Time Machine Consultant : Maximizing the Bf-109 in January 1943

[Altea]

And a French Aviation magazine on the other hand is reliable?
While not countering your point, I think the real OOB would give value to your opinion, not the glossy paper.

If you understand what do you want to mean, i don't. Precise your mind.



First, there were overclaim everywhere and everytime during WWII, it's not a scoop owerdays. It was just the Hartmanns turn in Fana 423.

Secund, in Fana n° 451, Vladimir Kotelnikov, translated by A Nikolsky wrote about Airacobra career in USSR in only 15 pages. So nobody asked him to send the whole soviet OOB for each day from june 41 to may 1945!!! I think he's a big boy enough to count P-39 regiments by himself inside the guenine soviet document. I don't see moreover the plus value if he was sending the complete OOB with dozens pages and hundreds regiments in russian and let the reader search inside...

Third, the french magazine is at least far more reliable than Hartmann claims or Wiki...

BTW.Have you got any reliable dutch magazine to advice to us?

 

[Altea]

Hauptmann Erich Hartmann..............352
Major Gerhard Barkhorn..................301
Major Gunther Rall..........................275
Oberleutnant Otto Kittel...................267
Major Walter Nowotny***...............258
Major Wilhelm Batz........................237
Major Erich Rudorffer......................222
Oberleutnant Heinrich Bar....................220
Oberst Hermann Graf.........................212
Major Theodor Weissenburger............208
Oberleutnant Hans Philipp...................206
Oberleutnant Walter Schuck................206
Major Heinrich Ehrler.........................204
Oberleutnant Anton Hafner.................204
Hauptmann Helmut Lipfert.................203

Were all the claims for these aces bogus as well?

It depends a lot from what aces, german experts or stalins sokols overclaim in ostfront is not my hobby. You will rather find it in russian publications.

Dmitry Khazanov for Hartmann.
Youri Rybine for Weissenberger.

AFAIK Graf, Grislawski, Marseille were very close to their claims.
Rudorffer seems to be famous as an overclaimer both in North Afrika against Lafayette, and in Soviet front.

 

[Juha]

Hello
From Russian studies, Barkhorn was usually very careful claimer but just before he reached 300. Lipfert was also very careful claimer. On the other hand only one out of Nowotny's first 10 kills can be confirmed from Soviet records, but IMHO maybe some are uncomfirmable because of the chaotic times of summer 41.

Juha

 

[Milosh]

This French Hartmann article, is it a translation of Khazanov's article?

 

[Juha]

Hello
Don't know on the article in la Fana but Khazanov's article drew some hard critic from some Western researchers.

On Weissenberger, it seems that JG 5 had some serious claim accuracy problems from mid-42 onwards, or at least so it seemed to be in 2003. I don't know if that has changed later on.

Juha

 

[Milosh]

Juha, a little net search found this, Erich Hartmann: 352 victories or... 80? - Luftwaffe and Allied Air Forces Discussion Forum

The French magazine article is the Khazanov article.

 

[Altea]

Juha, a little net search found this, Erich Hartmann: 352 victories or... 80? - Luftwaffe and Allied Air Forces Discussion Forum

The French magazine article is the Khazanov article.

Yes, it's Khazanov's article in french, but i never red it in russian supposingly more complete...

 

[Altea]

Hello
Don't know on the article in la Fana but Khazanov's article drew some hard critic from some Western researchers.

On Weissenberger, it seems that JG 5 had some serious claim accuracy problems from mid-42 onwards, or at least so it seemed to be in 2003. I don't know if that has changed later on.

Juha

Eastern researchers can criticize western articles as well. The better is to do something, not criticize. As far as i remember i was not convinced from Khazanov too. Hope he's still digging about that with more proofs...

Well there was a good site in russian/english "eisenmeerfront" with Weissemberger claims list and soviet air lossesin the north. I hope someone kept the datas.

 

[Juha]

Hello Milosh
Yes, I knew the tread, I made a couple small contributions into it.

On LW Eastern Front aces, also Zweigart seems to have been very careful claimer. Other reasonable accurate seems to have been Rall, Spate, Kageneck, Beisswenger, Schilling, Hannig, Broennle and Ademeit, even if there are rumours that Ademeit also claimed victories of his young wingmen as his own but at least many of his claims suited with Soviet known losses.

On the other hand there seems to be many claims made by Kempf, Ostermann and Phillipp to which Russian researchers have not found corresponding losses from Soviet documents.

Juha

 

[Marcel]

If you understand what do you want to mean, i don't. Precise your mind.

Well, exactly as you describe below. I only see a magazine, which doesn't look very reliable by the looks of it. But if you had said it's a Kotelnikov article, it would have been much more convincing.

BTW.Have you got any reliable dutch magazine to advice to us?

