How good was the soviet air force?

[Ernest (Russia)]

I doubt if reading a few reports of quality for any particular nation's WWII airplanes qualifies us to make blanket quality statements about that nation's aircraft quality. All it really means is we read a few reports that weren't exactly glowing. Perhaps the people who translated them had an agenda and cherry-picked only the bad ones? Maybe the ones from another factory or a few months either way were just fine.

I can offer a comparison of the quality that was made by the experts of the USSR at that time. In 1946, almost all fighters were scrapped. You will not find traces of tens of thousands of aircraft in the post-war world. In 1947, the USSR continued production after a pause to review their designs and technology. The famous La-7, for example, was immediately replaced by La-9. Yak-9 became known as Yak-9U. Read about it. But foreign fighters remained in service until 1953. The USSR produced many MiG-15s, but kept the P-63 at advanced airfields.

Maybe the pre-war production is high-quality? There were also records. But again, tens of thousands of aircraft had already disappeared in the summer of 1941, after two months of war. Isn't it interesting where? There were more planes than in the whole world at once. Including the USA and Japan. In August, the first British combat aircraft arrived in the USSR (Barbarossa - July). Let me remind you that the British had fought off LW by that time, and soon they would launch an air offensive to Germany in the spring of 1942, when the record holders from the USSR would concentrate so as not to run away.
Find an opinion that not the best Lend-Lease aircraft in the West are worse than the Soviet ones by quality. I know that Stalin personally said that the Hurricane was not suitable in 1942... And he demanded more Hurricanes to 1944.

To get a valid overall view, you'd have to have some population of quality reports over several years, assign them each consecutive numbers, and use a random number table to select a representative random sample of reports, and summarize them, perhaps stratified by time and factory. Then, you might have a decent idea of overall quality.

And then it would be good to have statistics with a single measurement methodology. Right? You were asked to look for the good among the bad, you demand statistics. Look for the good ones.
The USA, UK, Germany, Japan did not stoop to replacing one kind of tree with another worse and without drying. They did not consider it possible to produce airplanes without radio sets, etc. Before statistical, it is worth conducting at least some kind of qualitative analysis.
Until then, you have an opinion not based in mathematical probability. That opinion might be right or might be wrong, but it is hardly a representative valid quality opinion.

To date, I have a pretty decent opinion of Soviet aircraft quality from the WWI through the Viet Nam era. Likewise WWII Japanese, German, British, and US aircraft quality.
Your opinion isn't quite so high, at least for the Soviet Union. Both of us might be wrong or one of us might be right.
But, you might go back to just prior to WWII, look at all the achievements in aviation, and then take note of how many aviation firsts and aviation records were, and in some cases still are, owned by the former Soviet Union. The depth of their achievements, including first man into space and first to orbit, is somewhat startling if they really didn't know what they were doing at the time! In WWII, they went from a rag-tag group of aerial targets at the beginning of WWII to a force where German military airplanes could not live for long in Soviet skies in 1945.

So ask about the facts, and don't repeat your opinion. I'm asking you, I'm giving you new arguments. Repetition is well for propaganda.

1. Another country participated in the Great War. The Communists thoroughly destroyed, first of all, its culture. Sikorsky is notable in tsarist Russia, he became a great US engineer. However, the USA, UK, and France are full of the greatest.
2. Records are not an criteria. Italy and France have a lot of records back then. And?
The USSR started a war with the largest air forces in the world. In 5 months, he lost the entire army and most of the country's population. He lost the pre-war AF completely.
3. Korea and Vietnam, Sputnik and Gagarin later. And he didn't show anything good in the air war. Actually, after Korea, it was decided that the Soviet AF should not dominate the air. Because they never dominated, no matter how.
4. We know that the USSR occupied advanced Eastern Europe and part of Germany. I can argue about the cosmonautics of the USSR in detail, but not here. If you want, I can describe my opinion in three long sentences. It is rare, I warn you. But I will not defend it.
In the USSR, engineers recognized Western technology and quality back then. My father is a Soviet rocket engineer, graduated from Voenmekh in the early 1950s. His opinion is more important than yours, not only for me. Something is wrong with your criteria and methods. Your conclusions do not agree with the facts.
5. In particular, the USSR is not the winner in the war, but the people are the victim. Like the China did not win either, but participated on the side of the winners. From here I can start discussing the quality of Soviet factories, which I have studied for a long time.
My hobby: the urgent fighter program in the USSR 1940-1941. About records: the number of projects for SINGLE-seat fighters alone that year is a 27 very different projects have been started! But only 5 of them are usually discussed: MiG-3, Yak-1, LaGG-3, I-180, and 185. More than 27 possible. Stalin personally supervised this mess. This is the year when, say, Typhoon, Mustang, Corsair flew.

