How good was the soviet air force?

[bf109xxl]

LaGG-3 / Batch 66 had fairly good combat outcomes, from what I've read. Yak-1B was also a good fighter.

Please demonstrate it with numbers.

M-82 was an excellent engine by world standards, and the I-185 and Su-6 look interesting on paper, they weren't used in the war so I don't see the point.

M-82 became a good engine rather in late 1943 (or even in 1944). So, you know nothing about the I-185/Su-6. The I-185 was tested on the front, both versions - with M-71 and M-82 - were found far superior to ALL fighters including the German ones on the front. Comprehensive tests of the Su-6 revealed its complete superiority over the IL-10 in all respects, the aircraft was recommended for mass production, and Sukhoi was awarded a state prize for it.

Whether or not all pilots used it as a dive bomber isn't really relevant to the overall merits of the design.

??? It was difficult to use Pe-2 as a dive bomber. That was the reason.

One of the features of the Pe-2 was that it was quite versatile, even in the heavy fighter / night fighter role as the Pe 3. But clearly some units were used as dive bombers and with particular success in that role.

All other roles except the level bomber one were rather negligible. "Some units" is absolutely insufficient for a plane initially designed as a dive bomber.

Pe-2 as a dive bomber was probably more accurate than the Ju-88.

Please demonstrate it with numbers. What was the typical bomb load for the Ju 88?

There is some truth in that the guns couldn't automatically knock out heavier tanks, but this tends to be very overstated. The assumption here seems to be that all German tanks were tigers, and all armored vehicles were large tanks. Many German tanks up to 1943 were fairly lightly armored, especially on the sides and rear, and most of the vehicles in an armored force were not in fact medium or heavy tanks. All armored vehicles in WW2 had relatively thin top armor. Or none.

The 37mm guns could only penetrate the armor of medium tanks from short ranges, which required special piloting experience. Even the most experienced pilots started firing from greater distances in tests - i.e., in the absence of anti-aircraft fire. The VYA cannons could only penetrate the upper armor, which required a stable dive at an angle of 30-40°, which Il could not do. The accuracy of cannon fire was extremely low, which was revealed already in the tests, and then confirmed at the front. Based on the operational results, it was recognized that aviation was the most inefficient instrument for fighting tanks. A very detailed description of attempts to use Ils against tanke can be found in a book by Rastrenin ("Attack aircraft (Shturmoviks) of The Red Army", 2008).The situation was corrected only by PTABs, which were really effective when used correctly.

Then lets remember that most of the forces in an armored German column would be much lighter armored and unarmored vehicles, like:
A dizzying array of light armored, open top halftracks (5.5-14.5mm armor)
A wide range of light armored cars (also often open topped) for example Sd.Kfz. 231 "acht rad" had 8-15mm armor.
Lightly armored, or unarmored self propelled AAA guns (always open topped), and

For this purpose it was not necessary to equip Il-2 with 37-mm cannons that significantly reduced its flight performance.

So basically all of the light armored vehicles, light tanks, self propelled artillery guns, halftracks, and AA guns in a German armored unit could be pretty much instantly killed by hits from the 23mm, let alone the 37mm gun.

Before you try to make any theory just read the studies based on documents. You can find there, how big was the probability to hit a vehicle using cannon. You will save a lot of time for both yourself and others. Only PTABs made possible to destroy German armored vehicles with non-zero efficiency.

Most medium tanks were still vulnerable on the sides, and even the heavy tanks and assault guns could get their wheels and tracks blown off by either of those guns, leaving them stranded and vulnerable (at which point the crew would often bail out).

I don't think those guns were useless against armor, and obviously the Soviet armed forces didn't either.

Who's interested in what you think? Your opinion should be substantiated with references to reliable sources. I referred to the study that cited the documents.

I-153s and I-16s played a similar role to Hs 123 (still in use at Stalingrad and and Kursk), and to many other light observation and CAS aircraft used by the Western forces all the way through WW2, and into Korea, Vietnam and in many other conflicts. That is a particular niche. The parasite I-16 fighters being used in Ploesti were an interesting experiment that was not repeated, largely due to the slow speed and vulnerability of the TB-3. It's a good story though.

