Hartmann: claims vs. victories

[rof120]

Adolf Galland was one of them, at least from a certain date on. There is a well-known frame from one of his combat footages shot on November 1, 1940: it clearly shows the shooting down of a "Spitfire", Galland's fiftieth victim. Thanks to the tracers giving continuous (thick) straight lines on the picture you even can see the difference between the flight paths of the missiles fired by the two machine-guns mounted on the engine (close to each other) and by the right wing cannon, the distance between the two being (of course) exactly the right one. The tracers from the left cannon left a trace too but it is much less straightforward: it's undulating behind and below the "Spitfire". You can see this phenomenon on numerous pictures of this kind (the camera jumped or vibrated because of the powerful recoil of the cannon). The German press reported this event profusely and most probably reproduced one or several frames. See "Der Adler", "Signal" and also the German dailies etc.

(Galland was the CO of JG 26.)

Certainly some other German fighter pilots got a gun camera too, especially Mölders, probably Wick, and others.

[Johannes]

One in three doesn't sound correct, during the Battle of Britain it was two to one, the British no better. Luftwaffe night fighters were much more accurate, should I say very honest claimers in general, don't know why exactly, basically your witness would be your crew......usually a set crew, so plenty of opportunity for cheater there, but then their claims are likely to be over Wenrmacht held territory, and unlike in the East the crash-sites would be investigated, guess this would explain the higher number of unconfirmed claims compared to the East. JG2 operated in an area where combat was often over the sea !. In the East JG5 believed themselves in some kind of exile, and received less superior equipment.......often secondhand, so resentment could play a part here, their claims pattern is rather like that of JG54 in the North, III./JG64 were far more accurate in their claiming to the rest of the Geschwader.

Rank plays a part, Kommandeur claiming seems less than honest......but only certain pliots, seems if you were that way inclined then being a Kommandeur was a way........I would guess you could chose your own wingman......dodgy wingman ?

Kind Regards

Johannes

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Johannes

Luftwaffe night fighters were much more accurate, should I say very honest claimers in general, don't know why exactly, basically your witness would be your crew......usually a set crew, so plenty of opportunity for cheater there

Kind Regards

Johannes

Reading Theo Boiten's Nachtjagd Combat Archive series it becomes clear that night fighter crews were usually operating in close cooperation with a ground station which was itself linked in with other defences. So, if a bomber was claimed and the target disappeared from radar then that was one source of confirmation but the Flak and searchlights could also be contacted in case they had seen (say) a burning aircraft falling, or an explosion on the ground.

[NickM]

Originally Posted by Stig Jarlevik

Thanks

Thus it begs the question, who used them?
Not much point in putting them inside the rookies aircraft....

Cheers
Stig

Right! You would stick the cameras in the planes of a real 'Tiger': one who would no doubt get kills but also come home.

[NickM]

Originally Posted by rof120

Adolf Galland was one of them, at least from a certain date on. There is a well-known frame from one of his combat footages shot on November 1, 1940: it clearly shows the shooting down of a "Spitfire", Galland's fiftieth victim. Thanks to the tracers giving continuous (thick) straight lines on the picture you even can see the difference between the flight paths of the missiles fired by the two machine-guns mounted on the engine (close to each other) and by the right wing cannon, the distance between the two being (of course) exactly the right one. The tracers from the left cannon left a trace too but it is much less straightforward: it's undulating behind and below the "Spitfire". You can see this phenomenon on numerous pictures of this kind (the camera jumped or vibrated because of the powerful recoil of the cannon). The German press reported this event profusely and most probably reproduced one or several frames. See "Der Adler", "Signal" and also the German dailies etc.

(Galland was the CO of JG 26.)

Certainly some other German fighter pilots got a gun camera too, especially Mölders, probably Wick, and others.

Off hand can you provide a link to this image of Galland's gun camera? The vid or shot might be well known but it doesn't 'ring any bells' with me. When I was going thru Caldwell's JG 26 materials, the only gun camera still I saw of Gottfried Dietz's gun camera footage of him shooting up a Spitfire...Interestingly enough, not only had I seen Dietz's clip of film before, in various documentaries but He was actually lucky enough to have a GC in his aircraft for this, his very first aerial victory--which kind of goes against my opinion that only 'Tigers' get the camera in their planes.

[rof120]

Wel, I'll try to make the picture visible here but don't know if I will succeed in it. I found it in the French translation of Galland's book "Les premiers et les derniers" (The First and the Last - Die Ersten und die Letzten), 2nd set of photographs after page 207, photograph N° 65 (they are all numbered from 1 through 135; many were supplied by Galland himself). Published 1985 by "Éditions Yves Michelet" (Paris and Normandie).

This book can be found very easily on the Internet including at abebooks, for prices ranging from about 35 to 150 euros/£/$.

The picture is much better in the book but my scanner refuses to do a better job.

Later: and it proved impossible to upload the picture even as a file ending with bmp, doc, gif, jpeg. Perhaps I'll try later.

Perhaps somebody has got a copy of the relevant issue of "Signal" or "Der Adler" or of some other German publication or film footage. The German propaganda stuff of all kinds including films was spread all over the world: in all occupied countries and to all neutral ones, in particular Sweden. Japan and the USA (before PH on December 7, 1941), and other countries.

[MW Giles]

https://www.military-stuff.org/spitf...ncamera-video/

Galland is seen at the end of the film

Whether it is his gun camera footage is another matter

Martin

[NickM]

Originally Posted by MW Giles

https://www.military-stuff.org/spitf...ncamera-video/

Galland is seen at the end of the film

Whether it is his gun camera footage is another matter

Martin

thx;

And I've seen those clips before, thanks for refreshing my memory. I think one clip might even be the one for Gottfried Dietz, if I'm not mistaken (*and I might certainly be...)

[rof120]

Let's try again (I rarely give up but THIS could be the unique opportunity to do so): (later) WHOOPEE, it worked. Now you know it: I can make miracles. It wasn't easy, believe me. Please note: the "original" picture in the book is not really good but much better than here. (Obviously it's strongly enlarged - no fighter pilot flew so close to his victim firing his cannon and machine-guns).

[Nick Beale]

Having got that picture posted successfully, it's probably time to get back to this thread's original topic, i.e. Erich Hartmann's verifiable claims.

Luftwaffe gun-camera footage might well deserve a thread of its own, though.