 

[Ernest (Russia)]

was not that both yak-3&9 were put out of service in 1950? but the production of -3 was stopped in '46 and -0 in '48?

Already in 1947, there were almost no Yak and La built before 1946 in the AF. They were also not useful for giving them to allies. After the war, a new production. Metal fighters, which did not exist at all during the war. P-39, P-63, a few Spitfire and even FW-190D served in the late 1940s. P-63 until 1953 in the air defense of the USSR. The Allies of the Soviet were given fighters updated designs.
It's the same with the T-34 tanks. Look around the world for T-34s built before 1946. And there were a lot of them. IS-2 heavy tanks were sent for deep repairs immediately after the war.

 

[Ernest (Russia)]

This came up in another thread, so good some articles on the Soviet use of the P-39 (sorry) <...>

Good summary, thanks.
For some reason, there are no "paid" deliveries to lend-lease. Quotes, because the payment gold could not be delivered to the UK, the anti-submarine defense of Murmansk failed.
Convoy Dervish at the end of August 1941, convoy PQ-1 of September. This is often done in Russia, forgetting what is in front of lend-lease. It went to the defense of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. Therefore, the next deliveries are to the north, there is experience. The air defense service was established by British pilots. If those two harbors had been lost, there would have been no others. The blockade. Soon Hurricanes were in the Leningrad Air Defense Fleet, which was considered very important so far (it turned out to be useless).
I believe that every month is important, because the union has just begun and the task of preserving the USSR was being solved, no less. By winter, the drape was temporarily stopped. Moscow could have been taken. And British tanks are already among the museum tanks near Moscow. Tens of thousands of Soviet tanks and planes, dozens of divisions dissolved in those two months. The fleets of the USSR are already in crisis and will not leave their bases. In the spring of 1942, the escape began again, they were preparing to surrender Baku, but there American tanks and planes passed through instantly occupied Iran.
The delivery date is more important than quantity and even quality. And the number of Hurricanes is comparable to the number in the Battle of Britain. In the USSR, propagandists will begin to calculate Allied aid as a percentage of production for the entire war, although in 1945 there was an overproduction of weapons. You need to feel the speed and direction of events.

 

[Ernest (Russia)]

Russian flagged ships. Russia and Japan were not at war.
Now the problem was thousands of miles of single track railroad. They added at least some double track as the war went on.

The problem isn't only in the railway. but also in ports, berths, trucks, airfields, navigation, weather stations, radioposts for aircraft. All of this is built from the USA. Before the war, the flight to the Far East was a world record.
On the other hand, this route appeared later than even the route through Iran. And the main tasks in the USSR were solved earlier. It wasn't the tons that were decided, but the deadlines.
And yes, the USSR made peace with Japan and even sold oil there. Ships from the USA followed the Soviet flag. In the summer of 1945, the world was torn apart in the USSR. The supplies of the end of the war mattered after it. And often against the USA.

 

[Ernest (Russia)]

Greetings Wild Bill,

The attached document is illustrative of the USSR Lend Lease effort as it documents the material asks and provided for the different USSR Protocols. One of my favorite lend-lease "facts" is that the western allies largely clothed the Soviet Army by either providing whole cloth material or US/Canadian manufactured uniforms and boots. A while back, there was a museum exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum (I believe) that documented a Detroit area manufacturer who made Soviet uniforms with images of Soviet staff working with the staff to refine the designs. They did winter testing in Michigan as well and had they great images of folks in Soviet gear in the snow in Detroit and other recognizable locations.

less often they mention the technological assistance of allies. The USSR almost completely lost the production of gunpowder in the autumn of 1941. The factories were in the west. Soon new factories with the most advanced technologies were built. Also, almost legal spies have gone to the USA and UK. The flow of diverse documentation from the US amazed many. The most intimate secrets that the US received from UK even turned out to be in the USSR.
Many mysteries of the history of technology are connected with this: somehow, after the war, new products were introduced in the USSR a little earlier, but still they appeared in the West. It was impossible to get them from the USSR then, but then how did the implementations become simultaneous? My answer: most often these are studies from the time of the war, which were accepted earlier in the USSR. There are examples. Read about "Colonel Stan". This one:

Stanislav Shumovsky - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In the USA, the book is written only about him. There were legends. After the war, Shumovsky headed the TSAGI Bureau of New Technology. And contacts and agents net! McCarthy didn't just go berserk.

