Severe Overclaimers Vs. Reliable Claimers List -4 Nov 07 Update

[Rob Romero]

Enjoy Attachment

P.S. -Which Iron Cross is worn on the Breast -EKI or EKII

Thanks,

Rob Romero

[Nokose]

EK1 on the breast.

[Rob Romero]

Nokose,

Thanks for your response,

Rob

[Jim P.]

How do I say this without coming across as sounding like I believe that the LW fighter pilots and their claims are somehow totally infallible. We all know that at least one unit, 4./JG 27, was caught fudging their claims, and there are certain other individuals, like Rudorffer, who have many claims that are suspect for that same reason. Like everybody else here, I'm interested in finding out 'who got who' where a claim and loss can be matched up. But frankly this exercise of 'severe overclaimers' versus 'reliable claimers' is just so much sophistry. It just seems to me that applying some ulterior motive to a particular claim that's not verified by a specific loss by somebody who's long dead is unfair and somewhat silly. Air combat by its very nature is a very dynamic exercise conducted in 3-dimensional space. You want to stare your latest claim into the ground, so be it, but you will also in all likelihood end up dead. Rall is, by his own admission, a perfect example of this, though fortunately for him he only lost a thumb. Dr. Prien also explained the circumstance of a claim by Knoke that was questioned in this thread, yet the fact that he had to do so because somebody thought it was a bogus claim with the intent of padding one's score just illustrates how silly this exercise can become.

The bottom line is everybody overclaimed for any number of reasons and to try and assign motive 70 years on is futile, unless there is documentation to prove otherwise. In this country we have the legend of the 'Flying Tigers'. They claimed some 300 Japanese aircraft. Dan Ford essentially proved that the actual losses for the Japanese was about 100 machines. The man was excoriated by the surviving vets from the unit, but the bottom line was his research was corroborated by other published sources. "But the Japanese were lying" was the usual response by the Tiger vets and defenders, but, well you get the picture.

[Franek Grabowski]

I am awared of a case of certain pilot(s), who filed no claims after dog fight, but were asked to do so, after receiving a report, that some German aircraft were shot down at the time and place. Having done so, they were credited with victories, but nobody realised those ground witness reports were not confirmed to say the least! Who is an overclaimer then?
That said, there is another issue of accuracy and availability of the other side's records. While it is perfectly possible to asses, say RAF losses during fighter offensive, try to tell anything about Italian losses during Tunisian Campaign. I cannot say anything about Japanese records of units fighting AVG, but I know they are scarce for 1943.

[Rob Romero]

When I initially started this ‘project’, I posted an extensive disclaimer. I realize that there are many pitfalls to this endeavor, and I’m sure there are some that we haven’t even thought of. AND I WILL NOT HERE RENGAGE ON AN EXTENSIVE DEBATE ON THE PROS AND CONS ON WHAT I HAVE ALREADY ADMITTED IS A FLAWED UNDERTAKING. However, I do feel that –whatever its limitations- this process is of some historical value, and there are a number of researchers (some of whom I’m corresponding with) who are making headway in the nitty-gritty of this research. At some point, with some of these pilots, it will be clear that some (i.e., Kurt Wolff (33) 100% VV) were either good at judging the effects of their fire, or more scrupulous than others for whom accuracy approaches or is actually 0%. Failing some complete loss of records or monumental misinterpretation thereof, this surely reflects something about these men in terms of their ability as fighter pilots and character –doesn’t it?

Rob Romero

[FalkeEins]

Originally Posted by Jim P.

The bottom line is everybody overclaimed for any number of reasons...

..while its not terribly scientific - and I don't like the terminology -'severe overclaimers' - personally I think its about time we started saying so where suspected and attempting to re-write the accepted history that we've been fed before its too late - as Dan so ably did. We may bust a few more myths in the process. As Gary says, 'no witness, no claim', yet 'history' still has Hartmann on 352 vics (only 307 'official' claims), Dahl on 128 including 36 Viermots - repeated yet again in the lastest Osprey Duel booklet.. And we wonder why guys like Dulias exist...

.." certain other individuals like Rudorffer have many suspect claims "- I can see it turning into a pretty long list. Loos doesn't appear for one (buy some books Rob!) and is another example ; Lorant currently going back through his interviews from the late seventies has Loos saying - in front of Bracht and Driebe, 'no, never shot down anything in the Ta 152...' .. the accepted 'history' of course is Reschke's...

[Juha]

In principle I agree with Rob. It should be possible to have some sort of rough estimate of claim accuracy of pilots. If not otherwise then to show due respects to those reliable claimers who have been put to background by their more “optimistic” comrades. But it must be remember that there will be much uncertainty in results and the reasons of overclaiming varied. For example those who participated in many big dogfights would suffer without their own reason. Good self-confidence was essential to good fighter pilot and if many of them overestimated effects of their shooting that’s not so bad. It’s a different thing with those who because of their vanity or because of urge for promotions, rewards or publicity knowingly doll up their score. But the motives of a man are very difficult to gauge so it’s very difficult to weed out those latter from those who genuine believed that their claims were true. So we must be careful with our conclusions.

First of all I’d take off Hartmann from the top of your list of Alleged Heavy Overclaimers. Not because that I have some special respects on Hartmann’s claim accuracy but because you have yourself put the research of Khazanov in “”. My advice is that you put on top of that list those on whose overclaims you have more positive proofs than a “research”.

With respect
Juha

[Vati]

The only thing you will be ever able to provide with this 'quasi-research' is that you were unable to find any connection with the claim. It cannot show anything else... concluding that just because you cannot find the connection in claim does not mean by default that claim is invalid nor does it mean that person is 'heavy overclaimer'.

[John Manrho]

I fully agree with "Vati"....in over 25 years of Luftwaffe research I have found that often it takes an enormous amount of effort to really work out a "Luftkampf" in all it's details and still you might not have found the answer. Not finding an answer doesn't mean it did not happen....

Cheers,

John.