The confirmation of air victories of top Allied aces by LW sources?

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Broncazonk

!! If you get off-list replies to this, will you please post them? You have raised important and interesting questions.

Bronc

Hello Bronc,

There are two links, in Czech, on this subject. One is a brief article which review the history of the all-female 586 IAP (fighter aviation regiment). It was co-written by Vitaly Gorbach, a very capable Russian archival researcher and historian of the air battle of Kursk, and Dmitry Khazanov, a well-known author of books and articles on Soviet aviation. The third author, Poluninova, is unknown to me, but may be a female unit veteran.

See link - http://en.valka.cz/topic/view/24834#209526

There is also a list of female pilots who made claims - http://aces.safarikovi.org/victories/sssr-female.html

Regards,

Paul

[NickM]

Originally Posted by Broncazonk

I've been reading John B. Lundstrom's, The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign : Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942 which is superlative. (I read it cover to cover, and then immediately began reading it again.)

Lundstrom studied Japanese after-action reports for every day of the campaign (including Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz) and compared Japanese aerial combat victory claims against actual American losses. He also studied American after-action reports for every day of the campaign (including Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz) and compared American aerial combat victory claims against actual Japanese losses.

BUY THIS BOOK.

It's absolutely shocking--the documented Japanese over-claiming in particular--to the point that the constant, daily, every single mission 5x and even 10x over-claiming had (in my opinion) a significant effect on the outcome of the entire Solomons campaign.

Bronc

Got both of Lundstrom's books & enjoyed them both. I have to point out RE: the Japanese tendency to overclaim: I think it's similar to Italian fighter pilot issues: Their (Japan & Italy) aircraft are light & maneuverable & to a certain extent underarmed--and the pilots tend to practice an individualistic combat style--and allied fighters are often well armored/protected.

When they fire on, say a wildcat or a tomahawk, the first thing the allied pilot is going to do is DIVE at full throttle & then probably try to climb back into the fight. That diving, smoking plane is probably going to be the basis of several 'kill claims'. I think during Lundstrom's recounting of the Coral Sea Battles, he opined on at least one occasion a Wildcat pilot tangled with zeros in three separate dogfights on the same mission. No doubt he got claimed as shot down by all of them.

[Maxim1]

Originally Posted by GuerraCivil

The wiki has something about Lytviak & Budanova and states that they indeed made it an "ace" but that is just wiki.

Budanova did not "made it an ace", because she isn't mentioned in Mikhail Bykov's books.

Lidiya Litviak had 5+3 (+1 balloon) victories in 138 combat missions:

13.09.1942 Ju-88 west of Gumrak ('shared')
27.09.1942 Ju-88 Stalingrad
27.09.1942 Bf-109 Stalingrad ('shared')
11.02.1943 Bf-109 Vesyoly (Весёлый)
22.03.1943 Ju-88 Chaltyr-Sinyavka
05.05.1943 Bf-109 south of Stalino
31.05.1943 Balloon Kondakovka
19.07.1943 Bf-109 Pervomayskoye
31.07.1943 Bf-109 west of Petrovsky ('shared')

[Juha]

Originally Posted by Paul Thompson

Hello Juha,

You are right to an extent, that the long naval route consumed a large amount of time. The key issue is that the RAF could afford to send 200 or more Spitfires to the Mediterranean in 1941 and never return any of them home, because of the superior production rates of British aviation industry. The British exaggerated the German threat by grossly over-estimating German production and effective strength, which had a very negative effect on the British war effort. By combining data on production, strength and losses of the RAF and Luftwaffe, it is possible to see that by 1941 'the game was up' for the Germans, unless they could rapidly defeat the USSR and rapidly exploit its industrial resources. This was possible, but Hitler and his henchmen did not see the nature of the problem with sufficient clarity. On the other hand, Churchill was very concerned about British political endurance and felt forced to tolerate the over-insurance endemic in so many Allied operations during the war.

Regards,

Paul

Yes, but decisions had to be made besed on the info in hand. Germany had strong industrial base and at least in some circles in GB it was seen as very effective, even model state already at the beginning of the 20th century. Because it is usually more dangerous to underestimate than overestimate one's enemies, it isn't surprising that GB wanted to play safe. It was understandable to think that under dictatorship Germany could mobilize its resources more totally to military production than a democracy, even during the war.

Juha

[Juha]

As the question of this thread, it is very difficult if not impossible from summer of 40 to summer of 42 because there were so many big air battles, overclaiming was so common and almost total loss of LW's documents. It mght be possible to try to form oppinion on the claim patterns of some aces by researching smaller combats where little or no overclaiming happened or where the ace in question was the only claimant. And then try to draw some conclusions based on those results. But even this kind of research is rather iffy and as are said, the claim accuracy of certain pilots isn't so important, much more important is the effectiveness of unit(s) and operations. If there were unlimited resources the true achievements of the aces would have some curiosity value and IMHO it would be nice to know the true results because it seems that in the end it was up to individuals how accurate their claims were and it would serve some kind of justice if those accurate claimers could get the appreciation they deserved.

Juha

[Nick Beale]

Germany had strong industrial base

If you read Adam Tooze's book "The Wages of Destruction" he makes a case that Germany's industrial base was actually quite weak in certain respects. It had some very good, modern firms but not enough of them. That was why throughout the war the German army was mostly dependent on horse-drawn supply vehicles for example.

