Need help getting my head around this, Allied Flying Aces really sucked this bad?

[Kellhound]

Ivan Kozhedub flew the La-5 mostly. It was a decent plane, somewhat comparable to German ones and he lived long enough to get good at flying it. There was always plenty of opportunity to fight Nazis which was different from the Western front.

Sturmovik's weren't a "good" air to air plane but it was tough as hell and sometimes that's good enough. It was a shit tonne better than the Stuka or any other comparable ground-to-air plane.

Depends on what you consider "comparable".

[Jastall]

Other people have already said it, but I think the two biggest factors were the differences in accounting, and the fact that Germany did not pull back its top aces for training purposes.

The latter especially is an important blunder. Having skilled, well trained soldiers is great, but shockingly enough soldiers tend to die in war, even the best of the best. So this ace is usually way, way better off training a new generation of skilled pilot, who will cover more sky and strike down more aircrafts than he possibly could alone. Instead the Germans just stuck em in the air until they died. Sure, maybe they took out several or even several dozen crafts, but the Allies had more where that came from and it doesn't help if the following generation of German pilot gets rekt because their training cannot in any way compensate their inferiority in numbers.

In WoW terms, they chose to pad numbers instead of doing mechanics, then wiped when healers ran out of mana.

[Afrospinach]

Other people have already said it, but I think the two biggest factors were the differences in accounting, and the fact that Germany did not pull back its top aces for training purposes.

I am pretty sure in addition to this the german pilots individually logged a lot more hours for one reason or another.

If you search around though I know there is a concise explanation for the discrepancy. The RAF were not dropping like flies or anything.

[Guy4123]

How do you think the nazis nearly conquered the whole world? Hitler created an unrivaled war machine and only narrowly lost after mistakes were made.

Trucks, bikes, tanks, heavy weapons, planes were all miles ahead of the rest of the world when the war broke out.

Pretty common misconception here. At the beginning of the war the German tanks in use were completely inferior to what the French were using, and were also inferior to what the Russians were using when they invaded. Their "wonder weapons" like the ME262 or Tiger II were so resource intensive and unreliable that they were more detrimental to the Germans in the resources they used up than the damage they inflicted against the Allies. Same with the V1 and V2 rockets.

Also their main mode of logistical transportation during the entirety of the war was horse drawn carts. America was light years ahead of the Germans when it game to logistical support, which is what wins wars.

They used good tactics during the beginning of the war, along with the French using terrible tactics and mobilizing their army very poorly.

[Shakari]

Pretty common misconception here. At the beginning of the war the German tanks in use were completely inferior to what the French were using, and were also inferior to what the Russians were using when they invaded. Their "wonder weapons" like the ME262 or Tiger II were so resource intensive and unreliable that they were more detrimental to the Germans in the resources they used up than the damage they inflicted against the Allies. Same with the V1 and V2 rockets.

Also their main mode of logistical transportation during the entirety of the war was horse drawn carts. America was light years ahead of the Germans when it game to logistical support, which is what wins wars.

They used good tactics during the beginning of the war, along with the French using terrible tactics and mobilizing their army very poorly.

The german tanks while worse in 1v1 situation were not completely inferior if they were used as they were designed to be ie in packs, which the germans did do for most of the war, where as the french allied tanks where designed more as solo fighting machines for 1v1 slugging matches at the start of the war a philosophy brought from WW1.

[Guy4123]

The german tanks while worse in 1v1 situation were not completely inferior if they were used as they were designed to be ie in packs, which the germans did do for most of the war, where as the french allied tanks where designed more as solo fighting machines for 1v1 slugging matches at the start of the war a philosophy brought from WW1.

Hence the "they used good tactics during the beginning of the war". Nothing about a tank is "designed" to fight solo 1v1 matches (war isn't a competition), some tanks are just better at it than others obviously. The tactics are what dictate army mobilization and the French tactics were very poor while the Germans wasn't. The French had plenty of tanks and troops but they were deployed abysmally bad.

[Misuteri]

Before I begin to question my entire childhood mythology (?) of American Air Superiority, could this be some of sort of weird fake wikipedia entry and the actual historical reality was totally different??

Those totals are legit, the highest scoring aces of World War II were German and Japanese hands down. Now there are numerous reasons for this.

- German and Japanese pilots were in for the duration. Some of the German pilots were flying combat missions from September, 1939 through May, 1945. Typical American and British pilots had limits, artificial or otherwise, put on their time in combat.

For example the highest scoring American ace Richard Bong was pulled out of service to sell war bonds and train new pilots. Even if he wished to continue flying the US Army Air Corps of the day prohibited things like that for two reasons. Potential bad PR of the Japanese crowing about downing the top American ace and the fact that we had more pilots in the training pipeline than the Germans and Japanese combined and we wanted aces training them.

- German aces were facing vastly inferior Soviet planes and pilots on the Eastern Front. While the British had Spitfires, Hawker Hurricanes and even American P-40's during the Dunkirk campaign the Soviets had nothing of the sort. They were still flying biplanes when Operation Barbarossa launched. So if you put up a FW-190 or ME-109 against a Soviet Seagull biplane... well, you get the idea. Likewise Germans did not score their kills the same way the Americans did. It is widely suspected that they scored planes destroyed on the ground as well as in air to air combat to inflate totals.

