These are questions about investments and aircraft orders in the USSR.
Not for me.
"In terms of aluminum production, it was already ahead of France, England, Italy and Canada in 1935." Not the Germany and the USA, yeah. In 1939, the USSR produced more than 48,000 tons of alu alloys.
German aluminum production in thousands of tons: 1939 - 209, 1941 - 255. Do I need to cite any more figures for the US and UK/Canada?
You know that alu was used for thousands tank diesels. But it was not used in life, navy, etc. The USSR in 1939 produced more aircraft than the USA or Germany. Including multi-engine aluminum aircraft.
The aircraft industry consumed more than 70% of all aluminum production (IIRC, 73%).
The commissioning of new aluminum plants in the USSR was delayed. This did not become a priority in advance, partly because in 1937 the government was busy with horror and executions.
Without denying the terrible consequences of terror in the USSR, I note that this was not the main reason for the problems with the deployment of new aluminum plants. The main problem was the weakness of the Soviet industry in general and the lack of funds for investment, ridiculous as it may sound.
Alu production in the USSR increased during the war years using its own mines, at a single plant (the second east plant was supposed to produce in 1942, but it came out in 1945).
Without aluminum shipments under the Lend-Lease program, this production would have been totally insufficient. Under Lend-Lease, the Soviets received more aluminum than they produced themselves.
The country is the largest, the geologists worked commendably. Bauxite deposits in the east. But, "244,441 tons of aluminum... and 79,646 tons of silumin were produced during the war years." (the tons accuracy!) This is quite a lot even without imports.
That's less than half of all aluminum used.
Let me remind you again that my belief is that it is necessary to fight immediately, and not to delay.
And for this purpose it was necessary to keep the senseless production of DB-3 and build thousands of underbomber Pe-2 and ineffective Il-2 instead of effective airplanes?
The main years are the first. By the time of the war, it was possible to have even half as many real planes. However, 800 alu TB-3, 6600 (!) SB (before Blenheim!), and 1500 (!) DB-3 were produced before Barbarossa. Bombers heavier than the DB-3 (Il-4) were not produced, but in the UK it was quite, fighters export to the USSR. A different approach. Whose is better?
The ANT-42 (Pe-8) was mass produced. Another useless airplane.
Alu fighter designs were requested in 1940, before the invasion. They are not ready. In 1941,
How many all-metal fighters were developed in the USSR prior to the war outbreak?
Yakovlev made metal Yak-3-first (I-30),
Only the wing spar was made of metal.
Polikarpov - ITP and IDS,
not IDS(==Gr-1), but TIS
Wooden fuselage.
Not a fighter.
They were all late. It seems that the "centrally plan" was to build only metal ones, except the training Yak-1UTI (Yak-7 and -9) and the trendy "plastic" LaGG. Imagine if Typhoon wait for ready in the UK with thousands Gladiators.
Production of the I-153 was started in 1939, and there were requests to restart it in 1942!
The leapfrog was such that serial factories worked in three shifts before the war, but one large plant without a task, since they decided what to build there. With an unprecedented number of new projects and an instant change of tasks for plants. Bedlam.
The repair of percale and wooden structures is not simple. The real fighter repair can be viewed in LW. In Russia, the quilted jackets are offended that completely destroyed LW fighters have been restored and it is difficult account of the Soviet aces. In the USSR, fighters were most often lost for non-combat reasons. Infrequent flights and a short service life of the aircraft. Because of their construction, there are few aircraft involved in combat missions. Their indicators depend on the dampness. Fighters with a skin on nails and casein glue could not dive, so they don't need height. Bottom: everyone to alu skin. Even DH and Vickers.
I'm having trouble grasping your point, but not all Soviet fighters had problems with dive speed. The problem was the use of teenage labor to assemble the planes. If half of the nails don't hit a rib, it's not a design problem, it's an assembly quality problem. But in any case there was an opportunity to increase the proportion of metal in the airframe and produce a good fighter (I-185) instead of the shabby LaGGs/La or MiGs.
It would be better not so many fighters, but of the better quality in order to preserve the experience of pilots, and not replace the dead with beginners from accelerated education.
And there wasn't enough aviation gasoline for that. Because they wanted to make more airplanes. Typical inefficiency of the Soviet system.
