How good was the soviet air force?

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

The Douglas A-20 Havoc/Boston in Soviet Service

The A-20 Havoc/Boston twin-engine multi-role aircraft had a laudable service record in World War II. From its brief service with the French Armée de l’air before the Fall of France in 1940 th…

vvsairwar.com

SR6 this verifies your comment:

"More involved alterations were carried out on a number of A-20Bs to convert them into reconnaissance platforms. As mentioned above, B variants lacked self-sealing fuel tank and armor, and could thus fly higher and faster than the Cs, leading the Soviet brass to select B models for reconnaissance operations. The A-20Bs were fitted with a variety of Soviet-built aerial camera installations for day and night photography, and an additional fuel tank was installed in the bomb bay to increase the aircraft's range. Such modified Havocs were used by both the Soviet Air Force and the Navy. The converted B reconnaissance platforms served adeptly throughout the course of the war, and often times flew alongside Soviet-built Petlyakov Pe-2Rs towards the end of hostilities. Georgiy Ivanovich Lashin, an A-20 pilot who flew both bomber and reconnaissance missions, was awarded the Gold Star Hero of the Soviet Union for his skills as a pilot, specifically while flying reconnaissance sorties. During the war, Lashin took aerial photographs of six European capitals (Bucharest, Sofia, Athens, Belgrade, Budapest, and Vienna), each time under attack from enemy fighters and anti-aircraft fire. Lashin was credit with photographing 150,000 square kilometers of enemy-held territory, including 160 airfields, 150 railway junctions, and thousands of other military targets, all while flying an A-20."

 

[Denniss]

The Me 210 was not lengthened by the Hungarians, this was already done by the germans who also rebuilt all surviving short-fuselage 210s

 

[Shortround6]

The Me 210 was not lengthened by the Hungarians, this was already done by the germans who also rebuilt all surviving short-fuselage 210s

Thank you for the correction.
But the Hungarians were not flying the 210 in the original configuration that the Germans had rejected.

 

[Denniss]

They flew the lengthened Me 210 with DB 605 engines = Me 210C

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

For those who aren't aware of the story, the Lipetsk fighter pilot school, was a major part of the origin story of the Luftwaffe, is also a very good example of the sinister secret interactions between the Soviets and the precursors of the Nazis. A really dark story.

The TL : DR is that after WW I, under the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, the Germans were forbidden from having an air force. During WW I the German air force had been called the Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte. This was part of the old German Imperial military system, and had many ties into the existing military hierarchies of Prussian etc. officers. But after WW I it was broken up and banned by foreign powers.

Luftwaffe was the new air force created in secret (and illegally) by elements of the German military. The Treaty of Versailles which put all of the blame for the horrors of WW I on the German doorstep, is largely recognized by historians as overbearing and unduly harsh. Germany was required to pay huge reparations bill while at the same time trying to recover from a shattered wartime economy, including acute food shortages etc. Internal politics and foreign scrutiny made rebuilding their military at home virtually impossible in the 1920s, but aggressive actions by French and Belgian troops in the Rhur valley when Germany fell behind on reparations payments made the need to do so feel urgent.

Germany and the Soviet Union were both pariah states in the 1920s, and both felt the need to rebuild their military forces. In Germany this was also tied in with far-right veterans who blamed the war and the defeat on foreign states and internal enemies (like Jews, trade unions, and communists). The Soviets meanwhile had just come through a brutal civil war, and saw the desperate need to modernize their armed forces, which were basically still stuck in the 19th Century. The Germans and the Soviets made a treaty and created three secret training sites on Soviet territory - the Lipetsk figther school and airfield, a tank school called Paznerschule Kama, and a chemical warfare school called the Tomka gas test site.

The deal was that in exchange for being allowed to train their new army on Soviet territory, the Germans would give instruction to Soviet pilots (and to Soviet tank commanders, chemical warfare specialists etc.). These schools were also testing grounds for new types of aircraft, tanks, and chemical weapons, involving big firms like Krupp, Daimler, and Rheinmetall. The prototypes for the Panzer I and Panzer II tanks were tested at the panzer school. The fighter school trained 120 German fighter pilots and 750 German ground personnel and training staff from 1926-1933 (the site closing down during the winter), and the pilots flew Dutch Fokker and some old and new Russian types like Polikarpov I-5. The Soviets had 340 people on site.

