Video of P63 KingCobra Biggen Hill

[Joker312]

To question the accuracy of kill claims is nothing new. I read somewhere that the claims made in AAR's of USAAF pilots were usually exaggerated by a factor of 100%. The fact is that more than one pilot was awarded a kill on the same enemy many times in every airforce that fought during WWII.

Another fact is that the P39 as well as the Buffalo had alot of sucess in the hands of pilots from countries other than the US. I am sure that we could say the Finns' claims were not totally accurate but they "DID" attain a great deal of success with an aircraft that the USA was unable to.

To say it was because of "Pilot Skill" is also a mistake. The circumstances of the employment of that aircraft are also a consideration.

I cant wait to see the P39 in this game as I also believe that there are a few that will find its strengths and use them to their advantage.

[Guppy35]

Both the Germans and Japanese where known for their extremly impeccible record keeping and highly detailed documents, whereas the russians where known to fabricate kill numbers etc sometimes giving different pilots credit for the same kill, it was all a propaganda tool, altough i still dont believe in some of the top aces like hartman's kill counts.

There are a lot of questions about Japanese kills in particular but it also applies to all combatants.  I also think you have to look at time frame, type of operations etc.  Much easier for German kill claims in the West for example when the fight was over their turf.  A crash site is what it is.  US and RAF claims, fighting over the other guys turf would be more suspect because they didn't have physical confirmation.

It's the old, "His engine started smoking and he was going down out of control", when many a time it was the other guy pushing his throttle through the 'gate' and black smoke pouring from the stacks due to that and nothing else. 

Too many blanket generalized statements thrown out there as absolute fact I think.

[Widewing]

To question the accuracy of kill claims is nothing new. I read somewhere that the claims made in AAR's of USAAF pilots were usually exaggerated by a factor of 100%. The fact is that more than one pilot was awarded a kill on the same enemy many times in every airforce that fought during WWII.

Another fact is that the P39 as well as the Buffalo had alot of sucess in the hands of pilots from countries other than the US. I am sure that we could say the Finns' claims were not totally accurate but they "DID" attain a great deal of success with an aircraft that the USA was unable to.

To say it was because of "Pilot Skill" is also a mistake. The circumstances of the employment of that aircraft are also a consideration.

I cant wait to see the P39 in this game as I also believe that there are a few that will find its strengths and use them to their advantage.

We did a number of threads on over-claiming over the past 7 years. Here's some of it via a search.

Here's parts of the threads about Soviet and Japanese claims and some figures are included as reported by Japanese Aviation Historian Henry Sakaida:

"A good example of both sides can be seen when we examine the numbers claimed during the Soviet-Japanese border war of 1939, usually referred to as the Nomonhan Incident.

At the conclusion of the brief war, Russia claimed to have shot down 654 Japanese aircraft. Actual Japanese losses counted were 162. Soviet losses would total 207, but Japanese pilots claimed 1,162 communist planes shot down, with another 98 destroyed on the ground.

During WWII, so bad was the Japanese "honor" system of confirming kills, that even Japanese historians have revised down some individual pilot claims to roughly 50% of their initial numbers.

I have researched some claims involving American and Japanese air engagements, and have found that the Japanese continued their tradition of grossly over-estimating enemy losses right through the conclusion of the war. Indeed, postwar examination of American claims against Japan shows that over-claiming by U.S. pilots averaged out to just 1.3 times actual Japanese losses.

Typical instances in the SWPA:

Japanese claims-

Claimed 8, killed 0
Claimed 22, killed 1
Claimed 13, killed 2
Claimed 44, killed 6
Claimed 9, killed 1

In the above engagements, American and RAAF pilots also over-claimed.

Claimed 6, killed 3
Claimed 17, killed 12
Claimed 5, killed 4
Claimed 19, killed 16
Claimed 3, killed 3

So, the Japanese claimed 96, but only shot down 10.
Allied pilots claimed 50, but only shot down 38.
Japanese pilots claimed 9.6 kills for each actual kill.
Allied pilots claimed 1.32 kills for each actual kill.

In Burma and China, the JAAF claimed to have shot down 143 AVG Tomahawks. Oddly enough, the AVG entered combat with only about 82 aircraft (100 arrived in Rangoon, one was dropped off the dock, 17-18 were destroyed in training accidents). Total losses to enemy aircraft were just 12. 143/12 = 11.9/1

Following up on the Soviets, we see that they were still grossly over-claiming during the Korean War. Since most of the MiG-15s flown in Korea were piloted by Russians, we know who made what claims. In a nut shell, the Soviets claimed to have shot down more than two times the number of F-86 Sabres than actually served in Korea during the whole of the war. Add to this the inflated claims of the Chinese and North Koreans and we find that they must have been shot down every F-86 produced as late as 1954, to get their totals as of June of 1953."

