Fw 190D and Me 109K vs. Yak-3 and La-7

GregP said:

Bomber pilots never spent much time hard-maneuvering and almost zero time inverted, even in a split-S, loop, or simple peel-off, so they weren't exactly up to par when it came to basic fighter maneuvers. But I'd bet former-bomber pilots turned fighter pilot survivors of air combat got better at pretty quickly, even if not exactly turning into "experten." The problem was surviving for 7 - 10 combat missions. Atfer that, you'd generally pretty much know what was goping to happen and be fairly ready for it.

Getting through the first several combat missions was likely a 20 - 40% survival thing late-war. Not really glowing future prospects.

Click to expand...

BiffF15 said:

Post Vietnam the USAF realized that once a crew has 10 combat sorties under their belt the odds for survival go up tremendously. So Red Flag was established. I attended all through the 90's and will say not only was it fantastic training but a lot of fun, both in the air and on the ground. Lots of adversaries, SAMs, peer pressure as well as nights in Viva Las Vegas. Interesting to note was the majority of fatalities / accidents occur on the second Monday. The second Monday briefs always started with videos of midair collisions, as well as flight into the ground (very sobering).

Cheers,
Biff

Click to expand...

Dimlee said:

Vasiliy Golubev, I guess. His books were better than many others. But, still, they were all written in the Soviet period. That meant censorship, political bias, etc.

Click to expand...

dedalos said:

Reading soviet tests of the fw190, all the time say how much superior their fighters were. And indeed the Fw190A was obsolete by 1945. However , in Kurland pocket , just two gruppen of Jg54 , fought for six months against thousands soviets aircraft, and managed to keep the ports operating. And at the end they escaped to the british occupation zone. I dont see much sovier fighter superiority there
Until the last day luftwaffe was flying missions against the soviets, if fuel was available with any type of aircraft. From training biplanes to jets . Lipfert was even flying in his own initiative in order to get his 200th kill. Against the western alleis they could not even take off. Soviet superiority was basically in numbers, LA7 and yak3 were good but we should not exaggerate their abilities

Click to expand...

Juha3 said:

I agree with the first part but calling 190 As obsolete, it clearly was still useful in 1945, and anyway Soviets still used Yak-9Ms and British Spit IXs and XVIs.
But it is not true, that LW was powerless in the ETO in 1945, air combats continued to the end, the LW even used Ju 87s at daytime time to time, e.g. at Stolzenau on 5 April 1945 against British ground forces.

Click to expand...

CORSNING said:

La-5/7 vs Fw 190 Eastern Front 1942-45 by Dmitriy Khazanov & Aleksander Medved
Page 5:
"Although the Focke-Wulf would remain a significant threat to the VVS-KA into
early 1944, by then Soviet pilots had come to realize that most of the fighter units
equipped with the Fw 190 had been posted back to Germany to defend its cities
against daylight bomber raids being mounted by the USAAF's Eighth and Fifteenth
Air Forces. Indeed, by the spring of 1944 most Fw 190-equipped Gruppen on the
Eastern Front were Schlacht (ground attack) units. These machines were not flown by
Experten who had amassed vast experience engaging Soviet fighters, but by ex-Ju 87
and Hs 129 pilots with only limited knowledge of aerial combat. The Focke-Wulf
gradually became a less dangerous foe for the Soviet fighter pilots as a result, although
the Bf 109G/K remained a threat through to war's end."

Click to expand...

J_P_C said:

what configuration? combat loaded? full fuel? gap sealed? what engine condition? - should i proceed with more questions???

Click to expand...

Juha3 said:

Might be but according to the LW OoB on 9 April 1945 in Courland Stab, I. and II./JG 54 (84 Fw 190s); In East Prussia Stab/JG 51 (20 Fw 190s); Eastern Germany Stab and IV./JG 3 (65), I. and II./JG 6 (120), Stab, I. and III./JG 11 (113), so 402 Fw 190 fighters, and at least part of JG 301 also fought against VVS.

Click to expand...

Milosh said:

Lw OoB www.oocities.org/sturmvogel_66/LWOB45.html

Click to expand...

pbehn said:

To what end? A Ju 87 is airborne artillery only useful when used with the ground forces or perhaps sinking ships. An Fw 190 was still a potent aeroplane in 1945 but what can one achieve, or a squadron or even 1000 with all the backup they need?

Click to expand...

GregP said:

After you explain it, second Monday blues makes perfect sense. Once someone is "familiar" with a difficult task, they tend to get a bit complacent about it. I read in the NTSB Reporter in the 1980s that pilots with 500 - 700 hours were most likely to have a gear-up landing becasue they were familiar with the airplane and tended to not use checklists. They almost all returned to using checklists after the "big scare" or the accident ... at least accoirding to the article I read. Wonder if it is still true ...

We found the same tendencies when I went to high performance driving school at Bob Bondurant in the early 1990s. After 2 - 3 days of training, the drivers all seemed to forget to warm up the tires and brakes on the 4th day. That made teh 4th day hot lpas VERY interesting.

I was almost one of them but fortunately refrained from trying to set my fast time on the first lap. One thing those of us who were driving our own cars NEVER forgot was to cool down the engine and brakes with a slow lap at 2500 - 3000 rpm. The guys and gals who were driving school cars (Jack Roush Mustang GTs) almost always forgot that on day 4 and had to be reminded. But if you are paying for tires, brakes, and water pumps yourself, you don't tend to forget that stuff unless you are rich enough not to care about the expense. I wasn't.

About post #86, I don't believe anyone said the Luftwaffe was powererless in April 1945. I said they collapsed as an effective fighting force durign April 1945. The airplanes that got airborne with good pilots in them weren't magically rendered ineffective. They were just wildly outnumbered on the western front and didn't have much chance if they DID get airborne.

In the ETO, we lost 274, 299, and 419 fighters in Jan, Feb, Mar 1945. We lost 343 in April 1945 against 4,257 Luftwaffe losses. The Luftwaffe losses in May were 750. That's a difference of 3,507 losses. The combat reports I've read indicate to me thath the ground losses dropped off because there was nothing new and undamaged to shoot at. So, sometime in April 1945, the Luftwaffe ceased being a good fighting force. We only lost 36 fighters in May 45, and 16 of those were to AAA. Of course, VE Day was 8 May ...

Click to expand...

GregP said:

Hi Jeff,

The MG 151/20 was a 20 mm cannon using 20 x 82 ammo with a 105 g projectile at 700 - 750 rpm. It wasn't as good a cannon as an Oerlikon FF L or a Hispano Mk V, but it was reliable. The shell had a fairly slowq muzzle velocity compared with the best.

Click to expand...

There was also an MG 151/15 MG using 15 x 96 ammo with 64.5 g projectile at 700 rpm. It was a pretty decent machine gun.

Click to expand...

Juha3 said:

Stukas were attacking the British 11 Armoured Division which was crossing the Weser, they bombed both the British bridgehead and troops preparing to cross, they were supporting German counterattack.

Click to expand...