Soon after the Nazi regime took power, the Germans stopped hiding the existence of their military and pulled out of the secret bases. Stalin, for whatever paranoid reasons, 'liquidated' many of the Russian personnel who were working at these sites, but they kept the research from the technology transfer. Many of the Germans who worked there, and the German officers who organized the whole thing, ended up being ardent supporters of the Nazi regime and key members of their new air force (including at least 6 prominent aces / experten) - the Luftwaffe. The RLM was founded in 1933, just as the Lipetsk school closed.

There is a very good German TV show called Babylon Berlin which depicts the Lipetsk fighter school.

 

[Stig1207]

Currently re-reading Black Cross/ Red Star vol. 5 by Christer Bergstrom and I have so far got through the first few chapters of the Battle of Kuban. Up thread, in post #172 the article from Lendlease.ru mentions 16 GIAP

"Most famous fighter regiment in the VVS". Went into action in April 1943
"The regiment began combat operations on 9 April, at the very beginning of the battle for the Kuban. This campaign is considered pivotal in the history of Soviet VVS. Over the course of two months of intense battles with the best fighter squadrons of the Luftwaffe, Soviet pilots won strategic superiority in the air. Approximately 1100 German aircraft were destroyed, some 800 of them in the air. Western historians call this battle the "Stalingrad" of the Luftwaffe.

The pilots of the regiment fought combat operations of a corresponding nature with German fighters. The outcome of the battles in April: 289 Airacobra and 13 Kittyhawk combat sorties, in which were conducted 28 aerial engagements. Shot down were Bf-109E-14, Bf-109F-12, Bf-109G-45, FW-190-2, Ju-88-4, Do-217-1, and Ju-87-1. Of these, Guards Captain A. I. Pokryshkin shot down 10 Messers, Guards Senior Lieutenant V. I. Fadeev 12-Bf-109s, and Guards Senior Lieutenant G. A. Rechkalov 7 Messers and 1 Ju-88."

So according to BCRSv.5 from 9 April to 17 April 16 GIAP lost 9 Airacobras and numerous damaged while claiming 51 victories (types not specified, but obviously a high proportion of 109's),including 6 by Pokryshkin, 4+1 shared by Fadeyev and 4 by Rechkalov against which 'no more than between 2 and 4 victory claims can be matched with Germnan loss records.'

By the end at April, after 289 sorties by Airacobras and 13 by Kittyhawks, 16 GIAP' 'reported 79 victories against 19 Airacobras lost in combat and another 2 in accidents and 11 pilots killed....71 BF109s, 4 Ju88s, 2 Fw190s , 1 Ju 88 (misid'ed Do 217?) and 1 Ju 87.'

Fadeyev 12, Pokryshnin 9, Rechkalov 8, Trud 7

Bergstrom contiues '....a close comparison with Luftwaffe losses day by day shows that possibly only about 1/10th of 16 GIAP's assigned victories can be matched with Luftwaffe loss records.'

The other P-39 units at Kuban, 45 IAP and 298 IAP don't get a similar breakdown of victories and losses, but the general picture is the same, exaggerated claims and high losses, as it is for the other VVS fighter units flying Laggs, Yaks and La5s.

Total combat losses in April '43 in the Kuban area were 300 Soviet and 77 German aircraft destoyed in the air.

Fliegerkorps I fighter pilots claimed twice as many victories as actual Soviet losses, 601 against 18 own combat losses and 16 Bf 109s badly damaged/ belly landed.

4 VA reported 521 German aircraft shot down, incl 405 Bf109s.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Overclaiming was very common by all air forces in all Theaters, and while 300 Soviet aircraft lost for 77 German doesn't sound too far off the mark for this period, I noticed myself reading Bergstrom that his analysis sometimes seems to be at odds with his own statistics. At any rate, from reading his books a couple of years ago I noted that a 4-1 loss ratio was about normal for this period (late 1942 through first half of 1943), and it declined to 3-1 later in 1943 and then to 2-1 afterward, depending on the specific area.

To be clear, I was quoting from the Lend Lease site there to show what it said, not claiming that the Soviet victory claim numbers were accurate.Victory claim numbers were almost never accurate in WW2, for a variety of reasons. We also see this quite a bit in the recently posted data from the CBI Theater.

It's unclear to me from the above summary how many of the 300 Soviet losses were of bombers or of older types (I-153, I-16 etc.). It seems that relatively few were P-39s. When I was looking closely at his numbers, I found that Bergstrom sometimes seem to have had his thumb on the scale in terms of spin, I'll leave it at that. I have Volume 5 though so I can take a closer look as well at this specific time and Theater, it's often interesting and educational to do so.