The Cernavodă raid demonstrated the capabilities of the obsolete fighters as diving bombers/CAS aircraft. The Soviets underestimated it. They had even better candidate for this purpose - I-207.

Quite often Pe-2 dive bombers were used in this role. It was a long war involving many, many aircraft. For example:

This example demonstrates something quite contrary.

I'd cite this as proof of the dive bombing accuracy of the Pe-2. Four hits on a ship considerably smaller than an aircraft carrier from 11 dive bombers is excellent bombing accuracy in WW2. Few Stuka raids had superior accuracy to that.

Four hits after the suppression of the most of flaks (only two hits from the first wave with 11 Pe-2s, then two more from the next wave). And ZERO hits from 30(!!!!) Pe-2s from the first strike. It is rather absolutely disappointing result.

Whether the ship sank or not is kind of irrelevant to bombing accuracy. Larger armored warships usually required larger than 250 kg bombs, but four hits actually did some damage.

It just demonstrates that Pe-2 were not able to use large caliber bombs from dive!

b
They may have liked the A-20s, but they suffered very high losses with them. More than with the Pe-2s

Please demonstrate it with numbers..

Summary: you continue to spread misleading information that completely misrepresents the real situation of the Soviet Air Force.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

More than 130 aircraft for an obsolete AA cruiser?!!!! It sounds very funny, even more funny than 22 years old pilot-capitalist. You seem to consider the Baltic Fleet commanders to be complete idiots. But even if some admirals like Tributs deserved the most negative assessments, they were not that stupid. So, you know nothing about the hunting for Väinämöinen started in 1939. The Soviets were absolutely sure they sunk the Väinämöinen, some pilots were even awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for sinking of Väinämöinen and only later analysis revealed the mistake which was never denied by the Soviets themselves! It can be found in the Soviet documents, that the ship was erroneously identified. The Soviets had no idea about the Niobe - the even didn't know about it. All these facts are well known.

Similar mistakes in identifying ships were made by navies all over the world. 11 Pe-2 dive bombers making 4 hits on a ship that small (94 meters long by 14 meters beam) is excellent accuracy by WW2 standards. The other planes missing is by no means unusual by the same standards. The best dive bombers in the world during WW2 - SBD, D3A, and Ju 87, routinely missed in equivalent actions at the same scale. You can compare this mission to the air strikes by Ju 87s during Pedestal or any of the actions in the Pacific.

 

[bf109xxl]

Similar mistakes in identifying ships were made by navies all over the world. 11 Pe-2 dive bombers making 4 hits on a ship that small (94 meters long by 14 meters beam) is excellent accuracy by WW2 standards. The other planes missing is by no means unusual by the same standards. The best dive bombers in the world during WW2 - SBD, D3A, and Ju 87, routinely missed in equivalent actions at the same scale. You can compare this mission to the air strikes by Ju 87s during Pedestal or any of the actions in the Pacific.

23 Pe-2s, 4 hits, AA artillery suppressed by Il-2s - how frequently did Ju 87s have similar opportunities? How many capital ships (destroyer or larger) _in sea_ were sunk by Pe-2s from dive? Or even heavily damaged? I compared to the Ju 87. Could you? Can you describe the bombing procedure for the Pe-2? I can. That is the reason why I am so sceptic about Pe-2 capabilities as dive bomber. But I know single cases of direct bomb hits by Pe-2s into German armored vehicles. These accidental events do not give reason to draw any conclusions.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

M-82 became a good engine rather in late 1943 (or even in 1944). So, you know nothing about the I-185/Su-6. The I-185 was tested on the front, both versions - with M-71 and M-82 - were found far superior to ALL fighters including the German ones on the front. Comprehensive tests of the Su-6 revealed its complete superiority over the IL-10 in all respects, the aircraft was recommended for mass production, and Sukhoi was awarded a state prize for it.

I find this amusing. They produced precisely 4 x I-185, and 10 x I-180. They had a series of crashes with the prototypes, one of which killed a famous test pilot, Valery Chkalov on the I-180, and another pilot was killed flying the I-185..

They produced 3 x Su-6. Again, no effect on the outcome of the war. They basically cancelled it because of problems with the M-71 engine.

Personally I tend to agree that a single-engined dive bomber is a better answer for CAS missions than the slow heavily armed attack plane, but it's really off in the realm of theoretical and nothing to do with what actually happened during the war, as an assessment of the Soviet air forces real capabilities.

??? It was difficult to use Pe-2 as a dive bomber. That was the reason.

All other roles except the level bomber one were rather negligible. "Some units" is absolutely insufficient for a plane initially designed as a dive bomber.

Please demonstrate it with numbers. What was the typical bomb load for the Ju 88?

No, you misunderstand the nature of dive bombing. All dive bombers required special training in order to be effective. The closest thing to an exception was the Ju-87 because of it's automatic pull-out, but it too performed much better with experienced crews (compare outcomes from German vs Italian Ju-87 units). Dive bombing was a very challenging role for both pilot and aircraft.

The US SBD dive bomber had a very high lethality in the hands of the US navy (who knew it as "Slow But Deadly", but navy pilots had very good, and very long and intense training regiment. When they made the plane available to marines and (as the A-24) the Army air force, their accuracy went way down and their losses went way up.

The Ju 88, an excellent aircraft overall, was a considerably bigger aircraft than the Pe-2, but also less accurate as a dive bomber. More importantly to the discussion, the Germans found that the Ju-88 wings were taking a set during pull out from high-angle dives (and occasionally failing altogether, resulting in crashes), so they stopped using them as a true dive bomber and in many cases removed the dive brakes from those as well. Quoting from the Wiki:

"As a dive bomber, the Ju 88 was capable of pinpoint deliveries of heavy loads; however, despite all the modifications, dive bombing still proved too stressful for the airframe, and in 1943, tactics were changed so that bombs were delivered from a shallower, 45° diving angle."

The 45 degree, shallow dive bombing angle was similar to that used by fighter-bombers, and while better than level bombing, it was nowhere near the accuracy of the high-angle dive bombing.

The US A-36, a dive bomber variant of the P-51, also had to be taken out of service for the same reason.

Poor pilot training was a major problem for the Soviet armed forces in general, and the Soviet air forces in particular (and, lets be real, for many if not most Allied units in many Theaters during the first year to two years of the war depending on the specific region, and for many German and Japanese units in the last two years of the war, which tends to be forgotten in discussions about the Russian front especially), but the Pe-2 proved to be a remarkable aircraft with capabilities that were exceptional by the standards of the war. It was also continuously improved. It proved to be a very capable type, in the hands of a good pilot, which is about the best you can say for any WW2 aircraft. It's gradual replacement, the Tu-2 was apparently even better.

If you are claiming that most Pe-2 units removed their dive brakes or never performed dive bombing, enough that it invalidates the dive-bombing capabilities of the type, then please provide a list of all the Pe-2 units showing which ones were never used as dive bombers.

The 37mm guns could only penetrate the armor of medium tanks from short ranges, which required special piloting experience. Even the most experienced pilots started firing from greater distances in tests - i.e., in the absence of anti-aircraft fire. The VYA cannons could only penetrate the upper armor, which required a stable dive at an angle of 30-40°, which Il could not do. The accuracy of cannon fire was extremely low, which was revealed already in the tests, and then confirmed at the front. Based on the operational results, it was recognized that aviation was the most inefficient instrument for fighting tanks. A very detailed description of attempts to use Ils against tanke can be found in a book by Rastrenin ("Attack aircraft (Shturmoviks) of The Red Army", 2008).The situation was corrected only by PTABs, which were really effective when used correctly.

For this purpose it was not necessary to equip Il-2 with 37-mm cannons that significantly reduced its flight performance.

Before you try to make any theory just read the studies based on documents. You can find there, how big was the probability to hit a vehicle using cannon. You will save a lot of time for both yourself and others. Only PTABs made possible to destroy German armored vehicles with non-zero efficiency.

Who's interested in what you think? Your opinion should be substantiated with references to reliable sources. I referred to the study that cited the documents.

We have discussed and analyzed this exact study in great detail in other discussions on this forum. You can find this if you are really interested, we have experts on ballistics here who brought out a lot of useful data. I think you are a little bit too ready to dismiss the vulnerability of the large number of light-armored vehicles, including the earlier medium tanks and self propelled guns, to the basic 23mm gun. Larger tanks required bomb strikes or rockets, which were also used.

