Which Country Produced the Best Fighter Pilots?

[Crumpp]

Actually Russian training was well organised and quite diciplined what it may have lacked was tactical content (but so famously did that of the RAF)

The Russian definately get the award for most improved Air Force of WWII.  They developed a first class force from literally nothing.

"Tough" is correct word IMO to describe the Russian Fighter Pilots.

Crumpp

[Kurfürst]

Originally posted by Crumpp

The Post-1943 pilots died like flies with an almost 98 percent attrition rate.

[/B]

That`s bullocks, in the entire war the LW lost something like 7000 fighter pilots killed.

 The Majority died on their first 6 missions.  If they could survive those first 6 missions statistically their chances of survival went up astronomically.  Just a little below the pre-1943 pilots.

http://www.butler98.freeserve.co.uk/thtrlosses.htm

[/B]


Ah, now I see. You based the above on Groehler`s numbers, but you ignored that Groehler notes all kind of losses as "lost", even 10% damage... not to mention a lost aircraft rarely equalled a killed pilot.

If you kindly look down the page below, you will see that the avarage loss rate of fighter planes was 5.3% on the Western front, and 0.7% on the Eastern front in 1944. Thus even by these numbers, an avarage LW fighter survived an avarage of 20 missions w/o being shot down, and a pilot`s chances were even better (not every pilot shot down was killed).

BTW, these 99% etc. losses is little else than playing with numbers. I can show you anytime the USAAF lost a similiar percent of it`s planes in the first 5 months of 1944... yet it`s something quite different than everybody who served in Jan was a dead man by May. Losses usually happen among rookies, while the aces get the kills, and the rookies are replaced. In every air force it worked the same.

They had a tremendous turnover rate.  In the last years of the war, the Luftwaffe accident rate shoots up to almost 50 percent. Almost half their casualties are self inflicted in flying accidents!

[/B]

Nothing surprising here. The same ~50% losses is true for 1940, 1941 etc, and it`s true for the USAAF for 1944, or any other air force. It was the rule and not the exception, that about half the lossess sustained were due to non-enemy related reason.

Saying the LW sustained 50% isn`t anything country specific, but it`s misleading in the context you put it.

Here is another table that agrees with Caldwells research.

(Image removed from quote.)

In 1944 the USAAF was launching bomber raids that had MORE bombers than the Luftwaffe had fighters in their whole force to shoot them down.  These bombers are escorted by as many fighters or in some cases more than the Luftwaffe could launch to intercept. [/B]

I doubt this tells anything except than the US had vastly larger resources than Germany. No amount of pre planning, etc. would change that fact. Besides, I really do not see the point about fighter reserves etc. Up to 1944, they had not got to worry about enemy fighter. In 1944/45, they made the neccesary measures, but of course they couldn`t change simple facts like the vastly higher resources available to the allies.

Now they did produce a large number of aces because the Luftwaffe existed for much of the war in a very target rich enviroment.  Mike Spick has a great study on the sortie to kill ratio.  Hartmann's was below average IIRC and the majority of the Luftwaffe Experten were average.  They just encountered the enemy much more often.
[/B]

That sounds like more to me as the usual Western excuse for their high scores. " They just encountered the enemy much more often." - yep, and SURVIVED every time, or even WON every time.
Winning&Surviving 800 dogfights DOES sound me as a record well above the avarage, and speaks of skill. Of course the amount of action they saw helped them the get high scores - provided they could best the enemy every time. Hartmann in example only served in the second half of the war, yet he outscored all allied or LW aces - and many allied aces served from the beginning till the end. Don`t tell me it was coincidence, or the lucky situation. The guy was good, no, he was the BEST, simple as that.

[Shuckins]

The most impressive thing about Hartmann and Rall is that they survived the war.

They were undoubtedly great pilots.  But I take the German claims of astronomical scoring with a grain of salt.   Even the sol-called "records" so meticulously kept by Luftwaffe officials must be considered suspect, since they were produced in Doctor Goebbel's Germany, and quite probably were "Doctored" to provide evidence of the uber mensch.

One famous incident involving Marseille provides proof of this.  He put in claims for multiple kills (either 9 or 14, forgive my faulty memory).  Yet British records show that actual losses for the day were only four, including some Hurricanes, a type that Marseille did not claim.  In fact, some of these losses occurred while he was on the ground.

[Crumpp]

Shuckins,

I agree the claim of Luftwaffe superman is hardly viable.

Overclaiming was a factor and did occur, no doubt.  The funny thing is the Luftwaffe had some of the highest standards for confirming a kill.  If you study the airbattles as you have done with Marsailles you will see that is very much the exception and not the rule.  The majority I have studied for my book show the Luftwaffe as very honest in their claims.  They are not habitual overclaimers.

hat sounds like more to me as the usual Western excuse for their high scores. " They just encountered the enemy much more often." - yep, and SURVIVED every time, or even WON every time.

