WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation

[Juha]

On the Eastern Front, many LW pilots used guerilla warfare tactics, strike fast and disappear. Not necessarily a bad tactic when the opponent has a clear or overwhelming numerical superiority. It tied the opponent's fighter forces to protective tasks and caused losses to the opponent while keeping own losses down, even if it did not produce a decisive benefit for own side, it kept the enemy on his toes. And if Hartmann claimed only 15 Il-2s, out of 267 Otto Kittel's claims 94 were Il-2s and e.g. Lipfert claimed 39 Il-2s. So there were fighter pilots who risked their lives going low to hit ground attack planes to help poor Landsers.

And I wouldn't go as far as to say that Germans in general were overclaiming unusually wildly in the East. Even in the summer of 1944 their claims were generally relatively accurate over Southern Finland and the Northern Baltic, even if for example in the far north with the JG 5 overclaiming was quite wild. And even in the south, where, for example, Hartmann operated, Lipfert's claims were exceptionally accurate.

Although the system and the culture of the unit had an effect, the characteristics of the individual were ultimately decisive in the one’s claim accuracy.