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

[thenelm]

I have to agree with Ruy. Trying attach motive to 'overclaiming' to anyone long passed away is an exercise in futility. We'll never know. We're talking about combat in the air with multiple pilots attacking the same targets from every direction in that environment, while trying to seek your next target and trying to be sure an enemy wasn't about to blow you away from above, below, either side or whatever. You didn't stare your target into the ground. If you did, you died. And the bottom line is, EVERYBODY OVERCLAIMED, the Lw, the RAF, the US, the Japanese, the Russians or whomever I left out. Get over it - expecting everything to match up exactly or for an individual's claims to be perfection when said individual was also trying not to be someone else's victory is inane. All that stuff transcribed by Tony or in any publication are CLAIMS, the fact that some governing body accepted them has as much to do with propaganda for the folks back home as their validity.