This article is an abbreviated chapter "352 shot down as a path to defeat" from the book by Alexei Isaev "Ten Myths about the Second World War."
Shock
When data on personal accounts of German fighter pilots were published for the first time in the domestic press in a small note in the newspaper Argumenty i Fakty for 1990, the three-digit numbers came as a shock to many. It turned out that the blond 23-year-old Major Erich Hartmann claimed 352 downed aircraft, including 348 Soviet and four American. His colleagues in the 52nd Luftwaffe Fighter Squadron Gerhard Barkhorn and Gunther Rall reported 301 and 275 shot down respectively. These figures contrasted sharply with the results of the best Soviet fighter pilots, 62 victories of I. N. Kozhedub and 59 - A. I. Pokryshkin. More information about the Luftwaffe aces was even more shocking. It turned out that the Germans had more than 3000 pilots as aces in the terminology of the Allies (that is, who shot down 5 or more enemy aircraft). Hartmann and Barkhorn, with over three hundred victories, were just the tip of the iceberg. Another 13 Luftwaffe fighter pilots won from 200 to 275 victories, 92 - between 100 and 200, 360 - between 40 and 100. Immediately heated discussions broke out about the method of counting downed, confirmation of the success of fighter pilots by ground services, photo machine guns, etc. The main thesis, intended to remove tetanus from three-digit numbers, was: "These were the wrong bees, and they made the wrong honey." That is, the Luftwaffe aces lied about their successes, and in reality they shot down no more aircraft than Pokryshkin and Kozhedub. However, few people thought about the expediency and validity of a head-on comparison of the results of the combat activities of pilots who fought in different conditions, with different intensity of combat work. No one has tried to analyze the value of such an indicator as "the largest number of shot down", from the point of view of the organism of the air force of a particular country as a whole. What are hundreds of knocked downs, biceps girth or body temperature of a patient with a fever?
The answer to this question is not at all as obvious as it might seem at first glance. As a rule, the individual pilot scores are higher for the side that is losing the air war. Let me emphasize, not one, two or three battles, but a war in the air as a chain of battles. This phenomenon manifested itself already in the First World War. For example, German pilot Manfred von Richthoffen shot down 80 Allied aircraft - the highest result among fighter pilots from 1914-1918. During World War II, all this was repeated, and not only on the Soviet-German front. The Pacific Ocean also had its own Hartmann. Japanese Naval Aviation Lieutenant Tetsugo Iwamato shot down seven F4F Wildcat fighters, four P-38 Lightning, forty-eight F4U Corsair, two P-39 Airacobra, one P-40 ", Twenty-nine" F6F "" Hellcat ", one" R-47 "" Thunderbolt ", four" Spitfires ", forty-eight bombers" SBD "" Dountless ", eight bombers" B-25 ". Only over Rabaul, ace won 142 victories in air battles, and in total on his account 202 (!!!) shot down planes personally, 26 in a group, 22 unconfirmed victories. And this is against the background of the rather sluggish interest of Japanese propaganda in the individual accounts of naval fighter pilots. The above list is actually the pilot's personal records of the results of the battles that he fought on his own initiative. Another Japanese fighter pilot, Lieutenant Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, shot down 103 (according to other sources - 86) American aircraft. The most productive American pilot in the same theater of operations, Richard Ira Bong, shot down 2.5 times less than his opponent from the Land of the Rising Sun. Bong has even fewer planes than I. N. Kozhedub, - 40. An absolutely identical picture is demonstrated by the "conflict of low intensity" - the Soviet-Japanese border incident near the Khalkhin-Gol river. Japanese Hiromichi Shinohara claimed 58 downed Soviet aircraft from May 1939 until his death on August 28 of the same year. The best Soviet pilot of Khalkhin-Gol, Sergei Gritsevets, had 12 Japanese aircraft to his credit.
It is this effect that deserves close analysis. However, before turning to the analysis of aces' accounts as an indicator of the activities of the Air Force of a particular country, it makes sense to deal with the burning issue of confirmation of victories.
"Correct bees"
Attempts to explain the difference in the number of people shot down by a flawed method of counting do not stand up to scrutiny. Serious flaws in confirming the results of fighter pilots are found on one and the other side of the conflict. This fact can be illustrated by the example of the battles on Khalkhin Gol in 1939. Despite the relatively modest forces of the ground forces of the USSR and Japan involved in the battles on the territory of Mongolia, one of the most intense air battles of the Second World War unfolded in the air. It was a large-scale air battle involving hundreds of aircraft, unfolding over a relatively small area of contact between the troops of the parties. Moreover, most of the efforts of aviation, over 75% of the sorties, were aimed at fighting for air supremacy, that is, the actual air battles and strikes on airfields. The armies of Japan and the USSR were not yet involved in large-scale hostilities and could throw significant aviation forces into battle, moreover, pilots trained in peacetime were sitting in the cockpits of the aircraft. As a result of the conflict, the Japanese side announced the destruction of 1162 Soviet aircraft in air battles and another 98 on the ground. In turn, the Soviet command estimated the losses of the Japanese at 588 aircraft in air battles and 58 combat aircraft on the ground. However, the real losses of both sides at Khalkhin Gol are much more modest. The combat losses of the Soviet Air Force amounted to 207 aircraft, non-combat losses - 42. The Japanese side reported 88 downed aircraft and 74 decommissioned due to combat damage. Thus, the Soviet data on enemy losses (and, as a consequence, the personal accounts of the pilots) turned out to be overstated four times, and the Japanese six times. Practice has shown that the "Khalkhingol ratio" of 1: 4 overestimating enemy losses remained in the Red Army Air Force in the future. There were deviations from it both upward and downward in this ratio, but on average it can be taken as a calculated one when analyzing the actual performance of the Soviet aces.
