Heres an interesting article I found on Luftwaffe pilots, mostly on Galland. I knew Luftwaffe aces’ scorces seemed to high and Galland’s stories are hard to believe. Anyone else know about this?
http://members.aol.com/geobat66/galland/coppens.htm
This grocer’s accounting explains the 352 “victories” counted to Erich Hartmann.
In the Hartmanns time ( early 1943 and later) all the German fighters carried a guncam to have a visual comfirmation of this victories…so that afirmation is very debatable.
The Galland overclaim must be one of the lowest, probably inexact in 4 o 5 aircraft.
Gallant was a great Ace and a great person. I don’t think he would make a mistake on purpose.
Henk
Interesting clip, Galland flew the Fw-190.
One of the Tacticians of the Luftwaffe.
Werner “Vati” Mölders was born on 18 March 1913, at Gelsenkirchen in the Ruhrgebiet. He joined the army in 1931 and served as an officer cadet in the Infantry. In 1934, with the rebirth of the Luftwaffe as a result of Hitler coming to power, Mölders requested a transfer to become a pilot. At his first attempt to join the Luftwaffe, he was declared unfit for flying. He tried again and was accepted for flying training. He was badly afflicted by air sickness but overcame the problem through sheer willpower. On 1 July 1935, Leutnant Mölders was posted to Fliegergruppe Schwerin (later to be redesignated I./StG 162). He was appointed Staffelkapitän of 1./JG 334 (later to be redesignated 1./JG 53) on 15 March 1936. On 1 April 1936, he was transferred to the Schulstaffel of JG 134 to undertake instructing duties. For two years he was an instructor at Wiesbaden. He volunteered for the Condor Legion and arrived by sea in Cadiz on 14 April that year. He took over from Adolf Galland at the head of 3.J/88. During the Spanish conflict he showed considerable qualities not only as a pilot and marksman but also, and especially, as a tactician and organiser. Together with other airmen, in Spain he developed the technique known as the “finger four”, or fan, which improved a flight’s all-round vision and encouraged the pilots’ initiative. Between 15 July and 3 November 1938, he shot down fourteen aircraft: eleven I-16 “Mosca”, two Polikarpov I-15 “Chato” and one SB-2 “Katyuska”, as well as one unconfirmed I-16 victory, most of these at the controls of the Bf 109 C-1 coded 6-79 “Luchs”.
He was awarded the Spanienkreuz in Gold mit Schwertern und Brillanten in recognition of his achievements. At the end of the year he returned to Germany as the highest scoring German pilot of the Spanish conflict, with a glowing reputation and a maturity beyond his years and rank. At the beginning of World War II, Mölders was Staffelkapitän of 1./JG 53 “Pik As”, based at Wiesbaden-Erbenheim. He became known by those under his command as “Vati” (Daddy) Mölders. He shot down his first aircraft of the Second World War on 21 September 1939, a French Curtiss 75 A fighter. On 1 November he went on to command III./JG 53, also based at Wiesbaden-Erbenheim. On 27 May 1940, after his 20th victory, a French Curtiss 75 A SW of Amiens, he was promoted to Hauptmann and decorated with the Knight’s Cross. He was shot down in combat on 5 June 1940, by French ace Sous Lieutenant René Pommier Layragues (6 victories) flying a D.520 of GC II/7 after having scored 25 victories during 128 missions and was taken prisoner. He was liberated two weeks later upon the armistice with France. He returned to Germany to be promoted to Major and given command of JG 51 as Kommodore. On 28 July 1940, during his first flight with his new unit, he succeeded in downing a Spitfire, but his aircraft was then hit by the enemy aircraft. Severely wounded in the legs, Mölders just managed to make an emergency landing at the airfield at Wissant in France. It was not until a month later that he was able to return to combat, most likely flying the Bf 109 E-4 W.Nr. 2404 (photographed on 31 August with 32 victory bars), as well as W.Nr. 3737, (shot down over England while being flown by Hptm Asmus on 25 October, with no stab markings according to the crash report, but 49 victory bars). He quickly brought his score up by downing 28 British fighters during the remainder of the Battle of Britain, including his 40th, a Spitfire over Dungeness, on 20 September, for which he was awarded the Oak Leaves (No. 2) the next day. On 22 October he downed three RAF Hurricanes to become the first Luftwaffe pilot to reach a score of 50 aerial victories. By the end of the Battle of Britain he had a total of 54 victories, and he would add one more before the end of the year.
