Barely 5 minutes and I've already learned something new. Very interesting that the RLM had a specific regulation on not being able to claim soft landings on the enemy side of the line.
Many of the Hartmann myths discussed first appeared with the Toliver/Constable book ' The Blond Knight of Germany' published in 1970. Only 289 of his claims had been processed as 'confirmed' by Abschusskommission by war-end, and only 307 were officially filed. He had two complete logbooks listing all of his missions and claims, and after capture the first was recovered but the second has remained missing ever since. From his 151st onwards the rest of his 352 claims were based on memory by Hartmann and collated by Toliver/Constable in the 1950s, also utilising fragments of data from Hartmann’s letters home, the JG 52 war diary and from other JG 52 pilot sources.
@@olafkunert3714 Like trusting all biographies and publications which were written using exclusively one-sided German materials without any control references of the other side, until it became a rock solid myth? I get it... But those days are over and this is rather a 10 count over the old fashion, one-sided history writing...
@@gaborhorvath4873 Look, we have relatively hard overall data that indicate that German pilot may overclaim by 30-40%, that is not disputed by me. The official Soviet combat losses are in the 50000 plane range, additional 70000 were (according to Soviet data) lost in non-combat situations. However, if you want to make a case for individual pilots, you have to provide in a scientific discussion evidence, that your approach is correct, you have to deliver a validation. This was not done by the post and many commenters. We have the fact, that most claims come from a relative low number of German pilots (overall these claims must be in the 30% range in order to explain the high Soviet losses), if you want to show, that pilot H was overclaiming more than the average, you have to show that with available Soviet data for other pilots fall within the 30%. OK? Or from a different POV: You have to show that the quality of Soviet data is sufficent to answer the question for individual pilots. It is naive to use without validation Soviet data when it is clear the fighter units lied when it comes to their kills, for each real kill there were 8 or 9 invented ones, but they do not try to polish their losses. E.g. are the high number of accidents observed for Soviet units real or a bookkeeping trick to cover up for losses? What is the share of honest mistakes on both sides, e.g. real losses are booked with different dates or sites and are not found by comparing list from both sides. Without a proper validation you get slaughtered in a serious scientific discussion. That most readers obviously do not understand this issue and claim that the contribution is goor only shows that we have a nice example of projection. 🙂
@@olafkunert3714 where you get 'slaughtered' (using your own words), is that you can't seem to fathom that with a 30 minute time-limit (not specific to only claims) NO ONE is able to go thought hundreds of claims individually. That's why I kept mentioning the book. Those unable to grasp this simple fact have taken to the comment section and started to emote. If you happen to be that interested, pick up a copy of the book and prepare to be blown away. I have read the book from the German author you keep harping on about, Verified Victories makes that one look like child play because it goes down to the individual pilot-v-pilot level to compare claims, not high level statistics. It also puts together an average range for good claims over the Eastern Front in 1944. Literally everything you would want is in the book. 30 minute video vs 215 pg book with ~560 footnotes, take your pick.
In the last 30 years or so there have been numerous books that have looked at victory claims and compared them to documented losses as reflected in official records. Short story is that significant overclaiming (often by factors of three to five) was done by all sides in all theaters. The 8th AF was pretty rigorous in using gun cameras, however, even then awarded victories were about twice actual losses. After all, the gun camera just shows you what happens in the field of view. In most cases it can confirm hits but unless you see catastrophic damage (which does happen) it usually doesn't confirm destruction. And gun camera use was infrequent and depended on the local situation. For example, at Guadalcanal the Marines didn't have paper to document flights at times. Gun cameras were a distant dream.
" Short story is that significant overclaiming (often by factors of three to five) was done by all sides in all theaters." That is not correct. The German overclaiming in the east is less than 50%, and in the west much lower. What people usually not want to see is the much higher overclaiming of the allies.
@@olafkunert3714 This presentation was on Erich Hartmann and not on general statistics. And Hartmann overclaimed (knowingly, or unknowingly - that's a different question) beyond all imagination, this is a fact! Only a very small portion of his claims matches the Soviet/American losses, while other German aces are the exact opposite. It is funny that most Hartmann-fans do not even know that the soviet aircraft losses are nicely recorded by date of loss, Moscow Time of loss, location, list of lost airmen & their service history, the airframe- and aircraft engine construction numbers of their lost plane (sometimes even with lost parachute and personal revolver numbers.) and Daniel did his research based on these ultimate and official military records. This is why it is completely irrelevant how some people try to twist the German claims and statistics, since most of Hartmann's claims simply do not match the Allied AC losses, while other German pilots' claims do. And that is a big difference.
@@gaborhorvath4873 My reply was to the general calim, that there was high overclaiming. Please do not work with stramen. Your claim is not supported by other work, Soviet losses are sometimes with more or less large gaps. See e.g. the work of Roman Töppel on Kursk. It would be a real surprise that despite huge Soviet inaccuracies in case of infantry and tank losses the figher losses were correct. There was a general overclaiming by German pilots in the 30-40% in the east, the overclaining of Soviet pilots was in the 800-1000% range. That are quite hard numbers. For me it is likely that Hartmann's claims have at least the 30% error.
@@olafkunert3714 Sorry, but it is obvious to me that most people have no clue what they are talking about. What is truly incomplete is not the (late war) Soviet Air Force documentation, but the research of some authors who previously published books on the Eastern Front and people think that is the standard. Look, I am a member of an Aircraft Museum's research team and I have seen all those Soviet military records that Daniel used in his book. Surely in his presentation he had no time to go through every single claim, but in his/our book there is the full list of the Soviet AC losses by time, serials, names, everything. That's why he said most of the losses do not match Hartmann's claims. He is working on a much deeper and more detailed level than what the general public has ever seen or imagined, which obviously cannot come through a 30 mins. presentation. That's why he was mentioning the book multiple times. I am absolutely sure that most people still have no idea what they criticise.
Reminds me of the quote from Man Who Shot Liberty Valance..."When the legend becomes fact, print the legend". Very good episode debunking the legend in this case.
Lol yeah, in World of Warplanes the planes are conveniently waiting to be shot and respawn like real planes do? Hi FAA I am joking here don't pull my Pilot Certificate 🙂
I have no problem with anyone that want to criticise a comment that I make as long as it is not offensive. Your comment is offensive. I stand by what I said. The presentation was fabulous. The content was both researched and for me, interesting. Regards, Bob@@olafkunert3714
Given, how heavily outnumbered the LW was, to try to mix it up or follow down a damaged aircraft would be a great way to commit suicide. The only tactic they had that contributed to their personal survival was a fast diving strike and a quick break away back to altitude. Naturally that meant that lots of times, the fighter escorts or the first elements of the strike group take the brunt of the attack, when the rest of the Sturmovik and light bomber regiments cruise on and pulverize their ground targets. It's like JG27 and HJ Marseilles. No matter how well he and his cohorts and Italian allies did against those Hurricanes and P40s, the Desert Airforce bombers and fighter bombers were still able to get thru pound the Afrika Korp and their supply lines
There is a 2009 thread on Axis History Forum ("Erich Hartmann - Any evidence for claimed bounty & nickname?") that comes to a similar conclusion that it lacks both plausibility and evidence.
What I can’t really believe is that Hartmann had to bail out 13 times because he flew too close to his victims and their debris damaged his fighter plane.
G'day, Um, as far as I know..., that isn't quite correct. He crash landed 13 or 14 times, sometimes because he flew through a Debris-cloud, but every time he crashed, his Aeroplane had been damaged by his Enemies' Gunfire - and only sometimes the Debris caused the critical damage leading to the Crash-landings.... And in his final Combat, he was out of Ammunition, alone, facing a swarm of P-51s ; and so he jumped out, and walked back home with his Silken Umbrella deployed above his head.... Discretion being the better part of becoming Freshly ventilated & burned Compost ; as he saw it at the time. My take on him is that he was flying Primary Gliders and Sailplanes as a Foetus..., because his mother was a Gliding Instructor, and she flew into the third Trimester Once he could sit up and hold his head up - 18 months or so of age, she was taking him Slope Soaring, on her lap... I've encountered claims that his unofficial first Solo was in a Dagling or Zogling Primary Glider, at age 8...., and his official First Solo was at 13 or 14. Glider Pilots begin by learning to fly the WING, Y'see... So, later on in their career, in a different machine - when the source of all Hot oily noisy Vibrations suddenly quits...; then The Sailplane Pilot Sighs with relief..., & Reverts to making a NORMAL Unpowered Approach & Landing...(!). My contention is that the reason the Jagdwaffe was SO very effective in it's heyday, is that the Luftwaffe largely did their Ab-Initio Flying Training on Gliders & Sailplanes... Whereas the Allied Flying Schools almost exclusively relied on Powered Aeroplanes within which to teach their Fledglings to Levitate... There were 3 Jagdwaffe Pilots with Kill-Tallies above 300. There was one Pommie & one Yanqui who got 40 at per each, and Clive "Killer Caldwell" was credited with 28 Aerial Victories...; but according to his most recent biography he also diligently (proudly) logged his Personal Kills as well stating in interviews that he knew he'd killed at least 500 Germans & Italians running around in the Libyan & Egyptian Desert, before beginning to shoot at the Japanese... Quite the eccentric, was Clive. I had a nodding acquaintance with him in 1979, when we both used to drink at the Royal Australian Aero Club Bar at Bankstown Aerodrome (the best Beer on the Airfield !). So, anyway After that seque..., If Hartmann's Claimed Kill-Tally is taken at face value, then Hitler still had to replace Hartmann's Aeroplane 14 different times..., because his best efforts had broken whatever he took off in ! The ranking RAF Ace, Johnnie Johnson, Accumulated 40 Victories without his Aeroplane ever being hit by any Gunfire from any of his Enemies' Aircraft...; but he finished up a Prisoner of War after trying to fly too low while strafing an Airfield, and thus destroyed his own Propeller at 400 mph, and nowhere to go but straight ahead. Oopsie...! If you backtrack me to my "Personal Aeroplanology..." playlist, therein to locate & view, "World's Greatest Fighter Pilot...; Ulmari Juttilainen !" 94 witnessed confirmed Aerial Victories, and not one Weapon fired by his Aerial Enemies ever connected with his Aeroplane....! Finland never had to replace Ulmari's Fighter due to any Aerial Enemy Action..., 34 of his Victories were achieved in Brewster Buffaloes (!), and in 1942 the RAAF Buffalo was pretty widely regarded as being the Worst Fighter Aircraft on Earth. (I have a Video on that one, too...). And, I dunno about Soviet Bounties on Hartman..., but a bloke from 20 miles Northwest of here, Charlie Scherff, from Emmaville NSW 2371, Oz ; flying a RAAF Fighter-Bomber version of the DH Mosquito in 1943, over Belgium, spotted, attacked & shot down one of the only five Heinkel-111 "Zwilling" 5-engined Glider Tugs ever built... The British made quite the Propaganda Celebrity of him on that account, via the BBC, so his Heroism won him a DFC Admired all over the Empire... And in retaliation..., Squeaking in the Berlin Slortspalast, in a Screech which Berlin Radio obediently pumped out to vent all heir outrage, Adolf of the Hitler variety Publicly announced a "Bounty" on the Head of Charlie Scherff of 50,000 Reichmarks or some similarly staggering "round" number. So it said, in the Vintage BBC Propaganda Wall-Poster, printed or reprinted and propagated by the Australian Government, at the time ; it's in storage now, at the Land Of The Beardies History House, Museum & Research Centre in Glen Innes, but in the 1970s it was on display in their War Memorial Room. Which is where I saw & read it, multiple times. He was one of the Heroic Local Yokels who were Lionised as Wartime Heroes. To expedite his Demobilisation, in 1945 he flew his Mosquito both ways up & down the Glen Innes Main Street, in Knife-Edge flight with a Wingtip below the top of the Town Hall Roof - and a low Circle around the Hospital between the two passes..., to show his fiance (a Nurse) that he was almost home.... He was indeed back home, on the Train, and in Civilian Clothes about 2 days later ; Outprocessing duly EXPEDITED ! He's one of the few Australians who ever actually pissed Herr Hitler off, personally, to the point where anybody who shot him down would be paid a special Reward for their exertions. About 10 or 12 years later he died, drunk, in a crashed Sports Car wrapped around a Tree ; with somebody else's wife alongside. No Random Breath Tests back then, nor any Speed Limits on the Open Road...; No Seatbelts, and no Collapsible Steering Columns either. Lots of opportunity for Bored Adrenaline Junkies..., merely Driving to & from very boozy Parties, back then,when Wool was £1 per pound.... And the Scherffs are Sheepfarmers... Apres Le Guerre Finni..., Then comes the PTSD....; Taking all of the Fun right out of the Heroic Patriotism Felt in the wayback, in the Dayze when their World was all Young...! Requiescat Im Pace... Such is life, Have a good one... Stay safe. ;-p Ciao !
@@Outlier999 Think of it as being Truth in labelling... In 1986 the nickname was bestowed onto me by the residents on the local Alternative Lifestyle Multiple Occupancy Community... ("Hippies on the Commune". I'm not THAT sociable, I reside on an Endangered Species Sanctuary..., but I do run with the Hippies ; going there for Parties, Festivals, Markets, Funerals and to visit friends. When my daughter made this Channel & bookmarked it onto my phone, my existing nickname was the obvious choice of Channel Name. My local Aboriginal name is "...'Ave-A-Chat..." ; so two nicknames from two different Fringe Groups on the outside edges of Society - and the two Labels Dovetail... I think I did rather well, actually..., one of my neighbours, name of Mabbet ; in his 60s, still answers to "Maggot"...(!). Such is life, Have a good one... Stay safe. ;-p Ciao !
Howdy folks! Great and long-overdue analysis of German fighter claims. Fighter claims on all sides are sketchy and provide only a rough estimate of the total. Like to see similar analysis on many more claims to see how they fare. More Horvath please.
1. What became clear through the fog of war during the Battle of Britain was this: the 80-20 rule. Or more precisely, the 90-10 rule. 10% of the pilots were shooting down 90% of the planes. (And of course kills numbers were overly optimistic.) That conforms to human nature overall. It's a very specialized skill. What, 5% of the top tennis player win 90% of the tournaments. You get the drift. All pilots were brave and did their duty, but again, it's like life insurance agents. Either you make a lot of money, or barely any, with little in between. 2. By one measure the top 2% of German aces accounted for 50% of the kills. (and of course there was over reporting. 3. In very broad strokes the top German aces flew about 9 times more missions, and had about 9 times more kills than the top American and British aces. Why? 4. The short version is: if US and British pilots were very good, they were rotated out of combat. a) because they were very valuable, b) to train, and c) because the US and Brits had some reservation about glorifying young men who were avid killers. 5. If a US pilot was very good: Bong, Joe Foss, Gabreski, Boyington, Johnson, they were pulled out of combat after 26 kills (WW 1 ace Rickenbacker's total) and only in Bong's case, let back in. If a US or British was not very good (and thus not a rare national treasure) they were allowed back into combat. Catch-22. 6. In sum, it appears that the Germans made better use of their 10%. That's why they flew 9 times more missions, and shot down 9 times more planes. In skill or bravery, there was nothing to set them all apart. Although, Hartmann saw combat in over 800 missions, and Gabreski flew a total of 166. In combat, experience is everything, and Hartmann and other Germans, had much more. The Germans rested, and feted and medalled their top 10%, and let them return to combat. Great allied pilots were so rare, they were pulled out of combat.
Some good points there. There is also the German 'Ace' factor. In WW1 the Germans glorified the Aces as part of their 'warrior' culture, which was then also utilized by the Nazis for their 'supermen' propaganda. In the Luftwaffe, a whole 'squadron'/Geschwader would be dedicated to getting kills for the 'Ace, whereas Allied pilots were part of a 'team'. This then allowed the Aces to increase their kill rates. The issue with this was, that their wingmen were supposed to stay very close, which in turn, & I've read Allied pilots mention this, the Ace's wingman got drawn into the arc of fire of the Allied pilot attacking the Ace, & blew up. I've also read an experienced German pilots account where he specifically didn't want the 'honour' to be an Ace's new wingman, as this Ace had already lost a few, & he'd be the new replacement.
I watched a video from "Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles" about Hartmann. His research is not nearly as in depth as Daniel's here, and he mostly did it to debunk the "never shot down" claim, but he also pointed out that his number of sorties per kill (about 1 kill every 4 sorties) was pretty average and even high (high as in few kills per sortie) for other aces, including compared to western aces like Robert S. Johnson. Found it pretty interesting, although it of course clashes with Daniel's more in-depth research. Maybe it's worth contacting Greg over it, as I know he's a person who cares about getting things right.
