Revisionist tendencies and Ambrose Sindrome

[Dave Saxton]

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.

I'm sure fuel supply was a major factor, but ultimately it was a failure of leadership at the high command and planning level. It takes a long time to train a fighter pilot to the point that he has a decent chance to survive the first few combat missions. The first four combat missions are the most crucial. If the pilot is skilled enough and lucky enough to survive those first four missions he has a decent chance of success and longer term survival. The Germans only had one or two fighter pilot training schools and a program of comparitivly small scale early war. The pilots that emerged from the program were very well trained but they were few. Mid war and particularly late war, they were under so much pressure to get more replacement pilots into action that their training was not only abbreviated but not that comprehensive. Adolf Glunz mentioned that some of these novice pilots late war could not fly in a formation or reasonably safely land their aircraft. More often than not a late war novice pilot didn't survive his first combat mission.

The American program was massive and extensive. My late friend that was P-51 pilot told me that to become a combat fighter pilot was a long term ordeal. He was in University when Pearl Harbor occured. They generally only took young men that had universty level educations with additional ROTC credits in whole or in part. First there was basic military training for those whom had not already done so for ROTC. You had to be physically top notch to progress into aviation. My father was washed out in the 50's because of a minor back injury when he was a teen. Then for aviation officiers, a ground school with a heavy acedemic focus. Then basic flight school. Then advanced flight school. At each level only the top few percentage were not washed out. Only those pilots whom exhibited certain flying skills and personality traits were then accepted for fighter pilot training. There was a basic fighter training course and an advanced fighter pilot training course in actual fighters before you would then be sent forward as a greenie. My friend didn't even arrive in England until late 1944. The Luftwaffe didn't plan for this kind of a long term war of attrition on such a scale.

[boredatwork]

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.

This is why it's pointless to argue with you Karl...

You don't read or ignore half of what people write then because you misread their arguments and assume that you alone are sufficiently unbiased to know where historical truth lies, turn around and call everyone who disagrees with you revisionist.

To use a non-WW2 example to avoid accusations of bias - in Desert Storm the USAF scored ~30+ air to air victories compared to the U.S. Navy's 3(?). It's not diminishing or minimizing or being disrespectful of the skill of the USAF pilots to point out that the Eagles were tasked with most of the combat air patrols over Iraqi airspace and therefore got the lion's share of the opertunity while Navy fighters were held over the fleet or used as raid escorts and the Iraqis simply didn't come to them.

That's all anyone in this thread is arguing - not trying to "diminish or minimize the success of German pilots" but rather explore the circumstances behind them in order to arrive at an accurate appreciation of that skill.

- No one in this thread, not Bgile, lwd, nor myself has claimed the german aces weren't highly skilled.
- You'll note I in fact spent 3-4 posts arguing my opinion that german pilots were more skilled than BoB kills might imply.
- No one in this thread has claimed the Germans didn't have the highest scoring pilots of the war by far.
- No one has claimed "mainly fighting over Germany" - if you read the argument it was more often than not over "friendly" territory which has implication for the next point you've taken out of context:
- The comment about the german aces being shot down was obviously not being shot down makes them bad pilots - but in reference the relative likelyhood in the later half of the war that if shot down they could rejoin their units and still keep on fighting - comapred to allied aces like Bader shot down over enemy territory and becomming POWs. Obvisouly this applied in reverse in the early years when the Germans were on the offensive.
- You'll note that I refered to Marseille multiple times during this thread before you posted his details

If that`s a 100% true what do we do with Hans Joachim Marseille

[...]

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).

See you're missing the point of the arguments we're making -

Nothing is 100% true. We're not trying to come up with a formula to "prove that the Germans sucked as fighter pilots" and therefore that Marseille scored most of his victories in the desert, against western opponents does not invalidate the point we are trying to make - indeed it reinforces it - In your above post you've given consideration to where Marseille fought, against whom, his individual achievements, etc you're doing what we've been arguing - Considering the career and achievement as a whole, instead of a single stat in isolation. You can indeed make a very good case that Marseille MIGHT be the most skilled fighter pilot of WW2. You could also make a good case that Hartmann MIGHT be the most skilled fighter pilot of WW2. You can also make a good case that Richard Bong MIGHT be more than 1/9th as skilled as Hartmann.

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

An American series, paid for by American dollars, filmed in America, with easy access to American records, by an American production crew, for an American audience, gives prominence to American subjects? Those yankee bastards!