The reason for these discrepancies lies on the surface. An enemy plane was considered shot down, for example, according to a report from a fighter pilot who claimed to be destroyed, "randomly fell down and disappeared into the clouds." Often it was the change in the flight parameters of the enemy aircraft, a sharp decline, a spin, observed by witnesses of the battle, that began to be considered a sign sufficient to enroll victory. It is not hard to guess that after the "indiscriminate fall" the plane could have been leveled by the pilot and returned safely to the airfield. In this respect, the fantastic accounts of the air gunners of the Flying Fortresses are indicative, who chalked up the Messerschmitts every time they left the attack, leaving a smoky trail behind them. This trace was a consequence of the peculiarities of the "Me.109" engine, which gave a smoky exhaust on the afterburner and in an inverted position.
What were the means for the pilot to determine the destruction of the enemy aircraft, in addition to changing the flight parameters? Fixing one, two, three or even ten hits on the enemy's plane did not guarantee its incapacitation at all. Hits of rifle-caliber machine guns of the Khalkhin-Gol era and the initial period of World War II were easily transferred by aircraft assembled from aluminum and steel pipes in the 1930s – 1940s. Even the I-16 fuselage, glued from veneer, could withstand up to several dozen hits. All-metal bombers were returning from battle covered, as if pockmarked, by hundreds of rifle-caliber bullet holes. All this did not in the best way affect the reliability of the results declared by the pilots of the participating countries. The Finnish war that followed Khalkhin Gol again demonstrated the same trend. Soviet pilots, according to official figures, shot down 427 Finnish aircraft in air battles at the cost of losing 261 of their own. The Finns reported 521 Soviet aircraft shot down. In reality, the Finnish Air Force performed 5,693 sorties, their losses in aerial battles amounted to 53 aircraft, another 314 aircraft were shot down by Soviet anti-aircraft artillery. As we can see, the "Halkingol coefficient" has been preserved.
Confirmation of victories in the Air Force KA
When the Great Patriotic War broke out, no fundamental changes took place. If in the Luftwaffe there was a standard form filled in by the pilot after the battle, then in the Air Force of the Red Army, such a formalization of the process was not observed. The free-style pilot gave a description of air combat, sometimes illustrating it with diagrams of the evolution of his own and enemy aircraft. In the Luftwaffe, such a description was only the first step in informing the command about the results of the battle. First, Gefechtsbericht was written - a report on the battle, then it was filled out on a typewriter Abschussmeldung - a form for a report on the destruction of an enemy aircraft. In the second document, the pilot answered a number of questions regarding the consumption of ammunition, the distance of the battle, and indicated on the basis of which he concluded that the enemy aircraft was destroyed.
Naturally, when conclusions about the results of an attack were made on the basis of general words, problems arose even with recording the results of air battles conducted over their territory. Let's take the most typical example, the air defense of Moscow, the pilots of the well-trained 34th Fighter Aviation Regiment. Here are the lines from a report presented at the end of July 1941 by the regiment commander, Major L. G. Rybkin to the air corps commander:
“… On the second flight on July 22 at 2.40 am in the Alabino - Naro-Fominsk area at an altitude of 2500 m, Captain M. G. Trunov caught up with the Ju88 and attacked from the rear hemisphere. The enemy dropped to shaving. Captain Trunov rushed forward and lost the enemy. The plane can be considered shot down."
“… At the second takeoff on July 22 at 23.40 in the Vnukovo area, Jr. Lieutenant A. G. Lukyanov was attacked by Ju88 or Do215. In the Borovsk region (10-15 km north of the airfield), three long bursts were fired at the bomber. The hits were clearly visible from the ground. The enemy fired back and then dropped sharply. The plane can be considered shot down."
“… Ml. Lieutenant N. G. Shcherbina on July 22 at 2.30 in the Naro-Fominsk region from a distance of 50 m fired two bursts into a twin-engine bomber. At this time, anti-aircraft artillery opened fire on the MiG-3, and the enemy plane was lost. The plane can be considered shot down."
It is easy to guess that “two bursts” or even “three long bursts” of one 12.7 mm BS machine gun and two 7.62 mm ShKAS machine guns of the MiG-3 fighter is not enough for guaranteed destruction of a twin-engine bomber class "Ju88" or "Do215" (rather it was still the 217th "Dornier"). Moreover, the consumption of ammunition was not indicated, and the term "long burst" was not revealed in any way in pieces of bullets of two calibers. It was unjustified optimism to "assume downed" enemy aircraft in all these three cases.
At the same time, reports of this kind were typical of the Soviet Air Force in the initial period of the war. And although in each case the commander of the air division notes that "there is no confirmation" (there is no information about the fall of enemy aircraft), in all these episodes, victories were recorded at the expense of the pilots and the regiment. The result of this was a very significant discrepancy between the number of downed Luftwaffe bombers reported by the Moscow air defense pilots with their actual losses. In July 1941, the air defense of Moscow fought 89 battles during 9 raids by German bombers, in August - 81 battles during 16 raids. 59 were reported downed "vultures" in July and 30 in August. Enemy documents confirm 20-22 aircraft in July and 10-12 in August. The number of victories for air defense pilots was overestimated by about three times.
Confirmation of victories "with them"
The opponents of our pilots on the other side of the front and the allies spoke in the same spirit. In the first week of the war, June 30, 1941, over Dvinsk (Daugavpils), a grand air battle took place between the DB-3, DB-3F, SB and Ar-2 bombers of three air regiments of the Baltic Fleet Air Force and two groups of the 54th fighter squadron of the 1st German air fleet. In total, 99 Soviet bombers took part in the raid on the bridges near Daugavpils. Only German fighter pilots reported 65 downed Soviet aircraft. Erich von Manstein writes in Lost Victories: "In one day, our fighters and anti-aircraft artillery shot down 64 aircraft." The real losses of the Baltic Fleet Air Force amounted to 34 aircraft shot down, and another 18 were damaged, but safely landed at their own or the nearest Soviet airfield. There is no less than a twofold excess of victories declared by the pilots of the 54th fighter squadron over the real losses of the Soviet side.
