Ironic...

[BotaBing]

I keep seeing reports of german pilots who had over 100kills, yet the top american fighter aces seem to have been in the 20-30 kill range.

I guess thats because the germans where flying longer, fighting much closer to base, etc?

[This message has been edited by BotaBing (edited 06-10-2000).]

[Sharky]

Botabing,

The german pilots flew until they died.  There was little to no rotation of pilots in the LW.  Additionally a large number of those kills came on the russian front where at least initally the germans enjoyed a superiority in both the quality and quantity in planes and pilots.

The pilots in the LW were highly trained highly motivated pilots and it is not surprising that they were as successful as they were.  But if you take the kills vs time in combat of the allied pilots and extrapolated <sp> that out to the same amount of time the LW pilots were in combat you'll see that the numbers of kills would have been about the same.

Sharky

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Playboy Leader
307th FS/31st FG
You can run but ya just die tired

[iculus]

I might be mistaken, but I'm under the impression that many LW kills came from the eastern front, before there was a western front.  I also beleive that many kills were aquired vs. inferior AC during the German push through Europe... not that the LW didn't have excellent pilots, but what could compete with the LW from 1939-1942?

Salute,
IC

[leonid]

Gunther Rall said that in the LW you flew until you got an "Iron Cross, or a wooden cross."

[RAM]

 

Originally posted by iculus:
I might be mistaken, but I'm under the impression that many LW kills came from the eastern front, before there was a western front.  I also beleive that many kills were aquired vs. inferior AC during the German push through Europe... not that the LW didn't have excellent pilots, but what could compete with the LW from 1939-1942?

Salute,
IC

[ironic mode one]
Uh,yes...I guess that Jochen Marseille got his victories because in North africa there were worse planes on allied side...the fact that th LW was outnumbered on 3/1 most of the conflict, and nearly 7/1 in last stages, doesnt matter at all.

Same in eastern front. Erich Hartmann got 357 victories because he was flying agains a unskilled russian foe. OF couse. The fact that LW was outnumbered 20/1 in late 1944 onwards doesnt matter a toejam. At all.

Why would I talk about Rall, NOwotny, Moelders, Galland...Especially the 2 later they got more than 100 victories in 2 years because they were only lucky SOBs. Oh yeah.
[ironic mode off]

If the Allied pilots had to fight all the war as LW pilots did, yes indeed more than one would have had more than 100 victories. Marseille got 100 victories...in 6 months.
Harmann got 357...in 2 years (less than that).
Galland 100 in year and half
Moelders 100 in year and half,too...
Etc etc etc...

Go and search for an allied pilot who match that.

Galland and MOelders fought mainly in Western front (Galland ALL his victories there).

Marseille in North Africa, where LW was in numerical inferiority.

Hartmann in eastern front, mid '43 onwards. May I say what were the conditions there?...

The finest pilots in WWII were Germans...and one little Japanese guy called Saburo Sakai.

But we discussed this before.  

[Jekyll]

 

Marseille got 100 victories...in 6 months.

He must have slowed down at some stage.  After all, he got 17 in ONE DAY!

Even Galland described him as the 'virtuoso of fighter pilots'.

[Sharky]

RAM,

Why did I know that you'd come riding in here on your Iron Cross?  

I knew when I wrote my response I was thinking to myself, "be very careful how you word this or RAM's going to get all insulted"

The LW were very good pilots, they were however not Supermen.  I tried very hard to give them the respect that they were due, however the fact remains that the largest reason that some of the LW Aces were able to amass terrific scores of kills was simply the huge amount of time they spent in combat and the target rich environment in which they operated. Period.

Any pilot that survives combat will become better at his work the more times he goes up. (all things being equal and not allowing for luck or the lack of or fatique etc).  The more times he goes up the more likely he is to score victories against his enemies and the harder it is going to be to shoot him down (He will be come better at killing and also surviving)  

Now in any field, some truely gifted people will be found and the LW certainly had their share of those (Hartman, Marseille, Galland come quickly to mind).  I'm sure the Allies had there share also, but due to circumstances, beyond their control, did not have to opportunity to show it like the LW pilots did

I'm sorry that you see this as some sort of slight against the LW RAM, it was not my intention.  The pilots of the LW, politics aside, were great men and are deserving of the respect of all of us.  I tried very hard to word my response in this vein, so as not to offend.  However I'm slowly learning, that when it comes to discussions of the LW were you are involved, this is impossible.

I appolgize if I still managed to offend you, but I don't appoligize for my response to why some LW Aces had such dramatic success.

Sharky

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Playboy Leader
307th FS/31st FG
You can run but ya just die tired

[hblair]

 

The finest pilots in WWII were Germans...and one little Japanese guy called Saburo Sakai.

Are you implying that ALL Japanese fighter pilots were "little" men compared to Luftwaffe guys? How could you say that?!?

I am SO OFFENDED!

<pops open bottle of prozac and tosses RAM a pill>


(kidding )  

[JENG]

There goes Ram again... my hotblooded Spanish friend...

Indeed you could say that he was bount to show up in valiant defence of his heroes... sorry for being sarcastic ram but you should cool down a bit...

The Luftwaffe had some great pilots... but what makes an ace? First he has to survive enemy contact and score his first kill... then he gets better with every combat sortie flown... and you have to admit that the Germans flew many many sorties...(also more chance to encounter the enemy). I'm not going into the inferior plane bit... they didn't face inferior planes in the BOB, North Africa, Russia (from 1943 on)... by the way there are many 100+ aces that scored them all against western allies.

What I do want to say is ... the allies had also some exeptional pilots in their ranks who just couldn't get their killtotal up their cause they only had a combat tour of 50 missions.

