Best fighter in Eastern Front, 1943.

[parsifal]

This is a difficult issue for me. My gut tells me that either of the german types, individually is going to outclass the Russian aircraft. Russian aircraft were generally not armoured, they carried limited armament (a 20mm Russian cannon has far less firepower than a german 20mm gun, if you look at the ballistic properties of the russian gun). Soviet flying aids were extremely sparse, build quality was mixed, engine power restricted. Yet, whilst i cannot prove it, i am willing to bet the Soviet aircraft were cheap, and this allowed them to churn them out in vast quantities. Russian aircraft were rugged, reliable, and resistant to weather. Not because of the aircraft, but because of the ruthlessness of the regime, Soviet pilots would fly in weather that grounded the LW. This was borne out in spades in the winter over Stalingrad. In the subfreezing temps of the Russian steppes, they relied on the simplicity and ruggedness of their designs to keep on flying, whilst the far more technically superior LW tended to remain unserviceable and on the ground. I have a book at home that looks at the winter serviceability rates of each side in some detail.

There is much controversy about loss rates. I have seen wildly differing claims from either side. I am unconvinced by the more outlandish claims from either camp, the question is, did the luftwaffe, with all the investment that it made to achieve qualitative advantage, get value from that investment. Was ther more bang for the buck from the qualitative model compare to the quantitative model. I tend to think not. The VVS never had, as its primary objective, the destruction of the Luftwaffe. it was always geared to army co-operation.....supporting the ground advance over destroying the enemy af. I think that the YYS was successful in its mission, wheras the LW was not. Was this solely because of resources, or was the Russian equipment and training model the superior one. did they achieve their numerical superiority just by chance, or was it a product of their planning. I think the latter.

 

[Shortround6]

Was this solely because of resources, or was the Russian equipment and training model the superior one. did they achieve their numerical superiority just by chance, or was it a product of their planning. I think the latter.

The Russians strove for both. They tried very very hard for a qualitative advantage. Where they continually fell short was in the ability to mass produce such quality. Considering the vast numbers they did turn out this seems a strange statement but it seems to be true. Russian designers and engineers were very good on theory, calculations and experiments but Russian industry was very backwards and underdeveloped in many ways. This meant that industry could not provide the materials or equipment the designers wanted in the quantities needed.
This lead to numbers of short cuts and large numbers of ill equipped planes (and tanks) being made, many times with the hope that in another few months or a year or ???? industry would be able to supply the equipment needed to make the plane (or tank) perform as the designer intended.
As an example both the VK-106 and VK-107 were intended to replace the VK-105 engine. work on the VK-106 started in 1938 and the VK-107 in 1940. Small batches of both engines were built during the war numbering in the hundreds with service introduction planned several times but neither engine achieved a good enough reliability to be installed in service aircraft during the war. A Late model Yak with a 1500-1600hp engine would have been a formidable machine indeed but they were forced to continue with the lower powered VK-105.
Many soviet pilots flew with canopies open reducing the performance of their aircraft. In part because of tradition, supposedly, how many 1942 soviet pilots had actually been flying in 1938-39? and in part because soviet canopies were not as clear as western canopies and the soviet pilots sacrificed speed for vision. Due to poor quality construction some soviet canopies also jammed and were difficult to open in emergencies.

Some soviet factories also had some rather sever problems with quality control. In some cases average production machines were 20-30kph slower than prototypes or initial production test machines. In spite of being built by the thousands true interchangeability of parts was not achieved in many cases leading to lots of extra work at the squadron/regimental level when trying to repair damaged aircraft. These were not part of any Soviet "plan" for high production quantity over quality and large efforts were made to correct these production problems.

 

[parsifal]

It would be horrible to have a sticky canopy....no escape from a burning or crashing aircraft......we will never no the erquipment failure rates, though I agree Soviet QA was pretty poor

 

[Juha]

Hello
Soviet fighter pilots had armour protection, in fact Soviet fighters were amongst the first to get back armour to the pilot, they also had self-sealing fuel tanks. IIRC armoured windscreen was less common than in western fighters.
One area, in which German fighters had advantage was the automation, German pilots could better concentrate flying and fighting, Soviet pilots had higher workload and they had to divide more attention to for ex engine controls and engine temperature.

Juha

 

[Tante Ju]

As an example both the VK-106 and VK-107 were intended to replace the VK-105 engine. work on the VK-106 started in 1938 and the VK-107 in 1940. Small batches of both engines were built during the war numbering in the hundreds with service introduction planned several times but neither engine achieved a good enough reliability to be installed in service aircraft during the war. A Late model Yak with a 1500-1600hp engine would have been a formidable machine indeed but they were forced to continue with the lower powered VK-105.

VK 107 was no small series. But agree, problematic engine.