Recording an enemy fighter pilot's account that safely reached its airfield was a common occurrence. For example, one of the most famous German aces, Werner Melders, on March 26, 1940, fired at Sergeant N. Orton's Hurricane in the “strange war” range conditions, which, despite the damage, reached his airfield, despite the damage. The problem was primarily that the fighter pilot had something to do in the air besides observing the behavior of his victim after firing at him. Let's not forget that the speed of the aircraft in the early 40s. was already measured in hundreds of kilometers per hour, and any evolution immediately dramatically changed the position of opponents in space until the complete loss of visual contact. A pilot who had just fired at an enemy plane could be attacked by another fighter and not see the real results of his fire. It is all the more strange to hope that other pilots will closely follow the shot down. Even the kachmariki slaves were primarily concerned with protecting their leader's tail. The need to intelligibly illuminate the details of the battle in Gefechtsbericht and Abschussmeldung did not fundamentally solve the problem. A typical example is an episode from the book by R. Toliver and T. Constable about Hartmann:
“The rest of the squadron pilots dragged the happy Blond Knight into the dining room. The revel was in full swing when Bimmel burst in (Hartmann's technician - AI). The expression on his face instantly extinguished the glee of the crowd.
- What happened, Bimmel? Erich asked.
“Gunsmith, Herr Lieutenant.
- Something is wrong?
- No, everything is okay. You just fired only 120 shots against 3 downed planes. I think you need to know this.
A whisper of admiration ran through the pilots, and the schnapps flowed like a river again. " [85 - p. 126]
Admiration admiration, but Hartmann's adversaries in that battle were Il-2 attack aircraft, rather strong aircraft. The task of the points "ammunition consumption" and "firing distance" in Abschussmedlung was to establish the probability of destroying an enemy aircraft. A total of 120 shots for three shot down should have been alarming. Nobody canceled the rules of aerial shooting and low probability of hitting from a mobile platform. However, such mundane considerations could not spoil the holiday for people and prevent schnapps from flowing like a river.
The battles between the Flying Fortresses, Mustangs, Thunderbolts of the United States and Reich air defense fighters produced a completely identical picture. In a fairly typical air battle for the Western Front, which unfolded during the raid on Berlin on March 6, 1944, the escort fighter pilots reported 82 destroyed, 8 presumably destroyed and 33 damaged German fighters. Bomber shooters reported 97 destroyed, 28 supposedly destroyed and 60 damaged German air defense fighters. If you add these applications together, it turns out that the Americans destroyed or damaged 83% of the German fighters that took part in repelling the raid! The number of those declared destroyed (that is, the Americans were sure of their death) - 179 aircraft - more than double the actual number of shot down 66 Me.109, FV-190 and Me.110 fighters. In turn, the Germans immediately after the battle reported on the destruction of 108 bombers and 20 escort fighters. Another 12 bombers and fighters were among the allegedly shot down. In fact, the US Air Force lost 69 bombers and 11 fighters during the raid. Note that in the spring of 1944, both sides had photo-machine guns.
Economies of scale
You can endlessly discuss the reliability of the stated results. The fact remains that the official number of victories in aerial combat for a pilot of any country is a numerical indicator, recalculated with a certain coefficient into the real number of enemy aircraft shot down. This is neither bad nor good, it is a fact. If, for good reason, we question the results of the German aces, then the same doubts may arise in relation to the Soviet aces and aces of the USSR's allies in the anti-Hitler coalition.
Accordingly, in any case, there remains a significant gap between the accounts of the German fighter pilots and the Allied aces. Therefore, it makes sense to just understand the reasons for this phenomenon, and not fence myths about some special technique for counting downed. The reason for the high scores of the Luftwaffe aces lies in the intensive use of the Air Force by the Germans (6 sorties per day per pilot in large operations) and the presence of a greater number of targets due to the numerical superiority of the allies - there was a higher probability of meeting an enemy aircraft in the sky. The German top ace, Erich Hartmann, had 1,425 sorties, Gerhard Barkhorn had 1104 sorties, and Walter Krupinski (197 wins) had 1,100 sorties. I. N. Kozhedub had only 330 sorties. If we divide the number of sorties by the number of downed ones, then both the German top aces and the best Soviet fighter pilot get about 4-5 sorties per victory.
It is not hard to guess that if Ivan Nikitich flew 1425 sorties, the number of those shot down from him could easily go over three hundred. But there was no practical sense in this. If you need to perform 60 sorties a day to solve the problems of covering your bombers, ground troops, intercepting enemy bombers, then you can do them with a dozen planes, exhausting pilots with six sorties a day, or with sixty planes, one sortie per day per pilot. The leaders of the Red Army Air Force chose the second option, the command of the Luftwaffe - the first. In fact, any German ace did the hard work for himself and “that guy”. In turn, "that guy", at best, got to the front in 1944 with a scanty raid and got lost in the first battle, and at worst he died with a faustpatron in his hands under the tracks of Soviet tanks somewhere in Courland. Finland gives us an example of a micro-air force with high nominal performance. The typical aircraft for this country was the Brewster Model 239, delivered in the amount of 43 units, and used as part of a regiment of four squadrons of eight aircraft each, that is, in the number of 32 aircraft. The American fighter did not shine with its technical characteristics, but it had a good view from the cockpit and a radio station on each aircraft.
The latter factor facilitated the guidance of fighters from the ground. From June 25, 1941 to May 21, 1944, the pilots of the Finnish "Brewsters" announced 456 shot down at the cost of the loss of 21 aircraft (including 15 shot down in air battles and 2 destroyed at the airfield). In total, 1941-1944. the Finnish Air Force destroyed 1,567 Soviet aircraft in the air. These victories were won by only 155 pilots, of which 87 - more than half (!), The highest percentage among the World Air Force - received the title of ace. The most productive were: Eino Juutilainen (94 wins, 36 of them on Brewster), Hans Wind (75, 39 of them on Brewster) and Eino Luukaanen (51, mostly on Me.109). But, despite such a blissful picture with the accounts of the aces, it cannot be said that the Finns effectively defended the territory of their country from the influence of the Red Army Air Force and provided effective support to the ground forces. In addition, the Finns did not have a system of confirmation of victories. One of the Finnish aces announced the destruction of the P-38 Lightning aircraft (!!!) with Soviet identification marks in an air battle. Here it is time to think about bold experiments with the Vikings' drink made from fly agarics.
