Talk:Manfred von Richthofen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:
Archive
Archives


Contents

[edit] Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen

Along with the establishment of the Weimar Republic (Weimar constitution, article 109(2)[1] Adelsbezeichnungen gelten nur als Teil des Namens und dürfen nicht mehr verliehen werden. - Noble titles form part of the name only; noble titles may not be granted any more.[2] ) hereditary titles became part of the surname so his full legal name was Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen thenafter. Article 109 remains the only article of the Weimar Constitition still valid in Germany. - Because Albrecht as second christian name was missing, I did change the shown name to 'Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen'. --Oldnag85 (talk) 16:54, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Since he died before the Weimar Republic existed, I can't see how it is relevant to the name that he was known by in life. Grant | Talk 22:00, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Good argument, but though he died before that date, due to his inherited nobility his full written name is as mentioned above. You would have called him Baron because of his title. In direct speech there was no Freiherr - Freiherr would have been pronounced Baron, due to custom. --Oldnag85 (talk) 22:17, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there a relevant WP policy which states that we should use present day legal names in biographies, rather that the historically accurate name? Grant | Talk 22:27, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't no about WP policy about that. If he was of real nobility, what I asume, his full name is as mentioned above even before WW1. That was and is German law. And local law doesn't care about WP policy. If you don't believe it, read it up, I did so! --Oldnag85 (talk) 22:35, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reference requests

I have reverted some edits made by an unregistered "editor" most (or all) of whose edits to date, when I went to have a look at them, have been mischievous or unconstructive if not downright vandalistic. I have in this case nonetheless "assumed good faith" and addressed his implied questions so far as this was possibly justifiable.Soundofmusicals (talk) 09:35, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I concur that the issues raised seemed specious but your additional referencing appears to satisfy any concerns. FWIW Bzuk (talk) 12:02, 8 March 2008 (UTC).

[edit] Probability

I doubt if the bit about the "probability" of R's score was ever meant to be taken seriously - on the same grounds anyone could stand on a baseball plate and hit 80 successive home runs if he only stood there long enough!! Soundofmusicals (talk) 03:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

It is serious. The article Theory of Aces: High Score by Skill or Luck? is published in The Journal of Mathematical Sociology, a peer reviewed journal. The article is also citied in Scientific American's article Was the Red Baron Just Lucky?. Can you cite an article that supports your point of view? If not, can we agree not to enter into an edit war and reinstate your deletion?--Work permit (talk) 06:31, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Let's take this seriously for a moment then. Mathematical sociology (in other words applied statistics) can tell us quite a lot about people en masse - or groups of people. It can really tell us nothing whatever about any particular individual person. For instance, we can say that the life expectancy in a given community is 50 - but there will be lots of people who will die much younger than 50 - or live much longer. Nor does the article, as reported in the Scientific American, claim to tell us anything specifically about the Red Baron. The conclusion it draws is that it is reasonably likely - given the number of air aces in WW1, and the number of their victims, that someone would get to 80 victories, and it is thus fairly unremarkable that someone did. So what? And what connection has this with Richthofen anyway? There were at least two Allied aces with victory counts in the seventies - wouldn't the Journal of Mathematical Sociology's article apply (or fail to apply) just as forcibly to them? The Red Baron gets a mention in the article NOT because the statistics have anything specifically to do with him, but because he is the most famous ace - and statistically the most likely one to occur to anyone looking for an example. I just don't see the career of any particular fighter pilot (or any other person whatsoever, except perhaps a professional gambler) having this kind of connection with statistical analysis. Soundofmusicals (talk) 11:41, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
It can really tell us nothing whatever about any particular individual person. For instance, we can say that the life expectancy in a given community is 50 - but there will be lots of people who will die much younger than 50 - or live much longer. It tells us about the mean AND the variation, and the statistical liklihood of outliers.--Work permit (talk) 19:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The conclusion it draws is that it is reasonably likely - given the number of air aces in WW1, and the number of their victims, that someone would get to 80 victories, and it is thus fairly unremarkable that someone did. So what? And what connection has this with Richthofen anyway? In particular, Manfred von Richthofen most likely had an intrinsic defeat rate of 2.5%. According to the distribution of intrinsic defeat rates derived in the article, about 27% of German pilots have the defeat rate of 2.5% or lower. This means that MvR is most likely merely in top 27% according to his skill.--Work permit (talk) 19:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
There were at least two Allied aces with victory counts in the seventies - wouldn't the Journal of Mathematical Sociology's article apply (or fail to apply) just as forcibly to them? The analysis in the article is on the statistics of German Aces, because the German scoring system was the cleanest scoring system. During WWI British Empire Air Force fully credited its pilots for moral victories (For example, forcing the enemy aircraft to land within enemy lines, driving it down ‘‘out of control’’, or driving it down in damaged condition). In addition, British Air Force fully credited its pilots for shared victories. That is, if for example, three British airplanes shot one German airplane, all three were credited with a victory. The French did not count moral victories but allowed for shared ones. The Americans were either under French or British command and had the corresponding rules applied to them. In contrast, the Germans had ideal scoring system. They did not count moral victories. The opponent aircraft had to be either destroyed or forced to lend on German territory and its crew taken prisoners.--Work permit (talk) 19:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I just don't see the career of any particular fighter pilot (or any other person whatsoever, except perhaps a professional gambler) having this kind of connection with statistical analysis. The subfield is about the analysis of high achievers and their intrinsic skill vs luck. This article is specifically about MvR and his skill measured against his contemporaries--Work permit (talk) 19:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm citing a peer reviewed article that analyzes Manfred von Richthofen within the context of his peers. Certainly this deserves mention. Is there some rewording of my orginal entry that would work? ''A study published in the Journal of Mathematical Sociology claims that much of Richthofen's success could be explained by luck.[1]. German records list 2,894 WWI fighter pilots, who together scored 6,759 victories and only 810 defeats. The authors used the numbers to analyze the pilots' chance of being shot down after each flight. That rate started off at 25 percent for the first flight, and then fell sharply. By the 10th flight it had leveled off below 5 percent, consistent with weaker pilots being picked off and the remaining aces having similar skills. At that rate, the researchers conclude that the odds of one in 2,894 pilots achieving an 80-win streak are about 30 percent. [2] --Work permit (talk) 19:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

