Luftwaffe shared victories (was: Hartmann ....352 victories or 80?)

[drgondog]

I'm inclined to agree with Franek and Nick on separate points.

First, attaining a high victory total for a good pilot was a function of two forces - first and most important was opportunity. No air force had the 'opportunities' like the Luftwaffe who were most often encountering Allied a/c on nearly every mission if they chose to do so...

Second, 'luck' was a huge factor in surviving (I'm assuming skill or most likely they wouldn't be 'experten'). In the West a B-17 or B-24 gunner might have your number and all the skill in the world doesn't help.. and if you get to do this every day sooner or later bad things happen.

I don't really have proof but I suspect a high percentage of Luftwaffe aces were shot down by average US (or Brit, or Pole or Russian) fighter pilots who happened to catch the very good German pilot unaware of his presence or were simply run to ground by a flight of Mustangs which outperformed their own fighters.

My father shot down 7 in his first 35 missions and never encountered another German fighter in the air for the remainder of his 70 missions. Many, many US aces including Chuck Yeager had exactly the same experiences.. contrast that with the German pilot who flew and basically fought every day until killed or wounded - whereas US pilots rotated home and trained more US pilots after a 300 hour tour.

Johnny Johnson and a great number of British aces basically missed out in the great air battles of Feb 1944-May 1944 because they didn't have the range in the Spit or Tempest or didn't have the mission with their own Mustangs.. and that was a time when approximately 3000 German fighters were shot down.

So, difficult to state that Luftwaffe aces were better than Brit, Russian, French, etc, aces or US aces based on scores. Opportunity and luck (longevity in a lot of combats) were huge factors in running up scores.