Italian aircraft and their top aces

[PMoz99]

Hey Michael, I'll bet Wind will still have more than Eino. Their scores are 39 and 34 respectively. Wind has 10 probables, Eino 18, so even if ALL Wind's probables are in B239s, he is left with 29. That means only 6 of Eino's 18 need to be in B239s before he falls behind again.
Cheers!

[Juha]

Originally Posted by PMoz99

Yes, that would be interesting to know. I have 3 Osprey books with info on the Finns (Buffalo Aces, Finnish Aces, Lelv24), and while they are generally reasonable for info, NONE of them has any detail on probables.
Cheers
Peter

Hello Peter
the reason probably is that the official FiAF kill list put together by the HQ of the FiAF didn't use probables, all those different categories were counted as accepted victories to the pilots, also those officially put into regiment's account. This system with probables is probably created by Stenman in order to differentied those claims with withness from those without withness. That can be done by going through the air combat reports from which one can see the confirmation process and its conclusion. But in fact the lack of witness not necesarily meant that the claim was reduced to probable in the RAF. I already mentioned Tuck's two Bf 109s on 21 June 41. Also I think that e.g. most of Kuttelwascher's confirmed victories were accepted without witness because of the nature of the circumstances, night intruder attacks over France while flying Hurricane IIc, of his later claims. Also in the LW the claims were sometimes accepted without witness.

[Juha]

Hello Michael and Peter
there are six accepted without witness cases amongst Juutilainen's B-239 kills, seven amongst Wind's.

[PMoz99]

Thank you for the details Juha.
Yes, I understand that claims with lack of witnesses are sometimes accepted, and at times circumstances can be such that there are or can be no witnesses. But if there is no witness and there is no other confirmation, then we are left with a probable. Depending on the pilot, some might be less probable than others (Welter and some others spring to mind here). I would imagine when you are in a melee, you only get split seconds to gain an impression on how much damage your hits have caused, and you probably haven't got the time or space to watch what happens after that. But simple things like a Me109 making lots of black smoke when under full power convinced many Brits they'd scored a kill.
My general impression is that the Finns were pretty reliable, so I would have little difficulty in accepting most or all the probables are actual victories.
Thanks again for all your time and information!
Peter

[Juha]

Hello Peter

Originally Posted by PMoz99

... Depending on the pilot, some might be less probable than others ...

Yes, that is true IMHO in all AFs. With diffferent confirmation systems one can get better reliability but all systems are man-made and so can be circumvented by a man. Also culture played its part but in the end its up to the individual

Originally Posted by PMoz99

... My general impression is that the Finns were pretty reliable...

We might have been fairly reliable but we also had our "problem children".

Juha

[PMoz99]

Interesting. Regarding the suspected 'problem children', in the top 15 or so are they possibly those with a large proportion of probables? Lehtovaara, Tuominen, even Juutilainen?
The Aces information I have lists, in some cases, victories from various sources. I haven't noticed any large fluctuations in the numbers from those various sources - that is, they all appear to come up with a very similar total.
Cheers
Peter

[Juha]

Hello Peter
unfortunately not so simple, none of those three. Even Tuominen with all his stories and leg-pullings was a fairly reliable in his claims. At least a partial answer to your question can be found from Ilmavoitot/Aeriel Victories vols 1 & 2 by Keskinen and Stenman.

[James A Pratt III]

Ali D'Italia 10 Fiat G 55 mentions the claims made by G 55 pilots it looks like the possible top claimer on this aircraft was Lt Osvalado Bartolozzi

27 Aug 43 B-17
29 Aug 43 P-38

As for the ANR period there is not enough info in this book claims made but pilots not identified

[knusel]

Good morning James,

thanks for your post which returns to the initial topic.
The current Italian aircraft top ace list looks like this:

• Fiat CR.32: Joaquin Garcia-Morato y Castano (Spanish), 36,5 kills of a total of 40,5
• Fiat CR.42: Mario Visintini, 16,83 kills of a total of 17,83
• Fiat G.50: Oiva Tuominen (Finnish), 23 kills of a total of 46
• Fiat G.50bis: Spiridione Guiducci, 5 kills of a total of 5
• Fiat G.55: Osvalado Bartolozzi, 2 kills of a total of 6+1 shared
• Macchi M.5: Orazio Pierozzi (WW1), 6 kills of a total of 7
• Macchi M.C.200: Vittorio Minguzzi, 9,58 kills of a total of 18,17
• Macchi M.C.202: Teresio Martinoli, at least 16+4 shared of a total of 22+14 shared
• Macchi M.C.205: Luigi Gorrini, 14 kills of a total of 19
• Reggiane Re.2000: possibly Imre Pánczél, 4-5 kills of a total of 7
• Reggiane Re.2001: Agostino Celentano, 6 kills of a total of 7
• Reggiane Re.2005: possibly Giulio Torresi, 4+3 shared of a total of 10+10 shared

I'm still very interested in the decimals of Martinoli's and Torresi's shared kills and in the confirmation status of Pánczél's fifth Re.2000 claim.

Kind regards,

Michael

[knusel]

Good afternoon Gentlemen,

I just finished working through Brian Cull's marvellous "249 at Malta" which is highly recommendable to all because of its wealth of information presented in a very delightful style.
https://www.amazon.de/249-Malta-Top-...s=249+at+malta
On page 20/21 it is suggested that on 4Sep1941 Franco Lucchini was part of a group of 30 pilots who jointly claimed 16 kills (although only 8 RAF machines took part in the fight).

Mr Gustavsson's website offers a further 33 shared kills (2 SCW and 31 WW2), 6 of which lack the number of pilots involved.
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/italy_lucchini.htm
I wonder if it's possible to identify the dates and decimals of all of Lucchini's 52 shared WW2 kills.

Cheers,

Michael