Villers Bocage: don´t be fooled by the Firefly

Non-naval discussions about the Second World War. Military leaders, campaigns, weapons, etc.
alecsandros
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Re: Villers Bocage: don´t be fooled by the Firefly

Post by alecsandros »

lwd wrote: Germany was preoccupied with quality, not quantity. They didn't have as many planes or pilots as the Allies, but they sure were very good. \

Were they? Seems like I've read a lot about the poor training of late war German pilots.
Facts? Can you tell me how many planes/sortie those "poorly trained" pilots scored? Do you know that the air raids that hit Germany from 1942 to 1945 had up to 13% planes destroyed? Did you know that at the battle for the Ploiesti airfields, over 400 allied planes were destroyed in exchange for less than 100 German and Romanian ones?


As for saying that "they were operating in much closer proximity to their enemy than (for example) US 8th Fighter Command" or, as lwd wrote, "Many US fighter pilots never even saw an opponent much less got a shot at one" seem to me more like shameless excuses for the true problem: Allied pilot's inefficiency against German ones.
lwd wrote: It's not the fault of the pilot if he never gets near an enemy air craft.
Have you read Pierre Closterman's book "The great Circus"? It seems that you haven't, judging by the your ideas. The book is in fact the war journal of the best French ace of WW2 (33 kills). He fought all the war! He had hundreds of missions! And In it, you'll find tremendous respect for the German pilots, especialy for the aces.

We're talking about people with 100+,200+, 300+ confirmed kills in 4-5-6 years, and you're pointing only at the external favorable conditions that allowed them to achieve this.
lwd wrote: There's no reason to supsect that Germany produced inately better pilots than anyone esle.
Seriously now, are you even trying to make some sense, or just want to make contradictory speech on the net? What do you mean "there's no reason to" ????? How about this reason: the first 100 aces of WW2 are GERMANS!

[quote="lwd]
The allies had air superiority on the Eastern front in 43?
Again, are you just trying to argue with me? What do you mean "The allies had air superiority on the Eastern front in 43?" The russians had plenty of warplanes! Much more than the Germans.


- significant amount of AA guns (especially on the Eastern front)
[quote="lwd]
More than the allies faced? Certainly not in the west where most of their flying was over friendly territory.
[/quote]
Realy? How about the Battle for Britain? Offensives on France, Greece, Crete, Malta, Egipt? And anyway, I stated "especially on the Eastern front".

lwd wrote:- Allied fighters tendency to focus precisely on the "aces"

Documentation PLS
You'll find plenty yourself. Just look for it, instead of contradicting me without backing up any of your claims.
lwd wrote: And, if you're willing to stick with victories/sortie, check out Hans Joachim Marseille, Gordon Gollob or Walter Nowotny on the internet. You might be surprised.
Perhaps but the question is how relevant is it. And of course if you are finding it on the net how accurate is it. I know I've seen reports that achecked Marseille's one day kills with the total British losses for the day in question and found the former exceeded the latter.[/quote]
So you are questioning the relevance of an indicator THAT YOU HAVE PROPOSED TO USE? Yes, there are discrepancies, but the fact remains that each one of those destroyed up to 5 planes/day (in aerial battle, not on the ground).
alecsandros
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Re: Villers Bocage: don´t be fooled by the Firefly

Post by alecsandros »

lwd wrote:
alecsandros wrote: ...
And finally, you are again inventing excuses: you are hiding behind "they didn't have a shot at the enemy" statement, but you fail to see that those that DID have a fair shot (and there were many, in the Battle of Britain, Malta campaign, Eastern Front, the campaign for Romanian oil, etc) haven't manage to do much. ....
At least in the west fighter pilots were simply not allowed to fly enough to get their kills up as high as the Germans. They simply didn't have the opertunities. They had to fly longer sorties which pretty much limited them to 1 or at the most two a day. The western allies also tended to rest their pilots as well and I know the US rotated their top aces back home often around the 30 kill point if not before.
Just one name: Pierre Closterman.
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Re: Villers Bocage: don´t be fooled by the Firefly

Post by alecsandros »

Karl Heidenreich wrote:Historical revisionism is a two sided weapon. Taken to the extreme can produce monsters and pathetic arguments as those we are facing in this thread.
Amin to that, Karl!
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Re: Villers Bocage: don´t be fooled by the Firefly

Post by alecsandros »

Karl Heidenreich wrote:Returning to the main topic, I don´t know if I posted this link before, but if not here it goes again. It shows the kill ration between Tiger equiped units and their foes:

http://www.alanhamby.com/losses.shtml

The summary goes as follows:

Total 1,715 units lost vs 9,850 enemies destroyed for a 5.74 ratio. Not bad?
Impressive! And I think the losses included the tanks destroyed by aerial attacks/sabotage, etc, so not just tank to tank battle.