Six flights a day
The high intensity of the use of Luftwaffe aviation was a consequence of the strategy of the top leadership of the Third Reich to cover a huge front with clearly insufficient means for this task. German pilots fought almost continuously. Depending on the situation, they were shuffled between different sectors of the front in accordance with the ongoing defensive or offensive operations. You don't need to look far for examples. During its combat debut on the Eastern Front in the fall - winter of 1942, the FW-190 fighter had to take part in three major operations at once. Group I of the 51st Fighter Squadron, which was withdrawn from the front in August 1942 and returned to the Focke-Wulfach on September 6, was rearmed with new fighters. The first battles of the group on the new aircraft were the battles of September - October 1942 near Leningrad. During this period, the Germans, having transferred the 11th army of E. von Manstein from the Crimea, tried to take the city by storm, and the restored Soviet 2nd Shock Army tried to break the blockade.
The result of this was the encirclement of part of the forces of the 2nd shock army by the forces of the XXX corps of the army of Manstein. The battle took place in the midst of a tense struggle in the air. The next program number for the Fokkers was Operation Mars, which began at the end of November 1942. After the completion of Mars in December 1942, the 51st Fighter Squadron moved to the ice airfield of Lake Ivan. Here, until January 1943, the I and II groups of the squadron fought in the area surrounded by Soviet troops Velikiye Luki until the capture of the city by the Red Army. In these battles on December 12, 1942, the commander of the group, Heinrich Kraft, was killed (78 victories). Then Operation Baffel followed - the withdrawal of Model's 9th Army from the Rzhev salient. In March 1943 in the 1st group of the 51st squadron there were only eight combat-ready "FW-190". The transfers from one sector of the front to another in 1943 took an even greater scope.
Take, as an example, Groups I and II of the 54th Green Hearts Fighter Squadron, which started a war with the USSR in Army Group North. Moving along with GA Sever to Leningrad, both squadron groups get stuck there until 1943. In May 1943 they get into GA Center and are fighting in the Orel area during the Citadel period and the retreat that followed the failure of the operation. the Hagen line ". In August 1943, the I group falls into the strip of GA "South", in Poltava, and remains there until October. After that, she is relocated to Vitebsk, and then to Orsha, that is, she leads into battles under the command of GA "Center". Only in the summer of 1944 did she return to GA Sever and end the war in Courland. A similar path was made by Group II of the Green Hearts squadron. In August 1943 g.the group ends up in Ukraine, at the disposal of GA "South", and remains there until March 1944, after which it returns to GA "Sever", in the Baltic states. Similar dances were performed by other German air fighter units. For example, the I and III groups of the 51st Fighter Squadron fought in GA "Center", in August 1943 they came under Poltava, and in October they returned to Orsha. In 1942, near Kharkov, the Germans concentrated the efforts of their air forces in the Crimea for the first half of May, and then were forced to throw them to repel the Soviet offensive. Soviet pilots were more attached to their sector of the front. A. I. In his memoirs, Pokryshkin wrote with some annoyance: “But then a battle broke out on the Kursk land. We heard about it on the same day our offensive began.
The maps indicated arrows that wedged into the enemy's defenses. Now all thoughts, all feelings were there - near Kursk. We were called heavy fighting in the regions of Orel and Kharkov. Newspapers reported large air battles. That would be where we, the guardsmen, could turn around with all our might! But there the pilots successfully did their job without us. " On the contrary, E. Hartmann, like most of the 52nd Fighter Squadron, was transferred to the southern face of the Kursk Bulge and actively participated in battles. Only in the defensive phase of the battle near Kursk, E. Hartmann's score increased from 17 to 39 shot down. In total, until August 20, the moment of completion of the offensive operation, about which A. I. Pokryshkin, the score increased to 90 "wins". If Pokryshkin and his 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment were given the opportunity to take part in the battle on the Kursk Bulge in July - August 1943, he would undoubtedly increase the number of those shot down by a dozen, or even fifteen. The castling of the 16th Guards Aviation Regiment between the various fronts of the southwestern direction could easily increase the score of Alexander Ivanovich to a hundred German aircraft. The absence of the need to castle the air regiments between the fronts led to the fact that A. I. Pokryshkin even passed the battle of Kharkov in May 1942, remaining during this period in a relatively calm sector of the 18th Army of the Southern Front.
Combat work only during periods of active operations by "their" front was aggravated for the Soviet aces by the periodic withdrawal of their air regiments to the rear for reorganization. The air regiment arrived at the front, within 1-2 months it lost materiel and went down to re-form to the rear. The regiment reorganization system was actively used until mid-1943 (by order of the State Defense Committee of May 7, 1943). Only later did they begin to introduce replenishment directly at the front, as the Germans did. The system of complete reorganization was also harmful because the regiments at the front were "ground down" to the "last pilot". Not only newcomers, who passed a tough selection in the Air Force of any country, suffered from this, but also the "middle peasants". After the reorganization, the experienced pilots held on, and the newcomers again knocked out along with the "middle peasants". Reformations took place as a result of the most successful units, such as the "regiment of aces", the 434th Fighter Aviation Regiment of Major Kleschev. From May to September 1942, it was reorganized three times, each time flying from the front to the rear to receive materiel and replenishment. The same "downtime" was caused by the rearmament of the regiment. When switching to a new type of aircraft, the Soviet regiment spent up to six months on receiving materiel and retraining pilots. For example, the aforementioned 16th Guards Aviation Regiment A. I. Pokryshkina was taken out for retraining on "Aircobras" at the end of December 1942, began flights on January 17, 1943, and got to the front only on April 9 of the same year. All this reduced the period of stay of the Soviet aces at the front and, accordingly, narrowed their opportunities to increase their personal account.
