Top flyer and top gun, no doubt.
Would be happy to find more websites on Marseille, some things he did are still somewhat a mystery, and people still argue about his claims.
A british Wing commander made a study of Marseilles famous day, where he claimed 17 british fighters. He found out from RAF loss reports that the British lost 8 aircraft in that area on that day. Hardly all to Marseille? Well, still today, this is a debate.
I bought a book on Fighter Command losses over 1942, but unfortunately it did not cover N Africa, only the home front. Would love to dig more into this if I just had the sources. I have made some study of LW claims vs RAF actual losses on the French front, and it is interesting enough. Sometimes claims are 100% accurate, sometimes double, and there are even claims where there were no losses.
Anyway, I have a theory on Marseilles favourite anti-spitfire maneuver, which I wanted to share with you (If you don't know it allready).
Since the Spitfires would almost always break into a tight turn (the desert variant being somewhat slower than the 109F) Marseille would use that. He chopped the throttle and delicately forced the 109's slots to slam out. In a slow, almost hovering turn, he got his aircraft's nose into firing position. With some deflection, he would see the Spitfire floating through his gunsight. He would fire approximately when the Spitfires nose was entering his sight, and line his few pings exclusively in the engine and the cockpit. With the low speed applied, and the very short range, both machine guns and cannons were deadly, and ulætimate accuracy was reached.
The rest of his buddies would cover him while he performed his stunts, otherwise he would be putting himself into imminent danger, being that slow in the middle of combat.
I have read some other accounts of 109 pilots who did this, but they were not many.
Why, one would ask. Well, only a few could master that good a feel to make the slots open so precisely, - if they didn't the plane could snap quite brutally. And totally sacrificing your speed for it could prove fatal.
I guess AH does not feature the slots. Would be fun if one could perform this in AH, that would definately bring more people to fly the 109!
