Dogfights
- Thread starter RedGuardist
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Bahhhh, I am not that big of a fan of the show. It just seems like alot of American Flag waveing to me, thats all. Not my cup of tea.
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The funny thing is some german aces had more than 100 kills (awful many) and these american guys call themselves aces with 12 won dogfights.
Does anyone now some stats of japanese and russian airmen?
Does anyone now some stats of japanese and russian airmen?
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If you're interested in a Japanse ace, then look for anything about Sakai Saburo. He was the 3rd top ace of the Japanese Navy. The navy stopped crediting pilots with kills at some point (1943???), but the US creditied him with about 63 kills. He set the record for edurance flight in a Zero; Never lost a wingman. He was badly wounded after mistaking a formation of Avengers for Dauntless (I think) and got shot up badly by the rear gunners. Bleeding from chest, head, arms and leg, and blind in 1 eye, he managed to reach an airfield and land over 4 hours later. Still blind in 1 eye, he was allowed to return to combat 2 years later.
AFAIK, the Axis countries had a very different approach to the Allied countries.
American "aces" would be rotated to help train new pilots. While the German and Japanese approach would be to keep the aces in the front line.
I couldn't tell you how experienced Germain pilots were are the start of WWII, but I imagine they had gained experience and developed tactics thanks to the Spanish Civil War. They certainly weren't using the WWI type of tight "V" formation the RAF fighters were using right at the start.
Japan had gained a lot of experience against China, and had a small force that was heavily trained. Over 1000 hours in a fighter wasn't unusual.
In comparision, the American pilots were numerous but poorly trained. I'm sure I have read the the average US pilot, in Dec '41, had about 19 hours flight experience, but that could just be bollocks. Regardless of the number of hours they did have, the weren't a match for the Japanese pilots. Saburo recalled coming across a flight of american fighters, and at least 1 pilot was able to trim his aircraft properly and it was flying "crab-wise" across the sky.
The Batte of Midway cost Japan about 300 experienced pilots. Rather than take remaing experienced pilots of the front line and use them as instructors, training times were reduced. Mean while the best pilots were slowly killed in combat.
Before Midway, America had started to invest heavily in training their new pilots, using their best and most experienced fighter pilots, the "aces" as instructors. Midway did not impact the training of new pilots. By '44, the average American pilots new into combat would have had 300+ hours, and training from the best that could be found, while his Japanese counter-part would have had only 100 hours, and not from the best. The situation was reversed and the Japanese pilots were no match for the Americans.
AFAIK, the Axis countries had a very different approach to the Allied countries.
American "aces" would be rotated to help train new pilots. While the German and Japanese approach would be to keep the aces in the front line.
I couldn't tell you how experienced Germain pilots were are the start of WWII, but I imagine they had gained experience and developed tactics thanks to the Spanish Civil War. They certainly weren't using the WWI type of tight "V" formation the RAF fighters were using right at the start.
Japan had gained a lot of experience against China, and had a small force that was heavily trained. Over 1000 hours in a fighter wasn't unusual.
In comparision, the American pilots were numerous but poorly trained. I'm sure I have read the the average US pilot, in Dec '41, had about 19 hours flight experience, but that could just be bollocks. Regardless of the number of hours they did have, the weren't a match for the Japanese pilots. Saburo recalled coming across a flight of american fighters, and at least 1 pilot was able to trim his aircraft properly and it was flying "crab-wise" across the sky.
The Batte of Midway cost Japan about 300 experienced pilots. Rather than take remaing experienced pilots of the front line and use them as instructors, training times were reduced. Mean while the best pilots were slowly killed in combat.
Before Midway, America had started to invest heavily in training their new pilots, using their best and most experienced fighter pilots, the "aces" as instructors. Midway did not impact the training of new pilots. By '44, the average American pilots new into combat would have had 300+ hours, and training from the best that could be found, while his Japanese counter-part would have had only 100 hours, and not from the best. The situation was reversed and the Japanese pilots were no match for the Americans.
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At the outset of WWII the Japanese undoubtedly had the best naval airmen in the world. However their numbers were so few and their training process so slow they couldn't possibly keep up. They trained about 200 new pilots a year.
Also, at the start of the war the Mitsubishi A6M (Zero) was the best carrier based fighter in the world. By mid war it was outclassed by the American Hellcats and later even more by the Corsair.
Reece is right that British and American aces were usually taken out of front line duty to train other pilots. I don't think the Russians were.
ALL pilot kill numbers should be taken with a large grain of salt. Each country had their own methods for arriving at what constituted a "kill", but everyone's scores are probably inflated, the Germans' especially so. The Russians were a lot more strict about needing witnesses. etc. If you look at the Battle of Britain, for example, German kill claims are about triple the actual British losses for a lot of battles based on British squadron records, but the German "kill claims" are used for individual ace's score totals. Some of Erich Hartman's total of 352 are based on unsubstantiated claims in letters he wrote home to his girlfriend.
Also, at the start of the war the Mitsubishi A6M (Zero) was the best carrier based fighter in the world. By mid war it was outclassed by the American Hellcats and later even more by the Corsair.
Reece is right that British and American aces were usually taken out of front line duty to train other pilots. I don't think the Russians were.