Gregg was excellent but both can be true indeed. The he never was shot down claim is out there but obviously is not provable. But it could well be that this was part of his hero image building and cheating to become number 1. Well apart from being part of an extremely moral organisation it the video has a great point that these high non gun camera claims could get you fame AND a 2 week vacation away from the nightmares of the front. 1 bullet from all these machine gun rounds flying around could kill you! That is luck and can happen.
Greg is actually very poor source, pushes incorrect ideas and conspiracy theories; but even worse when corrected by historians who've studied these subjects for years rather than accepting critique or debate he deletes their comments and suppresses it. If you would like more details let me know.
@@ME-xh7zp I am a historian and a pilot. Greggs very much knows airplanes and offered an award for anyone who can prove that the Wright Brothers were the first capable of controlled heavier than air. Well still not claimed. But do you have a concrete example of a false claim he made?? Of are you one of those "German Whitehead fans" who want to damage his reputation. Gregg also did some excellent research on the P-47 which had the range to go the Berlin (But you would need to read a pilot manual of that plane which requires flight training).
@@marcston I am also a historian, at least by credential and *minor* publication, and a combat aviator. That is largely irrelevant, as there are shitty people in all these professions. I'm glad you brought his P-47 "Range, Deceit, and Treachery" video up as it is his most egregious and the one he actively suppresses critique on the most. (Although his Fokker = NAA video was also a head scratcher but I have only seen a few of his videos on request.) A summary of his errors regarding the P-47 video, I'm glad you brought up the flight manual as he reads it completely incorrectly and there will be timestamps in his video for you to reference: So let's be clear about what Greg is pushing in this video, even in the title he is claiming USAAF leadership conducted a cover-up/conspiracy to remove evidence of the senseless slaughter of thousands of American bomber crews. He makes that explicit throughout. (53:32, 53:41) His claim rests on the 200 Gallon ferry tank he pulls the chart out of the flight manual at 19:05. That tank did exist, but it was a *ferry* tank, something we'll define in a moment. Note two things: 1: The chart posted is for “NONE or EMPTY 200-gal BELLY Tank.” This is not even the correct page for the tank with gas in it. 2: This page is, like most digital copies, is in black and white or recolorized. See the bottom? It says: “RED FIGURES ARE PRELIMINARY, SUBJECT TO REVISION AFTER FLIGHT CHECK.” I.e these figures were not tested, as he claims. They were estimated. The proper page exists, a good samaritan put it on imgur. All the figures are in red, something only an original paper copy catches. If you desire, we can try to find a way past youtube's link-suppression in comments to get it to you. Please, check yourself. Rather obvious Greg did not do very good research. Grabbing a quick look at a flight manual is not enough to find completely new historical facts. All his following conclusions, based as they were on this false understanding of the tank, are hollow and frankly unprofessional. He pushes a conspiracy without any supporting evidence such as testimony, letters, etc. Continuing the path of the P-47 as to become escort fighter: The 200 Gal. tank is a “ferry” tank, as opposed to a “combat” tank in USAAF/USAAC thinking. A ferry tank is merely for operation at low to medium altitudes, at slow max cruise speeds in a permissive environment. A combat tank is more robust and able to be used in a non-permissive environment. To understand why, prewar thinking of all Air Forces was that drop tanks were dangerous generally, and particularly a flame risk in combat. This was incorrect, but had to be learned. The only force to rapidly adopt drop tanks was the IJNAS, and that was a direct result of getting their noses bloodied by I-16s/I-15s in China. For this video, the key is the 200 gallon ferry tank did not work above FL180. Even more importantly, the P-47 as delivered up until the D-15 did not have the plumbing to receive pressurized fuel from *any* external tanks out of the factory. That means it would stop flowing at the altitudes required to escort the Bombers (FL250+). As a result, it wasn't until later ‘43 that Jugs in numbers could make it into Germany. In fact, on July 28, ‘43 Lt. Col. Cass Hough of VIIIFC ATS had the 4FG test the 200 gallon ferry. It was filled only halfway, because that was as much gas as they could use before needing to climb to combat altitude hitting the coast (flying penetration at medium altitude over France/Germany in ‘43 was suicidal.) It got them an extra 40 miles, and several kills but that's it. The truth about the P-47 is even when properly equipped, it lacked the internal fuel for raids such as Berlin until the D-25 w/370 gallons. Greg glosses this over with a complete lack of understanding of escort tactics and weaving in 1943 and early 1944, and the required numbers of aircraft to properly relay a penetration raid (there could not be enough till early '44 without stripping higher priority theaters). The D-25 doesn't arrive in numbers until after D-Day, when the Mustang is already around and doing the job better. (As an escort, it wasn't better at a lot of other things than the Jug). As a note, in a follow on video Greg admits he was wrong on the tank, but doubles down on his assertion while shitting on one of the foremost ETO Air War experts for criticizing him. He very literally says it was reasonable for the P-47’s to use a relay system at 10,000’ over occupied Europe then climb to the bomber stream. This was discussed at VIIIFC during ‘43, but immediately thrown out because the fighter group commanders rightly preferred to keep breathing. Also, he asserts the Jugs in early ‘43 were all capable of using pressurized tanks…they weren't universally until quite late. Everything before D-15 took a lot of depot work to install, hundreds of hours. As a final test of logic, consider that this information **was in the basic flight manual.** If the P-47s WERE able to escort to Berlin and back on arrival if only this 200 gallon tank were provided…literally thousands of P-47 pilots and maintainers would have to be complicit in this cover-up. They had the manual, they knew it better than anyone. They knew the bombers were taking losses. Why weren't they crying in the thousands to save their brothers then, and decrying those losses after the war by pointing at this fuel tank? Overall, Greg is a bad source. Largely due to his unprofessional response to critique. He's also got a video where he says the P-47 was the one that defeated the LW, not the P-51 which is statistically dubious. And I think I mentioned his NAA=Fokker video is a real head scratcher. Others I don't remember odd the top of my head. This is all NOT to say there isn't valid criticism of USAAF leadership and development for the CBO. There were real mistakes, real biases. However the whole “Bomber Mafia murderers/conspiracy” narrative is just as incorrect as the “P-51 Our Lord And Savior” narrative. I can also go in a bit of depth regarding his misuse and understanding of the 1939 memo, and the reason Republic didn't have a pressurized flow system unlike Curtiss, Lockheed, and NAA by early 1943 if you'd like.
@@ME-xh7zp Cool thanks for the info. I will look into it. Right now I mostly do L-39 training flights and Mig-15/ Fougat. 🙂 Ancient stuff but fun to train on
You find the same problem with tonnage claims by submarines. Claims are usually significantly higher the actual tonnage. It is hard to accurately identify a merchant ship class through a periscope to get an accurate tonnage estimate. You would think warships would be easier to ID but often mistakes were made. After the war the US Navy matched claims versus Japanese records and many scores were reduced. Generally, it was not a case false sinking claims but identifying the wrong class.
Very true. It's also interesting to see how the claims differed between commanders. In the US Navy there were a few cases of submariners who had given conservative claims and actually have scored better. However, most were overly optimistic and some like Roy Davenport scored way worse than claimed.
With the one very cleat exception of the verification of the sinking of the aircraft carrier Skokaku, which wasn't believed at the time, because no aircraft carrier can possibly be that large.
It could also be something that occurred for USMC and USN pilots during the Solomons campaign: multiple claims for a single kill. Which pilot put the death blow in?
I'm not sure why this matters so much to the author or anyone else. Overclaiming was universal in WWII and so was propaganda utilizing individuals' heroism and accomplishments. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story is a very old trope. I don't idealize pilots but tearing down dead people is not classy. Thanks for another show.
@@ww2hungary827 Hartmann is being called a liar because his claims can't be confirmed 80 years later. He is dead. He can't defend himself. His friends are dead and can't defend him either. Worst of all, what is the point to doing it? Daniel Horvath tore someone down and called his character into question and changed nothing. That is what is not classy. It is actually worse due to the opportunity cost. This guy seems like he did a lot of high quality research. He could have done an excellent talk on kill confirmation in the Luftwaffe and how it compared with contemporary air forces. He could have spoke more about why kill claims seldom match with reported losses. He could have even spoken about how, and maybe why, servicemen are used in propaganda to advance the agenda of the state. He chose to call a dead war celebrity a liar. As enlightening as a scandal sheet.
@@AdamMisnik Find the part were Hartmann is called a liar, lol. We can't be 'emoting' when looking at history if we want the cold hard truth. If he was still alive the truth would not change :) And the truth is classy. For the second half of your comment, LITERALLY go read Verified Victories. video = 25min time limit, book = 215 pages with ~560 footnotes.
No, he does not. You only prove that you lack in the field of scientific data analysis. Without a validation of the used approach the discussion of individual pilots is a stupid exercise. Provide validation, this requires that you first have to understand the issue, then come back.
@olafkunert3714 I agree that I am not an expert in scientific data analysis but I do have two degrees in history and worked with historical documents for over 30 years so I have a good understanding of historical research. I am fine with you disagreeing with my comments, but the tone of your message was not kind.
Very good, David ! Small Corrections: Nowotny wasn't taken out of action because he was too precious; he was leading "Kommando Nowotny" (Me 262 field test unit) in summer 1944. He was KIA in late 44. Günther Rall was also transferred to the West in spring 1944. Hermann Graf was wounded in late 42 around Stalingrad (before Hartmann made his debut) and was made group commander in the West in 43. They weren't exactly out of action in the West ... Interesting side fact: Hartmann did all his kills in the supposedly inferior late-war versions of the 109G; G-6 and G-14. He also made all his kills in the second half of WW2, whereas the other big names in "Club 200" were veterans from the early war. Before being at least squadron commander, Hartmann wouldn't even have been allowed to "customize" his paint job in such a prominent way. Hermann Graf also used a (sometimes red) tulip, btw. As for 19 kills in 48 hours: I agree it's nonsense. This was either made up or with the help of the whole group. The latter practice wasn't unheart of within the Luftwaffe. The squadron and group commanders were often "honored" with the kill shot. The names Galland and von Wittgenstein can be thrown in here. Hartmann's usual rate was roughly one kill every three missions. If he was famous for just one thing, it was that he only engaged when the odds were in his favour; he wasn't exacty known for doing things at all costs. I don't hink he would have risked everything for one week leave. If you're a young captain in the Luftwaffe, you follow orders. And if he was ordered to have made 19 kills in 48 hours, he would have complied. Nevertheless, he had plenty of time to correct the issue after the war. But I can't think of any fighter ace on either side who reduced his kill claims ... Hello Mr Yeager !
Thanks for the comment, but I have to disagree with some points: 1) Nowotny was used as a propaganda figure after he reach his 250 claim mark in late 1943. He was allowed to return to combat ONLY in September 1944 to lead Kommando Nowotny and died shortly thereafter! (So what I said is correct, he was out of action). 2) Rall reached 250 after Nowotny in 1943 and in spring 1944 we was transferred to the Reich defense. (So again, what is said in the video is correct). 3) Graf was the first to reach 200, and was taken out of action and used for propaganda. He later was part of JG 50 and JG 11 but was no longer a competitor as he ‘only’ has 212 claims. So again, what was said in the video is correct.
@@ww2hungary827 Thank you DANIEL (sorry for calling you David !). I agree to disagree, which is called a discussion 🙂 Graf was wounded in late 1942; he didn't take a break. During recovery he commanded Ergänzungsgruppe Ost (a desktop job, I assume) before he formed JG50 in April 1943.(IIRC this Geschwader was never fully formed and disbanded later on) Rall didn't take a longer break either. The only one with a longer break was indeed Nowotny. The air war in the West was quite a bit different in most aspects and the boys had risen to ranks/positions where they saw less action per definition. It seems quite obvious that the high kill numbers only occured in the East. They weren't out of the action; they were in a different theatre.
@@markzimmerman7279 I've looked at all sides (Hungarian, US, USSR, Germany, Romanian). Archives including TsAMO, BAMA, NARA, and HM. This is actually amongst the first books that looks at other nations materials, NOT SOLELY the Germans that what it is UNBIASED. Your emoting comment perfectly shows where authors have failed previously and what 80 years of myth building has done to our understanding of human history.
ERICH HARTMANN was one of the first of the Luftwaffe's Experten or exceptional fighter aces that I first became aware of from reading Edward Sims' book "The Aces Talk" in 1978 when I was in my teens. A couple of years later, I bought and read "The Blond Knight of Germany" and became much intrigued about this man who was a top notch fighter pilot in a fighter wing (JG 52) which emerged from the Second World War as the top scoring Jagdgeschwader in the Luftwaffe. From what I understand of the Luftwaffe's method of crediting aerial victories among its fighter pilots, the criteria was rather exacting. It was not unusual to take up to a year for the RLM to adjudicate on a fighter pilot's claim of an aerial victory. In the late 1990s, I was fortunate to attend an event at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington DC in which Gunther Rall (a mate of Hartmann's in JG 52) and Walter Schuck (of JG 5) spoke at length about their combat experiences on the Eastern Front. Rall, in particular, made it clear that for an aerial claim to gain acceptance by the German Air Ministry (RLM), the pilot putting in the claim had to state in his report the position in which his fighter was at the time of the action, the numbers of enemy aircraft encountered, the time at which he made the kill, and have corroboration for the claim from a squadron mate or at least someone from the ground forces who was a witness to the combat itself. Rall also spoke of how the vastness of the landscape in Russia could have a profound, psychological impact on a pilot. While it is possible that Erich Hartmann did not shoot down 352 enemy planes in aerial combat, let's not sell him short on those skills he possessed in abundance that made him an effective fighter ace in the hazardous arena of aerial combat during the Second World War. After all, any pilot who manages to survive 1,200 combat missions while encountering enemy aircraft on roughly 800 of those missions and NOT be severely wounded, can't be a slouch.
Sims was at least able to ask correct questions and he dilvers in some of his books good hard relevant data. It is a pity the decades later people try to work with much weaker methodology, that with a much larger audience.
Claiming extra air victories got him out of the war plus he got married and presumably had a honeymoon. Much pleasanter than shooting down Soviet aircraft!
The 1940 Luftwaffe suffered from 'Spitfire snobbery' in that pilots bringing damaged aircraft home often claimed to have been hit by a Spitfire when they really didn't know what hit them, they also claimed Hurricanes as Spitfires.
Apparently the RAF had a similar problem identifying types engaged. There were reportedly several claims for He100s, a fighter type that appeared in German propaganda photos and British aircraft recognition books but was never used in combat because it never entered serial production.
Absolutely, but there were more than several - dozens, more like. There are LOTS of references to He113s (which was apparently to be the production version of the He100) in the RAF's Operations Record Books from July-August 1940. I think they only stopped claiming these after a couple of months when all German single engined fighters which crashed on English soil turned out to be Bf109s!
5:15 So Hartman "Claimed a Soviet Fighter" A Claim is simply a statement of what happened (as described earlier). I am confused with terms. Was Hartman saying it was a loss? I don't know, because the presenter only said it was a "Claim". He then goes on to say pilots shouldn't be "Claiming". So is Hartman claiming, is he declaring a loss or a victory? We need to define our terms.
You can pick any "Ace" allied, soviet, german, japanese and whatever, They all overclaimed. I am sure there are aces from other nation, were the verified victories are only 30%. I think it was Graf who had 90% verified victories. That would still put him at 190 victories. What surprises me more than all of that is that people people still care, more than 70 years later .
@@WW2TV Agree, but I probably to old and I have heard these stories for so long. I am just surprised that people still care. There must be something regarding stories that is inherently fascinating.
I would think that putting a bounty on a specific pilot might play into the enemy's narrative and harm morale. I suppose it is a bit of a double edged sword as there is more prestige in taking out an enemy who is seen as highly skilled and it also might work as an excuse for losing. But mostly I don't see why you'd want to help to elevate the status of an enemy to something that your own troops might fear. Something that might have them jumping at shadows and be more afraid to engage. Or on the flip side that might encourage recklessness in the pursuit of the bounty.
@@WW2TV You have to privide numbers of flown sorties, this number was very high per day in summertime in the east. Then you have to prove that Soviet bookkeeping is of sufficient quality to analyse individual pilots. Your claims are done with a not validated approach. Rookie mistake in science.
@@WW2TV 19 kills in 48 hours, there's a lot more incredible victory tallies than that that aren't questioned. For example, Fritz Otto Bernert shot down five aircraft in 20 minutes, and it was all verified by the downed aviators themselves. Hans-Joachim Marseille shot down 17 in three sorties on 1 Sept 1942, which were all documented. David McCampbell shot down nine in one day. Five Americans became "aces in a day" on only two days over Okinawa. It is entirely possible when a large offensive is going on and there's a plethora of enemy aircraft flying to achieve the victories claimed.
@@olafkunert3714 lol Do you know what's a 'rookie mistake' in science? For example talking about something that you do not know and what you have never read, let alone any evidences. By reading the book you would know that Daniel went down to the lists of day-to-day losses by existing loss records vs. claims, where the number of sorties are completely irrelevant. Because who cares about the number of sorties if the enemy simply has not lost any planes there, or just 3 fighters altogether vs. Hartmann's 19 claims...? You try hard to cover yourself with a solid scientific image, but you just make yourself ridiculous.
Gunther Rall was a good pilot I'm not sure if he gives a interview in The World at War, I can always remember that certain interview because he looks the spitting image of my uncle.
In the Blond Knight of Germany there was a doubter who was assigned to fly a Hartmann's wingman. After he flew with him he said he probably had shot down more than he claimed.
Again huge error 03:47. No, this is again RAF term for loss, not Jagdwaffe. He doesnt know what he is talking about at all. We are talking about Abschuss, and that is to force-land enemy aircraft by fire OR manouvre. You do not neeed serious damage when your eywitness saw it force-land. There is even place in Abschussmeldung if he force-landed on wheels or belly. It is visible in famous Gallands Abschussmeldung, so I don't know what did he do in his spare time.
What about the German aces that flew against the West? From what have read the pilots that went up against the British, Galland, Molders, Wick, Marseille, etc, their claims were confirmed by the Brits.
The claims of the Germans were lower than the losses of the RAF, this means most likely still some overclaiming as there were quite a lot of accidents. On the other side the RAF claims in the west in 1941/42 were much higher than the actual German losses....
The data in both World War 1 and 2 is that 80% of pilots shot down did not know they were in danger (such as Chuck Yeager). Thus, any good pilot who was aware would be very hard to shoot down. Thus, success aces were more akin to arial snipers. And a sniper who did not take too many chances could be around a long time. Supporting this 80% figure, Stuka pilot Hans Rudel, who flew something like 2500 missions, late in the war, with a Russian fighter on his tail, said to himself "I've been shot down 30 times, but never by another plane." The most planes shot down in one day by an American was by US Navy David McCampbell. He shot down 9. Zeros, I recall. However, they were obviously flown by inexperienced pilots. Pilots new to combat usually saw very little, they were so focuses on staying alive. In World War 1, a new fighter British pilot had all his attention consumed with staying on his wing leader. When everyone in his group fired their machine guns, he did also. Later on landing, everybody came up and congratulated him on his first kill. That was news to him. @@grahvis
Oh, one more piece of data on how hard it is to shoot another pilot who is aware. In 1944 over Italy, four P-51 pilots, new to combat, went after a German bomber. They shot all their ammo, 4800 bullets (1200 per plane), and the German bomber kept on flying. This demonstrates another fact of aerial combat: good pilots got in close, very close, before shooting.
The Soviets saw yellow identification markings because yellow was the standard theater marking for German fighters in the Soviet Union. Usually a yellow fuselage band, yellow wingtip undersides, and a yellow underside to the cowling.
I would imagine the Germans got in the habit of believing they had shot down loads of Soviet planes given the slaughter in the opening days of Barbarossa. From there they probably just assumed they were inflicting the same levels of damage in later years.
To show what great allied aces could do if they had been allowed back into combat, look at US Navy ace David McCampbell. He was an air group commander, and told to "command, not get involved in 'shoot-em-ups'. He shot down 9 planes in 1 mission. (It must be said the 9 Zero pilots he shot down were very inexperienced.)
I had a copy of The Blond Knight of Germany years ago. As I recall (happy to be corrected), the authors were positively worshipful towards Hartmann, and did not strike me as particularly objective. If anything, they seem a bit too sympathetic towards the regime he fought for.
@@Chilly_Billy Mr.Tolivor was a prolific 'coming of age book' author who was good with words that's why TBoG reads well. Also why its infused with unnecessary romance. Mr. Constable was a military man that became a UFOologist (you cant make this stuff up!). That combo, plus a lack of primary sources and a hot political climate between East and West made for an exciting book, but a poorly researched book. Sadly this is the go-to manuscript for Erich Hartmann even 50 years after its publishing.
He doesnt know basics 03:22. In Jagdwaffe you have proper claim that MUST be confirmed by eywitness in the air or/and the ground! Otherwise it is immediatelly denied. Yes, in RAF claim was what pilot/gunner said! Thats the mayor difference.
@JustMe00257: According to the records on August 23-24, 1944 Erich Hartmann served in 9./JG 52 and claimed 19 fighters in the greater Kielce-Sandomierz area in Poland against air units of the Soviet 2nd Air Army fighting in the region. On August 23 he claimed 8 LaGG, on August 24 he claimed 8 LaGG and 3 P-39 fighters. On August 23 the 2 VA reported the following aircraft losses: 1 Pe-2 bomber to Flak from 2 GvBAK 1 Pe-2 recce. bomber to fighters from 50 GvORAP 1 IL-2, c/n: 10577?? to Flak from 110 GvShAP (Gv.Ml.Lt. Modev, KIA) 1 IL-2, c/n: 10612 from 110 GvShAP (Gv.Ml.Lt. Demidov) was MIA. 1 IL-2, c/n: (187)1088 from 110 GvShAP (Gv.Ml.Lt. Klyuev) was MIA, but returned on the next day. Both crew and plane were OK. 1 IL-2 to Flak from 5 GvShAD (Ml.Lt. Belozherov) 1 IL-2 MIA from 141 GvShAP (Gv.Ml.Lt Petrov) 1 Yak-1B to fighters from 153 GvIAP (Gv.Lt Volkov) On August 24 the 2 VA reported the following aircraft losses: 1 IL-2 to Flak from 140 GvShAP (Gv.Ml.Lt Novozhilov) at Adamuv-E 1 IL-2 to Flak from 141 GvShAP (Gv.Ml.Lt Lobov) at Tarnobzheg. 1 IL-2 to Flak from 142 GvShAP (Gv.Ml.Lt Vedenev) 1 Yak-1B to fighter from 152 GvIAP (Gv.Ml.Lt Zibkov) near Adamuv. 1 Yak-1B to fighter from 156 GvIAP (Gv.Ml.Lt Grimchenko), belly landed at Tarnobzheg-W, 400m, most likely repaired afterwards as the 2 VA lost permanently 2 fighters only. 1 IL-2, c/n: 10577?? to Flak from 6 GvShAD (Gv.Lt Kiashenko). 1 IL-2, c/n: 1878483 was MIA from 108 GvShAP (Gv.St.Lt Shilov). 1 IL-2, c/n: 1873896 was MIA from 109 GvShAP (Gv.Ml.Lt Salikov). So for August 23-24, 1944 the Soviet 2nd Air Army reported the loss of TWO/THREE Soviet Yak-1B fighters only, vs. Erich Hartmann’s 19 fighter claims in air combat. Accepting the higher number (3), this is only ~16 % claiming accuracy, even lower than what Daniel mentioned as Hartmann’s average. No comment.
Interesting show. My only really very minor issue is that it was possible to pick out markings on other aircraft, dogfights are 3 dimensional and pilots referred to seeing markings quite a few times, your not always going head to head with the opponent. But as i said that was my only VERY minor issue, ...otherwise very well presented and researched. Now, lists show at least 106 German pilots with 100+ kills, 35 at 150+ kills, 14 with 200+ kills, 5 with 250+ kills, and 2 with 300+ kills. Really curious now how accurate that really is?
Well Daniel did say that some markings - such as the yellow ones were much easier to see, but that it was the black tulip markings that would have been much harder to discern
The guest critic presumes and asserts that the only soviet pilots that could have observed and noted a tulip patterned enemy aircraft were head on passes or pilots that had him on their six o'clock position... Lol both axis and soviet fighter groups flew in gaggles and engaged in circle and turn fights, and bounce opportunities. Not a persuasive argument but of course its not allowed to acknowledge enemy as in anyways good or valid. And so it goes. Shrug lol
@@WW2TVyou're welcome, don't mention it. Also note, trying to confirm air to air losses via Soviet casualty reports and records is a fools errand; more over, all fighter tallies have substantial margin for errors in any case. Your show is kind of corny and predictably bias, some guests are better than others. This one was not very good, by my estimation. But thanks anyway... Lol
If the plane is forced to land when it wouldn't otherwise, I'd count that as a victory. I think that Luftwaffe direction is more of a counting choice to identify enemy strength rather than a measure of pilots' success. This presentation smells of "Uhm actually"
I'd like to disagree that Luftwaffe claims/victories were only based on just pilot's own claim. I have to check my sources, but I think LW-pilots did have to write a report after flight with some touch to reality. That is not to realize that all the parties overshot their claims, except Finns. I only know Finnish Air Force history, and during Winter War, claims were easely proved, for all shot-down russian planes were to be found on our own territory, sooner or later. Between 1941-44 only claim would be approved by a wittnes, or that the crashed russian plane would be found as Finnish army regained the terrain lost in Winter War.
On June 25th 1941, 13 russian SB-2's crossed the SE border of Finland and most likely were on their way to bomb city of Kuopio, which had a railroad crossing. Their bad luck was that on route to their target, they passed Finnish Air Force base Joroinen, which only two weeks ago had Blenheim bombers of Llv44 but only reasently had turned to homebase for Llv 46 Fiat G50 fighters. As these SB-2's flew literally past the fighterbase, that was a early Christmast for the pilots, they shot down 12 of the 13, then run outta ammo and fuel. The last 13th was shot down to Finnish Gulf by ltn Pelle Sovelius, who took off some 300 km south of Joroinen at Malmi airbase, Helsinki. Now, how can I be sure of those claims? Well, I can show the very places where the SB-2's chrashed, been there. Except the one that was shot into sea. There's a statue on one crashsite in Rantasalmi for one SB-2 crew, please visit if you drive by.
I have no idea of Hartmann’s claims was real or not, but Gun cameras were standard on all fighters, including FW-190 and BF-109. On the Messerschmitt BF-109G it sat in the right wing. It was a 16 mm Film camera made by Siemens and was standard equipment.
Bf 109Gs did not come with gun cameras as standard, nor did any other model. Only the recon models did. a few non-recon models had them, even in the West.
@@WW2TV and anyway, The Luftwaffe was just too resource poor to stick cameras in every fighter; maybe they'd do so with 'experienced pilots to use as training aids, or, as with Sturmstaffel One, many of their pilots had gun cameras installed to see if the new 'sturmbock' concept would work.
To by completely clear, what RAF pilots did is horrendous even in the Battle of Britain. The worst day was 9.7.40 8-5-1 for 1 Jagdwaffe single engine fighter combat loss, so 13 to 1, 10.7.40 - 7:1, 19.7.40 - 9:1, 27.7.40 3:0, 5.8.40 9:1 and I could continue like that!
Christopher Shores (author of the classic 'Fighters Over The Desert and it's new 'rereleased' version) had very detailed records for all sides, and said HJM's claims were 'around' 70-75% accurate, which He (Shores) considered pretty darned good.
First, all claims in World War Two are overstated. Even whole battleships were mistakenly reported sunk. Back in the mid 1990s my master's thesis under Stephen Ambrose was on World War 2 fighter pilots. I looked at the data then available, and added some prose. In broad strokes, Hartmann flew 1405 combat missions, was engaged in combat 845 times, and shot down 352 planes. That is 1 kill every 4 missions. In contrast, top USAAF ace Francis Gabreski flew 166 missions, with 31 kills, which comes out to 1 kill every 5.4 missions. Robert Johnson, second ranking US European ace, with 28 kills, averaged 1 kill per 3.2 missions. A better rate than Hartmann. But Hartmann flew 10 times more missions. To make a broad comparison. When the peace treaty was signed on Sept 2, 1945, the top 3 German aces averaged 1000 missions, and 309 arial victories. And all 3 were still alive. The top 3 American pilots flew an average of 147 missions, with an average of 37 kills, and only 1 was alive. To shoot down large numbers of planes, you have to stay alive a long time. Indeed, Hartmann was the top scoring ace of World War 2, regardless of his exact number.
But Richard Bong killed himself through pilot error. He forgot to turn on the auxiliary fuel pump on the P-80 he was testing. The primary failed and crashed.
It is good that people can dedicate large portions of their time to writing about past events. I do so, though not in a Masters History course (that money I rather use to travel to dig up the aircraft themselves which I've done 4 times now). A critical point to consider, those ratios only make sense if a claim = loss. There is no way to know unless each claim is compared to the losses (hence why we wrote the book). So unless the claim = loss, the ratio will automatically be inflated. As it stands the ratio is only the claiming-rate-per-mission, not the victory-rate-per-mission.
Very true. I did not intend to cherry pick statistics, but Bong fits into the larger pattern of deaths through pilot error and often rashness. To shoot down large number of planes you cannot become hors de combat by accident, pilot error, or whatever. I think the most common death of fighter pilots is car accidents. Of all the US Marine aviators killed in World War 2, only 18% were killed in combat by the Japanese. The rest were accidents, pilot error, and fast cars. @@johnshepherd9676
John, also, the number 2 American ace, McGuire (38 kills) also died from pilot error. In combat, he tried to turn too sharply at too low an altitude, crashed and was killed. A theme that ran through my research (and was confirmed with a US pilot in the Vietnam war) is that after a certain point of proficiency, many pilots feel invincible, and are not quite careful enough. If they live through that phase, they know they can die very easily, from a host of causes. As the saying goes, "There are old pilots, and bold pilots, but very few old, bold pilots." American aces such as Gabreski and Boyington had completed their missions. Their bags were packed and by the door. But, they decided to fly one last mission. And both became POWs.
"To shoot down large numbers of planes, you have to stay alive a long time. " Yes, getting enough sleep and restrict alcohol consumption was important factor in Hartmann's case. Boring but effective.
Great episode but obviously You could identify Hartmanns body for a reward claim if he was shot down and crashed in a field in Soviet occupied territory.
@@ww2hungary827 agreed that there was no bounty that we KNOW of but other bounties existed so it’s not out of the question. We don’t know everything that Roosevelt and Churchill or their governments said and did much less what Stalin and the USSR may have done .
@@AstroJoeVino There was no bounty. One is welcome to read the unit reports of the Soviet units...no mention of ANY bounty let alone one for Erich Hartmann. As I stated in the video, its a post-war myth - probably derived from a misinterpretation of Soviet monetary reward directives from 1941,43.
If we follow Dan's perspective then how were the Battle of Britain aces like Galland, Wick and Molders awarded their victories? Almost all of their victories fell in allied territory. The claims were considered victories and in many cases were losses but often weren't. Therefore, based on Dan's premise then the Germans had far fewer victories than were awarded. Also what happens when the enemy aircraft falls into the sea. No wreckage? The German air service in WW1 largely claimed inside it's own territory but by 1918 It is true that they allowed claims that could not be verified by wreckage. ( I should add that I have his book "Verified victories" and it is excellent). Aerial victories are rarely 100% accurate. The point that he is making is that Hartmann does not destroy 352 Soviet/American aircraft. Nor do many of the other aces like Rall, Nowotny, Batz etc but the Luftwaffe from the beginning of WW2 does not apply it's own rules for confirmation of a claim and loosens these even more as the war on the Eastern Front..
Interesting point. However if you listen carefully to what I say, that would only occur if the enemy plane belly landed on enemy territory (not destroyed). It if went straight into the ground then its obviously going to be destroyed. So that goes against what you wrote above. On the other hand, the Luftwaffe had maybe 30 mins over England to do their things, thence the hasty claims which (surprise, surprise) led to many British planes returning damaged to their base which leads to over claims. The records speak for themselves, the Luftwaffe over claimed a great deal in the BoB. Ps. Thank you for your support!
@@WW2TV It is not that complicated. You can compare for the western ToW loses of one side with claims of the other. You can even compare claims over own territory with claims over enemy territory. You get a clear picture, the overclaiming of RAF pilots was much higher than the German overclaiming. You can also compare overall losse (combat + accidents) for the whole war for the west with German claims, and do the same for German losses and allied claims. What do you get? Again, a better result for the Germans. It is always a good idea in a data based discussion to provide a useful framework you do your discussion in. If the overclaiming on the allied side was higher than the German overclaiming, that is a very very save bet for the east, then the performance different is even larger than you get by inflated numbers.
So a simple smell test in a scientific discussion would be to compare the Soviet losses (combat + accidents) with German claims. Then one could do this with Soviet claims and German losses....
Eric Hartmann he flew on the eastern front from 1940 and for many more years Hartmann has spent more hours in the air than most pilots therefore he might have had more experiance than any other pilot. The Russian pilots had far less training and flying hours. So they were easy for German Pilots to fight. When German Pilots fought the American pilots, the Americans had way more training and flying hours. They considered 3 victories against Russians equivalent to 1 victory against an American.
