First Hartmann's kill was in 1943.Was an Il-2.
A lot of biplanes up by then, heh,torque?.
Same applies to Nowotny. some 90% his kills were in Fw190, and few of them in opening stages of the eastern campaign.
Torque...what about the "Pacific Aces"? thrown into combat against a unexperienced, worse equipped enemy. Are they pure crap because their enemies werent that good?.No, they were nice pilots and had a lot of merit!!. Same with eastern front...with the difference that russian pilots had way better aircraft than Japanese had. And better pilots in late war, too.
None of the "Pacific Aces" tallied even 40kills. Take a look and Hartmann's figures. Take a look into Steinhoff, Kuprinski, Nowotny, Galland, Bar, Rall,Moelders, Marseille (oh yes he killed 17 inutile warhawks and hurricanes in one day...but they were worse planes than the 109F, eh! so is not good!)
And What about hans-Urich Rudel?...he killed by himself...
ONE BATTLESHIP!!! (30000 tons)
more than 500 Russian tanks (I bet all of them outdated isnt it?)
more than 2000 russian vehicles
and in late 44 and 45 he flew without a leg...may I follow? he was a F·"$"% nazi pig...but he was a nightmare for Red Army.
Show me any pilot that match any of them, come on do it...or at least try to do it.
And dont tell me about Tour Of duties. German hadnt, true. THey served untill the end. But show me an allied pilot who has the same tally record in a short time as,for example, Galland, Marseille, Moelders...
German fighter aces were the best around the world, IMHO. So dont insult they memory, please.
[edit]as a side note I'll answer to your question. nearly 75% of russian planes were I-15 (or variants) and I-16. More I-16 than I-15. They were 1937-39 products. No WWI VINTAGE!. The rest were MiG-3, LaGG-3 and in a bit of more time later Yak-1...that sounds quite modern for 1941.
[edit] and I wont start telling about Channel fights in 1941-43 because there wasnt there the 5-1 odds you mean, and we all know, TOO, how that ended...for the RAF!

(BTW the BoB was a british victory. Yep...but look at 109's numbers and K/D ratio do you want?. It may SURPRISE YOU!)
[This message has been edited by RAM (edited 05-26-2000).]