The Luftwaffe strategy made it possible to increase the aces' scores, but in the long run it was a defeat strategy. One of the participants in the battle on Khalkhin Gol, Japanese fighter pilot Ivori Sakai recalled: “I flew 4–6 sorties a day and in the evening I was so tired that I could hardly see anything when landing. Enemy planes came flying at us like a huge black cloud, and our losses were very heavy. " The same could be said of the Luftwaffe pilots who fought on both the Western and Eastern fronts in World War II. They were called "the most tired people of the war." Drawing "Abschussbalkens" was, in fact, the game of young people, whose childhood had not yet played in one place.87% of the Luftwaffe fighter pilots were between the ages of 18 and 25. It is not surprising that they were chasing the external trappings of success.
Did the Aces of the Eastern Front lose in the West?
Because the ratio of best fighter pilot performance on the Western Front was as shocking as on the Eastern Front, the legend of the “fake” Luftwaffe aces in the East was brought into circulation during the Cold War. According to this legend, mediocre pilots could shoot down "Rus Plywood", and true professionals fought with noble gentlemen on "Spitfires" and "Mustangs". Accordingly, when they got to the Western Front, the aces of the "Green Hearts", who had joined in the East to zipuns, plow and cucumber pickle in the morning, died with lightning speed. The bogeyman of the proponents of this theory was Hans Philipp, ace of the 54th Fighter Squadron with 176 victories in the East and 28 in the West. He is credited with saying "it's better to fight twenty Russians than one Spitfire." We will note that he had experience of fighting the Spitfires even before the Eastern Front. In 1943, Philip led the 1st Air Defense Fighter Squadron of the Reich, and his return to the Western Front was fatal for him. It was the Thunderbolt pilot's turn that caught up with him a few minutes after he himself shot down his first and last four-engined bomber. For six months of commanding the 1st squadron, the "expert" managed to shoot down one B-17, one Thunderbolt and one Spitfire.
Indeed, there are several examples where fighter pilots who shone on the Eastern Front turned out to be much less effective after they were transferred to the West, to defend the Reich. This is Erich Hartmann himself, who had only 4 American Mustangs in his account. This is Gunther Rall, who shot down 272 planes in the East and only 3 in the West. This is the pilot, the first to reach the milestone of 200 shot down, Herman Graf with 212 victories on the Eastern Front and only 10 in the West. This is Walter Novotny, who announced the destruction of 255 Soviet aircraft and 3 Allied aircraft. The last example, by the way, can be called the least successful right away. Novotny mastered jet fighters and, in fact, most of the time in the West, he fought with the technical shortcomings of the jet "Me.262" and practiced the tactics of its combat use. In fact, for Walter Novotny, the first six months in the West were not combat work, but a rest provided by the command in order to keep the pilot with the highest score at that time. Not too convincing on closer examination is the example of Hartmann - he shot down four Mustangs in just two battles.
However, even if we accept these examples unconditionally, they are more than offset by data on other pilots. Walter Dahl, a veteran of the 3rd Udet Fighter Squadron, had 129 victories, 84 of them on the Eastern Front and 45 on the Western. His first victim was the I-15bis biplane on June 22, 1941, and from December of the same year he had already fought in the Mediterranean. Two years later, on December 6, 1943, he shot down his first "Flying Fortress" in the air defense of the Reich. The lower score on the Western Front is compensated by the quality of the shot down. Among Walter Dahl's 45 victories in the West, there are 30 four-engine bombers (23 B-17 Flying Fortress and 7 B-24 Liberator). An even distribution of victories was generally characteristic of the veterans of the Luftwaffe. Anton Hackl, ace of the 77th Fighter Squadron, won his first victory on June 15, 1940 in the skies of Norway. They were two RAF Hudsons. The campaign of 1941 and most of 1941 he spent on the Eastern Front, where he crossed the line of 100 shot down. Then, until the spring of 1943, he fought in the skies of North Africa, and from the fall of 1943 - in the air defense of the Reich. Hackl's total score was 192 aircraft, of which 61 were shot down in the West. As in the case of the downed Walter Dahl, Hackl has a significant share of heavy bombers. Of the 61 victories in the West, more than half, 34 units, are B-17 and B-24 four-engine bombers. Another famous fighter pilot, Erich Rudorfer, of 222 aircraft shot down, 136 declared on the Eastern Front. That is, on the Eastern Front, they won a little more than half, 61% of the victories.
Almost ideal in terms of the balance of success in the West and East is the Herbert Ilefield account. A veteran of the Condor Legion, he opened his account back in Spain, where his victims were 4 I-16s, 4 I-15s and 1 SB-2 of the Republican Air Force. In World War II, he won his first victory in the French campaign. In the summer of 1941, Ilefield ended up on the Eastern Front, where in April 1942 he shot down his 100th plane. He commanded the 11th Fighter Squadron in the West, died on New Year's Eve 1945 during Operation Bodenplatte. The total account of the ace was 132 aircraft, of which 56 were shot down on the Western Front, 67 on the Eastern and 9 in Spain. Out of 56 victories in the West, 17 were the B-17 Flying Fortress. There were station wagons in the Luftwaffe who fought equally successfully in all theaters of war and on all types of aircraft. Heinz Baer arrived from the Eastern Front in North Africa in October 1942 and shot down 20 enemy fighters within two months - about the same level with which he had previously fought on the Eastern Front. The total "African score" of this ace was 60 Allied aircraft. In the future, he fought just as successfully in the air defense of the Reich, having won 45 victories over Germany in the skies, including shot down 21 four-engine bomber. The energetic Baer did not stop there and became the first (!) In terms of performance "reactive" ace (16 wins on "Me.262"). Baer's total score was 220 shot down. Lesser-known pilots have also shown impressive success in the West. For example, the leader in the Luftwaffe in terms of the number of four-engined bombers shot down (44 units), Herbert Rolleweig, won only 11 of his 102 victories in the East. In most cases, the experience of the war on the Eastern Front in 1941, gained by most of these pilots, contributed to the improvement of the flying skills and tactics of the fighter.