You seem to be implying that P-39 units had similar outcomes to LaGG and early Yak units, but the Soviets obviously did not think so. I don't believe it is likely that they were particularly motivated by ideology or convenience to make heavy use of a foreign aircraft type. The principal motivator for their use of the P-39 seems to have been the perceived efficiency of the type. They also noted that P-39 equipped units did not work well in all zones, that a series of specific technical issues were not always overcome, and that suitable pilot training and tactics were necessary for them to work well. These also seem to have changed with different variants of that type.

Two other points - 77 aircraft (presumably mostly fighters) in one month in one specific part of the Soviet front would not be trivial losses for the Luftwaffe. And I have seen Luftwaffe overclaiming ratios in the records from the Mediterranean far higher than 2-1. The more stress their units were under the higher the overclaiming ratios seemed to get. I can provide some specific examples later.

 

[Stig1207]

16 GIAP claimed 71 Bf109's (out of a total of 79) and at best 7 or 8 are verified victories, while losing 19 P-39s, so they have a negative exchange rate no matter what types they actually shot down.
4VA's claims for 405 (out of 521 total claims) Bf 109's certainly suggest a similar pattern by the other fighter units.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

16 GIAP claimed 71 Bf109's (out of a total of 79) and at best 7 or 8 are verified victories, while losing 19 P-39s, so they have a negative exchange rate no matter what types they actually shot down.
4VA's claims for 405 (out of 521 total claims) Bf 109's certainly suggest a similar pattern by the other fighter units.

Well, even assuming that is accurate (are you counting forced landings after combat?), 8 x Bf 109s vs 19 x P-39s is a 1 - 2.4 ratio, which is almost twice as good (1-4) as the average Soviet fighter unit at that time, and this is only in their first few weeks of using the new fighter. The oldest (P-39D-1 and D-2) variant they would end up using.

But the Soviet records say that 16 GIAP actually lost 13 Airacobras "destroyed or not returned from combat missions" in this period, with 11 pilots, and two more Airacobras lost in accidents. So that would actually be an even better ratio of 1-1.6, which is not really sustainable for the Luftwaffe, especially considering that the Soviet units - aircraft, pilots, and tactics, would only improve from that point onward.

So I can see why the Soviets were excited about the new fighter, in this context.

Overclaiming is a separate issue, as I said. More on that in a minute.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

So some examples of Luftwaffe overclaiming, from North Africa via Shores Mediterranean Air War

13 October 1942 - Germans claimed 8 DAF fighters (5 P-40s, 2 Spitfires, and a P-39), losing 3. Actual Allied losses were one Spitfire Mk IV and one P-40L. So that's 8-2 or 4-1 overclaiming rate.

23 March 1943 - German pilots from JG 77 engaged with a variety of DAF fighters, claiming 5 Spitfires and a B-25. Actual losses were 1 Spitfire (destroyed in a collision) and one A-20. So that is 6-2 for a 3-1 overclaiming rate.

29 March 1943 - Pilots of II and III./ JG 77 engage with 58 and 60th Sqn 33 FG. They lose six Bf 109s and one crash landed, claiming 5 victories. Actual losses for 33rd FG were 1 aircraft, plus one lost to flak. So a 5-1 overclaiming rate for the Luftwaffe.

For the entire month of October 1942, which led into the 2nd Battle of El Alamein, the Axis Claimed 238 victories (107 by the Germans / 131 by the Italians). Actual Allied losses were 81 aircraft of all types (62 shot down, 19 crash landed). So that is just short of 3-1 overclaiming rate.

 

[Stig1207]

Well, even assuming that is accurate (are you counting forced landings after combat?), 8 x Bf 109s vs 19 x P-39s is a 1 - 2.4 ratio, which is almost twice as good (1-4) as the average Soviet fighter unit at that time, and this is only in their first few weeks of using the new fighter. The oldest (P-39D-1 and D-2) variant they would end up using.

But the Soviet records say that 16 GIAP actually lost 13 Airacobras "destroyed or not returned from combat missions" in this period, with 11 pilots, and two more Airacobras lost in accidents. So that would actually be an even better ratio of 1-1.6, which is not really sustainable for the Luftwaffe, especially considering that the Soviet units - aircraft, pilots, and tactics, would only improve from that point onward.

