Slitherine

lordzimoa wrote:the famous yellow number 14 Messerschmitt is that of Hans-Joachim Marseille, the star of Afrika. The most talented pilot ever...

Many historians consider Marseille as the best pilot of all time.

Firstly Marseille used, while fighting, a lot of tricks, stunts and tactics and this way of flying has had much influence on other pilots. Also, many strategies devised by him, are still applied by modern air forces.

Secondly, Marseille destroyed most aircraft within one of the shortest period of time: in a career of only 18 months he took a total of 158 enemy planes. That equates to an average of almost 9 aircraft per month.

In Marseille`s best month he brought down 56 planes in one month. In this month was also Marseille`s best day: one day he destroyed 17 aircraft during 3 flights. It was during one of these flights, where he shot down 7 fighter planes in 5 minutes, an all time record. In average Marseille consumed only 15 bullets per shot plane, also a record.

Marseille is not the German pilot with the most victories since there are at least 29 pilots who shot down more. Yet, Marseille may be considered as one of the best pilots, since 154 of the 158 victories were made on single-engined fighters, who were technically equivalent to its own device. This compared to the 29 other pilots who usually fought against multi-engine bombers that were significantly slower and weaker.

Marseille also gained all his victories on British aircraft, while the 29 other German air heroes fought against the Russian Air Force who are less well trained pilots and aircraft were of lesser quality. Marseille also fought over Africa, an area because of drought and heat known as the hardest area to fly and fight.

lordzimoa wrote:We know that, but to me, he was the most talented and the reasons why:

- His young age
- The ratio of kills to sorties in such a short time, unsurpassed.
- The number of kills he managed to do per sortie and even stronger per ammunition supply, one shot one kill. If I recall he ones shot down seven fighters in one sortie, that meant one burst per fighter, one kill!
- He was self-thought and invented his own unique manoeuvres and tactics.
- His aerobatics and stunts
- He got all his kills on the Western front, related to my next point:
- The fact he got his kills mainly against British fellow much trained and talented fighters flying equal fighter-planes like the Spitfire, not shooting down squadrons of bombers, air-transports or outdated and relatively untrained fighters or pilots, etc...

lordzimoa wrote:No doubt Hartmann was also one of the greatest aces of WW2, with Rudel, Galland, Nowotny, Priller, Barkhorn, Kittel, Bär, Rall, Schnaufer... endless list.

It is indeed a personnel preference, anyway we tried to honour Marseille in our art piece, especially in the "Afrika Korps" spirit, and I believe we succeeded.