I'm personally I shudder to even consider what you are thinking. We don't know each other, speculation is fruitless (and to be honest, a little creepy). I'm only answering your post for the benefit of others reading the thread, but I do note that for someone who repeatedly insists on hard data, numbers and statistics, you rely on personal insults over and over.

The Cernavodă raid demonstrated the capabilities of the obsolete fighters as diving bombers/CAS aircraft. The Soviets underestimated it. They had even better candidate for this purpose - I-207.

And yet, the Soviets made very good use of I-153 and I-16 in this exact role, not just as (shallow angle) dive bombers but also attacking with rockets from as early as 1941.

The Italians used the CR.42 for a similar role in North Africa, (though they didn't have rockets). The Americans even put bazookas on the wings of L-4 "grasshoppers". The Japanese were using the KI-30 in a similar role.

This example demonstrates something quite contrary.

Four hits after the suppression of the most of flaks (only two hits from the first wave with 11 Pe-2s, then two more from the next wave). And ZERO hits from 30(!!!!) Pe-2s from the first strike. It is rather absolutely disappointing result.

It just demonstrates that Pe-2 were not able to use large caliber bombs from dive!

Please demonstrate it with numbers..

Summary: you continue to spread misleading information that completely misrepresents the real situation of the Soviet Air Force.

Ok well, let's cut through the BS, shall we?

Top level dive bombing accuracy is represented by the Japanese Aichi D3A dive bomber on 5 April 1942. 53 x D3A bombers attacked HMS Cornwall and hit HMS Dorsetshire 28 times, with 15 near misses. The Ju-87 was also very accurate, such as in January 1941 when 30 Stukas achieved six hits on the HMS Illustrious. The SBD was also extremely accurate. For example at Midway, 16 x SBDs from USS Yorktown attacked the IJN carrier Sōryū scoring 3 direct hits with 454 kg bombs.

The Ju-88, the closest comparable aircraft to the Pe-2 (one of the world's only other effective twin engined dive bombers) was much more hit and miss. Both figuratively and literally.

For example, during Operation Pedestal, one of the most important cnvoy battles in the Med, 3-15 August, 1942.

On Aug 13, 1942, 26 x Ju 88 attacked the fleet scoring one hit on SS Waimarama, and a near-miss on the Ohio.
Then 16 Ju-87 and 8 Bf 110 attacked, scoring no hits.
Later, on the seventh raid of the day, 35 x Ju 88 and 13 Ju 88 attacked 'force X', a group of RN warships. There were no hits, and one near miss on HMS Kenya.

These are by no means outlier examples.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

23 Pe-2s, 4 hits, AA artillery suppressed by Il-2s - how frequently did Ju 87s have similar opportunities? How many capital ships (destroyer or larger) _in sea_ were sunk by Pe-2s from dive? Or even heavily damaged? I compared to the Ju 87. Could you? Can you describe the bombing procedure for the Pe-2? I can. That is the reason why I am so sceptic about Pe-2 capabilities as dive bomber. But I know single cases of direct bomb hits by Pe-2s into German armored vehicles. These accidental events do not give reason to draw any conclusions.

Yes. Yes I can, though the Ju-87 is not a direct comparison. The Ju-87 was a very accurate dive bomber but it had a very low speed (60-70 mph less than a Pe-2, 80-90 mph less than a Tu-2), making it vulnerable to fighters, and in most variants, a very limited range.

The Ju 88, being also a two-engined bomber, albeit a good bit larger, is a more apt comparison to the Pe-2 and the Tu-2. And one key point of comparison is that unlike the Soviet planes, the Ju-88 had to be retired from it's role as a dive bomber because the airframe could not be made strong enough to tolerate the G forces during pull-out.

Both the Ju 87 and the Ju 88 had many opportunities to attack British fleets in the Mediterranean and around the coast of Norway, and in the Med for sure, did so routinely with heavy fighter cover and strafers like Bf 110s to suppress the AAA. The Ju 88 certainly did not exceed the Pe 2 for accuracy even when it was still being used for high-angle dive bombing.

As you know, the Pe-2 was never in any Theater where numerous Axis ships were underway at sea, and available to attack, so it is extremely disingenuous to draw a comparison of Pe-2s vs Ju 87 or Ju-88 against sea vessels. You could make a statistical analysis comparing the number of ships sunk, but that would be very misleading . And meaningless. But if you include the number of sorties against warships vs the number of hits and you'll get much more accurate results.