[Dave Saxton]

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

Speaking of fuel, the Allies not only had all the Avgas they needed and wanted, both for trianing and combat operations, but they had high octane gasoline too. Before the war most gasoline world wide was 87 octane. The Germans had to use for the most part 87 octane throughout the war to strech their finite gasoline supplies as far as possible. This limited them as to how much dynamic cylinder pressure (dynamic compression ratio) they could use. The amount of air a supercharger or a turbocharger could force feed the engine was limited by the octane rating. Daimler Benz did a great job of working around these limitations, but the Germans had to use larger displacements in general (with corresponding higher fuel consumption) to get the necessary horsepower, and generally were at a disadvantage at very high altitudes.

For the Allies the availabily of 100 octane Avgas and then even 130 octane and 150 octane was a huge advantage. They could force feed their motors more and develop very high horsepowers per liter, and at very high altitudes. The British first recieved large shipments of 100 octane from America during the Battle Of Britian. This allowed them to turn up the superchargers on their Merlin engines getting a noticable boost in performance.

[lwd]

...
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.

Yet it was in this early period that the LW fighters lost their numerical edge. It may be that they lost more bombers over London but they lost their numerical superiority in fighter aircraft in August.

*** edit for ***
Think about this a bit more the early period may reflect more on the low level nature of the German attacks than on the impact of the RAF or if not more at least the impact. Again too many confounding factors.

[lwd]

Bunch of posts to respond to. Guess I'll start at the top and reply individually.

.... 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.

Indeed. The question is when does fatigue and combat fatigue start offsetting the learning curve. Different for everyone and hard to judge. There's also the impact of learning the wrong lesson especially if you operate in the same environment. Sakai's experiance with what he thought were Wildcats is a good example. Others exist from both the LW and the Heer.

...
Later in the war they had much better motivation than the allies to keep flying/fighting -

But motivation and fatigue can be a dangerous combination.

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?

You wold have to look at it in combination with other factors certainly. One thing about having a very good wing man however is he is unlikely to remain your wing man for long. This might however be extremely sensitive to things like doctrine and training. Again pointing to one of Sakai's experiences the one were he engaged 12+ Hellcats over Iwo. What got me started is I remember reading that one of the leading aces had never lost a wing man. Unfortunatly I don't remember who. Not even whether it was WWI or WWII. I think he may have been German but I'm not even sure of that.

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.

Well it's been implied that there was a huge difference ie one on order of the difference in kills. Note that your point about the RAF gaining experience faster is negated by the experience the LW was bringing to the battle.

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.

Pre war I've heard it argued that the IJN and USN (including the USMC) may have been the most proficient airforces. If so the LW was probably a close third. Early war I'd say the LW had the edge especially if you are looking only at Europe. Some time mid to late war though I think they lost it. By late war it hardly mattered.

[lwd]

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.

Of course it's 100% true but it's only one factor.

Let's see wasn't Marseille the one whose total kills in one day exceeded the losses from all causes on that front by his opponents?

[VeenenbergR]

Dave,

Thanks for your explanation. I always thought a pilot could be trained in less than a year, but that is totally untrue.
In my opinion the Japanese had the same difficulties.

The Luftwaffe however was initially a LARGE airforce with around 6000 planes and a well trained crew, when they entered the war.
6000 planes involved about 25.000 crews and probably a same number in training and over 100.000 maintenance personel.

Over Poland the Luftwaffe lost a few hundred planes and crews and 50% of the total losses were incurred with landing problems (landing at dark).
Until Fall Gelb the Luftwaffe trained another 500 planes with crews and the airforce more or less remained the same size (expanding a bit well over 6000 planes).
During the campaings in the West and Norway losses were higher than arrivals and the BOB worsened this situation (over 3000 flying personel permanently lost!)
In the fall of 1940 however aircraft production slowly rised, like the training of air crews.
The BOB was not over, but night bombing meant lower losses with an average of 3 to 4 aircraft lost per raid.

Slowly the Luftwaffe expanded again and previous losses of 3000 aircraft (1200 over France, Holland and Norway and 1800 over Britain) were barely made up until the
battle for Crete and Russia started.

