Best Russian WWII plane

The first one to 10 wins!

Best Russian fighter in large scale use La-5FN
Best Russian bomber Tu-2S
Best Russian ground attack plane/light bomber Il-10

Juha

Bomber = Petlyakov Pe-2
Fighter = Yakovlev Yak-3
Attack = Illushin Il-10
Trainer/light attack = Polikarpov Po-2

Yak 3
Yaklovev Yak 3 - A great soviet interceptor of WW2 - World-War-2-Planes.com

Very effective fighter in the right hands.

John

Hello
not sure that "All German pilots were taught to fear the Yakovlev 3" they were warned that it was a very dangerous opponent at low level. And in fact at least the armament info at the site John gave a link is wrong, the armament of most Yak 3 was one 20mm cannon and 2 12,7mm HMGs, early ones had the cannon plus only one HMG.

Juha

".... Very effective fighter in the right hands."

Like L'Escadrielle Niemen-Normande ... to name "objective" hands, eh John .

MM

another vote for the Yak 3

Jet Prop by FalkeEins: Normande Niemen Groupe de Chasse 3 - 'French Eagles, Soviet Heroes'

michaelmaltby said:

".... Very effective fighter in the right hands."

Like L'Escadrielle Neuman-Normandie ... to name "objective" hands, eh John .

MM

Click to expand...

These boys came first Michael...No. 151 Wing RAF - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John

Juha said:

Hello
not sure that "All German pilots were taught to fear the Yakovlev 3" they were warned that it was a very dangerous opponent at low level. And in fact at least the armament info at the site John gave a link is wrong, the armament of most Yak 3 was one 20mm cannon and 2 12,7mm HMGs, early ones had the cannon plus only one HMG.

Juha

Click to expand...

Hello Juha,

Yak Piston Fighters

Photo Search Results | Airliners.net

Yakovlev Yak-3 - Single-seat fighter

You are right about the armament, thanks for the correction.
There are some good pictures in the above links too.

John

None. The Finns shot down modern aircraft with obsolete ones.

Very effective fighter in the right hands.

Couldn't that be said about almost any fighter? I did say "almost any"!!!

I agree with FastMongrels list...

Bomber = Petlyakov Pe-2
Fighter = Yakovlev Yak-3
Attack = Illushin Il-10
Trainer/light attack = Polikarpov Po-2

Me too. However I think the Pe-2 deserves special mention as it was operational during 1941. The other two aircraft types didn't enter service until 1944.
Bomber = Petlyakov Pe-2
Fighter = Yakovlev Yak-3
Attack = Illushin Il-10

Allow me to add one of my favorite aircraft....
The Soviet Union operated thousands of American made A-20s. Probably more then anyone else (including the USA). IMO the A-20 was one of the finest light bombers of WWII.

In Soviet service the A-20 also made a fine torpedo bomber, a role neglected by both the USN and U.S. Army Air Corps.

The U.S. Army operated a lot of B-17s in the Pacific during 1941 and 1942. Replace them with A-20 torpedo bombers and Japan would lose a lot more ships early on when it matter most. Of course you need aerial torpedoes that function properly.

Fine plane, the A-20.
In anti-shipping role functioned even without torpedoes, using skip-bombing, or mast-height bombing, as people developed their tactics technic.

Several post refer to evaluations of Russ. Planes by W. Pilots.