He continued flying and fighting over the Channel Front until early May, by which time he had brought down an additional 13 British aircraft. On 22 June 1941, the first day of Operation Barbarossa on the Eastern Front, he shot down four Russian aircraft, one I-153 and three SB-2 bombers, his 69th through 72nd victories, and was awarded the Schwertern (No. 2). He was the first pilot to surpass von Richthofen's WW I record score of 80 on 30 June, when he shot down 5 SB-2 bombers to score his 78th to 82nd victories on a day that JG 51 claimed 110 SB-2 and DB-3 bombers.
He shot down a further four enemy aircraft on 5 July for his 83rd to 86th victories. On 15 July he became the first pilot in history to record 100 victories and was immediately awarded the Brillanten (No. 1), the first German soldier to be so recognized. He was immediately forbidden to fly combat on the personal orders of Göring. At only 28 years of age, he was promoted to Oberst and appointed Inspector General of Fighters on 7 August.
Major Werner Mölders and Oblt. Hartmann Grasser of the Stab flight of JG 51 after a mission over the British Isles during the Battle of Britain. Grasser was later assigned to JG 11 and would survive the war with 103 confirmed victories.
Even though ordered to cease flying combat missions, he continued to do so and achieved several unconfirmed victories over the Crimea. He personally instructed many pilots on how to achieve success, and helped develop the forward air controller concept. On 22 November 1941, he was flying as a passenger in a He 111 from the Crimea to Germany to attend the funeral of Ernst Udet. Landing during a thunderstorm at Breslau the aircraft crashed and Mölders and the pilot were killed.
In his memory, on 20 December 1941, JG 51 was bestowed the honor name “Mölders”.
He flew a total of some 330 missions during the Second World War, 100 of these on the Eastern Front, during which he shot down a total of 101 aircraft, 33 of these in the East. He also was the top scorer of the Legion Condor in Spain with 14 victories achieved in some 100 missions, and helped develop many of the modern fighter tactics still in use today.
Source: http://www.luftwaffe.cz
I simply chalk it up to the continuing, lingering, sour-grapes brainwasing sentiment of Allied thinking that “enemies” are inferior. Its just pure bigotry.
I don’t think it matters exactly how many kills pilots had. I have read that Hartmann’s total of 352 might have been only 80 - only! That’s still a phenomenal number.
Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum
Sorry Tony but the russian autor Dimitri Kazhanov , wich was first of suggested this ( 80 Hartmann victories instead 352) has been badly beaten and discredited for more serious researchers.
One of the incredible Kazanov statements is " The german fighters had no guncameras"
Gee…I wonder if take take this kind of pictures with a Leica.
Is true however that not all the 352 Hatrmann claims are confirmed, the Luftwaffe High Command only confirmed 307 kills, that is because the official confirmation was a very burocratic thing, it can reach the squadrons 5 or 6 moths later after the pilots claim, The war simply was over before the RLM bookworms finish the Hartmann s paperwork.
Hartmann last claim a yak-9 was destroyed over Brno, Check republic the last of the war, 7 may 1945. Acording to the german pilot this russian aircraft was making some acrobatics prabably celebrating the war had nearly ended.
While no doubt some claims are over inflated it remains a fact that many Nazi pilots did achive huge kills rates in ww2.
The very reason for this though is why the Luftwaffe was inferior to the Western Allied Air Forces.
In the RAF for instance experienced fighter pilots were allowed to fly a tour of operations and then posted to other duties to pass on their skills to others. At the same time the Empire Training scheme produced pilots at a much higher level of training that was being produced by either the Nazis or Japanese.
So in the luftwaffe we see a hard core few of skilled veterans bouyed up with the majority of badly trained novices. The average Allied Pilot was much more experienced than the average Nazi one.
So while man for man some of the best Nazi fliers were no doubt better than their Allied counterparts, the RAF for instance was much more effective than the Luftwaffe and this is probably true from about Aug 1940 onwards.
if you are interested in aces then look at the book called luftwaffe aces by.franz kurowski:shock: . it has a story about a young pilot by the name of heinz bär. look him up too he is like a mentor to me.:rolleyes:
The Falls Mentor.
