[cdhais1986]

Hypothetically, do you think that if the men from the Jastas of WWI, Von Richthofen in particular- would have had similar success had they not served in WWI, but rather in WW2 flying FW-190 and Bf-109s?

 

[GunnerSam]

Hypothetically, do you think that if the men from the Jastas of WWI, Von Richthofen in particular- would have had similar success had they not served in WWI, but rather in WW2 flying FW-190 and Bf-109s?

Probably would have. They basically invented the arts of aerial combat and proved themselves to be inovative and quick learners. They either learned quickly or didn't live long.

Their dogfighting techniques of course weren't directly adaptable to the faster moving fighters of WW2 but the basic tactics remained the same.

The Japanese fighter pilots used WW1 style dogfighting techniques and tactics early on, partly due to lack of reliable radios. Often only the Japanese squadron leader had a radio, the squadron would use the same methods Calvary assaults had used. Each fighter knew where he was supposed to be and when and where to reform after a melee. Hand signals were also used.

 

[nb.nagantsniper]

a quote (close i hope ).............its the man, not the machine , which decides the outcome in most dogfights........

para phrased from the baron himself ..........

 

[thebohunk]

Hard telling. I know it's a hypothetical question, but wouldn't that later technology be more dangerous? Like putting a toddler behind the wheel of a Corvette? Ok, that's a bad analogy, as we know the greats like Richtofen would have adapted quickly. But I think it's entirely possible that a WW1 ace may not have been able to hold his own against a WW2 rookie.

 

[Calgacus]

Nobody without some experience and training in the conditions which will actually apply, has all that much of a chance. But I think it would take very little for the man with superior ability to turn out superior.

None of the western allies in the Second World War were submitted to the losses which selected those First World War pilots who lasted, and they had to deal with nothing like the dangers of the machinery itself. We know about the high mortality rate in first solo flights in the Sopwith Camel, but the Fokker Triplane, with a similar rotary engine and distribution of weight and wing area, must have had dangers of which we know little. Many aircraft had constraints of speed and dive angle which could produce a breakup, or failures of engine management which could cause it to stop, and both could be forgotten in the heat of combat. While slower, the turning circle of aircraft was extremely tight, and manoeuvres were often made at a tenth the distance from the enemy they would later be. So the required reaction times were at least as fast. Vision was entirely through goggles, in aircraft which sprayed oil. A lot wasn't known about the detection and removal of men unfit to fly, due to stress, poor health or temperamental difficulties (if you can separate them), so a pilot was very much on his own. I'm sure they were just as good as highly experienced Second World War pilots.

 

[Flat Springs]

Richtofen was an examplary tactician in the air. Some of the dog-fighting basics were developed during his period- come in from high, out of the Sun, is a good example. Another is the "sine wave" attack pattern, which required the first basic- an attack from above your target's elevation...

If Richtofen could have had time to train with a WW II fighter, I'm almost certain that he still would have been one of the top aces of that war- because of his tactical abilities.

All conjecture ,of course.

-Flat Springs

 

[GunnerSam]

Of the WW1 Aces that survived the war few were still young enough to fly in WW2, but there are some who continued to make a name for themselves.
Eddie Rickenbacker went on to become a General
Ernst Udet developed the Dive Bombers the Germans used so well early in the war.
Herman Goering of course became the top dog in Hitler's Air Forces.

I'm sure there were others.

Also a number of the Aces of WW2 had gotten their wings while the biplane was still the state of the art in aerial combat.
Also the primary trainers were still biplanes early on. To master the WW2 fighters they first had to learn to fly aircraft not much different than the fighters of WW1.


Heres an online book by Rickenbacker
http://www.richthofen.com/rickenbacker/


PS
I found this short list of German WW1 fighter pilots that flew successfully in WW2

Major Dr. Albrecht Ochs - WW1 1 Victory, WW2 5 Victories
Major Dr. Erich Mix - WW1 3 Victories, WW2 13 Victories
Generalmajor Theodor Osterkamp - WW1 32 Victories, WW2 6 Victories
Oberst Harry von Bülow-Bothkamp - WW1 6 Victories, WW2 18 Victories
Oberstleutnant Alfred Mueller - WW1 2 Victories, WW2 3 Victories
Major Gerhard Hubrich - WW1 12 Victories, WW2 2 Victories
__________________

 

[Mike In memoriam]

Not sure excactly what you are getting at.

My take is that the same type of guys would have excelled.
Leftover old men could not have competed real well. It is a young man's occupation.

Highly motivated, skilled risk takers with the ability to master equipment and technology.
Those are the guys required to do this stuff when the time comes.

 

[Calgacus]

Richthofen had the reputation of being a tactician and extremely good shot, but not a particularly good pilot. He had quite a bit of trouble qualifying as a pilot at all. He wasn't a personally popular person, except when the newspapers started telling people to like him. Having a silver cup made for each aircraft he shot down seems pretty disturbed to me.

