Best WW2 Fighter Pilot Poll Round 2

[P1234567890]

Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet

That makes your opinion better? On whose authority?

It stands to reason that the people here who have thousands of posts are probably WWII aviation enthusiasts. Being an enthusiast about something tends to mean that the person is well-informed. And if you look at the people voting for Baer, they tend to be the ones who have thousands of posts on this forum. You're a fantastic example.

I put more stock into what you have to say about the topic of WWII aviation than I do about someone who has zero posts here.

A person with zero posts *might* be a WWII expert for all we know, but on the other hand he might not know anything. The people with thousands of posts, though, they probably know quite a bit.

So I assert that the number of posts the different voters have does count for something, and it is relevant.

[Marcel]

Originally Posted by P1234567890

Just because we don't have *all* of the information doesn't matter. It's obviously still better to factor in the information that we do have than to ignore huge chunks of it.


I argue that anyone who votes for one of the 'lesser' pilots above is ignoring huge chunks of very important information.

Or maybe know other things that you don't know...
Your idea of categorising the different points is interesting but relying on a mathematical model is dangerous as the info is usually inaccurate.
I started to doubt "hard facts" about the war when I read German reports about their attack on The Netherlands. Most of them talked about numbers of opponents that couldn't have been there, given the state the Dutch army at the time. Also equipment they were talking about couldn't have been there, as the Dutch didn't have them. Quite often these reports mentions one or two men that were the heroes, defeating the enemy by the two of them. Obviously, the Germans were in dire need of heroes. I'm not saying that they did the same with these experten, but it makes you cynical about the the known facts. I have no doubt the Allies did the same. Of course, most "facts" have some truth in them (some more, some less) so examining them can give you invaluable info, but to base an opinion on them is probably not very accurate. Therefore, these polls are usually nothing more than an opinion (and as Adler say quite fun ).

[P1234567890]

Originally Posted by Marcel

Or maybe know other things that you don't know...

There are *tons* of things which I don't know, but it would have to be pretty miraculous secret knowledge in order to offset what we do know.

Originally Posted by Marcel

Your idea of categorising the different points is interesting but relying on a mathematical model is dangerous as the info is usually inaccurate.

Well, we can only go by what the records say. Unless there is a good reason to doubt certain stats, then we should tentatively accept them.

Some of the records are pretty good. For example, let's take all of the candidates for top pilot that anyone can think of, and rank them according to the following statistics:

1. Total number of kills
2. Total number of combat missions (surviving more missions = indication of being a good pilot)
3. Ratio of kills per mission.

For each of these categories, we have a different ranking. Everyone knows the ranking for category #1. #2 isn't *that* hard to find out. Once you have #1 and #2, you can derive #3.

If we have these three different rankings, then we can do what I suggested in part one of this poll: Create a weighted metric on these three rankings, and then iterate over all possible weightings of these characteristics for some small step value. So for the weighting 100%,0%,0% the ranking comes out to exactly the same as the normal kill ranking. Then we calculate the rankings when we use a weighting of 99.9%,0.01%,0%, and so on, keeping a running total of pilot rankings. We iterate over the entire area, and in the end we come up with a pilot ranking which is about as robust and comprehensive as you want *for those three characteristics*.

We can add as many categories as we want, provided that we have reasonably accurate rankings for that category.

We could also incorporate some way of scaling the values according to quality of enemy faced (eg. shooting down a Japanese fighter in 1945 isn't worth as much as shooting down a German ME-109 in 1940.

If you guys are interested in helping, then I'd be up for writing the program which computes this. I'd need help gathering all of the statistics, though. There are enough people here so that this is doable, though. Who knows, maybe we can even publish a paper in some history journal or conference. It would be interesting for ww2aircraft.net to have a publication!

[Kruska]

Hello 123……

Come on calm down,

A mathematical based evaluation or assertion will never be on target as long as it has an unknown factor/variable, which in this case would be the word “might” or as such wrong basic information or missing information.

I have 54 posts and tomorrow a new forum member will post his first statement in regards to a Black Hawk, according to your mathematical assertion you would bet on me, but the new guy might be D.A.I.G.’s elder brother, best friend or whatever.

The new guy “might” also be a moron and you “might” win your bet.

Since when does a mathematically based assertion come up with the definite result of Amount accounts for or is relevant to Quality or knowledge? It might and it may not.

If the Japanese pilot is a veteran with 5 years of flying experience and the US boy just arrived from fighter school, is the US pilots kill less worth then that of the RAF pilot with 2 years flying experience who downed the 109 whose pilot just arrived from flying school??? Now where are you going to find all the relevant data of the Pilots that Hartmann or Baer shoot down???

How are you going to evaluate the pilot who shoot down Hartmann or Baer, wouldn’t he be automatically the better pilot – so best pilot in WW1 was the Canadian? pilot who shoot down Richthofen right?

