Erich Hartmann: 352 victories or... 80?

[John Beaman]

Originally Posted by FalkeEins

for those interested I've translated some paragraphs from the Khazanov article and added some translated general comments on the article from Jean-Yves Lorant and Hans Ring..access my site via the link below..."visit..homepage"..

Neil..........there was no link in your posting

[FalkeEins]

..John,

the link is in blue ..under my name...bottom left..automatically appears under each post.. or perhaps your screen is configured in such a way that you can't see it..?

Neil

[Dénes Bernád]

When clicking your blue, underline name and after being directed to your home page: http://www.members.aol.com/falkeeins/Sturmgruppen
I receive the message that the URL cannot be found.

It would be better if you could just post the link to the page directly in your post.

Dénes

[FalkeEins]

..links appear to be working properly...but try this link direct to the page

http://members.aol.com/falkeeins/Stu...annclaims.html

Neil

[Franek Grabowski]

Arguments contra E & F really knocked me down.

[John Beaman]

Neil:

For some reason I had never seen your site. It is very well done. My congratulations on some good work in getting these translations up. They are very useful.

Thanks!

John

[Andrey Dikov]

Thank you for posting these translated excerpts (as far this article wasn't issued in Russian ever), but certainly I'm not impressed by critics.

All contras presented by these respectable researchers regards to Hartmann's claims. Details from a German point of view, again. And they gave no comments from Soviet side.

Obviously they couldn't, as far their experience in Soviet documents research is poor, I think.

In this light the words "a) the disparate & incomplete nature of the Soviet archives precludes any objective analysis - who shot down who, a "dangerously romanticised" version of the air war. " looks strange at least.

Soviet documents are rather complete and detailed. Those I dealed with are more informative than German ones I saw in Western publications, at least.

Both sides made overclaims - it's just a matter of fact that we, historians, should cope with calmly. As for German overclaims, me and Russian researchers I know who researched German claims in particular operations, combats etc. have an overall impression that German overclaiming rate was about 2-3 times. Of course it depended much on pilot personality, war period and other factors.

Best regards,

Andrey Dikov

[marsyao]

FalkeEin, it looks like your link contains majorly the comments from Mr Ring, where is the original article of Khazanov ?

[Jens]

Originally Posted by Dénes Bernád

http://www.members.aol.com/falkeeins/Sturmgruppen

C) "On 29 May 1944 Hartmann claimed three La-5s shot down in the vicinity of the airfield of Roman (Rumania) during a large scale attack by aircraft of the 5th Air Army. All the La-5s of the 302nd Fighter Division returned safely" . False. Hartmann claimed a single Airacobra near Jassy. In addition Hartmann's victories 248-250 claimed on 4 June 1944 were P-39s and not Il-2s

??? According to Tolliver/Constable:
29.5.44 - 3 LaGG-7! (1 Aircobra is stated at the Claimlists...)
4.6.44 - 4 Jak-9 and 3 Il-2; Kill 244 - 250! ( 6 Aircobras and 1 LaGG at the Claimlists)

So for me it's clear that searching claims by type isn't valid enough. There is no reason why germans everytime identified right type of a/c.

Most authors forgot, that Hartmann didn't need eyewitnesses, since it wasn't necessary since July 43 for getting a kill! And so it comes that Rall fights a claim of Hartmann, is described in Tolliver/Constable. Rall states indirectly, that Hartmann is not telling the truth.
Questionable is also, that Hartmanns get his 200th and 300th kills at day where he made over ten kills a day. These days are his best, seems there wishes had to come true. Also there is no long checking procedure for these kills, since Göring sends congratulations for KC and kills same day.

I wonder about Seidel statements of 25.000 fighters shot down, since USSR lost only 20.700 for all reasons in combat. Also I am wondering about the german claims, that climbs in 1943 up to 11-13k, although there are much less fighters at the eastern front, pilots were getting worser and technical supremacy was lost.