Severe Overclaimers Vs. Reliable Claimers List

on helmut wick ,3 spitfires 0n 6th nov 40 . but no RAF losses submit these.
he did shoot down a hurricane,southampton,sgt adairt

[Rob Romero]

-Update -Addition to Reliable Claimers Oskar Romm (92/79EVV)

92 Oskar Romm -On the basis of 5 Feb 44 mission in which he claimed 1 Soviet Yak & 5 Bostons -Yak shot down & 6/8 Bostons claimed by JG51 were shot down. On the basis of this single mission I will assign him a VERY PRELIMINARY claim reliability ESTIMATE of 79.2% and Estimate his Verified victories @ (79EVV)

Recently, I attempted to initiate a database of Historically Verifiable Victories (VV). Although some headway (especially with WWI German Aces) has been attained, the result, has not yet become what one might have hoped. Perhaps a more realistic approach would be to garner a sense of which aces were reliable versus exaggerated claimants. Admittedly, as with Historically Verifiable Victories Thread, the this would be an IMPERFECT and CONTROVERSIAL undertaking, however, eventually, and which much vetting, this avenue might garner some historical insight. To reduce my workload, I will keep this list EXCLUSIVE from the more concrete results obtained in the Historically Verifiable Victories (VV) Thread.

Alleged Heavy Overclaimers
352 Erich Hartmann –based on ‘research’ of Dimitri Khazanov
258 Walter Nowotny
224 Erich Rudorffer Afrika “Rudorffer's serious overclaims over the eastern front” Falsified Claims in Afrika?
173 Emil Lang
129 Walter Dahl –less than 100 credits according to J-Y Lorant
127 Walter Oesau
112 Kurt Bühlingen
99 Heinrich Bartels
94 Rudolf Muller
93 Sigfried Schnell
56 Helmut Wick
37 Thomas McGwire (Harry Brown (7) personally related that McGwire scrambled, parachuted over base & claimed 3 kills he could not possibly have made!)
33 Erwin Sawallisch (Allegedly caught falsifying combats with schwarm in Afrika –may have subsequently killed himself -Source Hans Ring/Chris Shores)

JG2 in Afrika, JG5 , JG54 are some of the Luftwaffe Units Alleged to have had a licentious attitude over overclaiming.

Alleged Reliable Claimers
(Keep in mind that few pilots even come near to 100% reliablility in their claims)
221 Heinz Bär (Some overclaims)
158 Hans-Joachim Marseille
103 Adolf Galland (Don Caldwell alleges that Galland deliberately overclaimed on at least one occaision)
102 Egon Mayer
101 Josef Priller (Kept meticulous record of combats apparently researched and largely verified by Johnny Johnson (38 )
92 Oskar Romm -On the basis of 5 Feb 44 mission in which he claimed 1 Soviet Yak & 5 Bostons -Yak shot down & 6/8 Bostons claimed by JG51 were shot down. On the basis of this single mission I will assign him a VERY PRELIMINARY claim reliability ESTIMATE of 79.2% and Estimate his Verified victories @ (79EVV)
35 Bruno Stolle

[Rob Romero]

Gotta be more careful before I post

Oskar Romm (73EVV)

[Csaba B. Stenge]

Two of my favourites from the eastern front, Lipfert and Setz seems to me quite reliable without heavy overclaims (and Setz had very good sorties/kills rate as well). OFC I have just sporadic Soviet losses, but sometimes have good accounts from areas, where they fought.

I do hope, Heinrich Setz's full diary will be published once.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

I have ever been doubtful about pilots claiming score of kills in some minutes. The probability of overclaiming is here in my own opinion more important, because I think most of these pilots just hit an enemy aircraft and immediatly chased another, thinking the first to be destroyed.

If you watch the record of Lipfert, he scored 3 victories in a sortie on 2 Dec 1943 (in 16 minutes), maybe 3 in the same sortie on 7 May 44 (one at 8h49, two at 9h40-45, may also have been two sorties) and 3 in one sortie on 19 July 44 (in 5 minutes). That is only 2 and maybe 3 triples on 203 claims (all known).