Von Richthofen's brother Lothar was given command of the jasta after his death, but proved a disappointment as a commander. (In fact he was probably a pretty uninspiring luftflotte commander in the Battle of Britain.) He was succeeded in turn by Hermann Goering, who in this as many other things, is an odd case. He had been a successful fighter pilot, but after attaining command never scored another victory. He seems to have realised that his real job was the encouragement and development of his men, whom he pushed in the direction of opportunities he could have taken for himself. Perhaps he was vain only on trivialities.

Udet seems to have been very popular among foreign pilots and aviation enthusiasts. Although personally viceless (apart from philandering and alcohol), he seems to have flirted with the Nazis for the opportunities it brought to influence aviation. Eventually he shot himself, and it has been suggested that it was because he realised he had got himself into something nasty. Being pushed out of leading aviation circles by them may have played its part, as Goering made some attempts to blame the Battle of Britain on him.

There were a very few ex-First World War reservists in the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, but it was very exceptional, and probably ended as soon as they stopped being desperate for pilots. A lot more, including at least one one-armed man as well as women, flew aircraft deliveries with the Air Transport Auxiliary. No doubt the technology of the First World War did allow for a few instinctive pilots who wouldn't have been up to the technical processes of navigation, for example. But I think they would be a small minority. They hadn't really discovered that few men over thirty ought to be flying fighters, which was well known by the Second World War. Quite a lot of fighter pilots are older now, which might argue a need for more education, and less unaided human reaction and sensory acuity.

 

[Clyde]

Successful fighter pilots bascially had a "killer instinct", a willigness to hunt and kill others and the discipline to take the good shots and pass the others.

If you read the personal accounts (in books by them or in compilations of after-action debriefings), there is a sameness from both wars. Maintain situational awareness. See the enemy first. Get in close and fire short, controlled accurate bursts. Don't re-engage - make your attack and then go for the next one. The folks who survived to develop this pattern made a lot of kills. The others - didn't...

Now if you somehow had a time machine and pulled Rittmeister Manfred Freiherr von Richtofen out of his Fokker in 1918 and dropped him into a Bf-109 or FW-190 with no training or familiarization., and sent jim into combat, he'd probably die in short order. By crashing the unfamiliar airplane or at the hands of an opposition driver who WAS familiar with the bird and conditions. But - give him a reasonable amount of training (say that given other pilots - Erich Hartmann-level, perhaps, much less Galland or his contemporaries who entered the Luftwaffe pre-war, even pre-Condor Legion) and von Richtofen or Immelmann or Voss (to name just a trio) would almost certainly ahve done very well indeed.

Theo Osterkamp offers an idea of how a surviving WWI fighter pilot would do in the Second War. Not up to it in action anymore, just the loss of reflex speed from age takes him out of being an effective single-seat driver. Make him a leader who didn't have to try and also fight and make use of his talents of leadership.

 

[Gunsel]

In the US we had pilots who began flying Stearmans in Basic Flight in WW11,and finished that war in the best aircraft (at that time) that we had.
Five years later many of them were in Korea flying Mustangs,B-26s,B-29s, and Corsairs before transitioning to whatever jets their respective service was using.
In another fifteen years many of these same pilots were flying more modern aircraft plus B-52s in Southeast Asia.
With very few exceptions these men had remained on active duty or active reserve and consequently never fell behind the curve in either physical abilities or mental acumen and were still able to compete in flying skill with the younger pilots.
A few years ago I was fortunate enough to spend a week fishing with one of these "three war pilots" and it was not only fun but educational.Thanks, Col.Paar

 

[Calgacus]

It seems quite common now for pilots to fly jet fighters at a greater age than most fighter pilots in the Second World War. This may reflect the greater amount of technical training needed, as well as the fact that modern air combat takes place at greater distances, with onboard radar and various automatic warning devices. Demands on visual alertness aren't what they used to be.

But the examples given here are of people who transferred to duties which, although demanding on knowledge, rely far less on reaction and sensory acuity than first-line fighter combat.

Of course placing a First World War fighter in a Second World War fighter without extensive training is a situation that would never happen. I don't think doing things the other way around would work any better. Faced with an aircraft that is hard to turn in one direction, but will turn viciously, including into a spin, in the other, or with enemies who are happy to manoeuvre at distances close enough to see your face, would produce a high mortality rate in the more modern pilot.

 

[hairball II]

Probably would have. They basically invented the arts of aerial combat and proved themselves to be inovative and quick learners. They either learned quickly or didn't live long.

Their dogfighting techniques of course weren't directly adaptable to the faster moving fighters of WW2 but the basic tactics remained the same.

The Japanese fighter pilots used WW1 style dogfighting techniques and tactics early on, partly due to lack of reliable radios. Often only the Japanese squadron leader had a radio, the squadron would use the same methods Calvary assaults had used. Each fighter knew where he was supposed to be and when and where to reform after a melee. Hand signals were also used.