By the way, a destroyer is not a capital ship. That would be a battleship or an aircraft carrier, just FYI.

The lack of a true dive bomber that could survive the environment (enemy fighters and AAA) from 1943 onward was a big problem for the Germans, as the Ju 87 in particular, and the Ju 88 were crucial to many early victories, but were increasingly unable to operate, even with heavy fighter protection, without suffering heavy losses after mid 1943.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

As for the A-20, I don't disagree with the Soviets for liking it. It was an excellent fast bomber, an underrated aircraft at the beginning of the war, which was maybe saved by a French order. But it turned out to be an exceptional type in service not just for the Soviets, for the British in the Mediterranean, and for the Americans in the South Pacific.

It was very fast, early models at ~340-350 mph depending on the specific type and loadout, one of the fastest propeller bombers of the war until around 1944. Only the Mosquito and the A-26 were faster on the Allied side. They were short ranged, especially the early types, and carried a light bomb load (less than a Pe-2), and of course, were not dive bombers. Early models (to 1943) were lightly armed. But they were easy to fly, had excellent handling, reliable engines, good radios, and lent themselves well to heavy modification such as adding forward-firing guns for strafing.

Due to the speed and good handling, the A-20 could be used in low-level bombing attacks, though the British and Americans found that against the Germans it was too vulnerable to light AA.

The Soviets heavily modified their A-20s. They changed the guns to (better) Soviet machine guns, put in a navigator position, added Soviet made MV-3 turrets for defense, made trainer versions with an extra set of controls, and were the only air service to use them as torpedo bombers. By the way, the A-20 hits on Niobe were apparently with torpedoes, not skipped-bombs. The attack was a coordinated dive bomber / low level strike like was done so often in the Pacific.

They got good service from them. But yes, they did take heavy losses. For example, the 221st BAD, one of the first units to get A-20s, lost 46 of them in two months, flying 876 sorties. The 861 BAD was using the newer A-20Gs in the ground attack role but had to pull them out of service by Nov 1943, due to heavy losses.

This is a good article on the A-20 / DB-7 in Soviet service

The Douglas A-20 Havoc/Boston in Soviet Service

The A-20 Havoc/Boston twin-engine multi-role aircraft had a laudable service record in World War II. From its brief service with the French Armée de l’air before the Fall of France in 1940 th…

vvsairwar.com

Another article here

"Bostons" in USSR

This is an interview with a Soviet A-20 pilot which gets into the weeds

Interview with Hero of the Soviet Union Rostislav Sergeevich Demidov – Lend-Lease

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Guys, its ok so far, but lets not let it get snippy

 

[SaparotRob]

It's the best part.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

I'm honestly really tired of it.

 

[SaparotRob]

Don't give up now! Ya' got 'im on the ropes!

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

I guess the key is to get as much actual data into the discussion before it goes completely bonkers. But the pointless animosity is really tedious.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I guess the key is to get as much actual data into the discussion before it goes completely bonkers. But the pointless animosity is really tedious.

That or put black crosses on all the aircraft to make them equal.

 

[Jabberwocky]

There is some truth in that the guns couldn't automatically knock out heavier tanks, but this tends to be very overstated. The assumption here seems to be that all German tanks were tigers, and all armored vehicles were large tanks. Many German tanks up to 1943 were fairly lightly armored, especially on the sides and rear, and most of the vehicles in an armored force were not in fact medium or heavy tanks. All armored vehicles in WW2 had relatively thin top armor. Or none.

Not to mention that the vast majority of vehicles in a German armoured formation (or any armoured formation for that matter) weren't tanks at all.

For a late 1944 German armoured division, the table strength was 150-170 tanks, another 20-40 assault guns and about 10-20 heavy armoured recovery vehicles. Against this there were about 300 to 350 light armoured vehicles (both wheeled and tracked), 600 to 700 light motor vehicles, 1400-1600 trucks and another 500 or so miscelaneous vehicles.

An Il-2's light cannon isn't going to have much of a problem penetrating the armour of an armoured car, half track, self propelled artillery or any of the soft skinned vehicles.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Not to mention that the vast majority of vehicles in a German armoured formation (or any armoured formation for that matter) weren't tanks at all.