In Korea, the USAF claimed almost twice as many MiG-15s as they actually shot down, with many of the rugged MiGs limping back shot badly shot up. The original F-86 K/D of 14/1 has been revised by USAF historians to 7/1, with the bulk being Soviet pilots. Understand that the Russians do not dispute this final number. First generation, straight-wing types such as the F-84s and F-80s fared less well, but still managed better than 2/1 against the MiG-15. Credit that to better training. It's worth mentioning that the Soviets did discipline some senior officers in Korea for trying to steal credit for kills made by junior officers.

There can be no doubt that the Soviets over-claimed in WWII. To what extent, I don't know. However, if the Nomonhan Incident is any indication, it could have been substantial.

My regards,

Widewing

[angelsandair]

And then imagine if they had accurate kill claims for him!!!

When the Comrade Commisar says "You come back with 10 kills or you'll be sent to the camps!" you come back with 10 kills, even if you never fired a shot.


When the Commrade Commisar wants to make a martyr for a downtrodden people, he may take every kill the squadron is awarded and give it to the one person that is already in the news.


Yes, he did some things, but I don't put as much stock in his kill listing as I do countries with..... "better reputations" on these things.


(now back to your regularly scheduled thread )

Actually he got about 80 of the confirmed 57 kills. It is actually the other way around.

[hubsonfire]

Did you get that from Wiki or the TV?

[Bodhi]

Did you get that from Wiki or the TV?

He got it from a clown.

[Krusty]

If you'll note, he didn't. He's saying the opposite of what I said, basically.

[Krusty]

I was searching for something else today, and ran across a few of the quotes I'd read on this topic before. Since it's relatively recent (only a couple weeks ago) I thought I'd add some. Some of the folks researching the Korean kills and other kills (they discussed other nations as well) were serious authors doing book research.

This might be a long read.

There are several other interesting discussions with many folks that know their stuff. The concensus is that Soviet claims cannot be trusted.

I will bring up the issue of soviet pilots deliberatedly overclaiming.

Not that they lusted about the idea of becoming communist super heroes; it was also a matter of personal safety to them.

I have met several experts seriously doubting the claims of Kozhedub, Rechkalov and at least of one dozen more of soviet aces. Pokryshkyn is not included in such club though.

Upon landing after a combat mission, soviet pilots were frequently greeted by a committee of soviet bureaucrats which weren´t less aggressive than the guys flying Bf-109s and Fw190s. It was a process of acute harrassment: "how many fascist snakes did you kill?", "where is your contribution to the motherland?".

By answering "I did not shoot down any" they risked being called cowards and why not traitors letting the nation down.

The discussion came up regarding other Soviet inflated kill tallies, and how the pattern stretched from before the GPW, during the GPW, and after the GPW. They can prove the inflation before and after, so it doesn't appear the GPW would be any different.
GPW = Great Patriotic War, aka Soviet involvement in WW2.

For example Nov 1 1950-May 20 1951 (the day both US and Soviets, coincidentally, crowned the 'first jet ace') US fighters were credited with 34 MiG's and 27 were lost to them (a few were Chinese, 14 by F-86's); the Soviets were officially credited with 152 UN a/c of all types in that period and actually downed 20 (2 were F-86's). That's from analysis of each combat in the period in each side's records, with a bit of question remaining about a plane here and there, but it's not just playing with totals in books, is my point. But it's fairly consistent with the whole-war result (except that kills by and against F-86's were a larger % later on). Anyway US claim accuracy in Korea has no relevance to Soviet claim accuracy in GPW but Soviet claim accuracy in Korea might.

The Claidemore fellow claims that because soviet claims list plane type they are more accurate, and in response:

Claidemore, I've never seen a complete analysis of Soviet claims and German losses in WWII, even for a sub period, but I've looked pretty carefully at the same question in the Korean War. In that case the Soviets used nominally quite strict claim verfication procedures including later (in that war) requiring their own wreck evidence (earlier they used their allies' statements), as well gun camera evidence used throughout, and it still didn't prevent serious overclaiming: official credits to their pilots were several times the actual UN air combat losses. In fact, there's little discernable difference in accuracy between the period using allied statements and the period using Soviet wreck inspection teams in North Korea. So I start out tending to doubt the situation was dramatically different in WWII, especially considering the ratio of credits to enemy losses was about the same in the war immediately preceding WWII (Soviet-Japanese war of 1939, though I don't know if the procedures were nominally strict in that case).