There are also examples of pilots who were successful in the West and not very successful in the East. This is the commander of the II group of the 54th fighter squadron, Major Hans "Assi" Khan. He served for a long time in the 2nd Fighter Squadron, was one of the leading aces of the Battle of Britain, in the West, Khan won 68 victories. Khan was transferred to the Eastern Front in the fall of 1942; he took over as group commander on November 1. On January 26, 1943, Hans Hahn shot down his 100th aircraft. During the next month, Assi shot down eight more aircraft. On February 21, due to engine failure, Khan was forced to land behind Soviet lines south of Lake Ilmen. Hans Khan spent the next seven years in Soviet camps. An even more striking example is the commander of the 27th Fighter Squadron Wolfgang Schellmann, the second most efficient ace in the Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War. He was shot down on the very first day of the war, June 22, 1941, although he was considered a recognized expert in maneuverable air combat. Joachim Müncheberg, after three years on the Western Front (he won his first victory on November 7, 1939), arrived with the 51st Fighter Squadron on the Eastern Front in August 1942. Within four weeks he was shot down twice, although he was considered a specialist in combating sung by H. Philip "Spitfires" - there were as many as 35 of them on Müncheberg's account, two more than his total account in the East, 33 Soviet aircraft. Siegfried Schnell, who won 87 air victories against the RAF and the Americans, arrived with the 54th Fighter Squadron on the Eastern Front in February 1944 - two weeks later he was killed in battle with Soviet fighters.
The reasons for the death of the aces of the Eastern Front in the West should be sought in the change in the general situation in the air defense of the Reich. During this period, the pilots who became recognized aces of the Western Front died, and not only the "guest performers" from the East. These were also aces who held the posts of commanders of groups and squadrons. In the fall of 1943at the head of the 1st Fighter Squadron was placed a veteran of the air war over the English Channel, Lieutenant Colonel Walter Oesau. Oecay began his military career in Spain, where he chalked up eight victories. By the time of his appointment as squadron commander, the holder of the Knight's Cross with oak leaves and swords of Oesau had 105 victories, more than half of which he won in the West. But he was destined to lead the squadron for less than six months. The Oesau Bf 109G-6 fighter was shot down over the Ardennes on May 11, 1944 after a 20-minute air battle with the Lightnings. There are many such examples. Lieutenant Colonel Egon Mayer, being the commander of the III group of the 2 nd fighter squadron, carried out the first successful frontal attack of the Flying Fortress in November 1942. This was how the tactics were introduced, which later became the basis for the Reich air defense fighters. In June 1943, Mayer replaced Walter Oesau as commander of the 2nd Fighter Squadron. On February 5, 1944, Egon became the first pilot to shoot down 100 aircraft on the Western Front. Less than a month after the jubilee victory, Mayer was killed in a battle with the Thunderbolt over the Franco-Belgian border. At the time of his death, the ace was considered the leading Luftwaffe specialist in American heavy bombers: he had 25 B-17s and B-24s on his account. In total, Egon Mayer won 102 victories in the West.
Comparing the aces of the East and the West, one should pay attention to the fundamentally different conditions of warfare. On the front stretched for hundreds of kilometers, a group of a fighter squadron somewhere between Velikie Luki and Bryansk always had something to do. For example, the battles for the Rzhevsky ledge in 1942 went on almost continuously. Six sorties a day were the norm, not exceptional. When repelling the "Flying Fortresses" raids, the nature of the battles was fundamentally different. A fairly typical raid, the strike on Berlin on March 6, 1944, took place with the participation of 814 bombers and 943 fighters. The first plane took off at 7.45 in the morning, the bombers crossed the coastline only at eleven o'clock, the last one landed at 16.45. Bombers and fighters were in the air over Germany for only a few hours. To make even two sorties in such conditions was a great success. Moreover, the entire mass of escort fighters was in the air in a relatively small space, reducing the duel with air defense to a kind of "general engagement", realizing in practice its numerical advantage. On the Eastern Front, battles were fought around relatively small groups of attack aircraft.
Alfred Grislavsky, Herman Graf's wingman, said that "the Russians had a different tactic - their main task was to attack our ground troops, and therefore we often managed to attack them with a great advantage on our side." Indeed, when the enemy is eight "Pe-2" with fighter cover of eight "Yaks", you can throw at it a whole squadron of 12 aircraft, three Schwarms of four aircraft each, and an hour later attack the same group of "Il-2" with similar fighter cover. In both cases, the attacking "experts" of the Luftwaffe will have a numerical advantage. This was achieved using radio guidance. In the air defense of the Reich, pilots had to attack at once a large mass of bombers, covered by an equally large mass of fighters. It would be like colliding with several Soviet air armies in the East at 7,000 meters. On the Eastern Front, major "general battles" in the air were rare; in the Air Defense of the Reich, every raid became such a battle. It was not the heavy bombers themselves that were the main problem.
Often quoted by Western authors, the horrors of the Western Front performed by Hans Philip very colorfully describe the attack of the B-17 formation: “When you attack a formation of 40 Fortresses, all your last sins flash before your eyes in a flash. With such sensations, it’s harder and harder for me to demand from every pilot of the squadron, especially from the youngest non-commissioned officers, to fight the same way as I do.” However, these horror stories are not supported by statistics. There are very few reliable examples of the death of aces, or even commanders of groups / squadrons, from the defensive fire of four-engine bombers. Quite quickly, the "experts" of the Luftwaffe developed the tactics of attacking the formation of heavy bombers in the forehead, which made it possible to avoid the massive fire of defensive machine guns. Philip himself died from the queue of the escort fighter pilot. On the contrary, you can immediately name several names of German aces who fell victim to air gunners on the Eastern Front. The most famous of these is Otto Kittel, the fourth best aces in the Luftwaffe. His career was interrupted by the turn of the Il-2 gunner on February 14, 1945. Another well-known example is a promising young ace, 20-year-old Berliner Hans Strelow (67 victories), who fell victim to the Pe-2 gunner in March 1942. The commander of the II group of the 53rd fighter squadron, Hauptmann Bretnets, was seriously wounded from the "ShKAS" by the "SB-2" gunner on June 22, 1941, and later died in the hospital. In short, the great and terrible shooters of the Flying Fortresses were not much better than the shooters of attack aircraft and close-range bombers. One factor compensated for another: the "box" of heavy bombers created a dense defensive fire, and more compact single-and twin-engine aircraft forced the attackers to approach them at a shorter distance.