For a late 1944 German armoured division, the table strength was 150-170 tanks, another 20-40 assault guns and about 10-20 heavy armoured recovery vehicles. Against this there were about 300 to 350 light armoured vehicles (both wheeled and tracked), 600 to 700 light motor vehicles, 1400-1600 trucks and another 500 or so miscelaneous vehicles.

An Il-2's light cannon isn't going to have much of a problem penetrating the armour of an armoured car, half track, self propelled artillery or any of the soft skinned vehicles.

Right... that is exactly what I said upthread a bit.

 

[Stig1207]

I wouldn't be super surprised if Bergstrom was counting other losses, like crashes on takeoff etc., which is the kind of thing I've noticed in his books before.



Yeah I was kind of wondering if this kind of creativity was involved in the loss-count. This is actually a pretty big issue in assessing operational data of this type. Personally, I don't think repairability of an aircraft is really relevant. Some pretty seriously messed up planes were repaired, others which landed on their own power with relatively light damage were written off.

The ability to repair aircraft brings in a host of other issues unrelated to the amount of damage taken, or the ability of the aircraft to withstand it - such as the available repair facilities, number of mechanics, presence or lack of a dedicated repair depot and a system for recovering crashed aircraft (something the Desert Air Force did particularly well), availability of spare parts and engines etc., and whether they have to evacuate the field such as happened so often to the Germans from 1943 onward. You might have 10 or 15 aircraft sitting beside a runway which could be easily fixed, but which are burned or abandoned because the enemy tanks are coming.

Another statistic you can track is the number of pilots killed vs those who made it back to base the same day, made it back to base eventually, those who were injured but recovered, vs injured and were evacuated from the battle area, or died later etc. But here too it becomes a rabbit hole.

I think you need to have a relatively simple standard for measuring actual air combat victories, and it has to be consistently applied to both sides.

The standard I usually go by is if they landed under power at their own base, it may be 'damaged' but was not shot down. If they were forced by battle damage to land anywhere but at their base (or at an emergency / backup airfield under friendly control), then they have 'crash landed' and this is fair to count among the losses for their side, legitimate victories for the other. I usually count these separately.

From the point of view of a fighter pilot, winning an air to air victory just means that the enemy aircraft was damaged, and as a result of that damage was no longer able to fly. That is sufficient, IMO. But again the real important factor is that the same standard is applied to both sides consistently.

Aircraft which land at their own base but without power or so damaged that they are immediately written off are kind of an edge case which you can count separately.



You can always play with the numbers. In some of the examples in North Africa from 1942-1943, the Germans fighter pilots overclaimed on fighters as much as 7-1.

Rates of overclaiming fluctuate a lot. It was a problem everywhere. The general rule is that the more chaotic the fighting, and the more stressed the pilots, the more overclaiming there was. The Soviets did reduce their overclaiming rate as the war went on, whereas the German rates went up considerably in some areas.

We can easily agree that overclaiming occurred every where and the rates of overclaiming fluctuated a lot; German fighter pilots were certainly no exception, that is a well established fact, I haven't noted anyone telling you different.
Now if we stick to the Kuban in April '43 and VVS overclaiming, you continue to ignore the particularly excessive overclaiming against Bf 109s, 405 claimed in 3 weeks of air combat! 71 of those by the elite 16 GIAP with a couple of the highest scoring Allied aces of the war, Pokryshnin and Rechkalov.
Just to set that in relief, 4 VA's claims against Ju87's and bombers in the same period are only about 2 x the actual losses which were 18 and 29 respectively.

 

[bf109xxl]

An Il-2's light cannon isn't going to have much of a problem penetrating the armour of an armoured car, half track, self propelled artillery or any of the soft skinned vehicles.

Not really. To penetrate even thin armor with a 20-/23-mm cannon shell it was necessary to dive steeply at the target (30-40°). In that dive the Il lost stability - I wrote about it above. Otherwise ShVAK or VYa shells would ricochet. The problem was the precision, even not scattering. Finally, the overall accuracy was extremely low. Cannons were effective only against field artillery and infantry units on the march. I have no intention to translate the entire book by Rastrenin, but it seems that there are no comparable sources in English in terms of information. In the book by Rastrenin there are quotes from documents that provide estimates of cannon firing accuracy.