In this Phase the Luftwaffe had again aprox. 6000 planes ready: 1000 remained in the West, 750 were stationed in Greece and over 4250 were based on the Eastern Front.
Losses over Crete (250 planes) were heavy, like the opening days of Barbarossa.
After 3 days Barbarossa with about 200 planes lost per day and continous bombing raids over Soviet airfields, dogfights and trying to stop endless waves of retaliating
Soviet bomber strikes the Soviet Airforce finally gave way and became less in strength and opposition.
The Luftwaffe barely survived the horrendous losses of june 1941 and gave a steady performance over the next months in Russia.
Before the winter started Luftwaffe transferred substantial units to the Mediterranean, to counter the British offensive in the Cyrenaica and attack Malta.

At the end of 1941 however the Luftwaffe had lost 3000 planes of all types as totall loss on the Eastfront.
With 2000 new planes and pilots arriving the totall strenght sank to 4500-5000 planes on all fronts.

During the first half of 1942 the Luftwaffe regained strength again with some substantial losses flying supply to Demjansk
and Fall Blau was supported by strong Luftwaffe forces bringing the Germans in the Caucasus and Stalingrad.
"Stopped at Stalingrad" (Joel). There after Luftwaffe lost 1000 (extra) planes near Stalingrad (the Soviets overran or raided Luftwaffe airfields)
and well over 500 (extra) in supply missions to Tunesia.

In the spring of 1943 the Luftwaffe had 1000 planes in the West, 1000 in the Med. and 3000/3500 on the Eastern Front.

What strikes me is that the Luftwaffe remained at a constant level of 5000-6000 planes during the war.
Later in the war the Luftwaffe in Italy was diminished, like the Eastern Front to bolster the defences of the Reich (2000 planes).

[lwd]

... Speaking of fuel, the Allies not only had all the Avgas they needed and wanted, both for trianing and combat operations, but they had high octane gasoline too. Before the war most gasoline world wide was 87 octane. The Germans had to use for the most part 87 octane throughout the war to strech their finite gasoline supplies as far as possible. ...

I have seen an argument made that the Germans used a different octane rating system and that the fuel was closer to the allied than the numbers show. I don't know enough about the topic to form an opinion however. I've also seen printed that the Soviets were usually short on high octane fuel as well at least until near the end of the war.

[boredatwork]

Pre war I've heard it argued that the IJN and USN (including the USMC) may have been the most proficient airforces. If so the LW was probably a close third. Early war I'd say the LW had the edge especially if you are looking only at Europe. Some time mid to late war though I think they lost it. By late war it hardly mattered.

To either agree or disagree I guess I would have to know what was meant by "proficient" - Proficient at flying or proficient at fighting? - I could certainly agree the USN would be up there in the former - landing on a carrier deck must be a challenge after all. But I would question what combat equivalent experience USN aviators had pre-war that would be comparable to either Spain or China... They gave a very good account of themselves in 1942 but by that time they had 2 years to benefit from watching the European war.

Edit - Alot of authors also are of the opinion that the 5 months of carrier raids prior to Coral Sea were essential for seasoning the crews on actual wartime operations.

[lwd]

... Thanks for your explanation. I always thought a pilot could be trained in less than a year, but that is totally untrue.

Not really. YOu could train a pilot in considerably less but you didn't get as skilled a pilot out of flight school. Sakai's biography by Caiden (which he had some issues with by the way) went into the prewar IJN flight school program. It did take about a year but was very rigorous. Almost assuredly the most rigorous in the world at the time. The US program as it was developed during the war admitted a large number of pilots with the plan of washing many of them out. Washing out meant that you could still end up flying just in a bomber or transport plane either as a pilot or other crew member. Indeed from what I've read there were quite a few of the US 4 engine bombers which took off with a crew the majority of whom knew enough about flying to land the plane if required. The IJN was clearly not prepared for the losses of pilots encountered either in naval combat in general or in the Solomon campaign in particular. They also weren't prepared to replace ground crew as quickly as needed.

...
The BOB was not over, but night bombing meant lower losses with an average of 3 to 4 aircraft lost per raid.

When they switched to night bombing the BOB was over. The purpose of the BOB was to destroy the RAF switching to night bombing was a clear admission that that had failed.

[lwd]

Pre war I've heard it argued that the IJN and USN (including the USMC) may have been the most proficient airforces. If so the LW was probably a close third. Early war I'd say the LW had the edge especially if you are looking only at Europe. Some time mid to late war though I think they lost it. By late war it hardly mattered.

