Barkhorn: claims vs. victories

[Johannes]

Hi Gabor

Think you are saying that Barkhorn was mistaken in about sixty of his claims, more of a case of not following claiming protocol rather than direct over-claiming.
He once uncovered a scam by a fellow pilot, in this they were themselves filing paperwork to the RLM that should have been for the general unit i.e not a single pilot. Barkhorn was horrified and put a stop to it.

Doesn't of course mean he wasn't an over-claimer, I have worked with incompetent managers who to cover their uselessness spend their time attacking others just to draw attention away from there own failings.

Unlike Hartman we have many of the abschussmeldung of Barkhorn that give exact crash-sites and witnesses. Without cross-examining against these other pilots, there are only two periods that would possibly be dodgy, and by this the constant use of the same witnesses, this being claims number 209-251 of which thirty-two have Heinz Ewald as witness, and numbers 140-160 which all had Karl-Heinz Plucker as witness. I have the abschussmeldung of numbers 65-139 and they are a total mix of witnesses, many of who are proven honest claimers.

Naturally we assume that the wingmen are competent, experienced and not lazy.

We are in agreemant with Barkhorn's 1945 claims being too vague to investigate

Have you anylized Walter Nowotn'y claims yet?

Kind Regards

johannes

[Johannes]

Hi Guys

I did compare the claims of Barkhorn to those of his wingman Karl-Heinrich Plucker, and can state that there was no collusion between them in the normal sense of baring false witness to each others claims. Regarding his earlier claims, the abschussmeldung also mention if the pilot/crew bailed-out, and any fire, from where he attacked, also the witnesses story, the bailing-out part I would think being most useful.

Keep well

Johannes

[HGabor]

Hi Johannes,

Barkhorn's claims are very accurate and reliable, even the planes that he did not completely destroy, only damaged show up is soviet combat records. It is too bad that no further details are known about his January, 1945 claims where the soviet 5th and 17th VA loss records are all available. His analyzed 15 claims in the fall/winter of 1944 show a reliable pattern, were the final overclaims might have been related just to the poor winter visibility. His earlier claims in good visibility were pretty much right on. The approx. 60 planes that were not completely destroyed are simply calculated from the statistics, where -of course- a larger number might result a more accurate ratio. I can easily imagine that in case of a deeper analysis of not 15, but eg. 50, or more claims would result a much more accurate victory ratio with significantly less overclaims on his side. In order to properly analyze Barkhorn's further (or other Axis aces') claims we must know the details of the opponent soviet units' loss records, which at this point are available for only the soviet 5th and 17th Air Armies, supporting the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts' ground forces in Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and partially in the Czech Republic. Aces, whose op. area fell out of this region cannot be analyzed in details yet. But research does not stop..

Gabor

[Johannes]

Hi Gabor

We agree that Barkhorn was honest then, perhaps some non-conforming with claims protocol when it comes to actual witnessing the crash, but as you say bad weather, and the Bf109 did have poor visibility itself. Also I would guess that Barkhorn like Hartmann and Rall claimed mostly fighter aircraft who's escape might have looked like death-dive.

Barkhorn was ambitious in his way, he thought his Schwerter an inferior decoration, as did Rall, both I think would have been awarded the Brillianten if it were not for Nowotny and Hartmann.

I maintain that with JG52 the most suspicious Gruppe was III, especially 9th then 7th staffel, and the least suspicious Gruppe was I. The more flugbücher I read the more I realize that more often than not they flew at Rotte, hardly ever as a full staffel. But also there had to be opportunity, even a dis-honest claimer needed opportunity, sometimes a pilot just fell in with a bad person, most often over-claiming by a pilot took place as one certain time in his career, then abruptly stops, good case for this is Emil Lang, reading Norbert Hannig's book Lang's record breaking day was planned-out, he had organised his wingmen that day for a series of sorties. In fact Lang's record breaking claiming spree was quite brief, then ends as abruptly as it started. With Maximilian Stotz it's the same, the opportunistic association with Hans Hahn in my opinion.

What is your opinion on Wilhlem Batz, he I think would be in your sphere of research, and his claims pattern highly suspicious, yet his earlier claims were very often not witnessed by a wingman, but by ground units, and he seems to have been flying alone for much of this period. I'll try to associate him with certain wingmen, but nothing is obvious to me by memory.

Take care

Johannes

[HGabor]

Hi Johannes, looks like unfortunately Wilhelm Batz (Stab III/JG 52) was not serving in the 2nd, or 3rd Ukrainian Front area in the late September, 1944 - May, 1945 timeframe, for which I have the soviet records.

Gabor

[Boris Ciglic]

Hi Johannes,


I will again use the data from "Drei Falken". From 63 claims made by Wilhelm Batz between November 1943 and early April 1944, only 9 can be confirmed in VVS records, he could have scored 8 or 9 more (unclear whether particular aircraft have been brought down by him or other pilots/flak), and the remaining 45-46 cannot be confirmed at all! Compared with other Luftwaffe aces which claimed 10 or more victories in that time frame over Krimea, Batz had the lowest percentage of confirmed kills. On other hand, Fonnekold had the best: out of 50, 31 are confirmed and 11 more are possible.



