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From: ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Nur Iskandar Taib)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Brewster Buffalo (was: draft)
Message-ID: <1990Dec17.043326.23633@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 17 Dec 90 04:33:26 GMT
References: <1990Dec6.021948.19031@cbnews.att.com> <1990Dec11.014719.25687@cbnews.att.com> <1990Dec13.033543.19538@cbnews.att.com>
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From: ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Nur Iskandar Taib)
>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.


The German term was "expert". I'm not sure
whether there was a minimum number of kills
required for achieving expert status, but 
the number of kills achieved was important 
to ones' standing. In a two ship "rotte", 
the leader would be the one with more kills 
to his credit. So you'd see interesting peck-
ing orders in the air. Geschwader and staffel 
commanders often flew as wingmen to pilots 
with lesser rank. Officers often flew as 
wingmen to sergeants. The German system for 
confirming kills was supposedly every bit 
as stringent as anyone elses'. The main rea-
son they (and Japanese) experts racked up 
huge scores was due to their having to fly 
until the war was over or they got killed, 
whichever came first. Most were shot down 
multiple times (Galland was shot down twice 
in one day, but scored three kills). Ameri-
can fighter pilots (at least in Europe) were
transferred home after 200 combat flying 
hours, British aces were simply promoted to 
desk jobs after a year or three of combat. 
German airmen (at least on the Eastern front) 
mostly flew tactical support of ground troops
(or interdiction of the Russian counterpart) 
and thus flew sorties continuously. British
and American airmen rarely flew this inten-
sively. 




-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iskandar Taib                        | The only thing worse than Peach ala
Internet: NTAIB@AQUA.UCS.INDIANA.EDU |    Frog is Frog ala Peach
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