Finnish air force Mustang kills on Russian Front? (3 Viewers)
- Thread starter taly01
- Start date
Out of 150 ?
It cannot have taken 6 months to fly them to Leningrad ?
They were all deployed in the southern sector of the Eastern Front (mainly 57 GIAP); only 20-30 Vbs were sent in the summer of 1943 to the Air Defence units protecting Moscow and Leningrad to counter high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. Have you ever read Kotelnikov's article?
I read Kostelnikov frequently......very productive hero of the Soviet Union.
Vladimir Kotelnikov - Wikipedia
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ThomasP
Chief Master Sergeant
re
"It cannot have taken 6 months to fly them to Leningrad ?"
IIUC the Oct-Dec'42 is the period when the British initiated the shipment. The shipment process itself involved:
Getting boxed up and prepped at the holding facility - upto 2 weeks
Railed or trucked to the port of departure - upto 1 week
Loading on board ship - upto 1 week
Sit around at the port while waiting for other cargo - upto 4 weeks
Go to sea and sail around the Cape of Good Hope upto the Persian Gulf and to the port of Basra - upto 6 weeks
From Basra they were probably railed and/or trucked (still boxed up) north to the Soviet Union - upto 3 weeks
Unbox, assemble, flight test, etc - upto ? weeks
So figure upto 4 months and 1 week getting the aircraft to Baku, Ashkabat, etc, in the Soviet Union, followed by however long it took to get the aircraft ready to head north to Leningrad.
"It cannot have taken 6 months to fly them to Leningrad ?"
IIUC the Oct-Dec'42 is the period when the British initiated the shipment. The shipment process itself involved:
Getting boxed up and prepped at the holding facility - upto 2 weeks
Railed or trucked to the port of departure - upto 1 week
Loading on board ship - upto 1 week
Sit around at the port while waiting for other cargo - upto 4 weeks
Go to sea and sail around the Cape of Good Hope upto the Persian Gulf and to the port of Basra - upto 6 weeks
From Basra they were probably railed and/or trucked (still boxed up) north to the Soviet Union - upto 3 weeks
Unbox, assemble, flight test, etc - upto ? weeks
So figure upto 4 months and 1 week getting the aircraft to Baku, Ashkabat, etc, in the Soviet Union, followed by however long it took to get the aircraft ready to head north to Leningrad.
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I read Kostelnikov frequently......very productive hero of the Soviet Union.
Vladimir Kotelnikov - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
This is another Kotelnikov, who had absolutely nothing to do with aviation. The article was written by Vladimir Rostislavovich Kotelnikow, who died in 2022.Ok I found him:
Vladimir Kotelnikov (1951–2022) was a prominent Russian aviation historian, author, and aerospace engineer. [1, 2]
Background and Career
- Education: Graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute in 1975 and earned his Candidate of Science degree in 1981.
Teaching & Consulting: Lectured on aircraft piston engine design at the Moscow Aviation Institute and served as a consultant for Russian aviation museums and aircraft restoration projects.
Editorial Work: Acted as an editor for the Moscow-based aviation history journal Aviakollektsiya starting in 2003. [1, 2]
Notable Research and Writing
- Focus: Conducted extensive archival research into Russian aviation history during the inter-war and World War II periods, with a special emphasis on foreign aircraft operations and testing in Russia. [1]
Publications: Authored dozens of books and hundreds of articles published internationally. Major works include:Lend-Lease and Soviet Aviation in the Second World WarRussian Piston Aero EnginesEarly Russian Jet Engines: The Nene and Derwent in the Soviet UnionAir War Over Khalkhin GolSoviet Military Aviation in Central Asia 1917–41 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
I bet he is the "untouchable authority" like Stenman and Keskinen in Finland.