So I can see why the Soviets were excited about the new fighter, in this context.

Overclaiming is a separate issue, as I said. More on that in a minute.

Bergstrom wrote 19 and your source wrote 13, I can't say which is correct. However, you can't assume that 16 GIAP shot down 8 Bf 109s either; in April 18 109's were lost by compared to the 405 claimed by 4 VA; if badly damaged , bur repairable, force landed at base or in friendly territory, the tally is 34.

The total 521 claims by 4VA is about 7 times the 77 Lw losses, that's high but not worse than some other campaigns during the war. It is the claims against Bf 109s that are remarkable, 22,5 or 13 times depending on how you want to count the losses.

 

[Stig1207]

So some examples of Luftwaffe overclaiming, from North Africa via Shores Mediterranean Air War

13 October 1942 - Germans claimed 8 DAF fighters (5 P-40s, 2 Spitfires, and a P-39), losing 3. Actual Allied losses were one Spitfire Mk IV and one P-40L. So that's 8-2 or 4-1 overclaiming rate.

23 March 1943 - German pilots from JG 77 engaged with a variety of DAF fighters, claiming 5 Spitfires and a B-25. Actual losses were 1 Spitfire (destroyed in a collision) and one A-20. So that is 6-2 for a 3-1 overclaiming rate.

29 March 1943 - Pilots of II and III./ JG 77 engage with 58 and 60th Sqn 33 FG. They lose six Bf 109s and one crash landed, claiming 5 victories. Actual losses for 33rd FG were 1 aircraft, plus one lost to flak. So a 5-1 overclaiming rate for the Luftwaffe.

For the entire month of October 1942, which led into the 2nd Battle of El Alamein, the Axis Claimed 238 victories (107 by the Germans / 131 by the Italians). Actual Allied losses were 81 aircraft of all types (62 shot down, 19 crash landed). So that is just short of 3-1 overclaiming rate.

You'll find similar cases of overclaiming by the German pilots over Kuban, but the overall average for April '43 in the battle, was 2-1.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Bergstrom wrote 19 and your source wrote 13, I can't say which is correct.

I wouldn't be super surprised if Bergstrom was counting other losses, like crashes on takeoff etc., which is the kind of thing I've noticed in his books before.

However, you can't assume that 16 GIAP shot down 8 Bf 109s either; in April 18 109's were lost by compared to the 405 claimed by 4 VA; if badly damaged , bur repairable, force landed at base or in friendly territory, the tally is 34.

Yeah I was kind of wondering if this kind of creativity was involved in the loss-count. This is actually a pretty big issue in assessing operational data of this type. Personally, I don't think repairability of an aircraft is really relevant. Some pretty seriously messed up planes were repaired, others which landed on their own power with relatively light damage were written off.

The ability to repair aircraft brings in a host of other issues unrelated to the amount of damage taken, or the ability of the aircraft to withstand it - such as the available repair facilities, number of mechanics, presence or lack of a dedicated repair depot and a system for recovering crashed aircraft (something the Desert Air Force did particularly well), availability of spare parts and engines etc., and whether they have to evacuate the field such as happened so often to the Germans from 1943 onward. You might have 10 or 15 aircraft sitting beside a runway which could be easily fixed, but which are burned or abandoned because the enemy tanks are coming.

Another statistic you can track is the number of pilots killed vs those who made it back to base the same day, made it back to base eventually, those who were injured but recovered, vs injured and were evacuated from the battle area, or died later etc. But here too it becomes a rabbit hole.

I think you need to have a relatively simple standard for measuring actual air combat victories, and it has to be consistently applied to both sides.

The standard I usually go by is if they landed under power at their own base, it may be 'damaged' but was not shot down. If they were forced by battle damage to land anywhere but at their base (or at an emergency / backup airfield under friendly control), then they have 'crash landed' and this is fair to count among the losses for their side, legitimate victories for the other. I usually count these separately.

From the point of view of a fighter pilot, winning an air to air victory just means that the enemy aircraft was damaged, and as a result of that damage was no longer able to fly. That is sufficient, IMO. But again the real important factor is that the same standard is applied to both sides consistently.

Aircraft which land at their own base but without power or so damaged that they are immediately written off are kind of an edge case which you can count separately.

The total 521 claims by 4VA is about 7 times the 77 Lw losses, that's high but not worse than some other campaigns during the war. It is the claims against Bf 109s that are remarkable, 22,5 or 13 times depending on how you want to count the losses.