So for all these examples your mathematically based assertions due to missing information might proof to be wrong.

Regards
Kruska

[P1234567890]

Originally Posted by Kruska

Hello 123……

Come on calm down,

A mathematical based evaluation or assertion will never be on target as long as it has an unknown factor/variable, which in this case would be the word “might” or as such wrong basic information or missing information.

*NO* possible evaluation can be on target if any significant amount of information is missing. But the mathematical one which I am proposing gets around all of the objections of the form, "You're just considering the number of kills." I don't really understand what your objection is; this is a place where math and computer science can come in handy. Isn't it better to use a rigorous and comprehensive method than relying on people's gut feelings?

Originally Posted by Kruska

I have 54 posts and tomorrow a new forum member will post his first statement in regards to a Black Hawk, according to your mathematical assertion you would bet on me, but the new guy might be D.A.I.G.’s elder brother, best friend or whatever.

The new guy “might” also be a moron and you “might” win your bet.

Since when does a mathematically based assertion come up with the definite result of Amount accounts for or is relevant to Quality or knowledge? It might and it may not.

If the Japanese pilot is a veteran with 5 years of flying experience and the US boy just arrived from fighter school, is the US pilots kill less worth then that of the RAF pilot with 2 years flying experience who downed the 109 whose pilot just arrived from flying school??? Now where are you going to find all the relevant data of the Pilots that Hartmann or Baer shoot down???

How are you going to evaluate the pilot who shoot down Hartmann or Baer, wouldn’t he be automatically the better pilot – so best pilot in WW1 was the Canadian? pilot who shoot down Richthofen right?

So for all these examples your mathematically based assertions due to missing information might proof to be wrong.

You're misunderstanding what I'm saying. I am only making one mathematical claim here, and that is the model which I propose for comparing pilots. Is it perfect? No. But is it as objective and comprehensive as is possible? Pretty close.

I wasn't making any other mathematical assertions other than that. Although at some point the law of averages does kick in on those other topics.

[pbfoot]

Originally Posted by P1234567890

*NO* possible evaluation can be on target if any significant amount of information is missing. But the mathematical one which I am proposing gets around all of the objections of the form, "You're just considering the number of kills." I don't really understand what your objection is; this is a place where math and computer science can come in handy. Isn't it better to use a rigorous and comprehensive method than relying on people's gut feelings?



You're misunderstanding what I'm saying. I am only making one mathematical claim here, and that is the model which I propose for comparing pilots. Is it perfect? No. But is it as objective and comprehensive as is possible? Pretty close.

I wasn't making any other mathematical assertions other than that. Although at some point the law of averages does kick in on those other topics.

if you can do it I see no problem

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by P1234567890

I for one have learned a lot about some interesting pilots in these threads. And in my defense, I assert that I am helping to stimulate discussion here.

You are being successful.

I'm trying to say that we can use a mathematical model to compare pilots using *ALL* of the criteria which we could possibly come up with.

This is one of several opinions you hold that I would have an opposing POV to, and I fully agree mine could be wrong.

How do you model one pilot's will to chase or desire to fight?

How do you blend maturity to seek advantage over a specific opponent, as one of many opportunities present them?

How do you factor luck when one pilot's skill is overcome by a mechanical malfuntion or a 'lucky' hit?

What is the modelling technique to sort out, statistically, how many scores were obtained by being a better shot, with fewer opportunities to achive high ranking? Conversely how many 'great' US or RAF pilots flew 90-95% of their missions without being able to engage the LW?

How many of the victims, proportionately, were poor pilots in terrible aircraft?

How does one weight 'survivability' and contrast that with the dominant mission - i.e. how many great LW pilots were killed or crippled attacking a Group of B-17s head on in one case versus another pilot that killed a great many Stukas or IL-2's?

Simply what statistical process could possibly benchmark a Henry Aaron and Babe Ruth in their high school years, measure the competition, the reflexes, the nutrition - and make a determination that one is better than the other - in a competitive arena that may be more staistically reduceable than air combat in a complex weapon systems (with widely divergent performance characteristics) under changing circiumstances in the fortunes of war.

How would Hartmann have done flying Zeros over Rabaul, or Bar flying P-38s over Germany, or Tuck flying Fw 190A-8s over Berlin, or Marseille in P-40s over Africa or England - or Hartmann flyin P-39s instead of Me 109 over Kursk?

I respect your opinion but uncomfortable with your next step - namely a rational model?

BTW - I voter for Baer for the reasons stated - none of which would hold to a math model. Nor do I have a clue which 'Professional Historian' you might have in mind that would be able to offer a sound approach to this question.

I DO believe one could close on average number of sorties per score, relative use of ammo (maybe), weighting the use of 50 Cal vs 20mm, types of opponents, etc.. but can you imagine comparing Geronimo to a legenday Centurion or Gladiator - with no arena to truly compare fighting/hunting skills?

