Scoring
By Jim "Twitch" Tittle

Article Type: Military History
Article Date: October 23, 2002


Many publications of past times openly disputed the many 100-plus victories claimed by Luftwaffe aces. Since Britain’s James “Johnnie” Johnson had scored but 38 victories during the war on the Western Front along with American Richard Bong’s 40 in the Pacific, Erich Hartmann’s 352 was thought to be Nazi propaganda. It was reasoned early on that the 100-plus scores included damaged and probables given by a liberal system. Some even went so far as to say that the numbers were points awarded by some Luftwaffe scoring system.

Johnnie Johnson

It is puzzling that no one in the 1950s-60s was casting doubt on Japan’s aces’ scores. Saburo Sakai’s 64 and Hiroyoshi Nishizawa’s 103 were never questioned. Sakai’s book about his combat experiences, Samurai, vividly depicted most of these kills from his war time flight logs. It was reasoned that since aces that survived many years of the war against a numerically superior enemy would have ample opportunity to score. Japan’s pilots never rotated out of combat except for brief relaxation periods or hospital stays for wounds received. Of course there were figures claiming that the top 35 Luftwaffe scorers had amassed 6,848 kills where the Japanese aces seem modest by comparison. Partly due to the flammability of Japanese planes, not many aces survived to score more.

Bf 109G-2 in Russia

Allied pilots almost to a man were taken out of combat and posted to flight schools or given organizational duties after a certain number of missions were flown. Guys like Bong did fudge at times while on training flights in battle areas to shoot down aircraft that “threatened the flight.” If he’d been sent to non-combatant areas to train men he would have scored less, of course.

The Japanese and German pilots had no such luxury. Both systems in place in the 1930s aimed at producing a few excellent pilots. By contrast Allied thinking was to produce a lot of very good pilots and give them very good or excellent equipment. By rate of attrition the latter theory would triumph as more men were fed into the training systems. Japan and Germany seemed to count on a finite number of individuals with long, rigorous training bounded by very high goals.

So we know what worked to win the war. On the other hand, these very circumstances allowed skilled aces to excel in scoring. Most of the high scorers flew and fought for several years. Sakai’s score was cut short when in mid-1942 he was severely wounded. He had over two years of recuperation. In Germany it was the same. Pilots were needed for as long as the war would last.

FW 190 in Russia

During WWI Germany’s von Richtofen’s 80 victories were not later questioned nor were Britain’s Billy Bishop’s 72. There were far fewer planes in the air at any time since far fewer even existed. Perhaps the ratio between the top scorers on each side was not relatively lopsided. At any rate the opportunity to encounter enemy aircraft was much lower than WWII.

In WWI a rigorous two-part claim system dictated that the enemy aircraft be found on the ground after destruction and that the kill be witnessed by air or ground personnel. Obviously when ships crashed behind enemy lines confirmation was impossible. During the first three-fourths of the war the Germans were favored by the geography of things. By WWII a witness was still absolutely required for a claim to be awarded. German gun cameras were not widespread.

As we skip back to WWII we note that most Allied pilots flew 100-150 missions generally before being rotated to non-combatant duties. Dick Bong scored his 40 during 146 missions over 400 hours. Thunderbolt ace, Bob Johnson, tallied 28 after just 91 missions. German pilots by luck and skill survived many more missions forced by the necessity of their country’s survival attempt.

Dick Bong

American bomber crews were relegated to 25 missions for their tours before going home. The average plane and crew lasted just 15 missions before being shot down so the odds weren’t with them. But a growing number did make their 25 after long-range fighter escort became common.

Hans-Joachim Marseille

Germany was fighting on two fronts early on. In the West several pilots excelled in the African desert against British and American enemies. A stand-out was Hans Marseille with 158 victories (151 NA- NorthArfica/7 in Battle of Britain WF- Western front) scored in 382 missions. But since we cannot determine on how many of these missions he or any pilot actually met enemy aircraft we must draw ratios from total missions flown and total victories produced. Before he struck the tail bailing out of his Bf 109G and died in September 1942 he’d been fighting for just two years. When the African campaign closed Marseille’s group JG 27 went to the Eastern Front. It stands to reason that he could have doubled the number there if he’d survived. The point is that many did survive.

Gunther Rall- good KR

Now we must confront the meat of the large claims. This was the state of affairs on the Russian Front itself. Most aces that ended up there had begun their scoring in the Battle of Britain, like Marseille, with a few even commencing in the Spanish Civil War. When the Luftwaffe entered the area it was easy pickings. This statement is not meant to diminish any ace’s score. Many American aces in Europe figured their counterparts in the Pacific had it easier with so many flammable Japanese planes to shoot at. Too many variables make serious comparison valid. But when German fighters and bombers opened up operations the Red Air Force was a sorry outfit. The quality of pilots and equipment was deplorable. Early Soviet aircraft were outdated, poorly armed and armored and had dubious maneuverability. Couple this with unskilled pilots and we have a formula for disaster. The formula was a windfall for Luftwaffe pilots however. Their onslaught resulted in escalating kill totals for pilots that were just “good” much less excellent.