 

[bf109xxl]

We can easily agree that overclaiming occurred every where and the rates of overclaiming fluctuated a lot; German fighter pilots were certainly no exception, that is a well established fact, I haven't noted anyone telling you different.
Now if we stick to the Kuban in April '43 and VVS overclaiming, you continue to ignore the particularly excessive overclaiming against Bf 109s, 405 claimed in 3 weeks of air combat! 71 of those by the elite 16 GIAP with a couple of the highest scoring Allied aces of the war, Pokryshnin and Rechkalov.
Just to set that in relief, 4 VA's claims against Ju87's and bombers in the same period are only about 2 x the actual losses which were 18 and 29 respectively.

There are both objective and subjective factors for these differences. Anyway, the overclaim rates in the 16th GIAP were too high even considering all possible objective factors. The Kuban' air battle was always presented by Soviet propaganda as an undisputed victory of the Soviet air force, although modern research shows that the Soviets only managed to achieve a better casualty ratio, which is certainly positive, but in no way resembles an absolute victory. Modern Russian-speaking historians cannot find confirmation of many claimed air victories of the pilots of the 16th GIAP during the Kuban battle, and sometimes can even unequivocally refute the fact of shooting down by Guards aces.

 

[bf109xxl]

Yes. Yes I can, though the Ju-87 is not a direct comparison.

Ju 87 is a direct comparison, whereas Ju 88 not. Just compare the weight parameters and bomb loading. Ju 88 was much heavier than the Pe-2 (12100 vs 7800 kg for normal take-off weight) , whereas the difference between Pe-2 and Ju 87D was not so large (7800 vs 6600 kg). The bomb load was up to 3000 kg for the Ju 88 (mod. A-4), 1200 for the Pe-2 (only for a very experienced crew when taking off from a concrete runway, normal load 600 kg), 1800 kg for Ju 87 (normal load 500-1000 kg). The dive tactics of Pe-2s was similar to that of Stukas.

The Ju-87 was a very accurate dive bomber but it had a very low speed (60-70 mph less than a Pe-2, 80-90 mph less than a Tu-2), making it vulnerable to fighters, and in most variants, a very limited range.

The speed was less important than maneuverability in this case. Tu-2 could not dive (it had troubles with propellers and engines) - you can exclude it from the list.

The Ju 88, being also a two-engined bomber, albeit a good bit larger, is a more apt comparison to the Pe-2 and the Tu-2.

Nope. It could be compared to the Tu-2, not to the Pe-2.

And one key point of comparison is that unlike the Soviet planes, the Ju-88 had to be retired from it's role as a dive bomber because the airframe could not be made strong enough to tolerate the G forces during pull-out.

That is an additional reason, not to compare the Pe-2 and the Ju 88.

Both the Ju 87 and the Ju 88 had many opportunities to attack British fleets in the Mediterranean and around the coast of Norway, and in the Med for sure

I do not ask about the opportunities to attack. I ask about the opportunities to attack only in COMPARABLE conditions.

did so routinely with heavy fighter cover and strafers like Bf 110s to suppress the AAA.

Please, give some examples with numbers. How many Ju 87, how many Bf.110...

The Ju 88 certainly did not exceed the Pe 2 for accuracy even when it was still being used for high-angle dive bombing.

But it definitely exceeds the Pe-2 by accuracy at level bombing, which was the major usage of Pe-2s throughout the war.

As you know, the Pe-2 was never in any Theater where numerous Axis ships were underway at sea, and available to attack, so it is extremely disingenuous to draw a comparison of Pe-2s vs Ju 87 or Ju-88 against sea vessels.

Nope. It is extremely easy, I swear. Just try to count the number of ships from destroyer and larger which were sunk or heavily damaged by the Pe-2 at sea.

You could make a statistical analysis comparing the number of ships sunk, but that would be very misleading . And meaningless. But if you include the number of sorties against warships vs the number of hits and you'll get much more accurate results.

It is absolutely relevant analysis which demonstrates the real dive performance of the bombers under consideration. The Pe-2 pilots had about 10 seconds more or less stable dive for aiming, that was limited by flight performance and AAA fire (the analysis can be found in a book about the Pe-2 Guards units by Medved' and Khazanov).

