Luftwaffe focused in the East

[rank amateur]

You think that a BF-110 could outurn and outroll a I-16, something like that? Numbers please.

Now considering the I-16 type 24, best examples were just flying at 489 km/h at about 4500 m hight, but as SL it was full 440 km/h exactly as soviet tested Bf-109 E-3! Even serial type 29 with 20 mm canons was making 430 km/h. From comparative trials it was beating the "Emil" after only 2 or 3 turning circles* or only 1 to 1.5 loop!
* (17-19s vs 26.5 -29.4)
So what does it make at 1000 m? 5% less speed for 50% more turn rate, 80% more loop rate and 300-400% more roll rate...
Obviously, considering that a fighter is always a compromise between performance and manoeuvrability, it was not as osolescent as it look like!

Catching german bombers at hight, should be a problem of course, but the switch to the already produced I-180 at factory n°21 plant coulf have quickly salve this.]

I have read somewhere (may be on this forum) that the I-16 was notorious instable and the quality of Sovjet pilots was eufemistically said not very good. So the I-16 may not have been that outdated my money would go to the me110's.
The I-80 never really got into production. I assume there was a reason for that.

In 1940 the Sovjet airforce was arguably the largest in the world but there were not so many modern planes on inventory.

 

[Njaco]

In final worlds, considering Luftwaffe's superiority, i have no doubt that VVS would have been gradually decimated, but not destroyed with such catastrophic speed as during Barbarossa. That change a lot of things.

Altea, I truly don't understand how the VVS would be gradually decimated in 1940 and yet was quickly decimated one year later?

Another factor: You may have parity with the aircraft but not with the pilots. Luftwaffe pilots at that time were better trained and with experience.

 

[Altea]

I have read somewhere (may be on this forum) that the I-16 was notorious instable and the quality of Sovjet pilots was eufemistically said not very good. So the I-16 may not have been that outdated my money would go to the me110's.


In 1940 the Sovjet airforce was arguably the largest in the world but there were not so many modern planes on inventory.

I think I-16 pilots would better tell about it, for instance:
Part 1

And BTW, I-16 were never unstable, not even neutral. They were stable, ie had natural tendency to recover their flight line after perturbation but with light pitching moment for someone's taste.
This coupled with small inertia moments made the plane vey nervous ie twitchy. That mean difficult to handle, not dangerous.

Just to call cat, a cat...

The I-80 never really got into production. I assume there was a reason for that.

False!
For the I-180, it occurs owedays that there were more political than technical reasons for that. The Polikarpov's 156 design bureau was lacking means being only a workshop and state command was sent in 1939 to n°21 factory that had it's own design bureau n° 21 leaded by Pashinine, projecting its'own fighter the I-21. Unsurprisingly, all efforts were switched there to Pashinine fighter to the detriment of Polikarpov's one. The later was also lacking support from soviet partocrates, and of coarse from the new minister of aviation Yakovlev that was BTW his main competitor!

 

[cimmex]

@Altea, very strange statement.
Why did they replace the I-16 by Hurricanes which were clearly inferior to the Bf109E and Bf109F aswell.
cimmex

 

[rank amateur]

QUOTE=Altea;909278]I think I-16 pilots would better tell about it, for instance:
Part 1

And BTW, I-16 were never unstable, not even neutral. They were stable, ie had natural tendency to recover their flight line after perturbation but with light pitching moment for someone's taste.
This coupled with small inertia moments made the plane vey nervous ie twitchy. That mean difficult to handle, not dangerous.

OK but that tendency implies that the I-16 probably wouldn't make a very good gun platform. I'm no pilot and I have never flown any plane. i have to do with the statements from men who did (do, since here are some convincing reissues). Golodnikov claims that the 1-16 ''was a complicated aircraft, demanding in piloting technique. It could fall into a spin at the slightest "overhandling'. He says he liked that. I can imagine pilots who wouldn't. Just to call cat, a cat...