ALL pilot kill numbers should be taken with a large grain of salt. Each country had their own methods for arriving at what constituted a "kill", but everyone's scores are probably inflated, the Germans' especially so. The Russians were a lot more strict about needing witnesses. etc. If you look at the Battle of Britain, for example, German kill claims are about triple the actual British losses for a lot of battles based on British squadron records, but the German "kill claims" are used for individual ace's score totals. Some of Erich Hartman's total of 352 are based on unsubstantiated claims in letters he wrote home to his girlfriend.
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yes Hartman was known as the [SIZE=-1]the "Black Devil of Ukraine,,, you can read all about him here http://members.chello.be/kurt.weygantt/worldwariiaces.index.html_erich_bubi_hartmann.htm
[/SIZE]
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As i recall, the global accepted standard for "acehood" was 5 kills, if you got 5 baddies you could call yourself an Ace, im not 100% sure of that though.. but pretty sure.
It is also generally accepted that German claims where often.. shall we say quite inflated? with the total amount of claims often adding up to having shot down more planes than the enemy even had, and standing in stark contrast to stats and claims of the allies, something is definately fishy.. and as thedonster notes, the Gerries got to call a kill easier than others (great for propaganda!), especially the Russians where extremely strict about crediting pilots with a kill, the plane had to be destroyed fully and there had to be witnesses!
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I once met a fighter pilot ace at my work. He flew a P-51 in europe. He told me that he had 4 kills and his last mission he volunteered to fly because he wanted a fifth kill to be an ace and he did it. Also he told me he saw an ME262 one time.
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One of the best episodes of Dogfights they talk about a lone B-17 Recon Crew who flew a peace-milled "Jinxed" Bomber with a flight number ending in 666. No other crew wanted to fly 'er because supposedly every time it went into battle it got shot too Hell. The airframe was fitted with 5 extra .50cal. Mg's for a total of 18. The Pilot could fire at least 1 MG down the center-line of the plane like a fighter pilot with fire control on the flight stick. The bomber was refitted to take pictures and fend for itself on a borderline suicide lone reconnaissance mission.
Long story short they got jumped by 17 Japanese at once, were in a dogfight for 45 minutes shooting down at least 5 Japs. One of the gunners was killed in action and 6 other crewmen were wounded, including Captain Zeamer who received the CMH for Valor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Zeamer,_Jr.#Medal_of_Honor_mission
Long story short they got jumped by 17 Japanese at once, were in a dogfight for 45 minutes shooting down at least 5 Japs. One of the gunners was killed in action and 6 other crewmen were wounded, including Captain Zeamer who received the CMH for Valor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Zeamer,_Jr.#Medal_of_Honor_mission
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My great uncle was a Fighter ace in Europe, he flew the P-51 but was shot down and sent to Auswitcz for some reason.
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Supprisingly, the greatist allied fighter ace (In terms of kill's) was Russian!
Ivan kozhedub
Credited with 62 kills ( 2 of them P-51's
)
Flying a far inferior aircraft compared to the western allies (la-5 and the La-7), and shot down an me262. Won countless awards
basicly he is the man.
To bad the soviet goverment wouldnt let him fly in the korean war!
Ivan kozhedub
Credited with 62 kills ( 2 of them P-51's
)Flying a far inferior aircraft compared to the western allies (la-5 and the La-7), and shot down an me262. Won countless awards
basicly he is the man.
To bad the soviet goverment wouldnt let him fly in the korean war!
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What's with the TK's?Ivan kozhedub
Credited with 62 kills ( 2 of them P-51's
I hate when that happens.
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What's with the TK's?
As the story go's, he was actualy right near an allied bombing raid, and he was trying to defend some of the B-17's from the german fighters. But, the escort fighters mistaken the russian La-5/7 as a german fighter, and they persued him. So Ivan just shot them down for his defense
Thats pretty baller right there
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Really? Are you serious? I have to doubt this just a little bit.
Totally possible, if he was Soviet. (I think they had some Lend-Lease P51:s too
)But if he was American, this is completely new information to me. I did not know that they send Western Allied POW:s to Auschwitz...
Convince me please. I am very interested about this.
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Well, I asked around and the story goes that he kept escaping from POW camps, so the Gestapo sent him to Auswticz where he spent 13 months, until being liberated and fought with the Russians from then on out. So, my Great Uncle was an American fighter pilot fighting with the Russians.
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Well, that is some weird stuff, if it is true.
And even if there is some "colouring" in the story, it
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As the story go's, he was actualy right near an allied bombing raid, and he was trying to defend some of the B-17's from the german fighters. But, the escort fighters mistaken the russian La-5/7 as a german fighter, and they persued him. So Ivan just shot them down for his defense
Thats pretty baller right there
So he downed 60 enemy and 2 friendly aircraft for a total of 62 kills? Are you sure? From what I have read on the history of air combat during WWII a friendly fire incident, though happened more often than the allies wanted to admit, would not be credited to a pilots' overall kill record? There was no cold war back then, while certainly plenty of mistrust existed between the allies, it would still be hard to imagine any pilot adding or being awarded a kill for downing friendlies under any circumstances.
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