Erich Hartmann: 352 victories or... 80?

[Christer Bergström]

Last our researches in Russia give us the ratio from 1:2 to 1:5...6 for the LW

I'm sorry, Mikhail, but I don't quite understand this.

Due to Krivosheyev, the USSR lost a total of 46,100 aircraft in combat between 22 June 1941 and 10 May 1945.

Due to Gemeinschaft der Jagdflieger, the German fighter pilots were credited with around 45,000 aerial victories on the Eastern Front 1941 - 1945. Then we have the claims made by AAA and ground troops, who also made overclaims.

Due to the same source, the Luftwaffenflak (AAA) reported its 20,000th victory in October 1944. However, at the same time, the USAAF recorded that 7,821 of its aircraft were shot down by enemy AAA in the European and Mediterranean combat zones 1942 - 1945, and I would guess that at least 5,000 aircraft of other Allied air forces (excluding the Soviet) were lost to German AAA, bringing the total to perhaps at least 12,000. Knowing that a number of Soviet aircraft were also shot down by Army ground fire, let's assume that German ground fire claimed 10,000 Soviet aircraft shot down.

If we add those approximately 10,000 "ground fire victories" to the 45,000 fighter victories, we get a total of 55,000.

Where are the margins for a 1:2 to 1:5...6 overclaims ratio when we know that the Soviets lost 46,100 aircraft (due to Krivosheyev)? Such an overclaims ratio seems to point at an actual number of only something like 16,000 Soviet aircraft shot down by German forces. So which were the reasons to all the other maybe 30,000 Soviet aircraft combat losses?

Also, regarding overclaims made by the Western Allies, I can agree that RAF overclaims generally were high, as often was the case regarding those by the American fighter pilots in the Mediterranean. However, many years of research has led me to conclude that hardly any fighter pilots on average submitted aerial victory claims with greater accuracy than the fighter pilots of the 8th USAAF. The ratio between victory claims and actual Luftwaffe losses is close to 1:1 for the 8th USAAF fighter pilots.

[Franek Grabowski]

Originally Posted by Christer Bergström

Also, regarding overclaims made by the Western Allies, I can agree that RAF overclaims generally were high, as often was the case regarding those by the American fighter pilots in the Mediterranean. However, many years of research has led me to conclude that hardly any fighter pilots on average submitted aerial victory claims with greater accuracy than the fighter pilots of the 8th USAAF. The ratio between victory claims and actual Luftwaffe losses is close to 1:1 for the 8th USAAF fighter pilots.

Any attempt to prove this nonsense?

[Jens]

note also: losses in combat means in soviet terms, "shot down in aircombat", "shot down by aaa" and "did not return from sortie"!.

[Christer Bergström]

Regarding claims made by fighters of the US 8th AF - just the few samples which my limited time permits (I have much more material upon which my conclusion is based, but neither time nor space allows me to write it all down here) :

German day fighter combat losses in "the West" or over Germany April 1944: 574 (including approximately 70 % to US fighters, an assumption based on extrapolated statistics for a number of selected Geschwader).

Aerial victory claims made by fighters of the US 8th & 9th AF in April 1944: 418

German day fighter combat losses in "the West" or over Germany May 1944: 630 (including approximately 80 % to US fighters, an assumption based on extrapolated statistics for a number of selected Geschwader).

Aerial victory claims made by fighters of US 8th & 9th AF in May 1944: 596

So for those two months, we have approximately 905 German fighters actually shot down by fighters of US 8th and 9th AF, while these US fighters were credited with a total of 1,014 aerial victories. That is an average of 0.9 aircraft actually shot down for every Us fighter claim - close to 1:1, as I said.

Regarding claims made by RAF Fighter Command (from Caldwell's "JG 26 War Diary", Vol. 2) (I have much more material upon which my conclusion is based, but neither time nor space allows me to write it all down here) :

March 1942:
RAF Fighter Command aerial victory claims (admitted as destroyed) : 53
Actual Luftflotte 3 losses: 11

April 1942:
RAF Fighter Command aerial victory claims (admitted as destroyed) : 66
Actual Luftflotte 3 losses: 24

For those two months we have 119 RAF Fighter Command claims versus 35 actual Luftwaffe losses, or a relation of 3.4 : 1.

