Erich Hartmann - several questions

[Broncazonk]

Andreas wrote, "Look at for example the immense number of Bf 109 photographs available - how many have you seen with a gun cam installed?"

That is a very good point--I actually looked last night. Very few gun cameras could be seen on Bf-109's, and quite honestly, very few could be seen on Fw-190's in photographs from late-1943 and 1944.

Bronc

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by Broncazonk

How could a star pilot continue to make huge single mission or weekly mission claims when the evidence was never appearing on his gun camera??

The experts on the Lufrwaffe can answer better in aspects specific to the Luftwaffe, but in general the answer, AFAIK, is:
1. gun camera would generally reduce crediting for completely made up claims, but the great majority of over claims, by any evidence I know in other situations with which I'm more familiar, were not made up by dishonest individuals, within an otherwise *actually* (not just on paper) strict claim verification process.

2. dramatic gun camera images published in books often show obvious destruction of the target a/c, but victories were credited based on gc images which were less than fully conclusive as to the target's destruction, often much less, in every case I know of specifically.

3. gun camera images often don't rule out the possiblity more than one pilot contributed to the destruction of the target, and duplicated claims of actual destruction of enemy a/c were a major source of over claims.

4. a key factor, perhaps the key factor, in over claims was the 'culture' of the air arm toward claim accuracy. I *don't* mean culture as in 'yeah, Englishmen are like this and Japanese are like that', not national characteristics, or not them alone, and not politics per se. But it's clear that various air arms in various wars had organizational approachs to claim verification that differed markedly in practice, even when the *theoretical* process on paper was similar. It could differ a lot even in the same air arm in different periods. It gets back to point 1: focusing on differing levels of personal honesty among pilots in a particular unit at a particular time is mainly barking up the wrong tree to explain general over claim rates. Clearly it was more socially accepted, for everyone, to play faster and looser with claims in some air arms/units/periods than others. The theoretical process of confirmation, or a particular device like a gun camera, was only part of the picture.

Joe

[Nokose]

There seems to have been some Luftwaffe pilots that liked to have gun camera aircraft. I know that Wolfgang Spaete had clips from his gun camera in his book "Top Secret Bird" but now that I've read these posts it could have been from when he was CO of IV/JG54 because two of the three shown are the eastern front. Spaete also qoutes a letter he wrote in the book "Since we last spoke, I've been stuck at 92 victories. Actually, I've had three more. I had to withdraw the first claim because of a lack of witnesses. But I got the next one confirmed without any problems. I was already looking for my 94th when the RLM department responsible for the recognition of aircraft victories discovered I had been credited for one kill in 1941 and another in 1942 that they could not officially recognize. I still don't know why. So I'm back at 92 confirmed victories again. For the third time!" This was in 1944.
I was told by someone on the board that the RLM didn't use camera footage to credit victories but only for the purpose of pilot training, Is that true?

[Ruy Horta]

Do we completely rule out the fact that a lot of the air fighting (due to its "fire fighting nature of 42-45) took place near the HKL and in view of German ground forces?

Often Eastern Front memoires mention confirmation by ground forces.

Before we rule out a "multi kill" event, you might check where exactly the claims were made and if they were near the front line.

[Nokose]

Nikita,
Did you find out anything about the Airacobra losses for the 15 APr43? I looked back over TW's list for the ones that I missed (Mato Dukovac 15/JG52 wasn't on there but I believe it's correct).

Lt. Ernst-Heinz Loehr 6/JG3 No time, location and height
Lt. Helmut Haberda 5/JG52 85152 100 m ?hrs

Lt Lothar Myrrhe 5/JG3 No location 3000 m 08:30
Oblt. Karl Ritzenberger 6/JG52 85163 7000 m 10:50
Lt Josef Zwernermann 9/JG52 85141 5000 m 12:52
Lt Helmut Haberda 5/JG52 85753 3000 m 13:14
FW Hans Reiff 8/JG3 3km SE Neledshskaya 3500 m 14:48
Mato Dukovac 15/JG52 Krimskaya ? m 14:50
Lt Wolf Ettel 4/JG3 86834 3500 m 15:30
Lt Erich Hartmann 7/JG52 85192 200 m 15:33

[Rob Romero]

I was told by someone on the board that the RLM didn't use camera footage to credit victories but only for the purpose of pilot training, Is that true?

The paucity of GC installations on fighters already cited would seem to confirm that GCs were installed only in special circumstances such as examples for gunnery instruction. It also seems to have been employed in some instances for Propaganda-Kompanie (PK) useage -a specific example would be Hans Philipp (206) shooting down a couple of Sov AC which was used in Die Deutche Wochenschaw newsreels.
The extra weight -though not significant- would have been an unwelcome drag on performance (esp. to the likes of Prof Willi Messerschmidt) when the overstretched Jagdwaffe was doing everything in its power to survive a multi-front war against superpowers. Also devoting scarce resources to producing tens of thousands of cameras and film/processing/analysis was a luxury the 3rd Reich could not afford.

[Nikita Egorov]

Michael,

Look above on the thread, I have answered your question. It seems that Hartmann could in reality obtain this kill.

Originally Posted by Nokose

Nikita,
Did you find out anything about the Airacobra losses for the 15 APr43? I looked back over TW's list for the ones that I missed (Mato Dukovac 15/JG52 wasn't on there but I believe it's correct).

Lt. Ernst-Heinz Loehr 6/JG3 No time, location and height
Lt. Helmut Haberda 5/JG52 85152 100 m ?hrs

Lt Lothar Myrrhe 5/JG3 No location 3000 m 08:30
Oblt. Karl Ritzenberger 6/JG52 85163 7000 m 10:50
Lt Josef Zwernermann 9/JG52 85141 5000 m 12:52
Lt Helmut Haberda 5/JG52 85753 3000 m 13:14
FW Hans Reiff 8/JG3 3km SE Neledshskaya 3500 m 14:48
Mato Dukovac 15/JG52 Krimskaya ? m 14:50
Lt Wolf Ettel 4/JG3 86834 3500 m 15:30
Lt Erich Hartmann 7/JG52 85192 200 m 15:33

[Nokose]

Okay, I misunderstood. I thought that you were looking into further losses of the 298 IAP for it. So Lt Wolf Ettel of the 4/JG3 damaged St.Lt. Petrov's airacobra and he ran the misfortune of getting shot down by Hartmann going to the deck to leave the "field". Thanks again.

[Nikita Egorov]

Originally Posted by Nokose

Okay, I misunderstood. I thought that you were looking into further losses of the 298 IAP for it. So Lt Wolf Ettel of the 4/JG3 damaged St.Lt. Petrov's airacobra and he ran the misfortune of getting shot down by Hartmann going to the deck to leave the "field". Thanks again.

Sorry, I forgot to add this. 298 IAP had no losses for that day. BTW, I have not written that Petrov was damaged by Ettel and finished by Hartmann. Simply I have not got the exact time of losses yet, to match them correctly with German claims. Judging by number of claims and losses of Aircobras one could possibly go to Hartmann. I have put this day aside because there are some uncertain moments in terms of losses of other VVS units. Other Hartmann's claims on Aircobras look more suspicious than this one.

[Nokose]

Okay. I should have put a "?" there. Rob, Thanks for the answer on the camera aircraft.