achievement wishlist

[SeaCat]

People have tried to debunk his victory count, but Russian losses match up to his aerial victories. From what I've read, Luftwaffe records are substantially more accurate than British and American victory counts. Hartmann also wasn't a dogfighter, he'd sneak in until he was about 50-100 feet behind the other aircraft and blast them down. He had strict rules of engagement to maximize the effect of his surprise attacks. In a dogfight, more often than not one aircraft or the other would break off from the engagement, and I can imagine it's hard to rack up a high kill count when you've only done a bit of damage to the other aircraft. He had a great tactical sense, and it wasn't like he was shooting down a bunch of rookies, either. The Russian pilots towards the end of the war were very well trained, more so than what the Luftwaffe was cranking out at the same period (new German pilots had as little as 30 hours before jumping into combat in 1945). All in all, I think we can at least agree he was highly-skilled at what he did.