The true badasses seem to be the 13th Grossdeutschland, with that amazing 100:6 kill ratio! Almost 17 dead tanks for every Tiger! Yay!
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Re: Villers Bocage: don´t be fooled by the Firefly

Post by alecsandros »

Karl Heidenreich wrote:From our friend Chuck Hawks:

"The high velocity German guns that could easily penetrate the Sherman's armor, coupled with vulnerable ammunition storage, gave the Sherman the nickname "Ronson," taken from the Ronson cigarette lighter. This was based on the Ronson Company's famous slogan, "lights first time, every time."

It was the Americans that put this nickname to the Sherman, not the Germans. If someone refers to the Tiger, it was always the Tiger.
Yes, the Tigers were much better than the Shermans. Their war record proves that.
But it seems to me that to much emphasis is put on the machine, and not enough over the men inside. After all, after 1943 each Allied power had at least one weapon potent enough to defeat it: the British 17pd AT gun in North Africa, that by the time of Normandy invasion got on the Sherman Firefly; the American 90mm AA/AT gun (1942), M36 tank destroyer (1944), Pershing(1945), the Russians - T34/85, SU100, later ISU122/152, JS2, etc.

I think that mostly the training and discipline of the German crews made the Tigers so formidable.
What do you think?
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Re: Villers Bocage: don´t be fooled by the Firefly

Post by Bgile »

alecsandros wrote:And you're telling me that they LIVED trough it and DESTROYED PLANES BY THE HUNDREDS because THEY WERE LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE IN ENOUGH MISSIONS?
No. I'm telling you:

1. They fought longer than anyone else.
2. They were good stick and rudder men.
3. They had natural gifts such as really good eyesight.
4. Most of their opponents were in bombers.
5. They fought in target rich environments.
6. They used good tactics and didn't take unnecessary chances.
7. A few of them were lucky enough to survive the war. Most didn't, and most were shot down several times. When they were shot down it was usually over friendly territory.

2, 3, and 6 were were present in some allied pilots but the rest were simply not possible except in the case of a few Russians who survived long enough to accumulate high totals.

The Japanese also had some really good aces, but they often flew death traps and flew over water much of the time, as was the case with US pilots in the Pacific, or they flew Kamikaze missions.

Edit: Many of the German pilots ran up big totals early in the war when their opponents flew mostly obsolete aircraft or had poor training or lack of experience.
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Re: Villers Bocage: don´t be fooled by the Firefly

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

4. Most of their opponents were in bombers.
Where is the support of that? Anyway, B-17s were bombers and hard to shot down as hell. It´s just rethoric in order to try to diminish the undeniable superiority. Again: let´s say that Bong shot down all his enemy scores as fighters. And that Hartmann shot down a third of his scores also fighters and two thirds bombers: 352/3 = 117 vs. 40, so still is three times Bong.

I do not understand the attempt to disregard historical facts in order to convince others of qualities that never existed, as SD´s super performance in Second Guadalacanal.
Edit: Many of the German pilots ran up big totals early in the war when their opponents flew mostly obsolete aircraft or had poor training or lack of experience.
Yes, like Spitfires and Hurricanes and ruskie´s Illushing II-2 Sturmovik.

I like this because is much easier to fight than the Battleships. There is no angle to see this and to get a disadvantegous angle for the highly eficient Luftwaffe. Of course there is something that no one says which is why the Luftwaffe is attacked in order to denigrate it: the Army was Prussian, the Navy barely existing and with catholic tendencies whilst the Luftwaffe was very keen to nazism. So, of all the branches of traditional Armed Forces the Luftwaffe is the one that could be targeted for ideological reasons. So be it, maybe they were evil.... still were the best pilots all around.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
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Re: Villers Bocage: don´t be fooled by the Firefly

Post by Byron Angel »

alecsandros wrote: Germany was preoccupied with quality, not quantity. They didn't have as many planes or pilots as the Allies, but they sure were very good.
As for saying that "they were operating in much closer proximity to their enemy than (for example) US 8th Fighter Command" or, as lwd wrote, "Many US fighter pilots never even saw an opponent much less got a shot at one" seem to me more like shameless excuses for the true problem: Allied pilot's inefficiency against German ones.

We're talking about people with 100+,200+, 300+ confirmed kills in 4-5-6 years, and you're pointing only at the external favorable conditions that allowed them to achieve this.

