Hartmann: claims vs. victories

[Broncazonk]

Let me clarify the, "why" question.

Was this (could this have been) official (sanctioned) over-claiming for morale (press and propaganda) purposes, OR was this personal ambition, OR had Hartmann perfected a "boom and zoom" aerial combat strategy where he engaged the enemy aircraft with a burst of fire and never looked back. In essence, was he claiming engagements as kills?

[HGabor]

Bronc, these are the questions that I cannot answer. I did not know Hartmann personally and never talked to him, so it would not be fair for me to pretend that I have the correct answer(s). The only thing I know, is that his victory-list contradicts the soviet loss records 'beyond all imagination', while others' match them pretty well. I do not know what political pressure was on him, or he really believed his numbers. He was a very skilled and brave pilot, because even if he destroyed 'only' 102 planes, it is still an amazing achievement. I think his preferred tactics of a quick ambush ('hit and run') itself carried the big chance to misunderstand the actual results. Smoke, or even flames were very visual results, but very often not enough to justify an aerial victory. Everything happened in a split of a second and I think the damaged planes still could have a good chance to survive, as Hartmann usually did not turn back for a second strike.

[Johannes]

Hi Guys

In my experience the most accurate area of claiming was by the night-fighters whose victims often burned which is very obvious, and second attacks much less risky, so in that respect I agree that Hartmann's method of attack would be much less often fatal, but there still lies the question of formality i.e the crash has to be witnessed. As explained before Fritz Obleser is often credited with claims against the U.S.A.A.F, but none appear on the mikrofilms, fortunately we were able to question him about this before his death, actually we presented him with an abschüßelist, as his flugbuch was stolen during 1945, yet still he stated that though he himself was sure he had shot-down nine American aircraft, but he did not submit the claims as in each case he was too pressured to wait around to witness the actual crash. Perhaps Hartmann was not so adhering to formality. Even so checking his claims against his comrades there does seem to be collusion at times as per back scratching, and other periods where his claims are not explained away but this.
A new angle could be the witnesses, with night-fighter I am guessing that the gunner/radio operators fulfilled this job, which is strange as this would be an obvious opener for false claims, yet then why are they so accurate?....my guess is that the crash-sites were easily open to investigation, can't be that these guys were just all an honest bunch. Now day-time ZG units claims are actually not very accurate, especially earlier on, during the battle of Britain there would be no crash-site available.
In the East usually crash-sites were not available for examination. Also I have noticed that the worst offenders were also Gruppenkommandeur, with Rudorffer he obviously used his wingman Tangermann back scratching wise, but not Hartmann or Nowotny, I don't know, and am looking for an answer as to who signs-off a Kommandeur or Kommodore's claim. Nowotny's earlier claims(prior to being Kommandeur) were obviously achieved with back scratching using Dobele and Loos.
Hartmann was not popular among his comrades, not necessarily because he was suspected by them of false-claims, he was a poor officer, but what of his personality?
Marseille's wingmen had a hard job just keeping-up with recording his claims including the crash-sites, but it was done, so it can be done.
Hartmann records only one claim whilst flying for JG53, in a period when there should really have been more, but his 1945 claims are generally vague anyway and as such cannot really be investigated as in most cases we cannot even really be sure about the dates net alone time or place, or even aircraft type.

An over-claimers pattern of "kills" are usually very obvious, Hartmann, Rudorffer, Nowotny all follows this pattern, whereas Günther Rall, Walter Krupinski and Helmut Lipfert stand out particularly as not following this pattern, but Marseille's does....a one-off ?

Kind Regards

Johannes

[HGabor]

A very interesting victory analysis from Ivan Lavrinenko for Eric Hartmann's claims in Jassy, in the spring of 1944. Out of his 35 claims about 26% could be potential victories. This is worse percentage than what I found for him over Hungary (I found about 30%), but still not too far from it. Based on these, the number of Hartmann's real victories in WWII could be around 95-100.

https://warspot.ru/3125-hartman-nad-...one-za-mechami

Gabor

[HGabor]

On February 21, 1945 2nd Belarus Front, 4 VA, 327 BAD, 640 BAP Douglas A-20G-35-DO Boston (S/N: 43-10097), piloted by Ml.Lt. Vasilii Fedorovich Artamonov (+) was shot down by 8-10 enemy fighters over Poland. Navigator-bombardier, Ml.Lt. Andrei Nikiforovich Krivohizha was also killed.

(The other 4 VA, 327 BAD, 640 BAP A-20G-40-DO Boston (S/N: 43-21503) this day, piloted by Ml.Lt. Temeryatnikov was damaged by flak.)

Since no further details are known for Erich Hartmann's 335th Boston III. (or Mitchell?) claim in Jan-Feb, 1945, No.43-10097 is a potential 'candidate' for him, but cannot be verified, until more specific details of Hartmann's claim are revealed.

Gabor

[GMichalski]

hello,

On February 21, 1945 i cant find claims of Hartman...

info of Johannes Mathews:

4,2.45 1./JG 53 Hptm Yak-9 Veszprém area _____ _____ E N 337
20,2.45 I./JG 52 Hptm P-39 _____ _____ E N 338
20,2.45 I./JG 52 Hptm La-5 _____ _____ E N 339
6,3.45 I./JG 52 Hptm La-5 raum Oppeln/Brieg Oppeln/Brieg _____ _____ E KBT N 340
6,3.45 I./JG 52 Hptm Yak-9 raum Oppeln/Brieg Oppeln/Brieg _____ _____ E KBT N 341

regards

[Johannes]

"Boom and Zoom", what you are basically saying is that Hartmann thought he had made a "Kill", but both he and more so his wingmen did not follow protocol regarding making a claim, this dictates that actual witnessing the crash had been made. Friedrich Obleser we(Bernd Barbas) questioned him about the lack of mikrofilm evidence of his USAAF claims he supposedly made, his reply was "I was in such danger myself that I didn't wait around to witness the crash".... therefore he submitted no official claim. Though I cannot really find any evidence that Hartmann had a "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" thing going whilst famous, or earlier on in his claiming, there is a marked period in mid-1943 that I would say he could have, and probably did employ this method. Mostly during his fame he alone is claiming, therefore this method could not have been employed, well unless some other form of bribery was employed.

With Walter Nowotny the "scratch" method was employed practically throughout his claiming, no thinking they had crashed! As A Kommandeur he just used an old wingman from his previous staffel, not so with Hartmann.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[Nick Beale]

either an aircraft was lost or significantly damaged … or it wasn't

[Stig1207]

I make it about 19 claims for Airacobras in the same area on 4 June 1944, most by Jg 52, a couple by SG 2. Birkner, Wolfrum, Ewald, Lipfert are among the claimants; I don't have the times for those claims.

[Graham Boak]

Just to put a little perspective on this, the suggested ratio of about 1 genuine to 3 claims is reasonably close to the overall values quoted for different air forces at different times. The majority of which is simple confusion in the complexity and rush of battle, rather than any deliberate falsity. With, as suggested above several times, a good dash of wishful thinking.