New Book Claims WWI pilot lied about his record

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by Masherbrum
The Luftwaffe was a honorable part of WWII.   They did have the better pilots overall.  Not to take away anything but the Allies, but I do believe they were better.  

Jay

More experienced? yes..they'd been "at it" longer..Better?  Hard to make a judgement like that unless its an opinion.  US pilots were rotated to the states after so many kills, LW pilots just flew until they died, were injured, or the war ended, so you can't base it on number of kills.

[Masherbrum]

I never mentioned kills

Jay

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by Ripsnort


More experienced? yes..they'd been "at it" longer..Better?  Hard to make a judgement like that unless its an opinion.  US pilots were rotated to the states after so many kills, LW pilots just flew until they died, were injured, or the war ended, so you can't base it on number of kills.

So ok, we cant base it on number of kills, and we cant use some sort of monthly average either (at least imo) we also have to take into consideration what kind of aircraft they were flying, and against what kind of opposition they were flying. Case in point, on a fighter sweep over Germany in 1944 a US fighter squardron stumbled across a German flying school with something like 30 pilots in bi planes ...alot of US aces were created that day. We also have to take into consideration the different rules of what would constitute a "kill". If I'm not misstaken, allied pilots were credited kills of aircraft on the ground as well as kills in the air. I e if an allied pilot strafed a 109 on the ground, that counted as an "aerial victory".

If you want to remove the number of kills from the "who is better equation" what are you left with? Effectively you've made it impossible to compare pilots.

In my opinion, if the German pilots were "at it" longer, and had more kills,  they probably were more experienced too, and thus, they were better.

The US rotating pilots was a policy desicion. Germany had another policy. This resulted in some German pilots being much better than their allied counterparts. It really is as simple as that.

Interestingly enough, it was the complete opposite for the ground troops. Germany was the only country with an extensive R&R rotation scheme for its soldiers. I e any German soldier regardless of rank was entitled to a number of days of home leave each year.

[Nashwan]

Its funny to see how people react when someone presents information or FACTS even, indicating that some aspect of Germany in wwii was better than some allied aspect, be it aircraft performance, pilot quality, claims procedures, battle victories or whathaveyou.

Standard procedure when presented with an uncomfortable fact or theory:
1. Ignore ("Thats not true", "you cant prove it")
2. Evade ("here they go again the luftwobbles")
3. Shift focus ("you are a Nazi/revisionist","well... Germany started the war so shut up")

Pathetic

Hortlund, you are aware that Elfenwolf's figures were one of his trolls, aren't you?

That they bear no relationship to any form of reality whatever, andthat they therefore can't be called "FACTS"?

[Masherbrum]

The allies had quantity.

Jay

[Nifty]

Does it matter which side had the better pilots, or if either side inflated their kill totals?  so what, Germany had the better pilots, they couldn't win the war for them, in either WWI or WWII.

there's only one score that matters, and thank heavens the Allieds came out on top, 2-0.

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by Voss
Still, he alledgedly and very coldly cut a piece off the wreckage, and surrendered it to his superior with the comment, "Confirmed." Who can say if the account occured like this, or not?

um....this was George Peppard in "The Blue Max," not Manfred in Real Life.

- oldman

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by Elfenwolf
Daff the Luftwaffe was far stricter on the rules for air combat kills to be awarded than any of the Allied air forces were.

I would love to see your source for this.

Because I've always had a real probelm with the notion that 100 guys shot down 14,000 planes.  

- Oldman

[Voss]

Read Richthofen's Diary and tell me that.

His Dicta was modified after the fact to down enemy aircraft only over friendly soil. In fact, he rarely flew over the lines from that day forth.

He died when he violated this rule.

[Masherbrum]

The isn't a winner in war only dead bodies.  My grandfather told me this a couple of years before he died in 1998.   He had to throw phospherous grenades in caves, and said "I will carry the screaming and the rotting flesh streaming off of live humans to my grave."  Nobody wins, sorry.

Jay

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by Nashwan

Hortlund, you are aware that Elfenwolf's figures were one of his trolls, aren't you?

That they bear no relationship to any form of reality whatever, andthat they therefore can't be called "FACTS"?

Uh...Nashwan, you are aware of the rediculous claims (mostly the) USAAF made in 43-45? Let me give one example, from the 15th of November 1943 to the 15th of April 1944 the 8th airforce claimed:

2 223 destroyed German fighters,
696 probable's, and
1 818 damaged.

At the same time the escort wings in the 8th airforce (the above numbers were bomber claims) claimed

1 835 destroyed German fighters.

Rediculous numbers.

Or why not the raid on Augsburg...

900 escorts from the USAAF and RAF claimed 118 kills, and the
500 Flying fortresses (B17s and B24s) claimed 350 kills

On that day, total number of LW sorties on the entire western front, including bombers and transport sorties was 950.

More rediculous numbers.
 
Now, you tell me. Are these numbers trolls?

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by Oldman731


I would love to see your source for this.

Because I've always had a real probelm with the notion that 100 guys shot down 14,000 planes.  

- Oldman

But perhaps that is more related to your "all Germans were nazis" opinion? I mean, wouldnt it really kill you to have to admit that some Germans actually were quite skilled at what they were doing?

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by Hortlund
But perhaps that is more related to your "all Germans were nazis" opinion? I mean, wouldnt it really kill you to have to admit that some Germans actually were quite skilled at what they were doing?

Make a guy a judge, look what happens.  He gets all irritable, thinks he's getting no respect, starts spitting and biting.  Geez.

Nope, Hortlund, it certainly wouldn't kill me to admit that some Germans were quite skilled at what they were doing.  Fighting wars is one of the things the Germans have shown the world that they enjoy doing most.  I have absolutely no doubt that the Luftwaffe had lots of skilled pilots, some of whom even survived the war.  I just don't buy their claims, is all.

- Oldman

[Nashwan]

Uh...Nashwan, you are aware of the rediculous claims (mostly the) USAAF made in 43-45? Let me give one example, from the 15th of November 1943 to the 15th of April 1944 the 8th airforce claimed:

2 223 destroyed German fighters,
696 probable's, and
1 818 damaged.

Yes Hortlund, I am.

I just thought Elfenwolfs numbers were so far out there as to be funny. They work out at over 4000 claims per month, every month of the war. For comparison, the RAF actually claimed 2500 Luftwaffe aircraft during the entire Battle of Britain, which lasted about 4 months.

Now, if you want to talk about real life overclaiming, fine.

All sides did it, all sides varied throughout the war.

To counterbalance the figures you quoted above, how about the Luftwaffe, in a 4 month period (the BoB) claiming 3,500 RAF aircraft shot down. Another rediculous claim.

I made a joke (a lame one, I admit) at Elfenwolf's figures, which like most Elfenwolf posts are gross exagerations made as a joke.

If I offended you, I am sorry.

[Karnak]

The Germans were no more accurate than anybody else.  The Battle of Britain demostrated that quite well.  The RAF claimed about 1.5 kills for every kill they actually got in the BoB, the Germans claimed about 3 kills for every kill they actually got in the BoB.

Whenever a side was in a position to physically verify its kill claims they were much, much more accurate.  The Germans were in this situation longer than just about anybody else and thus are generally more accurate (the Finns are an anomaly).  However, to claim that this was due to a more stringent German system or some such is disingeneous and demonstratably false.