Historians Hans Ring and Christopher Shores also point to the fact that Marseille's promotions were based on personal success rates more than any other reason, and other pilots did not get to score air victories, let alone become "Experten" themselves. They flew support as the "maestro showed them how it was done", and often "held back from attacking enemy aircraft to build his score still higher". As a result there were no other "Experten" to step into Marseille's shoes if he was killed.