Me 210/410 by P.Petrick&W.Stockler reliability question

[Peter Kassak]

Hi all,

as you may have seen in my last postings, I became interested in ZG 76 while using Me 410s..so I have been adviced to get a new book Me 210/410 book by Peter Petrick and Werner Stockler.
But what a surprise came when I checked the WNr. lists with my already found and databased losses of ZG 76 planes. Regarding Slovakia, there is VERY FEW that are dated CORRECTLY. Also the colour photo of plane crashed in Hungary as given also WNr. is dated WRONG. I completely lost believe in that list...
Can anyone confirm that there was typo error or some other mystakes during the preparation of the book? I just do not want to believe that well know authors can make such a mystake...

[Gizmo]

Hi Peter
I suppose that dates in tabeles are days when Luftwaffe soldiers found wrecks. I'm looking at V./KG 2 and KG 51 losses, I think that they are OK (Kg 2 and KG 51 fight over England so Germans couldn't find wrecks of lossing planes). But ZG 26 losses seems to be wrong to.

[Peter Kassak]

Hi,

It would be option, if the dates are alwys shifted few days later as the loss actually happened..but NO. There is no order, and some are dated earlier than really happened...I believe some processing error...??


Peter

Originally Posted by Gizmo

Hi Peter
I suppose that dates in tabeles are days when Luftwaffe soldiers found wrecks. I'm looking at V./KG 2 and KG 51 losses, I think that they are OK (Kg 2 and KG 51 fight over England so Germans couldn't find wrecks of lossing planes). But ZG 26 losses seems to be wrong to.

[Peter Kassak]

Found the clue...!!!
Authors for some of the dates of few crashes simply used date one day before the report of a loss was written/reported. However these have happen more that one day before...
Using the lists from this books, be sure of confronting it with other sources in terms of dates.
Else nice book

Thanks to Andreas Brekken for indirect help of solving this mystery

[Don Caldwell]

There are probably more efficient ways to use this forum, but my recent Me 262 question was answered amazingly quickly, so I'll take the same approach here. I have the Me 210/Me410 book, and spent way more time with it than I should have. As most of you know, I'm piecing together a daily RLV chronology or "War Diary" and hoped to use the dates in the WNr list to help flesh out my loss list. As Peter Kassak and others have pointed out, these dates bear no consistent relationship to the true date of loss. I conclude that these are "writeoff" dates, and thus come later than the true loss dates, but don't follow any pattern. IMHO the book is of use only to Werknummer, Stammkennzeichen, and photo fans. It has next to nothing on operations (as should be apparent from the title), but it appears that an opportunity was missed to present Petrick's painstakingly-collected data in a way that would have more value. If anyone from ex-Classic reads this, was a column or two (maybe Heimflug/Feindflug) dropped from the table as supplied? And Peter Kassak -- were you able to reach Petrick and resolve anything? (a "complete" searchable DB file would be a great gift to folks who purchased the book!)

Horrido!

Don

[Peter Kassak]

Hi Don,

You are completely right. those dates were used form reports when written off...
I did not get in touch with Mr. Petrick although I have the address. Simply no time It has been hectic a bit around me last days...but I am going to write him this weekend.
more in email

Regards