False!
For the I-180, it occurs owedays that there were more political than technical reasons for that. The Polikarpov's 156 design bureau was lacking means being only a workshop and state command was sent in 1939 to n°21 factory that had it's own design bureau n° 21 leaded by Pashinine, projecting its'own fighter the I-21. Unsurprisingly, all efforts were switched there to Pashinine fighter to the detriment of Polikarpov's one. The later was also lacking support from soviet partocrates, and of coarse from the new minister of aviation Yakovlev that was BTW his main competitor![/QUOTE]

Well actually that is not false. The I-180 was not taken in production which is all that i claimed. According to wiki a couple of testpilots lost their lives and another prefered to bail out in stead of landing. Either don't make for a good reputation. Besides that I won't dispute there were political reasons aswell. But if the production of the I-180 did not get of the ground in real history there is no reason why it should in our altered scenario.

 

[DonL]

You think that a BF-110 could outurn and outroll a I-16, something like that? Numbers please.

Now considering the I-16 type 24, best examples were just flying at 489 km/h at about 4500 m hight, but as SL it was full 440 km/h exactly as soviet tested Bf-109 E-3! Even serial type 29 with 20 mm canons was making 430 km/h. From comparative trials it was beating the "Emil" after only 2 or 3 turning circles* or only 1 to 1.5 loop!
* (17-19s vs 26.5 -29.4)
So what does it make at 1000 m? 5% less speed for 50% more turn rate, 80% more loop rate and 300-400% more roll rate...
Obviously, considering that a fighter is always a compromise between performance and manoeuvrability, it was not as osolescent as it look like!

1. First I think a Bf 110C1-4 could outrun and outdive the I-16 at any altitudes!
The Performance of the Bf 110C1-4 was at SL 440-465km/h and at altitude 4,5km 525-560km/h, also the Bf 110 was much faster in a dive.
The Bf 110 had the edge and could outclass the Huricane MkI at the BoF and to my opinion the Hurricane was much better then the I-16.

2. The Bf 109E performance at SL was 475-500km/h and at altitude 550-570km/h. We had this issue a while ago at this thread
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/dewoitone-520-question-32212-7.html
The Bf 109E was much faster at any altitude as the I-16 it also could outclimb and outdive the I-16.

3. Turningrates and rollrates are two parameters of a fighter and to my opinion and from shown history at air to air combat at WWII not privot parameters. The privot parameter was speed!
Many fighter aircrafts of WWII with good to very good turning and roll parameters were outclassed from other fighter a/c's because of the lag of speed! For example A6M Zero, Hurricane, P40 and other fighter a/c's that could not get enough speed performance.
No F6F Hellcat could match with a Zero at turning or rolling, but the Zero was helpless against the speed performance of the Hellcat.
To my very own opinion, also a A6M Zero would be outclassed at the ETO (fictional scenario)at the beginning of it's career from Spitfire and Bf 109E, because of it's lag of speed, very difficult handling at high speed and the other tactical doctrine at the ETO!

Dogfights and turnfights were obsolet at WWII and not the primary tactical doctrine of the modern Air Forces (USAF, RAF and Luftwaffe)
Boom and Zoom was the tactic, to come from high altitude (better position) to suprise the enemy and get away with level speed, climb speed or dive speed and to get later again at the better altitude position! Good pilots avoid dogfights. Many german aces stated that they avoided dogfights except the enemy could sqeeze them in a dogfight because of the lag of speed!

Also I can't understand your agenda against the Bf 109E! The Bf 109E had shown at BoF and BoB that she could match with the Spitfire and has outclassed the Hurricane MkI and MkII 2:1! Also it outclassed the Dewoitone 520 2:1! So to me it is no question that the Bf 109E had outclassed the I-16 very very clear, because the I-16 could not match with the Hurricane, Spitfire and Dewoitone 520, especially at speed!
The Bf 109E was usually the winner at it's carreer as long as it had the speed advantage because it wasn't a very good turner or roller, the Hurricane has clearly the edge at this parameters but was outclassed, only the Spitfire could realy match with Bf 109E because the speedadvantage of the Bf 109E was very small to the Spitfire.

