Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

[lwd]

...The top German aces were most likely the most skilled and capable pilots of the SWW based on the fact that they got the chance to participate in more combat missions to perfect their craft. It's virtually a given that the more you do something the better you get at it.

There are a couple of things to consider in regards to this. One is combat fatigue or just plain fatigue. One comes to a point where one essentially doesn't learn anymore. I've seen studies for instance that indicate that after about 6 months overtime is no longer productive. Obviously this will vary with the job and the individual. Note that current USA studies indicate that around 200 days of combat are the poiont where you have to start really watching for PTS or as it was known in WWII "combat fatigue" some people can obviously take a lot more. The other thing is that what you become good at may not become somewhat specialized. Obviously Hartman didn't seem to suffer from this or at least didn't suffer from it badly but I've heard on other boards that a fair number of German aces with almost all their experiance in the East didn't last long in the west. I think there may also have been cases the other way around.

It occurs to me that another and perhaps better measure of pilot skill might be the average number of wingmen lost per sortie. Pretty massive undertaking but it might actually be supportable to some extent. Of course if you got a very good wingman your standing would be better.

...With regards to the BoB though, I tend to disagree that the *average* RAF pilot was close in skill to that of the average Luftwaffe pilot at any time during the battle. The balance sheet in favour of the RAF reflects, IMO, more the same kind of home field advantages the luftwaffe later enjoyed defending Germany: for example in 1940 a heavily damaged RAF fighter might be able to emergency land on the nearest airfield, be repaired, and not therefore count as "lost" where as a lightly damaged Bf-109 leaking fuel faces a long flight accross the channel to reach friendly airfields.

My understnading is that the Germans were shooting down more RAF fighters than the RAF was shooting down German fighters. The RAF won the battle of Britain because they were also shooting down a fair number of LW bombers and they had a higher replacement rate. Another set of factors to consider for the BOB that cloud the issue.
1) At the start of the BOB most LW pilots were vetrans. Many (most?) RAF pilots were not.
2) At the start of the BOB British mgs were set to diverge rather than converge.
3) The LW was using a "close escort" tactic for at least part of the BOB.
4) The British had the advantage of what was probably the worlds best FDC at the time.
All in all enough confounding factors to make it hard to come up with a defintive answer. It defintily doesn't support a huge quality advantage on the part of the LW however. Taken in combination with the battle for France and Poland it might be more conclusive but again there were many confounding factors in both of those. As another example of where this sort of reasoning can lead one astray look at PH. US fighters managed a pretty good kill ratio over the Japanese but few would argue that USAAF pilots were much better than JNAF pilots of the time.

[RF]

My understnading is that the Germans were shooting down more RAF fighters than the RAF was shooting down German fighters. The RAF won the battle of Britain because they were also shooting down a fair number of LW bombers and they had a higher replacement rate.

The British policy was to target bombers rather than fighters, as of necessity because it was the bombers that posed the threat to RAF airfields. Also at that time the LW fighters were operating closer to home and were not so encumbered with watching their fuel guages as the were later having to fly over London.

[boredatwork]

There are a couple of things to consider in regards to this. One is combat fatigue or just plain fatigue. One comes to a point where one essentially doesn't learn anymore. I've seen studies for instance that indicate that after about 6 months overtime is no longer productive.

I would somewhat agree with you that combat fatigue could play a role - certainly some pilots - Richtofen comes to mind - became progressively more reckless as the war goes on. I would also agree that learning slows down with experience - obviously the more you know the less there is to learn - though it never completely stops.

However early in the war the Luftwaffe did have some rest between campaigns where they were able to assimilate the lessons learnt and generally take a breather.

Later in the war they had much better motivation than the allies to keep flying/fighting - US Pilots were generally fighting so they could end the war and go home - the luftwaffe by 1943 was fighting so they would still have a home left to return to which *may* have counterbalanced to some extent any fatigue they were experiencing.

It occurs to me that another and perhaps better measure of pilot skill might be the average number of wingmen lost per sortie. Pretty massive undertaking but it might actually be supportable to some extent. Of course if you got a very good wingman your standing would be better.

I think ultimately it would be subject to the same sort of inconsistancy as kill totals. If I'm flying CAP over Britain in 1944 I'm less likely to lose my wingman than engaging an escorted formation of B-17s - Or, as you point out, if I have Richard Bong or Eric Hartmann as my wingman am I less likely to lose him compared to a pilot flying his first operational mission?

All in all enough confounding factors to make it hard to come up with a defintive answer. It defintily doesn't support a huge quality advantage on the part of the LW however.