I found this AI info:
Soviet politruks (political commissars) did not systematically alter individual Soviet Air Force (VVS) kill scores on their own whim, but the structural demands of the Soviet propaganda apparatus—which they managed—incentivized and institutionalized the heavy over-claiming of victories. [1]
While a politruk could not simply sit at a desk and write fake numbers into a pilot's official logbook without any combat context, the entire bureaucratic system they oversaw was geared toward producing high-morale figures. Post-Cold War archival research and cross-referencing with declassified German Luftwaffe logs have revealed that Soviet combat units over-claimed aerial victories significantly, sometimes by massive margins. [1, 2, 3]
The phenomenon of inflated kill scores in the Soviet Air Force was driven by several key systemic factors rather than isolated administrative forgery:
1. The Strict Verification System (On Paper)
To prevent outright lying, the VVS officially required a stringent verification process. For a pilot to receive credit for a kill, the downing of the aircraft had to be: [1]
2. How the System Was Manipulated
Despite the rules, politruks and commanders routinely bypassed verification accuracy in ways that inflated individual and unit scores: [1]
- Group Kills Credited as Individual Kills: A common practice in Soviet squadrons was to take a single shared victory (where 3 or 4 pilots shot at one German plane) and credit it as an individual victory to each pilot, or to the squadron commander, to build up "Hero of the Soviet Union" resumes. [1, 2]
- The Ghost of "Socialist Competition": Politruks were responsible for driving "socialist competition" between different regiments. Regiments competed for elite "Guards" status, flags, and collective awards. This created an unspoken agreement between pilots, commanders, and politruks to validate highly optimistic combat claims so the entire unit looked superior on paper. [1]
- Rubber-Stamping Poor Verification: If a pilot claimed a Messerschmitt dived into the clouds smoking, a politruk eager for a propaganda victory would easily accept vague ground-troop testimony to officially log it as a confirmed kill rather than a "damaged" aircraft. [1]
3. Historical Reality vs. Claims
Archival studies highlight the scale of this inflation. For example, during the massive air battles over the southern flank of the Battle of Kursk in July 1943, Soviet Air Force records claimed they had shot down roughly eight times as many German aircraft as the Luftwaffe actually lost in that sector. [1]
Summary
Soviet politruks did not secretly rewrite official air force logbooks out of nowhere, but they actively fostered a high-pressure environment where over-claiming was highly rewarded, protected, and weaponized for state propaganda.
So as the records are a "fairytale"...then possibly the enemy score on their records weren't accurate either....no matter how much engineering background you have as an author.
Soviet politruks (political commissars) and zampolits (deputy commanders for political affairs) played a significant role in altering, inflating, and reshaping enemy aircraft kill scores, primarily driven by the demands of wartime state propaganda. [1, 2]
While overclaiming occurred in every major air force during World War II due to the chaotic nature of dogfights, the Soviet system had a unique political apparatus layered on top of its military command that systematically incentivized score inflation. [1, 2, 3]
The Role of Politruks in Score Inflation
- Propaganda Over Accuracy: The primary job of a politruk was to maintain ideological purity and boost troop morale. A highly decorated, high-scoring fighter pilot was the perfect tool for state propaganda. Politruks actively managed "trench newspapers" and press releases. If an aggressive or politically favored pilot claimed a victory, political officers frequently pressured the unit's technical staff to officially register it, even if the strict military criteria for confirmation (such as ground team confirmation or wreckage retrieval) were lacking. [1, 2, 3]
The Discrepancy in the Numbers
Because of this political padding, modern archival research comparing Soviet combat logs directly against German Luftwaffe loss records (Kriegstagebuch) reveals significant inflation. For instance, during intense battles like Kursk, Soviet fighter units routinely claimed up to 40% to 100% more aircraft shot down than the German records indicate were actually lost or damaged in that sector. [1]
This institutionalized distortion was so deeply embedded that even senior Soviet officials recognized it; post-war Soviet staff officers noted that in the field, it was informally understood that a unit's reported enemy losses were automatically expected to be higher than reality as a matter of standard ideological reporting. [1]
AI data also.
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They must have runned out of mustangs quickly if also Kössi Karhila got two ?
This is how it was described in all literature we have availbale...up to 50 at a time....with 20-30 Il-2 that they were escorting.
It took a while for them to get accustomed to it...albeit they had them already in Musmansk.
Spitfires over the Kuban
Supermarin Spitfire Vb being prepared for delivery to the Soviet Union at Abadan, Iran in 1943. Photo submitted by C-F. Geust Along with British Hurricanes, the Soviet Air Force (voyenno-vozdushnyye sily—VVS) also managed to fly another aircraft of the Royal Air Force as a front-line fighter—the...
lend-lease.net
Please cite at least one source relevant to topic ("cobras over Karelia"). So far, you haven't presented anything other than your own fantasies and irrelevant texts.
