Rudolf Mueller: claims vs actual 'kills'

[Kapper]

Sanchez,

Do you have a copy of the article, if so could you post it on the discussion board or send it to me at my email address in the members list, I would like to read it.

In particular, I’m interested in what source Alexandr Mardanoff used to determine Rudolf Muller’s Victory list and the timings of the various Soviet losses listed.

The reason for my interest is that I have several concerns over the authors article, but firstly I‘ll apologize in advance if I've got any individual detail wrong from the sources I’m about to quote. I am purely an amateur at this and as I work away from home (where the books are kept) I’m relying on my notes in my laptop.

My first concern is in respect to the accuracy of Muller’s claims list. To me it appears like Muller’s list in the article came from Kacha’s Luftwaffe Aces page on the internet which has stated the book Eismeerjager as one of it’s sources. In Kacha’s list and Eismeerjager, victories 82 & 83 are shown as “confirmed - date assumed” so if no losses are found on that date it’s not surprising as it could be the wrong date. Did the Author research combats around that date?

Another source I reference is Prien’s JFV Series which has published Luftwaffe victories to the end of 1942. When compared with Eismeerjager there is a number of differences. For instance the following victories are stated by Mardanoff as “overclaim”, while JFV states the following.

No. 2 17 Sep 41– JFV has a different date, 15 Sep 41
No 48 – 59 4 Aug 42 – JFV has a different date, 5 Aug 42
No. 57-59 22 Aug 42 – JFV date uncertain Aug 42
No. 62-63 29 Aug 42 – JFV date uncertain Aug 42

There are also a number of other discrepancies between the 2 sources such as the number of victories claimed on certain dates and victories claimed or not claimed on dates. This makes the actual victory number sequence between the 2 sources different in places. Who is right? Who is wrong? Eismeerjager or JFV ??

I would also like to highlight a few more points.

• None of Muller’s claims are in the Archived Victory list that has been copied onto the internet by Tony Woods.
• Prien in his JFV series puts a B at the end of each confirmed victory that has been confirmed from a primary source. Not one of Muller’s victories listed have a “B” after it.

So back to the original question, what source was used in determining Muller’s victory list? Which relates to how accurate is Muller’s list of victories?

In the second case, my concern is the accuracy of Soviet losses. Without going into great detail in every situation I have many questions here as well, for example.

26 Apr 42 the author stated 5 Pe3’s lost for 5 Pe2’s claimed (very accurate!) and credited Muller with 1, however the author discounted 3 Hurricane (1 to Muller) saying the Pe3’s were unescorted. In JFV the Pe2’s are all claimed around 16.15hr while the 3 Hurricanes had no time of claim listed. Earlier in the day a further 7 hurricanes were claimed mostly around 10.00 hr including one to Ltn. Dahn who also claimed one of the Pe3’s. Could the 3 Hurricanes actually be from the earlier combat that losses are unknown? The author states that the 5 Pe3’s are the only losses for that day, so this would then makes 10 hurricanes for no Hurricanes lost.

28 Apr 42, A big day, at least 4 combats at 07.25 hr, 10.00hr, 11.30hr and 12.30hr for 13 claims (12 Hurricanes). All the Hurricanes lost are shown to come from 2GKAP. A big battle was fought at 11.30 for 8 hurricanes claimed, so could it be possible that the 4 lost and 2 damaged from the same unit occurred at this time? No times are given for the losses to confirm this. However to me this would seem reasonable for a typical case of over claim (8 claims for 4 lost +2 damage). Did the author identify these other combats and the subsequent results?

I maybe premature in my comments/questions without reading the article but I would like to know how accurate the Soviet records are? Even if no losses occurred, can the individual combats and units involved be identified? As with Andreas I eagerly await to finding a source of Soviet losses to compare against.

I look forward to getting a copy of the article.

Regards,

Craig….