I was reading about this guy and he had over 350+ kills. Why does this make me jealous?
>>64751009>Why were Germans so extraordinary?The same reason my buddy Tyler from Elementary School was so extraordinary. Navy Seal at 10 years old, over 50 missions and 500 confirmed kills, 3km sniper shot, saved the President of the United States and even preformed missions in outer space. That is the power of making shit up, you can do anything.
They just had easy targets. Each soviet plane should count no more than 1/3 kill.
>>64751021Even Americans/soviets acknowleged him. Stop being a retard>>64751022But they're lot of German pilots having 100+ kills against western planes
>>64751009they lied
>Why does this make me jealous?its like you cunts cant just bait you have to rub the worm on our nose too
>>64751009he mostly killed bombers and bomber escortsalso soviet training was like 50 hours and then they dumped you to the germans
>>64751009kill hogging was an acknowledged thing even in the WW2 Luftwaffe, more visionary commanders complained about ite.g. iirc Adolf Galland and 3 other aces accounted for fully 1/4th of all the kills in his entire fighter wing during the Battle Of Britainalso, Soviets. it's like bragging about your KDR against Counter-Strike bots>Why does this make me jealous?low test>>64751027>But they're lot of German pilots having 100+ kills against western planes110 pilots have >100 killsVERY few of them have 100 kills over Western planes, most of them are mostly against SovietAdolf Galland just about managed a hundred Western kills, thanks to having a career that ranged from 1939 to 1945, and with a couple of those kills in doubtEgon Mayer is another who scored 100+ kills against Western aircraftstatistically speaking these are, like Eugene Sledge, the extreme edge cases which can happen in any conflict.>>64751069>50 hoursless than 10
>>64751096>muh slavsHow many ziggers did you kill in your plane?That right, bitch, SHUT THE FUCK UP.Luckily I don't heem your manlet ass
>>64751103we're not at war and I have a way higher life expectancy than Luftwaffe pilots, thank Goddo remember they lost the war. most of them died.if, right now, you threw 50,000 fully-trained NATO infantry in unsupported infantry combat against an equivalent number of Russian mobiks given 10 hours of weapon instruction, there is absolutely going to be some sniper or machine-gunner out there with legit hundreds if not thousands of kills
>>64751009target rich environment, and being kept on the front line for 4 years straightHartmann's true skill was survival, he didn't stick around to die if the initial pass didn't go well. He also got shot down a couple of times (total of 16 crashes to all causes, go figure how many were credited as kills to some russian) so his true k/d is lower.>>64751027the americans pulled aces off the front to go teach new guys, the germans just kept them flying till they died. naturally a bunch of good pilots managed to survive for a long time and rack up insane kill counts, at the expense of a lot of noobs getting pasted
>>64751123>total of 16 crashes to all causesThey say it wasn't his fault. He lived a comfy life in USA after that
>>64751009better planesbetter tactics
>>64751133>He lived a comfy life in USA after thatyeah? how many combat flights did he make for the rest of his life?>>64751123>the americans pulled aces off the front to go teach new guys, the germans just kept them flying till they diedhalf trueAllied aces were kept in flight squadrons and remained operationally active, check out how many of the top Allied aces were KIA or POWthey did fly less however and they did spend more time teachingwhat really mattered is the Allies emphasised teamwork tactics e.g. the Thach Weave, whereas the Luftwaffe tended to let rookies die and let the aces rack up kills
He was just good at attacking rookies in a methodical manner while not getting into a peer fight or worse, a non-peer fight against him.If we still fought wars where each side made thousands of fighters per year and threw them at each other then you'd see lots of pilots with his kill record.
The short version is that compared to other national super-aces Hartmann didnt rack up kills very fast at all, he just flew very consistently. He spent the entire war on the Eastern Front, and not only did that mean that he was fighting pilots with considerably less training that British or American aviators, he was also flying much shorter missions much closer to the action. A Luftwaffe fighter airbase may be only a handful of kilometers behind the front and anticipated to conduct combat operations every single day, whereas a P-47 or P-38 jockey might only have the opportunity to see a German once every few days, during a lengthy bomber escort. Its even worse for the Navy, where a Wild/Hellcat pilot might only see Jap aircraft a couple times during his entire deployment. >>64751123>americans pulled aces off the front to go teach new guys, the germans just kept them flying till they diedGermany and Japan get a lot of flak for this, but the reality was that the Americans were spoiled in comparison with a much more robust training pipeline that allowed them to rotate pilots. Keeping your aces in combat wasnt so much a deliberate choice as it was a necessity to keep the rapidly thinning number of expericenced frontline pilots from utterly collapsing.