I think maybe the best thing to compare pilots is to look back to WW1. Both sides had at some point the technological advantage or the numbers... but still you see that the three highest aces are all within 10 kills of eachother. (Richthofen, Guynemeyer, Bishop).

I believe you had exceptional men on all sides.. but saying this or that country were the best flyers, aces, etc is just ridiculus.



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BEE(JENG)
=CO=II/JG2~Richthofen~
CLICK ->>> JG2 INFO

'Nemo Me Impune Lacessit'

[jmccaul]

So the Luftwaffe had all the best pilots apart from one.

 

[Gadfly]

Pulled from "I flew for the Fuhrer", a diary type book by Hienz Knoke.

He flew better than 2000 operational sorties, was shot down about 20 times and scored 50? kills.

Someone has these exact numbers, I'm sure, but the point is, the Germans fought as long as they could, using whatever they had, so "Ace" stats can't really be compared across countries.

<edit>Ooops, forgot:

Lizking

[This message has been edited by Gadfly (edited 06-10-2000).]

[Pongo]

Botta bing pretty much summed it up.
Biggest factor was number of bad guys.
The most important prerequsit to a high score is targets. The germans had lots of them.
 The majority of the top scorers did most of there scoring after 1941. So everyone had good ac. The Eastern pilots had higher scores only because of the larger number of targets made available(at least until mid 44)
Once air supperiorty was established over the continent and the fighters were forced to atack the day light bombers things changed but for the most part the Germans shot down the western allies just as rapidly as they shot down the Russians in direct relation to how often they engaged them.

A quote.
" The successes achieved by Werner Schoer contradicts the common theory that the German fighter pilots' large successs were only due to the fact that they took part in many more missions than their allied counterparts: Schoer flew 197 combat missions and shot down 114 RAF and USAAF aircraft. Acomaprison may be made with the top US ace in the European theater of war, Francis Gabreski, who made 153 comabt missions and shot down 28 German Aircraft."

Most of you will not have heard of Schroer. He is not famous despite having shot down 5 squadrons of western allied aircraft.
If Gabby had 400 bad guys cross his sights in his 153 mission then he would have had 100 kills too. Or been dead. Although it is not recorded I bet the two kill totals far more accuratly match the number of Enemy they contacted then the number of missions they flew.

Given an effective aircraft, massive numbers of targets and an aggressive competent pilot, the kills rack up. It would be a mistake to think that for every one of these aces 10 lesser guys were killed. For most of the war loss rates were quite low.
The introduction of the FW190 to Africa resulted in the loss of 150 Allied aircraft and 8 Fw190s... in 4 months.

Once the tide had turned in the west the German fighter pilots became the whipping boys of thier country, their moral plumetted the quality of their AC for the high alt intercept mission was questionalble and the quality quantity and experiance of the enemy aircraft and pilots on both fronts began to hammer them from all fronts. But this was only really the last year of the war.
At this time the numbers of pilots that were still extremly effective declined signifigantly. Many of the mid to top pilots with 150-250 kills began to die off. Many of them died after transfer to the western front. The western front was much different tacticaly and technilogically to the eastern. The spits and p47s gave very little time to learn the differnences. At times the top allied pilots were able to inflict multi score sorties on the german pilots that they had been used to inflicting. Some of these multi score missions were not against the chaff of the pilots either. Some of the top 109 pilots were lost to Western pilots on high scoring missions.

So it is safe to say that the top 25 or so most SUCCESSFUL pilots in history were WW2 germans. It is silly to say that other nationalities in the same circumstance would not have produced simular pilots.

The two top canadians flying in RAF squadrons in Malta(Buerling and Macloud) destroyed more enemy planes in six months then the whole RCAF spitfire contingent in Britain did in the same six months. Targets.

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"Stupids are like flies. they are everywere, but are easy to kill"
RAM

[This message has been edited by Pongo (edited 06-10-2000).]

[Dune]

If you read their works, say "The War Diary of Helmut Lipfurt", you quickly realize that LW pilots couldn't help but rack up high numbers.

Lipfurt flew with JG 52 for 3 years.  He flew almost every day, three times a day.  And he found VVS planes on almost every hop.  The fact he stayed alive is an amazing feat.  But, if he was good enough to stay alive, he was good enough to kill the bad guys.  He got 203.

But, if you compare kills per sorties, Robert Johnson of the 56th FG did better than Hartman.  Sorry, it wasn't just a matter of skill.  It was skill and opportunity.  And a large part of tactics and superior planes.  Plus, you must remember usually LW pilots weren't captured if they were shot down.  Rall was shot down 3 or 4 times.  Lipfurt was shot down at least 6 times.  If a USAF pilot got shot down, 9 times out of 10 his war was over.

If Rall had been born in Dallas and flew with the 357th FG and Meyer had been born in Hamburg and flew with JG 77, who's to say that Meyer wouldn't have had 250 kills and Rall wouldn't have had 20?

To make a blanket statement that one country's pilots were better is ignorant.

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Lt Col Dune
X.O. 352nd Fighter Group
"The Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney"

"Credo quia absurdum est." (I believe it because it is unreasonable)
- The motto of the Republic of Baja Arizona

[juzz]

The correct numbers are: Over 400 operational sorties, shot down 5 times, 33 officially credited kills.

Kills per sortie? The best in that category would have to be Günther Scheel - 71 kills in 70 sorties!

[This message has been edited by juzz (edited 06-10-2000).]

[Kats]

Maybe if the US had better ammo other than the 50cals, their kill #'s would have been higher too   !!!!!!!!


(sorry, just couldn't resist  )