Warbird Information Exchange

I think Pat Pattle is the top scoring Gloster Gladiator 'ace' as well, evidence to say he scored at least 15 on the biplane Gladiator, plus 2 half shared.



As mentioned Otto Kittel is the top scoring Fw190 pilot with around 240 scored with the 190.

IIRC Heinz Bar scored the most on the 262 by day with 16, Kurt Welter scored 20+ by night with the 262.

As for others,
Frank Carey was top scorer on the Hurricane with 28.
Bob Braham was top scorer on the Beaufighter, 19 plus 2 probable.
I think Branse Burbridge is the top scoring Mosquito piloit with 21.
And of course, Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer scored the most on the Me110 with 120 odd.

Rechalov - 50 kills in a P-39
Who knew?
Thanks Jack.

Jack, as I wrote all of Johnson's scores were fighters, Pattle, Bong,Mcguire, had some bombers etc. I'm reading the Pattle book, due to records being lost his totals are not as easy to ascertain, but they were in only 9 months.5083, darn, Oz almost had me convinced that Beaufighters won the war. Sounds like the Finns get in a bad mood if someone tries to steal their Vodka(Finlandia).

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

I wonder why the emphasis on kills over fighters. Shooting down fighters is more glamorous than shooting down bombers I guess, but no more difficult (most aces agree) and less important. I guess we associate fighter vs fighter kills with hot-dog flying, but most fighters weren't shot down in sexy dogfights, they were shot down flying straight and level by opponents who were never seen.

August

Exactly K5083!! I had always heard that 90% of the kills were accomplished by whoever saw the enemy first and many times the vanquished never even knew they were in the enemy's line of sight.
It could be argued the bombers were difficult because there were more sets of eyes on board, bombers typically fly in groups, and tip each other off as to the enemy's position, etc.
My question, wasn't there a point in the beginning where the Brits had more kills claimed than the Germans had total losses? Weren't some of their claims their own aircraft?
Who had the most kills confirmed by gun camera footage??

K5083, Let's put it in golfing terms; if we measure it by effort expended then Charles Barkley is probably the world's best and far better than that Tiger guy. Seriously you've come up with some good figures as always. I don't know if I could agree that Rooskies were good guys, to me they were barbaric and led by someone in the same class as Hitler. It is fortunate that they did join in fighting against Nazis. I think the Allies would have won the war eventually without them, but what if Stalin had joined Hitler and Hirihito? and we had to fight them together?

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

That has happened in many times and places. In New Guinea in 1942, USAAF pilots claimed more Zeros than the Japanese even had in-theatre, let alone lost. The reality was that they were hardly getting any. Overclaiming is a constant in air warfare and it doesn't seem to vary much by nation.

August

Bill, the 70% men and materiel I referred to were German as well as Soviet. So I was talking not just about effort (i.e. one's own losses) but also results (i.e. the enemy's losses). We all know the legend of the Eastern Front. Thinking back to that greatest, most accurate, realistic, gritty portrayal of WW2 on television (I am of course referring to "Hogan's Heroes"), Col. Klink and Sgt. Schultz were always terrified of being sent there and with good reason. It was a meat grinder for the Germans and a bottomless pit for their weapons and supplies.

As for whether the Rooskies were good guys, well, I suppose the rank and file were good guys and bastards in about equal proportion to the soldiers, sailors, and young men of any other country. Yes, their commanders did let them exercise more of their worst impulses, but then again, as citizens of countries whose women, children and homes were never subject to occupation, it is all too easy for us to criticize some of the zeal with which countries that were invaded waged the war.

On the what-ifs, the Hitler would have freed up a lot of German capacity by not betraying Stalin, and the USSR could potentially also have supplied Germany and Japan with industrial capacity, natural resources, and safe training grounds -- exactly the three critical, possibly decisive things that the US contributed to the Allied cause. So even if the Allies had not had to fight the USSR much directly, if you view war as a contest of resource attrition, the shift in the balance would have been huge, because it might have enabled Germany and Japan to do what they otherwise could not: fight a long war.

Luckily, although this can be hard to discern through democratic eyes, fascism and communism are truly opposite and incompatible, and it is hard to imagine the Hitler-Stalin marriage of convenience lasting long under any circumstances.

August