You can always play with the numbers. In some of the examples in North Africa from 1942-1943, the Germans fighter pilots overclaimed on fighters as much as 7-1.

Rates of overclaiming fluctuate a lot. It was a problem everywhere. The general rule is that the more chaotic the fighting, and the more stressed the pilots, the more overclaiming there was. The Soviets did reduce their overclaiming rate as the war went on, whereas the German rates went up considerably in some areas.

 

[bf109xxl]

The Soviets made a lot of incremental improvements through the war, the Yak-9, Yak-1B, and Yak 3 all being much better in 1943 or 1944 than the earlier Yak-1 and Yak-7, and the LaGG-3 was also improved substantially during the same period (often forgotten because it didn't really get new model names), but both whole series were definitely limited by their Hispano derived inline engines, which were never improved that much.

The improved LaGG-3 (e.g., Batch 66) in Sepember, 1943 at the end of production was not much better than the Yak-1b in November, 1942. LaGGs of the last batches were manufactured in Tbilisi (State Aviation Plant No.31), where the manufacturing culture was remarkably worse than in Gor'ky (State Aviation Plant No.21) even for the Soviet quality level.

The powerful Shvestov ASh-82 however (derived at the end of a long chain of development from the Wright R-1820) was a breakthrough, which allowed them to move into their new La 5 / 5FN / 7 / 9 / 11 series of fighters, and was also used for postwar helicopter design (the Mi 4) which was built ino the 1970s.

The real breakthrough was the M-71 - it allowed to produce I-185 and Su-6/Su-8 which were far superior to Yak/La and Il-2/-10 respectively. Unfortunately the design bureau was ordered to concentrate all efforts on the M-82 only.

The ASh-82 was also the motor of the Tu-2 bomber, a quite good upgrade from the already pretty capable (and I think, underrated) Pe-2 dive bomber.

Pe-2 was rather far overrated. Seems, that you don't read what the other write here. Pe-2 was mostly used as a level bomber with a typical bomb loading of 600 kg, dive brakes were frequently dismounted. Only few Pe-2 regiments had pilots, which were sufficiently trained for dive bombing. Moreover, Pe-2 required well-trained pilots because of specific aerodynamic features of its wing airfoil on take-off/landing. It is still disputable, whether the choice of Pe-2 instead of SPB or even Ar-2 was optimal for the Soviets.

Some other wartime designs were more debatable, probably first and foremost the Il-2. Nobody seems to agree how good these actually were at killing German tanks, or more broadly, in the CAS role.

There is an agreement, that the efficiency of the Il-2 was not so high as it was described by the Soviet propaganda - you can read books by Oleg Rastrenin who is the most prominent historian of the Il'yushin ground attack planes (and Soviet CAS aircraft as well) to date. Guns (both 23-mm VYa or 37-mm ShFK-37/NS-37) were not efficient against tanks. Only the proper use of PTABs made possible to destroy German armored vehicles efficiently before the Germans elaborated counter-measures. But these changes in tactics resulted in reduced maneuverability of mobile units, which was to the advantage of the Soviets. Il-2 had a primitive "bombsight", but even this feature was not used by the pilots according to "Combat capabilities of the Il-10 when operating against field artillery on firing positions" by V.Emel'yanenko, 1949 - a very interesting post-war analysis ,which you've never heard before. Now you can google who was Emel'yanenko.
Some facts concerning the Il-10 efficiency from this analysis:

Briefly: you need 29 Il-10 to destroy one field gun using bombs only under AA fire.

The Soviet leadership certainly seemed to like them, as they built 35,000 of them, but they also lost an enormous number of them. Efficacy of the Il-2 has become one of those ideological fault lines between the German lovers and the Soviet defenders (the Operational history section in the Wiki entry for the Il-2 reads like you can hear Wagner in the background), which spills over, bringing this ideological taint with it, into discussions about CAS in general.

Only the overclaims of CAS pilots (some claimed hundreds of destroyed enemy cars/tanks/locomotives/trains/etc.) can beat the overclaims of fighter pilots.

There does seem to be some at least sporadic evidence that Pe-2 dive bombers were considerably more effective at destroying certain types of targets like bridges and AA guns.

Even totally obsolete I-153s and I-16s (for instance, they destroyed bridge with an oil pipe from dive in Romania in 1941 being launched from the TB-3 bomber) were sometimes more effective - at least their losses were significantly lower. But I doubt, that Pe-2s were considerably more effective against AA (even more effective at all) taking into account that they were primarily used as level bombers. In contrary, the AA suppression was a typical task for Il-2/-10 throughout the war.