Jak 9U - ca. 1600 HP VK-107. Speed - ca 670-700 km/h. Entered service 1944. 3900 built, most in war. Replaced by same Jak 9P post war - same but all metal.

Otherwise very good points! One - sticking canopies. British Spitfire Hurricane had crowbar in cocpit. Standard equipment. Know why?

Juha,

You are right. I-16 was I think that first fighter serial with armor, and also cannons.

 

[Shortround6]

A lot of VK-107s were built post war. Production continued until 1948 or so. Numbers made during the war maybe a small fraction of the total of 7900 or so. Plans to produce batches of up to 2000 were made but tests engines failed on the bench and production was put off a number of times. Production was halted twice post war because of problems.
The 1941-42 version was supposed to be good for 1300/1400hp and 686 built but what were they installed in? and what was the service life?

 

[P-40K-5]

Hello P-40K-5
now "the quaranteed laquer coffin" was the nickname to the early LaGG-3s, even late LaGG-3s, especially Series 66 planes were better being lighter with more powerful M-105PF engine, slats and some aerodynamic improvements, La-5 had still clearly more power with M-82 and -5F (M-82F) and -5FN (Ash-82FN) were still better.

Juha

Nevertheless La-5 losses were high, the highest of all fighters in service in Russia. which negates its performance, no?

 

[Lighthunmust]

Bf109 losses were high for Germany, the highest number of fighters lost, which negates its performance, no?

No with regard to La-5 and no with regard to Bf109.

 

[P-40K-5]

we're talking 1943 Eastern Front the ratio was more in favor of the Germans (9000kills vs 800 losses)..
what the heck are YOU talking about? overall? jeez.

now as per your usuall response to me, don't blame the messenger. blame Claes Sundin Christer Bergstrom who wrote a few
excellent books and where the above quote came from. the majority (50%+) of kills were with the Bf109.

 

[Shortround6]

The only way loss statistics many any sense at all is if they are losses per so many sorties flown.

LA-5 was the second most produced soviet fighter and so, if losses were even, it would have the second highest number of losses in combat. For the period we are talking about if may have been THE most produced soviet fighter and so had the highest losses.

Just like with the 109 being the most produced German fighter in flew more missions, shouldered more of the fight and so suffered higher losses in any particular time period than any other German fighter. Does this mean the 109 was bad?

No, it means the methodology of the statistic is bad.

 

[Tante Ju]

A lot of VK-107s were built post war. Production continued until 1948 or so. Numbers made during the war maybe a small fraction of the total of 7900 or so. Plans to produce batches of up to 2000 were made but tests engines failed on the bench and production was put off a number of times. Production was halted twice post war because of problems.
The 1941-42 version was supposed to be good for 1300/1400hp and 686 built but what were they installed in? and what was the service life?

"Powered by a 1500 h.p. VK-107A engine, the Yak-9U featured a new OP-554 water cooler, OP-555 oil cooler and VISh-107LO propeller. New engine cooling and exhaust systems were introduced. The wings were moved forward by 100mm and elevator area was decreased to 1.13m2. Armament incorporated 20mm ShVAK cannon and two 12.7mm UBS machine guns with 170 shells per barrel. The fighter was fitted with GS-15-500 general. Maximum takeoff weight was 3150 kg. This experimental fighter was built in December 1943 and the type had been tested by 28 December, 1943. Official State evaluation had been successfully completed by 20 April 1944 by test pilot A. Proshakov. A total of 3921 Yak-9U(VK-107) was delivered from April 1944 to August 1945. However the aircraft was quite temperamental in the context of engine temperature. From December 1944 728 and 726 type coolers were introduced. Oil and water cooler intakes sectionals were increased too. Thus the aircraft had met requirements and it could reach a speed of 575 km/h at sea level and 672 km/h at 5000 m."

Yak-9U

Sorry you are mistake in thinking VK 107 was main post war. Many produced during war - equivalent number of Type 9 Spitfire... many also produced after war (Jak 9P), also, but VK 107 was not insignificant during GPW. At least 4000 not insignificant.

 

[tomo pauk]

The Fw190 had centerline and wing armament. Making hits with a Fw190 was certainly easier than with a ME-109.

The wing root armament could play the role of a centerline armament IMO; having 6 guns blazing (4 being in centerline) is offers better chance to hit something than having 3, or 3+2 anyway.

I just pulled off the shelf Shackcklady's "Butcher Bird" to see if what he has to say about the topic. If I recall correctly the Fw190 was "in its element" flying on the Eastern Front. At Eastern Front altitudes much of the flight performance advantage of the ME-109 disappeared and the armament was not superior to what the Russians were flying. I really think it is a close call between the Fw190 and La-5FN.