"Huge" advantage is a relative term and thus essentially meaningless. Add to your factors the sort range of the BF109, the effect on pilot quality that RAF pilots that survived being shot down flew again while Luftwaffe pilots became POWs, that Britain was focussed on producing as many fighters/pilots as possible while the Luftwaffe was still almost on peacetime footing, that the RAF used .303 MGs instead of something more potent and I agree that a difinitive answer is unlikely.

I would however stand by my opinion that the Luftwaffe was to some degree more skilled in talent at a tactical level, yet were defeated by superior organization/planning/competence/effort at the operational/Strategic level.

[Bgile]

With regards to the BoB though, I tend to disagree that the *average* RAF pilot was close in skill to that of the average Luftwaffe pilot at any time during the battle. The balance sheet in favour of the RAF reflects, IMO, more the same kind of home field advantages the luftwaffe later enjoyed defending Germany: for example in 1940 a heavily damaged RAF fighter might be able to emergency land on the nearest airfield, be repaired, and not therefore count as "lost" where as a lightly damaged Bf-109 leaking fuel faces a long flight accross the channel to reach friendly airfields.

On what do you base your belief that the average RAF pilot wasn't as good as the average German pilot? Being over friendly territory can explain a loss differential, but does it imply one side has better pilots than the other?

[boredatwork]

On what do you base your belief that the average RAF pilot wasn't as good as the average German pilot [during the Battle of Britain]? Being over friendly territory can explain a loss differential, but does it imply one side has better pilots than the other?

First to qualify my statement - I don't believe the average RAF pilot was a bad pilot, nor that he wasn't courageous, nor that he didn't eventually equal then surpass the Luftwaffe in average skill level. Merely that the organizational advantages of being on the defensive, of being brought to the right time and place by the FC control network, and of not having to always keep an eye on his fuel gauge during combat, of not having Goering as their commander, and the fact for Britain not losing was a victory while for the Luftwaffe not winning was a defeat - were all ultimately more important to the outcome of the battle than the skill of the RAF pilots.

The average luftwaffe pilot in the BoB either had direct experience, or was the beneficiary of someone who had experience in Spain with the Condor Legion, Poland, Norway, and France. Prior to Dunkirk and aside from the occasional North Sea raid, most of Britain's air to air experience since WW1 consisted of the ~22 squadrons of Hurricanes (~260 aircraft) that eventually served in France, of which only 66 returned. Total British pilots (inc other commands) KIA, MIA or POW was over 400 - greatly nullifying any combat experience that had been gained.

By the summer the RAF was desperately short of Fighter pilots... bomber command was needed for anti-invasion duty so foreign volunteers, the FAA, Coastal command, etc were raided for any able bodies - "Can you fly?" "Sort of" "Here's the keys to a Spitfire, goodluck!" - an exageration obviously but not too far from the truth from mid July to late September.

The Luftwaffe had a more effective tactical formation that, as alecsandros pointed out, was the result of their experience over Spain. The RAF (and every other airforce around the world) eventually adopted similar tactics - but I don't believe widely before the end of the battle in September 1940. Previously the standard RAF formation was the rigid 'vic' of 3 planes - the flight leader having to keep track of 2 wingmen and the wingmen spending so much time paying attention to tight formation flying that situational awareness suffered.

Reading British accounts of the battle also reveals, IMO, a certain naivety in the RAF with many fighter pilots having the "lone knight of the air" mentality left over from the early days of WW1 - the "I need to go up to... 'test my engine'...>_>" while certainly a measure of aggressiveness betrays a lack of sound judgement when the Luftwaffe was sending over fighters by the dozen.

Reading Luftwaffe accounts on the otherhand reveals that while they respected the RAF as the best opponent they had faced to date, the constant theme is the handicap of the short range of the Bf109 and being tied to the bomber as escorts rather than being allowed to maximize their offensive potential and engage the enemy on your own terms - from above, out of the sun, etc, rather than passively waiting around for RAF to do the same to them.

Finally most of the RAF successes came towards the end of the battle, when the Luftwaffe was flying "deep" penetration raids to London and had to run the gauntlet of AA fire and fighters on the way in and on the way out, often after the Bf109 escort had been forced to withdraw for lack of fuel. If you compare the accepted kill tallies early in the battle being fought over the neutral zone of the channel, albeit with Dowding not putting forth his full effort, the loss ratios are much less pronounced - in many cases being close to parity.