US overclaims in the Mediterranean: See "Fighters over Tunisia" by Shores, Ring and Hess. (I have much more material upon which my conclusion is based, but neither time nor space allows me to write it all down here.)My time is limited, and I have no tables for comparison like the ones above, only a lot of cases which form a clear tendency. Here are two examples:

10 April 1943: US 1st FG claimed 18 Ju 52s and 8 MC 200s (of which one was claimed as an "Fw 190") while actual Axis losses in that combat were 10 transport planes and 2 MC 200s.

9 October 1943: US 14th FG claimed to have shot down 17 Ju 87s (including 7 by Maj. W. L. Keverette, the highest single-mission score by any US pilot in either the MTO or the MTO) while actual German losses were 8 Ju 87s (from II./StG 3).

For those two cases we have 43 claims against 20 actual losses, i.e. an overclaims ratio of more than 2:1.

While US fighter pilots in the Mediterranean regularly made such overclaims, the fighter pilots of the 8th AF only rarely made such high overclaims. (I have much more material upon which my conclusion is based, but neither time nor space allows me to write it all down here.)

I'm sorry if I don't have time to list more examples, but I can only establish that when I earlier today asked Franek to provide me with examples and sources to his statement about low moral in a certain air unit, he rather rudly told me that he refused to do so (claiming that he had provided me with such information previously, which is not true).

I thus end my discussion with Franek, and offer him the final word which I will not reply. It is not my intention to allow myself to be dragged down into another meaningless head game. I gave the facts above only because I know that other people here find the topic interesting and the facts useful.

[Dénes Bernád]

Originally Posted by Six Nifty .50s

I would be interested to know how he arrived at '2:1' as an average for inflated pilot claims.

First, let me clarify that Graham quoted me erroneously in his post. It was someone else who stated this.

Second, I tackled the thorny issue of overclaiming in my books in a couple of occasions.

One was in my 'Rumanian Air Force. The Prime Decade (1938-1947)' book, published by Squadron/Signal.
On page 6 I noted: "It is believed that Rumanian pilots and gunners claimed up to three times as many aircraft destroyed [in the 1941 campaign of Bessarabia and South-Western Ukraine] than was actually the case. (This was not a unique occurrence. According to a notable British researcher, RAF flyers filed five claims for one actual Luftwaffe combat loss during June 1941 [about the same time period])."
I must say that I received 'flak' from certain Rumanian researchers by raising this controversial issue for the first time...

Then, I noted in my 'Rumanian Aces of W.W. 2', published by Osprey, the following (page 37): "In the ensuing aerial battles, which peaked in May [1944], both sides [i.e., VVS and Luftwaffe & ARR] claimed an impressive number of victories. That month alone, ARR fighter pilots received credit for 50 Soviet airplanes downed, while another dozen claims remained unconfirmed.
By rigurously comparing loss data of both sides with victory claims, one can draw the conclusion that overclaiming was again widespread on both sides.
Indeed, in a private letter, a noted Russian aviation researcher approximates that during the May offensive alone, Soviet airmen fighting on the Moldavian front filed four times more claims than actual Axis losses, while he approximates that the Axis side overclaimed three times as many claims - a remarkable, albeit unofficial admission."

Very interesting discussion, by the way. I hope it will stay on course, and won't degenerate into flame war and name calling...

[Juha]

Hello I more or less agreed with Christer on USAAF, but IIRC RAF got its claim procedures more reliable later on.

One detail on 9 October 1943, besides Leverette’s and co claims, the Allied ships (one AA cruiser and 3 destroyers from RN plus one Greek ship) against which the Ju 87s from II./StG 3 were attacking when the Lightnings arrived claimed 3. On the debit side one destroyer was sunk and the AA cruiser Carlisle was very badly damaged. It was towed back to Alexandria but was never repaired.