Actually, only 1 of Hartmann's victories came before 1943. And 193 of his victories came after January 1944. His high scores did not derive from the 'happy hunting' days early in the war.
Paul you are great. Daniel is full of crap. He keeps saying YAK,YAK. Fighter pilots first targets are BOMBERS. Hartman did not go up to target fighters. Bombers are the target. High kill rates are possible when you are targeting BOMBERS. I am in no way a Wehraboo. I'm a realist.
Don't matter how 'realistic' you are, if the escort jumps you, or end up in front of you before you get near the bombers or the 'Zementers', you are more than likely going to end up claiming a fighter.
Regarding the bounty myth, I'd love to see some evidence for this, too. However, it's nonsense to claim it would require a positive ID at 800 km/. It'd only require a positive ID of a corpse. The 800-km/h-through-an-A4-size-windscreen argument is frivolous bullshit.
@@WW2TV No, I disagree with the general point that claiming the bounty required identification during a high-speed pass. It's a trivial objection: they'd be identifying a dead bloke in a crashed plane, not trying to identify him in the air. The argument makes no sense. He's on firmer ground when he says he can't find a reference for the bounty.
@@Splattle101 How often did planes crash in territory that wasn't controlled by the pilot's side, even with the Soviet Union advancing relatively rapidly at times? And, how often did planes get engulfed in flames, either before, during or after impact, in such a way that identification of a body was rendered impossible?
@@michaeldunne338 It doesn't matter. It's a ridiculous argument. "Yes that's right, comrade, I''ve awarded the bounty to my pilot. Yes, comrade, that's right. He said he identified Hartmann during the fight. Yes, that roguish, lopsided smile, comrade. No, we haven't seen the wreck. No, it didn't occur to us to look for the dead pilot's papers or otherwise try to confirm the kill, comrade General Secretary." *gulp* As I said above, he's on much firmer ground when he says he can find no evidence for the bounty. I applaud the debunking myths and the murder of sacred cows, but I'm not in favour of replacing them with speculative nonsense.
I can't recall which book I read it in (Johannes Kaufman An Eagles Odyssey, and Adam Makos A Higher Call) but in one of them some German talk about other German pilots purposely inflating their claims because that was part of the game. Also giving awards and puffing up kills and heroism in the air was common among all air forces. General Kenney of 5th air Force in the South Pacific was very adept at it. One time recommending a group commander who had disobeyed orders for a CMH because it wouldn't look good to say he was disobeying orders when killed.
You can get a feeling for the overclaiming by comparing official losses of one side witth the claims of the other, you get interesting results. And no, the German overclaiming is not the real issue. If you correct for allied overclaiming too the performance ratio becomes even better for the Germans. :-)
You might be thinking of Hans-Joachim Marseille in A Higher Call. From memory, Makos states that Franz Stigler and other pilots knew that Marseille's claims were exaggerated, but because he was a "star" pilot they did nothing about it.
That's probably it. Very similar to the ace race over rabaul in the south Pacific. After boyington was shot down several pilots were making excessive claims. One pilot would always come in after the rest of the squadron claiming several planes when he was alone and no one else around. People were getting very suspicious and even openly questioning his claims. One day the group commander assigned a wing man to him and ordered him to stay with him no matter what. The guy making the claims was very hostile towards his new wingman. He went into a cloud and tried to lose him on purpose. To no avail. The high claimer got no kills that day. But he was reckless and went down to straf. Was shot down and killed. After that nobody made his claims an issue. They didn't want his parents to have to deal with the issue. When you look at the claims and actual number of planes confirmed by enemy daily reports most pilots should have their kills at least cut in half. Of course it mostly wasn't on purpose. The zero tended to smoke when the pilots boosted power. So if you shot at one from behind the reaction would be to boost power and dive away. The smoke and diving would look like a kill.
Should remember that the average kill claim accuracy across the whole war was about 1/3 - so Hartmann is pretty close to that. The real outliers are guys with 90% plus.
It is useless to provide an average, when you have dramatic differences in overclaiming between nation, branches and ToWs: more than one magnitude for USAAF bomer crews of Europe, more than 8-fold by Soviet fighter pilots, RAF pilots were 1941 4-fold overclaiming, 2-fold in 1942 (France, Channel). For the east you you make a good case for 30-40% overclaiming by German pilots. The German overclaiming in the west was much likely lower.
@@olafkunert3714 It's not useless, as it appears claim rates stayed nearby 1/3 pretty consistently for fighters across the war and forces. It excludes bomber defense. Defensive fighting and gun cameras could deflect it a bit but it's a good wag.
I have the 'Verified Kills' book by the Horvaths, and it's very enjoyable reading. The pilot with the best record over Hungary was, apparently Helmut Lipfert, who's claims accuracy was pretty darned good (80++ percent as well as planes that were shot down or badly damaged by him that he didn't claim). Lipfert was also a 'late arrival' to the East (late 42/early 43) and rather older than many other pilots, in that he was pushing 30. It was thought that his being older made him more careful about his claims.
@@WW2TV Your methodology is not good and strictly speaking does not add to a good discussion. Try scientific methodology A much better start would be to compare overall losses of one side with overall claims of the other and get a feeling for the issue. People have done this many years ago. Then get a feeling for the number of sorties pilots could fly in the east and in the west and the implication of the differences.
I have to comment on Daniels the “Myth of Erich Hartmann” there is nothing mythical about Hartmann he was an outstanding fighter pilot who also had exceptional luck to survive as long as he did on the Eastern Front to attain his score of 352 victories, a score which is not particularly unique as Gerhard Barkhorn also claimed 300 kills. Most of his analysis is based on his interpretation of the facts which he colours with his rather self opinionated bias and just repeats the same arguments I have seen on other websites all of which “Debunks” nothing.
@@WW2TV I never said the subject was not interesting I like all content on the history of WW2 that is why I like channels like this one, but Daniels outbursts of Hartmann is “BS” is questioning the character of Hartmann, you can take Hartmann’s biography and question its accuracy. Like Daniels claim that the ransom is all “BS” in the biography that he obviously read he chose to leave out the section when Hartmann was captured by the Russians and the NKVD were interrogating him the Russian said “a price on your head during the war, I would be rich if our government would pay it today” you can take that as truth or Hartmann exaggerating his experience in Russian. I tend to believe the person that was actually there, rather than some post-war revisionist trying to make a name for himself
@stig5885: Re: Hartmann's 352, the claims are just paperwork, the victories are piles of twisted aluminum. The two in Hartmann's case do not match for about 70-80%. Hope you understand the difference. The 352 is debunked with the detailed loss-analysis presented in Daniel's book, not with the discussed colors in the presentation.
@@gaborhorvath4873Sorry I don’t understand your argument all claims are “paper work” all victories are twisted “aluminium”! The fact is all claims are paper work, but all signed by a witness, and confirmed by the German O.K.L or confirmed by wreckage (aluminium) on the ground, the Luftwaffe fought mainly on defensive operations covering the German army many of the fronts were static for weeks/months many victories could easily be confirmed by the German army. 70-80% does not match what? The Russian records! Nearly all combat units on all sides their records were never complete, I could make the point that the Russians for political reasons never admitted their true losses all Russian combat units has a political commissar attached to them, but like Daniels and your argument it’s just my post war opinion. Daniel boasts “I’ve read 10,000 Russian papers, 10,000 from the 100s of thousands or millions of documents produced by the Germans and Russians 10,000 is barely scratching the surface. Also in the heat of combat the pilot couldn’t always be exact with the location and times of each victory, to try and put an argument about colours forward is nonsense, colours doesn’t even come into it, Hartmann attacked from close range what’s colours got to do with anything? I’ve been to many air shows and after attending a few I could recognize an aircraft from a distance and I haven’t even got fighter pilot eyesight! So don’t believe all post war historians narrative you have just got to take it as their “OPINION” on what research they have undertaken. I could give a completely different narrative on Daniels account, so could many other people. So I hope you understand!
Hartmann spent 10 years in a soviet gulag for crimes which included destroying over 350 soviet planes. So, did the soviets lie about this crime or are soviet plane losses a lie. Also, a Russian researcher named Dimitri Khazanov, who published an article in 2005 claiming to have identified notable inconsistencies and even errors in Hartmann’s kill log. Khazanov estimates that Hartmann probably only knocked down 70-80 aircraft, not 352. Very similar to this book, or is this book very similar to the article. I am not saying plagiarism, but did this author go to Harvard.
According to recent new events, Harvard is apparently for those who do plagiarism, hold antisemitic views, and operate on a play-to-win academic lifestyle. So thank you for no counting me as one of those LOL. The Khazanov article is actually full of errors. It used the claims from the shady book "The Blond Knight of Germany", not German records. That's why we did not use it in our book. What could help your skepticism is actually reading Verified Victories :) Ps. our sources come STRAIGHT from the archives of various nation's military archives. TsAMO, BAMA, NARA, HM.
"Khazanov estimates that Hartmann probably only knocked down 70-80 aircraft, not 352. " If the top German pilots, which calimed a high share of the Soviet losse had only achieved 25% of their claims, who did the actual killing then? You have to explain the high Soviet losses. 30-40% overclaiming is possible overall for the Germanpilots, 800% for the Russin pilots.
It would have been better to compare first the sum of German claims and the sum of confirmesd losses by Soviet units in Soviet sources. You get a difference according to authors like Roman Töppel for the Kursk operations between German claims and confirmed Russian losses of about 40%, however, not all losses - local fighter units and long range bomber units were not listed - were correctly compiled, so according to Töppel it was in the range 30-40%. That would be the overall number to start with. The other aspect is, that Hartman flew a lot of sorties, around 800 with more than 500 sorties with enemy contact. The 19 claims in 2 days issue is not a real issue as fighter units were stationed near the front and fight happened in low altitude, 5-6 sorties per day were possible in summer, a comparison with western front situation is stupid. BTW you have a similar situation in Africa with well diocumented ,losses of the RAF.
@@ww2hungary827 The basic issue is that you have to compare numbers corrected for overclaiming. The Germans overclaimed most likely in the east by 30-40%, the Soviets by 800-1000%, if you use corrected numbers, the performance ratio becomes even betterfor the German pilots. The same is true for the fighting aginst the RAF. T
Speaking of Kursk, there has been a book that I have been wating quite a while for (Aces At Kursk, by Lawrence.); once that book is released, I think a lot of questions will be answered.
There is so much questionable argumentation here. Now, I don't want to sound like a fan boy but... The argument about his tulip nose pattern to be not known doesn't make sense to me. Planes usually don't fly alone and it was never claimed that Hartmann shot down each and every plane in a formation. So there were of course witnesses who might have seen his plane on multiple occasions. The ambush tactics of course included get in fast, shoot down target quickly and leave. You don't want to hang around when you are outnumbered. That leaves plenty of other soviet pilots to be potential witnesses. The problem with his open oil filter on his 300th claim.... I'm not an aviation specialist but it was mentioned you don't fly around with and an open oil filter in combat. Well, landing is not a combat situation. I don't know, maybe they are opened once you touch down? Just curious. 350+ claimed victories is a lot. How outlandish is that number? I mean compared to other German aces? I know it is above and beyond but what about all those claims of 100 victories? All BS as well? How much is "realistic"? 297? 200? Do we take into account how many sorties pilots flew in WW II? I had an uncle (in name only but we all called him Uncle Richy), who commanded KG 55 (Richard Brunner). He said he had some 500+ sorties under his wing. Hartmann flew over 1000 sorties afaik. Certainly a lot of chance to encounter and fight with enemy aircrafts. I agree that not every claimed kill was one.
I don't doubt Hartmann was a great pilot. However, when people bring up the US pilots not having nearly as many kills I like to bring up the long distance the US pilots flew to fly one sortie... whether Europe or Pacific they flew hours to claim one or two kills. Meanwhile Hartmann for example could fly four to six sorties a day... which offers far more opportunity. Once again... not trying to downplay the man... but we must keep all factors in sight.
Heck, the closest equivalent the Allies had for a 'target rich environment' was Malta: the defenders were heavily outnumbered (and technically inferior) for a while and had Italian and German fighters and bombers just buzzing all over them==and until the squadrons in Malta got those Spitfires, things were quite desperate--even when they got the Spits things were still quite deadly. Men like Beurling could shoot accurately and get home safe, but most pilots probably had their hands full just trying to stay alive.
Thanks for this revisionist history myth. It puts to rest all those things said and written by participants and their researchers that didn't know as much as you do.
Aces. Always some kinda of back story This Nazi pilot is no different. Your readers might not be aware, but fighter squadron commanders often became kill hogs. Robin Olds was known for that essentially holding his flight mates back to take the easy kills for himself.
Considering Old never made ace over North Vietnam and whenever they got into it with the Migs the kills were pretty uniformly spread out and that the NVAF ground control didn't let their aircraft loiter in the hot seat for too long, I have to question the logic of the comment.
Barely 5 minutes and I've already learned something new. Very interesting that the RLM had a specific regulation on not being able to claim soft landings on the enemy side of the line.
Superb presentation. I really like how Daniel defined his terminology first before diving into the stats - this is how it should be done!
Well said!
@matthewgreenfield360 the Viewer deserve as much :) Glad you enjoyed this episode of WW2TV!
Yep
Thank you Paul for this opportunity, boy was it fun!
Another interesting myth busting presentation - hope Daniel can come back on for a longer presentation about his field of expertise.
Sounds interesting :)
Many of the Hartmann myths discussed first appeared with the Toliver/Constable book ' The Blond Knight of Germany' published in 1970. Only 289 of his claims had been processed as 'confirmed' by Abschusskommission by war-end, and only 307 were officially filed. He had two complete logbooks listing all of his missions and claims, and after capture the first was recovered but the second has remained missing ever since. From his 151st onwards the rest of his 352 claims were based on memory by Hartmann and collated by Toliver/Constable in the 1950s, also utilising fragments of data from Hartmann’s letters home, the JG 52 war diary and from other JG 52 pilot sources.
Great stuff. Critical thinking and skeptical (reasonably so) analysis of the claims. Well done!
Critical thinking works in a different way.
@@olafkunert3714 Like trusting all biographies and publications which were written using exclusively one-sided German materials without any control references of the other side, until it became a rock solid myth? I get it... But those days are over and this is rather a 10 count over the old fashion, one-sided history writing...
@@gaborhorvath4873 Look, we have relatively hard overall data that indicate that German pilot may overclaim by 30-40%, that is not disputed by me. The official Soviet combat losses are in the 50000 plane range, additional 70000 were (according to Soviet data) lost in non-combat situations.
However, if you want to make a case for individual pilots, you have to provide in a scientific discussion evidence, that your approach is correct, you have to deliver a validation. This was not done by the post and many commenters.
We have the fact, that most claims come from a relative low number of German pilots (overall these claims must be in the 30% range in order to explain the high Soviet losses), if you want to show, that pilot H was overclaiming more than the average, you have to show that with available Soviet data for other pilots fall within the 30%. OK?
Or from a different POV: You have to show that the quality of Soviet data is sufficent to answer the question for individual pilots. It is naive to use without validation Soviet data when it is clear the fighter units lied when it comes to their kills, for each real kill there were 8 or 9 invented ones, but they do not try to polish their losses. E.g. are the high number of accidents observed for Soviet units real or a bookkeeping trick to cover up for losses? What is the share of honest mistakes on both sides, e.g. real losses are booked with different dates or sites and are not found by comparing list from both sides.
Without a proper validation you get slaughtered in a serious scientific discussion. That most readers obviously do not understand this issue and claim that the contribution is goor only shows that we have a nice example of projection. 🙂
@@olafkunert3714 where you get 'slaughtered' (using your own words), is that you can't seem to fathom that with a 30 minute time-limit (not specific to only claims) NO ONE is able to go thought hundreds of claims individually. That's why I kept mentioning the book. Those unable to grasp this simple fact have taken to the comment section and started to emote. If you happen to be that interested, pick up a copy of the book and prepare to be blown away. I have read the book from the German author you keep harping on about, Verified Victories makes that one look like child play because it goes down to the individual pilot-v-pilot level to compare claims, not high level statistics. It also puts together an average range for good claims over the Eastern Front in 1944. Literally everything you would want is in the book. 30 minute video vs 215 pg book with ~560 footnotes, take your pick.
When spoken, "Erich Hartmann" sounds very much like "Eric Cartman".
😂 I was just looking for that comment
You damn hippie!
And for the record, Der Feurherr never said 'baby'!
Do you mean the Eric Cartman from Sud Park?