Bf-109 of H.B in mid 1942 with Jg-27
Bar eventually rised his tally to 220 kills including some 15 with the powerful Me-262.
thats impresive. i have that same picture
A little more info about this great ace:
Heinz Bär was born on 21 March 1913 in Sommerfeld near Lipsk. By 1935, he had been trained to fly Luftwaffe bombers and then was posted to transport duty, flying Ju 52/3m. In the beginning of 1939 Heinz completed fighter training and was posted to JG 51. On 25 September of that year, Bär opened his killboard, shooting down a French Curtiss H-75 A-2 of GC I/4. During the French campaign of 1940, he scored seven more kills: 3 French and 4 British planes. In the Battle of Britain, while ten enemy fighters fell prey to his guns, Bär’s Bf 109 returned to base heavily damaged a few times. On 2 September 1940 he experienced ‘swimming’ in the Channel’s cold water, having been shot down himself…
1941 brought the relocation of JG 51 to the Eastern Front. Here Bär’s score rose quickly. On 2 July 1941 he was promoted to Leutnant and awarded the Knight’s Cross, having totalled 27 kills. When he reached 60 victories, on 14 August 1941, Bär was decorated with the Oak Leaves. On one day, 30 August 1941, Bär scored 6 Soviet planes. From the beginning of 1942 Bär took command of IV/JG 51, and in mid-February he was awarded by Swords, having achieved 90 kills. In the spring of 1942, Bär was to face significant new challenges - - the heavy air battles in the southern part of the Russo-German Front, the Kerch Peninsula area.
"In these days, two of the Luftwaffe 's top aces arrived to command positions in JG 77 in the Crimea: Hauptmann Gordon Gollob, whose score stood at 86, was sent from the Test Centre at Rechlinto take over as Geschwaderkommodore , and Hauptmann Heinz Bär with 91 victories to his credit was sent from IV./JG 51 on the Moscow front to take charge of I./JG 77. Both were highly awarded - Bär with the Swords to the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves while Gollob carried the Oak Leaves. These two men were however had diametrically opposed personalities. “Pritzl” Bär, the notoriously undisciplined Lepiziger who simply refused to fly on combat missions whenever he didn’t feel ‘inspired’ and the harsh Nazi follower MacGollob of old Prussian military style definitely would have clashed, had not Bär’s I./JG 77 hastily been transferred to the Mediterranean area a few weeks later. However, during the last two weeks of May 1942, Bär and Gollob practically ‘took over’ the air over the Kerch - Taman area.
On 16 May, Heinz Bär proved his skills by shooting down two LaGG-3s - his 92nd and 93rd victories. Next day, Gollob followed by destroying three R-5 light bombers. He there after attacked a Yak-1 piloted by Sergeant N. K. Chayka. He hit the Yakovlev, saw it go down and returned home, reporting it as his 93rd victory (claiming it as a LaGG-3).
Not caring much about the war in general, Gollob started competing with his subordinate in the cynical manner that characterized many of the Luftwaffe fighter aces during World War II. The fate of his last victim didn’t bother the ambitious Gollob the slightest. Having suffered severe wounds from the machine guns and automatic cannon in Gollob’s Messerschmitt Bf 109 F, the young Sergeant Chayka struggled at the controls of his damaged Yakovlev fighter. He managed to bring it back to the Khersones airfield, but lost control of it during landing and crashed into another Yak-1. Both planes were destroyed and Chayka was killed.
Having returned to base, Gollob learned that Bär meanwhile had bagged three MiG-3s. Hauptmann Gollob continued to strive for successes, picking easy targets during the following days. In contrast to the common fighter tactic of attacking from above, Gollob preferred to sneak up from ground-level, to be surethat no-one tried to attack him from the blind spot beneath. An anonymous pilot of JG 77 wrote the following account of Gollob’s way of fighting:
‘Gollob flew from Kerch together with his wingman. They positioned themselves at a low altitude beneath a Russian formation. Then they started climbing in spirals, carefully maintaining their position beneath the enemy formation. Before the peacefully flying Russians had even suspected any mischief, the two planes at the bottom of their formation had been shot down and the two Germans were gone.’ (Prien: JG 77, p. 1018.)