>>64751027how many are those are 100 kill aces nightfighter aces or like hartmann attacking IL2s? shooting down soviet pilots with 20 flying hours or heavy bombers who can't even see you is not great feat. German nightfighter aces would dip out if a bomber even fired its guns and certainly didn't tangle with P38s or mosquitosI think a good example that sums up the situation is that John Braham was a British nightfighter ace with only 19 kills as a nightfigter.12 of those night kills were maneuverable fast bombers and recon aircraft. 7 were enemy nightfighters on night intruder sorties over enemy territory including smoking 3 enemy aces (one with 15 victories 2 others with over 50)
>>64751009It's Soviets were extraordinary bad.Hartman was down in his second fight against Mustang lighters escorts, and after pulled out back to clubbing Russians.
>>64751009Sortie rate. They really don't have a kills-per-sortie number that much higher than western aces, but their airfields were close to the combat area and they could fly multiple sorties a day. Western pilots had to fly a long way and would only be able to fly once a day at most. Flying over friendly territory also meant they would be able to go back into the fight if they were shot down. Many of these Eastern Front super aces would end up performing much, much worse the minute they moved to an area where they faced western allied air forces. Hartmann, in your picture, actually flew against Americans a couple of times over Romania and that ended with him getting shot down.Other people have also mentioned the kill feeding where these propaganda aces would have entire squadrons ordered to do whatever possible to protect them and feed them kills.
>>64751196>>64751160>that the Americans were spoiled in comparison with 20 times more oil production Fixed for ya.>let's enlist 100000 pilots and give them 250 hours of training before sending them into combat >Great plan! Where do we get so much avgas for training?>*crickets*Allies could afford throw numbers at Germany.
The envy is strong in this thread.His name will never be forgotten.Ewig währt der Toten Tatenruhm.
>>64751287Germans were killing their rookie pilots long before avgas was a problem Cope
>>64751036Funny take, given the Luftwaffe had the strictest kill claim regulations of any airforce in the war.
>>64751340Limited avgas was never NOT a problem for the Luftwaffe.
>>64751340>>64751356Avgas was always the problem. It's constant balance how much you spend on combat operations and on training. Germany had no abundance of avgas (they annually spend around their annual production), it was zero summ game, they could only increase training at the expenses of combat operations and vice versa.
Allies be like>we were smart!https://thundersaidenergy.com/2022/03/03/oil-and-war-ten-conclusions-from-wwii/
>>64751196>Keeping your aces in combat wasnt so much a deliberate choice as it was a necessity to keep the rapidly thinning number of expericenced frontline pilots from utterly collapsingthisthe Japs were criminally negligent in not expanding their training pipeline before the warthey assumed that one swift blow would collapse the American house of cards, and this assumption impacted all their plans>the Americans were spoiled in comparison with a much more robust training pipelinemore like they (and the RAF) shat out pilots faster with fewer training hours, relative to their enemiesthis was ultimately a good decision>jpgfor consistency's sake Shuck should only record his career-ender, not both instances of being wounded>>64751345>the Luftwaffe had the strictest kill claim regulations of any airforce in the warwrongthe RAF was stricter, especially in the rule that any disputed kill would be divided between the pilots involved, or attributed to the entire squadronLuftwaffe pilots complained even during the war that kills were often awarded during such disputes to the German pilot who was closer to getting the next medal (aka achievement unlocked)>>64751356they had plenty of avgas during the Battle Of Britain. didn't stop them wasting their rookies as meat shields for the Experten>>64751377>they could only increase training at the expenses of combat operationsas it was for every other nation. the real issue is that at a strategic level, Germany (and Japan) bit off more than it could chew. they knew that if they paused operations their enemies could produce more than they could.
>>64751390>the Japs were criminally negligent in not expanding their training pipeline before the war>>64751287
>>64751390>more like they (and the RAF) shat out pilots faster with fewer training hours, relative to their enemies