Depends on what you're interested in. There are not that many Dutch magazines which I could recommend.
There are some very good books, like "Illusies en incidenten" about the preparation and maintaining neutrality by the Dutch airforce. For the war-exploits of the Dutch AF you have a few magazine-like books, called Dutch profile (coming with English text) of which the ones written by Frits Gerdessen are the best. And of course you have the "Stichting Fokker G.1 " who have their own paper and who will publish a big book about the G.1 next year.
If you really want to do some research, the best way is to start with the NIOD

 

[Civettone]

I would then like to know how many of the victories of these other Experten were confirmed by Russian sources ? If only a part of their victories could be confirmed it says more about the conformity of the Russian archives ... If this only happens to Hartmann and a couple of others, then there could be some truth in it.

But then again, why did the Russians put a price on his head ?????

Kris

 

[Altea]

I would then like to know how many of the victories of these other Experten were confirmed by Russian sources ? If only a part of their victories could be confirmed it says more about the conformity of the Russian archives ... If this only happens to Hartmann and a couple of others, then there could be some truth in it.

But then again, why did the Russians put a price on his head ?????

Kris

It depends on what do you mean by confirmed. Some of them could be:

- invalidated by russian archives: no planes lost for the claim (confirmed or not)

- validated by russian archives: a shooted plane correspunding exactly to the claim

- uncertain status: that means several claims for one lost plane, it's the tremendous majority of the cases. Moreover most of the soviet lost planes are reported as "missed in action", a small part being shooted down by fighters, another one by Flak. Some losses by accidents of course...

Who shoot who, is virtually impossible to verify. Only make probabilities and stats.

BTW, why do you said that russians put a price on Hartmanns head. Have you got a russian document to sustain that ?

 

[Civettone]

We already went through this before: http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/hartmann-liar-1437.html

And Altea, I have always read they put 10,000 roebels on his head but as with 99.99 % of the Russian stuff I know or thought I knew I have not seen an original document about it. In fact, if I may be so blunt, it is a bit of an idiotic and provocative comment. Do you think I can read Russian? Instead my dear Altea, just say what you have to say which is that there is no Russian document on the price on Hartmann's head and that is all a myth. Which is what you wanted to say anyway, isn't it?
(again not meaning to insult you, I know you mean well)

Kris

 

[Altea]

We already went through this before: http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/hartmann-liar-1437.html

If i would say my real opinion about some of those posts, i will be banned from the forum. I won't go further...

And Altea, I have always read they put 10,000 roebels on his head but as with 99.99 % of the Russian stuff I know or thought I knew I have not seen an original document about it. In fact, if I may be so blunt, it is a bit of an idiotic and provocative comment. Do you think I can read Russian? Instead my dear Altea, just say what you have to say which is that there is no Russian document on the price on Hartmann's head and that is all a myth. Which is what you wanted to say anyway, isn't it?
(again not meaning to insult you, I know you mean well)

Kris

Until the opposite is proven, neither the Il-2 was called "Schwartz tod" from germans nor Hartmanns head had any price. The 0,1 % russian of yours that know about Hartmann red or heard about him in western papers late in 1970's, and make confusions now, i think.

Two examples i know:

On 26.02.44 soviet fighters in Kishinew-Iassy aera suffered heavy losses: 5 shooted down, 3 had extensive damage. 4 aerocobras were really shooted down by the JG-52 that annouced 17 confirmed claims. From them 12 P-39 for Hartmann, 1 Rall, 1 Batcnik).

From the 4.06.1944 Hartmann obtained 7 victories. According Tony Wood 6 were aerocobras again. The only soviets unitis that had cobras near Iassy were the 9 GIAD and the 205 IAD. The 205th had stricltly no losses on that day, the Pokryshkin's 9th, 2.
- One from the 16th GIAP. Lt Dushanine's damaged P-39 in air fight near Movileni made forced landing on soviet side: plane WO, pilot ok.
- One, the lt Buzdin from 104th GIAP did not return from mission. Both plane and pilot WO from lists. No proof that they didn't came back later following days, and no proof that he was shooted down by fighters either.

So considering that germains pilots obtained 11 at least other cobras on that day 4.06.44 that place, some others probably claimed by Flak, maybe bombers or ground forces i wouldn't say the picture was happy for LUFT, concerning claims accuracy.

And so on, and so on.

BTW, Graf and Grislawski had 80-90% of their clams cofirmed by russian reasearchers.

From myself

Werner Moelders in spain claimed 15, obtained 14 confirmes victories
- 5 validated personal victories, 9 shared victories, 3 invalidated from russian archives*

Harder Harro had 11 confirmed claims in spain
- 7 personal validated by russian archives, 0 shared, 4 invalidated

Boddem Peter 10 claims, 9 of them confirmed
- 1 personal validate by RA, 2 shared, 7 strictlly invalidated

* it's fun that Moelders obtained 1 unclaimed victory from RA, 1 validation for it's unconfirmed one. That means: were the claims or not confirmed by supposingly severe Luft procedures, makes no importance!


So it depends a lot from the pilot's personnality, not russian archives except maybe in 41, 42 some of they were lost.

Anyway, looking after Hartmann, Lang, or Rudorffer claims in RA, it's like beating sea with a sword (like king Darius): a big wasted effort, Bykov, Dykov, "Grigori-Gri" said on a russian forum. They are men that working for Christer Bergstorm in russian archives, if it tells you something...

