Highest Scoring German Pilot

[R-Bob The Great!]

I wanted to know who the highest scoring German pilot of World War 2 was? I seemed to think it was Werner Molders for a while but I think I got his name mixed up with someone else.

[Topspeed]

Erich Hartmann with 352 kills.

Werner Mölders was the first "ACE" ever to gain 100 kills. He was killed in a He 111 crash in the east during Barbarossa campaign.

Gerhard Barkhorn was second with 301 kills.

There are dozens of german aces with over 100 kills. Several also reached 200 kills like Hans Joakim Marseille I presume. He was also killed prematurely when his Bf-109 F2 Trop caught fire and when baling out he was caught in the elevator from his chute harness.

Walter Nowotny was the highest scoring austrian ace with 258 kills.

You can read all about them here:

http://www.acepilots.com/german/ger_aces.html

Much of their success can be credited to the experience they collected in Spanish civil war and flying in target rich environment both in the East, West and South from 1939-1945.

Technical developement was also very up to date. Messerschmitt fighter flew originally with a 700 hp Rolls Royce Kestrel engine and finally with a 2050 hp Daimler Benz 605. Variety of variants and subvariant were dozens ( C,E,F,G,K being the most famous ) F model by pilots possibly the best and cleanest of them all. 1500 Bf-109s were lost in landing and take-off related accident in Luftwaffe alone.

109s used 87 octane fuel which made the planes look like s**t very rapidly, but the low octane had a good availability. Also the 20 mm and later 30 mm cannon was a very effective weapon in combat.

Another technical brakethrough was nimble Focke-Wulf 190 fighter its variants can be divided into 3 maingroups FW-190A, FW-190D and finally TA 152 H. A model was powered with a radial engine and D model with a inline engine that had a annular radiator at the nose behind large propeller. Designer at FW was Kurt Tank who later founded Argentinian aviation industry. His last FW version was called TA 152 H-1 which featured long narrow wings and top altitude of 13 800 meters ( pressurized canopy ).

FW parts were recycled ( any fuselage of FW 190 A and D were interchangeable ) there was an ring type lenghtening piece that was added to A model to make it a D model fuselage. Recycling made it possible to build so many new FW 190 fighters so fast even though a FW 190 was a lot more expensive to build than a Bf-109 model.
Me 110 and He219 UHU were the peak of the nightfighters who also had some 200+kill ACES.

Much feared Me 163 Komet and Me 262 Schwalbe played a smaller role in the whole ACE business..they were too few and too late to make a significant role.

The fact that Luftwaffe KILL/LOSS ratio is not very high is due to the bomber escort attacking role of the Luftwaffe..in this duty they were easy pray for the Allied escort fighters ( Mustangs and Thunderbolts ) as they nearly always had the crucial altitude advance on their side.

Also at the end stages of the war Luftwaffe sent untrained pilots to fly and they were apparently an easy pray for Soviets flying very advanced La-5fn and Yak-3 fighters whose rollrate was second to none. Soviets also had cannons in their planes unlike americans who relied on large calibre machine guns.

regards,

JT

[R-Bob The Great!]

Yes, I thought Molders was Marseille. Thanks.

[Topspeed]

Marselle had "only" 158 kills.

--------- JT--------->

[bryson109]

Marseille was, I think, flying a Bf 109 G-2/trop, when he died. The Bf 109 Gs suffered from engine fires early on.

[Erich]

there were a total of 2 with over 300 kills, both deceased, Günther Rall at number three had 275 and still living. Erich Rudorffer at 222 although his score is up for debate as well as several other notables.

a total of 104 aces with scores of 101 to 352.............

v/r

E ▼

[Erich]

excuse me but my count of 104 aces does not include Schnaufer or Lent of Nachtjagd fame both with over 100 kills each.

E ~

[Witch-King of Angmar]

Also at the end stages of the war Luftwaffe sent untrained pilots to fly and they were apparently an easy pray for Soviets flying very advanced La-5fn and Yak-3 fighters whose rollrate was second to none.

To none save the FW-190A (a bit of nitpicking to enrage Oleg:D)

~The Witch-King of Angmar

[R-Bob The Great!]

What were the highest scoring aces for the Allies (UK, USA, USSR and others separately).?

[Kurt_Steiner]

Perhaps you could be interested into taking a look at
http://www.frenkenstein.com/ww2/Aces.htm

Best regards

[Douglas Jr.]

Hi,

For more information about Luftwaffe aces please check:

http://www.luftwaffe.cz (in English)
http://www.luftwaffe39-45.cjb.net (in Portuguese)

Regards,

Douglas.

[Topspeed]

Perhaps you could be interested into taking a look at
http://www.frenkenstein.com/ww2/Aces.htm

Best regards

Well this was quite impressive to read...did USA ( Navy/ USAAF /Marines) have more aces than Luftwaffe ?

JT

[subskipper]

I especially like Donald H. Bochkay's 14.83 kills. The US "kill system" was truly special.



~Henric Edwards

[Victor]

Much of their success can be credited to the experience they collected in Spanish civil war and flying in target rich environment both in the East, West and South from 1939-1945.

It would be interesting to note that Erich Hartmann did not begin flying on the front until October 1942. He did not have the experience of the Spanish, Polish, French or BoB campaigns, not even that of the early days on the Eastern Front. He practically started flying when the VVS became stronger and stronger.

[Topspeed]

Victor,

Yes that is amazing. He had a pretty low number of flights as well. Always state of the art 109 to fly too.
It was interesting to see how our 24th squadron kills raised when 8 new G6:s came..G2s must have been at the final stage for a long time...been repaired after reparation.

regards,

JT

BTW: I checked Croatians had 300 kills and 16 losses in combat...finns were slightly better in general flying the 109:s.