Recent content by Nightwitch

I-153 had a lower wing loading, better climb rate, and better power to weight ratio than the Cr.42. Speed was slower by about 15kph. Going on the power to weight ratio and the wing loading, it probably turned a circle tighter than the Cr.42 did. Guns were pretty equivalent. 2 12.7mm vs 4...

VVS women pilots. Many of them had over a hundred flight hours logged in their Osoaviakhims before the war. Then, the bulk of them went into training regiments for nearly a year. By the time they made it to the front, they were all incredibly well-trained.

Actually, as far as I am aware, the B-239 the Finns received was an inferior model to the F2A-2 the US received. So, I think actually their equipment was worse than the equipment of the US/RAF/Dutch.

Venganza - There's a relatively recent book on my "to read" list that I haven't yet gotten around to. It's called "Kursk: The Air Battle" by Christopher Bergstram. Unfortunately, I don't know a lot about it, it's just something I've been looking toward purchasing.

In terms of male/female? Not very. Anna Yegorova is the most famous female Sturmovik pilot, but she mentions in the memoir there being one other female pilot/gunner Sturmovik crew in the VVS. They might have been the only two female crews on Il-2s in the whole war, but I haven't done enough...

You didn't spoil anything. I got my copy today at 2pm and finished reading it at 7pm.

Before I begin, if this is in the wrong forum, I apologize. I didn't see any forum specifically devoted to books on the subject. Red Sky, Black Death is the memoir of Anna Yegorova, a female combat pilot for the Soviet Union during WWII. She flew the U-2 as a liaison pilot and later the...

I can only presume he's referring to the secret Luftwaffe training schools in the USSR in the 20s and 30s, most notably the combat school at Lipetsk started in 1925 and running until 1933, when it was shut down by the new Nazi government. However, it's not really clear how much the Luftwaffe...

The Soviets used the 20mm gun on early models of the P-39 and the 37mm gun on the later models.

Why does everyone have to find excuses for Nazi aggression, trying to blame it on anyone other than those directly responsible? It's really disgusting the amount of Nazi apologetics that get thrown about on forums like these. And make no mistake, Waynos, that's what your statement is - Nazi...

Legally, as long as he isn't profiting from any drawings copied from other works, he isn't liable for anything. And, I'm not even sure if he would be liable if he were profiting, unless he were intentionally counterfeiting, which he clearly isn't doing. In my mind, this isn't any worse than...

Possibly. I've never heard the story before. I find it kind of unlikely a general who was captured would get an audience with Stalin though. I imagine that sort of thing would be treated very harshly. There's a lot of myth built up, especially in the Western world about retreating soldiers...

They were better than the Nazis. They weren't good, but I'm sick of people trying to equate a famine in the Soviet Union with systematic murder. Even the GULAG system paled in comparison to Nazi concentration camps. Moreover, this discussion is about Soviet planes and pilots. Many of the...

She had to be "tested" by the NKVD because she was captured. It was automatically assumed that anyone who had been captured was either a traitor or a spy when they got back to the Soviet Union. It was kind of "illegal" to be captured, for lack of a better word. In cases with really high...

Yes, and the British and the French "had it coming" because they appeased the Germans, let them reoccupy the Sudetenland and the Rhineland, and annex several small central European countries...:rolleyes: