Picture of the day. (3 Viewers)

You have to add .. soviet pilots but not the soviet government...

"... The Soviets sure loved their P-39's."

Except when they were making propaganda films ... then it's all Yaks and Lags

Lt General Wm Knudsen, former GM President and FDR $1.00-a-day man before being fired by FDR at the insistence of his New Deal boys as a 'capitalist' and then, being recruited by the US Military to industrialize their military production, was responsible for getting Ford's Willow
Line B-24 organized into sub-assemblies and then on to one aircraft per hour. Consolidated didn't have a clue about assembly line production. [Source: "Foundry of Democracy"
Arthur Herman]

Ju-87s over Poland in September 1939..

Sikh soldiers in North Africa.

Applying some extra armour. Not sure a couple of inches of concrete would make much difference.

The soviet S-7 submarine in the Kornstadt harbour, 1942...

I wasn't aware the Soviets had a submarine let alone fleets of them so I went digging. Not mine, from this site...

Victories and losses of Soviet submarines during WWII • Axis History Forum

Use of Soviet submarines during WWII [according to statistics from 2004]

Soviet submarines sank by torpedos and artillery fire:
I. Pacific Ocean fleet - 4 enemy ships [Japanese] were sank by submarines in 1945: 2 small steamers, 1 cable wessel and 1 seine-netter.
5 Soviet submarines were lost in Pacific during WWII.

II. North fleet - 35 enemy ships [German] were sank in 1941-1944: 20 transports, 7 anti-submarine boats, 5 auxiliary patrol ships, 1 submarine, 1 mine-sweeper, 1 auxiliary ship. In addition 4 transports [19390 brt] were seriously damaged. The most successful year - 1943 [15 ships were sank].
23 Soviet submarines were lost in Arctic during WWII. The worsest year - also 1943 [10 losses].

III. Black Sea fleet - 45 ships [18 German, 2 Italian, 6 Romanian, 3 Bulgarian, 16 neutral Turkish] were sank in 1941-1944: 43 transports + tankers + anding barges. The most successful year - 1943 [17 ships were sank].
28 Soviet submarines wele lost in Black Sea during WWII. The worsest year - 1942 [13 submarines were lost].

IV. Baltic Sea fleet - 48 ships [17 German, 7 Finnish, 1 Danish, 2 Dutch, 11 Norwegian, 10 neutral Swedish] were sank in 1941-1945: 1 submarine, 1 mine-sweeper, 1 patrol ship, 1 training ship, 1 depot ship, 2 tankers, 1 tug, 1 barge, 37 transports, 2 seine-netters. The most successful year - 1942 [22 ships were sank]
45 Soviet submarines wele lost in Baltic during WWII. The worsest year - 1941 [27 submarines were lost].

The success of Soviet submarines was mediocre - USSR used 277 submarines during WWII [165 submarines were in 1939 - the largest world's submarine fleet]. They sank [by torpedos, artillery fire, mines] 191 ships during Winter war, wars with Germany and Japan in all seas - 4 submarines, 3 small destroyers, 11 patrol ships, 9 patrol boats, 2 mine-layers, 6 mine-sweepers, 9 landing barges, 6 military tankers, 6 military transports, 3 depot ships, 2 hospital ship, 1 training ship, 1 cable wessel, 6 tugs, 6 barges, 9 trawler ships, 1 small fishing ship, 86 transports, 2 tankers, 18 motor-sailing ships [172.785 brt total]. This data includes 5 ships were sank during Winter War [2 German, 1 Finnish, 1 Swedish, 1 Estonian].

Soviets achieved rate 1.89 [191 sank ships per 101 lost submarines]. British submarines achieved the ratio 9.29 [632 sank ships per 68 lost submarines], USN submarines achived fantastic ratio 24.15 as they performed in much more favourable conditions in comparison with other navies [1280 sank ships per 53 lost submarines].
Axis forces - Italian submarines had the ratio 1.1; Germans had the ratio 2.69 [2973 sank ships(!) per 1060 lost submarines including sank under capitulation]; Japanese - 1.73.

Also if you make a focus on the shape of the russian WW2 soubmarines you can find them looking very similar to the German U-boots. No wonder because the soviet engineers/designers were teaching by the Nazi troubleshooters.

Enzian Flak Missile
This experimental World War II German anti-aircraft missile was designed in 1944 by Dr. Hermann Wurster of Messerschmitt with an aerodynamic shape influenced by the Me 163 rocket fighter. Test models in the E-1 series were launched from Karlshagen/Peenemuende in mid-1944, boosted by four Schmidding 109-553 solid dyglycol rockets. The sustainer engine was a RI 210B Walter motor powered by mixed acid and gasoline, which were fed to the chamber by a hydrogen-peroxide-fueled turbopump. The missile was to be controlled by a ground-operator through a joystick, but the missiles ran badly out of control during the early launches. In all 38 launch attempts were made, but the program was cancelled at the end of January 1945.

The NASM artifact is marked E1/58, indicating it was the 58th missile of the test series. The U.S. Army Air Forces shipped it from Germany in 1946.

P-47 p-51 p-38
Lockheed P-38H Lightning (s/n 42-66923); North American P-51A Mustang (s/n 43-6246; c/n 99-22349) and Republic P-47D Thunderbolt (s/n 42-22790), respectively, in formation; circa 1940s.

Very cool find John.

Aerial view of four United States Army Air Forces aircraft in flight in formation; bottom (foreground) to top (background): Republic YP-43 Lancer, Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, Bell P-39 Airacobra, and Lockheed P-38 Lightning; 1941.

I dont want to get into any political discussions about the Soviets. Just enjoy the picture for what it was in that conflict.