Juha

[Franek Grabowski]

Well, well, well. A typical answer.
Let's see what we have here.
1.
German fighter losses are compared to Allied claims, the latter including other types like bombers, transports, etc.
2.
Two months of operations (out of about two years) of 8 AF are compared to two (different!) months (out of about five and a half years) of RAF operations in Europe and general conclusions are drawn for the whole duration of war.
3.
There is a reference to an old and outdated book (Fighter over Tunisia) which contains plenty of errors and is to be completely rewritten.
4.
'Detailed investigation' of few cases of US overclaim in MTO vs no analysis of any combat on ETO. Of course this allowed the author to draw a general conclusion again.
Still, I see no proof for the thesis, instead I see a lot of incompetence.
I would love to see an explanation what had happenned to the aircraft downed by 56 FG on 22 May 1944 - obviously Mr Prien did a serious error having missed several German losses. Apparently he did so on 7 June 1944 as well. But I do not expect a detailed answer but another apples vs oranges.

I'm sorry if I don't have time to list more examples, but I can only establish that when I earlier today asked Franek to provide me with examples and sources to his statement about low moral in a certain air unit, he rather rudly told me that he refused to do so (claiming that he had provided me with such information previously, which is not true).

Now you are either lying or never bothered to read my arguments. I mentioned discipline problems of 611 ShAP in several discussions with you and referenced to particular documents. Now I am too lazy to check references if you do not care about them.
Oh, one more thing. You claim you never got any sources from me. I have just checked your article, 'The effect of Allied numerical superiority in the air over Normandy in 1944', and saw what you wrote about Weber.
Direct quote is: 'Due to a Polish aviation enthusiast, Weber was shot down in a combat with only four Polish Mustangs, but I have in vain asked to see the source to that claim.'
Well, a lie again, because you know very well that my article 'Jour J+1 – Le grand jour du 133 Wing' does include detailed analysis of the combat as well as detailed sources. The fact that you did not bother to read the article does not mean the reference does not exist. I would only like to remind you that whenever someone asked for yellow 'von Graff's' Fw 190, your only reply was - 'buy my book'. My answer is - buy my article and have balls to call me by my name and not as an anonymous 'Polish aviation enthusiast'.

[Boandlgramer]

Originally Posted by Six Nifty .50s

You're comparing apples and oranges.

My sources show that ten RAF fighters were 'lost' as a result of combat-- but nine of those planes managed to land safely and were listed as damaged but repairable -- not destroyed. One of them was damaged after it was misidentified and shot up by a Spitfire over Hawkinge.

Two other RAF fighters were lost, but not due to combat. Hurricane P3359 crashed in bad weather during a routine patrol and Spitfire N3051 was damaged while landing on a waterlogged runway.

No Spitfires were destroyed and the one Hurricane destroyed during combat was caused by a collision, which means that none of the 27 or more German pilot claims are legitimate. That may also be the case with the Blenheims downed, but I'll look into it.




Prove it.

ah , now we can see, there were 10 British fighters lost that day.
in your first post there was nothing to read about these 10 .

[Christer Bergström]

Hello I more or less agreed with Christer on USAAF,

Yes, that's a fairly well known phenomenon for those who have studied the topic closely.

but IIRC RAF got its claim procedures more reliable later on.

As above. However, we have to take into consideration that during the period when RAF Fighter Command saw the bulk of all air combats it was involved in, and when the majority of its claims were made - 1940 - 1942 - RAF Fighter Command made extensive overclaims.

In 1941, RAF Fighter Command was credited with 909 aerial victories while actual German aircraft losses were 183. I have already showed some examples of RAF Fighter Command overclaiming in 1942, and the rate of RAF Fighter Command's overclaims in 1940 is well-known. Overclaiming continued into 1943. Certain RAF units also made multiple overclaims on several occasions during the air war over Normandy in 1944, although I agree that RAF got its claim accuracy more reliable late in the war.

[chris schmitz]

Well i think that it is not overcredited what german fighter pilots shot down,because i thik for the folloing reasons:

First most of the german fighter pilots flew most of the war and allied pilots where sent to the trainingschools.
Secons allied aces couldnt gain more earialvictories because the germans shot them out of the sky.
and i think that is to much to say that the nearly 100 germans to gain more than 80 earialvictories to question there integrety of claiming that.
Why is it not possible to say that the allies dont wanne give in that the claims are wright,why are they not making up something because in the sky the individual fighter pilot of the germans where much better than what allied fighter pilot ever will be,its the numbers that made the difference................

sorry i am an german,i hated the politics of the war,but not the soldiers who fought them and to say..........aaarrgghhhh what ever