Bell P-39

[CharlesBronson]

You re welcome.

Interesting reading I ve extracted from "Operation Pinball, the USAAFs secret aerial gunnery program in WW2" from Motorbooks International.

 

[CharlesBronson]

P-39Q and P-39F.

I am not sure about this last one, it would be interesting to know the real performance of the airacobra against the german and Vichy French fighters.

 

[Trautloft]

does anyone know the losses of lend-lease equipment(if ac or tanks) delivered to the Soviet Union? i mean the sunken ships loaded with war material ,aircraft as deck cargo etc. i know how many been sent away,but not all of them arrived obviously.im also curious of the Kingcobra,i read everywhere about the p-39 but not the p-63..its supposed to be faster and better, but in my book of all ac of ww2 i found the highest speed less as the airacobras *confused*. if im right,almost the whole production of 2000+ kingcobras been shipped to the SU, (among with estimated 5000 p-39's),some used as trainers or target ac by the USSAF tho but never seen combat on allied side beside the eastern front. anyway...how many p-39,p-40,hurricanes,spits,bostons etc. layin in a sea grave?

 

[JoeB]

does anyone know the losses of lend-lease equipment(if ac or tanks) delivered to the Soviet Union?

From table on p.182 of Geust and Petrov "Red Stars 4" (for US a/c):
14,985 delivered from US factories for Soviet account
150 lost in the US and Canada (mainly on ferry flights to USSR)
586 lost "after departure" (mainly at sea on ships).

Slightly over half, and later in the war most, of lend lease US a/c for the Soviets were delivered by the ALSIB route, ie. flown from Lower 48 through Canada to Alaska, then across the Bering Sea to airfields in the Soviet far east. P-63's were almost all delivered that way, and almost half of P39's were. As implied by above figures, the ALSIB loss rate was pretty low. Also remember most sea deliveries were to Abadan in Iran (some bigger planes were flown there too, across the S. Atlantic, Africa and Mideast). Those deliveries suffered low losses as well. Only ~8% of the deliveries were to North Russia by sea, which were the only ones to incur substantial % losses on the way, though the book does not break out those details unfortunately.

P-63's saw brief action on the Eastern Front but no air combat (per the same book). Most were retained in the Far East and saw more extensive use in the Soviet war against Japan in August 1945, although didn't see much air combat there either because there was little Japanese opposition. Only one air combat mentioned in Soviet accounts, AFAIK was 17th Fighter Regiment P-63 claim to have downed a Japanese Ki-27 (Nate) or Ki-43 (Oscar, apparently Soviet records differ) of several attempting to attack Soviet A-20's, on the last official day of the war, August 15, 1945. I know of no specific Japanese account, Japanese Monograph No. 151 (account of the air campaign compiled for the US occupations postwar) gives claims for several Soviet a/c that day and losses of "about 10" Japanese a/c to various combat causes in the whole campaign.

Joe

 

[Trautloft]

thanks alot JoeB ,great info!!
if i got it right, this data excludes the British Empire's deliveries.