Now consider Rudorffer. He claimed 3 victories in one sortie on 7 Sep 40 (in 13 minutes), 3 on 19 Aug 41 (in 16 minutes), 3 on 21 Sep 1941 (in 15 minutes), 8 on 9 Feb 43 (in 22 minutes), 6 or 7 on 15 Feb 43 (6 in 15 minutes, one more 40 minutes later), 3 in the morning of 24 Aug 43 (in 7 minutes) and 5 in the afternoon (in 4 minutes), 5 on 14 Sep 43 (in 5 minutes), 7 on 11 Oct 43 (in 7 minutes), 13 on 6 Nov 11 (in 19 minutes), 6 on 7 Apr 44 (in 16 minutes), 3 on 28 Apr 44 (in 3 minutes), 5 on 3 July 44 (in 4 minutes), 6 on 26 Jul 44 (in 28 minutes), 3 on 27 Jul 44 (in 6 minutes), 3 on 17 Aug 43 (in 11 minutes), 5 on 25 Aug 43 (in 11 minutes), 4 on 6 Sep 44 (in 5 minutes), 3 on 17 Sep 44 (in 6 minutes), 6 on 25 Sep 44 (in 14 minutes), 7 on 10 Oct 44 (in 18 minutes), 4 on 22 Oct 44 (in 5 minutes) and 9 on 28 Oct 44 (in 10 minutes). I know 211 of his 224 claims, and of these 211, 120 or 121 were claimed in sorties where he made more than 3 claims.

By the way it proves nothing, Marseille has been studied in depth and was not an heavy overclaimer but claimed 82 of his 158 victories in sorties with 3 kills of more.

But without more data I will thrust more a pilot who claimed more often a small number of victories.

[Rob Romero]

Laurence -nice to hear from you again -did you notice I used your proportional method to estimate Oskar Romm’s (EVV) at 73? ;-)

Severe Overclaimers Vs. Reliable Claimers List

-Update Helmut Lipfert (203) & Heinrich Setz (138)

Recently, I attempted to initiate a database of Historically Verifiable Victories (VV). Although some headway (especially with WWI German Aces) has been attained, the result, has not yet become what one might have hoped. Perhaps a more realistic approach would be to garner a sense of which aces were reliable versus exaggerated claimants. Admittedly, as with Historically Verifiable Victories Thread, the this would be an IMPERFECT and CONTROVERSIAL undertaking, however, eventually, and with much vetting, this avenue might garner some historical insight. To reduce my workload, I will keep this list EXCLUSIVE of the more concrete results obtained in the Historically Verifiable Victories (VV) Thread.

Alleged Heavy Overclaimers
352 Erich Hartmann -based on ‘research’ of Dimitri Khazanov
258 Walter Nowotny -as per Dimitri Khazanov
224 Erich Rudorffer Afrika “Rudorffer's serious overclaims over the eastern front” -Falsified Claims in Afrika? ~120 of 211 documented victories were claimed in sorties where he claimed 3 or more victories.
173 Emil Lang
129 Walter Dahl -less than 100 credits according to J-Y Lorant
127 Walter Oesau
112 Kurt Bühlingen
99 Heinrich Bartels
94 Rudolf Muller
93 Sigfried Schnell
56 Helmut Wick -1/5? claims on 6 Nov 40 are VV.
37 Thomas McGwire (Harry Brown (7) personally related that McGwire scrambled, parachuted over base & claimed 3 kills he could not possibly have made!)
33 Erwin Sawallisch (Allegedly caught falsifying combats with schwarm in Afrika –may have subsequently killed himself -Source Hans Ring/Chris Shores)

JG2 in Afrika, JG5 , JG54 are some of the Luftwaffe Units Alleged to have had a licentious attitude over overclaiming.

Alleged Reliable Claimers
(Be Mindful that few pilots even come near to 100% reliablility in their claims)
221 Heinz Bär (Some overclaims)
203 Helmut Lipfert -his combat memoirs are a MUST READ!
158 Hans-Joachim Marseille -that he often scored multiple victories in a matter of minutes places the magnitude of his accomplishments in an even greater light.
138 Heinrich Setz -good sorties/kills ratio as well
103 Adolf Galland (Don Caldwell alleges that Galland deliberately overclaimed on at least one occaision)
102 Egon Mayer
101 Josef Priller (Kept meticulous record of combats apparently researched and largely verified by Johnny Johnson (38 )
92 Oskar Romm -On the basis of 5 Feb 44 mission in which he claimed 1 Soviet Yak & 5 Bostons -Yak shot down & 6/8 Bostons claimed by JG51 were shot down. On the basis of this single mission I will assign him a VERY PRELIMINARY claim reliability ESTIMATE of 79.2% and Estimate his Verified Victories @ (79EVV)
35 Bruno Stolle