Bf 110

This was a target rich environment at first until the Red planes' ranks were decimated. While things did not go as well in the long term on the ground the Luftwaffe rarely failed to stay ahead in the aerial kill-to-loss ratios. Stalin drew in his manufacturing facilities as a squid retracts its wounded tentacles. East of the Ural mountains plants were set up to manufacture weapons for the Soviet forces, which were out of range of Luftwaffe bombers.

With a full-bore effort to modernize the Russian aircraft types better planes soon debuted to blunt the German war lance. Were they superior to Bf 109s and FW 190s? This opens an endless debate. Certainly they were produced in vast numbers as the Americans did their planes. Both the USA and USSR had immense natural resources within their national borders and exploited the fact.

LaGGs, Yaks, Ilyushins and MiGs were assembled like so many Big Macs at the lunch rush. They swarmed en masse at the fronts to counter the Luftwaffe. But the elements of the big picture were still favoring the German ace. Relative to the time line of the war, the German aces were at the zenith of their strength. They enjoyed sufficient serviceable aircraft and spare parts and possessed the crucial ingredient—experience. It is quite detached to sit over half century hence and state that Luftwaffe aces rapidly escalated their scores. They did, but the intricate details of battles, living conditions and service of planes in the harsh conditions must be recognized. It was not a flight sim experience of safely knocking down several Russian planes a day. Much fighting was over and behind moving battle lines that dictated a sad end if a plane made a forced landing or a bail out was needed. The danger was present from the large numbers of Red fighters and the constant threat of anonymous ground fire.

Lots of targets in Russia

As stated earlier, the typical American pilot was in a combat arena for usually about a year to make his tour. Missions were long and not scheduled every day so the opportunity to encounter enemies to shoot at were reduced. The defenders, on the other hand, had short defensive missions and often flew several sorties a day for years.

In Russia even the offensive missions were of short duration due to the forward location of most combatant airfields in relation to the ground action. So, again, multiple missions could be flown in the span of a day. We can conclude that the Luftwaffe had their cake and ate it too with the best circumstances of encountering targets no matter how the war was going in the East or West.

So we are left with the math. How many kills did a pilot achieve versus the number of missions flown? This does not take into account any marksmanship or rounds expended per kill as most of this is unknown save for rare cases. We can develop a kill ratio by this method keeping in mind the wild card factor of missions flown where no contact was made. This is regrettable but necessary since those figures do not exist. Certain pilots probably have better KRs, Kill Ratios, than stated but we’ll never know.

Erich Hartmann

Hartmann's 109G-6

The premier ace Erich Hartmann accumulated 352 kills (K), over a staggering 1,425 missions (M), and made his combat debut (CD) in October 1942 producing a kill ratio (KR) of 4.05. All victories were Eastern Front (EF). Note that any ratio less that Hartmann’s 4.05 is better.

Gerd Barkhorn

We divide the number of missions flown by the number of kills credited for our kill ratio. Hartmann got a kill on average every four missions. That’s our formula. Click here or on the image below to open a table showing how some top, well-known Luftwaffe pilots rank:

Pilot Kill Ratios. Click to zoom-in.

The total number of victories does not mean the KR was high. Many were actually better than Hartmann. He excelled due to high number of missions flown. Others with the best KRs had fewer kills and missions flown but scored better in the ratio. Here are the best showing kills and kill ratios only:

Top Pilot Scores

Relative to kill ratio, Marseille at 2.42 KR ranks 17th and Hartmann at 4.05 KR is only 70th with Galland at 4.09 KR being 72nd.

Adolf Galland

Only a handful of fighter pilots flew 1,000 or more sorties. Hartmann’s 1,425 is the highest found recorded. It seems to correlate that more missions equals more total kills with all else on a par. The best baseball players play in more games and have more at-bats to amass high totals. By the same token, other players hit the ball in a higher ratio to times at bat but have played in less games so totals are lower. So it was in the Luftwaffe during World War II.

Baer: #1 in jet kills

The few superb could not make up for the many average that were rushed through pilot training in Japan and Germany later on. Starting off the war with a “few good men” system never allowed them to balance things out. The few that excelled were highly talented and lucky either by surviving or being immersed in target rich arenas of combat.

Schnaufer: 121 kills, 164 missions at night in Bf 110

The reader can be the judge of whether all these claims are valid. Over 200 aces claim 60 or more. We know that confirmation is not always 100 percent. All nation’s pilots have over estimated kills in heated battles. Some “probables” land and fly again. Some “damaged” crash and burn. The area where most of these victories occurred is Russia and numbers have never been honestly established nor have simple production figures for all aircraft come forth. It is natural that the closed society of Russia in WWII would not publish that they lost so many planes on such and such dates all the while boasting of high production amounts. Basically by not saying much they are actually saying, "we built a lot of planes but didn’t lose that many."

Official Soviet figures state that over 36,000 IL-2s alone were built. Published figures for Yak, LaGG and others planes would make at least 100,000. Then with all the rest of the types we know of, a great many more aircraft were constructed. Is over 6,000 kills possible amongst the top 35 Luftwaffe aces against the Red Air Force? Absolutely.

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