@@effbee56 YES
In the last 30 years or so there have been numerous books that have looked at victory claims and compared them to documented losses as reflected in official records. Short story is that significant overclaiming (often by factors of three to five) was done by all sides in all theaters. The 8th AF was pretty rigorous in using gun cameras, however, even then awarded victories were about twice actual losses. After all, the gun camera just shows you what happens in the field of view. In most cases it can confirm hits but unless you see catastrophic damage (which does happen) it usually doesn't confirm destruction. And gun camera use was infrequent and depended on the local situation. For example, at Guadalcanal the Marines didn't have paper to document flights at times. Gun cameras were a distant dream.
" Short story is that significant overclaiming (often by factors of three to five) was done by all sides in all theaters."
That is not correct. The German overclaiming in the east is less than 50%, and in the west much lower. What people usually not want to see is the much higher overclaiming of the allies.
@@olafkunert3714 This presentation was on Erich Hartmann and not on general statistics. And Hartmann overclaimed (knowingly, or unknowingly - that's a different question) beyond all imagination, this is a fact! Only a very small portion of his claims matches the Soviet/American losses, while other German aces are the exact opposite. It is funny that most Hartmann-fans do not even know that the soviet aircraft losses are nicely recorded by date of loss, Moscow Time of loss, location, list of lost airmen & their service history, the airframe- and aircraft engine construction numbers of their lost plane (sometimes even with lost parachute and personal revolver numbers.) and Daniel did his research based on these ultimate and official military records. This is why it is completely irrelevant how some people try to twist the German claims and statistics, since most of Hartmann's claims simply do not match the Allied AC losses, while other German pilots' claims do. And that is a big difference.
Not in the Battle of England though @@olafkunert3714
@@gaborhorvath4873 My reply was to the general calim, that there was high overclaiming. Please do not work with stramen.
Your claim is not supported by other work, Soviet losses are sometimes with more or less large gaps. See e.g. the work of Roman Töppel on Kursk. It would be a real surprise that despite huge Soviet inaccuracies in case of infantry and tank losses the figher losses were correct.
There was a general overclaiming by German pilots in the 30-40% in the east, the overclaining of Soviet pilots was in the 800-1000% range. That are quite hard numbers.
For me it is likely that Hartmann's claims have at least the 30% error.
@@olafkunert3714 Sorry, but it is obvious to me that most people have no clue what they are talking about. What is truly incomplete is not the (late war) Soviet Air Force documentation, but the research of some authors who previously published books on the Eastern Front and people think that is the standard. Look, I am a member of an Aircraft Museum's research team and I have seen all those Soviet military records that Daniel used in his book. Surely in his presentation he had no time to go through every single claim, but in his/our book there is the full list of the Soviet AC losses by time, serials, names, everything. That's why he said most of the losses do not match Hartmann's claims. He is working on a much deeper and more detailed level than what the general public has ever seen or imagined, which obviously cannot come through a 30 mins. presentation. That's why he was mentioning the book multiple times. I am absolutely sure that most people still have no idea what they criticise.
Reminds me of the quote from Man Who Shot Liberty Valance..."When the legend becomes fact, print the legend". Very good episode debunking the legend in this case.
Nineteen victories in two day is perfectly achievable! I get them in War Birds all the time! (ducking). 🤣
Lol yeah, in World of Warplanes the planes are conveniently waiting to be shot and respawn like real planes do? Hi FAA I am joking here don't pull my Pilot Certificate 🙂
Woody/Daniel. Fabulous presentation! Myth busted! I am sure that there is more to come from Daniel! Bob
To call something a fabulous presentation what lacks some basic numbers is stupid.
What basic numbers did it lack in your opinion?
I have no problem with anyone that want to criticise a comment that I make as long as it is not offensive. Your comment is offensive. I stand by what I said. The presentation was fabulous. The content was both researched and for me, interesting. Regards, Bob@@olafkunert3714
Thanks Bob
Excellent! And past due. I always knew these guys on the Eastern Front were padding it.
Given, how heavily outnumbered the LW was, to try to mix it up or follow down a damaged aircraft would be a great way to commit suicide. The only tactic they had that contributed to their personal survival was a fast diving strike and a quick break away back to altitude. Naturally that meant that lots of times, the fighter escorts or the first elements of the strike group take the brunt of the attack, when the rest of the Sturmovik and light bomber regiments cruise on and pulverize their ground targets. It's like JG27 and HJ Marseilles. No matter how well he and his cohorts and Italian allies did against those Hurricanes and P40s, the Desert Airforce bombers and fighter bombers were still able to get thru pound the Afrika Korp and their supply lines
There is a 2009 thread on Axis History Forum ("Erich Hartmann - Any evidence for claimed bounty & nickname?") that comes to a similar conclusion that it lacks both plausibility and evidence.
excellent presentations.
Great episode and a very analytical approach to question Hartmann's claims. 👍
What I can’t really believe is that Hartmann had to bail out 13 times because he flew too close to his victims and their debris damaged his fighter plane.
G'day,
Um, as far as I know..., that isn't quite correct.
He crash landed 13 or 14 times, sometimes because he flew through a Debris-cloud, but every time he crashed, his Aeroplane had been damaged by his Enemies' Gunfire - and only sometimes the Debris caused the critical damage leading to the Crash-landings....
And in his final Combat, he was out of Ammunition, alone, facing a swarm of P-51s ; and so he jumped out, and walked back home with his Silken Umbrella deployed above his head....
Discretion being the better part of becoming
Freshly ventilated & burned
Compost ; as he saw it at the time.
My take on him is that he was flying Primary Gliders and Sailplanes as a
Foetus..., because his mother was a
Gliding Instructor, and she flew into the third Trimester
Once he could sit up and hold his head up - 18 months or so of age, she was taking him Slope Soaring, on her lap...
I've encountered claims that his unofficial first Solo was in a Dagling or Zogling Primary Glider, at age 8...., and his official First Solo was at 13 or 14.
Glider Pilots begin by learning to fly the WING,
Y'see...
So, later on in their career, in a different machine - when the source of all
Hot oily noisy
Vibrations suddenly quits...; then
The Sailplane Pilot
Sighs with relief..., &
Reverts to making a
NORMAL
Unpowered Approach &
Landing...(!).
My contention is that the reason the Jagdwaffe was
SO very effective in it's heyday, is that the Luftwaffe largely did their Ab-Initio Flying Training on
Gliders &
Sailplanes...
Whereas the Allied
Flying Schools almost exclusively relied on
Powered Aeroplanes within which to teach their
Fledglings to
Levitate...
There were 3 Jagdwaffe Pilots with Kill-Tallies above 300.
There was one Pommie & one Yanqui who got 40 at per each, and Clive "Killer Caldwell" was credited with 28 Aerial Victories...; but according to his most recent biography he also diligently (proudly) logged his Personal Kills as well stating in interviews that he knew he'd killed at least 500 Germans & Italians running around in the Libyan & Egyptian Desert, before beginning to shoot at the Japanese...
Quite the eccentric, was Clive.
I had a nodding acquaintance with him in 1979, when we both used to drink at the
Royal Australian Aero Club Bar at Bankstown Aerodrome (the best Beer on the Airfield !).
So, anyway
After that seque...,
If Hartmann's Claimed Kill-Tally is taken at face value, then
Hitler still had to replace
Hartmann's Aeroplane 14 different times..., because his best efforts had broken whatever he took off in !
The ranking RAF Ace,
Johnnie Johnson,
Accumulated 40 Victories without his Aeroplane ever being hit by any Gunfire from any of his Enemies' Aircraft...; but he finished up a
Prisoner of War after trying to fly too low while strafing an Airfield, and thus destroyed his own Propeller at 400 mph, and nowhere to go but straight ahead.
Oopsie...!
If you backtrack me to my
"Personal Aeroplanology..." playlist, therein to locate & view,
"World's Greatest Fighter Pilot...; Ulmari Juttilainen !"
94 witnessed confirmed Aerial Victories, and not one Weapon fired by his Aerial Enemies ever connected with his Aeroplane....!
Finland never had to replace Ulmari's Fighter due to any Aerial Enemy Action..., 34 of his Victories were achieved in Brewster Buffaloes (!), and in 1942 the RAAF Buffalo was pretty widely regarded as being the Worst Fighter Aircraft on Earth.
(I have a Video on that one, too...).
And, I dunno about Soviet Bounties on Hartman..., but a bloke from 20 miles Northwest of here,
Charlie Scherff, from Emmaville NSW 2371, Oz ; flying a RAAF
Fighter-Bomber version of the DH Mosquito in 1943, over Belgium, spotted, attacked & shot down one of the only five
Heinkel-111 "Zwilling" 5-engined Glider Tugs ever built...
The British made quite the Propaganda Celebrity of him on that account, via the BBC, so his Heroism won him a DFC
Admired all over the
Empire...
And in retaliation...,
Squeaking in the Berlin Slortspalast, in a
Screech which Berlin Radio obediently pumped out to vent all heir outrage,
Adolf of the Hitler variety
Publicly announced a
"Bounty" on the Head of Charlie Scherff of 50,000 Reichmarks or some similarly staggering "round" number.
So it said, in the Vintage BBC Propaganda Wall-Poster, printed or reprinted and propagated by the Australian Government, at the time ; it's in storage now, at the Land Of The Beardies History House, Museum & Research Centre in Glen Innes, but in the 1970s it was on display in their War Memorial Room. Which is where I saw & read it, multiple times.
He was one of the
Heroic Local Yokels who were
Lionised as Wartime Heroes.
To expedite his Demobilisation, in 1945 he flew his Mosquito both ways up & down the Glen Innes Main Street, in Knife-Edge flight with a Wingtip below the top of the Town Hall Roof - and a low Circle around the Hospital between the two passes..., to show his fiance (a Nurse) that he was almost home....
He was indeed back home, on the Train, and in Civilian Clothes about 2 days later ; Outprocessing duly
EXPEDITED !
He's one of the few Australians who ever actually pissed
Herr Hitler off, personally, to the point where anybody who shot him down would be paid a special Reward for their exertions.
About 10 or 12 years later he died, drunk, in a crashed Sports Car wrapped around a Tree ; with somebody else's wife alongside.
No Random Breath Tests back then, nor any
Speed Limits on the
Open Road...;
No Seatbelts, and no
Collapsible
Steering Columns either.
Lots of opportunity for
Bored
Adrenaline Junkies..., merely
Driving to & from very boozy
Parties, back then,when
Wool was
£1 per pound....
And the Scherffs are
Sheepfarmers...
Apres Le Guerre Finni...,
Then comes the
PTSD....;
Taking all of the
Fun right out of the
Heroic Patriotism
Felt in the wayback, in the
Dayze when their
World was all
Young...!
Requiescat Im Pace...
Such is life,
Have a good one...
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
@@WarblesOnALot ?
@@Outlier999
Think of it as being
Truth in labelling...
In 1986 the nickname was bestowed onto me by the residents on the local Alternative Lifestyle Multiple Occupancy Community...
("Hippies on the Commune".
I'm not THAT sociable, I reside on an Endangered Species Sanctuary..., but I do run with the Hippies ; going there for Parties, Festivals, Markets, Funerals and to visit friends.
When my daughter made this Channel & bookmarked it onto my phone, my existing nickname was the obvious choice of
Channel Name.
My local Aboriginal name is
"...'Ave-A-Chat..." ; so two nicknames from two different Fringe Groups on the outside edges of Society - and the two Labels
Dovetail...
I think I did rather well, actually..., one of my neighbours, name of Mabbet ; in his 60s, still answers to
"Maggot"...(!).
Such is life,
Have a good one...
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
Howdy folks! Great and long-overdue analysis of German fighter claims. Fighter claims on all sides are sketchy and provide only a rough estimate of the total. Like to see similar analysis on many more claims to see how they fare. More Horvath please.
@@WarblesOnALot Total word salad.
Great episode thank you 👌
Enjoyed listening to Mr. Horvath and his analysis: sharp, tight and interesting.
Dan managed a very clear busting of that myth. Great episode.
well said phil
Interesting and enjoyable.
Daniel - outstanding, my friend...
Almost as good as your book :)
Thanks Nick :) Good to see you here
1. What became clear through the fog of war during the Battle of Britain was this: the 80-20 rule. Or more precisely, the 90-10 rule. 10% of the pilots were shooting down 90% of the planes. (And of course kills numbers were overly optimistic.) That conforms to human nature overall. It's a very specialized skill. What, 5% of the top tennis player win 90% of the tournaments. You get the drift. All pilots were brave and did their duty, but again, it's like life insurance agents. Either you make a lot of money, or barely any, with little in between.
2. By one measure the top 2% of German aces accounted for 50% of the kills. (and of course there was over reporting.
3. In very broad strokes the top German aces flew about 9 times more missions, and had about 9 times more kills than the top American and British aces. Why?
4. The short version is: if US and British pilots were very good, they were rotated out of combat. a) because they were very valuable, b) to train, and c) because the US and Brits had some reservation about glorifying young men who were avid killers.
5. If a US pilot was very good: Bong, Joe Foss, Gabreski, Boyington, Johnson, they were pulled out of combat after 26 kills (WW 1 ace Rickenbacker's total) and only in Bong's case, let back in.
If a US or British was not very good (and thus not a rare national treasure) they were allowed back into combat. Catch-22.
6. In sum, it appears that the Germans made better use of their 10%. That's why they flew 9 times more missions, and shot down 9 times more planes. In skill or bravery, there was nothing to set them all apart. Although, Hartmann saw combat in over 800 missions, and Gabreski flew a total of 166. In combat, experience is everything, and Hartmann and other Germans, had much more.
The Germans rested, and feted and medalled their top 10%, and let them return to combat. Great allied pilots were so rare, they were pulled out of combat.
Some good points there. There is also the German 'Ace' factor. In WW1 the Germans glorified the Aces as part of their 'warrior' culture, which was then also utilized by the Nazis for their 'supermen' propaganda. In the Luftwaffe, a whole 'squadron'/Geschwader would be dedicated to getting kills for the 'Ace, whereas Allied pilots were part of a 'team'. This then allowed the Aces to increase their kill rates. The issue with this was, that their wingmen were supposed to stay very close, which in turn, & I've read Allied pilots mention this, the Ace's wingman got drawn into the arc of fire of the Allied pilot attacking the Ace, & blew up. I've also read an experienced German pilots account where he specifically didn't want the 'honour' to be an Ace's new wingman, as this Ace had already lost a few, & he'd be the new replacement.
I watched a video from "Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles" about Hartmann. His research is not nearly as in depth as Daniel's here, and he mostly did it to debunk the "never shot down" claim, but he also pointed out that his number of sorties per kill (about 1 kill every 4 sorties) was pretty average and even high (high as in few kills per sortie) for other aces, including compared to western aces like Robert S. Johnson. Found it pretty interesting, although it of course clashes with Daniel's more in-depth research. Maybe it's worth contacting Greg over it, as I know he's a person who cares about getting things right.
Gregg was excellent but both can be true indeed. The he never was shot down claim is out there but obviously is not provable. But it could well be that this was part of his hero image building and cheating to become number 1. Well apart from being part of an extremely moral organisation it the video has a great point that these high non gun camera claims could get you fame AND a 2 week vacation away from the nightmares of the front. 1 bullet from all these machine gun rounds flying around could kill you! That is luck and can happen.
Greg is actually very poor source, pushes incorrect ideas and conspiracy theories; but even worse when corrected by historians who've studied these subjects for years rather than accepting critique or debate he deletes their comments and suppresses it.
If you would like more details let me know.
@@ME-xh7zp I am a historian and a pilot. Greggs very much knows airplanes and offered an award for anyone who can prove that the Wright Brothers were the first capable of controlled heavier than air. Well still not claimed. But do you have a concrete example of a false claim he made?? Of are you one of those "German Whitehead fans" who want to damage his reputation. Gregg also did some excellent research on the P-47 which had the range to go the Berlin (But you would need to read a pilot manual of that plane which requires flight training).
@@marcston I am also a historian, at least by credential and *minor* publication, and a combat aviator. That is largely irrelevant, as there are shitty people in all these professions. I'm glad you brought his P-47 "Range, Deceit, and Treachery" video up as it is his most egregious and the one he actively suppresses critique on the most. (Although his Fokker = NAA video was also a head scratcher but I have only seen a few of his videos on request.)
A summary of his errors regarding the P-47 video, I'm glad you brought up the flight manual as he reads it completely incorrectly and there will be timestamps in his video for you to reference:
So let's be clear about what Greg is pushing in this video, even in the title he is claiming USAAF leadership conducted a cover-up/conspiracy to remove evidence of the senseless slaughter of thousands of American bomber crews. He makes that explicit throughout. (53:32, 53:41)
His claim rests on the 200 Gallon ferry tank he pulls the chart out of the flight manual at 19:05. That tank did exist, but it was a *ferry* tank, something we'll define in a moment. Note two things:
1: The chart posted is for “NONE or EMPTY 200-gal BELLY Tank.” This is not even the correct page for the tank with gas in it.
