but I will continue to wait and I am really looking forward to cross reference the claims and losses when and if such publications finally appear.

Regards,
Andreas B

I would like to add my 5 cents here, as I work for several years comparing some German records with what we have in our military archives.

As regards to the "flawless" of German claims, that is absolute falsehood. There are lots of examples for number of pilots from German side being too optimistic, not to say more, about their claims. I do not know the exact reason of this trend. But in some cases I can presume that it was made deliberately.

Now about publications, you can see the the example of well-researched two-sided info books, based on the ammount of Soviet archive materials. I mean recent works by Berstrom and his co-authors, "Graf-Grislawski" and the third part of BKRS. The major stake of material from Soviet side has its origin in the first-account TsAMO, TsVMA and RGVA records. Thanks to Vlad Antipov and Andrey Dikov and previously to Andrey Mikhailov, who handled lots of their records to Christer Berstrom. Due to this, Soviet side material in these books are of perfect quality. However, some of the sharp issues, including German overclaim for few pilots, are not highlighted even in this books. Good example of this is the 200th claim by Graf. Good description of combat was given, but no concrete conclusion that this claim was pure overclaim, without any proof from Soviet side...

[Leo Etgen]

Hello Mark

Many thanks for the added information concerning Müller's claim that day. I also wish to thank you for pointing me to the link of your excellent article concerning the RAF squadrons' operations on the Polar Front. Very nice and a pleasure to read! I have to say that I too am hopeful that we can soon be finding out more about the Russian side of things in regards to the air war on the Eastern Front.

Horrido!

Leo