Late in the war the P-47, P-51D and Spitfire Mk 24 were superior to any German propeller driven aircraft hands down. However none of them could match the ME-262 twin jet fighter but that plane had VERY limited endurance.

So there are ton of considerations to take into account but allied air superiority was indeed the case after 1943.

[Dhrizzle]

It's also worth noting that Germany would assign each victory to a single pilot, whereas UK and US victories would be split among the unit.

BTW if you scroll way down to the 5s, among a sea of US flags, you'll find famed children's author Roald Dahl.

[chazus]

Opportunity. As some people mentioned, the rotation.

German aces flew sortie after sortie, until they were downed. If you have 100 attempts at kills, and have a 50% kill chance, you get 50 kills. If you have 5 attempts with a 100% chance, you still only get 5, and on a board it looks like you're 1/10 of the ace a german pilot was.

[Kellhound]

The german tanks while worse in 1v1 situation were not completely inferior if they were used as they were designed to be ie in packs, which the germans did do for most of the war, where as the french allied tanks where designed more as solo fighting machines for 1v1 slugging matches at the start of the war a philosophy brought from WW1.

The vast majority of German tanks in 1939 were Panzer MkI, Mk II, Pz 35, and Pz 38. Those were totally outclassed by French armor in almost every aspect. It was only German tactics and French incompetence that allowed German victory.

[Dhrizzle]

Another possible factor is the UK's bombers would have to fly over occupied France to reach targets in Germany, whereas German bombers just had to nip across the channel to reach London, though this might be mitigated by the UK having radar. I do know that the bomber crews in the RAF had a ridiculously low life expectancy.

[Kellhound]

Those totals are legit, the highest scoring aces of World War II were German and Japanese hands down. Now there are numerous reasons for this.

- German and Japanese pilots were in for the duration. Some of the German pilots were flying combat missions from September, 1939 through May, 1945. Typical American and British pilots had limits, artificial or otherwise, put on their time in combat.

For example the highest scoring American ace Richard Bong was pulled out of service to sell war bonds and train new pilots. Even if he wished to continue flying the US Army Air Corps of the day prohibited things like that for two reasons. Potential bad PR of the Japanese crowing about downing the top American ace and the fact that we had more pilots in the training pipeline than the Germans and Japanese combined and we wanted aces training them.

- German aces were facing vastly inferior Soviet planes and pilots on the Eastern Front. While the British had Spitfires, Hawker Hurricanes and even American P-40's during the Dunkirk campaign the Soviets had nothing of the sort. They were still flying biplanes when Operation Barbarossa launched. So if you put up a FW-190 or ME-109 against a Soviet Seagull biplane... well, you get the idea. Likewise Germans did not score their kills the same way the Americans did. It is widely suspected that they scored planes destroyed on the ground as well as in air to air combat to inflate totals.

Late in the war the P-47, P-51D and Spitfire Mk 24 were superior to any German propeller driven aircraft hands down. However none of them could match the ME-262 twin jet fighter but that plane had VERY limited endurance.

So there are ton of considerations to take into account but allied air superiority was indeed the case after 1943.

The Yak-1 was not far behind the Bf109F in performance actually.

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Another possible factor is the UK's bombers would have to fly over occupied France to reach targets in Germany, whereas German bombers just had to nip across the channel to reach London, though this might be mitigated by the UK having radar. I do know that the bomber crews in the RAF had a ridiculously low life expectancy.

The RAF also conducted far more strategic bomber missions than Germany, plus all the USAAF bomber missions.

[Guy4123]

Another possible factor is the UK's bombers would have to fly over occupied France to reach targets in Germany, whereas German bombers just had to nip across the channel to reach London, though this might be mitigated by the UK having radar. I do know that the bomber crews in the RAF had a ridiculously low life expectancy.

The Yak-1 was not far behind the Bf109F in performance actually.

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The RAF also conducted far more strategic bomber missions than Germany, plus all the USAAF bomber missions.

Also I don't think the British had any fighter escort for most of their bombing campaigns while the Germans could launch BF109's from France and give fighter support to their bombers going to England. They were pretty much stretching their range to the max so they couldn't loiter for very long but it's better than nothing.

[Kellhound]

Also I don't think the British had any fighter escort for most of their bombing campaigns while the Germans could launch BF109's from France and give fighter support to their bombers going to England. They were pretty much stretching their range to the max so they couldn't loiter for very long but it's better than nothing.

Like the USAAF, the RAF lacked a long range escort fighter for most of the war. To offset that, they conducted their bombings at night under the cover of darkness. While the Germans had dedicated night fighters, they were fewer in number than day fighters.

[McFuu]

- German and Japanese pilots were in for the duration. Some of the German pilots were flying combat missions from September, 1939 through May, 1945. Typical American and British pilots had limits, artificial or otherwise, put on their time in combat.

Before all the other reasons in this thread, this is the biggest reason. Allied pilots were in theater for short tours. German pilots were basically in until the died or they had no more planes to fly. At the beginning of the war, German pilots were well trained and had experience this was hugely reversed not to far into the war.