Hans Hahn/Maximilian Stotz

[Johannes]

HI Craig

Regarding Hartmann

I like your statement about Hartmann's wingmen being inexperienced and not likely to question his claims.
Apparently he was unpopular within Jg52, at one point there was going to be/or was a little mutiny against him. I bet at JG53 his single claim was genuine, and he just couldn't get away with anything.

An inexperienced pilot would have trouble just keeping up with Hartmann, let alone record crash-sites.

I am finding more and more his later non-mikrofilms claims are not correct i.e dates and types are wrong, same with Barkhorn.

Reason why Barkhorn had no success with JG6 was not due to him not getting away with anything, more he was unfamiliar with the Fw190, needed more flying time, think he only flew two missions there, plus he was completely burnt out. He like Rall considered their Schwerter decorations a failure. If the truth was known at the time, then Rall would have been the first to "200" & "250" and Barkhorn the first to "300", both would have had the upgrade to Diamonds.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[Franek Grabowski]

I think that there is a gross misunderstanding of the topic.
The issue discussed is not claims but verified and credited victories. There were various systems of verification and approval of victories in different countries and they often differed significantly. One should not blame pilots of deficiencies of those systems.
In general the RAF system was quite liberal up until late 1942-1943, when a more thorough verification was introduced.Up to this time, there were several inconsistencies in the system, and apart of crediting shared victories as individual ones, claimed victories were often upgraded and not downgraded.
Germans created their own system, reputedly very rigid, but actually quite inefficient. The general problem is a gap in a paperwork. Endless discussions concern lists of victories, but those are not sufficient to match victories with actual losses. This is quite apparent during the Battle of Britain, where in most cases it is not possible to match combatants with any certainty. RAF suffered losses to technical reasons, bad weather and blue on blue or friendly fire, and this was not insignificant. The situation continued through 1941 and 1942 and a general comparison of RAF losses and German victories do not tell the truth about those combats.
For example, during Circus 68 on 9 August 1941, JG 26 was credited with 6 victories against 5 actually lost. Looks fine, despite discrepancy which still should not happen to the German system. Nonetheless, according to the research of Andy Saunders, three of the lost Spitfires fell dwon due to friendly fire incidents. So, for the 6 victories there are only 2 losses, and out of those only loss of P/O Casson can be matched to the victory of Hptm. Schopfel.
Therefore a through scrutiny should be made before drawing a general conclusions, though I guess it would never be done because of volume of documents that would need to be reviewed.
Aside, there is a bit of rivalry concerning JG 2 and JG 26 amongst the researchers. I have to note that the essential problem is, that both JG 2 and JG 26 were a subject of the same rigid German victory crediting system. So how it could be the system awarded more false victories to JG 2 and not to JG 26?

[Stig Jarlevik]

First of all the subject in this thread is/was Hans Hahn/M Stotz and is now totally side tracked.

Secondly the discussion is becoming more and more futile, since
a) None of us were there
b) trying to read useful information out of old records are very difficult since we have very little true
understanding why a report was written the way it was.
c) Writing reports showing that the enemy were far superior than yourself would have been
disastrous for morale and reports were no doubt written with that in mind making collisions, shot
down by AA-fire or even by your own side rather than an enemy in air-air combat so much
more attractive.

This "fooling yourself" activity took very odd terms especially when the USAAF in Europe and the
US Navy in the Pacific began their own war against Germany and Japan.
For some reason the mentality that "we can never be shot down" except by AA-fire took a firm
root and was later transferred over to the Korean conflict.
I bet there are still many out there who believe in the enormous superiority of the F-86 over the MiG-15 etc
All aircraft shot down during strafing/bombing attacks were only shot down by AA-fire.
Good (or at least acceptable) for morale perhaps, but far from the truth.

My own thinking is very clear and I accept that others have a different view.

Cheers
Stig

[Franek Grabowski]

Originally Posted by Stig Jarlevik

a) None of us were there
b) trying to read useful information out of old records are very difficult since we have very little true
understanding why a report was written the way it was.
c) Writing reports showing that the enemy were far superior than yourself would have been disastrous for morale and reports were no doubt written with that in mind making collisions, shot down by AA-fire or even by your own side rather than an enemy in air-air combat so much more attractive.

This is ridiculous because it suggests no research should have been done on the past. Sorry, I have been discussing those issues with the people who were still there and they were as much confused. The purpose of any historical research is to try to understand what had happened in the past, whatever information is available. It is also a matter of distinguishing difference between propaganda and reporting, and trying to make sense out of it.