[Bgile]

Reading Luftwaffe accounts on the otherhand reveals that while they respected the RAF as the best opponent they had faced to date, the constant theme is the handicap of the short range of the Bf109 and being tied to the bomber as escorts rather than being allowed to maximize their offensive potential and engage the enemy on your own terms - from above, out of the sun, etc, rather than passively waiting around for RAF to do the same to them.

If that makes the Lufwaffe better, wouldn't it also apply to the allied pilots who were over enemy territory trying to escort heavy bombers over Europe? I'm not sure why that makes a better pilot, but if so it should equally apply to allied pilots over Germany. The Germans were desperately short of pilots then I believe, similar to the state of the RAF in the early days of the BoB.

I can see how the fighting in Spain and even Poland would make a difference. It's said that if a man survives his first air to air battle, his chances of living through several others are greatly increased.

[boredatwork]

Reading Luftwaffe accounts on the otherhand reveals that while they respected the RAF as the best opponent they had faced to date, the constant theme is the handicap of the short range of the Bf109 and being tied to the bomber as escorts rather than being allowed to maximize their offensive potential and engage the enemy on your own terms - from above, out of the sun, etc, rather than passively waiting around for RAF to do the same to them.

If that makes the Lufwaffe better, wouldn't it also apply to the allied pilots who were over enemy territory trying to escort heavy bombers over Europe? I'm not sure why that makes a better pilot, but if so it should equally apply to allied pilots over Germany. The Germans were desperately short of pilots then I believe, similar to the state of the RAF in the early days of the BoB.

Indeed I entirely agree it does apply to allied pilots over Germany - I've spent the last 3 pages arguing that allied pilots were underated because the circumstances in which they fought generally allowed the Germans to run up much more impressive kill totals. All I'm arguing now is the inverse of that - that in the opposite situation - BoB, siege of Malta, etc where the allies are fighting defensively against great numbers the apparent skill can be skewed in the opposite direction.

I'm not implying that fighting while watching your fuel needle makes you a better pilot - merely that if one side is maneuvering at full power freely or can chase down a fleeing enemy (or run away at full power) because he's fighting over his own territory and does not have to worry about running out of gas or leaving a bomber unprotected and their opponent does not have that luxury then the results - and consequently potential evaluations of skill *might* be skewed in favour of the defender with the greater freedom of action.

[Karl Heidenreich]

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviati ... 12686.html


http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/aces2.html

[Karl Heidenreich]

I have been following all this nonsense of the Luftwaffe pilots flying and figthing over Germany`s territory provided them "advantage" to had the scores they achieved. If that`s a 100% true what do we do with Hans Joachim Marseille who achieved all his kills over Great Britain and North Africa? All his scores against the British. Marseille, as a matter of fact, over Africa attacked once a flight of 16 Curtis P 40 shooting down six of No. 5 Squadron SAAF, five of them in six minutes, including three aces: Robin Pare (six victories), Douglas Golding (6.5 victories) and Andre Botha (five victories).

Was it over Germany? NO.
Was it against "inferior" russians? NO.
Was it late in the war? NO.

Was Hans Joachim Marseille shot down during his service? NO.

How many scores had Hans Joachim? 158 (395% more than Bong)

If we follow the line of thought that has prevailed last week here, then Hans Joachim Marseille is the best fighter pilot in World`s History (from WWI to Iraqui Freedom).

Please follow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Joachim_Marseille

Best regards,

[Dave Saxton]

I may regret getting involved in this mess, but my opinion is that the best German pilots were as good as the best Allied or the best Japanese pilots.

It's interesting to compare the top JG26 aces to the top British aces that oppossed them during 1941-43. Here we have experienced and well trained pilots, with roughly equal equipment, opposed to each other in combat, often over the Channel, Northern France, or Southern England. JG26 were using mostly the excellent up to 20,000 feet FW190A (BMW 801 powered) A truly outstanding fighter. The RAF were using mostly the outstanding, especially at high altitude, Spitfire Mk IX with the RR Merlin 61. A truly oustanding fighter. These combats were often fighter vs fighter dogfights where they were usually not tethered by bomber escort, bomber attack, or Jabo missions. JG 26 was scoring more kills per combat mission over all, but the best aces like Wutz Galland, Pips Priller, Adolf Glunz...ect..were scoring virtually the same or only slightly better the best RAF aces like J Johnson, Townsend...ect.. per mission . The best and best were scoring roughly equal per combat mission.