Respectfully, I can't

Regards,

Bill

[P1234567890]

Originally Posted by pbfoot

if you can do it I see no problem

I can program it up; that's the easy part. The hard part would be to get all of the stats. If people here were willing to help me gather stats, then we could make the result arbitrarily good. The more info we find, the better it would be. We could just keep on improving it.

The categories for which we can probably find the best stats are total kills and combat missions flown. From those two we can calculate kills per mission.

Does anyone here have any other suggestions for categories for which there exist good stats? (By the way, it wouldn't be the end of the world if some of them are blank for some of the pilots; we could deal with that).

[P1234567890]

Originally Posted by drgondog

This is one of several opinions you hold that I would have an opposing POV to, and I fully agree mine could be wrong.

How do you model one pilot's will to chase or desire to fight?

How do you blend maturity to seek advantage over a specific opponent, as one of many opportunities present them?

How do you factor luck when one pilot's skill is overcome by a mechanical malfuntion or a 'lucky' hit?

What is the modelling technique to sort out, statistically, how many scores were obtained by being a better shot, with fewer opportunities to achive high ranking? Conversely how many 'great' US or RAF pilots flew 90-95% of their missions without being able to engage the LW?

How many of the victims, proportionately, were poor pilots in terrible aircraft?

How does one weight 'survivability' and contrast that with the dominant mission - i.e. how many great LW pilots were killed or crippled attacking a Group of B-17s head on in one case versus another pilot that killed a great many Stukas or IL-2's?

Simply what statistical process could possibly benchmark a Henry Aaron and Babe Ruth in their high school years, measure the competition, the reflexes, the nutrition - and make a determination that one is better than the other - in a competitive arena that may be more staistically reduceable than air combat in a complex weapon systems (with widely divergent performance characteristics) under changing circiumstances in the fortunes of war.

How would Hartmann have done flying Zeros over Rabaul, or Bar flying P-38s over Germany, or Tuck flying Fw 190A-8s over Berlin, or Marseille in P-40s over Africa or England - or Hartmann flyin P-39s instead of Me 109 over Kursk?

I respect your opinion but uncomfortable with your next step - namely a rational model?

BTW - I voter for Baer for the reasons stated - none of which would hold to a math model. Nor do I have a clue which 'Professional Historian' you might have in mind that would be able to offer a sound approach to this question.

I DO believe one could close on average number of sorties per score, relative use of ammo (maybe), weighting the use of 50 Cal vs 20mm, types of opponents, etc.. but can you imagine comparing Geronimo to a legenday Centurion or Gladiator - with no arena to truly compare fighting/hunting skills?

Respectfully, I can't

You raise legitimate objections, but really we have to crawl before we can fly. If the information isn't there, then there's nothing we can do, regardless of whether or not we're using a fancy mathematical model.

I'm not even sure we can find ammo usage statistics for most pilots. We have some for Marseille and Beurling, but I'm guessing that many units just didn't keep those records.

We probably could find stats for what types of planes people shot down, though. That's the kind of thing people really cared about back then.

All I'm trying to advocate is the use of a more rigorous and disciplined approach to comparing pilots. Ultimately it can only be as good as the data we give it, but you can say that about *any* way of comparing pilots. I thought that this would be an interesting little collaborative project for us all to work on.

The other main thing I'm trying to advocate is comparing as many different relevant pilot attributes and achievements as possible. Instead of just looking at kills or ratio or whatever, I'm saying that we should look at as many relevant stats that we can possibly come up with. How can anyone argue with that?

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by P1234567890

I can program it up; that's the easy part. The hard part would be to get all of the stats. If people here were willing to help me gather stats, then we could make the result arbitrarily good. The more info we find, the better it would be. We could just keep on improving it.

The categories for which we can probably find the best stats are total kills and combat missions flown. From those two we can calculate kills per mission.

Does anyone here have any other suggestions for categories for which there exist good stats? (By the way, it wouldn't be the end of the world if some of them are blank for some of the pilots; we could deal with that).

How about eyesight and ability to discriminate an a/c versus a speck on the windshield.

How about the average number of a/c shot down per encounter (not mission).

How about the total numer of encounters with an enemy aircraft and how many times shots were actually fired when enemy aircraft were encountered.

How about the hand to eye coordination and situational awareness?

How about age?

How about ability to shoot w/o computing gunsight?

What percentage of scores were enemy fighters?

How about 'birth rank' (USAF 85 determined that the statistical position was younger brother or second born) for higher percentage of ace rankings

How about leadership and mentoring background the ace received in early combats..

What about number of flight hours and in which type a/c before flying first combat mission?

How about quality and quantity of opposition, and during which part of the war?

[Kruska]

Hello P123.....