The article, and the entire subfields, is about the analysis of high achievers and their intrinsic skill. That's the point - if you like. Richthofen is merely cited as an example - so at best the whole thing is pure trivia in this context. It could be equally applied, not only to Allied air aces, but to all high achievers. The "purity" of scores of the aces is another subject altogether - it is quite irrelevant to this argument, which could be equally applied to ANY other field of endeavour. The whole concept is very close to pure mathematics and, to belabour a dead horse, no particular relevance to any individual. It may have a place in the article on statistics??? Soundofmusicals (talk) 20:19, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

That's not what I said. I said the subfield is about the analysis of high achievers and their intrinsic skill vs luck. This article specifically analyzes MvR and his skill measured against his contemporaries. It analyszes him because of his great achievement of 80 kills. --Work permit (talk) 20:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Exactly! he is an example - the original article is only about him in the most tangental way! Incidentally - it IS precisely what you said, since I pasted it from your response - if it's not what you meant then that's fair enough. For me, you still haven't shown how the Journal of Mathematical Sociology has anything specifically to say about Richthofen. Forgive me for paraphrasing rather brutally, but this article seems to "prove" several things:

1. If you were a (fighter) pilot in WW1 there was a strong element of luck in merely surviving long enough to gain competence, much less exceptional skill. A lot of novice pilots were killed very quickly. (All too true, of course). Richthofen WAS lucky in serving his apprenticeship on the Eastern Front - where air fighting was much less intense - but then this sort of fact is not what the JOMS article is about.
2. The ratio between victories scored by German fighter pilots and recorded "defeats" of German (fighter?) pilots is very heavily weighted (the researchers themselves said "suspiciously" heavily weighted). I would have said ridiculously weighted - unless we ARE only looking at German fighter pilots - which in turn renders the statistics meaningless - since most "victories" were over reconnaissance and bomber pilots. (Who did incidentally score occasional victories, but not to anything like the same extent as the "experts".) Incidentally - a large proportion of Richthofen's victories were NOT over opposing single seat fighters but over "opponents" like the B.E.2 and R.E.8 (the same kind of thing could be said for most ace pilots, to be fair).
3. Based on this (admittedly suspicious) ratio, and the total number of German (fighter ?) pilots 80 victories is not really that unlikely. Being not that unlikely, it can be attributed as much to luck as skill. (???)