2: This page is, like most digital copies, is in black and white or recolorized. See the bottom? It says: “RED FIGURES ARE PRELIMINARY, SUBJECT TO REVISION AFTER FLIGHT CHECK.” I.e these figures were not tested, as he claims. They were estimated. The proper page exists, a good samaritan put it on imgur. All the figures are in red, something only an original paper copy catches. If you desire, we can try to find a way past youtube's link-suppression in comments to get it to you.
Please, check yourself.
Rather obvious Greg did not do very good research. Grabbing a quick look at a flight manual is not enough to find completely new historical facts. All his following conclusions, based as they were on this false understanding of the tank, are hollow and frankly unprofessional. He pushes a conspiracy without any supporting evidence such as testimony, letters, etc.
Continuing the path of the P-47 as to become escort fighter:
The 200 Gal. tank is a “ferry” tank, as opposed to a “combat” tank in USAAF/USAAC thinking. A ferry tank is merely for operation at low to medium altitudes, at slow max cruise speeds in a permissive environment. A combat tank is more robust and able to be used in a non-permissive environment. To understand why, prewar thinking of all Air Forces was that drop tanks were dangerous generally, and particularly a flame risk in combat. This was incorrect, but had to be learned. The only force to rapidly adopt drop tanks was the IJNAS, and that was a direct result of getting their noses bloodied by I-16s/I-15s in China.
For this video, the key is the 200 gallon ferry tank did not work above FL180. Even more importantly, the P-47 as delivered up until the D-15 did not have the plumbing to receive pressurized fuel from *any* external tanks out of the factory. That means it would stop flowing at the altitudes required to escort the Bombers (FL250+). As a result, it wasn't until later ‘43 that Jugs in numbers could make it into Germany. In fact, on July 28, ‘43 Lt. Col. Cass Hough of VIIIFC ATS had the 4FG test the 200 gallon ferry. It was filled only halfway, because that was as much gas as they could use before needing to climb to combat altitude hitting the coast (flying penetration at medium altitude over France/Germany in ‘43 was suicidal.) It got them an extra 40 miles, and several kills but that's it.
The truth about the P-47 is even when properly equipped, it lacked the internal fuel for raids such as Berlin until the D-25 w/370 gallons. Greg glosses this over with a complete lack of understanding of escort tactics and weaving in 1943 and early 1944, and the required numbers of aircraft to properly relay a penetration raid (there could not be enough till early '44 without stripping higher priority theaters). The D-25 doesn't arrive in numbers until after D-Day, when the Mustang is already around and doing the job better. (As an escort, it wasn't better at a lot of other things than the Jug).
As a note, in a follow on video Greg admits he was wrong on the tank, but doubles down on his assertion while shitting on one of the foremost ETO Air War experts for criticizing him. He very literally says it was reasonable for the P-47’s to use a relay system at 10,000’ over occupied Europe then climb to the bomber stream. This was discussed at VIIIFC during ‘43, but immediately thrown out because the fighter group commanders rightly preferred to keep breathing. Also, he asserts the Jugs in early ‘43 were all capable of using pressurized tanks…they weren't universally until quite late. Everything before D-15 took a lot of depot work to install, hundreds of hours.
As a final test of logic, consider that this information **was in the basic flight manual.** If the P-47s WERE able to escort to Berlin and back on arrival if only this 200 gallon tank were provided…literally thousands of P-47 pilots and maintainers would have to be complicit in this cover-up. They had the manual, they knew it better than anyone. They knew the bombers were taking losses. Why weren't they crying in the thousands to save their brothers then, and decrying those losses after the war by pointing at this fuel tank?
Overall, Greg is a bad source. Largely due to his unprofessional response to critique. He's also got a video where he says the P-47 was the one that defeated the LW, not the P-51 which is statistically dubious. And I think I mentioned his NAA=Fokker video is a real head scratcher. Others I don't remember odd the top of my head.
This is all NOT to say there isn't valid criticism of USAAF leadership and development for the CBO. There were real mistakes, real biases. However the whole “Bomber Mafia murderers/conspiracy” narrative is just as incorrect as the “P-51 Our Lord And Savior” narrative.
I can also go in a bit of depth regarding his misuse and understanding of the 1939 memo, and the reason Republic didn't have a pressurized flow system unlike Curtiss, Lockheed, and NAA by early 1943 if you'd like.
@@ME-xh7zp Cool thanks for the info. I will look into it. Right now I mostly do L-39 training flights and Mig-15/ Fougat. 🙂 Ancient stuff but fun to train on
You find the same problem with tonnage claims by submarines. Claims are usually significantly higher the actual tonnage. It is hard to accurately identify a merchant ship class through a periscope to get an accurate tonnage estimate. You would think warships would be easier to ID but often mistakes were made. After the war the US Navy matched claims versus Japanese records and many scores were reduced. Generally, it was not a case false sinking claims but identifying the wrong class.
Very true. It's also interesting to see how the claims differed between commanders. In the US Navy there were a few cases of submariners who had given conservative claims and actually have scored better. However, most were overly optimistic and some like Roy Davenport scored way worse than claimed.
With the one very cleat exception of the verification of the sinking of the aircraft carrier Skokaku, which wasn't believed at the time, because no aircraft carrier can possibly be that large.
It could also be something that occurred for USMC and USN pilots during the Solomons campaign: multiple claims for a single kill. Which pilot put the death blow in?
I'm not sure why this matters so much to the author or anyone else. Overclaiming was universal in WWII and so was propaganda utilizing individuals' heroism and accomplishments. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story is a very old trope. I don't idealize pilots but tearing down dead people is not classy. Thanks for another show.
Well it's just to examine the past, that's what the study of history does
Exposing fraud is a legitimate purpose for doing history. Allowing fraud to continue unchallenged is not classy.
What is not classy is spreading legends about someone which are not true. This does the exact opposite. Welcome to real history!
@@ww2hungary827 Hartmann is being called a liar because his claims can't be confirmed 80 years later. He is dead. He can't defend himself. His friends are dead and can't defend him either. Worst of all, what is the point to doing it? Daniel Horvath tore someone down and called his character into question and changed nothing. That is what is not classy.
It is actually worse due to the opportunity cost. This guy seems like he did a lot of high quality research. He could have done an excellent talk on kill confirmation in the Luftwaffe and how it compared with contemporary air forces. He could have spoke more about why kill claims seldom match with reported losses. He could have even spoken about how, and maybe why, servicemen are used in propaganda to advance the agenda of the state. He chose to call a dead war celebrity a liar. As enlightening as a scandal sheet.
@@AdamMisnik Find the part were Hartmann is called a liar, lol. We can't be 'emoting' when looking at history if we want the cold hard truth.
If he was still alive the truth would not change :) And the truth is classy.
For the second half of your comment, LITERALLY go read Verified Victories. video = 25min time limit, book = 215 pages with ~560 footnotes.
An outstanding presentation. Daniel does a thorough job of disecting Hartmann's record and showing what is false.
No, he does not. You only prove that you lack in the field of scientific data analysis. Without a validation of the used approach the discussion of individual pilots is a stupid exercise. Provide validation, this requires that you first have to understand the issue, then come back.
@olafkunert3714 I agree that I am not an expert in scientific data analysis but I do have two degrees in history and worked with historical documents for over 30 years so I have a good understanding of historical research. I am fine with you disagreeing with my comments, but the tone of your message was not kind.
Very good, David !
Small Corrections:
Nowotny wasn't taken out of action because he was too precious; he was leading "Kommando Nowotny" (Me 262 field test unit) in summer 1944. He was KIA in late 44. Günther Rall was also transferred to the West in spring 1944. Hermann Graf was wounded in late 42 around Stalingrad (before Hartmann made his debut) and was made group commander in the West in 43. They weren't exactly out of action in the West ...
Interesting side fact: Hartmann did all his kills in the supposedly inferior late-war versions of the 109G; G-6 and G-14. He also made all his kills in the second half of WW2, whereas the other big names in "Club 200" were veterans from the early war.
Before being at least squadron commander, Hartmann wouldn't even have been allowed to "customize" his paint job in such a prominent way. Hermann Graf also used a (sometimes red) tulip, btw.
As for 19 kills in 48 hours: I agree it's nonsense. This was either made up or with the help of the whole group. The latter practice wasn't unheart of within the Luftwaffe. The squadron and group commanders were often "honored" with the kill shot. The names Galland and von Wittgenstein can be thrown in here.
Hartmann's usual rate was roughly one kill every three missions. If he was famous for just one thing, it was that he only engaged when the odds were in his favour; he wasn't exacty known for doing things at all costs. I don't hink he would have risked everything for one week leave. If you're a young captain in the Luftwaffe, you follow orders. And if he was ordered to have made 19 kills in 48 hours, he would have complied.
Nevertheless, he had plenty of time to correct the issue after the war. But I can't think of any fighter ace on either side who reduced his kill claims ... Hello Mr Yeager !
Thanks for the comment, but I have to disagree with some points:
1) Nowotny was used as a propaganda figure after he reach his 250 claim mark in late 1943. He was allowed to return to combat ONLY in September 1944 to lead Kommando Nowotny and died shortly thereafter! (So what I said is correct, he was out of action).
2) Rall reached 250 after Nowotny in 1943 and in spring 1944 we was transferred to the Reich defense. (So again, what is said in the video is correct).
3) Graf was the first to reach 200, and was taken out of action and used for propaganda. He later was part of JG 50 and JG 11 but was no longer a competitor as he ‘only’ has 212 claims. So again, what was said in the video is correct.
@@ww2hungary827 Thank you DANIEL (sorry for calling you David !). I agree to disagree, which is called a discussion 🙂
Graf was wounded in late 1942; he didn't take a break. During recovery he commanded Ergänzungsgruppe Ost (a desktop job, I assume) before he formed JG50 in April 1943.(IIRC this Geschwader was never fully formed and disbanded later on)
Rall didn't take a longer break either. The only one with a longer break was indeed Nowotny.
The air war in the West was quite a bit different in most aspects and the boys had risen to ranks/positions where they saw less action per definition. It seems quite obvious that the high kill numbers only occured in the East. They weren't out of the action; they were in a different theatre.
Great debut Daniel. Made your points very well. We all learned a lot from this. I'm sure a few Wehraboos cried a lot after seeing this.
Luftaboos?
Luftwaffels
He believes the Russians but not the Germans?
@@markzimmerman7279 I've looked at all sides (Hungarian, US, USSR, Germany, Romanian). Archives including TsAMO, BAMA, NARA, and HM. This is actually amongst the first books that looks at other nations materials, NOT SOLELY the Germans that what it is UNBIASED. Your emoting comment perfectly shows where authors have failed previously and what 80 years of myth building has done to our understanding of human history.
Very intrsting an documented video- very Good-
ERICH HARTMANN was one of the first of the Luftwaffe's Experten or exceptional fighter aces that I first became aware of from reading Edward Sims' book "The Aces Talk" in 1978 when I was in my teens. A couple of years later, I bought and read "The Blond Knight of Germany" and became much intrigued about this man who was a top notch fighter pilot in a fighter wing (JG 52) which emerged from the Second World War as the top scoring Jagdgeschwader in the Luftwaffe.
From what I understand of the Luftwaffe's method of crediting aerial victories among its fighter pilots, the criteria was rather exacting. It was not unusual to take up to a year for the RLM to adjudicate on a fighter pilot's claim of an aerial victory. In the late 1990s, I was fortunate to attend an event at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington DC in which Gunther Rall (a mate of Hartmann's in JG 52) and Walter Schuck (of JG 5) spoke at length about their combat experiences on the Eastern Front. Rall, in particular, made it clear that for an aerial claim to gain acceptance by the German Air Ministry (RLM), the pilot putting in the claim had to state in his report the position in which his fighter was at the time of the action, the numbers of enemy aircraft encountered, the time at which he made the kill, and have corroboration for the claim from a squadron mate or at least someone from the ground forces who was a witness to the combat itself. Rall also spoke of how the vastness of the landscape in Russia could have a profound, psychological impact on a pilot.
While it is possible that Erich Hartmann did not shoot down 352 enemy planes in aerial combat, let's not sell him short on those skills he possessed in abundance that made him an effective fighter ace in the hazardous arena of aerial combat during the Second World War. After all, any pilot who manages to survive 1,200 combat missions while encountering enemy aircraft on roughly 800 of those missions and NOT be severely wounded, can't be a slouch.
Sims was at least able to ask correct questions and he dilvers in some of his books good hard relevant data. It is a pity the decades later people try to work with much weaker methodology, that with a much larger audience.
Claiming extra air victories got him out of the war plus he got married and presumably had a honeymoon. Much pleasanter than shooting down Soviet aircraft!
The 1940 Luftwaffe suffered from 'Spitfire snobbery' in that pilots bringing damaged aircraft home often claimed to have been hit by a Spitfire when they really didn't know what hit them, they also claimed Hurricanes as Spitfires.
You never know what woody's gonna do next but you know it's gonna be good❤❤❤❤❤❤❤😂
Apparently the RAF had a similar problem identifying types engaged. There were reportedly several claims for He100s, a fighter type that appeared in German propaganda photos and British aircraft recognition books but was never used in combat because it never entered serial production.
Absolutely, but there were more than several - dozens, more like. There are LOTS of references to He113s (which was apparently to be the production version of the He100) in the RAF's Operations Record Books from July-August 1940. I think they only stopped claiming these after a couple of months when all German single engined fighters which crashed on English soil turned out to be Bf109s!
5:15 So Hartman "Claimed a Soviet Fighter" A Claim is simply a statement of what happened (as described earlier). I am confused with terms. Was Hartman saying it was a loss? I don't know, because the presenter only said it was a "Claim". He then goes on to say pilots shouldn't be "Claiming". So is Hartman claiming, is he declaring a loss or a victory? We need to define our terms.
That's part of the complication
You can pick any "Ace" allied, soviet, german, japanese and whatever, They all overclaimed. I am sure there are aces from other nation, were the verified victories are only 30%. I think it was Graf who had 90% verified victories. That would still put him at 190 victories. What surprises me more than all of that is that people people still care, more than 70 years later .
But the debate is always worth having
@@WW2TV Agree, but I probably to old and I have heard these stories for so long. I am just surprised that people still care. There must be something regarding stories that is inherently fascinating.
That fellow AI reads all the books , and compares apples to oranges .
In what way?
It tends to end up somewhere in the middle , as the truth generally resides there .
Well indeed, something we are always saying on this channel
I would think that putting a bounty on a specific pilot might play into the enemy's narrative and harm morale. I suppose it is a bit of a double edged sword as there is more prestige in taking out an enemy who is seen as highly skilled and it also might work as an excuse for losing. But mostly I don't see why you'd want to help to elevate the status of an enemy to something that your own troops might fear. Something that might have them jumping at shadows and be more afraid to engage. Or on the flip side that might encourage recklessness in the pursuit of the bounty.
I'm not sure that Horvath's "argument from incredulity" is very convincing. It's a common logical fallacy.
But 19 kills in 48 hours!
@@WW2TV You have to privide numbers of flown sorties, this number was very high per day in summertime in the east. Then you have to prove that Soviet bookkeeping is of sufficient quality to analyse individual pilots. Your claims are done with a not validated approach. Rookie mistake in science.
You're very dismissive of this video, but thanks for the comments
@@WW2TV 19 kills in 48 hours, there's a lot more incredible victory tallies than that that aren't questioned. For example, Fritz Otto Bernert shot down five aircraft in 20 minutes, and it was all verified by the downed aviators themselves. Hans-Joachim Marseille shot down 17 in three sorties on 1 Sept 1942, which were all documented. David McCampbell shot down nine in one day. Five Americans became "aces in a day" on only two days over Okinawa. It is entirely possible when a large offensive is going on and there's a plethora of enemy aircraft flying to achieve the victories claimed.
@@olafkunert3714 lol Do you know what's a 'rookie mistake' in science? For example talking about something that you do not know and what you have never read, let alone any evidences. By reading the book you would know that Daniel went down to the lists of day-to-day losses by existing loss records vs. claims, where the number of sorties are completely irrelevant. Because who cares about the number of sorties if the enemy simply has not lost any planes there, or just 3 fighters altogether vs. Hartmann's 19 claims...? You try hard to cover yourself with a solid scientific image, but you just make yourself ridiculous.