What is it so difficult for you to understand? What people here are trying to tell you is that it is impossible to factor/measure certain criteria’s.

How do you factor 6 bad US Killer boy’s hunting down a crippled LW a/c with engine failure, or a LW Experten-pilot who sneaks up behind a Gladiator flown by a drunken Irishman (I am not biased against Irish) Alcohol abuse was a very big issue amongst the LW especially as the war dragged on, and from where would you retrieve all this information?

All you seem to take as an endless main criteria is number of Kills. It is however not about the number of kills but an overall evaluation with a lot of unanswered questions and therefore it is based on GUTFEELING, since no one possesses the necessary data to do a proofed mathematical equation out of this.(at least not me)

Regards
Kruska

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by Kruska

Hello P123.....

What is it so difficult for you to understand? What people here are trying to tell you is that it is impossible to factor/measure certain criteria’s.

How do you factor 6 bad US Killer boy’s hunting down a crippled LW a/c with engine failure, or a LW Experten-pilot who sneaks up behind a Gladiator flown by a drunken Irishman (I am not biased against Irish) Alcohol abuse was a very big issue amongst the LW especially as the war dragged on, and from where would you retrieve all this information?

All you seem to take as an endless main criteria is number of Kills. It is however not about the number of kills but an overall evaluation with a lot of unanswered questions and therefore it is based on GUTFEELING, since no one possesses the necessary data to do a proofed mathematical equation out of this.(at least not me)

Regards
Kruska

Kruska - Thx for saying in one sentence what I wasted many paragraphs trying to convey -

Tip of the hat

Bill

The most profound statement I ever heard by any fighter pilot on key attributes to be 'successful' was

"Well, you can't want to live forever" - Col Billy Hovde (USAF-ret'd) 1967 0r 68 Fighter Aces Reunion - the last to answer a reporter's question on this subject.

[P1234567890]

Originally Posted by drgondog

How about eyesight and ability to discriminate an a/c versus a speck on the windshield.

How about the average number of a/c shot down per encounter (not mission).

How about the total numer of encounters with an enemy aircraft and how many times shots were actually fired when enemy aircraft were encountered.

How about the hand to eye coordination and situational awareness?

How about age?

How about ability to shoot w/o computing gunsight?

What percentage of scores were enemy fighters?

How about 'birth rank' (USAF 85 determined that the statistical position was younger brother or second born) for higher percentage of ace rankings

How about leadership and mentoring background the ace received in early combats..

What about number of flight hours and in which type a/c before flying first combat mission?

How about quality and quantity of opposition, and during which part of the war?

I think that for some of these stats we have a chance of finding accurate records, and for others we don't.

[buzzard]

We could settle this vexing conundrum if only I could get my damn' time machine workin' right... we could go back and abduct all those pilots and put on a rigidly controlled tournament. And we could charge admission!

Alas, even that wouldn't prove much. We might be able to figure out who was the most skilled aerobatic pilot, or maybe the most accurate deflection shot, but the best FIGHTER Pilot? Not likely...

There were so many variables involved in how these pilots attained their success, that no mathematical model can possibly offer any real insight. Best kill-to-mission ratio? Surely anyone can see that luck is a huge factor in this, and many other events that determine who well a pilot does. And how would you factor in elements such lethal cunning? Aeriel combat is not a game. The only rule is to defeat the enemy in such a way as to allow you to live another day. Do we give extra points for cheating?

Statistical methods of analysis require subjective value judgements as to which elements are granted priority over others. And how do you quantify the essential element of luck? Deciding who among fighter pilots is the 'best' is inherently unquantifiable. Unless you stick to the one statistic that matters above all others in the arena of air combat...Victories.

JL

[P1234567890]

Originally Posted by Kruska

Hello P123.....

What is it so difficult for you to understand? What people here are trying to tell you is that it is impossible to factor/measure certain criteria’s.

If it's impossible when using a mathematical model, then it's also impossible when using your gut or any other model. The advantage of my proposal is that it factors in a lot of things which someone's gut instincts won't.

Originally Posted by Kruska

How do you factor 6 bad US Killer boy’s hunting down a crippled LW a/c with engine failure, or a LW Experten-pilot who sneaks up behind a Gladiator flown by a drunken Irishman (I am not biased against Irish) Alcohol abuse was a very big issue amongst the LW especially as the war dragged on, and from where would you retrieve all this information?

I'm not saying you can. I'm not saying that my model is perfect, but just that it's more comprehensive and rigorous than anything else.

Originally Posted by Kruska

All you seem to take as an endless main criteria is number of Kills.

I'm quite explicitly NOT doing this. I'm specifically saying that we SHOULDN'T just look at the number of kills, but rather that we should factor in all of the relevant criteria for which we can possibly compile statistics.

The fact that you seem to think I'm only interested in kills suggests that you don't understand my proposed model.

Quote: