How good was the soviet air force?

[Dimlee]

I would almost agree, but with the phrase "the quality gap has narrowed". They haven't become equal.

One of the Soviet (fictional) anecdotes of the 1980s.
The Japanese delegation was invited to the best electronics factory in the USSR to evaluate the technological gap between the two countries' industries. After carefully studying the production facilities, the head of the delegation politely bowed and said with a sad face: "Sorry to inform you, but your industry is certainly behind." Soviets replied: "Yes, of course, we know that. But how many years behind, 5 years, 10 years?". The Japanese gentleman bowed again: "Sorry, but you are behind... forever".

Neither Operation Osoaviakhim, nor industrial espionage on an enormous scale, nor gifts from useful idiots could help the USSR bridge the technological gap. Why so - it's an interesting and complex topic.

 

[ThomasP]

Hey bf109xxl (and anyone else who may have data we could use ),

Do you have any numbers for Soviet losses due to enemy action vs operational accidents/losses vs training accidents? It might be interesting to compare them against the Western losses due to similar causes.

I do not see a practical way to separate accidental losses due to manufacture and quality control problems, but still the comparison might show some interesting general data as to how the different Air Forces fared.

 

[Juha3]

...Second, regarding the Battle of Midway there are two kinds of aircraft losses: aircraft shot down, aircraft lost due to the loss of aircraft carriers. The US lost something like 150 planes in the battle, almost all of them were shot down in air to air combat or AA fire. The Japanese lost something like 230 aircraft, almost all due to the sinking of the carriers. These losses are not the same. Critics of the US strategy at Midway point out that the decision to send US carrier aircraft into combat in a disorganized manner was more likely to end in disaster than success. As the battle played out, the US suffered near total losses until the late arriving dive bombers struck and sank or disabled the first three Japanese carriers. Had the dive bombers missed finding the Japanese, Midway would be looked at as an epic disaster and major error in leadership...

Maybe not so simple, IJN lost 7 a/c shot down during its attack on Midway and 24 carrier planes plus some recce floatplanes during the shadowing the TF 17 and the two attacks on the USS Yorktown plus several fighter during the defence of the Kido Butai.
USN lost 41 a/c operationally from June 4th to June 6th, incl 10 F4Fs from the USS Hornet which run out of fuel during the famous attack of the TF 16 on the Kido Butai on 4 June. And lost 11 a/c with the USS Yorktown.

 

[Frog]

No wonder the French pilots on the Eastern front had much success with the Yak-3.
Fighting the Luftwaffe in the last 9 months of the war (or for most of that period) would have seemed like a big mopping-up operation - the quality of German pilots had seriously deteriorated by then.

It seems that the Luftwaffe pilot that the Normandie-Niemen had to fight during their 3rd campaign (december 12, 1945 to the end of the war) were not all the rookies you seem to imply as on february 1945, it was already reduced to 25 able to fly pilots. Facing them among others was the JG 51. This campaign cost the regiment 9 deads, not including POWs and wounded, for 72 official kills.

 

[bf109xxl]

Do you have any numbers for Soviet losses due to enemy action vs operational accidents/losses vs training accidents? It might be interesting to compare them against the Western losses due to similar causes.

In fact, there is indirect data on the Soviet Air Force - what was imputed to Shakhurin and other leaders of the Soviet aircraft industry at the trial in 1946. According to unverified information (by me), Stalin did not immediately believe the investigators - he trusted Shakhurin, so the accusation double-checked the figures: more than 45 thousand airplanes were not flown to combat missions, 756 accidents and 305 disasters occurred from November 1942 to February 1946 due to poor quality of assembly. Obviously, neither Shakhurin nor other aviation industry executives were to blame for this, but they became victims of the system in which they made a blistering career.
The percentage of non-combat losses was 57% and 44% for the Soviet Air Force and Luftwaffe respectively. However, a direct comparison of these figures is unlikely to be correct, and the analysis would probably require a very thick book.

 

[ThomasP]

Thank you for the information.