I repeat - So what, and how would you justify including all this in an article on Richthofen? IT ISN'T specifcally about him at all - in fact the only data relating to him is his official score (i.e. the number 80).

Soundofmusicals (talk) 21:33, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you are reading this from the article. Have you purchased it? I have. I don't find the words suspiciously anywhere in the article. The article simply sets up a mathematical framework to study skill vs luck for German fighter pilots. It them applies this framework to the fighter pilots in general, and MvR specifically. To quote the abstract We find that the variance of this skill distribution is not very large, and that the top aces achieved their victory scores mostly by luck. For example, the ace of aces, Manfred von Richthofen, most likely had a skill in the top quarter of the active WWI German fighter pilots and was no more special than that. This conclusion I think is relevant to MvR.--Work permit (talk) 21:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I have only read the Scientific American report of the article, and am assuming that this is a fair summary of the argument - so you may have me there. My main response is - assuming the statistics, (which are actually highly questionable) are 100% accurate what can be meaningfully drawn from them about R. himself? Any high achievement obviously has a luck factor - but just how relevant is this to a meaningful assessment of an individual achievement? Just as a life expectancy of (say) 35 in late eighteenth century Austria (this is a hypothetical guess incidentally) would tells us nothing material about the death of Beethoven - the chances of a WW1 fighter pilot reaching a particular score tell us nothing about the score of Richthofen - and even less about anything else about him. Soundofmusicals (talk) 22:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Not sure the Beethoven analogy is relevant, since beethoven is known for his music, not his age. A better analogy is your home run hitting one. Statistics would say that someone hitting 80 home runs in a row is truely remarkable. While MvR's achievement is great, is it statistically remarkable? Can we say with statistical certainty that he was more skilled then Ernst Udet, Werner Junck, Max Immelmann, or Kurt Wissemann?--Work permit (talk) 22:57, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
No analogy is perfect of course - the point is that statistics prove nothing about individuals. Responsibly applied statistics don't try to prove anything about individuals. Richthofen is "known" by "lay" people (non-WW1 enthusiasts) because he flew a red plane and achieved 80 credited victories (a lovely round number, and more than anyone else). And, let me add - because he caught the imagination of the creator of the "Peanuts" characters!!! He was also the subject of a great deal of wartime propaganda, which went down very well with the German populace - and made him unusually well known among his opponents also. His achievements, as viewed by enthusiasts, lie more in his record as one of the great fighter leaders (he was THE pioneer of fighter "wing" tactics) than the actual number of his victories. It is probably true enough that he did have a fair bit of luck - including very bad luck in the way he died - basically from an single extreme range hit from a ground based Vickers gun. Statistical analysis however can't say anything meaningful about how much luck and how much skill - only the unremarkable fact that it wasn't that unlikely that someone would get to 80 victories... well, doh? so what? The reasons for fame - both ephemeral and lasting, are indeed VERY capricious. This is a fair enough conclusion - but one that is far from being specifically relevant to Richthofen!! It could no doubt be said with equal justification for 90% of the people mentioned in Wikipedia!!! Soundofmusicals (talk) 23:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Requesting third opinion

I am requesting a third opinion. User:Soundofmusicals is in (amicable) dispute with me over the inclusion of the following paragraph in the article about Richthofen

''A study published in the Journal of Mathematical Sociology claims that much of Richthofen's success could be explained by luck.[1]. German records list 2,894 WWI fighter pilots, who together scored 6,759 victories and only 810 defeats. The authors used the numbers to analyze the pilots' chance of being shot down after each flight. That rate started off at 25 percent for the first flight, and then fell sharply. By the 10th flight it had leveled off below 5 percent, consistent with weaker pilots being picked off and the remaining aces having similar skills. At that rate, the researchers conclude that the odds of one in 2,894 pilots achieving an 80-win streak are about 30 percent. [2]

