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A conflict of dates but......
Talk to any LW veteran and he will tell you that this supposed instruction to avoid the Yaks down low is pure BS and was never issued.
Nearly all the fighting which took place one the eastern front was down low, and the JagdGeschwader made the VVS pay for every meter of territory, litterally slaughtering the Yaks La's of the VVS. Esp. the Dora-9 proved extremely effective infact almost invulnerable down low to the soviet fighters.
The later versions of the 109 (G-10/ -14 K-4) were all superior to the Yak-9 and La's according the pilots of the LW. A hard climbing turn, which demanded a good sustained turn rate, was a sure way out of trouble for the 109 pilots.
The LW pilots were never instucted to avoid fighting down low with any VVS fighter, and to further stress this it was infact down low nearly all the fighting took place.
(The Aviation FactFile) Aircraft of World War TwoDo you have a source on this? Thanks!
If you are looking for a very cursory review of WWII's major aircraft (i.e., a page or two for each aircraft) this is the book for you. If you are a modeler interested in paint schemas for an aircraft you are building it is also good in that good ones are provided. If you are looking for anything more, however, forget it.
Hello,
been lurking for a bit, finally finishing this thread. Nice to see a bunch of knowledgable folks being able to look beyond paper stats as well as use them, yet still remain friendly in their debates. (well, most of the time..)
"refreshing" doesn't even describe the feeling after all these years.
that could be a BS from that point of view that in an aerial engagement you couldn't really distinguish between the different Yak types -they look pretty similar even on the ground from the nearest distance. BTW, their comparable to superior performance in comparison with the latest Me series was recognised by the Germans themselves - just read Lerche reports of his flights on captured La-5FN and Yak-3 in Rechlin in 1944.Talk to any LW veteran and he will tell you that this supposed instruction to avoid the Yaks down low is pure BS and was never issued.
you can't really talk of "slaughtering " regarding that fact that in 1944 there were about 300-400 LW fighters deployed on the entire Eastern front - in fact, the non-combat casualties and the losses due the ground fire were far greater . LW wasn't a significant force on the Eastern front anymore.Nearly all the fighting which took place one the eastern front was down low, and the JagdGeschwader made the VVS pay for every meter of territory, litterally slaughtering the Yaks La's of the VVS. Esp. the Dora-9 proved extremely effective infact almost invulnerable down low to the soviet fighters.
La-7 was superior to the G-6 and G-10 almost in every way, and particularlyit's climbing rate was more than comparable. As for Yak-9 - it isn't correct to compare this plane which production started much earlier than the production of the latest "Gustav" version - it was pretty mediocre fighter, just an improved light long range version of Yak-7. It was easy to produce and to mantain, not to mention the Yakovlevs great personal ability to push his airplanes into production istead of more modern ones.The later versions of the 109 (G-10/ -14 K-4) were all superior to the Yak-9 and La's A hard climbing turn, which demanded a good sustained turn rate, was a sure way out of trouble for the 109 pilots.
IMHO the veterans memories , couldn't be quoted as reliable sources - there're all written from a very subjective point of view, just as the russian ones.according the pilots of the LW.
hovewer, that doesn't affect my objectivity in any aspect - that means only that my knowledge on the airwar on the Eastern Front is much greather than on the Western))Your response is understandable considering where you're from.
I don't quite understand what do you mean by "slaughtering" - please define it. During the whole year ( 1944), all COMBAT VVS losses were about 7860airplanes, including all aircraft types, not only fighters or bombers.The LW was by no means a small force on the Eastern front by 1944, and like it or not the LW DID slaughter the VVS in almost every aerial engagement.
The FW 190 in general wasn't deployed on the Eastern front in the great numbers - in fact, if you refer to the LW veterans memories , the soviet pilots always emphasized that the most dangerous german aircraft was not the Fw 190 but the Me 109 .Esp. the JagdGeschwader's Dora-9's really handed it to the La's Yaks of the VVS, the not even the La-7 proved to be any macth at all.
I talked only about Yak-3 performance in Rechlin - the La-5FN which was tested by Lerche was one of the early versions with an old engine with a lot of flying hours already made. Then the gasoline type the germans used whas not the same which was recommended to use in Ash-82FN - (87 octanes against 100). No wonder it couldn't achieve the same speed as the serial models in VVS (100 km/h more than the La-5FN in Rechlin).And btw I have Hans Werner Lerche's book, and what he says is that the Bf-109G is both faster, climbs faster and turns better than the La-5FN.
He makes no mention of any supposed superiority of the Yak-3 either, he does note it was a good fighter though, and it was.
according to my sources the G-10 has a climb rate about 18 m/s against 18.3 of Lavochkin.The La-7 held nothing over the Bf-109 G-10 except a slightly higher SL speed, thats all, the G-10 was slightly superior in turning performance climb rate.
the same trick did Kozhedub in his La-7 and even in La -5FN - that all depends on which aircraft type you've encountered as an enemy.A sure way of getting any VVS fighter off your tail according to most 109 pilots was making a steep climbing turn, no VVS could follow that.
so what? you can't define the performance of the AF as such only from the standpoint of of the leading aces performance- in that way LW has clearly outperformed not only the VVS , but the RAF and USAF as well.And yes, Hartmann did down 350 + VVS a/c, the far majority being fighters.
The f4u could kill all of them...
Why wasn't the FW190 the standard Luftwaffe fight from 1942 onwards? Wasn't it clearly superior to the ME 109 at medium attitudes and more of a match against the allies?