But, if you're willing to blame it on the combat situation, why don't you go all the way, and admit that there were also Unfavorable combat conditions, that hindered their achievements:
- air superiority of the Allies (Eastern Front 1943-1945, North Africa and Mediteranean 1942-1945, Western Europe 1943-1945)
- significant amount of AA guns (especially on the Eastern front)
- Allied fighters tendency to focus precisely on the "aces"

And still, the German pilots overcame those obstacles and won again and again and again.

And, if you're willing to stick with victories/sortie, check out Hans Joachim Marseille, Gordon Gollob or Walter Nowotny on the internet. You might be surprised.

..... I do not speak from a position of ignorance on this subject. It is simply irrational to cast judgements based upon numbers of kills only while ignoring the numbers of sorties flown to achieve them. It took Hartmann somewhere between 850 and 1400+ sorties (depending upon how one counts) to achieve his 352 kills. It's impossible for any pilot to even approach such kill numbers when his operational service has been restricted to only 60 or 100 sorties before being rotated out of combat. However, If one compares kills per sortie, it becomes immediately evident that the best fighter pilots displayed similar talent levels regardless of nationality.

This is not to say that the LW did not boast among its ranks some absolutely superb pilots, many of whom had unsurpassed amounts of experience in aerial combat. But that was IMO far more a function of the circumstances and longevity of the air war fought by Germany. There was nothing unique about German nature or LW doctrine that made German fighter pilots especially unique.
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Re: Villers Bocage: don´t be fooled by the Firefly

Post by lwd »

Karl Heidenreich wrote: ...Again you are defending the Sherman tanks... You never learn, man?
The Sherman was one of the best designed and built tanks of the war. It's been explained quite few times. Some are just to blind to see.
But if you take a look to this link you will find, easily that the first 100 air aces of WWII were all German, and then we got people from Finland, Romania, Japan and then, low in there, the US.
So? If you want to put it into an equation then it would be something like this:
Kills = skill * training * plane quality * luck * opportunity * opposition quality * other factors.
If you solve that for skill you will find that opportunity has a significant impact. As for the US being so low on the list it's been explained that they US had a policy of rotating pilots back to the states after a certain number of missions and/or kills. They simply didn't have the oppertunity to rack up the kills the Germans did. They also didn't have the huge numbers of low quality opposition that the Germans had early on the eastern front.
Let´s say that Hartman was half the good pilot he was and that the top American ace was twice as better as he was. What is the ratio, then, for statistical comparison that you so very much love:
Hartmann: 352 / 2 = 176
Bong (US Air Forces): 40 x 2 = 80
Then Hartman has twice the ratio of Bong.
Twice or ten times it's a meaningless number.
Please, refer to the list and try not lose any time defending the indefensible. Germans had the best pilots, the best U Boat aces and the best tankers of the world.
That is simply not a logical conclusion.
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Re: Villers Bocage: don´t be fooled by the Firefly

Post by lwd »

alecsandros wrote:
Yes, the Tigers were much better than the Shermans. Their war record proves that.
Does it?

It very much depends on what your definition of "best" is. For instance image the US had been building Tigers instead of Shermans do you think they would have done better?
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Re: Villers Bocage: don´t be fooled by the Firefly

Post by lwd »

Karl Heidenreich wrote:...
Yes, like Spitfires and Hurricanes and ruskie´s Illushing II-2 Sturmovik.
....
Let's take a look at that. Now I'm sure these aren't the best numbers as they come from wiki at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain
But it states the numbers were:
1,963 aircraft (British) vs 4,074 aircraft (Germans)
Losses were:
1,547 aircraft (British) to 1,887 aircraft (German)
Doesn't look like much of a case for German superiority does it.
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Re: Villers Bocage: don´t be fooled by the Firefly

Post by alecsandros »

Bgile wrote:
alecsandros wrote:And you're telling me that they LIVED trough it and DESTROYED PLANES BY THE HUNDREDS because THEY WERE LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE IN ENOUGH MISSIONS?
(1)

No. I'm telling you:

1. They fought longer than anyone else.(2)
2. They were good stick and rudder men.
3. They had natural gifts such as really good eyesight.
4. Most of their opponents were in bombers.
5. They fought in target rich environments.
6. They used good tactics and didn't take unnecessary chances.
7. A few of them were lucky enough to survive the war. Most didn't, and most were shot down several times. When they were shot down it was usually over friendly territory.