Sounds a lot like the movie The Blue Max!
oddly this comes up clear while almost all else isnt today
What do you mean comes up clear?
im only wireless but its amazing how much better some videos come up then others especially when reception poor generaly when cloudy here@@WW2TV
Gunther Rall was a good pilot I'm not sure if he gives a interview in The World at War, I can always remember that certain interview because he looks the spitting image of my uncle.
In the Blond Knight of Germany there was a doubter who was assigned to fly a Hartmann's wingman. After he flew with him he said he probably had shot down more than he claimed.
A book widely critized for a romantic and non obbjective view of Hartmann
Again huge error 03:47. No, this is again RAF term for loss, not Jagdwaffe. He doesnt know what he is talking about at all. We are talking about Abschuss, and that is to force-land enemy aircraft by fire OR manouvre. You do not neeed serious damage when your eywitness saw it force-land. There is even place in Abschussmeldung if he force-landed on wheels or belly. It is visible in famous Gallands Abschussmeldung, so I don't know what did he do in his spare time.
Thanks for the comments, but Daniel and his father are considered experts
What about the German aces that flew against the West? From what have read the pilots that went up against the British, Galland, Molders, Wick, Marseille, etc, their claims were confirmed by the Brits.
The claims of the Germans were lower than the losses of the RAF, this means most likely still some overclaiming as there were quite a lot of accidents. On the other side the RAF claims in the west in 1941/42 were much higher than the actual German losses....
Most pilots who were shot down did not see it coming and had no idea who did it.
The data in both World War 1 and 2 is that 80% of pilots shot down did not know they were in danger (such as Chuck Yeager). Thus, any good pilot who was aware would be very hard to shoot down. Thus, success aces were more akin to arial snipers. And a sniper who did not take too many chances could be around a long time. Supporting this 80% figure, Stuka pilot Hans Rudel, who flew something like 2500 missions, late in the war, with a Russian fighter on his tail, said to himself "I've been shot down 30 times, but never by another plane."
The most planes shot down in one day by an American was by US Navy David McCampbell. He shot down 9. Zeros, I recall. However, they were obviously flown by inexperienced pilots.
Pilots new to combat usually saw very little, they were so focuses on staying alive. In World War 1, a new fighter British pilot had all his attention consumed with staying on his wing leader. When everyone in his group fired their machine guns, he did also. Later on landing, everybody came up and congratulated him on his first kill. That was news to him. @@grahvis
Oh, one more piece of data on how hard it is to shoot another pilot who is aware. In 1944 over Italy, four P-51 pilots, new to combat, went after a German bomber. They shot all their ammo, 4800 bullets (1200 per plane), and the German bomber kept on flying. This demonstrates another fact of aerial combat: good pilots got in close, very close, before shooting.
The Soviets saw yellow identification markings because yellow was the standard theater marking for German fighters in the Soviet Union. Usually a yellow fuselage band, yellow wingtip undersides, and a yellow underside to the cowling.
I would imagine the Germans got in the habit of believing they had shot down loads of Soviet planes given the slaughter in the opening days of Barbarossa. From there they probably just assumed they were inflicting the same levels of damage in later years.
That is nonsense. You only have to compare official Soviet combat losses with german claims.
To show what great allied aces could do if they had been allowed back into combat, look at US Navy ace David McCampbell. He was an air group commander, and told to "command, not get involved in 'shoot-em-ups'. He shot down 9 planes in 1 mission. (It must be said the 9 Zero pilots he shot down were very inexperienced.)
Did not the Soviets under-claim their losses throughout the war?
I had a copy of The Blond Knight of Germany years ago. As I recall (happy to be corrected), the authors were positively worshipful towards Hartmann, and did not strike me as particularly objective. If anything, they seem a bit too sympathetic towards the regime he fought for.
Raymond Tolivor and Trevor Constable. As much as I enjoyed the book, they were clearly smitten with Hartmann.
@@Chilly_Billy Mr.Tolivor was a prolific 'coming of age book' author who was good with words that's why TBoG reads well. Also why its infused with unnecessary romance. Mr. Constable was a military man that became a UFOologist (you cant make this stuff up!). That combo, plus a lack of primary sources and a hot political climate between East and West made for an exciting book, but a poorly researched book. Sadly this is the go-to manuscript for Erich Hartmann even 50 years after its publishing.
He doesnt know basics 03:22. In Jagdwaffe you have proper claim that MUST be confirmed by eywitness in the air or/and the ground! Otherwise it is immediatelly denied. Yes, in RAF claim was what pilot/gunner said! Thats the mayor difference.
Thanks for the info
lol Like on May 8, 1945, correct?
Thanks
Interesting topic.
Regarding the 19 claims, what were the soviet losses in the area according to their own revords?
@JustMe00257: According to the records on August 23-24, 1944 Erich Hartmann served in 9./JG 52 and claimed 19 fighters in the greater Kielce-Sandomierz area in Poland against air units of the Soviet 2nd Air Army fighting in the region. On August 23 he claimed 8 LaGG, on August 24 he claimed 8 LaGG and 3 P-39 fighters.
On August 23 the 2 VA reported the following aircraft losses:
1 Pe-2 bomber to Flak from 2 GvBAK
1 Pe-2 recce. bomber to fighters from 50 GvORAP
1 IL-2, c/n: 10577?? to Flak from 110 GvShAP (Gv.Ml.Lt. Modev, KIA)
1 IL-2, c/n: 10612 from 110 GvShAP (Gv.Ml.Lt. Demidov) was MIA.
1 IL-2, c/n: (187)1088 from 110 GvShAP (Gv.Ml.Lt. Klyuev) was MIA, but returned on the next day. Both crew and plane were OK.
1 IL-2 to Flak from 5 GvShAD (Ml.Lt. Belozherov)
1 IL-2 MIA from 141 GvShAP (Gv.Ml.Lt Petrov)
1 Yak-1B to fighters from 153 GvIAP (Gv.Lt Volkov)
On August 24 the 2 VA reported the following aircraft losses:
1 IL-2 to Flak from 140 GvShAP (Gv.Ml.Lt Novozhilov) at Adamuv-E
1 IL-2 to Flak from 141 GvShAP (Gv.Ml.Lt Lobov) at Tarnobzheg.
1 IL-2 to Flak from 142 GvShAP (Gv.Ml.Lt Vedenev)
1 Yak-1B to fighter from 152 GvIAP (Gv.Ml.Lt Zibkov) near Adamuv.
1 Yak-1B to fighter from 156 GvIAP (Gv.Ml.Lt Grimchenko), belly landed at Tarnobzheg-W, 400m, most likely repaired afterwards as the 2 VA lost permanently 2 fighters only.
1 IL-2, c/n: 10577?? to Flak from 6 GvShAD (Gv.Lt Kiashenko).
1 IL-2, c/n: 1878483 was MIA from 108 GvShAP (Gv.St.Lt Shilov).
1 IL-2, c/n: 1873896 was MIA from 109 GvShAP (Gv.Ml.Lt Salikov).
So for August 23-24, 1944 the Soviet 2nd Air Army reported the loss of TWO/THREE Soviet Yak-1B fighters only, vs. Erich Hartmann’s 19 fighter claims in air combat. Accepting the higher number (3), this is only ~16 % claiming accuracy, even lower than what Daniel mentioned as Hartmann’s average.
No comment.
Interesting show. My only really very minor issue is that it was possible to pick out markings on other aircraft, dogfights are 3 dimensional and pilots referred to seeing markings quite a few times, your not always going head to head with the opponent. But as i said that was my only VERY minor issue, ...otherwise very well presented and researched. Now, lists show at least 106 German pilots with 100+ kills, 35 at 150+ kills, 14 with 200+ kills, 5 with 250+ kills, and 2 with 300+ kills. Really curious now how accurate that really is?
Well Daniel did say that some markings - such as the yellow ones were much easier to see, but that it was the black tulip markings that would have been much harder to discern
@@WW2TV Good point. Those darker ones would have been harder to spot in a fast moving dogfight!
Cheers
The guest critic presumes and asserts that the only soviet pilots that could have observed and noted a tulip patterned enemy aircraft were head on passes or pilots that had him on their six o'clock position... Lol both axis and soviet fighter groups flew in gaggles and engaged in circle and turn fights, and bounce opportunities. Not a persuasive argument but of course its not allowed to acknowledge enemy as in anyways good or valid. And so it goes. Shrug lol
Thanks for the comment, this show certainly sparked debate
@@WW2TVyou're welcome, don't mention it. Also note, trying to confirm air to air losses via Soviet casualty reports and records is a fools errand; more over, all fighter tallies have substantial margin for errors in any case. Your show is kind of corny and predictably bias, some guests are better than others. This one was not very good, by my estimation. But thanks anyway... Lol
"kind of corny and predictably bias"
Thanks, I guess
@@WW2TV tally ho ! pip pip, cherio, carry on and that rot.
@@WW2TV th-cam.com/video/5rKYL0tW-Ek/w-d-xo.htmlsi=v_Ph5erfZIEDf6_i
Lol 👍
If the plane is forced to land when it wouldn't otherwise, I'd count that as a victory. I think that Luftwaffe direction is more of a counting choice to identify enemy strength rather than a measure of pilots' success.
This presentation smells of "Uhm actually"
Thanks for the comment, and Daniel's presentation has definitely divided the audience
I'd like to disagree that Luftwaffe claims/victories were only based on just pilot's own claim. I have to check my sources, but I think LW-pilots did have to write a report after flight with some touch to reality.
That is not to realize that all the parties overshot their claims, except Finns.
I only know Finnish Air Force history, and during Winter War, claims were easely proved, for all shot-down russian planes were to be found on our own territory, sooner or later.
Between 1941-44 only claim would be approved by a wittnes, or that the crashed russian plane would be found as Finnish army regained the terrain lost in Winter War.
On June 25th 1941, 13 russian SB-2's crossed the SE border of Finland and most likely were on their way to bomb city of Kuopio, which had a railroad crossing.
Their bad luck was that on route to their target, they passed Finnish Air Force base Joroinen, which only two weeks ago had Blenheim bombers of Llv44 but only reasently had turned to homebase for Llv 46 Fiat G50 fighters.
As these SB-2's flew literally past the fighterbase, that was a early Christmast for the pilots, they shot down 12 of the 13, then run outta ammo and fuel. The last 13th was shot down to Finnish Gulf by ltn Pelle Sovelius, who took off some 300 km south of Joroinen at Malmi airbase, Helsinki.
Now, how can I be sure of those claims? Well, I can show the very places where the SB-2's chrashed, been there. Except the one that was shot into sea.
There's a statue on one crashsite in Rantasalmi for one SB-2 crew, please visit if you drive by.
The Focke Wulfe had radial an star shaped engiens
I have no idea of Hartmann’s claims was real or not, but Gun cameras were standard on all fighters, including FW-190 and BF-109. On the Messerschmitt BF-109G it sat in the right wing. It was a 16 mm Film camera made by Siemens and was standard equipment.
Not on the Eastern Front
Bf 109Gs did not come with gun cameras as standard, nor did any other model. Only the recon models did. a few non-recon models had them, even in the West.
For the east you have an German overclaiming by at least 30%, the Russian overclaining was 800% or more.
Source of the 800% overclaiming?
@@WW2TV and anyway, The Luftwaffe was just too resource poor to stick cameras in every fighter; maybe they'd do so with 'experienced pilots to use as training aids, or, as with Sturmstaffel One, many of their pilots had gun cameras installed to see if the new 'sturmbock' concept would work.
To by completely clear, what RAF pilots did is horrendous even in the Battle of Britain. The worst day was 9.7.40 8-5-1 for 1 Jagdwaffe single engine fighter combat loss, so 13 to 1, 10.7.40 - 7:1, 19.7.40 - 9:1, 27.7.40 3:0, 5.8.40 9:1 and I could continue like that!
Hans-Joachim Marseille was making claims at a much, much higher rate than Hartmann was. I am curious what Daniel's thoughts are on Marseille are.
Christopher Shores (author of the classic 'Fighters Over The Desert and it's new 'rereleased' version) had very detailed records for all sides, and said HJM's claims were 'around' 70-75% accurate, which He (Shores) considered pretty darned good.
We dont know real RAF FC casualties, less we know VVS RKKA losses.
First, all claims in World War Two are overstated. Even whole battleships were mistakenly reported sunk.
Back in the mid 1990s my master's thesis under Stephen Ambrose was on World War 2 fighter pilots. I looked at the data then available, and added some prose. In broad strokes, Hartmann flew 1405 combat missions, was engaged in combat 845 times, and shot down 352 planes. That is 1 kill every 4 missions. In contrast, top USAAF ace Francis Gabreski flew 166 missions, with 31 kills, which comes out to 1 kill every 5.4 missions. Robert Johnson, second ranking US European ace, with 28 kills, averaged 1 kill per 3.2 missions. A better rate than Hartmann. But Hartmann flew 10 times more missions.
To make a broad comparison. When the peace treaty was signed on Sept 2, 1945, the top 3 German aces averaged 1000 missions, and 309 arial victories. And all 3 were still alive. The top 3 American pilots flew an average of 147 missions, with an average of 37 kills, and only 1 was alive. To shoot down large numbers of planes, you have to stay alive a long time. Indeed, Hartmann was the top scoring ace of World War 2, regardless of his exact number.
But Richard Bong killed himself through pilot error. He forgot to turn on the auxiliary fuel pump on the P-80 he was testing. The primary failed and crashed.
It is good that people can dedicate large portions of their time to writing about past events. I do so, though not in a Masters History course (that money I rather use to travel to dig up the aircraft themselves which I've done 4 times now).
A critical point to consider, those ratios only make sense if a claim = loss. There is no way to know unless each claim is compared to the losses (hence why we wrote the book). So unless the claim = loss, the ratio will automatically be inflated. As it stands the ratio is only the claiming-rate-per-mission, not the victory-rate-per-mission.
Very true. I did not intend to cherry pick statistics, but Bong fits into the larger pattern of deaths through pilot error and often rashness. To shoot down large number of planes you cannot become hors de combat by accident, pilot error, or whatever. I think the most common death of fighter pilots is car accidents. Of all the US Marine aviators killed in World War 2, only 18% were killed in combat by the Japanese. The rest were accidents, pilot error, and fast cars. @@johnshepherd9676
John, also, the number 2 American ace, McGuire (38 kills) also died from pilot error. In combat, he tried to turn too sharply at too low an altitude, crashed and was killed. A theme that ran through my research (and was confirmed with a US pilot in the Vietnam war) is that after a certain point of proficiency, many pilots feel invincible, and are not quite careful enough. If they live through that phase, they know they can die very easily, from a host of causes. As the saying goes, "There are old pilots, and bold pilots, but very few old, bold pilots." American aces such as Gabreski and Boyington had completed their missions. Their bags were packed and by the door. But, they decided to fly one last mission. And both became POWs.
"To shoot down large numbers of planes, you have to stay alive a long time. "
Yes, getting enough sleep and restrict alcohol consumption was important factor in Hartmann's case. Boring but effective.
Great episode but obviously You could identify Hartmanns body for a reward claim if he was shot down and crashed in a field in Soviet occupied territory.
Indeed, if, but most actions at this point were over German lines, because the Soviets were advancing?
@@WW2TV agreed but if he was shot down there’s multiple ways the Soviet’s could find out about it. I’m not an expert either way. Just an observation.
Misses the point, there was NO bounty in real life. It is a post-war myth.
@@ww2hungary827 agreed that there was no bounty that we KNOW of but other bounties existed so it’s not out of the question. We don’t know everything that Roosevelt and Churchill or their governments said and did much less what Stalin and the USSR may have done .
@@AstroJoeVino There was no bounty. One is welcome to read the unit reports of the Soviet units...no mention of ANY bounty let alone one for Erich Hartmann. As I stated in the video, its a post-war myth - probably derived from a misinterpretation of Soviet monetary reward directives from 1941,43.
If we follow Dan's perspective then how were the Battle of Britain aces like Galland, Wick and Molders awarded their victories? Almost all of their victories fell in allied territory. The claims were considered victories and in many cases were losses but often weren't. Therefore, based on Dan's premise then the Germans had far fewer victories than were awarded. Also what happens when the enemy aircraft falls into the sea. No wreckage? The German air service in WW1 largely claimed inside it's own territory but by 1918 It is true that they allowed claims that could not be verified by wreckage. ( I should add that I have his book "Verified victories" and it is excellent). Aerial victories are rarely 100% accurate. The point that he is making is that Hartmann does not destroy 352 Soviet/American aircraft. Nor do many of the other aces like Rall, Nowotny, Batz etc but the Luftwaffe from the beginning of WW2 does not apply it's own rules for confirmation of a claim and loosens these even more as the war on the Eastern Front..
