Erich Hartmann vs. P-51

[kennethklee]

Originally Posted by Kapper

Kenneth,

The issue of the Luftwaffe system of verification has been pretty much flogged to death within other discussion threads in this Forum, you might wish to do a search on this to see several different viewpoints. You are correct in your comment that this subject is very subjective as several of these threads ended up being closed by the moderator

For my opinion, I started writing a detailed response to try to justify my opinion and found that I was starting to write an essay. To keep it simple, I believe initially the German system was very rigid but was relaxed during the conflict to help process the backlog of claims (and possibly propaganda). So Robs answer is a very good answer, however I will add that the application of systems change as circumstances change (for good or bad) and I believe that this occurred on both sides during various stages of the war.

Regards,

Craig..

Thanks Craig. I should have realized that this topic is not new and has been the subject of previous threads and posts, and I should have searched for them. You and Rob Romero make very valid points about verification systems for aerial victories, especially about being subject to human idiosyncrasies and situational circumstance.

Best,
Kenneth

[Nikita Egorov]

quote=FalkeEins;85562]Khazanov doesn't go into the sort of detail you've attempted. I've translated parts of his piece...& the response from Lorant/Ring, which includes detailed quotes from Khazanov's article - therefore the following might be of some interest to you. Ring states that these illustrations "serve to expose the superficial nature of Khazanov's assertions and confirm that his only goal in compiling his article was to discredit Hartmann and his record ...."
[/quote]

For sure Khazanov's article is too poor to prove Hartmann's overclaiming. However, there remain lots of questions. I have already posted some times ago the example of unsubstantiated victories against Aircobras, claimed by Hartmann. They were well confirmed by authorities, though having no background from the opposite side.
Most of the remarks of Lorant/Ring in point of fact criticise mistakes in Hartmann's victory list, that Khazanov based on while writing the article. Eventually, it is not Khazanov's problem that western researchers can not fix the reliable list of Hartmann's claims throughout more than 60 years. From my experience I can say that those obscure "Lagg" hamper identification signifficantly.
Another point here, I know that many members of this board believe that any overstatement in German claims are absolutely impossible and if Soviet records contradict this in some cases, then those records are pure fake. In this case rather rhetorical question emerges, taking TW claims lists and comparing them with Soviet documents, why claims by Barkhorn, Rall, Krupinski, Beisswenger, Wolf, Wolfrum, Schack, Brendel, Lipfert and many others coinside with Soviet records with little exeptions, and those made by Hartmann, Batz, Rudorffer, Lang, Nowotny, Philipp in many cases are missing. I suppose here a malicious campaign against this Luftwaffe pilots Soviet authorities deliberately hide info on the planes shot down by those personalities...

[Franek Grabowski]

I do not know about others, but I would be most interested to read a detailed break down of victories of German top aces. Personally, I would love to see Weber and Setz as well. That said, it is all in hands of Russian researchers.

[Dénes Bernád]

Based on my research and experience, one of the main errors done by many aviation historians - from all sides! - who try to match a certain airman's victory lists with losses from the opposing side, is to look only for crashed or force landed (thus destroyed or severely damaged) aircraft. This is incomplete research. Aircraft damaged in air combat, but returned to friendly territory should also be considered.
Another frequently done error is to discount the ground fire (flak, small arms fire, etc.), which caused a similar number of losses than by fighters and board gunners. However, the feats of the anti-aircraft artillery is usually poorly covered.
All these often overviewed factors should also be counted, for the overall picture to be clearer (it will never be 100% clear anyhow).

[Nikita Egorov]

Denes,

Based on my research and experience, one of the main errors done by many aviation historians - from all sides! - who try to match a certain airman's victory lists with losses from the opposing side, is to look only for crashed or force landed (thus destroyed or severely damaged) aircraft. This is incomplete research. Aircraft damaged in air combat, but returned to friendly territory should also be considered.

Plane with minor battle damage can not be considered an air victory for the opposite side. As regards to Soviet documents it is much easier to recognise such cases, because complete records on losses give concrete definitions for the combat and non combat losses. Such as totally destoryed (failed to return, shot down in combat or by Flak), to this also sorted planes damaged in combat or by flak and made belly landing, that resulted in plane being wrecked and written off as result of this, other gradation is plane being send to factory overhaul, to repair facilities, that resulted in temporary excluding it from unit strength. The last gradation is that plane is to be put under regimental repair, meaning that plane will be repaired in matter of hours, few days.
This last gradation can not surely be an air victory of any German pilot that claim it.

Another frequently done error is to discount the ground fire (flak, small arms fire, etc.), which caused a similar number of losses than by fighters and board gunners. However, the feats of the anti-aircraft artillery is usually poorly covered.
All these often overviewed factors should also be counted, for the overall picture to be clearer (it will never be 100% clear anyhow).

[/quote]

The comparison between losses to flak and to fighters for Soviet side, shows that the latter prevails, at least with regards to fighter planes losses.

[Dénes Bernád]

If an aircraft was damaged in air combat, but could be later on repaired, at least gives an indication that an air combat did take place and hits were scored, so the opposite side's claim was not made up. In my point of view, at least.
This, again, should be valid for claims of all sides, not only German.

[Franek Grabowski]

No historian has authority to change officially authorised scores, he may only establish it, if it is unknown. Historian is supposed to find out what actually happened, so he should consider even undamaged aircraft. For example if Mr X claimed a victory, following replies should be considered satisfactory: at the time and place following aircraft were lost, at the time and place following aircraft were lost but they are attributed to ground fire, at the time and place following aircraft were damaged, at the time and place fought unit Z and suffered no losses, enemy cannot be established.
Now, over to you, I am looking forward for an article or a book about top German aces of the Eastern Front.

[Jens]

about Mr. Bernad second point, the aaa. thats indeed very important.

in my researches about kursk there seems to develope following conclusion.

if to compare german fighter claims with soviet losses you will come to bergstroms conlusion of 1:1,25 up to 1:1,33 overclaiming (kursk, p. 118). but if you resarch the (strong) german aaa, you will have an rate of 1:3 overclaiming.

btw if you look at the soviet side, this rate is much higher - around 1:8 exaggeration.

[kolya1]

About Kursk, it must be said that Bergstrom's figures for German losses are too low. Taking the losses one by one, you already get more airplanes destroyed than he did, and yet these figures are not complete. I greatly appreciate Christer Bergstrom's work, but in this case it's not perfect.

The Soviet overclaim rate was undoubtedly higher than that of the Germans' at the time, but the difference is less than what could be deduced from his numbers (I'd say the Soviet overclaimed 5-6 : 1 for the Kursk battle).

Generally speaking, I may be mistaken, but the impression I get from reading a lot about these issues is that the side which is tactically on the defensive is usuallly less accurate in claims. This is also true when many units are involved at the same time.

[mrfahrenheit]

I'd like to thank all of you for your info in this thread.

Joe Harper was my grandfather, and he died when I was still a baby. While I have his medals, etc., I never got to learn this stuff from him. I'll be doing more research about all of this, and will share anything I find.

It's strange to learn that Hartmann was the one who shot him down. I've long been a WWII fighter plane buff, and am currently working on a young adult novel set in 1945 Germany (I write kids' books for a living, though this one is an extracurricular book), so this sort of stuff was on my mind.

Thanks again to everyone who provided info!