The Il-2 was improved substantially through the war, the biggest change being the badly needed addition of a rear gunner, but they made a lot of other smaller improvements too. They did finally replace the IL-2 with the much faster and seemingly much more capable IL-10 in 1944, but it's debatable whether the overall strategic niche (still relatively slow, heavily armored attack aircraft for CAS) was a good one. It was still being debated about the modern A-10 and Su 25 etc.

Despite of much better flight performance Il-10 was indeed not much more capable than Il-2 on ground targets (even better at all). Initially it had no rockets under wings and should take only 400 kg bomb load (that was one of the major reasons of significantly better flight performance). And it was much less capable to resist damages due to a "fighter" wing airfoil. The post-war modification Il-10M had already airfoil similar to that of the Il-2. In later 1944 Ils were attacked by enemy fighters much less frequently than at the beginning and in the middle of the war (less than in 15% of sorties), moreover, there were enough fighters to escort them in the vast majority of cases - the rear gunner on Il-10 was indeed simply unnecessary. Il-10 was significantly worse than Su-6 M-71F - Sukhoi developed two really good airplanes that could be extremely efficient for CAS, unfortunately they were not put into the mass production. Quite typical situation for the Soviets, who always sacrificed quality for quantity. It seems that they themselves never believed in their ability to create high-performance "masterpieces" that did not need to be produced in gigantic quantities. May be, an armor-protected CAS aircraft was not a bad idea by itself (I doubt it, however), but its implementation as Il-2/Il-10 was rather ineffective taking into account the alternatives.

Quite illustrative is the sinking of the anti-aircraft cruiser Niobe (converted from Dutch protected cruiser Gelderland taken over by the Germans) in the port of Kotka on July 16, 1944. The Soviets were sure that they found the Finnish coastal defense ship Väinämöinen, which they hunted during the whole war. The first strike (30 Pe-2s from dive) gave zero result - all 70 bombs did not hit the target. It was necessary to increase significantly the strike group - finally it counted 131 or 132 (!!!) airplanes including escort fighters. 23 Il-2s (not Pe-2s!!!) were used to suppress AA artillery, then 11 Pe-2s hit the ship with four 250kg-bombs, but did not sink it - the ship guns were still firing. The Niobe was finally sunk only by 1000kg bombs from four A-20Gs (one of them was shot down) by skip-bombing. And it was one of the best Pe-2 regiments (12 GBAP of the Baltic Fleet Air Arm, commander V.I.Rakov) trained for dive bombing in the Soviet Air Forces...

Clichès, surely...

 

[bf109xxl]

The Soviets did reduce their overclaiming rate as the war went on

One more nonsens... Thanks to Pokryshkin's efforts, the accounting of air victories since 1943 was simplified, and the scores of Soviet aces began to grow much faster.

 

[bf109xxl]

The Soviets loved A-20s for recon.

The Soviets simply loved A-20s - not only for recon. I would say, they loved it for everything - it may be the most beloved aircraft of the Allies received as part of Lend-Lease, being superior in this respect even to the Cobra. I personally heard the opinion from a Soviet "boston" pilot in late 1980s. He spoke of the airplane only enthusiastically, remembering how comfortable and reliable it was for pilots. and how capable it was as a bomber. In his opinion, he was very lucky to fly the A-20.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm learning an awful lot from this discussion. Thanks, gents.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

The improved LaGG-3 (e.g., Batch 66) in Sepember, 1943 at the end of production was not much better than the Yak-1b in November, 1942. LaGGs of the last batches were manufactured in Tbilisi (State Aviation Plant No.31), where the manufacturing culture was remarkably worse than in Gor'ky (State Aviation Plant No.21) even for the Soviet quality level.

LaGG-3 / Batch 66 had fairly good combat outcomes, from what I've read. Yak-1B was also a good fighter.

The real breakthrough was the M-71 - it allowed to produce I-185 and Su-6/Su-8 which were far superior to Yak/La and Il-2/-10 respectively. Unfortunately the design bureau was ordered to concentrate all efforts on the M-82 only.

M-82 was an excellent engine by world standards, and the I-185 and Su-6 look interesting on paper, they weren't used in the war so I don't see the point.

