Erich Hartmann: 352 victories or... 80?

[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 ?

[Graham Boak]

Denes suggests a ratio of 2:1 for claims to kills: I believe that Chris Shores, with all his experience, has said the same. I would point out however, that this ratio is not an overall factor. In times of intense fighting this can rise dramatically, and 3:1 is certainly not unreasonable, having been seen in many occaisons. Using this might suggest a total of some 120 for Hartmann, but even if we assume that 80 is a "correct" figure, so what? Similar factors would apply to almost everyone on the Eastern front, and indeed elsewhere.

Only 80. Wow, what a poor result. No?

From what has been seen elsewhere when both sides records have been compared, I fully expect many of these Luftwaffe totals to reduce significantly. As will Soviet totals. As will Japanese and USN Pacific totals. As have RAF, USAAF and Luftwaffe totals where comparisons have been possible. I don't believe that it diminishes the individuals concerned.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

My two cents. I read the article last month and write of memory.

I think both number of 352 and 80 are ridiculous. Most of the times overclaiming is 25-40% so Hartmann probably shot down 200-250 aircraft.
The original article uses all the revisionist tricks. Basically pick some precise cases to show that the "usual story" is wrong, and then using these as a proof that all cases are wrong. In the article, the author gives some examples, uses them to justify the fact that Hartmann only shot down less than 1/4 of his claims and in another "generalization" (don't remember if it is implicit or openly written) doubts the veracity of the German fighters in general.
In this case, the author seems to have choosen the wrong examples or to have quoten bad sources (another usual aspect of revisionism, that usually shows outdated wrong sources, so proving them wrong is easier.... and obviously not saying that every serious historian knows these sources are wrong).

While reading the article, I was thinking (as I always did with "revisionism"): what is the goal of this ? You will notice that putting the score of Hartmann at 80 is telling the best German ace "really" scored less victories than the best Soviet ace, who scored more than 80 victories. This is absolutely not written in the article and only my personnal interpretation.
The "who shot down who" question is most often a very difficult one and often misleading... A part of the "solved" cases compared partial list of losses with partial list of claims. A more interesting question is to try to compare global victories to global losses, when possible for each battle (a battle that may last hours and expand on hundred of kilometers in the case of the big Allied raids over Germany).

[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.