Boris

[mars]

Originally Posted by Johannes

Hi Gabor

In fact Lang's record breaking claiming spree was quite brief, then ends as abruptly as it started. With Maximilian Stotz it's the same, the opportunistic association with Hans Hahn in my opinion.

Take care

Johannes

So Hans "Assi" Hahn was an overclaimer too ?

[Nick Hector]

Originally Posted by mars

So Hans "Assi" Hahn was an overclaimer too ?

Very much so.
You can use the Tony Wood lists to compare JG 2's claims to Fighter Command's losses (use the 1941 and 1942 Luftwaffe claims lists for the German victory claims, and the Fighter Command summaries to find the enemy losses. At the very least, the discrepancies in the numbers claimed versus the numbers actually lost will become obvious).
As for his service on the Russian Front, I refer you to Christer Bergstroem's recent Black Cross + Red Star 4, which gives good coverage of many of his victories and overclaims

[mars]

Originally Posted by Nick Hector

Very much so.
You can use the Tony Wood lists to compare JG 2's claims to Fighter Command's losses (use the 1941 and 1942 Luftwaffe claims lists for the German victory claims, and the Fighter Command summaries to find the enemy losses. At the very least, the discrepancies in the numbers claimed versus the numbers actually lost will become obvious).
As for his service on the Russian Front, I refer you to Christer Bergstroem's recent Black Cross + Red Star 4, which gives good coverage of many of his victories and overclaims

I have read Black Cross + Red Star 4, in which Mr Christer gives him very high regard, and I don't recall Christer mentioned him as an overclaimer.

[Nick Hector]

Beg to differ. Page 140 describes his claims in the second sortie of 14 January 43 as being over-optimistic, we read similar on Page 144 (in several seperate parts of that page, in fact).

Listing out what I can, this is what I have come up with:

30.12.42/0850, 0850, 0853, 0855
4 x “LaGG-3s” (actually P-40s, likely others involved)
Staraya Russa – Demjansk
10 IAP, 239 IAD, 6 VA lost Mayor Nikolai Terekhin KIA plus one other shot down. 156 IAP, 240 IAD, 6 VA lost St.Lts. Vocharov, Kasakin and Tokarev plus St. Serzh Chinarov.
(Versus at least 8 claims)

30.12.42/0857
IL-2 Sturmovik
Staraya Russa/Demjansk (PQ 29472) @ 800m
243 ShAD, 6 VA. 6 losses for 11 claims

30.12.42/1145
LaGG-3
Staraya Russa/Demjansk (PQ 18262) @ 1800m
21 GIAP, 240 IAD, 6 VA lost Podpolkovnik Georgiy Nikolaevich Konyev (14 kills, 18 shared) in this engagement
(Stotz also claimed)

14.1.43/1036, 1037, 1038 and 1042
4 x LaGG-3s
Schlusselburg-Mga
263 IAP, 215 IAD, 14 VA. Four losses: Serzhant Antonov and Ml.Lt. Seliverstov both KIA. Serzhant Petkevich baled out over friendly territory and Starshiy Serzhant Ageshin bellylanded back at Shum airfield
(Stotz claimed 4 victories in the engagement as well)

14.1.43/1210, 1211 and 1212
3 x LaGG-3s
Schlusselburg-Mga
263 IAP. Overclaiming, only Ml.Lt. Rostem forcelanded in friendly territory
(Stotz claimed 4 victories in the engagement as well)

23.1.43/1320, 1322 and 1325
3 x LaGG-3s
Mga Sector
2 GIAP. Overclaiming, only loss was Kapitan Afanasiy Sobolev baled out
(Steindl claimed one as well)

24.1.43/0935, 0940, 0942 and 1135
4 x LaGG-3s

25.1.43/0945, 0947 and 0949
2 x La-5s, 1 x LaGG-3

26.1.43/1058
La-5 ("LaGG-3")
SE of Schlusselburg (PQ 10152) @ 2000m
263 IAP. Lt. Kalenskiy and Ml.Lt. Petkevich both WIA
(Stotz claimed two as well)

26.1.43/1400 and 1403
2 x LaGG-3s
E of Schlusselburg
3 GIAP, 61 IABR, KBF. One engagement at 1500 ST, only loss was pilot Prasilov WIA; another engagement at 1600 ST, only loss was Serzhant Stepanov
(3 claims by Stotz)


27.1.43/1043
La-5 ("LaGG-3")
Schlusselburg area (PQ 10111) @ 50m
2 GIAP. Gv.Lt. Filipp Kosolapov, escaped safely and made it home
(Stotz claimed one as well)

21.2.43/0911
La-5 ("LaGG-5")
30km W of Demjansk (PQ 18463) @ 2000m
169 IAP, one pilot KIA and one WIA. One source says this may have been Alexander Mikhailovich Chislov, only damaged but most now agree this was St.Lt. Mikhail Vorobiyev KIA