Pe-2 was rather far overrated. Seems, that you don't read what the other write here. Pe-2 was mostly used as a level bomber with a typical bomb loading of 600 kg, dive brakes were frequently dismounted. Only few Pe-2 regiments had pilots, which were sufficiently trained for dive bombing. Moreover, Pe-2 required well-trained pilots because of specific aerodynamic features of its wing airfoil on take-off/landing. It is still disputable, whether the choice of Pe-2 instead of SPB or even Ar-2 was optimal for the Soviets.

Whether or not all pilots used it as a dive bomber isn't really relevant to the overall merits of the design. One of the features of the Pe-2 was that it was quite versatile, even in the heavy fighter / night fighter role as the Pe 3. But clearly some units were used as dive bombers and with particular success in that role.

Pe-2 as a dive bomber was probably more accurate than the Ju-88.

There is an agreement, that the efficiency of the Il-2 was not so high as it was described by the Soviet propaganda - you can read books by Oleg Rastrenin who is the most prominent historian of the Il'yushin ground attack planes (and Soviet CAS aircraft as well) to date. Guns (both 23-mm VYa or 37-mm ShFK-37/NS-37) were not efficient against tanks.

There is some truth in that the guns couldn't automatically knock out heavier tanks, but this tends to be very overstated. The assumption here seems to be that all German tanks were tigers, and all armored vehicles were large tanks. Many German tanks up to 1943 were fairly lightly armored, especially on the sides and rear, and most of the vehicles in an armored force were not in fact medium or heavy tanks. All armored vehicles in WW2 had relatively thin top armor. Or none.

Panzerjäger I (mobile anti-tank gun) had armor of 6-14.5mm (~200 produced through 1941)
Marder II (mobile anti-tank gun) had armor 14.5mm sides and rear, 35mm front, and an open top (~500 produced in 1942)
Marder III (mobile anti-tank gun) had armor from 10mm (sides and rear) -50mm front, and an open top. (~400 produced in 1942)
Pz II (light tank) had 5-15mm armor (~500 produced 1941-1942)
Grille (self propelled 15cm field gun), had 10-15mm armor (225 produced in 1943)

Pz 38 (t) (light tank) 8mm sides, 30mm front (~1300 produced by 1943)
Pz III Ausf C (medium tank) 15mm armor all around
Pz III Ausf D-G (medium tank) 30mm armor all around (~2,200 produced by 1943)
Pz III Ausf J (medium tank) 50mm armor all around (~2,000 produced by 1943)
Pz IV up to E (medium tank) 15mm sides, 30mm front (~600 produced by early 1942)
Pz IV F1 (medium tank) 20-30mm sides and rear, 50mm front
Pz IV F2 (medium tank) 20-30mm sides and rear, 50mm front (first appear in 1942, 870 produced in that year)
Pz IV G-J (medium tank) 20-38mm sides and rear, 50-80mm front
StuGG III (assault gun) had 16mm sides - 50 or 80mm front

Panthers aren't available until 1943
Tiger I available in very small numbers in 1942, a few more in 1943, only 1300 produced in the whole war. Admittedly, a Tiger I would be pretty safe from guns of an Il-2. Same for a Tiger II needless to say.
Same for some of the later self-propelled guns and tank destroyers, but by the time they appeared the Germans were long past winning any battles, either in the sky or on the ground.

Then lets remember that most of the forces in an armored German column would be much lighter armored and unarmored vehicles, like:
A dizzying array of light armored, open top halftracks (5.5-14.5mm armor)
A wide range of light armored cars (also often open topped) for example Sd.Kfz. 231 "acht rad" had 8-15mm armor.
Lightly armored, or unarmored self propelled AAA guns (always open topped), and
Self-propelled artillery vehicles. Which were also usually open topped and lightly armored. For example Wespe has 5mm armor (sides), and 30mm (front) and an open top.

And then a lot of trucks, kubelwagons and other light vehicles, and for the German armed forces, many (as in thousands) of horse drawn carts and wagons.

The 23mm guns (VYa-23) on a Sturmovik shot 190 gram projectile at a velocity of 970 m/s. could penetrate 25mm of armor at 400m with a rate of fire of 650 rpm
The 37mm gun (Sh 37) shot a 730 gram shell 880 m/s and could penetrate 37mm of armor, with a rate of fire of 170 rpm

So basically all of the light armored vehicles, light tanks, self propelled artillery guns, halftracks, and AA guns in a German armored unit could be pretty much instantly killed by hits from the 23mm, let alone the 37mm gun. Most medium tanks were still vulnerable on the sides, and even the heavy tanks and assault guns could get their wheels and tracks blown off by either of those guns, leaving them stranded and vulnerable (at which point the crew would often bail out).