2. As the GPW went on, the German claim verification got worse but the Soviet claim verification got better. Iirc not only was another pilot required but also the wreckage of the shot down plane was required for the awarding of a kill.

2. Do you have specific figures for Soviet claim accuracy in GPW verified in German sources? The verification methods you mention (other pilots, wrecks) were in theory enforced in Korea too, but didn't prevent a high overclaim ratio. That's my point, following a particular methodology in theory didn't necessarily result in accurate claiming in practice, for the Soviets or others.

On Soviet grandiose claims

The soviet story on Vadim Fadeyev is another one of the soviet propaganda tales. While he made an excellent pilot, it was the soviet fashion to tell all of their aces who died in combat did so only against "overwhelming" odds.

You know, like if soviet heroes had not been humans, but kind of superior beings, that could only be defeated when the odds were totally overwhelming.

Vadim was a fine pilot, but the story is rather different: in a dogfight involving several German and soviet aircraft, he got shot down and killed by a single Bf109 that engaged him. The point is the soviet propaganda guys wanted to cover up as much as possible the real fate of many of their heroes.

A similar tale occured with one of the top soviet female aces, Lilya Lytvak, depicted by the soviet propaganda "as strikingly beautiful, smart, top pilot, warm person" and lots of blah, blah...it has been told she went down and got killed only when 8, 9 or 10 Bf109´s got her alone. Her end was not that complex: a colonel of the russian army told me that was propagana hogwash, she got shot down and killed in a one against one match against a Bf109.

Lev Shestakov, another ace, who got killed in combat with a single stuka was given a story that would as well cover up his end, fighting against a sole single engined enemy bomber.

Those are only a few cases guys.

Claidemore,

You've got your facts screwed, the VVS would often rely on partizans to confirm their kills. The VVS was NOT very thurough when it came to the confirmation of kills, and they weren't very accurate when it came to reporting the exact chain of events leading up to the kill of an enemy a/c or the loss of a friendly a/c. When an ace was shot down the VVS often claimed that they were completely outnumbered, 7 to 1, solo against masses of German fighters, and that this was the only reason they were shot down. German records tell otherwise however, and often there werent even 1/10th of the German a/c in the area the VVS claimed, sometimes there were none even in the vicinity what so ever, and the VVS fighter shot down certainly was never alone. The Soviets more than anyone else made extensive use of such propoganda, another example being the Battle of Kursk where thousands of Tigers were claimed destroyed, however in actual fact only 10 Tigers were actually present during the entire struggle for Kursk.

[hubsonfire]

Where is that from?

[Bodhi]

Who are the people discussing it?

It looks as though it is a discussion on a message board elsewhere.

[Krusty]

Those I just pulled now from http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/

There was a thread soemthing about "p39 vs 109" or some such. It was disjointed, going of about p40s, -51s, and other planes at times, those are just some of the comments that stayed on topic.

I've run across several other discussions on other forums and some webpages as well, and have read more than a few comments in books similar to this to believe it is a common Soviet pattern.

[avionix]

I agree with Lumpy.  Inverted stalls are more difficult to recover from.  By the video, the pilot was not able to recover enough airspeed to pull out of the stall.  It is very hard to get the nose down when there is little airflow over the tail surface, which is what he had when this aircraft stalled.  As to the aft mounted engine, that has nothing to do with how the aircraft recovered or lack of recovery.  Remember, the aircraft rotates around its Center of Gravity.  As long as the CG is within limits, there will be no issues if the aircraft stalls.  Even if the aircraft is in 45 or 60 degree bank, as long as the ball is centered, it will not spin.  Have done this countless times in C-172s and other aircraft.  Now I will grant that the CG for the P-39 is more aft than normally seen in aircraft.  But as long as the CG is within limits and at a safe altitude, the pilot would have been able to recover.  Toward the end of the video, the aircraft is starting to recover, but the altitude is not sufficient enough to allow it.  He also stalls a second time as evidenced by the abrupt roll to the right as he is diving to regain airspeed.  We may not know if the CG was within limits, I would hope that the pilot was professional enough to check that, but if the airspeed had been high enough, we would not have seen this video.

<S>

[Lumpy]

...altough i still dont believe in some of the top aces like hartman's kill counts.

Why not?

[Angus]

Was this the Duxford P63? Anyway, the word was that it was a delightful bird.
Looked like a naughty wingdipping stall for me, and the alt was too little. Very sad.
I saw that one at least once, and it sure flew nicely.

And as for Hartmann....well, I think his score is less debated than the score of many others. (names that fly across my mind are Rudorffer and Marseille....but this is not the topic)