 

[Ernest (Russia)]

Appreciate the sources, that's always helpful.



In that lend lease PDF posted upthread, aside from all the tanks, aircraft, other weapons, ammunition and fuel, I was struck by the vast quantities of rare metals and every other kind of industrial chemical and precursor they were shipping to Russia. Even rails, as in train rails? Am I reading that correctly?



I would say that you are not the only person in the world who has made this effort, and I hope I will be forgiven for playing Devil's Advocate here:



That is probably true. And for two major reasons, but I'll circle back to that.



I'm not so sure about this part, but it is true that there are relatively few sources in English, (which is used not only by Anglophones but as a kind of international Lingua Franca for those who speak many other languages) as people tend to focus much more on the air forces of their own home country.

However there is still significant interest in WW2, and in the Soviets specifically, not least because of the ongoing wars involving the Russians to this day. There is a lot to learn which is worth learning. There are definitely some serious people, including academics and military think tanks and so on, as well as amateurs like many of us here, pursuing an active interest in the reality of the Soviet-German war and specifically on the aviation side of it, as there are many important questions to answer (such as the use of tactical air power to affect a ground war). But again, more on that in a second.



I think that is true as well, though probably not in the way you mean.



Here is where we start to part ways. I'm not a professional WW2 expert, but having been studying it for a very long time as an amateur, like so many of us in here, I can see pretty clearly that every nation had serious blunders and made catastrophic mistakes during the war, and every nation also had their successes and triumphs. The Germans made serious mistakes too, in other words. Hitler's Nazi regime was also, much like the Soviets under Stalin, not a believer in transparency, democracy, good government, oversight, truth, or honesty. They did not typically admit their own mistakes, setbacks and errors when they could manage to conceal them.

The Soviets started out very much on their back foot, and this was indeed largely the fault of Stalin and other Soviet leaders. But the Soviet's also just as clearly rallied, in part with the help of Lend-Lease and other contributions from Western Allies, but certainly not exclusively for this reason. As the war progressed, they applied good strategy, fielded improved weaponry, and outfought the Germans.

The classic example, which is low-hanging fruit but which most people reading this can easily verify, was Stalingrad. It was a bloody nightmare, very costly for the Soviets, but one in which they also completely fooled the German high-leadership, one in which they waited with ruthless patience for exactly the right moment when the Nazi head was in the noose, and which they exploited, including largely with the use of their best available technologies (KV and T-34 tanks, Katyusha rockets, and a variety of newer and improved aircraft types) to utterly annihilate a vast army of the Germans and their other Axis allies.

Another very well known example was at Kursk, which has certain echoes of recent events in roughly the same area.



Official Russian historians, especially now under the late Putin regime, may do this, but not all Russian or Russian-speaking historians have. And during the sadly brief detante which we experienced during the 90s, many records from Russia became available to western researchers. More on that in a moment.



Both the Soviets and their enemies were fascist dictatorships, it bears keeping in mind.



Or it may also be a bit selective in the other direction .



View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qkmO7tm8AU

This is a video by a very good American historian, David M. Glantz. He is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam war, an instructor at the Army Staff College and a top researcher on the Soviets. He got his hands on Soviet records in the early 1990s, and in this video, he discusses the scope and scale of the fighting in the Soviet-German war, and the surprising fact revealed by these records, that there appear to be at least two major tank battles that occurred in 1941 which were on a much larger scale than had been previously known. One which may have been bigger than Kursk. And that the Germans suffered far more losses during the earlier phases of the invasion than previously thought.

