How did these pilots achieve so many aerial victories? Were the Soviets they were flying against that shitty?

Last I checked most of Eric Hartmann's kills were obsolete LaGG-3s, all the way to the end of the war when Russia had much more modern and competitive fighter aircraft, just pointing that out.
I find Adolf Galland and Hans Joachim-Marseille to be much more impressive tbqh.

Superior airforce. Faster craft, better guns, more experience, better men, better management, etc.

Each of them separately gives slight edge. Combined gives overwhelming advantage.

Lack of pilots. Luftwaffe pilots were forced to fly till death, thus producing high-scoring aces.

Other than that air force was a new thing to soviets and they didn't knew what to do with it.

Their airforce adapted fairly well, I'd say. Especially thanks to Pokryshkin reforming the training in the Soviet Airforce and with the introduction of the newer Lavochkins and Yaks.
I recall reading an excerpt from a German pilot about how Soviet pilots were much more horrifying in squads rather than alone, I might find it in a minute.

Found it, General Schwabedissen:
>Soviet fighter pilots showed poor adaptability to new conditions of aerial combat, but were daring to reckless, which at times led to ramming attacks. As an individual fighter, the Soviet pilot was often insufficiently self confident. Fighting in a group, he was just the opposite, a serious opponent. The shortcomings of the average Soviet flyer can be explained not so much by features of character as by inadequate combat experience and poor training, which created feelings of insecurity. In fact, high-quality pilots were a rarity, but those who were high quality were practically as good as the best German fighter pilots.
And later on in the war he states:
>In the fall of 1943, in the air a balance of forces was reached: The numerical superiority of Soviet aviation was compensated for by the qualitative advantage of the Luftwaffe. From that moment the Germans were able to provide only local dominance in the air through concentration of their forces during a limited period of time.
As a previous user mentioned about 1943 Soviet air superiority.

youtube.com/watch?v=OVqL6TcXM6E

I'd say this statement describes average Soviet pilots best, though:
>Soviet airmen of individual fighting qualities, extremely necessary in aerial combat. Primitive and often even blind following of the concepts of group combat made him passive in individual combat and, as a consequence, a less aggressive and persistent fighter than his German opponent. The suppression of individuality in favor of collective solidarity of group combat, which involved some social courage and tenacity, undoubtedly led to the loss of personal initiative in fighter pilots. Among men who are accustomed to act and think like everyone, there is the lack of mental flexibility very necessary for a true fighter pilot. For this reason Russian pilots conducted themselves well as a team but were lost when acting alone.

>What is Vyzama?
>What is Jassny-Kishniev?
>What is Yelnya?
>What is user having any idea what he's talking about?

>What is a sub-battle within the Battle of Moscow?
>What are two battles where the Soviets outnumbered the Germans?
>What is user having any idea what he's talking about?

>Russians are bad at war and always get lucky
I'm not surprised

>He unironically believes Kraut kill claims

>>What is a sub-battle within the Battle of Moscow?
It's not, it's completely separate from Typhoon.
>What are two battles where the Soviets outnumbered the Germans?
Since we're tlaking about Soviet victories, we're talking about 2nd, and that had the Soviets field 1,314,200 men, and the Axis field about 1.7 million men.

So please shut the fuck up until you have some idea what you're talking about.

I didn't say that. I said the Soviets, man-for-man, were not effective in WWII. Don't put words in my mouth.

>He unironically believes only the Germans inflated kill claims

>Vyazma and Bryansk weren't part of Typhoon
wat

As for Jassny-Kishniev, I've read that it was 1.2 million Axis troops against 1.3 million Soviet troops (basically the same as your number). Where are you getting the 1.7 million Axis troop figure?

>wat
First off, I never mentioned Bryansk. Secondly, yes, it wasn't. Typhoon ended with the collapse of the German advance, and the Soviet counterattacks in January were well after that.

>As for Jassny-Kishniev, I've read that it was 1.2 million Axis troops against 1.3 million Soviet troops (basically the same as your number). Where are you getting the 1.7 million Axis troop figure?
From looking at the wikipedia page (like you did) and having the brainpower to add in both Heersgruppe Sud AND the Romanians.

While the Germans had a ´fly until die´ order, many allied pilots could simply go home after 25 missions and were replaced by new trained.

Hartmann f.e. had to fly 825 missions, only attacked when he was sure for the kill and never turned in a dogfight

Oh derp, I see it now. Thanks user.

Germany was fighting everyone in Europe + America and Canada

lots of enemies, plus they had a system of fly till you die

The air combat on the Eastern Front was also more conducive to getting a lot of kills. You had frequent small skirmishes at low altitude where a good pilot can get in, get some kills, and get out. Individual pilot skill and situational awareness was magnified.

On the Western Front, you had massive air battles between hundreds of fighters attacking and defending bomber formations. No matter how good you are, you are going to run out of energy trying to take on a superior number of fighters at high altitude. American pilots could and did chase German pilots from 7000 meters all the way down to the deck, all while another flight was perched to make another run if the first one failed.

Not a few 100+ kill eastern front aces were transferred to the western front and killed/shot down within a few months.

so what you are saying is that BIG DICK AMERICANS put puny germans in their place and were superior fighters :)

americans > germans > russians

well, you know, war isnt special snowflake 1v1 arena duel

It just means the Americans employed a strategy that allowed them to use their numerical advantage in the air to better effect than the Soviets.

German pilots could pick and choose fights on the eastern front, since they usually fly at a higher altitude compared to the Soviets. The Soviet fighters weren't as good at high altitude, and they had to fly lower to the ground because the CAS they were escorting had to fly low to the ground. German pilots could use their perch position to engage with higher speed, engage from a better angle (from behind/out of the sun, etc), or not engage at all if the odds are overwhelming.

The Americans and their heavy bombers start at high altitude themselves, and not intercepting the bombers wasn't an option. The German people in their cities can't look up at the sky and only see Allied contrails, that would absolutely destroy homefront morale. When the Americans started doing fighter sweeps, the Germans faced the problem of engaging an opponent that had the altitude advantage. If they send the 109s up in time to meet the Mustangs, they will be out of fuel by the time the bombers arrive. If they send the 109's up later, they will have to climb into the Mustangs, which is an extremely disadvantageous situation. The extremely long range of the P-51 allowed them to essentially sit on top of German airfields and prevent Luftwaffe fighters from forming up at all.

Germans are Superior.

The red army was very short on the much needed air personel,which was strongly affected by Stalins purges.most of the Soviet "pilots" only had 10~12 flight hours as practice using unarmed aircraft to train.and the Germans also faked numbers

More like Americans were better at Air strategy and later tactics more than anything else.