Luftwaffe Procedure Claim in Eastern Front

[Stormovik]

We know that all Luftwaffe top ace in 200-352 get assign in Eastern Front. How about procedure of claim that they shootdown Sovyet Plane. Many Allied (US and British) doubt what they reach. Thankx for the help.

[klaymann]

"We know that all Luftwaffe top ace in 200-352 get assign in Eastern Front. How about procedure of claim that they shootdown Sovyet Plane. Many Allied (US and British) doubt what they reach. Thankx for the help."

Could be that Russian A/C were more plentiful and easier for German to shoot down , just like Polish/Dutch/Belgians/French etc ... but it would be good to have records of the ace's "kills" in all fronts ..!?!

[Laurent Rizzotti]

This issue has been debated many times. Comparing Allied and German scores is non-sense because they flew in completly different environments.

1) German highest scorers flew 3 times more than the most active Soviet flyers, and 5 to 10 ten times more than the American/British top scorers. So those who survived should have greater scores.

2) There is no shared victories in Luftwaffe, so most victories shared between a wingman and a leader were given to the leader. So the leader score will be higher while the wingman's one will be lowere than what it may be in USAAF, RAF or VVS. But this is a minor issue on the East Front as most of the victories scored here were on monoplanes and probably only one pilot fired at them anyway (contrary to battles vs American Allied bombers).

3) Almost all of the VVS missions were tactical and ground support was the number one mission. So German pilots flying 'Frei Jagd' had all opportunities to bounce low-flying Soviet aircraft, often laden with bombs, and then escape.
The comparison that may be made can be between the Eastern Front and the Desert Front in 1941-1942. In both cases Allied airforces had comparable tasks and (most of the times) inferior fighters, and they both suffered while German aces grew huge scoreboards.

In the end, I think that the usual overclaiming percentage (30-40% is the usual ratio) should probably be applied to the German aces scores. So Hartmann probably shot down between 200-250 AC, Barkhorn and Rall around 200 and so on.

That means that in the above cases, you can probably find tens of cases of unjustified claims, but you have to search all claims before being able to give an estimate of the "real score".

I think that in most cases it will end as something like that: Hartmann 352 claims, 100 confirmed, 200 possible (claim in battles where enemy suffered loss but less than German claims), 50 in error. I think that is the most one can "prove" with existing documents.

The next possible step would be to estimate the probable score by adding all enemy losses in battle where Hartmann get involved and compare them to all German claims. So if 800 losses correspong to 1200 German claims, you can give an estimate "reality ratio" of 2/3 for each victory.

[kolya1]

Hi,

I can't answer for the general situation but one could make the following remarks :

- In 1941-1942 : the german claim-verification system was quite efficient, leading to a limited overclaim rate (some 2/3 to 1/2 of german claims can be checked in the opponent's records), in any case lower than it was in the VVS (or even the RAF).

- In 1943 : I don't know...

- In 1944, mostly in the second part of the year, this system ceased to function effectively, at least in the East, officially still to be applied but in fact not used anymore in the majority of cases...

- In 1945 : same as in late 1944...


I therefore think (only my personnal opinion), that the reliability of the german claims on the Eastern Front became quite lower as the war went on...

As for the German aces are concerned, one could look at the dates of their scores : AFAIK a large majority of Rall's and Barkhorn's claims passed through the claim-checking system, which is not the case of other pilots who achieved high scores later in the war... (just take a look at the thread about the soviet raids on Libau on the Allied air forces forum...), of course there must also be significant differences between individual pilots...

[Nikita Egorov]

I should say most of Barkhorn's and Rall's claims could be verified with Soviet losses, contrary to Hartmann, who sometimes could "found" Soviet planes where they were not presented.
Talking about German overclaims I could add IMHO another signifficant factor, that is "neck itching" and race for magic number, such as 100, 150, 200 and so markings. Some of German fighters were contaminated with this decease vastly, while others fixed the immunity ones and for all.

Originally Posted by Laurent Rizzotti

This issue has been debated many times. Comparing Allied and German scores is non-sense because they flew in completly different environments.


In the end, I think that the usual overclaiming percentage (30-40% is the usual ratio) should probably be applied to the German aces scores. So Hartmann probably shot down between 200-250 AC, Barkhorn and Rall around 200 and so on.

The next possible step would be to estimate the probable score by adding all enemy losses in battle where Hartmann get involved and compare them to all German claims. So if 800 losses correspong to 1200 German claims, you can give an estimate "reality ratio" of 2/3 for each victory.

[Juha]

Hello Nikita
do You have any opinion on the accuracy of Helmuth Lipfert’s claims?
I just ask this because I liked his memories. And because he seems to have been a rather rebellious spirit.

Regards
Juha

[Csaba B. Stenge]

Juha,

IMHO Lipfert was one of the most accurate (or even the most accurate) 200+ ace of the Luftwaffe, he was not infected by the 'kill-racing-spirit', like many oher high aces.
Additionally, he was a very nice guy, not just his comrades, but the Hungarian fighter pilots liked him really as well (he is one of my favourite German fighter pilot too).

BTW I found some evident overclaims by Barkhorn as well at the end of the war (race for the 300 kill limit? and found confirmed kills among his scores over enemy territory, without withess too).

[Juha]

Thanks Csaba
for the info. Yes, Lipfert is my favourite LW ace along with Paule Rossmann, even if my knowledge on Paule is rather limited.

Thankfully
Juha

[Nikita Egorov]

Dear Juha,

I'd rather agree with Csaba on his answer. The details that Lipfert presented in his memory book (I mean tagebuch) substantially help in identifying possible VVS opponents. In case of his fist victory this could be 99% a La-5 from 437 IAP. Some other cases could be identified as well. I do not see any blatant cases when Lipfert made huge overclaims, but to be honest I have never researched his career on the East precisely.

Originally Posted by Juha

Hello Nikita
do You have any opinion on the accuracy of Helmuth Lipfert’s claims?
I just ask this because I liked his memories. And because he seems to have been a rather rebellious spirit.

Regards
Juha

[Juha]

Hello Nikita
Thanks for the info!

Thankfully
Juha