The reason, he points out, is that both the Nazis and the Soviets were totalitarian regimes, and they only released news about their war when one or both sides thought they could gain a propaganda advantage thereby. In some cases, they saw no such advantage, so nothing came out. It's a really sinister, kind of scary thing to consider. The German records may to some extent have been more available to us, but not all of them, and not always enough to penetrate their own intentional obfuscation of many important events and even major incidents during the war. It's important to keep in mind, that while the Soviets lied, and were an evil and dishonest regime, so were the Nazis.



Post WW2, in the 1950s and 60s, we had a lot of memoirs by former German fighter aces, bomber pilots, tank aces and so on. Many of these stories were quite gripping and interesting to read. Some, like say Hans Ulrich Rudel's memoir, were also more or less openly sympathetic to the twisted cause he once fought for. Others were definitely not sympathetic to the Nazi cause, but still tended to glorify the German kit and pilots / soldiers over that of their enemies, especially the Soviet enemy who had no voice in the West. Not that this is unusual or bad, necessarily, because all fighter pilots do that. But it's unbalanced, since (until much more recently) there are so few Soviet pilot's narratives to provide the other half of the story. Even now we basically only have a few short interviews and fragments.

At the same time in the 50s and 60s, we in the West were fighting wars against communism. People in Eastern Europe (including half of Germany) and parts of Asia were suffering under Soviet Marxist rule, (or Maoist, in some parts of Asia). The US also to be blunt about it, brought former Nazi scientists into our weapons and space programs, and Nazi spys into our intelligence community. The Soviets did the same, of course, but that had little influence on Western culture.

All of this had a tendency to influence our outlook such that some people downplay Soviet contributions in the war, and tend to denigrate Soviet technology and capability. And that is something that has bitten us in the ass, including in the aviation world when our pilots first encountered planes like the MiG 17, MiG 19, and MiG 21, in ground warfare due to the RPG and other anti-tank weapons, during the Vietnam war in general, in the Space program with Sputnik. Just to cite a few examples.


We tend to forget that it was in fact mainly the Soviets who defeated the Third Reich. No matter how much you dislike Stalin, or Putin, I think it's foolish to ignore this.

And this includes a rather vast quantity of German military kit which was destroyed on the Russian front. A huge number of German-war graves with 'Töte im Osten' inscribed on them.


With regard to WW2, I just think the blanket dismissal of Soviet air power in WW2 tends to teach us incorrect lessons about the use of airpower during the war, and about all tactial aircraft in general. That is my main interest in it. That, and I just don't like spreading falsehoods even when they are comforting ones. Missing in Action is a fun film, but as painful as it is to admit, I know Churck Norris didn't go win the Vietnam War for us.

1. My revisionism is longer: and what exactly did those Germans do in weapons? More records and useless Wunderwaffe?

2. Let's start comparing Nazis with Communists in a substantive way, without mentioning memes. For example, in the USSR, more than 200 thousand people were shot for the war only by the verdicts of field tribunals, and many more without sentences. And the Nazis? Maybe they bombed their cities that are occupied by enemies? Did they send saboteurs to burn down German houses? How often did famine occur in Germany before mass cannibalism, unless under Soviet occupation? The same, right?
Is Hitler still being repeated today like Stalin? You are a prisoner, in particular, of the Nobeling writer Churchill. He knew and said that history would be kind to him, explained why. And he also said that he agreed to stand up not only for Stalin, but for Satan, so that the British would not become a victim. The Russians became the victim.

3. Yes, the Putinists adore Glantz. Yes, there are Stalinists in the USA. And before the invasion in 2020, I just knew that the Russian army would not be able to defeat a small unarmed army. The Russian army is too Soviet, but the Ukrainian army is no longer so. When exactly was the last time Russian weapons brought victory, and not just troubles?
In particular, there are several tank battles larger than Kursk. The Stalinists remember Kursk because it was not definitely lost. Big tank battles are possible only with the USSR. where it has long been believed that tanks and tankers are one-size-fits-all, where there have always been more tanks. And yet the Red Army marched to its border until the summer of 1944. I'm going to worry about tanks not catching fire anymore, just about airplanes.