Barbarossa as Pearl Harbor never looked like a fair football match. From the 3 500+ soviet lost planes the first week, only 824 were due to air combats against Luft even if counting those that occured during take-offs and landings, the major part as i already said was lost on airfields or sabotaged during evacuation.
That mean rather a victory due to the Heer's advance over soviet logistics (in fact the lack of soviet logistics) rather than Luftwaffe's one over VVS in the air.

1. First war isn't and wasn't fair

2. Your analyse is wrong, the VVS was destroyed from the Luftwaffe at the ground because of the results of the Rowehl Reconnassaince Group/Squad (Luftwaffe). This reconnassaince squad was flying very high altitude reconnassaince missions since 1937 over sowjet territory!
With this results the LW could attack all airfields and the whole logistic of the VVS very concerted and effective at the first weeks of Barbarossa!

 

[Juha]

@Altea, very strange statement.
Why did they replace the I-16 by Hurricanes which were clearly inferior to the Bf109E and Bf109F aswell.
cimmex

Hello cimmex
Soviet pilots thought that I-16 was a better fighter than Hurricane. Finns also usually thought that I-16 was a more dangerous opponent than Hurricane. One must remember that Soviet Hurris didn't use 100 oct fuel, at least usually, so they had to be content with lower boost levels, and so had less power below FTR, which was where most aircombats happened in the East.

Juha

 

[Altea]

@Altea, very strange statement.
Why did they replace the I-16 by Hurricanes which were clearly inferior to the Bf109E and Bf109F aswell.
cimmex

I-16? Where could they take them from? Production ceased in 1940! OK some 100 fighters were still delivered early in 1941 to finish the 1940 commands plan, liquidate the stock of spare parts and make room. Others produced in 1941 were two seat trainers UTI-4.

Considering high I-16 and I-153 combat results (compared to the others soviet fighters as LaGG, MiG, even Yak) there were constantly question to reintroduce them (an improved version) in production, that is not easy to do in wartime conditions. The last attempt occured at the late summer of 1942 at highest level, when Novikov the VVS commander refused it to fighter command deputies, arguing that I-16 was certainly a good "defence fighter" but VVS needed for "attack" ones, and promissed newer planes that would be able to do the math with german fighters both at performance and manoeuvrability matters.

 

[Altea]

Altea, I truly don't understand how the VVS would be gradually decimated in 1940 and yet was quickly decimated one year later?

It seems i already wrote about it.

Difficut to take them by surprise as easy as in 1941, when Stalin as well as his generals were persuaded that no attack would be launched against SU before separate peace with UK!
and also:
Barbarossa as Pearl Harbor never looked like a fair football match

Soviet army and VVS were taken by surprise in 1941, exactly as americans in Pearl Harbour.

Do you think american losses would be so high if there were prevented from Nagumo's attack?

So for soviets in 1941, i'm not persuaded in a big Luftwaffe (or Japanese planes in PH) success encontering a big reception commitee, thousand fighers in the air, mobilsed AAA and ready defence, empty airfields etc... In 1941 Stalin was not believing in a german attack and thought of a bluff to make him cooperate more for german war machine against England (petrol, wheat deliveries etc...)

What would be the alibi in 1940? He would had no reasons to make any illusions, only react, mobilise and deploy his troops on well prepared defensive positions.

Another factor: You may have parity with the aircraft but not with the pilots. Luftwaffe pilots at that time were better trained and with experience.

They were in 1941, after BoF and BoB experience. Soviet crews faught previously in Spain, China, Mongolia, Finland. Moreover soviet pilot training level begun to fall only in 1940, with the massive growth of VVS and reduction in flight time for new crew promotions.

 

[DonL]

Difficut to take them by surprise as easy as in 1941, when Stalin as well as his generals were persuaded that no attack would be launched against SU before separate peace with UK!
and also:
Barbarossa as Pearl Harbor never looked like a fair football match

Soviet army and VVS were taken by surprise in 1941, exactly as americans in Pearl Harbour.

Do you think american losses would be so high if there were prevented from Nagumo's attack?

