Red baron film

Well, the simple fact that an aircraft was keeping it's distance from the engagement could surely be enough of an indicator, keeping in mind that flight leaders would often (as I just said) tell the new pilots to stay out of the actual fight, watch, learn and be ready to run. Thus any pilot who wasn't actually in the fight was likely to be new to the game.

Serious question, how often did individuals attack entire formations single handedly? That's not macho that's foolish.

What's that old saying about a lucky arrow can fell the noblest knight. I guess it's one of those things about warfare through the centuries, how often have great warriors been killed by a fluke shot from a bow, rifle, shrapnel splinter or whatever.

Chrome, I will bow to your knowledge on this one as I'm no where near being well read on the subject. Just curious about a few things

 

Well, I enjoyed it. Although I wish it had been more of a biography.

 

I was doing some internet research and found he was an aircraft observer on the eastern front in 1915 before he became a pilot.

Do any of you know what kind of aircraft he flew in ? I can't find it so far.

 

"That's not macho that's foolish."


This is correct.

I've got a poster that shows the 20 types he flew. Um, get back to you on it.

Bickers mentioned in his book "Manfred beat his dog because he was short, & it doesn't take a trained psychologist to know what that means:.

Was a sack of bollocks! he wasn't short, if one looks at photos of the day he was average heighth. & is Bickers inferring Manfred was a coward? 200 aireal engagements largely with no parachute against the cream of the RAF. His conclusions are as bizarre as they are stupid.

He whipped his dog because it would chase airplanes down the runway & had its ear lopped off once while doing this by a propellor. That's why he did it, to get his dog to stop chasing the planes down the runway. had nothing to do with his heighth.

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3F_adv_prop%3Dimages%26imgsz%3Dall%26vf%3Dphoto%26va%3Dmanfred%2Bvon%2 Brichthofen%26ei%3DUTF-8%26fr%3Dush1-mail%26b%3D61&w=379&h=301&imgurl=www.nordmag.fr%2Fpatrimoine%2Fhistoire_regionale%2FBaronRouge%2FBaronRouge.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nordmag.c om%2Fpatrimoine%2Fhistoire_regionale%2FBaronRouge%2Fbaronrouge.htm&size=27.5kB&name=BaronRouge.jpg&p=manfred+von+richthofen&type=jpeg&no=61&tt=289&oid=dbae6696901161be&ei=UTF-8

 

Are you actually going to answer my points Chrome? I'll gladly cite Dennis Winter as my source when it comes to the ease with which an aircraft hanging around outside a dog-fight could be ID'd as a relatively new pilot. Incidentally MvR had his own tricks, he once said he opened fire way beyond maximum range because if the pilot started evading it was clear he was new to the game.

Worth also remembering that pilots tended to be amongst the shorter military personnell a) because of the amount of time they were expected to sit in cramped cockpits and b)because they were drawn from the light cavalry who like jockies tended to be smaller chaps (contrary to the popular image). Maybe it isn't such a rediculous claim, no implication of cowardice, simply short man syndrome.

 

He wasn't short, so the comment is dismissed out of hand. I've seen him in photos on parade with a hundred men around him, again, average height, Ernst udet "was" short. Werner Voss was tall. Manfred was average. Men were a bit shorter in general in 1918 anyways than they are today.

I thought I had addressed your points. Several of em anyway.Leaders having score set up for em & so on.

& you must also remember Manfred according to eyewitnesses was always 1st to attack enemy formations. This waiting around for novices is for the birds. He did often go above to see how things were going, but initially he was always 1st in to attack.

 

How tall was he then?

Not really. All you said was that it was impossible to identify a novice by watching him (patantly absurd since, as I said, novices were usually ordered to stick to the edges of the fight and watch plus MvR himself described the tricks he used to determin the skill level of his opponant) and then spouted some absolute nonsense about a 'macho' pilot flying out of his own formation to attack MvR's formation. Now I know the RFC were hardly the most tactically advanced force in history but that is just plain idiotic. You then failed to back that claim up.

Please consider that baseless comments do not constitute a response by any standard of reasoned argument.

For the birds and recognised military historians it would appear (Winter for one). Sure he often was the first to attack but this tactic was also used, hell, he said himself that he prefered finding a novice. Anyhow, who said all he did was wait around for novices, what I said was that often he would leave a dog-fight and look for novices who were milling around the edges.

Incidentally however, your reliance just on eyewitness accounts is dubious at best. Keep in mind that these eyewitnesses were his comrades, the men who helped build his myth. Consider a few broader sources.

 

Not absolute nonsense about the macho pilots. That's his own words about that. & on his height, did you not see the photo in the link I posted??

http://www.nordmag.fr/patrimoine/histoire_regionale/BaronRouge/BaronRouge.jpg

I suppose all the other guys in the photo are short too?

& the cats at WW1 aerodrome mentioned this...

With respect to JG1, it would seem contradictory to MvR's own operations manual to break off before an attack and watch over the battle. This would disrupt the whole attack with a large formation. Even Jasta 11 patrols. Imagine, just before an attack, MvR breaks off the attack and lets the rest of the formation start? And that's just theory.

& eyewitnesses are "not" dubious, they are the best one can do regarding seeking truth, rumor & British writers who weren't there "are" dubious.

& the 8-10 aces he got credible researcher Norman Franks mentioned, were they perhaps used as decoys stationed around the edge of an air battle to lure Manfred in?

 

Winters credibility is questionable as well. Or dubious at best.

"But see also Dennis Winter's 'Haig's Command' which actually drew on many more contemporary sources than Terraine did and presents a view that is damning in the extreme."



Er... Yes, but a chap called Jeff Gray (an Aussie historian) tore the book to pieces in a review. If you compare the actual documents with what Winter wrote then the thesis of the book falls to bits. It appears that Winter quotes very selectively from the documents, and, IIRC (I don't have the review to hand) there are places where Winter's omissions change the meaning of the material. I'll try to find an online copy of the review for info.

I can't think of any serious historian of the First World War who regards Winter's book as being anything other than one of the shoddiest pieces of scholarship masquerading as a serious history published in the last thirty years (including those who regard Haig as a blundering idiot).

On the positive side, the original paperback edition is very absorbant and good for mopping up coffee stains.

 

Hey, you never know Cavalry and pilots of the time were generally smaller men so who knows? I'd love to see the original research behind the book in question though.

Not what I said now is it? No one mentioned breaking off before an attack.

Let's see now, a group of men who were his friends, his allies and devoted to building his myth versus a historian with access to more resources, more accounts than you have ever seen and whatever his biase, less to loose than MvR's friends.

Again, who said that? More to the point, I never claimed all his victories followed this pattern, simply stated that it was a recognised tactic used by MvR and other aces of the time.

As for the rest, I'd suggest you look around the subject a little more. Sure his work on Haig has been criticsed, but who is talking about that? Isn't that rather like claiming that Ambrose's work on the 101st was 'dodgy' because his book in the Indian Wars had been criticised (incidentally I dislike Ambroses work immensely).

Anyhow, take it easy, enthusiasm is one thing but you sound ready for a rupture

 

I still can not find what kind of recon plane he flew in before he became a pilot.

Can you get your poster out of storage for me ?

 

I'd love to, but t's in a storage unit out in the desert.

 

"Let's see now, a group of men who were his friends, his allies and devoted to building his myth versus a historian with access to more resources, more accounts than you have ever seen and whatever his biase, less to loose than MvR's friends."

Hmmmm, now how would you know they were devoted to building his myth?? Sounds as if they were on the payroll of future writers or something.

& I don't need to look around a little more, I have 19 books on ze Baron. & am a member of WW1 Aerodrome, spoken to Mr Kilduf personally, & communicated with Towsend Bickers, ( Richthofen book author ), by mail.


I said this "& the 8-10 aces he got credible researcher Norman Franks mentioned, were they perhaps used as decoys stationed around the edge of an air battle to lure Manfred in?" to highlite the silliness of the claim that he waited around the perimieter for novices. I was being facetious.

Um, no rupture, just chat.

 

& you can do you own research of Richthofens height. Bickers just made a stupid off color comment. Bickers had an agenda. He sent me his book about Ginger Lacy which contained some not so lovely comments about Germans. Now if Richthofen had been British & swatted down 80 German planes, we would have gotten an entirely different story.

http://www.derrittmeister.com/order.htm#ordertop

 

& it is true that Manfred got many 2 seats, ( he was ordered to hit these 1st as they were more valuable opponents because they took battlefield photos & such ), & many greenhorns in his bag, which was more down to the rather short training airmen got back in those days than anything else. He did face the RFC's best squad regularly.

& if one compares aces, say to his ww2 equal, Galland, Galland had 4 aces to Richtofens 8-10, ( yes I know, most of Gallands were single seat ). he squared off with Lanoe Hawker & James Mccudden in 1916. Both of whom had more experience than he. Hawkers score is likely much higher than official records show for couple reasons, #1 he flew solo patrols, & # 2, he was in on the front end of the war before victory counting had become widespread & such. The term ace was French & caught on with the British later. Unofficially, it has been put forward that he may well have got around 30. Mostly on the German side of the lines unfortunately for him which makes authentification near imposible, but does not mean he didn't actually do it. He was a real pioneer & was 1st one to deliberately throw his DH2 into a spin to see if he could pull out of it & right the plane, which he did. This took enormous guts & this trick was used to great effect to fool German pilots, go into a spin, & pull out at low altitude, then head back to base.

McCudden flew in every year of the war.

 

What? You seriously telling me his friends and comrades don't have a vested interest?

Ahh right, laugh=argument, forgot that...

But still doesnt escape the fact that it happened.

 

So they were on the payroll, it all makes sense now. & Werner Voss's comment about Richthofen's not so hot performance against a 2 seater must have been set up as a bribe by allied agents.

Fact that what happenned? Richthofen was a cripple/novice chaser & all that unproven stuff?

 

Here is your myth Stefan.

The myth (and that's what it is) of MvR 'lurking' above an air fight and picking off cripples, etc may have been originated - or at least been spread - by Ira "Taffy" Jones of No 74 Sqn, in his biography of Mannock entitled "King of Air Fighters" (published 1934). At least, that seems to be one of the first references to it that I can find. Now, Taffy was a superb and courageous air fighter in his own right, and none of this takes away from his wonderful record as a fighter pilot. However, an unbiased historian he was not. His book on Mannock is a very deliberate attempt to build Mannock up (as if that was needed) and to denigrate Boelcke and especially Richthofen (and thus prove that Mannock was "King of Air Fighters").

At any rate, on page 275 of my copy re-published in 1989, Jones writes of Richthofen: "It is clear from a study of his record that the Baron picked out his victims with great discrimination. If he could arrange it he only fought 'easy meat'. It is widely declared, and there is little doubt, that he hovered above the dog-fights, and waited for an easy opponent, many of which were undoubtedly 'lame ducks', victims of one of his gentlemen, who had to do the spade-work before the master completed the task; or, as in some cases, he just followed the victims to the ground, eventually to claim them as his own victories."

AAARGH! Just typing that gave me a bad case of heartburn. Again and again, Jones chides Richthofen for going after the 'poor' two-seater artillery spotters and reconnaissance aircraft, and supposedly "avoiding" knightly combat with fighter aircraft which were his 'equal'. All of which flies in the face of the fact that destroying the enemy's observation and artillery machines was the real raison d'etre of a good fighter pilot.

Jones was an heroic and decorated veteran of the air war. However, the only first-hand German books he consulted were, I believe, Boelcke's letters as translated in "An Aviator's Field Book" or Werner's "Knight of Germany", and Richthofen's own "Der Rote Kampfflieger" and Gibbons' "Red Knight of Germany". I'd like to see proof from the German perspective that MvR "hovered" above dogfights or stole victories from his men. I have never seen either.

Greg
__________________
Greg VanWyngarden

 

Right, so Richthovens friends are totally unbiased, not at all interested in building his reputation and yet a British pilot is of course massively biased. Not see the slight contradiction there.

 

British have always been biased against him. He was the enemy. Richthofens friends did not need to do any reputation building, his deeds spoke all by themselves.

If you're serious about this subject, I'd suggest you join the WW1 aerodrome where the experts are. & what makes you think all German pilots were his friends??

How about Authors Peter Kilduf & Norman Franks. They certainly weren't his friends.