Greatest Fighter Pilot in World War II..... UPDATED

Originally Posted by plan_D

Sure, okay.

The Soviet pilots weren't good, CC. Only a few come to light as being any good, most of the VVS were poorly trained.

I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is, suppose this pilot attacked and shot down two P-51's thinking they were 109's (a common mistake even for USAAF pilots). He gets back to his base and they check the guncam footage (by this point the Soviet pilots had guncams) and sees they were P-51's. What are the Soviet's going to say?

It certainly could have happened the way it is reported, but without some verification it's just a one sided story.

[cheddar cheese]

and sees they were P-51's. What are the Soviet's going to say?

Erm, that they are in good stead for WW2's sequel: The Cold War?

[Darkstalker]

But in the other side many german pilots were flying planes that were considered old (and many of them were) against allied fighters.
This planes were redisgined to match the newly and usually developed and fixed faster than the luftwaffe.
Even facing these problems many german pilots were a match for the allied pilots and their powerful and updated planes.

[Darkstalker]

Many of them scored a lot of victories against the Soviets, but this does not mean the soviets were bad pilots, at the beginning of the war maybe, but after Stalingrad, the soviet army and air forces were experiencied and were a match for the Lufwaffe.
In that time the Luftwaffe had lost control over the Russian skies and had little to oposse to the Soviets, and the germans were still shooting down planes with though pilots in the cockpits.
So this made german pilots to be prepared for what lied ahead on the western front and to be victorious in several times.

[Darkstalker]

Even when they were outnumbered and knew it was almost impossible to do what they were ordered to do specially after D-Day, when the allies started to control Europe's skies, this pilots fought bravely and shot down a lot of allied planes.
I think the need of surviving, the lack of resources and knowing that they were only a hope to stop for a while Germany's defeat ( or contributing for victory in the beginning of war) made this men truly skilled and aware to make all what were on their hands against the allied superiority.

[plan_D]

Yeah, RG. I don't think the Soviets would be too bothered, really. We all know they were only on each others side because there was a common enemy

I agree. But if they suspected the US might have somehow known it was a Soviet fighter that downed those two P-51's they'd want to have some kind of story for it right?

[Lightning Guy]

Friendly fire was fairly common in WWII. So they shot down a couple of our fighters. We strafed one of their convoys and killed a general.

Originally Posted by Lightning Guy

Friendly fire was fairly common in WWII. So they shot down a couple of our fighters. We strafed one of their convoys and killed a general.

That is not the issue LG, it's the report by the Soviet pilot that the two P-51's attacked him and would not back off so he had to shoot them both down. I'm not saying it's impossible this happened, just that we only have his word that's what happened, and given the circumstances it's highly suspect.

=S=

Lunatic

[Hot Space]

I would of voted for Gunter Rall, but he's not here, so I went for Marseille instead

Hot Space

[GermansRGeniuses]

Originally Posted by cheddar cheese

Russian planes may not have been the best, granted, but they werent too bad. I think their pilots were amazing though, managing to get the best out of poor machinery (Kozhedub and Pokryshin for example).

Nah, just Pokryshin...


The La-5/7's were amazing, they were a bit like the Zero down low, due to their great turning...


Except for one thing, the La series was actually fast throughout the war, unlike the bloody Zero, which they only started revamping it at the end!

Also, the La-7's optional three B20 20mm cannons are powerful, as well as concentrated to make kills come a lot easier...

[lesofprimus]

Good point's GrG... Kozhedub never flew a P-39 CC.....

I do believe tho that the Russian Aircraft were inferior to the Germans on the ETO, but, thats not saying that the La-5/7 and the Yak-3/9 were crap..... They were good fighters....

Just that there were many inexperienced Russian pilots flying those fighters that never knew what hit em when Bar or Rall come sweeping outta the sky and burst ur fuel tank with 85 rounds......

Boom...... Your dead... Another tally for Hartmanns rudder.....

There were a handful of solid pilots in Russia that stayed alive for more than 20 sorties.... These guys became their top aces.....There are not alot of Russian aces compared to the # of German Aces on the ETO..... #'s dont lie in this case....

Originally Posted by GermansRGeniuses

Also, the La-7's optional three B20 20mm cannons are powerful, as well as concentrated to make kills come a lot easier...

The B-20 armament was not "optional". These guns came into operations only very late in the war, and were in short supply. The La7-FNV was armed with them in about Feb. 1945 IIRC, and there were about 377 of these planes, almost all (if not all) of them assigned to Stalin's gaurd protecting Stalingrad and Moscow (which were no longer subject to Luftwaffe' attack). It is questionable if any saw combat action in WWII, and if they did, it was probably only a few used for combat evaluation.

Realistically, the La7-FN was the WWII La7, and it was armed with 2 x ShVAK 20mm cannon with 200 rpg (as opposed to 150 rpg on the B20's) and a slightly weaker engine (1 min of WEP used for takeoff). It was still an excellent fighter.

=S=

Lunatic

[BigEd]

Eino Juutilainen should be nominated as the best pilot of WWI. Why? He had 94 ariel victories, 34 of them in the Brewester Buffalo (export model, which was worse that the one the US Navy used). The rest of his victories was in the German Bf109. Throught his career, his aircraft was never touched by a bullet or fragment in any air-to-air engagement. This is a very remarkable feat, considering the conditions under which he was flying.

http://www.au.af.mil/au/goe/eaglebio...s/juutil84.htm

[the lancaster kicks ass]

it had to engage the WEP for take off??