WW2TV Horvath lecture/presentation

[keith A]

Exactly Nick. On the point of Battle of Britain claims. In the Battle of Britain the RAF had a target rich environment and fighter pilots being fighter pilots shot at everything. Consequently two, three, four, five pilots believed they were solely responsible for an enemy aircraft going down. It may have been so but the others also saw the same picture. Luftwaffe pilots probably did the same.The RAF did overclaim. I believe the stats are about 1:3. I haven't seen the Luftwaffe claims in this period but from memory they were extremely high, leading to extravagant claims by Goering (much like his claims in WW1). In 1941 when the RAF was doing pretty much all the daytime offensive work over the Channel, and consequently were losing escort fighters, rather than bombers, in large numbers it is true that in the main certain squadrons in the Kenley and Tangmere Wings were massively overclaiming. As I stated earlier in this discussion I think the RAF got more accurate as the war went on. Although I am not Vince's main opponent in our other forum (I believe he thought/thinks me anti-German and when I gave him evidence that this was not so he didn't even acknowledge my responses, even when I gave evidence) but that's another discussion I think he believes that correcting perceptions of aces is the same as insulting their memory. I hope I am not perceived as denigrating fellows who flew and fought when my most frightening flying experience was in 1987 aboard an Afghan Airlines flight, hitting turbulence at night over Moscow. Bishop was a popular bloke who managed to find a way to work the system, Finucane (and I suspect Bader and Caldwell and many others) did the same in WW2. The Americans used the "Race of Aces" to massively inflate both "ace" tallies and enemy casualties. All we are trying to do is give perspective. 352 kills is a ridiculous number, 301, 275, 250 it's all just numbers and so massively different from those claimed by their opponents that unless you believe in a German gene or a superiority in FIGHTER engineering (let's face it their bombers were poor, their transport aircraft bizarre) that is at least ten times better than the opponent your argument falls apart. Especially as by the latter end of the war Luftwaffe pilots were not being trained over a long period before being committed to battle. Nuff said (by me).

[VtwinVince]

You make some good points Keith. BTW the list of individuals who seem to be on some personal mission to besmirch all things German does not include you, and if I neglected to respond to some points raised, my apologies. Regarding the astronomical claim numbers on the eastern front, I think the early part of the campaign was the 'happy time' for Jagdwaffe pilots, when the equipment and aircrew gaps between the two air forces were fairly wide. Having said that, and only as a general statement, the quality of both aircraft and crews in the Red Air Force caught up fairly quickly.

[Nick Beale]

My own perspective for what it's worth … when I'm researching, I'm not interested in debunking or denigrating anything or anyone of any nationality but in establishing, as far as I can, what actually happened. And if Hartmann's true score stood, as Daniel estimated in the interview, at perhaps 20–30% of his total claims then he was still a spectacularly successful fighter pilot.

[keith A]

Many thanks for your responses gentlemen, a belated but no less heartfelt Happy New Year

[Adriano Baumgartner]

Regarding the claims, one need to also have a look at the total combat sorties flown (Feindflug). If memory does not fail me, at least half a dozen LW fighter pilots flew 1,000 or close to that number of combat sorties.
I remember at least one V.V.S. fighter pilot who completed at least 1,000 sorties. On the other hand, the RAF pilots were rotated home, or grounded as Flight Instructors at OTU for some time before rejoining for a 2nd or 3rd or 4th Tour. Some of the most well known RAF fighter pilots chalked more than 500 combat sorties (from memory one reached 600+) and on the US side, at least one of the Fighter boys reached the 500-600 combat sorties range.
MOST of the LW airmen flew without rotation....continuously....Rudel (not a fighter pilot) flew 17 combat sorties once. The LW bomber pilots chalked hundreds of combat sorties, whilst the RAF's top airmen flew 100+ (from memory the recordist flew something around 130 sorties). Some US bomber pilots chalked the 100 mark too...but they soon were rotated home. Batcher you all know flew all throughout the war...and was shot down or hit several times.
BUT, the total tally is not one sided business, one must look beyound the number of combat sorties, to other factors:
1) Luck (be at the right place on the right time and not being shot down before attacking)
2) Number of enemies and favorable position to shoot them down,
3) Marksmanship,
4) Weaponery (guess that if the RAF did have 20mm guns or .50 guns in 1940, their tally at the Battle of Britain would have been higher! And on several books it is said that one 30mm LW shell was suficient to bring down a fighter or a twin-engined machine);
5) Training
6) Ground support (logistic, mechanic support, etc.)

Anyway it is a fascinating subject and maybe the point that Vince put here is WHY only the LW claims are being scrutinized after WW2? Why NOT the other side is being researched too? At least a French Historian is cross-checking all the claims of the Normandie-Niemen unit and the % of positive claims he found (post-war study) is incredibly low...

I believe that with open archives, we will see in the futur a bunch of new books and researches cross-checking those claims and "Oficial" lists. It is an interesting field of researches, still open.

Nice thread by the way.

[Nick Beale]

Why NOT the other side is being researched too?

My feeling is that if I want to see a particular piece of research done, the only sure way is to do it myself. But I come back to what I said in an earlier post, the biggest German claims are so far beyond what was claimed in any other air force that it is not surprising people would look at them more closely.

And by the way, Christophe Cony in Avions magazine wrote a very good article about Pierre Clostermann's claims.

[Juha]

Hello Keith
High number of claims does not necessarily mean high overclaiming. If you look the Helmut Lipfert's part in the Daniel's and Gabor's book, his claims were exceptionally accurate over Hungary. And he had 203 confirmed victories.

[VtwinVince]

I agree with the importance of judging claims based in part on number of Feindfluege. The Luftwaffe of course had no such concept of 'flying a tour' and getting rotated out, unless you want to believe that these totals are faked as well.

[Juha]

The LW did not have combat tours but more like the system the RAF had up to the beginning of 1942, i.e. the CO and the Medical Officer observed their pilots and if noticed signs of tireness/too high stress gave if possible a short or longer leave to the pilot. E.g. Marseille had two furloughs, one month and two months in duration in 1941 plus one and half months with his unit in Bavaria when it changed from Bf 109 E-7/trops to Bf 109 F-4/trops. And 1½ months sick leave and furlough 1941/42. In 1942 he had two two months furloughs. I know that several other aces spent furloughs in Germany during the war. Lipfert also spent some time training Rumanian fighter pilots.

[Stig Jarlevik]

Our friend Geoffrey Sinclair wishes to add some thoughts to the subject!

Using published sources, like Fighter Command War Diaries, Battle of Britain Then and Now, the lists of Luftwaffe combat claims etc.

Battle of Britain 10 July to 31 October 1940. Removing all the known non fighter causes of loss like friendly fire, enemy bomber, crashes etc. but retaining unknown cause, enemy action etc.

Overall the RAF fighters claimed around 2,440 kills, for 1,255 actual, or 1.9 to 1, the over claiming by month July to September was around 1.3 to 1, 1.9 to 1, 2.5 to 1, 1.2 to 1, the heavier the fighting the higher the over claims, 15 September makes a big contribution. The RAF was aware of the over claiming given the number of Luftwaffe aircraft wrecks found.

Luftwaffe fighters claimed just under 2,000 kills of Spitfires and Hurricanes, 1.7 Spitfires per Hurricane and shot down around 700, or around 2.8 to 1, a ratio that is consistent July to September, dropping to 2.5 to 1 in October, throwing in the bomber gunner claims explains the reports of the Luftwaffe over claiming 5 to 1.

In 1941 over France the RAF was over claiming around 5 to 1, Ultra told the British about this. The RAF was also making major over claims in North Africa in 1941 and 1942 which can be seen in the Christopher Shores et. al. books.

January to June 1943, RAF fighter command allowed 249 kill claims against Luftwaffe fighters, the true number of kills was 235, according to British Intelligence in World War II (Hinsley).
Looking at 8th Air Force B-17 and B-24 losses the Luftwaffe fighters quite consistently claimed about 2 B-17 for every 1 shot down by fighters, and under 2 to 1 for B-24 ("B-24 easier to shoot down" ideas). The exchange rate of Luftwaffe fighters shot down by the bombers to bombers shot down by the fighters was around 2 fighters to 3 bombers in 1943 becoming 1 fighter per 2 bombers in early 1944.

Theo Boiten in Nachtjagd War Diaries notes only a couple of nightfighter pilots where he suspects their claims.

Making trouble are reports like the USAAF examining a small number of Luftwaffe gun camera films post war finding the most reliable indicator of whether a kill claim was granted was not visible damage, or visible hits, or a fire, but the rank of the pilot making the claim. (91% Major/Captain, 50% Lieutenants, 47% Sergeant). 6 out of 6 claims by Lt Colonels were granted, 1 out of 3 claims by corporals. Total sample size 173 claims.
Stressing these are broad brush figures to give an idea on the size of over claims, not a statement of absolutes.

Cheers
Stig