On 18 May, another three obsolete R-5 bombers fell prey to Gollob’s private ambitions, raising his kill score to 96. Yet again he was surpassed by Bär, who got involved in a combat with twelve Soviet fighters over the Tamanskaya Sound and shot down two LaGG-3s. The same day, Heinz Bär’s I./JG 77 was visitedby his personal friend, Jagfliegergeneral Adolf Galland . A detail in this context is that a deep animosity eventually would develop between Galland and Gollob. Having sacked Gollob from his post as fighter plane expert due to lacking competence in 1944, Galland as Jagdfliegergeneral soon found himself targeted by Gollob’s plotting (in house arrest early in 1945, Galland was informed that Gollob collected material against him regarding his private use of Luftwaffe cars, his gambling and his notorious womanizing).
On 19 May, Gollob and Bär both were in action. The former managed to bring down three R-5s again, but the magical ‘100th victory’ slipped away. Meanwhile, Heinz Bär shot five Ishak fighters from the sky, for which he was mentioned in the OKW bulletin on the following day:
’ Hauptmann Bär, the Gruppenkommandeur in a Jagdgeschwader, achieved his 99th to 103rd aerial victories yesterday. The total victory tally of Jagdgeschwader 77 has increased to 2,011.’
Next day, Gollob lurked along the Caucasus coast and managed to bring down a DB-3 bomber - being the tenth German fighter pilot to surpass the 100th victory score - followed by an unhappy LaGG-3."
Soon after this exciting point in the irrivalry, in June of 1942, Bär’s JG 77 was moved to MTO area. While leading I./JG 77, ‘Pritzl’ downed several British fighters over Malta . On 13 October 1942 his victims were three “Spitfires” (two of 185 Sgn and one of 1435 Sqn RAF). Another “Spitfire” was shot down four days later (17 October 1942) near La Valetta. Then Heinz Bär took part in combat missions in the hot African sky. In Tunisia, he scored his next 61 Allied aircraft victories (Nos 118-179). But the density of air activity from the start of the war combined with the hard battle conditions in Africa to seriously undermine Bär’s fighting spirit, and exhaust him both physically and mentally. In effect, this famous ace was removed from command and sent back to Germany for ‘rehabilitation’.
Bf-109G-6 R-6 used by Bär in the JG-77
The spring of 1944 saw Major Heinz Bär back in active duty as commander of the II./JG 1 in defense of the Reich. His first victory after so long a break, Bär’s 200th, was scored flying FW 190A-7 ‘red 23’ on 22 April 1944. A week later, on 29 April 1944, he took off with another personal FW 190 A-7, WNr 431007 ‘red 13’ (see profile bottom). On this morning 28 fighters from his II./JG 1 were vectored against a USAAF bombers. “Pritzl” shot down a P-47 “Thunderbolt”, for victory No. 201, and a few minutes later flamed a B-24 “Liberator” for No. 202. In 1944, he downed three Allied planes more, achieving 205 kills.
Personal FW 190 A-7 WNr 431007 ‘red 13’ of Heinz “Pritzl” Bär, commander of II./JG 1. The view is dated on 29 April 1944, when he scored 2 victories.
In the beginning of 1945 Heinz Bär was moved to command the jet fighter school III./EJG 2 ( Lechfeld Schule ). In March of 1945 this school was reformed to an operational unit equipped with Me 262s. On 19 March 1945 ‘Pritzl’ scored his first ‘jet’ victory - a P-51 “Mustang”. In the hands of an expert the Me 262 proved it self a most deadly weapon: on 21 March “Pritzl” claimed a B-24, and three days later his victims were another B-24 and a P-51 (Nos 208-209).
On March 19, 1945, « Pritzl » Bâr claimed his first aerial victory in the Me 262, a P51 - his 206th victory. Since January 1945, Bâr was commander of III./EJG 2, whose goal was to train new Me 262 pilots for the jet fighter unit JG 7. That task however became more and more difficult, due to Allied attacks and lack of resources. In the third week of March, 1945, Bâr’s unit could only muster eleven Me 262s, and Ill./EJG 2 was transformed into a regular fighter unit.
Until 23 April 1945, when Bär arrived at Galland’s JV 44 he was credited with 13 ‘jet’ victories. With the “jet experten” of JV 44, Bär downed two P-47s on 27 April
The final victory of “Pritzl” Bär in WW II was a P-47, downed over Bad Aibiling on 29 April 1945.
Me-262 “Heimatschützer” ( homeland protector) rocket assisted variant of the Me-262 flown by Bär, in these he score one of his last Kills.
With total of 221 victories Heinz Bär is ranked 8th among the Luftwaffe’s top guns and with 16 Me 262 kills, he’s the 3rd ranking ‘jet’ fighter ace of WW II.