All good points, suffice to say - it's complicated
Interesting point. However if you listen carefully to what I say, that would only occur if the enemy plane belly landed on enemy territory (not destroyed). It if went straight into the ground then its obviously going to be destroyed. So that goes against what you wrote above. On the other hand, the Luftwaffe had maybe 30 mins over England to do their things, thence the hasty claims which (surprise, surprise) led to many British planes returning damaged to their base which leads to over claims. The records speak for themselves, the Luftwaffe over claimed a great deal in the BoB.
Ps. Thank you for your support!
@@WW2TV It is not that complicated. You can compare for the western ToW loses of one side with claims of the other. You can even compare claims over own territory with claims over enemy territory. You get a clear picture, the overclaiming of RAF pilots was much higher than the German overclaiming.
You can also compare overall losse (combat + accidents) for the whole war for the west with German claims, and do the same for German losses and allied claims. What do you get? Again, a better result for the Germans.
It is always a good idea in a data based discussion to provide a useful framework you do your discussion in. If the overclaiming on the allied side was higher than the German overclaiming, that is a very very save bet for the east, then the performance different is even larger than you get by inflated numbers.
Daniel did explain his method and framwork
Ifficial Soviet figure for Aircraft losses is 46 500.
So a simple smell test in a scientific discussion would be to compare the Soviet losses (combat + accidents) with German claims. Then one could do this with Soviet claims and German losses....
@@olafkunert3714 What do you think Daniel did in the book? Compared the Soviet losses to Hartmann's claims.
on the rouble thing, it seems to come from hartmann himself, tho he might've got things wrong or said it to glorify himself
Eric Hartmann he flew on the eastern front from 1940 and for many more years Hartmann has spent more hours in the air than most pilots therefore he might have had more experiance than any other pilot. The Russian pilots had far less training and flying hours. So they were easy for German Pilots to fight. When German Pilots fought the American pilots, the Americans had way more training and flying hours. They considered 3 victories against Russians equivalent to 1 victory against an American.
Actually, only 1 of Hartmann's victories came before 1943. And 193 of his victories came after January 1944. His high scores did not derive from the 'happy hunting' days early in the war.
Paul you are great. Daniel is full of crap. He keeps saying YAK,YAK. Fighter pilots first targets are BOMBERS. Hartman did not go up to target fighters. Bombers are the target. High kill rates are possible when you are targeting BOMBERS. I am in no way a Wehraboo. I'm a realist.
Let's see your research for the dates in question please
What are you talking about!? Have you ever seen Hartmann's claim list? 90% of his claims are fighters, NOT bombers. Read and learn before you speak...
Thanks Gabor
Don't matter how 'realistic' you are, if the escort jumps you, or end up in front of you before you get near the bombers or the 'Zementers', you are more than likely going to end up claiming a fighter.
@@gaborhorvath4873 Love the book, by the way! Hope you publish more.
Regarding the bounty myth, I'd love to see some evidence for this, too. However, it's nonsense to claim it would require a positive ID at 800 km/. It'd only require a positive ID of a corpse. The 800-km/h-through-an-A4-size-windscreen argument is frivolous bullshit.
But you took on board the point about identification at speed
@@WW2TV No, I disagree with the general point that claiming the bounty required identification during a high-speed pass. It's a trivial objection: they'd be identifying a dead bloke in a crashed plane, not trying to identify him in the air. The argument makes no sense. He's on firmer ground when he says he can't find a reference for the bounty.
Okay, fine, thanks for the comment
@@Splattle101 How often did planes crash in territory that wasn't controlled by the pilot's side, even with the Soviet Union advancing relatively rapidly at times? And, how often did planes get engulfed in flames, either before, during or after impact, in such a way that identification of a body was rendered impossible?
@@michaeldunne338 It doesn't matter. It's a ridiculous argument. "Yes that's right, comrade, I''ve awarded the bounty to my pilot. Yes, comrade, that's right. He said he identified Hartmann during the fight. Yes, that roguish, lopsided smile, comrade. No, we haven't seen the wreck. No, it didn't occur to us to look for the dead pilot's papers or otherwise try to confirm the kill, comrade General Secretary." *gulp*
As I said above, he's on much firmer ground when he says he can find no evidence for the bounty. I applaud the debunking myths and the murder of sacred cows, but I'm not in favour of replacing them with speculative nonsense.
I can't recall which book I read it in (Johannes Kaufman An Eagles Odyssey, and Adam Makos A Higher Call) but in one of them some German talk about other German pilots purposely inflating their claims because that was part of the game.
Also giving awards and puffing up kills and heroism in the air was common among all air forces. General Kenney of 5th air Force in the South Pacific was very adept at it. One time recommending a group commander who had disobeyed orders for a CMH because it wouldn't look good to say he was disobeying orders when killed.
You can get a feeling for the overclaiming by comparing official losses of one side witth the claims of the other, you get interesting results.
And no, the German overclaiming is not the real issue. If you correct for allied overclaiming too the performance ratio becomes even better for the Germans. :-)
You might be thinking of Hans-Joachim Marseille in A Higher Call. From memory, Makos states that Franz Stigler and other pilots knew that Marseille's claims were exaggerated, but because he was a "star" pilot they did nothing about it.
That's probably it. Very similar to the ace race over rabaul in the south Pacific. After boyington was shot down several pilots were making excessive claims. One pilot would always come in after the rest of the squadron claiming several planes when he was alone and no one else around.
People were getting very suspicious and even openly questioning his claims. One day the group commander assigned a wing man to him and ordered him to stay with him no matter what. The guy making the claims was very hostile towards his new wingman. He went into a cloud and tried to lose him on purpose. To no avail. The high claimer got no kills that day. But he was reckless and went down to straf. Was shot down and killed.
After that nobody made his claims an issue. They didn't want his parents to have to deal with the issue.
When you look at the claims and actual number of planes confirmed by enemy daily reports most pilots should have their kills at least cut in half.
Of course it mostly wasn't on purpose. The zero tended to smoke when the pilots boosted power. So if you shot at one from behind the reaction would be to boost power and dive away. The smoke and diving would look like a kill.
Heresy! Just kidding. Very interesting.
I dont get the story with open hatches either...
Should remember that the average kill claim accuracy across the whole war was about 1/3 - so Hartmann is pretty close to that. The real outliers are guys with 90% plus.
It is useless to provide an average, when you have dramatic differences in overclaiming between nation, branches and ToWs: more than one magnitude for USAAF bomer crews of Europe, more than 8-fold by Soviet fighter pilots, RAF pilots were 1941 4-fold overclaiming, 2-fold in 1942 (France, Channel). For the east you you make a good case for 30-40% overclaiming by German pilots. The German overclaiming in the west was much likely lower.
@@olafkunert3714
It's not useless, as it appears claim rates stayed nearby 1/3 pretty consistently for fighters across the war and forces. It excludes bomber defense. Defensive fighting and gun cameras could deflect it a bit but it's a good wag.
I have the 'Verified Kills' book by the Horvaths, and it's very enjoyable reading. The pilot with the best record over Hungary was, apparently Helmut Lipfert, who's claims accuracy was pretty darned good (80++ percent as well as planes that were shot down or badly damaged by him that he didn't claim). Lipfert was also a 'late arrival' to the East (late 42/early 43) and rather older than many other pilots, in that he was pushing 30. It was thought that his being older made him more careful about his claims.
❤
is he related to Eric Cartman?
German cousin lol
Someone might be inspired to make another South Park episode
;-)
Your nitpicking is not very interesting.
And your username is not very interesting 🤷♀️
Okay, well thanks for the comment
@@WW2TV Your methodology is not good and strictly speaking does not add to a good discussion. Try scientific methodology A much better start would be to compare overall losses of one side with overall claims of the other and get a feeling for the issue. People have done this many years ago. Then get a feeling for the number of sorties pilots could fly in the east and in the west and the implication of the differences.
That's one way of looking at it yes, but not that of this historian. I will await your video of you taking on the history with your preferred method
I have to comment on Daniels the “Myth of Erich Hartmann” there is nothing mythical about Hartmann he was an outstanding fighter pilot who also had exceptional luck to survive as long as he did on the Eastern Front to attain his score of 352 victories, a score which is not particularly unique as Gerhard Barkhorn also claimed 300 kills. Most of his analysis is based on his interpretation of the facts which he colours with his rather self opinionated bias and just repeats the same arguments I have seen on other websites all of which “Debunks” nothing.
Well you're entitled to your opinion, but Daniel's work is very interesting to most of us and he's not the first to question these claims
@@WW2TV I never said the subject was not interesting I like all content on the history of WW2 that is why I like channels like this one, but Daniels outbursts of Hartmann is “BS” is questioning the character of Hartmann, you can take Hartmann’s biography and question its accuracy. Like Daniels claim that the ransom is all “BS” in the biography that he obviously read he chose to leave out the section when Hartmann was captured by the Russians and the NKVD were interrogating him the Russian said “a price on your head during the war, I would be rich if our government would pay it today” you can take that as truth or Hartmann exaggerating his experience in Russian. I tend to believe the person that was actually there, rather than some post-war revisionist trying to make a name for himself
And believing Hartmann's story is your right
@stig5885: Re: Hartmann's 352, the claims are just paperwork, the victories are piles of twisted aluminum. The two in Hartmann's case do not match for about 70-80%. Hope you understand the difference. The 352 is debunked with the detailed loss-analysis presented in Daniel's book, not with the discussed colors in the presentation.
@@gaborhorvath4873Sorry I don’t understand your argument all claims are “paper work” all victories are twisted “aluminium”! The fact is all claims are paper work, but all signed by a witness, and confirmed by the German O.K.L or confirmed by wreckage (aluminium) on the ground, the Luftwaffe fought mainly on defensive operations covering the German army many of the fronts were static for weeks/months many victories could easily be confirmed by the German army. 70-80% does not match what? The Russian records! Nearly all combat units on all sides their records were never complete, I could make the point that the Russians for political reasons never admitted their true losses all Russian combat units has a political commissar attached to them, but like Daniels and your argument it’s just my post war opinion. Daniel boasts “I’ve read 10,000 Russian papers, 10,000 from the 100s of thousands or millions of documents produced by the Germans and Russians 10,000 is barely scratching the surface. Also in the heat of combat the pilot couldn’t always be exact with the location and times of each victory, to try and put an argument about colours forward is nonsense, colours doesn’t even come into it, Hartmann attacked from close range what’s colours got to do with anything? I’ve been to many air shows and after attending a few I could recognize an aircraft from a distance and I haven’t even got fighter pilot eyesight! So don’t believe all post war historians narrative you have just got to take it as their “OPINION” on what research they have undertaken. I could give a completely different narrative on Daniels account, so could many other people. So I hope you understand!
This dude absolutely HATES Erich Hartmann.
You would honestly think Erich Hartmann did something to this guy personally
Disagree, I think he just wants to assess the claim
@@WW2TV I think In this case perhaps two things can be true at once
Possibly, but most of my guests come on with strong opinions
Hartmann spent 10 years in a soviet gulag for crimes which included destroying over 350 soviet planes. So, did the soviets lie about this crime or are soviet plane losses a lie. Also, a Russian researcher named Dimitri Khazanov, who published an article in 2005 claiming to have identified notable inconsistencies and even errors in Hartmann’s kill log. Khazanov estimates that Hartmann probably only knocked down 70-80 aircraft, not 352. Very similar to this book, or is this book very similar to the article. I am not saying plagiarism, but did this author go to Harvard.
Or maybe they used the same sources? As Daniel says, he has thousands of pages of Russian archives, because plagiarism is quite a slur to throw around
According to recent new events, Harvard is apparently for those who do plagiarism, hold antisemitic views, and operate on a play-to-win academic lifestyle. So thank you for no counting me as one of those LOL.
The Khazanov article is actually full of errors. It used the claims from the shady book "The Blond Knight of Germany", not German records. That's why we did not use it in our book. What could help your skepticism is actually reading Verified Victories :)
Ps. our sources come STRAIGHT from the archives of various nation's military archives. TsAMO, BAMA, NARA, HM.
Great response
@@WW2TV So, you think its just a coincident. But, its not a slur to say of a pilot lied about his aerial victories ?
"Khazanov estimates that Hartmann probably only knocked down 70-80 aircraft, not 352. "
If the top German pilots, which calimed a high share of the Soviet losse had only achieved 25% of their claims, who did the actual killing then? You have to explain the high Soviet losses.
30-40% overclaiming is possible overall for the Germanpilots, 800% for the Russin pilots.
It would have been better to compare first the sum of German claims and the sum of confirmesd losses by Soviet units in Soviet sources. You get a difference according to authors like Roman Töppel for the Kursk operations between German claims and confirmed Russian losses of about 40%, however, not all losses - local fighter units and long range bomber units were not listed - were correctly compiled, so according to Töppel it was in the range 30-40%. That would be the overall number to start with.
The other aspect is, that Hartman flew a lot of sorties, around 800 with more than 500 sorties with enemy contact. The 19 claims in 2 days issue is not a real issue as fighter units were stationed near the front and fight happened in low altitude, 5-6 sorties per day were possible in summer, a comparison with western front situation is stupid. BTW you have a similar situation in Africa with well diocumented ,losses of the RAF.
Also consider the majority of Hartmann's claims were IL-2 Sturmoviks. Not a difficult target for an expert aerial marksman.
@@Chilly_Billy COMPLETELY false, it was the exact opposite. Hartmann's claiming pattern was nearly always fighters.
@@ww2hungary827 The basic issue is that you have to compare numbers corrected for overclaiming. The Germans overclaimed most likely in the east by 30-40%, the Soviets by 800-1000%, if you use corrected numbers, the performance ratio becomes even betterfor the German pilots. The same is true for the fighting aginst the RAF.
T
Speaking of Kursk, there has been a book that I have been wating quite a while for (Aces At Kursk, by Lawrence.); once that book is released, I think a lot of questions will be answered.
Propaganda and PR on both sides. All sides overclaimed to promote their heroes.
There is so much questionable argumentation here. Now, I don't want to sound like a fan boy but... The argument about his tulip nose pattern to be not known doesn't make sense to me. Planes usually don't fly alone and it was never claimed that Hartmann shot down each and every plane in a formation. So there were of course witnesses who might have seen his plane on multiple occasions. The ambush tactics of course included get in fast, shoot down target quickly and leave. You don't want to hang around when you are outnumbered. That leaves plenty of other soviet pilots to be potential witnesses.
The problem with his open oil filter on his 300th claim.... I'm not an aviation specialist but it was mentioned you don't fly around with and an open oil filter in combat. Well, landing is not a combat situation. I don't know, maybe they are opened once you touch down? Just curious.
350+ claimed victories is a lot. How outlandish is that number? I mean compared to other German aces? I know it is above and beyond but what about all those claims of 100 victories? All BS as well? How much is "realistic"? 297? 200? Do we take into account how many sorties pilots flew in WW II? I had an uncle (in name only but we all called him Uncle Richy), who commanded KG 55 (Richard Brunner). He said he had some 500+ sorties under his wing. Hartmann flew over 1000 sorties afaik. Certainly a lot of chance to encounter and fight with enemy aircrafts.
I agree that not every claimed kill was one.
I don't doubt Hartmann was a great pilot. However, when people bring up the US pilots not having nearly as many kills I like to bring up the long distance the US pilots flew to fly one sortie... whether Europe or Pacific they flew hours to claim one or two kills. Meanwhile Hartmann for example could fly four to six sorties a day... which offers far more opportunity. Once again... not trying to downplay the man... but we must keep all factors in sight.
Heck, the closest equivalent the Allies had for a 'target rich environment' was Malta: the defenders were heavily outnumbered (and technically inferior) for a while and had Italian and German fighters and bombers just buzzing all over them==and until the squadrons in Malta got those Spitfires, things were quite desperate--even when they got the Spits things were still quite deadly. Men like Beurling could shoot accurately and get home safe, but most pilots probably had their hands full just trying to stay alive.
Thanks for this revisionist history myth. It puts to rest all those things said and written by participants and their researchers that didn't know as much as you do.
?
A pilot wouldn't have to belly land if he didn't lose a dogfight. That is still a shoot down.
No pilot used the term "Claim" it was a "Kill" an enemy Aircraft Destroyed
We are talking official records
But communist never lie😂😂
You sir are jealous
No, he is just looking at data and sources to present a different view of events
Aces. Always some kinda of back story This Nazi pilot is no different. Your readers might not be aware, but fighter squadron commanders often became kill hogs. Robin Olds was known for that essentially holding his flight mates back to take the easy kills for himself.
Considering Old never made ace over North Vietnam and whenever they got into it with the Migs the kills were pretty uniformly spread out and that the NVAF ground control didn't let their aircraft loiter in the hot seat for too long, I have to question the logic of the comment.