[csThor]

Okay, let me plug it apart.

Originally Posted by wannabetheace

1. Nobody checked their clams, often it was impossible to define what happened with the plane been attacked. Simply, the Nazi propaganda machine needed heroes and the fighter experts were those heroes.

BS! The propaganda value of a high-scoring pilot was certainly there and Goebbels's ministery went to great lengths to use their public appeal. BUT:

To claim a kill it was necessary to write a report and attach witness reports (air or ground witness, or later gun camera). Without such witnesses the claim wouldn't even leave the unit as it wouldn't be granted anyway. Then the claim would be checked at the Gruppe level to ensure no "obvious fairy tales" were going to OKL. The RLM had a special bureaucacy which did nothing else but check kill claims by german pilots and they quite often refused to grant a claim. However, as anyone can imagine, in the time of "Eyeball Mk I" as only sensoric device it's easy to mistake a damaged aircraft limping home as one which is on its way to a crash (or something like that). As a result all kill claims can only be viewed as claims, not real losses suffered by the opposing air force. However when looking up soviet claims vs german losses and german claims vs soviet losses it's quite amusing to see that soviet claims almost always grossly outnumbering german losses - overclaiming was not something the Luftwaffe did alone. For the VVS an overclaiming rate of 3-5 was normal (there were positive and negative exceptions of course). To give an example (and to quote myself):

Originally Posted by csThor

[...] BC/RS 3 lists the following losses for the VVS and Luftwaffe for the timeframe July to November 1942 (page 224):

VVS

Lost in air combat: 7415
Lost to AAA: 1642
On the ground: 487
Total: 9544

Luftwaffe

Lost in air combat/to AAA: 1039
On the ground: 96
Total: 1135

Interesting is the relationship between losses in air combat (don't know if the numbers include missing aircraft as well) versus claims. In this timeframe the VVS claimed 4500 german aircraft (losses include losses to AAA, don't know exact number of losses in air combat; overclaiming of 4,33:1) and the Luftwaffe claimed 14153 victories in air combat (includes approximate number of claims for various german Jagdgeschwader so the number is probably not that accurate, though; overclaiming of 1,9:1).

This one example I have at hand. However there were similar situations (i.e. ops over the Kertch peninsula in early 1942) with similar results.

Originally Posted by wannabetheace

To get true level of their victories check the German and British data about RAF casualties during Battle for Britain.

Is this data (and I mean reliable data) available anywhere or is that just one of those "sour grapes" efforts that pop up now and then?
If the latter I will surely be forgiven if I point at the british claims in early 1942 vs real german losses (overclaiming rate was 7:1).

Originally Posted by wannabetheace

2. the ussr had to send in fight green novices. the ussr had no time to prepare new pilots for a year like the usa had. so their losses were high especially in 1941-43.

Full ack. Soviet pilot quality varied greatly and was (along with outdated tactics and doctrines) one of the main reasons for the high losses.

Originally Posted by wannabetheace

4. for the germans to shoot one more enemy plane often was the primary target of a mission. they often did it independently from the interests of ground forces. for example, if a large group of soviet planes attacked a german ground position a couple of experts ("free hunters") didn't try to prevent it but hunted for damaged planes which went away from the formation and were easy victims. of course in such case the score of those hunters increased very much but the ground forces suffered.

That is the difference in fighter doctrine. In german a fighter is called "Jäger" (=hunter), whereas the soviet "Istrebitel" means "destroyer". The fixation on aerial combat and personal victories was indeed a double-edged sword. On the one hand it allowed the Luftwaffe to achieve great successes and created a cadre of highly-experienced pilots which were the backbone of their units. On the other hand - as described - ground forces more often tan not wondered "Where is the Luftwaffe?"

But quite frankly: Could Germany afford to force its pilots to fight whenever the enemy was there? Regardless of the circumstances? If you look at the population of Germany (something below 80 million) vs the Soviet Union (no idea how much, but I suspect more than 200 million), Great Britain and the Commonwealth (no idea how much) and ultimately the USA (something around 240 million) it should be clear that winning the war could never be a question of numerical superiority but always of training, experience and doctrine. Germany could not allow its pilots to get killed in senseless battles - and as hard as that sounds - a grunt needs three months of drill on the barracks square before he can be posted to the front, a pilot needs two years (pre-1943 training) to get to the front and costs a lot more money to train. It was always a question of economy.

Originally Posted by wannabetheace

in the soviet air forces the personal score never was so important, they tried to fulfil their task at first. If the task of a group of pilots was to defend an important bridge they ought to do it at first and not to shoot as more as possible enemy planes. So Soviet fighter often began to fight at any conditions but the gErmans tried to fight only in the conditions favourable to them.

Which was another reason why the VVS suffered such horrendous losses. To be forced to accept a fight even when the circumstances couldn't be worse is always going to end in dramatic losses. Even the western allies never forced their pilots to do this - this was a purely soviet thing. In the end they won (although I doubt this was the result of such stiff-necked attitudes), but I am pretty sure if they had lost we'd be laughing about their stupidy now.

Originally Posted by wannabetheace

Also, in many Soviet airforce squadrons, the pilots might 'give' their kill of the day, to the squadrons main tally, so that often the squadron, or the larger formation would have tens or hundreds of kills more, than were listed as the individual pilots victories combined!

A collective ideology will always favor collective achievements. It will also try to ignore, downplay or supress individual achievements. This is the fundament for the soviet "collective kill" procedure (and do not try to tell me I got no idea - I was born in the former GDR, so I know a bit about "collectivism").

So it was basically a question of cultural differences which found their way into military doctrines. What a surprise!

Originally Posted by LEXX

The Prime Rule of efficient ruthless modern warfare is to send the Aces home crying like babies to teach their skills to vastly greater numbers of future aces, and this Rule was followed most effectively by USA and the results are in. I wonder if the Luftwaffe dug a hole for themselves over the war years by ignoring this rule.

You're making it too easy, Lexx. The Luftwaffe couldn't follow such a procedure - it didn't have the people to do so. From the outset the Luftwaffe was seen as a force which relied heavily on its core of veterans (and this applies to all of its parts) instead of huge numbers. This was one reason why the pre-war training curriculum was so extensive, why admission standards were so high. It was supposed to be an elite.
On the other hand it is a misconception to think that the Luftwaffe didn't rotate experienced pilots back to Germany to train youngsters. In fact they did, quite often, but such postings were temporary and the pilots would return to the front after a while. And one golden rule proved to be true there, too:

A brilliant fighter pilot does not necessarily have to be a brilliant teacher, too.