It’s interesting to note that Bär was very fortunate - while achieving those victories, he was shot down 18 times himself! Bär’s good fortune in the air left him on 28 April 1957, when he was killed in light plane accident in Braunschweig, Germany.
Sources:
http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/luftwaffe.htm
German Jet aces of WW2/ John Weal Osprey Military.
anyways, the Germany are really relied on JU-87 in the early stage of the war, they are a really good flying weapon against tanks and ships, but when i look at the footage, there seems to be on protection from the Bf-109 or FW-190 against the spitfires? Didnt the german suppose to learn from the experience when JU-87 attempt to attack allied shipments in Dunkirk and eventually beatened by spitfires?
Me-262 was not such “good” in fighter’s role , as it can be seemed.
4*30-mm guns was a great agianst bombers, but it had a powerful recoil , thus accuracy of fire was too low.
you can easily will be convinced of this if you try to fly on Me-262 on computer game aviation simulator ( as example “IL-2”).
Besides Me-262 had a very vulnerable jet engines. Even single 12.7 mm bullet could achieve the fire or even the explosion.
I think the best role of Me-262 was in the bombers actions agains the individual targets (like the bridges and ets.). Having a great speed Me-262 could be easy detached away from any pursuit of allied fighters.
Certainly Me-262 in experienced hands of Heinz Bär was a deadly weapon.
Just imagine, if Heinz Bär had the possibility to fight on TA-152H.
Cheers.
Recoil has little to do with accuracy of fire in this case. The problem was actually that the cannon were too large for the structure to take, so weapons with a very low muzzle velocity had to be fitted. Fine for low deflection shooting (e.g. against bombers) but pretty hopeless against fighters. Had they ever met Meteors in the air, I suspect it would have been rather one-sided.
Oh, and the jet engines weren’t much of a problem. They had a design life of about 30 hours, but apparently that wasn’t an issue as it substantially exceeded the life expectancy of the pilot at the time!
anyways, the Germany are really relied on JU-87 in the early stage of the war, they are a really good flying weapon against tanks and ships, but when i look at the footage, there seems to be on protection from the Bf-109 or FW-190 against the spitfires? Didnt the german suppose to learn from the experience when JU-87 attempt to attack allied shipments in Dunkirk and eventually beatened by spitfires?
Despite the shortcoming the Stuka D and G ( antitank variant) were used until the end. In the Eastern front the Gustav earned a reputation as tank killer and close support of the Panzertruppen.
In the Mediterranen Front the Stukas Dora were the major cause of the german recapture of the Leros Islands in Mid-1943.
In this 20 mb documentry you can see the Gustav shooting tanks near the asolated area of Kurland, in todays Lietuva.
http://www.stv.ee/~zakalev/German%20Newsreel-%20Stukas%20and%20Panzers.mpg
Me-262 was not such “good” in fighter’s role
That why I put “in the hands of an expert” :mrgreen:, actually the relative short time in wich the Messer 262 serve in the Luftwaffe denied the posibility of an adecuate tactic for his Fighter use, some as Steinhoff said that the best use of the 262 was to clear the skies of Allkied fighters allowing the FW-190 to engage the bombers undisturbed.
G’day,
It was only in the last weeks of the war Me-262 fighter units finally received the R4m underwing rocket batteries, which were designed specifically to break up the American bomber boxes.
When Adolf Galland first witnessed the effects of an R4m salvo on American bombers he stated at last this was the weapon that made the Me-262 a complete weapon system. Of course it was too late to have any great impact on the air war.
Regards to all
Digger.
Im looking for infos, bio,promotion dates and decorations of these officers and aces from Luftwaffe :
Otto Fönnekold
Heinrich Setz
Walter Wolfrum
Thx in advance
Regards
G’day, in answer to your question, this is some info for you.
Leutnent Otto Fonnekold served with JG 52 and scored 136 victories and was awarded the Ritterkreuz. Born 15th February 1920 he was killed on 31st August 1944.
Major Heinrich Setz served with JG 27 and scored 138 victories also earning the Ritterkreuz. Born 12th March 1915, he died on 13th March 1943.
Leutnent Walter Wolfram also served with JG 52 scoring 137 kills, he also being decorated with the Ritterkreuz. Born on the 23rd May 1923 he survived the war.
Hope this helps.
Regards to all,
Digger.