Why there were so many German aces...

taken from: http://www.acepilots.com/german/ger_aces.html
(It's a bit long)

How did they do this, when no other aces in history, from any nation, at any time, on any front, came close? As a group, were they ten times better fighter pilots than their American opponents, as the scores of 200 vs. 20 might imply? I don't think so. "Why did the German pilots of WW2 scored so high" is an interesting question. One reader asked, "Were they using different rules?" And that suggested a possible analogy, because, in fact, the Luftwaffe pilots were using the same rules as others, if anything, somewhat stricter rules. Historically, fighter pilots have scored a "kill" when their air force gives them official credit for the aerial destruction of any enemy aircraft. In most countries and services, the pilots own combat report, i.e. his own, unsupported word, his good faith, sufficed. Of course, novice pilots had to prove themselves, and first-timers who returned to base with claims of vast numbers of enemy fighters who fell beneath their guns were viewed skeptically. Luftwaffe pilots were required to have independent confirmation from another pilot. But basically they were "playing by the same rules."

The difference lay, not in the rules, nor in some nonsensical Aryan racial superiority, but rather in the conditions of combat. By analogy, consider home run hitters in baseball. For many years Babe Ruth's record of 714 home runs remained the top score. Eventually Henry Aaron passed that number. Other sluggers, from different teams and from different eras have hit 500, 600, or more home runs. Despite these differences, the achievements of the home run hitters remain essentially comparable. The conditions of their achievements remained essentially the same.

But suppose that some ballplayers played only 30 games a season rather than 162. Indeed when Roger Maris (playing in a 162-game season) broke Babe Ruth's single season home run record (set in a 154-game season), that difference merited baseball's most famous asterisk.

What if some hitters faced minor league pitchers while others faced major leaguers? What if ballparks varied greatly in size, some with 250-foot centerfields and others with 600-foot distances down the middle? What if some players played year-round? What if some hitters were assigned with getting singles and drawing walks?

What about differences in equipment? About 1920, baseball replaced the so-called "dead ball" with a livelier ball, and the game changed forever. No one would try to compare a Mickey Mantle to a "Home Run" Baker. Similarly, it would be difficult to compare the achievements of pilots who flew 200 hp biplanes to those who flew 1,200 hp WW2 monoplanes to those who flew jets in Korea.

The frequency of contests? On the Russian Front, most aerial combat occurred in the vicinity of the battle lines; it was all about tactical air support, not long range strategic bombing. The short distances permitted multiple missions per day, no 14-hour bomber escort missions, the Luftwaffe pilots frequently did two or three sorties in a day.

The length of the career? The Germans had a "fly till you die" policy. No rotation home for training duty. No limit on missions or combat hours. While such a short-sighted policy hampered the Luftwaffe's ability to turn out large numbers of well-trained pilots later in the war, it permitted those who excelled to rack up more and more missions and more and more aerial victories. One Luftwaffe experte, Erich Rudorffer, flew over 1,000 missions and was shot down himself sixteen times. American pilots generally finished a tour of duty and rotated home for training, command, or flight test assignments. Some immediately "re-upped" for more combat, but they were the exceptions.

The quality of the opposition? With no disrespect to brave Russian fliers nor to greatly skilled Russian aces like Pokryshkin (60 victories), the war on the Eastern Front (both on the ground and in the air) was one of quality vs. quantity. The Soviet Union had immense reserves of manpower, raw materials, and industrial goods (both from their own factories and from U.S. Lend-Lease equipment). And Stalin was not afraid to use his massive resources profligately. Many, many poorly trained Russian fliers went up in poorly made aircraft.

Varying assignments? By policy, many American fighter groups were assigned bomber escort duty. Their responsibility was to protect the bombers, not to zoom off, hunting down enemy planes to shoot down. The 332nd Fighter Group, the famed Tuskegee Airmen, is a case in point; the group's highest scoring pilot was credited with "only" 4 kills, but they never lost a bomber to enemy fighters.

Another matter, which perhaps doesn't have a direct analogy in baseball, is a "target-rich environment." In World War One, especially in the first two years of the war, airplanes did not exist in large numbers. There just weren't that many of them in the air. In World War Two, airplanes were mass-produced, with hundreds of thousands of combat aircraft delivered to the combatant nations. With the jet era, beginning in Korea, airplanes became much larger, much more complex, and much more expensive. An F-14 Tomcat or a MiG-29 cannot be compared to a WWII fighter plane. No nation will ever again field such a large number of airplanes. And, no fighter pilot will ever shoot such large numbers; the targets just don't exist. One can sense this in reading about the air war in Korea; a pervasive theme is "looking for the MiGs." Would the MiGs be flying on a given day? "Double aces," i.e. pilots with ten or more kills, were a rarity in Korea. In Vietnam, the U.S. had one or two aces. In the Gulf War, none; a few pilots downed two or three Iraqi aircraft.

I think it's reasonable to predict that we will never see another ace. The targets just don't exist in large enough numbers.

 

and your point you are trying to make if there is one ? are you asking a question and wanting feedback or ?

sorry a bit confused. One must understand the Soviet/German conflict the first three years of combat. The German a/c were superior and also the tactics. yes a wingman had to be present and a very concise after action report had to be given at the end of the day's combat. In the fall of 44 the Luftwaffe was not keeping accurate tallies of any Lufwaffe pilot or ace and things were pretty much a fog during 1945 especially, so we may never really know what some of the possible totals were. Lstly the German fighter pilots were flwon till they were out of action, either severly wounded or killed....this is the prime reason why we can look at these bios and wonder how they could have managed so many missions during their career's

E

 

Several factors are involved here and another one has just struck me while reading Bergstrom's 'Graf & Grislawski'.

Society in the Third Reich paid a great deal of attention to high-scoring 'aces', and awards came with certain numbers of victories. The public adulation - literally, hero-worship - affected the behaviour of many pilots who became quite obsessed with running up high scores to the detriment of everything else - including, frequently, their lives.

This is in stark contrast to, say, the RAF where public recognition of individuals was frowned on, both officially and, among the fliers, as 'line-shooting'.

 

A while ago a did put a list on Axis planes downed and the numbers were quite huge, to be precise. So it must have something to do with the "true service time" of the pilots as well as what Martin mentions. Definitely enough planes for the kind of aces like the Germans had.

 

Continuing from Martin,

In the Western Desert, certain Experten concentrated on attacking Allied Fighters/Fighter Bombers. Marseilles only claimed 3 Light/Medium Bombers in his 158 Claims.

von Richtofen defended his record of shooting down so many 2 seater Arty Spotters(or similar) by saying that these were the aircraft that were causing most damage, not the fighters.

So racking up large scores of Fighters wasnt going to win the battle, knocking down 2E & 4E bombers would be hitting the opposition much harder.

Overall, the German Airforce had created the climate where their best pilots could knock down large numbers of the enemy, at all times their Fighters were cutting edge or close to it. They used tactices which, except for the BoB gave them a high chance for safe combat (How often do you read of the "bf109 spurting smoke and diving away to safety" the same tactic used by the Allies in the Pacific to great success) and after 1941 they could generally succesfully bail out or crash land and make it safetly home.

Plus, a number of Experten seemed to have their claims approved "Immediately", IMHO there were some Golden Haired Boys of the Propaganda War. The Luftwaffe approval system was as accurate as the RAF or USAAF system and was full of errors and overclaims.

18 DECEMBER 1939 HELIGOLAND BIGHT

On 18 December 1939, the RAF decided to mount a raid on the German fleet at Wilhelm shaven and orders were drafted for 24 Wellington Medium bombers to carry out the raid. 9 aircraft from 149 Squadron, 9 from 9 Squadron and 6 from 37 Squadron were selected to “Attack enemy warships in the Schillig Roads or Wilhelmshaven. Great care is to be taken to ensure that no bombs fall on shore”

While 24 Wellington’s took off, 2 from 149 Sqn returned to base early leaving 22 to carry on. The bombers managed to successfully fly over the German Fleet, but their Orders about bombing German soil caused the abortion of the raid as the leader decided the ships, tied up in Port where too close to shore to be bombed. It was only after they turned for home did the German Fighters attack.

The ensuing massacre saw thew shooting down of 10 Wellingtons, nearly 50% of the attacking force, however the Fighters claimed to have destroyed 34 Victories, over 150% of the attackers though OKL pruned this down to 26, still more than the force started with.
...............................................

In 1943, the USAAF flew 2 raids on the German Ball Bearing plants at Schweinfurt, on 17 August, 376 B-17 Flying Fortress’s were involved, USAAF losses were about 60 B-17’s plus many which were scrapped upon landing. This was a loss rate of around 16%.
However, OKL awarded 94 B-17 and 4 P-47 Victories. Given the ability of the Luftwaffe to investigate the damage on the ground, how do they explain a 50% over claim.

On 14 October, a second raid was mounted, this was an even greater disaster in that of the 291 Bombers sent out, another 60 were destroyed in Combat, nearly 20% losses. But OKL was to excel and awarded 146 B-17 Kills, half of the attacking force, and once again it was within their ability to examine wreckage.

Both raids were intercepted outside Allied fighter cover, so the Luftwaffe Interceptors could operate without continual harassment, so how did they manage to have approved about 250 Kills as against actual losses of 120
...............................................
From Desert Warriors by Russell Brown. Taken from the foreward by Bobby Gibbes.
“It was not possible for a Desert Pilot to have a victory confirmed without a witness. Our aircraft were not equipped with camera-guns, so we had no photographic record of combats fought. It was so difficult to get confirmation that on 1 occasion I did not bother to submit a sortie report even though I confirmed it myself afterwards when driving from the airfield at Bir Durfan to the area. I found the wreckage of the bf109 with the body of the dead pilot still inside…..

After the war I became a friend of Erhard Braune, ex commander of III/JG27. In a discussion with him on tactics etc, I asked why the claims of some Luftwaffe pilots appeared unrealistic as they DIDN’T ADD UP TO OUR KNOWN LOSSES.
He told me that these high claims ‘HELPED THE MORALE OF THE GERMAN PEOPLES.”

 

funny but OKL sources do not seem to be relevent in the past 20 years of German publishing on the JG's, and have been largely discounted by much more up to date works such as the Prien, Rodeike, Stemmer volumes which are a must have

 

Erich,

Do the latest works support the numbers which have been accepted or dispute them?

 

volume 1 of JG 1 and JG 11 states from what I understand only those credits given as confirmed and not as claims given to the JG's and ZG's so yes at least with what has been printed the last years OKL given figures have been dropped as reality. OKL in one instance gave JG 301 on 26 Nov. 44 in upwards of 58 victoreis agasint P-51's and US heavy bombers, it was then dropped within a week down to 21 kills which marks perfectly with the known US bomber losses that AJG 301 engaged. It is quite obvious being in the fall of 43 the big upsurge of US heavy bomber activity that the JG's for propaganda poys and to make the pilots little darlings of the Reich that the JG's would be under glass via the Deutsche Wochenschau films but later reports state the OKL had to be gleaned up and a more true picture came to be in 1944 although many of the kills during this year and 1945 have been lost or just were not plain observed.

 

I am not sure how to word this Erich, so don't jump on me.

Did'nt the Germans give more credit if their pilots shot down a four engine bomber vs a single engine aircraft ? Seems like I read a pilot who shot down 5 bombers was deemed "better" than shooting down 5 single seaters. But I an not sure how the credit system worked for them. I am sure they did not give credit for aircraft destroyed for planes strafed on the ground like the Americans did. But again I could be wrong.

 

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


Aircraft losses

Germany: Estimated total losses for the war totaled 116,584 aircraft, of which 70,000 were total losses and the remainder significantly damaged. By type, losses totaled 41,452 fighters, 22,037 bombers, 15,428 trainers, 10,221 twin-engine fighters, 8,548 ground attack, 6,733 reconnaissance, and 6,141 transports

Japan: Estimates vary from 35,000 to 50,000 total losses, with about 20,000 lost operationally.

Italy: Total losses were 5,272 aircraft, of which 3,269 were lost in combat.

Where are those Allied aces??


And:

Soviet Union: Estimated total losses were over 100,000 from all causes.

 

Ta

I dont think they were awarded victories, but points which went towards medals.

Kai,

The Allied victories were spread much more thinly, from memory, 1% of Luftwaffe pilots claimed app 70% of all victories, and Allied aces were sent off on training courses to improve the output of their massive training effort.

Neville Duke, one of the high scoring RAF pilots with 28 “kills” entered the action in April 1941, was sent on 2, 6 month rest periods and left combat about 6 months before wars end, therefore being in action for about 36 months flying about 490 sorties, added to this was the rarity in which Luftwaffe aircraft were sighted after late 1943. The Luftwaffe wore their Pilots into the ground, though the number of Allied Aircraft in the skies made finding their foe much easier. Eric Hartmann did not get posted to JG52 until August 1942, was consistantly flying up to 4 missions each day flying over 1400 missions through some of the worst flying weather on earth.

 

From Danny S Parker "To win the winter sky"

Only eight of Germany´s 107 aces with more than 100 kills joined the Luftwaffe after the summer 1942.