Both 190 La-5 were fine machines - but I'd stick to the 109 P-39.
Please note that La-5s featured centerline armament

Sure many of the top jagflieger flew the Messerschmitt, but I think some of that is due to more experience with it and the reluctance of anyone facing combat to stop using a weapon that works for them to gamble on one that may work better. No doubt the ME-109 was a threat to any aircraft in the air, but not an overwhelming threat to the best aircraft of the Russians.

Well put

I would note that the Spitfire carried as much armament in ONE wing as many 109s or Russian aircraft did in the entire airplane.

Indeed - IIRC German pilots (Galland amongst them) didn't liked the fact that firepower advantage left their camp with advent of Spit V Bf-109F.
A 3rd cannon seems to me as even better choice than historic 4 LMGs.

Hurricane was probably handicapped more by it's thick wing than by the weight of one extra Hispano gun. You could stick a Griffon in a Hurricane and it wasn't going to be a 400mph fighter. There are performance figures available for Hurricane MK IIs with 8 MGs, 12 Mgs and 4 cannon. the speed difference between a MK IIA and IIC was 6mph. The bigger hit was climb and ceiling, Initial cimb rate was reduced by 400fpm and time to 20,000ft increased by 0.6 minutes. Ceiling dropped from 41,000ft to 36,000ft but nobody was going to fight a Hurricane at anywhere near that height anyway.

Split the difference in performance between the IIA and IIB and you almost at the point of the difference between two different production airplanes of the same type.

Any help the Hurri can get, even if it's a couple of hundred of fpm
Another option is to increase ammo count per gun (from cca 90 rds to 120). We still benefit from having one cannon less, weight-wise, perhaps increasing the roll rate too.

 

[Lighthunmust]

The statement "Bf109 losses were high for Germany, the highest number of fighters lost, which negates its performance, no?" illustrates that equating high losses with flight performance is a non sequitur. High performance aircraft can have high losses for many reasons other than inferior flight performance. My point is that in my opinion and I assume the opinion of some of the other posters, from a flight performance standpoint the La-5FN was perhaps first among equals in this threads designated arena at the designated time. It is also my opinion that overall quality of Luftwaffe pilots was much higher then VVS pilots in the designated arena and time. That surely was a factor in high La-5FN losses.

In regard to the oft made comment about a target rich environment meaning "more people are shooting at you" consider this. Groups of Hyenas kill Lions when they can. However when an adult male lion is amongst Hyenas, the Hyenas frequently attempt to escape the fight because several hyenas will be killed. Try to think of the Luftwaffe pilots (not planes) as adult Lions and the Russian pilots (not planes) as Hyenas. It an accurate analogy of the target rich environment on the Eastern Front.

 

[P-40K-5]

The only way loss statistics many any sense at all is if they are losses per so many sorties flown.

LA-5 was the second most produced soviet fighter and so, if losses were even, it would have the second highest number of losses in combat. For the period we are talking about if may have been THE most produced soviet fighter and so had the highest losses.

Just like with the 109 being the most produced German fighter in flew more missions, shouldered more of the fight and so suffered higher losses in any particular time period than any other German fighter. Does this mean the 109 was bad?

No, it means the methodology of the statistic is bad.

for sure. so lets say in 1943 each loss a/c flew 200 sorties suffered 400 losses(109's) x 200 sorties = 80,000 sorties.
80,000(sorties) / 400(losses) = 1 in 200 flights were lost. not bad, not bad at all. tis is just averaging. some flew more
then 200 sorties others flew less.

but yeah I get your point. thanks.

 

[Lighthunmust]

"The wing root armament could play the role of a centerline armament IMO; having 6 guns blazing (4 being in centerline) is offers better chance to hit something than having 3, or 3+2 anyway."


Yes but even the dispersion due to the few extra few inches of separation between the wing root cannon and fuselage armament contributed to hit probability.


"I just pulled off the shelf Shackcklady's "Butcher Bird" to see if what he has to say about the topic."


He actually has very little to say, it is far from a definitive work. Does anyone know of a definitive work a could purchase?


"Please note that La-5s featured centerline armament"


Yes unfortunately it suffered that handicap.

He is a gist of some quotes from Oberleutnant Oskar Romm (92 kills) who piloted the Fw 190A from its introduction on the Eastern Front in late 1942 through his final assignment as Gruppen kommanduer of IV Gruppe/JG 3 in February, 1945, where he flew the Fw 190D-9 -

My training as a fighter pilot was completed on a BF109 and progressed to completion without any problems. I became the master of this aircraft in every flying position and could hit gunnery targets with precise accuracy. When I completed my training in the summer of 1942 I had two big surprises: I was posted to JG51 on the Russian Front and I would fly the Fw 190. After completing training on the Fw190 "I became convinced that I could fly the Fw 190 as an armament platform with greater assurance and reliability under any and all conditions than I could the Bf 109".

