Soviet aircraft the west coulda/shoulda used?

[parsifal]

THis kinda makes me wonder and Tzar1 touched up this earlier.

If 30k were built, 11k were lost in combat ad there were at most 12k in service, what happened to the other 7k??

I dont know, but it is quite normal that only a fraction of aircraft ever get used operationally. For the US only about 40% of its aircraft produced during the war were committed to operational units. The remainder generally ended up as landfill after the war.

Its normal for an air force to hold back significant numbers of aircraft as reserves and still others to be assigned to OCUs and other training elements.

7000 unnaccounted airframes is actually a fairly low number as a proportion of the total. It suggest the Soviets were not running huge numbers in their reserve elements, and/or did not have a particulalry large training establishment.

I'll bet the losses stated in this thread dont include noncombat losses.

As a general rule of thumb it was quite normal under wartime conditions for combat units to suffer an average of 5-8% attrition due to non-combat related causes in any given month. It was this high because aircraft were often called upon to exceed their safe working limits interms of range, or payload, or both, and were often made to fly in conditions that in peacetime would be considered unsuitable. All nations, to a greater or lesser extent, considered their aviators to be expendable if the battle situation demanded it.

 

[Clay_Allison]

Don't be stupid. ! Or innacurate in your posts


The locomotive is made of usual soft steel close to iron properties, with low carbon mixture, not armor. Some parts are of cast iron or stainless steel. An armored locomotive had additional armored plates. Armored trains exists of course. It's an exception, not the general case in 43-45.


Regards

Altea

The contemporary film THUNDERBOLTS (made by the Army in 1944) referred to "Armored Locomotives" as among the P-40's common targets. Locomotives pull hundreds of tons. Adding armor would be easy, inexpensive, and if it did some good infinitely valuable. What is a TRAIN load of supplies worth to your troops? The Germans would have been stupid not to put a ton of rolled steel on the locomotive and I don't think they were stupid.

 

[Juha]

Still busy so only some short comments.

I generally agreed with Vanir
Il-2 was a different solution than fighter bomber to ground support mission. Slower but much better protected. Some fighter bomber types could deliver heavier loads. Both Il-2s and fighter bombers could have been used in same missions. In fact Il-2 might have been useful in Western use, because of from 43 onwards Allies usually had air superiority and greatest danger in CS work was German AAA. Additional plus was that German infantry knew that it didn't have anything by which they would have a reasonable chance to bring down an Il-2, so they just needed passively to take what was coming. Always bad for morale. Against fighter bombers one could at least hope to accomplish something with MG 34s and 42s which also had some deterrent value against fighter bombers.

IIRC the most effective anti-tank weapon forn Il-2 was the PTAB bomblets, which Vanir have mentioned. The recoil of 37mm NS-37 generated nose down pitch and made it difficult to aim accurately and only a short production run of that version was made. All WW2 air-to-ground rockets were inaccurate. But the claim that "At Kursk within 20 minutes one formation of M3 models decimated the 9th Pz Division (70 tanks destroyed)" is pure propaganda as many other claims made by pilots on results of their attacks against tanks.

Il-2s were used from the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, sometimes successfully sometimes they suffered very heavy losses. So early on Soviet tried to arrange a fighter escort for Il-2s but that wasn't always possible. But even without fighter escort it wasn't a easy target to fighters and not totally defendless, especially after they got rear-gunners. Finns usually attacked from rear higher and a bit from side and aimed to rear part of wing roots as the quote from Juutilainen showed or simply rely on 20mm minen shells and shoot the tail surfaces to pieces, preferendly after eliminating the rear gunner. Tail surfaces, rear fuselage and outer wings of Il-2 were as vulnerable to HE fire as those parts in normal planes.

However, Il-2 wasn't immune against AAA, even if at the beginning Germans found out that their 20mm Flak was rather ineffective against it. But the use of ½ HE and ½ AP rounds was at least partial solution to that. Finns noticed the same. But Il-2 remained a more difficult plane too shoot down by 20mm Flak than fighter bombers and its pilots knew that and could ignore Flak more than fighter bomber pilots which means good for accuracy.

Hello Viking
Il-2s were lost also in accidents, in operational and in training units. And as other planes some just got so weared that it was more econominal to scrap them than trying to keep them airworthy, especially later in war when new a/c were easily available.

Juha

 

[Shortround6]

The contemporary film THUNDERBOLTS (made by the Army in 1944) referred to "Armored Locomotives" as among the P-40's common targets. Locomotives pull hundreds of tons. Adding armor would be easy, inexpensive, and if it did some good infinitely valuable. What is a TRAIN load of supplies worth to your troops? The Germans would have been stupid not to put a ton of rolled steel on the locomotive and I don't think they were stupid.

Armour costs money, much more than regular steel.
Armour is almost always in short supply in war time.
a single ton of armour would be almost worthless on a locomotive.
20lbs per sq ft for 1/2in steel (armour or soft steel) (12.7mm) or 100sq ft to the ton.
How big are these locomotives? even if you don't armour the lower 3-4 feet you need 200-300sq ft or more.
Steam locomotives need maintence and inspections, armour shrouds would make this difficult and reduce availibity of locomotives.

If you really believe war time propaganda films I can find books printed in WW II that say Curtiss P-40 Warhawks could do 400mph.