So for soviets in 1941, i'm not persuaded in a big Luftwaffe (or Japanese planes in PH) success encontering a big reception commitee, thousand fighers in the air, mobilsed AAA and ready defence, empty airfields etc... In 1941 Stalin was not believing in a german attack and thought of a bluff to make him cooperate more for german war machine against England (petrol, wheat deliveries etc...)

What would be the alibi in 1940? He would had no reasons to make any illusions, only react, mobilise and deploy his troops on well prepared defensive positions.

Do you have any sources for your claims?

After David Glantz Sowjet alert at June 22.1941 was at 100% for all troops at the Westfront!
Also after Glantz at June 22.1941 the Sowjet deployment at the Westfront was to 80% ready and the operational readiness of the troops were at 65-70%!
I can hardly see any arguments of a "total surprise" also to me the situation of Pearl Harbour and Barbarossa couldn't be compared from the viewpoint of the suprise issue. The german deployment was over months no secret to Stalin and the Red Army.
The truth was, Stalin wanted no war at 1941 because the Red Army wasn't ready and in a deep reorganisation after the worst performance at the Finnish Sowjet War! This issue would be much more evident at 1940!
So I can't see any arguments why the situation at 1940 should be an other as 1941! The avoiding war issue would be much more evident, so Stalin would react just as 1941!

 

[Njaco]

They were in 1941, after BoF and BoB experience. Soviet crews faught previously in Spain, China, Mongolia, Finland. Moreover soviet pilot training level begun to fall only in 1940, with the massive growth of VVS and reduction in flight time for new crew promotions.

and LW fighter training fell after 1942. So if an attack against VVS in 1940 as fighter training was starting to get worse in Russia ( see bold above) - then LW still has a grand time decimating the VVS. Maybe even on a larger scale.

But I'm still confused....

Are we arguing the merits of the machines used if Barbarrossa were a year earlier

or

The tactics used in 1940 as opposed to 1941?

 

[Milosh]

and LW fighter training fell after 1942. So if an attack against VVS in 1940 as fighter training was starting to get worse in Russia ( see bold above) - then LW still has a grand time decimating the VVS. Maybe even on a larger scale.

Wasn't the training cut back because of the war in the West?

 

[DonL]

Wasn't the training cut back because of the war in the West?

To my informations it was first the much higher casualties as estimated 1942, so they cut back the flying and training hours to get as much quantity back as possible and second the lag of fuel was also rising at 1942!

 

[Njaco]

There was a high loss of experienced leaders from BoB onward and most of the fuel, pilot reserve problems, etc didn't really happen until 1942. Hartmann may have been part of the last real group of properly trained pilots to enter service in Oct 42.

Which still gives credence to my contention that by 1940, LW still had superior pilots compared to VVS. Same outcome as in June 41.

I'm still trying to figure out what would be so drastically different in 1940 in the Eastern Front that the large losses of VVS machines (as happened in '41 Barbarossa) would NOT have happened, as Altea contends?

 

[stona]

Why did they replace the I-16 by Hurricanes which were clearly inferior to the Bf109E
cimmex

The Hurricane was most definitely not "clearly inferior" to the Bf 109 E. The British,in their comparative trials,considered the Hurricane a superior fighter to the Emil. The Germans thought otherwise. In fact they were closely matched.
More than half the Bf 109s shot down during the BoB fell to Hurricanes. (Hurricanes equipped 34 Squadrons,Spitfires 19)
Cheers
Steve

 

[DonL]

The Hurricane was most definitely not "clearly inferior" to the Bf 109 E. The British,in their comparative trials,considered the Hurricane a superior fighter to the Emil. The Germans thought otherwise. In fact they were closely matched.
More than half the Bf 109s shot down during the BoB fell to Hurricanes. (Hurricanes equipped 34 Squadrons,Spitfires 19)
Cheers
Steve

This is very questionable!

After serious researcher for example "The Battle of France Then and Now" by Peter Cornwell the Hurrricane was outclased at the BoF 2:1 from the Emil and even the Bf 110C could slightly outclass the Hurricane.

From all what I have read about BoB in this Forum and from Christer Bergstroms Book Luftstrid över kanalen (2006). In english Battle of Britain (2007). the Hurricane was outclassed clearly from the Emil. At BoB the Hurricane also had the advantage of the much shorter "way's" compare to the Emil and a very huge advantage at the time as the german fighters had the order to fly close cover escort for the Bombers, what was realy stupid from the german leadership (Göring). At this time (close cover escort), the Emil and the BF 110 had their highest losses and the Hurricane it's best time at BoB!

Losses from BoB: 196 Bf 110; 534 Bf 109E; 603 Hurricanes; 329 Spitfires!

Also in the desert the Hurricane and the P40 lost clearly air supermarcy and air superiority from summer 1941 till september 1942 to the Bf 109F!

 

[stona]

The Bf 109 F was a step up from the E and the Hurricane certainly struggled against it.
The British view of the Emil,compared with the Hurricane and Spitfire was summed up thus.

"Conclusions. – (i) Take-off is fairly straightforward. Landing is difficult until the pilot gets used to the aircraft.

Longitudinally the aircraft is too stable for a fighter. There is a large change of directional trim with speed. No rudder trimmer is fitted ; lack of this is severely felt at high speeds, and limits a pilot's ability to turn left when diving.

Fin area and dihedral are adequate. The stall is not violent, and there is no subsequent tendency to spin. CLmax is 1.4, flaps up and 1.9, flaps down. No vibration or " snaking " develop in a high-speed dive.

Aileron snatching occurs as the slots open. All three controls are far too heavy at high speeds. Aerobatics are difficult.

(ii) The Me. 109 is inferior as a fighter to the Hurricane or Spitfire. Its manoeuvrability at high airspeeds is seriously curtailed by the heaviness of the controls, while its high wing loading causes it to stall readily under high normal accelerations and results in a poor turning circle.

At 400 m.p.h. a pilot, exerting all his strength, can only apply 115 aileron [sic], thereby banking 45 deg. in about 4 secs. From the results Kb, for the Me. 109 ailerons was estimated to be - 0.145.

The minimum radius of turn without height loss at 12,000 ft., full throttle, is calculated as 885 ft. on the Me. 109 compared with 696 ft. on the Spitfire.

The cockpit is too cramped for comfort."

I've never heard an account from a Hurricane pilot who wasn't happy to take on a Bf 109 E. The Hurricane is a much under estimated dog fighter both now and,at the time,by many Luftwaffe pilots who learnt a hard lesson.

Molders reflected the official Luftwaffe view.

"It was very interesting to carry out the flight trials at Rechlin with the Spitfire and the Hurricane. Both types are very simple to fly compared to our aircraft, and childishly easy to take-off and land. The Hurricane is good-natured and turns well, but its performance is decidedly inferior to that of the Me 109. It has strong stick forces and is "lazy" on the ailerons.

The Spitfire is one class better. It handles well, is light on the controls, faultless in the turn and has a performance approaching that of the Bf 109. As a fighting aircraft, however, it is miserable. A sudden push forward on the stick will cause the Motor to cut; and because the propeller has only two pitch settings (take-off and cruise), in a rapidly changing air combat situation the motor is either overspeeding or else is not being used to the full."

Significantly by the summer of 1940 all Spitfires and Hurricanes were fitted with a CSU,not the two pitch propellers that were on the aircraft tested and flown by Molders.

Cheers
Steve

 

[DonL]

So we have two official Tests with different results and opinions.
They are both on the subjektive side and to me I have never claimed the Hurricane was a bad fighter at 1940, I only claimed it was outclassed from the Bf 109E.

And if we look at the hard facts (kill ratio, confirmed losses to research, official tactical orders and concepts) that we have today, the numbers are against the Hurricane and pro Bf 109E!

 

[Milosh]

Losses from BoB: 196 Bf 110; 534 Bf 109E; 603 Hurricanes; 329 Spitfires!

Not all those Spitfires and Hurricanes were shot down by Bf109s and Bf110s.

 

[DonL]

After my informations are this the losses from air to air combat with fighters!

The RAF had lost about 1200 a/c's at BoB and the kill ratio of the german bombers were near nil!