 

[ThomasP]

According to the US numbers, The USAAF lost ~57,000 aircraft to all causes:
23,000 to combat
20,000 to operational incidents
14,000 to training and operational (ie ASW patrol, ASAR, etc) accidents while operating from the US homeland

I do not have any numbers for the UK.

For the IJN the post-war debriefs gave ~10,400 aircraft losses due to combat, with ~16,500 operational losses (of which only ~3,000 were training aircraft).

I have never run across authoritative numbers for the total Japanese aircraft losses for the war, but there is a mention in the post-war intel debriefs, during which it was found that the IJN and IJA lost significantly fewer aircrew during training than the US did (by the numbers it was about 1/2 as many per flight hour). I have never run across an explanation for the significant difference, though it may be due to a difference in training methods and schedules (ie where the training took place - perhaps more of the 'advanced' training at the Squadron level?).

I have no authoritative numbers for the IJA losses - either in the ETO/CBI against the Allies, or in China.

NOTE Most of the above info is from the USSBS debrief data.

 

[Luft.4]

If Major Jürgen Harder had a chance to fly an early La-5, he would hardly have written tearful letters to Göring.

Then:

The quality of the early La-5 was terrible.

Are you under the impression early La-5s were the opponents on the Easter front in the late war based on what you wrote above?

Are you under the impression 1942 (when the early La-5s came online) is late war?

Early La-5s have nothing to do with what Harder experienced/expressed in late 1944. Dont understand why you mesh the two together.

The situation was changed rather to autumn 1944, but it does not mean that all shortcomings and manufacture defects were removed.

Late model La-5Fs were fine machines. They ceased production in April 1944. A better assessment would be early 1944 the La-5 (F and FN) series became a true competent opponent over the eastern front, not autumn.
I would like to see a single aircraft model which had all defects removed in WW2.

Additionally, I recall the excessive heat in the cockpit was an La-7 issue not an La-5 issue? Reason being the oil cooler was relocated underneath the cockpit on the La-7.

Harder could get a better imagine of a worse aircraft. He just never experienced a really bad quality.

Oh but he did: it was the Bf 109 which killed him in February 1945.

It doesn't matter. Harder's complaints about the quality of the planes would not have happened if he had had the opportunity to fly Soviet ones.

What???
Yes it does matter. His talk with Göring was about the performance of Soviet opponents he faced, not about the quality of their aircraft. It appears you have not read the exchange between the two Germans which might be why your framing of this topic is incoherent. It may be found in Prien's JG 53 vol 3.
Putting aside the misunderstanding about the exchange, as matter of fact Harder did not need to fly Soviet aircraft to get a taste of sub-par quality: his own aircraft killed him.

The performance was not really better than that of the Bf.109G.

What?
If that were true, but holding your opinion that late war Soviet quality was poor and much worse that the Germans by late war (hope I'm not putting words in your mouth, please correct me if I am), then the crappy Soviet produced machines would of had to somehow been so good that even in their crappy state they were on par with the Bf 109 Gs fielded over the Eastern Front, and enough that the commanders brought these concerns up to the highest levels.

The Germans banally lacked airplanes, not their qualities.

What?
I recently did a calc on 1944 aircraft production for both sides broken down by type and factory. Soviets only out produced the Germans by less the 1000 aircraft. Data taken from archives. They had the airplanes their problem was they could only allocate only a portion to the eastern front. They really wanted to allocate more to the east, hence the conflict they had about if Bodenplatte should go ahead.
But when their aircraft did hit the eastern front, they found many defects and troubles. See my above posts for some examples. Alternatively anyone can pick up books on specific aircraft models to read more about the laundry list of issues.

Not "much less wood", just "a bit more metal".

But simultaneously:

Yes, the La-7 had a metal wing spar, and the metal content in the structure increased significantly - it became 30% instead of 20%.

Some consistency please.

I would appreciate any reference or your own estimation

Sure, already given: ULTRA as found in HW-5. If you're looking for specific volumes you can try 550-702. Careful, they range between 200-500 pages per volume. Alternatively you can access some of this in the DEFE-3 series. I am sure more can be found elsewhere.

The increase in the Luftwaffe's accident rate since the fall of 1944 can be attributed to both a decline in the quality of assembly, which was distributed to small factories, and a sharp drop in pilot training.

100% Couldn't agree more.

These are complex questions and I don't demand immediate answers

Nor can I provide you with exact answers for the very same reasons you yourself wrote.


On the engine front:

"Too many" - could you please estimate the rate?

Away from my databases, no. If you have the engines book by Calumn Douglas you can read specifics there. Pilots did not like the 605 series when introduced. Naturally it became better as time progressed. If it is any consolation I have presented at least 2 very competent leaders and aces killed because of it in this thread alone.
If you have access to loss databases at hand you can filter for engine related issues and if the pilot died. All the power to you.

...but the Soviet Air Force still suffered high losses.

100%

From personal (very rich) experience, the Germans in general love to whine and complain - it is just a consequence of traditional perfectionism.

What?
It's not about perfection. Cabins flying off mid flight, landing gear malfunctioning, engines malfunctioning, cannons notorious for not firing, wing farrings burning off, tail units falling apart, etc is basic stuff which shouldn't happen. They were not filling up enigma traffic with petty complaints about perfectionism. They were pleas to correct their aircraft because they posed a serious life-or-death situation to pilots.

 

[NevadaK]

Maybe not so simple, IJN lost 7 a/c shot down during its attack on Midway and 24 carrier planes plus some recce floatplanes during the shadowing the TF 17 and the two attacks on the USS Yorktown plus several fighter during the defence of the Kido Butai.
USN lost 41 a/c operationally from June 4th to June 6th, incl 10 F4Fs from the USS Hornet which run out of fuel during the famous attack of the TF 16 on the Kido Butai on 4 June. And lost 11 a/c with the USS Yorktown.

Thank you, Juha3.

I did simplify the statistics for the sake of the point being made. I appreciate your clarification.

 

[Juha3]

Thank you, Juha3.

I did simplify the statistics for the sake of the point being made. I appreciate your clarification.

Hello NevadaK
I agree with your main point, most of the IJN a/c went down with their carriers but the USN lost only 11 a/c when the USS Yorktown was sunk.
I checked from Lundstrom's The First Team (1984) the losses of the IJN CAP during the June 4th morning attack. 11 Zeros were shot down, at least one by IJN AA and 3 ditched, 2 because of battle damage and one run out of fuel.

 

[Dimlee]

Do you have any numbers for Soviet losses due to enemy action vs operational accidents/losses vs training accidents? It might be interesting to compare them against the Western losses due to similar causes.

I do not think there is a comprehensive study regarding the Soviet accidents, training and other non-combat losses in WWII.
10+ years ago when I was interested in the subject, I could find only data (often "anecdotal") for the separate units or general estimates based on speculations and approximations.

There was a collection of documents titled "Soviet Aviation in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945 in numbers" (1962). It remained classified until the 2000s when an attempt was made to digitise and publish it in the public domain. Unfortunately, the work has never been completed (or completed and classified again).
Some parts (in Russian) converted into Excel are here:

ВОЕННАЯ ЛИТЕРАТУРА --[ Военная история ]-- Советская авиация в Великой Отечественной войне 1941-1945 гг. в цифрах

Сайт «Военная литература», работающий с 2001 г., собрал в себе множество текстов, имеющих отношение к военной истории и истории войн, и постоянно пополняется новыми материалами. Среди них -- первоисточники, архивные материалы, документы, мемуары, исследования, проза и поэзия, биографические...

militera.lib.ru

The download link is at the bottom of the page.

For someone who would like to dig into this archive...
There are two sheets containing non-combat losses and operational losses/accidents.
1. One is about VVS of the Western Front in June-July 1941 only:
combat losses - 1840
non-combat losses - 151
Data from the report filed in VVS HQ of the Western Front in July 1941. I don't consider it as complete due to the chaos that existed at all levels of commandment in that period. (Just a few weeks later, VVS introduced a new category of "unaccounted loss" and put almost 50% of all June-July losses into it).
2. Another one contains highly doubtful figures for all VVS in 1941-1945 in the categories of:
"katastrofy" (catastrophes, usually means total loss in the Soviet tradition) - 116
"avarii" (accidents, usually means partial loss) - 1016
Both numbers are total for the period of 1941-06-22 to 1945-07-01. Hard to believe. Probably, people who worked with the original papers made a mistake in Excel. Or there was something wrong with the originals. I wouldn't also exclude the pripiski factor.

 

[Luft.4]

I have data directly from TsAMO for the soviets over Hungary. There would be more katastrofy in my data set alone than the 116 total.
Catastrophe would mean there was a death involved in the incident.

 

[Dimlee]

Those two terms in Soviet technical jargon were somewhat overlapping, so to speak. "Avariya"(accident) could be with or without human loss, while "katastrofa" (catastrophe) could mean a complete destruction of the equipment without a human loss.
In modern Russian, "katastrofa" in the field of transport usually is connected to death, indeed.

It would be interesting to know the ratio of VVS combat to non-combat losses in your set of data.

 

[Luft.4]

Off of memory there are a lot of accidents. But not all are due to quality, as many were related to simple misfortune. Ex: planes colliding into each other on the runway, etc. a fair amount of accidents due to weather conditions too.

 

[Ernest (Russia)]

Greetings Ernest,

A couple comments:

First, the RAF's decision to bomb at night was directly related to the losses it suffered during daylight raids. You have it backwards, it was harder to bomb during the day. RAF Bomber Command also lacked the type of aircraft and sufficient numbers to wage a meaningful campaign until 1943. This is a decent overview for understanding both RAF and USAAF bombing campaigns:

https://media.defense.gov/2010/Oct/12/2001330115/-1/-1/0/case_studies_strategic_bombardment%202.pdf

Second, regarding the Battle of Midway there are two kinds of aircraft losses: aircraft shot down, aircraft lost due to the loss of aircraft carriers. The US lost something like 150 planes in the battle, almost all of them were shot down in air to air combat or AA fire. The Japanese lost something like 230 aircraft, almost all due to the sinking of the carriers. These losses are not the same. Critics of the US strategy at Midway point out that the decision to send US carrier aircraft into combat in a disorganized manner was more likely to end in disaster than success. As the battle played out, the US suffered near total losses until the late arriving dive bombers struck and sank or disabled the first three Japanese carriers. Had the dive bombers missed finding the Japanese, Midway would be looked at as an epic disaster and major error in leadership.

Third, I believe that many of the things you describe like the shortage of training and artillery spotting aircraft are not issues of leadership but due to the circumstances of the war that the USSR and VVS were operating under. In a crisis, you are going to make the thing you need the most. If I'm short of both fighters and training aircraft and the enemy is controlling the combat zone which aircraft will I build first? Shortages of all kinds affected the USSR war effort. There are a ton of posts in this thread about how the USSR needed better aircraft and the lack of quality of existing aircraft. But, where is the time to design, test, and develop these aircraft? Where are there factories that are capable of sophisticated construction for these aircraft? The United States, which did not operate face the pressure of an invading force made several decisions to NOT introduce design changes to aircraft because it would interrupt production for months to retool factories. In some cases, such as the B-24 and B-29, the US simply built a second factory to rebuild new aircraft to maintain production. There is no way the USSR had that kind of capacity during the war.

Fourth, friendly fire incidents happened to everyone throughout the war. Given 1940's technology, close air operations come with such a risk. This is not a sign of incompetence.

The VVS is not the RAF or USAAF. It operated in a much more challenging environment and its pilots exhibited great courage fighting an uphill battle. As I've stated earlier, comparing the VVS to either the RAF or USAAF does the VVS a disservice.

1. The RAF could night bombing, so they are good AF. All AF, and the USAAC, suffered losses, but did not have this capability. Better AF, which has more possibilities of application. Return to logic from fairy tales about justice. Then and today, the ability to night boming belongs only to good AF. Otherwise, as we know, they missed the city, or the country.

2. The Battle of Midway was fought by two sides. Both sides made mistakes. One of them suffered heavy losses and did not carry out the plan. The rest is demagogy. Fighters, for example, should not increase the number of shot down, but perform the task. In this case, fighters protected aircraft carriers, and attack aircraft sought out and destroyed aircraft carriers. The result is clear to those who rely on analysis, and not on the drama of heroes.

3. Why is the lack of order to special aircraft not a disadvantage of VVS? In the USSR before the war and after 1942, a lot of aircraft were built. Gift the training aircraft to the USSR not refuse.
No, the logical conclusion: the VVS leaders presented combat operations in a special way. Didn't prefer pilot training and artillery support, for example.
We all know that infantry losses depend on VVS. And Soviet losses are an order of magnitude greater than in other countries. And they were also shot by their own.
Only a few pilots with good training showed success. So Kozhedub was a piloting instructor until 1943. He began fighting and achieved something (cannot be verified). Bad leadership of VVS does not make them better, as well as difficulties. I answer the question of the topic.
No, I avoid doing only the most obvious in difficult situations. But this is not about me. VVS is the largest on Earth. At any moment they were doing strange things, which are difficult to write clearly in a squabble. There are many planes, many pilots, even the speed, let's say, is good according to measurements, full cooperation of advanced countries, including France until the fall of 1939 and the US until 1940, Germany, where samples of combat aircraft and technologies were purchased until 1940, the UK and US since the summer of 1941. But even the expertise has not been established. Before the war, I repeat, in one year alone they built about 30 different new projects of single-seat fighters. Five only P-38 analogs in the USSR in 1940.

And design bureaus with the beginning of the war continued to design. You are in vain asserting that this is impossible. In the US they took a break for the whole of 1942, not in the USSR. The lack of time is explained not by the evil of Nazism, but by the fact, in particular, that in 1937 Stalin imprisoned and shot successful designers, figures of the VVS, army and industry. However, not for the first time. They demanded from the planes only what Stalin, who personally began to lead it, is able to understand. That is, without details, as in this forum: speed, sometimes range. In industry, there is another disaster - falsifications (pripiski). Directors of military factories are fired and shot systematically. Because the plans are not justified, but their implementation is the law. Where would quality and real success come from? When success were, it was in spite of the country's leadership and VVS.

And I know that the actions of the UK Air Ministry, the US President, RLM and Hitler can be criticized. But first, show me at least the executions of designers.

4. There are losses and Soviet losses. Not everyone has them, as you write for some reason. Perhaps the point is that it is difficult to fit such a thing into the mind. They rarely flew, had no experience, there was no communication between the branches of the armed forces. This is how the Germans acted against the Red Army until 1945. Not everyone.

5. I wrote that the RAF acted with tiny forces against LW and Italy at once. VVS on the contrary. RAF won, VVS disappeared. RAF and USAAC helped VVS recovery and conducted air offensive against Germany, Italy, France, Japan, but not vice versa. And perfection of Soviet aircraft - pripiski. Moreover, after the war the situation remained: over many poorly trained pilots who do not form useful VVS. They taught this to communist satellites too.

***
You have no criterion of AF quality. You are about fairness and difficulties. The work of the best looks easy from the outside.

 

[Ernest (Russia)]

1. The book does contain relevant information on the topic. I see no necessity to quote text in Russian here. The translation is too tiresome.
2. Initially Normandie Group was a squadron (14 Yak-1 in the 204th Bomber Air Division, later - in the 18th GIAP in the same division) as it was mentioned previously.
3. It became a 2-squadron regiment in July, 1943.
4. It was not a typical Soviet regiment - since January, 1944 it had four squadrons.
5. The pilots did not make the decision on the choice of aircraft - it was made before they arrived in the USSR, but the Soviets were ready to provide aircraft received under lend-lease.

They fought as part of the Soviet Air Force and partly determined the quality of combat operations. Many of them participated in combat before. They could quite correctly compare different airplanes.

If you hadn't written the nonsense about the N-N, I wouldn't suggest a source on the topic.

That's a lie. You are not familiar enough with the subject.

You wrote about the N-N, so the book is absolutely relevant to the discussion. Moreover, it is relevant to the topic generally - for example, you can find therein some of the reasons for N-N's ineffective actions in 1943.