I don't think those guns were useless against armor, and obviously the Soviet armed forces didn't either.

Even totally obsolete I-153s and I-16s (for instance, they destroyed bridge with an oil pipe from dive in Romania in 1941 being launched from the TB-3 bomber) were sometimes more effective - at least their losses were significantly lower.

I-153s and I-16s played a similar role to Hs 123 (still in use at Stalingrad and and Kursk), and to many other light observation and CAS aircraft used by the Western forces all the way through WW2, and into Korea, Vietnam and in many other conflicts. That is a particular niche. The parasite I-16 fighters being used in Ploesti were an interesting experiment that was not repeated, largely due to the slow speed and vulnerability of the TB-3. It's a good story though.

But I doubt, that Pe-2s were considerably more effective against AA (even more effective at all) taking into account that they were primarily used as level bombers. In contrary, the AA suppression was a typical task for Il-2/-10 throughout the war.

Quite often Pe-2 dive bombers were used in this role. It was a long war involving many, many aircraft. For example:

Quite illustrative is the sinking of the anti-aircraft cruiser Niobe (converted from Dutch protected cruiser Gelderland taken over by the Germans) in the port of Kotka on July 16, 1944. The Soviets were sure that they found the Finnish coastal defense ship Väinämöinen, which they hunted during the whole war. The first strike (30 Pe-2s from dive) gave zero result - all 70 bombs did not hit the target. It was necessary to increase significantly the strike group - finally it counted 131 or 132 (!!!) airplanes including escort fighters. 23 Il-2s (not Pe-2s!!!) were used to suppress AA artillery, then 11 Pe-2s hit the ship with four 250kg-bombs

I'd cite this as proof of the dive bombing accuracy of the Pe-2. Four hits on a ship considerably smaller than an aircraft carrier from 11 dive bombers is excellent bombing accuracy in WW2. Few Stuka raids had superior accuracy to that.

, but did not sink it - the ship guns were still firing.

Whether the ship sank or not is kind of irrelevant to bombing accuracy. Larger armored warships usually required larger than 250 kg bombs, but four hits actually did some damage.

The Niobe was finally sunk only by 1000kg bombs from four A-20Gs (one of them was shot down) by skip-bombing. And it was one of the best Pe-2 regiments (12 GBAP of the Baltic Fleet Air Arm, commander V.I.Rakov) trained for dive bombing in the Soviet Air Forces...

Clichès, surely...

They may have liked the A-20s, but they suffered very high losses with them. More than with the Pe-2s

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

it looks like in the raid you were referring to the target was actually not the wonderfully named and pretty impressive looking Väinämöinen, which they couldn't find, but rather the much less impressive though fairly well armed German "AA cruiser" Niobe, which was armed with no less than 8 x 4.1" guns, 4 x 40mm Bofors, and 4 x 20mm guns, but was repeatedly hit by the Red Banner fleet aircraft, sinking with 70 hands. The heavily armed AA ship managed to shoot down one A-20 before sinking.

 

[bf109xxl]

it looks like in the raid you were referring to the target was actually not the wonderfully named and pretty impressive looking Väinämöinen, which they couldn't find, but rather the much less impressive though fairly well armed German "AA cruiser" Niobe, which was armed with no less than 8 x 4.1" guns, 4 x 40mm Bofors, and 4 x 20mm guns, but was repeatedly hit by the Red Banner fleet aircraft, sinking with 70 hands. The heavily armed AA ship managed to shoot down one A-20 before sinking.

More than 130 aircraft for an obsolete AA cruiser?!!!! It sounds very funny, even more funny than 22 years old pilot-capitalist. You seem to consider the Baltic Fleet commanders to be complete idiots. But even if some admirals like Tributs deserved the most negative assessments, they were not that stupid. So, you know nothing about the hunting for Väinämöinen started in 1939. The Soviets were absolutely sure they sunk the Väinämöinen, some pilots were even awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for sinking of Väinämöinen and only later analysis revealed the mistake which was never denied by the Soviets themselves! It can be found in the Soviet documents, that the ship was erroneously identified. The Soviets had no idea about the Niobe - the even didn't know about it. All these facts are well known.