2, 3, and 6 were were present in some allied pilots but the rest were simply not possible except in the case of a few Russians who survived long enough to accumulate high totals.(3)

The Japanese also had some really good aces, but they often flew death traps and flew over water much of the time, as was the case with US pilots in the Pacific, or they flew Kamikaze missions.

Edit: Many of the German pilots ran up big totals early in the war when their opponents flew mostly obsolete aircraft or had poor training or lack of experience.
From (1), (2) and (3) it is obvious that you are contradicting yourself. You're saying that the Germans had the opportunity of scoring lots of kills, having fought the longest war, and that their kills were mostly made on the eastern front, while the Russians didn't "because very few survived the war". News flash: they both fought THE SAME war.

Some other facts to consider:
- The Japananese did not fly in death traps.
- Joachim Marseille destroyed over 100 Western aircrafts in less than a year.
- Whenever the Black Devil appeared in battle, the Russian pilots would withdraw in fear, without attacking.

-----------------------------------------

It's ok to be an enthusiast and defend your point of view, but it's not ok to ever try to contradict somebody. I'm thinking that if I'd say "the americans had the best aces in the war", you would jump up and write me a 1 page answer about how good the germans were!
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Re: Villers Bocage: don´t be fooled by the Firefly

Post by alecsandros »

Byron Angel wrote:

..... I do not speak from a position of ignorance on this subject. It is simply irrational to cast judgements based upon numbers of kills only while ignoring the numbers of sorties flown to achieve them. It took Hartmann somewhere between 850 and 1400+ sorties (depending upon how one counts) to achieve his 352 kills.

This is not to say that the LW did not boast among its ranks some absolutely superb pilots, many of whom had unsurpassed amounts of experience in aerial combat. But that was IMO far more a function of the circumstances and longevity of the air war fought by Germany. There was nothing unique about German nature or LW doctrine that made German fighter pilots especially unique.
Saying that the German pilots had the most kills just because they had the chance (long combat history) is like saying that Brazil won the World Cup 5 times just because it had the "chance" of qualifying in the tournament 18 times.
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Re: Villers Bocage: don´t be fooled by the Firefly

Post by alecsandros »

lwd wrote:
Karl Heidenreich wrote: ...Again you are defending the Sherman tanks... You never learn, man?
The Sherman was one of the best designed and built tanks of the war. It's been explained quite few times. Some are just to blind to see.
The Sherman, like the T34, were very good tanks until 1942. AFTER 1942 it's another story.
lwd wrote:
But if you take a look to this link you will find, easily that the first 100 air aces of WWII were all German, and then we got people from Finland, Romania, Japan and then, low in there, the US.
So? If you want to put it into an equation then it would be something like this:
Kills = skill * training * plane quality * luck * opportunity * opposition quality * other factors.
If you solve that for skill you will find that opportunity has a significant impact. As for the US being so low on the list it's been explained that they US had a policy of rotating pilots back to the states after a certain number of missions and/or kills. They simply didn't have the oppertunity to rack up the kills the Germans did. They also didn't have the huge numbers of low quality opposition that the Germans had early on the eastern front.
Let´s say that Hartman was half the good pilot he was and that the top American ace was twice as better as he was. What is the ratio, then, for statistical comparison that you so very much love:
Hartmann: 352 / 2 = 176
Bong (US Air Forces): 40 x 2 = 80
Then Hartman has twice the ratio of Bong.
Twice or ten times it's a meaningless number.
Please, refer to the list and try not lose any time defending the indefensible. Germans had the best pilots, the best U Boat aces and the best tankers of the world.
That is simply not a logical conclusion.
You are again just trying to find someone to have an argument with. This is becoming quite amusing, specially because you read our (Karl's and mine) posts, you criticise them, but you don't understand them wholly, not because you can't, but because you don't want to. You just want to have an argument; and another, and another. Please read our answers, to you and to the others detractors of "German best pilots". Then we'll have another argument, of course :D
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Re: Villers Bocage: don´t be fooled by the Firefly

Post by alecsandros »

lwd wrote:
alecsandros wrote:
Yes, the Tigers were much better than the Shermans. Their war record proves that.
Does it?

It very much depends on what your definition of "best" is. For instance image the US had been building Tigers instead of Shermans do you think they would have done better?
And also imagine this: Germany is not situated in Europe, but instead in South America. England is not an island, but is in fact a peninsula, Kamceatcka. Russia does not have that vast open steppe, but is in fact located in Thailand.

What is the point my friend? You are again seeking arguments, and just trying to show "somebody" that you know "something" without using historical facts or at least rational evidence, but instead get more and more EXCUSES for the allies poor/mediocre performance against Luftwaffe/Wehrmacht.
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