To either agree or disagree I guess I would have to know what was meant by "proficient" - Proficient at flying or proficient at fighting? - I could certainly agree the USN would be up there in the former - landing on a carrier deck must be a challenge after all. But I would question what combat equivalent experience USN aviators had pre-war that would be comparable to either Spain or China... They gave a very good account of themselves in 1942 but by that time they had 2 years to benefit from watching the European war.

Most of the argument centers on the training regimes of the two forces. Certainly LW had more combat experience than the USN. The IJN did have experience over China.

[Karl Heidenreich]

boreatwork:

Nothing is 100% true. We're not trying to come up with a formula to "prove that the Germans sucked as fighter pilots" and therefore that Marseille scored most of his victories in the desert, against western opponents does not invalidate the point we are trying to make - indeed it reinforces it - In your above post you've given consideration to where Marseille fought, against whom, his individual achievements, etc you're doing what we've been arguing - Considering the career and achievement as a whole, instead of a single stat in isolation. You can indeed make a very good case that Marseille MIGHT be the most skilled fighter pilot of WW2. You could also make a good case that Hartmann MIGHT be the most skilled fighter pilot of WW2. You can also make a good case that Richard Bong MIGHT be more than 1/9th as skilled as Hartmann.

I really deplored that you think my posts are directed in order to produce an argument against you, maybe it`s the way they are written, but it`s not the case. I read your points about the BoB and, to be honest, surprised me.

However some guys, like Bgile and lwd, have the tendency of trying to underate everything that smells axis, specially German, and more profound if it´s Historical Given Fact. My purpose to bring Marseille in all these is just to prove that:

1. We have a German ace with 158 kills.
2. All of them kills achieved without being shot down, so no "division" per downing: 158 clean kills.
3. All of them kills against western pilots, so no "Joseph Stalin" murdering his own people.
4. All of them kills over hostile or contested territory

Then, I do believe we have an "ace" that satisfies the totality of argumentative restrictions operating against any non-allied ace with more than 40 kills.

In no case, in order to clear it out, I have say or questioned the skills of allied pilots, on the contrary I have put not a single objection with their claims, the way they achieved them, etc. The only argument that I posted was that, in the first 10 ranking places of US aces, some of them "share" the disgrace of being shot down sometime in their career but have made no attemp to "divide" their totals by the times they were shot down.

Of course we can say that, if Hans Joachim`s plane have not malfunctioned, then we could speculate that he could have out ranked Hartmann. Personnaly I will put my money on Marseilles or Nowotny but that`s not the case. We are talking validation of claims, as with the tank aces or the Bismarck`s design, not in order to prove them superior but to give them the place they deserve in History, real History, no populist cheap history.

So, I`m sorry with boreatwork and you are right with me. The problem is that is not only you in this forum, I have the problem to fight in numerical inferiority... well, that not so the case lately.

[Karl Heidenreich]

lwd:

Let's see wasn't Marseille the one whose total kills in one day exceeded the losses from all causes on that front by his opponents?

What`s the point?

[Karl Heidenreich]

boreatwork:

An American series, paid for by American dollars, filmed in America, with easy access to American records, by an American production crew, for an American audience, gives prominence to American subjects? Those yankee bastards!

History must be made objective, not subjective. We know Rome won the war over Carthage, does that spells that Hannibal was a lousy commander? No, and has been plain clear for generations. Napoleon lost at Waterloo, but still is regarded as the great (or greatest) contemporary military genius. But when it comes to Germany then all things got mixed up: nazis, Holocaust, black legends, etc. etc. etc. But in the serious history discussions it is clear that the Germans did pretty well considering the tremendous numerical superiority Hitler assured against his warriors. They got tremendous tanks that required several enemy ones attacking simultaneosly to knock them out; they got tremendous planes (obviously not P 51s) but still they achieved kill ratios that produce the reactions we have been experiencing in this same forum; from what has been transpiring, lately, it is also likely that they built the most modern battleship of all the WWII (which notion produced, inmediately, a furious answer); and they produced the best generals of the XX Century, and probably, military minds that could be placed side by side with Alexander, Caesar, Frederick the Great, Napoleon and Lee: guys like Manstein, Guderian and Hoth. But in order to achieve that notion there is a lot of friction to be eliminated, friction caused by the way the victors try to write history, despite what really happened in the field.

At the end, this is what this thread is all about.

[Karl Heidenreich]

... and by the way: you all know that I don`t hate the US in any way. You all know how I worship Ronald Reagan for what he did for my country and the world.