By the way, a destroyer is not a capital ship. That would be a battleship or an aircraft carrier, just FYI.

Thanks, but for the Soviets even destroyer was already a capital ship. In any case, it's not crucially important.

The lack of a true dive bomber that could survive the environment (enemy fighters and AAA) from 1943 onward was a big problem for the Germans, as the Ju 87 in particular, and the Ju 88 were crucial to many early victories, but were increasingly unable to operate, even with heavy fighter protection, without suffering heavy losses after mid 1943.

The lack of a true front-line bomber that could carry an adequate bomb loading was a big problem for the Soviets throughout the war. The Tu-2 was good as level bomber (but also suffered from many, many drawbacks), however it appeared too late in mass production and was never produced in a really large scale. The Pe-2 was a mediocre level bomber which could be efficiently used as dive bomber only by extremely well-trained crews that was rather an exception.

PS. The rest will be commented later - I have no time to write lengthy texts. I can only say that objections to my arguments are only the result of ignorance of certain facts. I am not a professional historian, everything I know is taken from literature, everyone can read the same (practically everything is already available in public libraries as well as in electronic form), the only problem is the necessity of knowledge of Russian language: it is hardly possible to quickly familiarize with modern Russian-language sources without it. And without the consideration of these sources it is impossible to get an adequate impression of the history of Soviet aviation. Therefore, the discussion is too one-sided for me - I do not learn anything new in it and I am forced only to refute the clichés that have developed in the English-speaking literature (exception - books by Yefim Gordon with co-authors, which were Russian-speaking researchers, these books contain many details and describe the situation very precisely).
All of the above concerns only this particular discussion and does not concern other discussions on the forum, in which I carefully read the arguments of the parties, enriching myself with new knowledge.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Not really. To penetrate even thin armor with a 20-/23-mm cannon shell it was necessary to dive steeply at the target (30-40°). In that dive the Il lost stability - I wrote about it above. Otherwise ShVAK or VYa shells would ricochet. The problem was the precision, even not scattering. Finally, the overall accuracy was extremely low. Cannons were effective only against field artillery and infantry units on the march. I have no intention to translate the entire book by Rastrenin, but it seems that there are no comparable sources in English in terms of information. In the book by Rastrenin there are quotes from documents that provide estimates of cannon firing accuracy.

That simply isn't true. We went through all that in the exact studies you invoked which supposedly nobody else knows about, in a previous thread on here. One thing about ballistics, they are easily measurable concrete numbers, hard to fudge or spin.

The 23mm guns on the Il2 could in fact easily penetrate the armor of all the armored cars, halftracks and the vast majority of the self propelled artillery and AA vehicles (etc.) in a German armored column, which as Jabberwocky noted upthread. The side armor was as low as 5-8mm on most of those vehicles, which is barely sufficient to protect from a steel core .30 caliber bullet, let alone a 12.7mm or any cannon. In fact, most of the German light armored vehicles (or those on either side) in WW2 were also vulnerable to the 20mm ShVAK cannons found on almost all of the Soviet made fighters.

This chart represents the armor on rear and sides, and penetration from various angles. It is from one of these Soviet tests, this one was a test done for the Soviet T-40 and T-60 light tanks, which used DShK 12.7mm and ShVAK 20mm respectively. Both weapons were also used on Soviet fighters and some bombers. Both guns had similar penetration. The chart below is from tests done on captured German vehicles, and notes that they could penetrate the armor on German light armored vehicles at an angle of 30 degrees up to 250 meters, and with a direct shot at 400 meters. Which, incidentally, is about the limit you can hit (or often even see) a light tank or halftrack from an aircraft.

They also noted that the 20mm ShVAK could penetrate the 15 mm of Czech surface hardened armour on a Pz38(t) at 20 degrees from 200 meters 4 out of 12 times, and from 150 meters 7 out of 9 times. And 20 mm plates of German armour at 20 degrees in a PzIV is penetrated by the DShK from 100 meters 2 out of 2 times. So even the HMG and light cannon on almost all Soviet fighters could at least sometimes destroy the earlier medium tanks as well.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

The Ya-23 (23mm gun on the IL-2) could penetrate 25mm of steel armor from 400 meters.