4. They fled from Poland to Moscow, having amazing aircraft samples. By the time of the war there were about 1,500 Il-4. And? According to the specifications for young people, they are better than the He 111 in everything, there are many more of them. But they really bombed on He 111, of which there are fewer. Suggest criteria for the quality of Soviet aircraft. It turns out that they are not suitable. By the way, who bought them if there was a choice? Who was affected by their technical solutions and how?
Compare the number of fighter units of the Reich and the USSR. And then the number of sorties. Soviet planes were often unable to take off. No, the Soviets did not defeat the Reich. In 1939, the USSR was an ally of Hitler. Soon, only Britain remained against Hitler and Mussolini, a large country with a real fleet. The first defeats of the Nazis on land before the USSR entered the war. A major tank counter battle in Africa. The defeat of the Nazis in the air is the Battle of Britain, also before. In the summer of 1941, the USSR became a victim. Millions of prisoners. The loss of most of the inhabited territories, the loss of most of the military factories, for example: powder and aluminum. They almost surrendered Moscow. They even ran away from Romanians and Finns who were not really armed. The British had been saving the non-existent defense of the north of the USSR since the summer of 1941. In 1942 they continued to flee beyond the Volga and to Baku beyond the Caucasus, they lost oil in Grozny.
My opinion. what I am ready to justify: the Reich was defeated by the British Empire with the great participation of the United States. The USSR was sacrificed and armed so that the Germans would get bogged down there. But they are not winning by meat attacks and terrorism.

5. Maybe Soviet aviation has at least once gained air supremacy over an enemy that has an air force? They managed to suffer losses in air battles even in 1945. The old Me 109 and Ju 87, unsuccessful FW 190F, flew towards the Red Army. Moreover, they flew low over their own, Allied raiders could be there, and they were gaining altitude over the Red Army. And nothing seems to change by the sign: they suffered losses in the air in Afghanistan from machine guns.

6. Then the B-29 was shot down by the Japanese. In general, there are almost no wars without losses. Immediately about the quality of Soviet weapons. There are simply no offensive actions by Soviet aircraft in Korea. The border of the war sky was covered by the decision of the UN.
The Israelis are flying to bomb the S-400, and the curvature of the Earth is getting in the way. Maybe that's what the purchasers of Soviet weapons did? What did the MiG-17, and even more so, the MiG-19, do against systematic raids? And why the MiG, and not the One or the Il? The MiG-21 was not considered more dangerous than the MiG-17. The Top Gun school was created to practice cannon combat with the MiG-17 on overloaded long-range attack aircraft. They operated on the MiG-17 from a territory where it was impossible to fly. Defeating North Vietnam is not a task for the United States. You named the brands of fighters, but did not explain their value. Israel is somehow coping, not the Arab Republic.

7. Sputnik and Gagarin. The moon and Venus are the consequences of the fact that the USSR did not have a compact warhead for missiles. And that the party leaders agreed to spend an unprecedented big combat missile on world records. The Satellite was launched in 1957. because the program of the International Geophysical Year announced by the Americans in Europe provided for a satellite. They decided to make the first scientific orbital rocket about 10 tons, three-stage. And they didn't let the Nazis near her, it was important. The Sputnik rocket weighed 240 tons, it is the first Soviet two-stage rocket. It's just really big. When the United States made the Saturn I scientific rocket, Soviet supremacy ended. The question of size and adequacy. And yes, the Soyuz is still flying on German technology. The new Soyuz rocket turned out to be expensive, all of a sudden.

I can discuss, it seems, any Soviet achievement in aviation and space. To include it in the global context. It will come out if I am convincing that records and memes are not an argument in such a discussion. Memes need to be confirmed, not mentioned.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

My opinion. what I am ready to justify: the Reich was defeated by the British Empire with the great participation of the United States. The USSR was sacrificed and armed so that the Germans would get bogged down there. But they are not winning by meat attacks and terrorism.

Hiya Ernest and welcome to the forum. I hope you contribute more, you seem to have a good head.

But I would argue that the Germans were largely defeated exactly by Soviet efforts -- of course supported by Lend-Lease -- and that your point that the USSR (more specifically, its young manhood) was sacrificed by the Western Powers is a fair criticism. But I disagree that the Reich was defeated by the UK with the help of America; I believe the Reich was defeated by American industrialism, British mercantilism, and Soviet stubbornness.

We Americans could outbuild everyone. Brits knew how the hell to sail into god's own teeth. But clawing back your own country, that required blood, and lots of it.