What I can't help but wonder is how much of these evals are objective and how much is PC? Just as the evals by Russ. Pilots of W. aircraft, like the P-39. After all, a Russ. Pilot could literally loose his head if he said the wrong thing.

yak 3

I have to agree with the IL-10 as their best light attack A/C. It was used for many years after WW2. For about the last 30yrs. I would have agreed with most that the Yak-3 was the hands down best VVS fighter of the war. BUT in the few years of reading the posts on this sight and trying with my little brain to soak in all wisdom of those postings here, I'm not so sure the Yak-3 was their cure all fighter. So.... I started surfing the web, reading books and combed through my files. In 1945 the VVS had four very, very good fighters in their inventory. I'm staying neutral at this time until I've absorbed more information. What I've come up with to date proved very interesting: Height (meters), Speed (mph) and Climb (fpm):

Height....Yak-3........La-7.........P-63.........Yak-9U
..S.L.....352/4450...383/4762...371/4410...361/4,200
.1,000...367/4280...397/4762...384/4275
.2,000...380/3790...411/3936...394/4150
.3,000...382/3655...408/3660...405/3950
.4,000...398/3385...401/2952...410/3575
.5,000...394/2830...405/2952...416/3200...422
.6,000...385/2155...418/2499...421/2850
.7,000...375/..?......414/2007...425/2450
.8,000...363/..?......405/1496...417/1900
.9,000.....?./..?........?../.984...402/1350
10,000....?./..?........?../.472....379/.650
11,000.....N.A..........?../.98.4....?../.290
Weight...5,864 lbs...8,800 lbs...7,144 lbs...7.040 lbs.
Wing area..159.8.......189..........248..........185---sq.ft.
Power load..4.44........3.86.........4.89.........4.27--lbs./HP
Wing load..36.70.......37.80........35.48.......38.05--lbs./sq.ft.

Yak-3: Without a doubt the most maneuverable on the horizontal plane at low and medium altitudes. Excellent handling qualities. Lightest constructed. Figures from the Russian graph floating around this sight and Erik Pilawskii's book Soviet Air Force Fighter Colours 1941-1945.

La-7: From Erik's Book, "Handling and control harmony were superlative, its rate of roll equalled that of the Fw-190, and its turning circle second to no enemy fighter. The loss rate for the Lavochkin was half that of the Yak-3. A mere 115 La-7s were lost to all military causes (less than half of these in earial combat), while at the same time unquestionably accounting for more than 3,100 aerial victories." Figures from Production Test Trial of No. 452132-76 held in April 1945.

P-63: I have read several different places that this bird had all the maneuverability of the P-39 with much better handling qualities. Unfortunately I haven't found an excellent book that elaborates on all its great qualities yet. Figures from Fighter Comparison Chart on Mike Williams' excellent sight www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org.

Yak-9U: Figures are from Erik Pilawskii's book. I have seen the Russian chart floating around this sight. The graph must be of the initial production A/C Yak-9U that suffered from engine cooling difficulties of every description and could not attain the performance figures of the standard production A/C of1945.

One other note: The VVS considered the P-63 as being a very rugged fighter by comparison to the rest.
Operating range of the P-63 was over twice that of the other fighters listed at 2,575 mls (Ray Wagner).

If one look the the top Soviet aces, there are more of those who fly mostly La-5/7 or P-39 than Yak pilots. Also against Finns, no Yak-3s fought against us, I admit, even if Finnish 109G pilots were most impressed by Yak-9s, in reality their most dangerous enemies were La-5s. Partly this can be explained by the fact that La-5s flew more often top cover missions and Yaks close escort missions but both were also used in free hunting missions.

Juha

Juha's right. The Yaks were close escorts because the P-39s and La-5/7s were more capable of following the German fighters when they dove away.

In the US Hundred Thousand book, there are listed Soviet opinions for P-63, and there says flatly that P-63 were structurally weak, one time all fighters at AlSib rute were grounded and received hull reinforcements. I'd like to hear original Soviet opinions, of course.

Well tomo, I don't have an objectional response to the structural thing at this time. But Captain John E. Boeing, Class 43A, Blyhteville, Ark. who flew acceptance checks for the Russian Lend-Lease program in 1944-1945 out of Fairbanks said the P-63 was the best he flew. This was in the company of P-39, P-63, A-20, B-25, C-47 and AT-6. And he did have the opportunity to to fly the P-38. At this stage in the war the P-38 would probably be the L, and that is pretty heavy duty company.