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- #41
Ideal fighter for VVS, 1941-42
- Thread starter tomo pauk
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davebender
1st Lieutenant
And an engine life expectancy of about 20 hours. Perhaps that's not so bad by Soviet standards. 
Glider
Captain
Also the build quality was better so there was less chance of the aircraft coming apart around you. Little things like canopies that you could open easily in an emergency also help.
davebender
1st Lieutenant
Let's be realistic. A Fw-190 built in the Soviet Union will have quality control no better then other Soviet built aircraft. That problem plagued BMW801 engine will have an even shorter service life then engines built in Germany.
Shortround6
Major General
Thanks for the info
My google-fu has yielded some results, the AM-37 seem like a winner ( but, according to Russian Wiki, it was prone to overheating). Sorry for the low-res graphs; the AM-39 and later are not for this thread really:
Nice job.
The book on Russian engines says that they could not get to the "required level of reliability" which, considering the life of the AM-35, is saying something. It also says the aircraft designers could not cope with the cooling problems but does not go into details. I may be guessing to much but if it is the aircraft designers and not the engine designers then it sounds like the radiator and inter-cooler installations were giving trouble. Intercooler was an air to liquid intercooler like on the Merlin. Too much drag?
At SL boosted for T.O.
At nominal the AM-38 gave 1500 hp at hight (~ 1500-2000 m) in 1940 and 1575 in early 1941.
An athmospheric (with no supercharger) variant of the AM-35 was giving about 1500 hp at the factory bench test. So Mikoolin did not went away too far, in order to recover more power for the low-alt AM-38.
It was in fact the same engine as tha AM-35, but with small supercharger, instead of a big one.
The AM-37 was an AM-35 with an intercooler (widely used in trucks owedays). It asked for some further developpement.
Regards
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- #47
Indeed - that was a point I was trying to make. A rather knowledgeable member of this forum pointed many times (not only to me) that a superb take-off power might mean almost nothing for fighter plane applications, where one needs a god power on altitude. Even the 1500-1575 HP (achieved at circa 2300m, no ram effect) could only give a good low alt performance, yet the fighter need to serve well at higher altitudes. Say, 5000m: is not too high for Eastern front, and there the AM-38 has an almost 500 HP deficit there vs. the AM-35A. Again, too bad that Mikulin's team did not produce the 'in-between' engine (green line on the graph; red is for AM-38F, blue for AM-35A; no TO ratings are shown for Mikulins); the comparison between the -35A and 38F is not unlike the one between the engines for the P-51A (no WER here, sorry VVS
)and A-36. And the two-speed modification is way too tempting Even so, the fighter with AM-38F might've given Germans tough time between SL and 3000m/10000 ft, while having another fighters (with AM-35A) to tackle the LW from above, at least while the 601N and 'restricted' 601E are the major players.
Thanks.
Thanks again. Maybe it was too much to ask from Soviet engineers to solve the issue, because of German onslaught, factories labs relocation etc. VVS shifted it's fighters-allocated resources into the stuff that was giving them less the problems (M-105/Yak-1), so the Mikulin's engines went for one major costumer, the Il-2.
All of this talk is slowly persuading me to start take lessons in Russian,, some time in fall/winter. Too many tick books are at large, all very tempting
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davebender
1st Lieutenant
I suspect that's why the Soviets were happy to acquire P-39s and P-40s during 1942. Better then anything they could build while Soviet industry was in turmoil.
davebender
1st Lieutenant
My conclusion.
Soviet production was in turmoil during 1941 and 1942. This effected both quantity and quality, similiar to what Germany had to deal with during 1945. Better to have a reliable P-39 then an unreliable Yak, MiG or LaGG.
Soviet tanks had similiar problems. T-34 production quality was horrible during 1941 and 1942. Give me a reliable Lend-Lease Sherman any day of the week.
Soviet production was in turmoil during 1941 and 1942. This effected both quantity and quality, similiar to what Germany had to deal with during 1945. Better to have a reliable P-39 then an unreliable Yak, MiG or LaGG.
Soviet tanks had similiar problems. T-34 production quality was horrible during 1941 and 1942. Give me a reliable Lend-Lease Sherman any day of the week.
I would take unreliable T-34 in 1941 over reliable Sherman in 1943...
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- #51
davebender
1st Lieutenant
In that case the better solution might be no tank at all. Otherwise your unreliable T-34 will be abandoned after it breaks down.
1941 Germany captured so many abandoned T-34s that repair and modification facilities were established in three locations - Riga, Marienfelde and Goerlitz. That's in addition to hundreds of captured Soviet tanks which weren't turned in for official modification. By the fall of 1941 almost every German armored company had at least one to lead the column when infiltrating Soviet lines at night. First person German accounts often mention this technique. They also mention that captured Soviet tanks often broke down during these night infiltration missions.
1941 Germany captured so many abandoned T-34s that repair and modification facilities were established in three locations - Riga, Marienfelde and Goerlitz. That's in addition to hundreds of captured Soviet tanks which weren't turned in for official modification. By the fall of 1941 almost every German armored company had at least one to lead the column when infiltrating Soviet lines at night. First person German accounts often mention this technique. They also mention that captured Soviet tanks often broke down during these night infiltration missions.