"We encountered a formation of six Il-2s ....I saw a fighter ... It was a La-5 with a completely red cowl .... from the Stalin Squadron". "The Russian had me at a speed disadvantage and with this edge he went into a series of sweeping, climbing curves to get above me."

 

[davebender]

Soviet military equipment had quality control problems during 1941 and the problems got much worse when industry had to relocate to make shift factories during 1942. German and Japanese military equipment produced during 1945 also had serious quality problems due to industrial relocation. The only Soviet solution is to use Lend-Lease equipment.

German and Japanese pilots flying aircraft built during 1945 don't have a Lend-Lease equipment option. So please insure your will and life insurance policy are up to date before taking off.

 

[Shortround6]

"Powered by a 1500 h.p. VK-107A engine, the Yak-9U featured a new OP-554 water cooler, OP-555 oil cooler and VISh-107LO propeller. New engine cooling and exhaust systems were introduced. The wings were moved forward by 100mm and elevator area was decreased to 1.13m2. Armament incorporated 20mm ShVAK cannon and two 12.7mm UBS machine guns with 170 shells per barrel. The fighter was fitted with GS-15-500 general. Maximum takeoff weight was 3150 kg. This experimental fighter was built in December 1943 and the type had been tested by 28 December, 1943. Official State evaluation had been successfully completed by 20 April 1944 by test pilot A. Proshakov. A total of 3921 Yak-9U(VK-107) was delivered from April 1944 to August 1945. ."

Sorry you are mistake in thinking VK 107 was main post war. Many produced during war - equivalent number of Type 9 Spitfire... many also produced after war (Jak 9P), also, but VK 107 was not insignificant during GPW. At least 4000 not insignificant.

You are right, I did mistake the importance of the VK-107 but numbers are not quite so great as you claim. One book claims that while 3921 Yak-9Us were built, only 2500 of them were before the end of the war (although this could be April 1945). I am not sure why you are comparing the number of VK-107 engines produced to the number of MK IX Spitfire aircraft though.
I still don't know what those 686 VK-107 engines were used in. The Yak-9U used the VK-107A engine. A small batch of Yak-3s (48?) used the VK-107A but most of the rest went back to the VK-105 series engines because of the unsatisfactory nature of the VK-107 series.
In any case by 1944 even 1500-1600hp was too little to late and while offering the designers some scope it still meant that they really needed to watch the weight of their fighters compared to the more powerful western fighters

 

[Juha]

we're talking 1943 Eastern Front the ratio was more in favor of the Germans (9000kills vs 800 losses)..
what the heck are YOU talking about? overall? jeez.

now as per your usuall response to me, don't blame the messenger. blame Claes Sundin Christer Bergstrom who wrote a few
excellent books and where the above quote came from. the majority (50%+) of kills were with the Bf109.

Hello P-40K-5
now comparing most of one side's fighter losses in air combat to most of other side's combat mission losses produced biased info. What I mean is that also Finns, Romanians, Hungarians and Italians shot down Soviet planes during 43 and also suffered losses, I'm not sure whether Slovak and Croatian claims and losses were included or not in LW figures. Bigger problem is that we haven't any way to get reliable Soviet air combat losses. I don't have reliable loss Soviet figures for 1943 but figures for 44 show the problem. I'll give only the figures for fighters of new types
Did not return from sortie 2556
Shot down in air combat 479
Shot down by AAA 345
Damaged on a/fs 52
Accidents 1979
Weared 2619
Total 8030

Now how one gauge reliable number of air-to-air losses when most of combat operation losses are under MIA column? One can make guesses, better or worse but they are still only guesses.

Juha

 

[Juha]

Juha,

You are right. I-16 was I think that first fighter serial with armor, and also cannons.

Hello Tante Ju
already I-15bis had back armour to the pilot and self-sealing fuel tanks.

Juha

 

[P-40K-5]

Hello P-40K-5
now comparing most of one side's fighter losses in air combat to most of other side's combat mission losses produced biased info. What I mean is that also Finns, Romanians, Hungarians and Italians shot down Soviet planes during 43 and also suffered losses, I'm not sure whether Slovak and Croatian claims and losses were included or not in LW figures. Bigger problem is that we haven't any way to get reliable Soviet air combat losses. I don't have reliable loss Soviet figures for 1943 but figures for 44 show the problem. I'll give only the figures for fighters of new types
Did not return from sortie 2556
Shot down in air combat 479
Shot down by AAA 345
Damaged on a/fs 52
Accidents 1979
Weared 2619
Total 8030

Now how one gauge reliable number of air-to-air losses when most of combat operation losses are under MIA column? One can make guesses, better or worse but they are still only guesses.

Juha

Hello Juha,
you are right. there is no way to get reliable records from the russians, even in 1943!
LW claims did not include claims from other axis countries. my figures for 1944 show
the Germans shot down 7000 e/a. 1030 less then what you posted. confusing indeed!