The choice of aircraft by French pilots, you supported this thesis, but you could have honestly refuted it, since you read the book. In the huge VVS, not all ordinary regiments are the same. Nothing interesting.
Pilots are obliged to love their weapons. These ones are engaged, not accidental. The Franco-Soviet special friendship based on anti-Americanism continued until the early 1970s, when it suddenly turned into hostility.

What kind of nonsense did I write about NN? If you do not want to answer here, then write something on the topic that will not contradict your own statements. Show me an example. I expected this from an old-timer.

You have not yet shown me the best knowledge of the subject. Therefore, leave the assessments of my person until the time when I myself consider you an expert.

I do not deal with combat examples. My interest is in designers and industry. The NN example not be indicative of anything. I do not understand why they need to be discussed. The experience on aircraft of different countries in the USSR is not at all unique. You are feeding me irrelevant nonsense.

 

[Ernest (Russia)]

According to the US numbers, The USAAF lost ~57,000 aircraft to all causes:
23,000 to combat
20,000 to operational incidents
14,000 to training and operational (ie ASW patrol, ASAR, etc) accidents while operating from the US homeland

I do not have any numbers for the UK.

For the IJN the post-war debriefs gave ~10,400 aircraft losses due to combat, with ~16,500 operational losses (of which only ~3,000 were training aircraft).

I have never run across authoritative numbers for the total Japanese aircraft losses for the war, but there is a mention in the post-war intel debriefs, during which it was found that the IJN and IJA lost significantly fewer aircrew during training than the US did (by the numbers it was about 1/2 as many per flight hour). I have never run across an explanation for the significant difference, though it may be due to a difference in training methods and schedules (ie where the training took place - perhaps more of the 'advanced' training at the Squadron level?).

I have no authoritative numbers for the IJA losses - either in the ETO/CBI against the Allies, or in China.

NOTE Most of the above info is from the USSBS debrief data.

You should show how the losses of aircraft and even pilots are related to the quality of the AF.
1. The goal of the army's actions is victory (the execution of tasks). It seems to me that the complexity and magnitude of the tasks solved is a criterion.
2. Losses on the ground, in the infantry, and at home. AF exist to protect and inflict losses. They do not fight against aircraft, but against the enemy. This is the source of many difficulties.
Let's say that AF that do not fly lose little. But for some reason they believe that they should fly.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Lets relax a lil, and not resort to personal attacks.

I suspect some of this may be blamed on the use of a translator, but still.

 

[Ernest (Russia)]

Are you under the impression early La-5s were the opponents on the Easter front in the late war based on what you wrote above?

Are you under the impression 1942 (when the early La-5s came online) is late war?

Early La-5s have nothing to do with what Harder experienced/expressed in late 1944. Dont understand why you mesh the two together.

With the end of the war, it becomes easier to compare projects and aircraft. Not by the writen opinions of individuals, but by the decisions of experts from different countries.
For example: they praise the La and Me 262, but immediately after the end of the war they were written off everywhere (Me 262 in Czechoslovakia only).
If you read more widely, you can find the reasons for these important decisions, but it is clear that it is difficult to separate the decisive ones from the secondary ones and from random opinions.
After 1946, only the La-9 and -11, whose projects were completely revised. And the FW 190D and Me 109G flew for a long time, much longer than the Me 262, but less than the Meteor, of course. Do you prefer to read one major who felt that he could not cope? The Yaks were not scrapped so quickly.

 

[Ernest (Russia)]

Off of memory there are a lot of accidents. But not all are due to quality, as many were related to simple misfortune. Ex: planes colliding into each other on the runway, etc. a fair amount of accidents due to weather conditions too.

The quality of AF and airfields is related. In the USSR since 1944, fields for airfields were covered with American materials. Training of pilots and personnel is part of the quality of AF. The weather in the Germans' east is Russian. In the west, it is often less suitable for flying, with cloudy and windy days. The Germans, Finns, British and Soviets flew in the Arctic.
And the US - from small islands in the largest ocean. Flights over the sea are especially dangerous and VVS practically did not fly over the sea.