The war in the West was, in fact, the catching of Luftwaffe fighters on a gigantic "live bait" - a "gut" of "boxes" of "B-17" and "B-24" stretched for tens and hundreds of kilometers under the cover of fighters. Under these conditions, it was easier for the Americans to realize their numerical advantage than the Red Army Air Force.
The place of the aces in the Red Army Air Force
On the one hand, the high performance of the pilots was supported by the command of the Red Army Air Force. Cash bonuses were assigned for the downed enemy aircraft, for a certain number of downed fighter pilots were presented for awards. But, on the other hand, an incomprehensible indifference was shown to the formalization of the process of recording downed and personal accounts of pilots. In the document circulation of the reporting of the Soviet air units, no blanks were introduced to account for the shot down, filled in by the pilot after a successful "hunt". This looks rather strange against the background of the ever-increasing formalization of reporting since 1942. Forms of the combat and strength of units, loss accounting (the so-called form No. 8), printed by typographic method, were introduced. They even reported on the condition of the horse stock by filling out a special form. In 1943, all these forms of reporting were further developed, the forms were increasingly complicated and improved. There were real masterpieces of clerical painting, next to which Malevich's "Black Square" looks like a pitiful handicraft of a craftsman. But among all this variety of reporting forms, there are absolutely no forms for pilots to fill out as reports of downed aircraft. Pilots continued to write to the best of their literary ability and knowledge of spelling and punctuation, describing air combat in free form. Sometimes from the pen of military officers came out very detailed reports indicating the firing distances and maneuvering schemes, which were significantly superior in informational content to the "Abshussmeldungs" of the Germans. But in general, the senior command did not seem to be too interested in reports of downed enemy aircraft. The credibility of these reports "above" was assessed quite skeptically, periodically lightning bolts were thrown down when the statistics looked completely unconvincing. All this suggests that the statistics of victories were needed primarily by the pilots themselves. Let me remind you that the term "ace" was originally introduced by the French in the First World War. The purpose of the newspaper hype around the names of the best pilots was to attract young people to the military aviation. Often the very routine and dangerous work of a military pilot was given a sporty spirit, aroused hunting excitement.
Another interesting fact can be noticed if we analyze the reliability of the victories declared by the pilot after the fact, using the data of the enemy. Such an analysis, for example, was carried out by the aforementioned Yu. Rybin in relation to several pilots of the North Sea, in particular one of the most famous Soviet aces, after the war, Air Force Commander-in-Chief P. S. Kutakhova. It turns out that for many aces the first two, three, or even six victories are not confirmed. At the same time, in the future, everything is going much more cheerful, confirmation is already found for several victories in a row. And here we come to the main thing that was given by the marks drawn on the plane about the downed. They gave the pilot confidence in his abilities. Let's imagine for a moment that instead of a real system of recording victories, we have a boring, multi-stage check with the search for the carcass of the declared "messer" in the forest thicket. If it turns out that the enemy's “descending” or “randomly falling” aircraft was not actually shot down, it will be a big blow to the novice pilot. On the contrary, the mark drawn after "leaving with a descent" will add enthusiasm to the pilot. He will maneuver more confidently, not be afraid to engage in battle with a dangerous enemy. He will step over the main obstacle - the feeling of the enemy's invulnerability. If tomorrow we send him to accompany the stormtroopers, he will confidently gaze across the sky. Not an animal fear of the unknown lurks in his heart, but the excitement of a hunter waiting for a victim. Yesterday's cadet becomes a full-fledged fighter pilot.
In the Field Manual of the Red Army, aviation tasks were described quite unambiguously: "The main task of aviation is to facilitate the success of ground forces in combat and operations" [45 - p.23]. Not the destruction of enemy aircraft in the air and at airfields, but assistance to ground forces. In essence, the activities of fighter aircraft are aimed at supporting the activities of strike aircraft and providing cover for their troops. Accordingly, a certain number of strike aircraft required an equal or even slightly larger number of fighter aircraft. Why is obvious. Firstly, attack aircraft need to be covered, and secondly, fighters always have independent tasks to cover troops and important objects. Each of these fighters needs a pilot.
The main point to pay attention to is a comparison of the real effectiveness of the Air Force and the accounts of the aces. For example, the Soviet assault air regiments in Romania in 1944 could make thousands of sorties, drop many tons of bombs and generally not meet the Luftwaffe and Hartmann fighters in particular. The planes shot down by Hartmann and Barkhorn at the same time gave several percent of the total number of sorties of the Soviet Air Force in this direction, noticeably inferior to losses due to piloting errors and technical malfunctions. Working in the megaass mode, making six sorties a day and covering a large front, is an abnormal situation. Yes, they can easily score, but the Air Force as a whole will not solve the problem of covering its troops, influencing the conduct of operations with air strikes. Simply because the sorties of a small group of "experts" will physically not be able to cover all these tasks. On the contrary, ensuring the numerical superiority of your air force over the enemy is not at all conducive to a rapid increase in personal account. Pilots make one or two sorties a day, and in the case of massing the efforts of the Air Force in the direction of the main attack of the ground forces, the probability of encountering an enemy aircraft decreases exponentially. I will explain this thesis with a simple calculation.
