No offence bud but aren’t you the one earlier that said “Reschke only had 20 kills and his only impressive encounter was ramming a bomber” when you was using one engagement to somehow prove that the Ta-152 was at least “50% better!!” than the Tempest???
The Tempest which Reschke himself reported made several mistakes and we have no idea as far as I’m aware of how experienced said pilot was.
I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that I’d choose the 4x ace over a potentially fresh pilot out of flight school even if he had 400 hours of training…
Also weren’t the Ta’s mainly only given to ace pilots? That kind of shoots down the “they were all rookies!” narrative.
The number of kills says nothing about the quality of a pilot:
There are various studies claiming that 60-80% of fighters were killed without being aware of an enemy in close proximity.
If you have read enough books about this topic it boils down to having targets.
So whilst a hell of allied pilots had in the last phase of the war serious issues to find any targets - the LW boys had way too much too handle.
If you have ever read Bud Anderson’s memoirs (recommended!!) you might remember the efforts (like pretending to be a bomber group by flying slow) they had to use to prove a reaction by the LW.
The context matters here too:
Based on Rescke’s training downing some B-17s/ B-24s plus a handful of escort fighters was nothing special. As successful ramming attacks were rather rare i assessed this as remarkable; otherwise his track record is just average.
No - i recommend this book (i visited my basement just 4U):
Even admitting that these 2 Fighter Groups were in the earlier years extremely well trained (imho the first “All weather” fighter groups) - mainly regarding navigational skills/IFR - they had the same issues as all other LW groups - attrition killed the experienced ones. The later trained pilots had usually just a rudimentary training and no ACM training.
The dogfight in question is described in detail - and the alleged 152 kill by a Tempest is mentioned as not explainable (like 2 other crashes before) as no enemy fire was observed. The other Tempest used his superior top speed to escape.
And - the pilots were no ace pilots in the sense of exceptional dogfighters. The book contains detailed tables including kills and corresponding KIA/WIA/MIA data. The only true “ace” unit was the JV 44.
The book also describes the very positive pilot feedback regarding the turn and overall performance and this leads us back to the OP:
How is it possible that the shorter wing and increased weight of a C-3 (compared to a H-1) turns the C-3 into a fighter brick with a flight model of a heavy bomber? I am not talking about ptw or any other figure…
I don’t want to get dragged into a scientific dispute (like Whittle vs von Ohain) - but if you google “who invented high octane fuel” your nominee is not even mentioned…and somehow GM claims to have invented high octane fuel - in 1921…
Edit:
It found an older post which was mentioning the correct nationality:
Kurt Welter trained German pilots for fighter aviation for 4 years, and only went into combat in 43, and in 3 missions he was already an ace with 7 kills, so training counts a lot, Ta 152 given only to experienced pilots? Where does it say that? K4 units were given to recruits with a few hours of training, why do you think this would not happen with the Ta 152? and I mentioned this Reschke fight, because it was in fact a fight, not a boom and zoom pass, and combining the fact with the published performances of both aircraft and Reschke’s testimony in the interview, saying that he had no difficulty in fighting Tempests, Reschke said that he and the Tempest pilot used all tactics to gain an advantage, that is, the Tempest pilot was not at all lost, Tempest has the same weight, a larger wing area and a more powerful engine, the fight lasted a long time, it was supposed that the Tempest would start to surpass the H1 as the fight lasted, that’s on paper, but did that happen? no, the opposite happened, Reschke closed the curve on the Tempest, he did that, it’s because the Tempest pilot was defending himself, as the friend mentioned in the comment above, the kill count does not necessarily say whether the pilot is better than another, do you think Günther Hall is better than the Marsaille?
We’ll never know until we can somehow dig them up, clone them and make them fight. Although I don’t think the authorities would approve of that somehow.
I will say there were speculations over Marseille overclaiming on his victories and to be fair (much like how you mentioned Meyer earlier) he did get his arse beat 1 vs 1 by a Hurricane…
Twice.
I know of Rall’s most famous shootdown when he was ganged up on by multiple P-47’s where he lost his thumb but I’m not sure about the others.