Well, we are far off-topic now

Regards

 

[Civettone]

Yes off-topic but we have been off-topic in this thread for 87 times already hahaha !
In any case, I have started to realize some years ago that the Russian sources are still largely unexplored or at least unexploited when it comes to the history of WW2 or at least the Eastern Front. I have seen so much new information coming from people who speak Russian and can consult Russian documents. Not that these documents are the holy grail, but correlated with German sources the image becomes much clearer.

So I feel a certain humbleness when it comes to this subject. I apparently don't know enough to say much about the correctness of Hartmann's claims. Though I feel that the pendulum has swung too much to the other side by saying he only had about 80 victories. Also, where does it end? What does it say about all those other Experten??

Kris

 

[Juha]

Hello Kris
I agree with Altea but the point that IMHO it is not fair to demand that Hartmann's a/c identifications were always correct, IMHO better but a more difficult line of approach is to compare single engine claims to single engine losses. I know cases where Finnish pilots has claimed La-5s but when the wrecks were found, it was find out that the planes were in fact P-39s. Also Soviet aces as well aces from all other AFs often misidentified their victims. And also aces of other AFs overclaimed badly time to time. For ex. FC during 1941 over France.

As I wrote Russians and some other researchers have found out that while they usually could find out match to Lipfert's, Grislawski's or Zweigart's claims during small scale combats the same wasn't case with Hartmann's or Ostermann's similar claims.

My info on accuracy of Lipfert's and Barkhorn's claim accuracy is from a very thorough and serious Hungarian researcher/historian and from a couple Russians who seem to be thorough researchers. On JG 54 aces Andrey Dikov, whose name Altea wrote as Dykov, common problem with kyrils, who is very thorough researcher whose speciality is VVS KBF, ie air war over Baltic and around Leningrad. On JG 5 from one Finnish researcher who has based his research on archival studies of Rybkin and of Norwegian Rune Rautio. I also know a couple Finns who had used Soviet military archives since they opened to foreigners. And it seems that the problems with them mostly concentrated in 1941 and partly also in 42. Times of very heavy losses and great retreats.

Juha

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I would then like to know how many of the victories of these other Experten were confirmed by Russian sources ? If only a part of their victories could be confirmed it says more about the conformity of the Russian archives ... If this only happens to Hartmann and a couple of others, then there could be some truth in it.



Kris

First take the Russian Communist Propaganda and then take the German Nationalist Propaganda and put them together and the truth is probably somewhere in between. I think that the results from both sides are very skeptical, but for some reason I tend to believe the German reports over the Russian reports a little more.

 

[Juha]

Hello Adler
IMHO in this there isn't question of propaganda but secret air force reports on losses and in all air forces replacemets were allocated mostly according to reports on losses. Of course there might be some irregularities same way than there are in LW records, for ex one well known case when a Bf 110G was reported lost because of engine problems when in fact it was shot down by Soviet AA-mgs during a train busting attack. But there was a special reason to that "lying".

Juha

 

[drgondog]

Hello Adler
IMHO in this there isn't question of propaganda but secret air force reports on losses and in all air forces replacemets were allocated mostly according to reports on losses. Of course there might be some irregularities same way than there are in LW records, for ex one well known case when a Bf 110G was reported lost because of engine problems when in fact it was shot down by Soviet AA-mgs during a train busting attack. But there was a special reason to that "lying".

Juha

Juha - that is an example of the toughest determination of all - namely 'cause' - particularly if the 'missing' report witness stated he (pilot of missing 110) was last heard to say he was having engine problems.. when in fact it may have been due to flak and the reporting pilot didn't know why his coolant temp was rising..

I run into it all the time when sorting out Macr's. I have a tendency to be conservative. If a guy disappeared and later reported KIA due to unknown causes - I look to the mission and whether or not strafing was involved or enemy a/c seen in the area. If so, then I judge 'unknown-probably flak' or Unknown-probably fighters' and count them in column of losses due to flak or fighters rather than 'unknown'

I also spend a lot of time asking the LW experts for claims/loss data in specific areas to try to match up.

 

[Juha]

Hello Drgondog
The story was that the wreck was found in 80s?, in fact when I now think of it I cannot remember was it 110E, F or G, and recovered, the recover team noticed the bullet holes but when they checked LW records they noticed that the loss reason given was engine failure. Happily the crew had made it back to German troops and the pilot had survived the war and was still alive, when contacted he told that when he got back to his base his CO put strong pressure on him that he would give the reason of loss as engine failure. In the end the pilot gave in and wrote his report as his CO had demanded. The reason of all this was that Luftflotte 5 had got an order from OKL that low level attacks against trains were forbidden in order to avoid losses because of precarious state of LW a/c stocks. Local leadership had thought that those attacks were effective way to harass Soviets and their supply traffic and so had allowed the attacks continue and so to hide this disobedience from OKL the real reason of the loss had to be hide.

Juha