Many of the better WWI tactis were relevant in WWII, and are even the basis of fighter training worldwide to this day.

Some basic truisms of fighter combat are universal. That the likes of Richthofen and Goering and their teachers were able to learn, adaapt and teach sound tactics shows that they would have excelled in any war.

The Japanese, with their superior fighters, racked up great scores till American pilots used group tactics to take the initiative away from the Japanese. That those tactics were esentially a rehash of what the Germans used in WWI, and it helped the Americans till better aircraft came on line.

Comparing what aircraft the countries used is nebulous, at best. Using the Fokker Triplane is not good because the service life of the Tripe, like most planes of that era, was very short lived. One of the better, and more stabe and robust planes in WWI was the DVII Fokker, but Brits, French and later, American pilots were still able to beat the Germans.

Why? Because they adapted the universal lessons the Germans had realized during the war.

True, most allied pilots did not have to fight the length of time that the Axis pilots did, but then, training of allied pilots improved as the war went, and the Axis pilots got worse as time went on.

But to the point of the question, I belive that if Manfred and Max Immelman had fought in WWII, they would have been i the century club just like Hartman, Marseilles and Barkhorn. They had that universal attribute of fighters pilots.

 

[Mr Mondragon]

Hypothetically, do you think that if the men from the Jastas of WWI, Von Richthofen in particular- would have had similar success had they not served in WWI, but rather in WW2 flying FW-190 and Bf-109s?

hmmmm, would the Revolutionary war "Minute Man" or a Civil War, CSA soldier have been able to to storm the beaches of Normandy....probably.

 

[Calgacus]

Eventually. But I don't think anybody recruited in 1944 could possibly be considered fully usable Second World War combat infantry by that time, and 1942 would be a lot safer than 1943. At least as much need of training, or failing that the murderous natural selection inadequately trained First World War pilots suffered in their first few weeks, would be required for pilots. There were very few wartime-trained pilots in the Battle of Britain.

 

[Billofthenorth2]

If we look at some of the training aircraft and even some of the early fighters from the first years of WWII they are very similar to the WWI fighters. A lot of those guys quickly transitioned to the higher performance of the more modern aircraft and did well.
I would think their WWI forerunners would have had similar experiences.

If we look at some of the Vietnam era pilots, many of them learned to fly pre-WWII in small clumsy piper cubs and biplanes and 20 or 30 years later were flying F-4s, F-100s etc.

 

[Calgacus]

Power, in the WW2 era, could as easily keep a pilot out of trouble, as well as get him into it, as long as we aren't talking the minimal wings and control surfaces of some pre-war air racers. I recall a TV interview with an old lady who had flown about ninety aircraft types as a delivery pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary. Most of them reported the Spitfire as the real life-changing experience, different from all the others. But her favourite was the Hawker Typhoon, which she said would fly in any direction you pointed it.

I think she meant any direction a pilot could deliberately want to point it. But it is true that a lot of less powerful aircraft required more attention to the basic mechanics of staying airborne, not stalling, not causing material failure, etc. Those things govern how much attention a pilot can give to observation and combat.

 

[Sailor]

It is certain that Baron Manfred von Richthofen would have excelled in WW2 . Had he been born, say in 1913, he would have had better ordnance, been harder to knock down (ironically downed by a foot-soldier) and thus have had a better chance of surviving WW2. How well would Alvin York have done with a Garand rifle?

What we are talking about is not just the skill to excel, but the will, the heart of the warrior. The heart of the warrior is eternal.

 

[GunnerSam]

Eventually. But I don't think anybody recruited in 1944 could possibly be considered fully usable Second World War combat infantry by that time, and 1942 would be a lot safer than 1943. At least as much need of training, or failing that the murderous natural selection inadequately trained First World War pilots suffered in their first few weeks, would be required for pilots. There were very few wartime-trained pilots in the Battle of Britain.

The German had seasoned veterans of the Condor Legion who'd fought against Soviet fighters during the Spanish Civil War.

 

[Clyde]

The German had seasoned veterans of the Condor Legion who'd fought against Soviet fighters during the Spanish Civil War.

If you look at the numbers, things worked out pretty much the same in War Two as War One. If (and that was a pretty big "if") you survived your introduction to combat (this is more true for fighter than bomber drivers), you were likely to last a while. And if you made a kill, you were likely to make more. But much of the killing was done by a relatively few outstanding drivers, while the majority stooged around and kept people off the shooter's ass (they also serve who only act as cannon-fodder, perhaps).

Now - being good wasn't a guarantee of long-term survival - there were plenty of Kannonen who wound up dead or a Kriegie. The odds tended to eventually catch up, eh? Think Marseille, for example. Or Tom McGuire. Or Butch O'Hare. Or Nishizawa...