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From: silber@sunb3.cs.uiuc.edu (Ami Silberman)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Brewster Buffalo (was: draft)
Message-ID: <1990Dec13.033543.19538@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 13 Dec 90 03:35:43 GMT
References: <1990Dec6.021948.19031@cbnews.att.com> <1990Dec11.014719.25687@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Science, Urbana
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From: silber@sunb3.cs.uiuc.edu (Ami Silberman)
In article <1990Dec11.014719.25687@cbnews.att.com> kiravuo@hila.hut.fi (Timo Kiravuo) writes:
>
>About the Messerschmitt Bf 109G-2 Wind says that when in air the
>plane was OK, but taking of and landing were difficult. the
>torque of the big propellor would try to twist the plane and the
>narrow carriage did not support enough. Also there was only about
>6 cm of space between the propellor and ground when rolling.
>
After the war, the Israeli's flew some Bf 109s with the same engine
as the Ju88.  They lost most of them due to nosing over or other
ground accidents.
>
>The book also mentions that while in the USA an ace meant at
>least five drops, in the Soviet Union it was nine drops and in
>most other countries the term was not used at all. Also when in
>the west partial drops were counted, the Soviets could give one
>drop for each pilot in the group for one plane. And in the latter
>part of the war Germans would count one drop for each engine, so
>that a bomber might mean four drops. 
>
In the US, I believe that you could get kills for planes on the
ground.  (In WWI, some pilots would wait until enemy planes were
just barely airborne during attacks vs. airstrips in order to gain
the kill.)  I know of a case where some Americans got a kill for
a B-17, it had been forced down in North Africa and they were 
denying it to the enemy.  The Germans required 10 kills.
It is a common misconception that muti-engine planes counted as
multiple kills.  According to Adolf Galland (in his book, The First 
and the Last, I believe) there was a points system for medals.
So many points and a Knights cross, so many more and a Knights cross
1st class etc.

ami silberman