I would agree if the 800 "encounters" were 800 "dogfights".  This is not the case nor is it the nature of WWII Air Combat.  Dogfighting was very much the exception and not the rule.  Not to say it did not occur, it is just that most pilots avoided it like the plague with a few notable exceptions like Krupinski.  That is true I believe for All AF's with the exception of the Japanese.

Crumpp

[Crumpp]

Saying the LW sustained 50% isn`t anything country specific, but it`s misleading in the context you put it.

I think the Luftwaffe took an unusually high number of non-combat casualties.



I would not characterize it as "average" for an Air Force.  It would be surprising and interesting information if it was the case.  Do you have a reference for this?

Crumpp

[LLv34_Camouflage]

Now they did produce a large number of aces because the Luftwaffe existed for much of the war in a very target rich enviroment. Mike Spick has a great study on the sortie to kill ratio. Hartmann's was below average IIRC and the majority of the Luftwaffe Experten were average. They just encountered the enemy much more often.

 

That sounds like more to me as the usual Western excuse for their high scores. " They just encountered the enemy much more often." - yep, and SURVIVED every time, or even WON every time.

Winning&Surviving 800 dogfights DOES sound me as a record well above the avarage, and speaks of skill. Of course the amount of action they saw helped them the get high scores - provided they could best the enemy every time. Hartmann in example only served in the second half of the war, yet he outscored all allied or LW aces - and many allied aces served from the beginning till the end. Don`t tell me it was coincidence, or the lucky situation. The guy was good, no, he was the BEST, simple as that.

Everyday combat flying can also be considered training. In the units, flying actual missions, is where the gems are turned into diamonds. Real action and real dogfighting is very effective training, providing you have the basic training to survive your first encounters.

By that definition, the LW (and other air forces flying against the allied) got much more training. On average, they were in dogfights more often than the allied pilots.  Which equals "better training".

I would agree if the 800 "encounters" were 800 "dogfights". This is not the case nor is it the nature of WWII Air Combat. Dogfighting was very much the exception and not the rule. Not to say it did not occur, it is just that most pilots avoided it like the plague with a few notable exceptions like Krupinski. That is true I believe for All AF's with the exception of the Japanese.

I disagree. It is the nature of the fighter pilot to look for a fight.  If the pilot loses the aggressiveness, he has already lost the fight. If there was a pilot in the unit who avoided fighting, he was transfered away from the front.

The Finns always looked for a fight.  Most of the Finnish missions were intercepts, a few planes against a numerically superior enemy. The poor quality of the early war soviet pilots gave the Finns lots of effective  practise. Team tactics were honed to perfection. Finger four formations were actually adopted in the Finnish Air Force before the war, a few months before Werner Molders started testing them in the Luftwaffe.  The individual fighter pilot skills were always regarded important, with the new pilots always getting lots of mock combat lessons and tutoring from the best pilots of the squadrons.  The quality of training was very high, both in flight school and in the combat units.

Like Mora said, Finland is very high on the list of "which country produced the best fighter pilots".

The Finnish Air Force motto has always been "Qualitas Potentia Nostra", Quality is Our Strength. We've always had a small but very effective air force. It still holds true today, the Finnish Hornet pilots regularly kick foreign butt in the international trainings.

Camo

[Shane]

Originally posted by Crumpp
Shuckins,

I agree the claim of Luftwaffe superman is hardly viable.

Crumpp

hell, based on comparing a 1/48 scale FW with any alliled ride, the luftwaffe seems comprised of dwarves....

[spitfiremkv]

since this is not a question of quantity vs quality, I'd say Germany.
2 pilots with over 300kills

[Crumpp]

By that definition, the LW (and other air forces flying against the allied) got much more training. On average, they were in dogfights more often than the allied pilots. Which equals "better training".

Very true.  However as you point out:

providing you have the basic training to survive your first encounters.

There lays the rub.  The majority of the Luftwaffe did not receive the basic training necessary to survive their first few "classes" in the air.

Comparing pilot training before entering combat, the Luftwaffe received very little beyond the basics of flying the plane.  That is evident from looking at the training hours.

Basic Pilot certification in the Luftwaffe was your A1 license.  This required a minimum of 30 hours and is the equivalent of today's basic pilots license.  Next was his A2, which allowed him to fly aircraft up to1000kg in weight, and required another 50 hours minimum of training.  The next step the B1 required 50 hours of training, as did B2 certification.  This qualified a pilot to FLY an aircraft between 2500-5000kg in weight, single engine aircraft.  All in all, a minimum requirement of 180 hours of training for just flying the planes.  None of this is in air-to-air combat.  Now these designations and requirements changed during the war somewhat but the fact remains 100 hours of training includes NO air-to-air combat training.  That was the job of the Erganzungsgruppe at the Geschwader of assignment.  By 1944 these operational training units had almost completely dropped off the books and became operational Gruppes.

There is not doubt as to the bravery and quality of the Finnish Air Force.  I am curious how they were organized and what sort of rotation plan they had for pilots in combat.  

