German overclaims in the East. Hartmann and others...

[FalkeEins]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

1)
P.S. A lot of my research makes me suspect that the Luftwaffe verification process wasn't always followed to the letter.

good points .. and of course it wasn't followed at all from some time during January 1945, when Hartmann had, what, a 'mere' 280-odd vics....I blame Alfred Price - and the chapter on the validity of Jagdwaffe claims process in his old 'Luftwaffe handbook'. 'Claims' are basically worthless unless there is a corresponding loss.

But then on the other hand we can hardly blame Hartmann for all those fantasy artworks with the '352' rudder marking. It seems to me that much of the 'propaganda' occurred post-war ..at the height of the Cold War..

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by FalkeEins

good points .. and of course it wasn't followed at all from some time during January 1945, when Hartmann had, what, a 'mere' 280-odd vics....I blame Alfred Price - and the chapter on the validity of Jagdwaffe claims process in his old 'Luftwaffe handbook'. 'Claims' are basically worthless unless there is a corresponding loss.

But then on the other hand we can hardly blame Hartmann for all those fantasy artworks with the '352' rudder marking. It seems to me that much of the 'propaganda' occurred post-war ..at the height of the Cold War..

FalkeEins - on a slightly different tangent to this discussion, I have researched very thoroughly several battles from 8th Bomber and Fighter Commands perspective, and two that you may be interested in.

Contact me via PM to send me an email contact so that I can send you November 26 in particular - for the battle over Misburg.Erich contributed very strongly on JG301 attack and I put the JG1/JG6 part (still researching).

The focus was the 355th FG which was the sole escort for the 389th, 445th and 491st BG that day. The 361st was on a sweep to the Brunswick - Wittengen area and first encountered JG1/JG6 inbound from east-northeast. The 339th was to provide withdrawal support just east of Dummer Lake. From Gardelegen to Celle to Misburg to south of Misburg to south of Hannover from 1210 to 1245 only 40 Mustangs from the 355th and 7 from the 2SF, attached to 355th, were available to try to fight off the two German thrusts into Misbutg.

If the Tony Woods list is used as the primary source of Luftwaffe awards, then the ratio would be close to 2:1. If Reschke's narrative is used as a foundation for research, the overstatement of both the number of USAAF a/c destroyed, particularly Mustangs, as well as the number of US fighters that he encountered would be far overstated.

Regards,

Bill Marshall

[Dénes Bernád]

In the book I wrote about the June-Oct. 1941 air campaign over the Southern sector of the Eastern Front (‘From Barbarossa to Odessa’), I tried to collect - together with my co-authors - all available information from all warring sides on a day-by-day basis. One cannot really go into any more detailed research than that.

Having all available shotdown claims (including many submitted by anti-aircraft artillery crew - a detail often overlooked by historians, who tend to focus on the actions of the fighter pilots) it came to my surprise how claims did not match losses. And by rather great margin. This was valid to both the Axis and Soviet side (however, the Soviets seem to have overclaimed more).

I decided not to get engaged in the overclaim issue - except for one notable day - as this was not the main scope of the historical research.

Quite understandably, people tend to look at the spectacular side of the otherwise rather dry historical narrative. In my opinion, this secondary issue should never cloud the focus of the authors, as it only leads to endless debates.

Personally, I would like to see more books written in a similar way, namely a day-by-day account of the events, with a general overview and conclusions at the beginning and the end of the book, so every Reader could draw his/her conclusions, including about the overclaim issue.