[Juha]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

Germany had strong industrial base

If you read Adam Tooze's book "The Wages of Destruction" he makes a case that Germany's industrial base was actually quite weak in certain respects. It had some very good, modern firms but not enough of them. That was why throughout the war the German army was mostly dependent on horse-drawn supply vehicles for example.

But the industrial bases of all European countries had at least some weaknesses after the Great Depression. And IMHO no European country had capazity to motorize c. 220 divisions in mid 1941 (the size of the German Army at that time), probably even USA, with its large automobile industry, would have big difficulties to achieve that.

Juha

[GuerraCivil]

Soviet vs. German claims:

The Soviet top naval ace Boris Safonov was credited with 20 individual "kills" + 6 shared in WW2. However it seems that his real tally was 7-8 individual air victories. The overclaim ratio of about 3:1 in his case does not seem to be more or less than the "average" in WW2 in my opinion. I´m not at all sure if we can say that LW / Western combat records are "much more" accurate than Soviet combat records in all cases or even as a general rule.

I have some doubts on big German claims at the Eastern Front - without doubt the Soviet losses were heavy but were they as heavy as Germans claimed? Despite the numbers claimed by Hartmann & Co. the air activity of Soviet Air Force was not considerably diminished but continued to increase. Soviets had it of course easier to replace their losses than Germans but German overclaims may also have given a false image of the efficiency of LW fighter units and helplessness of Soviets in air.

Luftwaffe was well able to overclaim as much as their Soviet counterparts have been so often accused despite the "strict" confirmation standards. I would be skeptical on their air victory records specially during the later stages of war. As an example the air combat records of III/JG 5 against Soviets in far north during the summer of 1944 based on solid research (Valtonen - Rautio):
- on 17.6.1944 12 Soviet planes destroyed (actual losses 0)
- on 4.7.1944 26 Soviet planes destroyed (actual losses 2)
- on 17.7.1944 37 Soviet planes destroyed (actual losses 5)
- on 17.8.1944 40 Soviet planes destroyed (actual losses 12)
- on 23.8.1944 29 Soviet planes destroyed (actual losses 2)

The German claims were "impossibly high" also in the view of strength of Soviet air units allocated to the operational area of III/JG 5. If they would have been true, III/JG 5 would have destroyed over 40 % of the combat strength of VVS SF (Soviet Northern Fleet aviation) and that would practically stopped or diminished in great extent the Soviet air activity at the northern flank of German Eastern Front. The losses would have been so high that even with Soviet resources they could not have been replaced easily. However as Germans themselves noted their "big victories" did not reflect in the Soviet air activity and thus the usual explanation of "infinite" Soviet resources was provided to make claims "possible/legitimate".

The III/JG 5 claims during the summer of 1944 were quite the same scale as the ill-fated Soviet claims during the Winter War - the exaggerated claims against Finnish Air Force were "legitimazed" with the assumption that Finns imported planes (and pilots) from abroad to replace their losses more than 100 % (this indeed happened but nothing near of the scale of Soviet assumptions).

Details: Valtonen, Hannu 1996: Luftwaffen pohjoinen sivusta - Saksan ilmavoimat Suomessa ja Pohjois-Norjassa 1941-1944. Luftwaffe´s Northern Flank - German Air Force in Finland and Northern Norway 1941-1944, p. 353-355 - Pajari, Risto 1971: Talvisota ilmassa - Winter War in Air)

[Juha]

Hello GC
Have you look the tread "German overclaims in the East. Hartmann and others..." (http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=1262 , especially the messages of HGabor?
Or the thread - Luftwaffe Kills in Tunisia Compared to Recorded USAAF P-38 losses (high.net/showthread.php?t=24947) ? Rob Romero’s message on 20th April 2011 20:24 gives a overview how much the claim accuracy varied from an unit to an unit.
If You have the Valtonen’s book, near the end of it is Valtonen’s opinion on the claim accuracy of the VVS in the Southern part of the Eastern Front.

Juha

[Nokose]

I noticed that Soviet pilots around Leningrad in the summer of 1943 were seeing Fw 190s in just about all of their dogfights. The only Fw 190 staffel in the area was 4.(Jabo)/JG 54 and the other unit was the Bf 109 equipped IV/JG 54. Look at the following losses and claims for 03 Sep 1943 which was some time after 16:57 (B).

Oblt. Alfred Teumer 10./JG 54 Bf 109 G-6 10% damage and WIA (NW of Gatschina) landed.
Uffz. Gottfried Schuster 10./JG 54 Bf 109 G-6 100% damage and KIA At "Pokrowskaja" (Pokrovskoe, 35 km NW of Tosno)
Uffz. Karl-Heinz Leiter 10./JG 54 Bf 109 G-6 100% damage and KIA 1 km NE of Korpikovo

VVS claims:
Kapt. Petr Yakovlevich Likholetov (La-5 159 IAP) Fw 190 (16) Pokrovskoe
Kapt. Viktor Grigor'evich Obiralov (Yak-7 14 GIAP) Fw 190 (16) Slutsk
Kapt Ivan Grigor'evich Pashchenko (La-5 159 IAP) Fw 190 (2) Shushary

I can only see one that matches the Germans and that is Schuster and Likholetov at Pokrovskoe. These are all ace pilots and I have no other pilots that might have scored from 14 GIAP and 159 IAP for that day and time. Thus it is hard to determine who engaged Teumer but it seems their four Bf 109 found superior numbers of Soviet fighters in that battle.