Severe Overclaimers Vs. Reliable Claimers List

[Laurent Rizzotti]

I have ever been doubtful about pilots claiming score of kills in some minutes. The probability of overclaiming is here in my own opinion more important, because I think most of these pilots just hit an enemy aircraft and immediatly chased another, thinking the first to be destroyed.

If you watch the record of Lipfert, he scored 3 victories in a sortie on 2 Dec 1943 (in 16 minutes), maybe 3 in the same sortie on 7 May 44 (one at 8h49, two at 9h40-45, may also have been two sorties) and 3 in one sortie on 19 July 44 (in 5 minutes). That is only 2 and maybe 3 triples on 203 claims (all known).

Now consider Rudorffer. He claimed 3 victories in one sortie on 7 Sep 40 (in 13 minutes), 3 on 19 Aug 41 (in 16 minutes), 3 on 21 Sep 1941 (in 15 minutes), 8 on 9 Feb 43 (in 22 minutes), 6 or 7 on 15 Feb 43 (6 in 15 minutes, one more 40 minutes later), 3 in the morning of 24 Aug 43 (in 7 minutes) and 5 in the afternoon (in 4 minutes), 5 on 14 Sep 43 (in 5 minutes), 7 on 11 Oct 43 (in 7 minutes), 13 on 6 Nov 11 (in 19 minutes), 6 on 7 Apr 44 (in 16 minutes), 3 on 28 Apr 44 (in 3 minutes), 5 on 3 July 44 (in 4 minutes), 6 on 26 Jul 44 (in 28 minutes), 3 on 27 Jul 44 (in 6 minutes), 3 on 17 Aug 43 (in 11 minutes), 5 on 25 Aug 43 (in 11 minutes), 4 on 6 Sep 44 (in 5 minutes), 3 on 17 Sep 44 (in 6 minutes), 6 on 25 Sep 44 (in 14 minutes), 7 on 10 Oct 44 (in 18 minutes), 4 on 22 Oct 44 (in 5 minutes) and 9 on 28 Oct 44 (in 10 minutes). I know 211 of his 224 claims, and of these 211, 120 or 121 were claimed in sorties where he made more than 3 claims.

By the way it proves nothing, Marseille has been studied in depth and was not an heavy overclaimer but claimed 82 of his 158 victories in sorties with 3 kills of more.

But without more data I will thrust more a pilot who claimed more often a small number of victories.