P-39 YAHOooo

[Karnak]

The top Allied ace in western Europe, Johnnie Johnson (39 kills, all single engined fighters, Spitfire Mk IX) was once asked by a journalist why he hadn't gotten as many kills as Hartman.  His response was that he hadn't seen that many enemy aircraft in the entire war.

There was nothing inately better about German pilots or German aircraft and if the US, UK or Russians had been facing the numbers they would have had some pilots with kills in the same range.

But it was the Germans that were flying in a target rich environment (aka, losing) and flying until they died.

Thus the scores.

FYI, highest confirmed score by a non-Luftwaffe pilot was by 94 by Ilmari Juutilainen of the Finnish Air Force.

[humble]

Gunther Scheel is arguably the best ace on any side in the war. The fact that he did it on the eastern front makes it easier but considering he had 70 kills in 71 sorties over just 5 months of combat before colliding with a Yak-9 he had just shot down. Comparing this with hartmann who had only 11 kills over his 1st 5 months of combat...if we look at hartmanns score from the start (1st kill Nov 5, 1942) till the end of July he had 42 total kills...

Hartmann and Scheel both hit there "Stride" in April of 43. Looking at April thru July Hartmann had 36 kills. Scheel had 61 kills from April to July 16th when he went down. In fact he had more kills during the 1st 16 days of July 1943 (41) then Hartmann had total victories (39) when he went down. Scheel ditched his plane and was captured bit never repriated after the war and is still listed as MIA. I think his 41 kills in 2 weeks and overall K/S are far and away the best of any pilot for any nation.

[angelsandair]

Originally posted by Motherland
I know. But the Russian scores were being disputed in this thread earlier so I didnt use them as an example (and I dont know the top Brit scorers either... who cares? He was probably a Spit dweeb anyway  (just kidding...)
Still, with Pokryshkins 'possible' 100 kills, thats still less than a third of Hartmann's.

Pokryshkin had possibly 80 Kozhedub had possibly 100, plus they pretty much till the la-7 and yak-9s, and i guess 3s were outdone aircraft wise by the germans.

[pengu146]

alexaner porkyshin had 52(1/2?) kills. i have a 72' model of his P39/:D

[Gabriel]

Should be noted that Marshal Pokryshkin was all but barred from active flights against (what was left) of the Luftwaffe from 1944 onwards.

[lyric1]

If I recall a lot of the German kills go back to the Spanish civil war when the German planes had complete control of the skies over Spain, for that matter Poland too.

[Charge]

"There was nothing inately better about German pilots or German aircraft and if the US, UK or Russians had been facing the numbers they would have had some pilots with kills in the same range.

But it was the Germans that were flying in a target rich environment (aka, losing) and flying until they died."

I certainly agree.

I'd like to point out however that the German training before the war was probably especially good and they had the legacy of WW1 veterans in their immediate disposal plus a fresh organisation which made it easy to adjust to new doctrines (there were some deficiencies too...). As it came out they were not just maintaining their airforce as other countries but building it especially for war.

Tactically in eastern front the small amount of planes and small formations made it easier for German pilots to surprise the Russian aircraft which tended to fly in larger formations making them easier to spot and ofter providing a false confidence.

Hartmann, when he arrived, still had a good training and got on the front in the right time to survive the hazardous learning phase and had the advantage of flying in a very target rich environment with tactics and a/c which could ensure survivability, although it was not always enough but he was merely just lucky to survive.

-C+