Submarine War Patrol Reports and more

[icthird623]

Incredibly amount of information at this site. Has war patrol records listed for each submarine
http://www.navsource.org/archives/subidx.htm

icthird623

[Daniel Prates]

Truly interesting. Lots of microfilms with de-classified material.

[P_Funk]

I gotta be honest, compared to reading German KTBs, I find the American style to be very confusing. Lots of info in the attack reports, but compared to a German report the day to day stuff is a lot more casual it seems.

Its an interesting exercise in looking at differences beyond the standard ship to ship comparisons.

[Daniel Prates]

I think nobody mantained the kind of record perfection that the germans did. Also, they had the highest standards and criteria to credit their own with victories.

There is an interesting story here. In the early fifties, some american general, in his published memoirs (i really can't recall who) said that no german pilot ever shot down more than 150 planes, and thus the records claimed by the germans during wartime had to be propaganda. This is because german claims on air victories were so far above any allied counterpart, that out of pride or other reasons, the claims simply were not given any credit - above all, Erich Hartmann's score of 352 air victories, understood as a gross overstatement by allied airmen. I am not talking here about actual propaganda (such as the one that happened during the battle of britain, were claimed victories mentioned in the press were inflated for morale reasons). I am talking about the actual credit on the pilot's personal record, which is a diferent matter.

However, as the tons and tons of german captured documents stated to come to the surface, it became clear that those numbers were not only correct, but also that the german criteria for crediting air victories were so tough, that the likely number was sure to be much larger. Amongst other methods required for a victory to be credited, the pilot would have to provide testimony from his fellow airmen, wreckege had to be identified, and images from the airplane's guns camera had to be analysed. Many victories counted as "probable" in other air services, would not count in the german rigorous system.

Still, a general universal list of all-time aces has 126 germans ocupying the first slots - the first non-german pilot appears in the 127th position. It is not to wonder why these data, which amazes even to this day, was and still is not taken as serious by some people.

[P_Funk]

Yes, you reslly have to admire the efficiency and rigorious nature of German record keeping. Its really a boon to historians, especially considering information is almost always lost from the losing side.

I think with regards to the German pilot aces the biggest reason they dominate list is because first they were real pioneers of air combat so many of their WW2 aces cut their teeth and developed their skills and tactics during the days of the Condor legion during the Spanish Civi war, perfecting the concept of the Finger-Four Schwarm well ahead of the allies who still utilized the ineffective Vic formation well into the early years of WW2. Also, the bulk of the highest scoring aces for Germany got most of their victories on the Eastern front against the inferior Soviet airmen who frequently went into combat with very limited training. Also, lots of those air victories, especially for guys like Hartmann, were against slow and low flying IL-2s that had standing orders to remain in formation even while being attacked. In general the Eastern Front saw air combat usually at or below 3000m where aircraft supported the ground battle while on the Western Front things tended to be much much higher up since the air battle was more about high altitude bombers instead of low level ground attack.

This benefitted the Germans a lot on the Eastern Front because their fighters were all energy fighters, designed to maintain high speed and which had greater top speed at high altitudes, using 'boom and zoom' tactics where they'd come down from on high like a bird of prey, while Soviet fighters tended to be more 'turn and burn' that were better at lower atltitudes and preferred to play turning stalls fights. In this situation if you had the advantage in altitude it definitely favoured Germans more overall, and add their much higher skill level on average you can see why they mopped up so absurdly over there.

The quality of the German airmen was always very high and only really degraded only in the final couple years when losses were forced to be replaced with less well trained men and also as equipment degraded as the German industrial machine was slowly bombed out of existence.

So like I said, the rigorous nature of German record keeping has allowed historians to overcome much of the victor's bias which usually colours the interpretation of wars after the fact. Certainly this is supremely important when it comes to something as hugely controversial and emotionally charged as the Nazi regime. Saying anything even remotely positive about their side of the war usually requires rebutting your own claims with the hard evidence that we're left with. In particular with regards to the U-boat war we have Doenitz to thank who ordered at the end of the war for all Kriegsmarine dcouments to be saved rather than burned.

[Daniel Prates]

Yes, you reslly have to admire the efficiency and rigorious nature of German record keeping. Its really a boon to historians, especially considering information is almost always lost from the losing side.

I think with regards to the German pilot aces the biggest reason they dominate list is because first they were real pioneers of air combat so many of their WW2 aces cut their teeth and developed their skills and tactics during the days of the Condor legion during the Spanish Civi war, perfecting the concept of the Finger-Four Schwarm well ahead of the allies who still utilized the ineffective Vic formation well into the early years of WW2. Also, the bulk of the highest scoring aces for Germany got most of their victories on the Eastern front against the inferior Soviet airmen who frequently went into combat with very limited training. Also, lots of those air victories, especially for guys like Hartmann, were against slow and low flying IL-2s that had standing orders to remain in formation even while being attacked. In general the Eastern Front saw air combat usually at or below 3000m where aircraft supported the ground battle while on the Western Front things tended to be much much higher up since the air battle was more about high altitude bombers instead of low level ground attack.

This benefitted the Germans a lot on the Eastern Front because their fighters were all energy fighters, designed to maintain high speed and which had greater top speed at high altitudes, using 'boom and zoom' tactics where they'd come down from on high like a bird of prey, while Soviet fighters tended to be more 'turn and burn' that were better at lower atltitudes and preferred to play turning stalls fights. In this situation if you had the advantage in altitude it definitely favoured Germans more overall, and add their much higher skill level on average you can see why they mopped up so absurdly over there.

The quality of the German airmen was always very high and only really degraded only in the final couple years when losses were forced to be replaced with less well trained men and also as equipment degraded as the German industrial machine was slowly bombed out of existence.

So like I said, the rigorous nature of German record keeping has allowed historians to overcome much of the victor's bias which usually colours the interpretation of wars after the fact. Certainly this is supremely important when it comes to something as hugely controversial and emotionally charged as the Nazi regime. Saying anything even remotely positive about their side of the war usually requires rebutting your own claims with the hard evidence that we're left with. In particular with regards to the U-boat war we have Doenitz to thank who ordered at the end of the war for all Kriegsmarine dcouments to be saved rather than burned.


Yep to all that. If you are willing to excersice your portuguese a little bit, check out this site....

http://www.luftwaffe39-45.historia.nom.br/ases/ases.htm

... where I got this incredible info:

- The luftwaffe brought down 70.000 planes in total, being that 45.000 russian planes, and 25.000 american, french and english planes;

- 15.400 of those were shot down by a group of 106 pilots, all of them scoring 100 victories or more individually. Those were not called 'aces', but 'experten' (experts), for due reason;

- In compairson, of all the beligerant nations, there are 1222 pilots scoring over 20 victories - and of those, 877, or 3/4, are german; of the 475 pilots scoring over 40 victories, 431 (90,7%) are german;

- after 1941, the luftwaffe was fighting everywhere on the defensive, and in numerical disavantage - in many situations, in gross disavantage. The average was at least 3/1, and at the height even 15/1, in the russian front. In the western front, that is, against the yanks and the limeys, disavantage was 6/1; all of that are of course averages.

- The luftwaffe, in that effort, lost 44.000 fighters, not to mention 11.000 other craft.

- after 1943, only 25% of the pilots survived their fourth mission.

So, yeah, individual skills had everything to do with those results.