 

[Denniss]

The LaGG/Lavochkin fighters were likely scrapped due to their mixed construction. the other full-metal designs survived longer if their performance was still considered OK.

 

[bf109xxl]

The LaGG/Lavochkin fighters were likely scrapped due to their mixed construction. the other full-metal designs survived longer if their performance was still considered OK.

LaGG/La could be considered all-wood - that would be very close to the truth. Metal wing spar was installed only from 1944.
The only mass-produced Soviet fighter of all-metal construction during the war was the Pe-3, produced between 1941 and 1942, just under 200 in total.
And the least resistant to weather conditions were the Yaks.

 

[Dimlee]

As a colleague has already correctly written, you are writing about the post-war production. In 1945, literally all fighters began to be quickly scrapping. With the huge and ongoing production after the war, by 1946 the Air Force found a shortage of aircraft, although many pilots were demobilized. The basis was Lend-Lease fighters. P-63, for example, in the air defense of the USSR until 1953. Here I note that the USSR did not pay for their delivery, although it had to pay or return them under the contract.
The Iskra and Delfine you mentioned was built in Poland, at nazi factories. The rapid improvement in technology is due to the fact that factories were moved from the east of the Reich, where they were not so bombed. Often together with workers and technologists in the USSR. German has become the main foreign language in schools. The same Yak-3U and -9U are post-war, with the replacement of many wooden parts with metal ones. Also La-9 and La-11.
In particular, the USSR was slow to realize the importance of sustainability. The fame of the maneuverability of those fighters is largely due to their rear alignment, instability. Although this error was discovered in 1941, it was not corrected in some places by 1945. It was difficult to fly on Soviet planes. The glorious Il-2 suffered from this until 1944, when the sweep of the wing consoles was increased. On an unstable aircraft, the shooter's place was attached right at the airfields, shifting the gravity back. The precision of production, the quality of the forest (ALL Soviet fighters are wooden), the quality of the canvas, varnish... For example, a LaGG is designed from wood impregnated with phenolic resin under pressure. But that resin was purchased until the spring of 1941 in Germany! Therefore, in the summer it had to be converted to an ordinary tree, which took a long time to dry. And the main timber harvesting was carried out in the Baltic States. Aircraft factories began to be built there, not beyond the Urals, in 1941.
But all this is not written everywhere, of course. It is much easier to quote articles from Soviet magazines for young scale modelers. However, before Barbarossa, the USSR bought the Me 109E, He 111 etc. According to Soviet reports, they are worse than the Soviet ones.
And there were thousands of bombers in the USSR, which "for some reason" are unworthy of mention. The mentioned Pe-2 and Tu-2 did not dive. After the war: a pair of hundred were built from the spring of 1944. He didn't dive either, though. By the way, the Pe-2 was a metal and very expensive, complex aircraft. With hard pilotage.

Good post, Ernest. Just a small correction: Pe-2 could dive - if piloted by a skilled crew. There were not many.

 

[Luft.4]

LaGG/La could be considered all-wood - that would be very close to the truth. Metal wing spar was installed only from 1944.
The only mass-produced Soviet fighter of all-metal construction during the war was the Pe-3, produced between 1941 and 1942, just under 200 in total.
And the least resistant to weather conditions were the Yaks.

I have the Pe-3 as produced in 397 examples, all from Zavod 39?
1941: 196
1942: 179
1943: 3
1944: 19

 

[bf109xxl]

I have the Pe-3 as produced in 397 examples, all from Zavod 39?
1941: 196
1942: 179
1943: 3
1944: 19

I missed that Pe-3bis were in a separate column, I apologize. But it doesn't change the picture in principle - there was no mass production of all-metal fighters in the USSR during the war.

 

[bf109xxl]

Pe-2 could dive - if piloted by a skilled crew. There were not many.

The picture was somewhat more complex and changed over the course of the war. There were bomber corps where diving was widely used, and there were those where it was practically not used at all. In the course of the war, the number of regiments where diving was used grew. But still diving was not the main tactical method. Analysis shows that the Pe-2 had significant restrictions on the dive time and the dive exit altitude, that increased vulnerability to AA fire and reduced bombing accuracy. As a result, the use of diving was not always justified. In general, the Tu-2 was needed as the main front-line bomber.