[Stig Jarlevik]

Originally Posted by Franek Grabowski

This is ridiculous because it suggests no research should have been done on the past. Sorry, I have been discussing those issues with the people who were still there and they were as much confused. The purpose of any historical research is to try to understand what had happened in the past, whatever information is available. It is also a matter of distinguishing difference between propaganda and reporting, and trying to make sense out of it.

Franek

No idea why you always read things which are not there.
If I thought history was not worth investigating why on earth do you think I am
on this site in the first place?
You always have very firm opinions - fair enough - but do try and see others points as well.
Can be quite useful at times.

Cheers
Stig

[VtwinVince]

I think these claims do have to be valuated on a unit by unit basis, and the issue of competition between them would naturally play a role. I believe that my uncle, who was 'Abschuss-Offizier' with JG 27 in the spring\summer of 1942, was sent packing by Edu Neumann for raising objections to the claims being made by Sawallisch\Stigler\Bendert et al. I got absolutely nowhere when I corresponded with Neumann in the 1980's, so in my opinion he was still 'covering' for this sordid affair.

[NickM]

Originally Posted by Stig Jarlevik

First of all the subject in this thread is/was Hans Hahn/M Stotz and is now totally side tracked.

Secondly the discussion is becoming more and more futile,
For some reason the mentality that "we can never be shot down" except by AA-fire took a firm
root and was later transferred over to the Korean conflict.
I bet there are still many out there who believe in the enormous superiority of the F-86 over the MiG-15 etc
All aircraft shot down during strafing/bombing attacks were only shot down by AA-fire.
Good (or at least acceptable) for morale perhaps, but far from the truth.

My own thinking is very clear and I accept that others have a different view.

Cheers
Stig

Well that depends: from updated accounts the loss ratio was still around 5 to 1 and I consider those results to be pretty 'enormous', considering for at least the first part of the war, the F86s were, generally speaking, at the far end of their 'combat radius', and the MiG15s were right in their own 'backyard' with substantially larger numbers and superior performance.


NM

[Stig Jarlevik]

Well Nick

I don't think the MiGs were there to just play with the F-86s.
They were there to stop the UN aircraft to get through to stop the Chinese/North Korean
ground troops.
If you look at the losses of the F-80s, F-84s, B-29s and Naval attack aircraft you will see
quite a different figure.
From the US side almost all of that was lost to AA-fire.

When coming down to take on the ground attack aircraft the MiGs were much more vulnerable.
Had they been used only as the Luftwaffe fighters on the Western Front 1941-42 the situation
would almost certainly have been very different.
Speculation of course since I can't predict what new tactics could have done to change things.

Cheers
Stig

[NickM]

Originally Posted by Stig Jarlevik

Well Nick

I don't think the MiGs were there to just play with the F-86s.
They were there to stop the UN aircraft to get through to stop the Chinese/North Korean
ground troops.
If you look at the losses of the F-80s, F-84s, B-29s and Naval attack aircraft you will see
quite a different figure.
From the US side almost all of that was lost to AA-fire.

When coming down to take on the ground attack aircraft the MiGs were much more vulnerable.
Had they been used only as the Luftwaffe fighters on the Western Front 1941-42 the situation
would almost certainly have been very different.
Speculation of course since I can't predict what new tactics could have done to change things.

Cheers
Stig

MOST fighter bombers didn't get anywhere near the areas covered by the Migs. And like you said, staying at altitude kept the Migs in THEIR preferred performance envelope--and given the Migs were both higher AND further north than most UN interdiction ops, I didn't see them having an impact on it. The only place the MiGs did have a huge impact was against the B29 force--but that's what they were made for: "Can Openers" for the bombers.

[Nokose]

I remembered something that Nikita Ergorov had written and I went back checked it on Hartmann. 26 Oct 1943 Hartmann was flying with Fw Hermann Wolf and they attacked some Airacobras. Hartmann claimed Airacobra (145) 08:08. Wolf claimed Airacobra (49) at 08:10. Hartmann claimed Airacobra (146) at 08:15.

Nikita’s research came up during that time only one Airacobra that was hit. Kapitan Ivan Korolev (HSU) 9 GIAP had his Airacobra damaged by the attack of a Bf 109. Korolev flew back to his airfield and landed.

So the hole gets a little deeper.