The analysis is from the article Theory of Aces: High Score by Skill or Luck? which is published in The Journal of Mathematical Sociology, a peer reviewed journal. The article is citied by Scientific American Was the Red Baron Just Lucky?. I feel the conclusions are relevant to an article about Richthofen, User:Soundofmusicals feels they are not--Work permit (talk) 20:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you consider this dispute "amicable" - it certainly is from this side! Yes, I'd like to see what some of the other WW1 aviation "fans" think - not to mention any mathematicians out there! Soundofmusicals (talk) 21:44, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Basically, I appreciate the discussion points that have been raised as to the theory that was proposed and considering the contentious nature of an esoteric theory being introduced, the comportment of both editors is admirable. As to the validity of introducing this statement, essentially, the concern I have is that the theory being forwarded is applicable to fighter pilots in general and although World War I combat veterans are the focus, the example of Manfred von Richtofen cannot be considered valid without a comprehensive analysis of individual combats. If I was to make a decision as to its retention as a key component of the life and legacy of Richtofen, the theory has to be considered peripheral. The passage is best suited to an article on fighter pilots rather than Manfred von Richtofen. FWiW, further elaboration may be required as this is not a summary judgment but merely an initial impression. Bzuk (talk) 02:24, 5 May 2008 (UTC).
  • Yes, it's good to see a debate being conducted both amicably and forcefully. I think the World_sport_context section of Don Bradman's article is instructive here. It makes a strong case that Bradman was a uniquely successful player in the context of all major ball sports. It compares him to great players in other sports such as Pelé, Ty Cobb, Jack Nicklaus, and Michael Jordan, noting that none of their statistics were remotely as exceptional. Looking at the articles for those players, not one of them notes that although they were (perhaps) the best player of their sport, they were not as exceptional as Bradman. From this I conclude that we tend to only include such statistical background when it adds to the uniqueness of that individual's record, not when it might be might make them seem less exceptional in a broader context. This suggests that omitting such contextual information from the Red Baron's article would not be unusual. Personally I think it's an interesting (though not entirely surprising) detail, but as a statistician I'm probably not a typical reader. -- Avenue (talk) 04:12, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • The problem with Simkin & Roychowdhury's theory, as reported by Scientific American, is it downplays the fact that surviving, as long as Richthofen did, was more than a matter of luck. Clearly, a major successful fighter pilot is not only one who shoots down enemy aircraft; he/she is also good at avoiding being killed. Grant | Talk 04:15, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
The Scientific American article oversimplifies Simkin & Roychowdhury's analysis. They also found that Manfred von Richthofen most likely had an intrinsic defeat rate of 2.5%. According to the distribution of intrinsic defeat rates derived in the article, about 27% of German pilots had a defeat rate of 2.5% or lower. This means that MvR is most likely merely in top 27% according to his skill. --Work permit (talk) 19:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
  • [Came here from 3rd opinion] It's a lot to base on only a single article, analyzing only a single aspect of the question (mathematical statistics). If that's all there is, I would prefer to see only a couple of sentences, referring the reader to an interesting external link. If there is more discussion about this, I would like to see it based on reference to both the popular Scientific American article and the original study. Ideally it would at least mention limitations that the original authors might discuss, and it may mention any positive or negative published responses to the article. But this is interesting and potentially significant, so it should be included in some form. Regards, and thanks for keeping it clean, folks. —Michael Z. 2008-05-09 07:28 z
  • Its no doubt an interesting theory and makes fascinating reading, but surely belongs more in an article on the general topic of 'acedom' or what makes an 'ace'; concepts like 'situation awareness' etc, can then be included in a collective way, and a reference taken from the von R entry here, which strictly speaking should be about the man and his career etc. Just me thoughts...Harryurz (talk) 10:00, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] date of birth?

whts the dob of red borron?plz reply at earliest —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.162.55.150 (talk) 05:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

plz rd 1st sence of articl Soundofmusicals (talk) 09:19, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Richthofen's "poor judgement".

This is described in detail - and referenced - so why change the heading I have no idea. I have further edited the heading so it once more makes some kind of sense. A trivial point either way perhaps - but it really needs to be reverted to the original (clearer, more descriptive) form. Soundofmusicals (talk) 02:48, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Timing of his head injury

The section Richthofen wounded in combat Says he was wounded in July 1917, but later, under Theories about Richthofen's last combat (2nd paragraph) it says this happened in June 1917. Does anyone know which is right? --MiguelMunoz (talk) 02:22, 17 May 2008 (UTC)