Let the "blue" have five fighters and five bombers, while the "red" have twenty fighters and twenty-five bombers and attack aircraft. For example, in the course of several air battles, the "blue" lose all five bombers and one fighter, and the "red" lose five fighters and five bombers and attack aircraft. In this case, the ability of the "blue" to influence the advancing "red" turns out to be equal to zero, and the "red" retains 75% of their initial shock capabilities. Moreover, the remaining 20 bombers and attack aircraft of the “red” in 100 sorties drop 2,000 tons of bombs on the enemy, while 5 bombers of the “blue” manage to carry out 50 sorties and drop 250 tons of bombs before being shot down. Accordingly, the loss of ten aircraft "red" leads to an increase in the personal account of ace X. "blue" by 30 units (taking into account the usual overestimation of the actual results of battles in such cases). The six actually shot down planes of the "blue" increase the personal score of the aces K. and P. by five victories each, and two more victories are credited to the novice aces V. and L. According to the results of the war, it is quite possible that the pilot of the X. "blue" will pick up 352 shot down, and pilots K. and P. "red" - 62 and 59, respectively. The effectiveness of the actions of the Air Force as a whole is clearly not in favor of the "blue", they drop fewer bombs and slightly reduce the striking power of enemy aircraft by the actions of their fighters.
A clash of equal forces would not have led to a sharp increase in the personal accounts of one pilot; the result of air battles would inevitably be smeared over many pilots. The path to high personal scores is through a war with a superior enemy force with a small number of pilots. If in this example five fighters and five bombers of the “blue” were opposed by one bomber and one fighter of the “red”, then the pilot of the “red” K. would have every chance of getting not a miserable two victories, but all three or four. Especially when setting a hit and run problem. On the contrary, the blue aces struggled to share the only shot down bomber. In short, there is a choice between riding and "checkers", external attributes in the face of stars on the fuselage or stripes on the keel and the results achieved by the Air Force. Arranging three-digit aces' accounts was essentially no technical problem. To do this, it would be necessary to abandon the mass production of aircraft and mass training of fighter pilots. A few lucky ones would be awarded custom-made aircraft, the engine parts of which were manually rubbed against each other, manufactured for these aircraft in a laboratory way, like for "ANT-25", on which V. P. Chkalov flew to America across the Pole. One could not even suffer and arm himself with "Spitfires", hand-assembled by "Uncle John", behind whom they spent decades at the machine. A. Pokryshkin and I. Kozhedub would have attacked the German squadrons on such piece aircraft, striking on the principle of "hit and run" and performing six sorties a day. In this case, in two years it would be quite realistic for them to collect 300 shot down on their brother. It would have ended with a stop of the Germans on the line Arkhangelsk - Astrakhan. For the ground forces, this threatened with an anecdotal situation "and there will be no air support - the pilot is ill." Almost in the spirit of this immortal anecdote, events developed in Courland in the winter of 1945. Then, after the death of Otto Kittel, an ace from the 54th Fighter Squadron, the infantrymen fell into despondency: "Kittel is dead, now we are definitely finished." But after the war, you can be proud of 267 victories of this very Kittel. It is not surprising that such a dubious happiness in the Red Army Air Force was abandoned.
In the USSR, the choice was completely deliberately made in favor of a massive air force, with the inevitable subsidence of the average level for any mass event. Airplanes of the mass series, manufactured by "fabzaychat", lost the technical characteristics of prototypes due to violation of geometry and quality of finishing. The need to provide the mass of cars with fuel led to a decrease in fuel requirements, instead of laboratory 100-octane gasoline, which took a barrel of crude oil per liter, catalytic cracking gasoline with an octane rating of 78 was supplied. The worst fuel reduced the power of an already mediocre engine, reducing flight performance glider with broken geometry. At the same time, the aircraft itself was originally designed for mass production with the replacement of scarce materials with wood and steel. However, the presence of a large mass of aircraft made it possible to give the best young people of the nation not a rifle or a machine gun, but a powerful and maneuverable means of warfare. They could already protect the infantry from a bomber with a ton of bombs, provide the actions of their more experienced counterpart in aerial combat, and in the end get the chance to become an ace themselves.
There is a well-known statement by I. V. Stalin: "we have no irreplaceable". These words contained the entire materialistic philosophy of the Soviet leadership. It would be absurd for him to base his strategy on personalities. The combat capability of the Air Force, operating on a front hundreds of kilometers above the heads of hundreds of thousands of people, should not depend on the mood and morale of one or even ten people. If the megaas makes a mistake and is knocked down, then this loss will be, firstly, very sensitive, and secondly, difficult to replace. The formation of a megaas like Hartmann, Barkhorn or Novotny is a matter of several years, which will simply not exist at the right time. In a war, losses of both people and equipment are inevitable. This is especially true of the Air Force - in the Soviet mobilization plan for 1941, the losses of pilots were quite rightly assumed to be the highest among the branches of the armed forces. Accordingly, the task of the command is to form a mechanism for effectively replenishing these losses. From this point of view, the mass air force is more stable. If we have three hundred fighters, then even the loss of several dozen pilots will not be fatal for us. If we have ten fighters, half a megaas among them, then the loss of five people can be a heavy blow. Moreover, with a heavy blow, first of all on the ground forces, the notorious "Kittel died, and now we are finished."
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The number of reported downed is not an objective indicator when comparing the air forces of the two countries. The number of "Abschussbalkens" or "stars" painted on the tail on the fuselage is an objective indicator of the pilot's skill within the Air Force of a particular country, nothing more. It is possible to achieve three-digit aces' scores by deliberately choosing to conduct an air war with a numerical superiority of the enemy and constant castling of air units and formations from passive sectors of the front into the heat of battles. But the approach of this weapon is two-edged and will most likely lead to the loss of the air war. In a nutshell, the reason for the difference in pilot bills can be explained as follows:
1) The effect of scale, or, if you prefer, the "hunter effect". If one hunter enters the forest with five pheasants, then he will have a chance to bring home 2-3 birds. If, on the contrary, five hunters go into the forest after one pheasant, any skill will result in only one carcass of the unfortunate bird. It's the same with a war in the air. The number of downed targets is directly proportional to the number of targets in the air.
2) The intensive use of the Air Force by the Germans. Flying six sorties a day while constantly moving along the front line to fend off crises or conduct offensive operations, it is not difficult to shoot down more over a long period than flying once a day, staying in the same sector of the front all the time.