Where the Germans lost the air war and as a result WW2, was by not keeping up with the advanced training of highly skilled replacement pilots. They did try to increase output after 1942, but too late for it to take effect. America was turning out thousands of highly trained replacement fighter pilots with hundreds of hours of flight time. Moreover, It was Allied policy to rotate combat pilots out after so many combat hours and use them to better train and prepare their replacements. This also had the effect of saving them for future tours of duty after being refreshed. This policy paid off by 1944.

[VeenenbergR]

The Germans undoubtly realised that they were behind in training pilots thoroughly before sending them on a deadly mission.

Was the reason for not training them a the overall lack of fuel?????

(not shortage of men I suppose)

Then lack of fuel was the main reason Germany lost WWII.

[Karl Heidenreich]

Dave and VeenenbergR;

Your contributions are important to this thread, indeed. The issue of resources, human resources, has been mentioned several times here and, as usual, ignored.

The general tendency is to try to disminish or minimize the success of the German pilots, specially their "experten" or "aces" using several considerations such as that they were mainly fighting over Germany (which is a half truth) or against huge numbers of russians and/or that when performing such achievements they were shot down several times (as with a great majority of the allied, specially US, own air aces). Which is why I brought up the curriculum of the Star of Africa, Hans Joachim Marseilles, who didn`t fought over Germany but over enemy countries or territories, was never shot down, didn`t fought the russians but westerners as British and their Commonwealth air forces and still credited with 158 kills, four times the amount of the greatest western allied ace.

And we have to check Sakai`s curriculum, or the soviet`s ones.

Which is curious because when checking the Vietnam era air aces, they were not USAAF or Navy... they were vietnamese...

[VeenenbergR]

Karl,

The Germans undoubtly delivered a whole score of the best fighter pilots of WWII, unchalenged and unparallelled by other nations.

Why so many reached high scores? Perhaps being able to survive first against lesser abled enemies (Polish, French) and then being able to built up tactics and experience against
not direct deadly enemies (the Soviets?.

I am curious after how many German pilots were able to attain high scores (>50) when starting later in the war and fighting in the West, ones like Marseille.

I personally think Joachim Marseille would have reached for sure the highest score of them all if he would have lived on like Erich Hartmann.
Marseille fought against the more deadly Western pilots and his score remains very impressive for the short time he was in the air.

By the way: Germans are very abled shooters/ marksmen, while they are also keen members of the famous "Schützenvereine" (almost like so many practise Biathlon!)

Last: German fire weapons are best in the world, by their enormous experience, their admiration and devotion for precision, their industrial biased fine metallurgy and pure interest.

Rob

[Karl Heidenreich]

Well, well, well... it seems that the Japanese had their own Hartmann, called Saburo Sakai. Sixty four confirmed kills (maybe more): never shot down but severly injured (he lost one eye) and always over hostile or enemy controled territory or over the Pacific Ocean that has been refered as "challenging" for the US pilots. I wonder if the US would have let one of their pilots to fly again with "just" one eye? That`s challeging. And he was greatly admired by the USN, as a matter of fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saburo_sak ... ilian_life

Maybe I miss it, but has never seen History Channel Air Aces or Dogfight chapter on Sakai or Marseille...

Best regards,

[VeenenbergR]

Karl,

Like all the verbal duels over the Bismarck "they" are now trying to nullify the historic successses of the fighter Aces of the Luftwaffe.
They (mkenny) also tried to nullify the outstanding scores of the Tiger tanks.

But.........if an army put 2000 heavy tanks in the field with almost constant lack of fuel, spare parts and has to hide in daytime for an enemy airforce
which dominate the skies, it is a sheer wonder that those 2000 (of which a substantial part never saw action) were able to destroy 10.000 enemy tanks alone, not
even counting the thousands of AT-guns and other vehicles they were able to knock out!
This is a true OUTSTANDING achievement.

In my opinion the Luftwafffe fighters almost managed the same success: they (and the FLAK) shot down over 60.000 Soviet and 40.000 Western Allied planes, not counting the
planes of all the medior and minor countries and not counting losses to accidents. Christer Bergström (THE authority on the Luftwaffe) maintains that about 17.000 fighters of the Luftwaffe were shot down (also to own or enemy Flak).
Now, when lacking the necessary fuel to train their fighter pilots thoroughly and overwhelmed and vastly outnumbered by enemy fighter forces later in the war (3:1 or even much worse), this
achievement is like the Panzerwaffe OUTSTANDING.

What the German navy achieved was however less impressive, but their ships looked great, beautiful and are most popular among model builders.
About Bismarck were written over 100 different books, models of Bismarck were produced on virtually every scale and she is undoubtly the most famous warship ever!!!

So the Germans ARE famous for their achievements.