Crumpp

[Crumpp]

Thus even by these numbers, an avarage LW fighter survived an avarage of 20 missions w/o being shot down, and a pilot`s chances were even better (not every pilot shot down was killed).

Sorry I missed this.  Izzy you have to remove the pilots who completed pre-war training standards and survived literally hundreds, some of them thousands of sorties.  Factoring in the small percentage of experten distorts the ratio and creates a false picture.


This will give an average for the post 1943 trained pilots and it should line up closely with my stats come from the Luftwaffe casualty list's.

Crumpp

[Muddie]

I would switch Germany and U.S. the way you rated them.

    The German pilots (at least the early war ones) spent a lot of time flying gliders after WWI and, at least I think, really , really had a fine feel for the mechanics of flight.  

   I never really felt that the U.S. had the best planes in any arena (maybe, just possibly,  by late war) but made up for it with numbers and tactics (wingman, wingman, wingman).

 

Originally posted by GScholz
Training: USA/UK

Individual skill 1-1: Japan

Tactics: Germany

[Kweassa]

An interesting perspective to discuss would be that if the USAAF pilots were sent on full-length war time duty lasting all the years, the list of 'aces' we know might be totally different from what it is now.

 Germany for instance, in the early days of war produced a chockful of aces in range of 20~40 kills. Not many of them survived the war.

 Aces with high number of kills over 100+ who survived the war, distinctly mention that as the years passed their flying styles and doctrines changed from a dashing competitiveness in combat arts, to a conservative and safe method of team-oriented flying.

 Some people mention that as respected as 'hotheaded' aces like Marseilles was, even people like him would have either not survived the war to be remembered, or would have had to change their flying styles.

 Alfred Grislawski for instance, specifically mentions that when he returned to the Eastern Front in '43 it was nothing like he remembered it to be - the Soviet opposition was increasingly getting tougher and smarter. He mentions of trying to put young pilots 'under his wing', and even discouraging some of his personal friends from transferring to the Eastern Front.

 The well known Hartmann's kill rate was something like 1 kill in about every three sorties. Some people mention that this is actually not a very impressive feat when compared to other USAAF aces like Johnson or Gabreski, but with no disrespect to the USAAF aces we know and cherish, I hardly think any of them really could have survived the whole war, if they were sent in such a duty. My take is it would probably be someone totally unknown to us, if such long tours happened with USAAF pilots.

 It's an interesting thought

[Crumpp]

Interesting take Kweassa.

Not rotating pilots was a huge mistake on the part of the Germans.  Most pilots got worse as time progressed.  Good example is Krupinski.  A great combat leader and very much the "tiger" in the air.  The kind of stuff of Johnson or Gabreski.  

When he took over III/JG26 in the last months of the war, Walter Krupinski was a different man.  He did very little leading much less flying aggressively.  Without a doubt he suffered combat fatigue.

I think the USAAF would have had a much rougher time had they not rotated pilots.

Crumpp

[Angus]

Tactics?
In the beginninng the LW, absolute masters. Then the ball rolles over to the DAF (They copied many LW tricks) and on later to the USAAF.

Individual skills? In the Beginning IJN, then it rolls over to the Brits and their commonwelth. Argualbly it may have stayed there.
As a sidenote, I know of a RAF pilot who fought 1 vs 2 in his first combat mission. He didn't get a scratch, and would have carried on untill somebody ran out of fuel. Eventually his comrades helped him out.

Training? Very much like the one before.
The LW had the best training in the very start, but screwed up big time like Crumpp pointed out.
The RAF sort of learned a hard lesson in 1940 when they almost went dry of pilots, and they cured it very properly.

And then this line:
"I doubt this tells anything except than the US had vastly larger resources than Germany."
Very true, especially in regards of manpower for pilot training.
Remember though that Germany had their fingers in huge resources for most of the war, Germany along with the conquered nations and areas of the USSR as well as Italy sums up a capacity which may even be greater than the USA.
However, the inhabitants of those nations were usually not so happy about Gerry, so.....

[Jester]

From what I have read from material from both sides about the Pacific War -

EARLY WAR:

The IJN had the best pilots by far.
The IJAAF pilots were not trained to the level of the Navy pilots in either skill or tactics.
On tactics - the Japanese pretty much still perscribed to the WWI tactics of Pilot vs. Pilot in A2A combat even though they flew in a standard 3 plane formation which proved not as versitle as the American 4 plane formation made up of two pairs.

Same for the USN & USAAF.
The USN probabily had the best trained pilots as well as tactics.
Once the Navy started useing the "Thatch Weave" tactics (first used at Midway) that boosted them even higher.

Combat losses at Midway, New Guinea & Guadalcanal pretty much eliminated the "Cream" of the IJN & IJAAF. The failure to train large amounts of pilots to the same skill level as the old pilots and the failure to introduce new aircraft to match the F4U, F6F, P-38, P-51, etc. doomed the rest.