 

[Colin1]

However, Il-2 wasn't immune against AAA, even if at the beginning Germans found out that their 20mm Flak was rather ineffective against it. But the use of ½ HE and ½ AP rounds was at least partial solution to that. Finns noticed the same. But Il-2 remained a more difficult plane too shoot down by 20mm Flak than fighter bombers and its pilots knew that and could ignore Flak more than fighter bomber pilots which means good for accuracy

This was, I believe
compounded by Stalin's insistence that all ordnance be fired in anger. This invariably resulted in coming round for that suicidal second pass and straight into a ready and waiting flak barrage that had you ranged.
The Il-2 was not in any way immune to German flak.

 

[claidemore]

I conversed for a while with an ex P47 pilot, Don Archer, who lost his enteire flight to flak in one pass on a ground attack mission to an airfield in France. That's 3 out of 4 in less than a minute, and his plane was damaged as well.

parsifals post about the percentage of planes that never made it to combat units is interesting. No doubt that at least some of that production could have been put to better use.

 

[Shortround6]

I conversed for a while with an ex P47 pilot, Don Archer, who lost his enteire flight to flak in one pass on a ground attack mission to an airfield in France. That's 3 out of 4 in less than a minute, and his plane was damaged as well.

parsifals post about the percentage of planes that never made it to combat units is interesting. No doubt that at least some of that production could have been put to better use.

Wastage of planes in WW II was phenomenal compared to today.

A friends father flew with VMF-124 in the late part of the war. The number of planes and pilots lost in training and operational accidents was truely staggering.
A loss rate like that today would keep congress busy with hearings for the next 50 years.

 

[michaelmaltby]

That's right, Colin1. No rounds were to return to base.

Claidemore, I remember reading Pierre Closterman's book The Big Show in the late '50's when I was a kid - until then the books I'd read were fighter pilot books like Bader and Tuck and I couldn't believe the casualties the Typhoons took on ground attack runs ... it depressed the Hell out of me ... it seemed every mision lost 1 or 2. Something like 500 Typhoons lost in Nothwestern Europe [don't quote that number, I'm not great with numbers ] from D-Day to war's end. I have to believe that Typhoons were more vulnerable than P-47's -- they didn't come home with cylinders knocked off.

MM

 

[Altea]

Please refrain from calling anyone stupid in this thread - it WILL NOT be tolerated

I apologyze to Clay Allison. Had corrected my sentence.

Incident is closed. So i think there si no need to keep theese unpleasant posts in the tread any longer.

Regards

Altea

 

[Colin1]

...I couldn't believe the casualties the Typhoons took on ground attack runs ... it depressed the Hell out of me ... it seemed every mision lost 1 or 2

Typhoons suffered totally unacceptable losses to engine failure
I forget the correct figure but it was something like every flight (or every mission) lost a Typhoon to engine failure.

 

[Altea]

The average IL-2 had a "life expectancy" of 30 missions.

I think it's false, or inaccurate even if it's from older russian sources.

From: IL2 page Statistika

you see that loss rate was depending from the war period

26.06.41 - 01.07.42: 13
01.08.42 - 01.06.43: 26
on 01.11.44: 85
01.01.45 - 09.05.45: 90


That mean a "life expectancy" roughly closer to 50 missions.

But in that form, the rough number is not very significant.

In 1941-42 a lot of planes were abandonned on the airfields with little damage during the german advance and counted as "combat losses".

A lot of planes lost by accident were counted as combat losses, since unit commanders wanted to protect their pilots, especially experienced ones from being persecuted. And by the way avoid NKVD, Smersh enquest commissions. Well, i understand: it was soviet system...

Since the "number of realised war missions", was used in red army to promote pilots for higher ranks and state awards, the rule was only to count "successeful" mission, only if your principal or secondary target was reached and damaged/destoyed. The real number of realised missions was higher than officially counted ones.

For all that reasons, some modern russian historians as Kooznetsov, Mukhin estimate that real "life expectancy" of the Il-2 was about 80 missions: 20-30 for the beginning and about 100-120 at the end of the war.



Altea

 

[Altea]

Actually, they're right:

Yes they are.

British issued a MAP order for NA-73X project, March 1940. Prototype NA-73X was rolled out just 117 days after the order was placed, and first flew on 26 October 1940, just 178 days after the order had been placed—an uncommonly short gestation period.

But j' am right too. Prototype NA-73X rolled out on 9 september 1940, just 102 days after the order was placed, awaiting it's engine. So if engine was delivered at time, the plane could have been flyed well before october.

Regards

 

[michaelmaltby]

Engine losses were extreme - something about those sleeve valve engines that didn't like the dust on the forward fields.

I was a know-nothing Airframe Tech (RCAF 411 Sqd., Reserve) in my teens. Our Senior Sgt was ex RAF - a tough old bird with a dirty mind and a wicked tongue . He was a "servicing commando" (his term) working on Typhoons on forward fields in France after D-Day. Had great tales but rarely about the Typhoons

Before I joined, 411 had been re-purposed by D.O.D from F-86 Canadair Sabres to Beech Expeditors (a real comedown and morale killer) and it was pretty hard for me to get enthusiastic about Expeditors with that, altho I admit I used to fantasize that they were Me-110's on the line, especially in winter . After I had decided not to pursue an airforce "career", 411 started to convert to deHavilland Otters - I like them a lot more and subsequently spent a lot of civilian hours in Otters and Beavers (wheels, floats, skiis). Great, great machines.

MM

 

[Clay_Allison]

Armour costs money, much more than regular steel.
Armour is almost always in short supply in war time.
a single ton of armour would be almost worthless on a locomotive.
20lbs per sq ft for 1/2in steel (armour or soft steel) (12.7mm) or 100sq ft to the ton.
How big are these locomotives? even if you don't armour the lower 3-4 feet you need 200-300sq ft or more.
Steam locomotives need maintence and inspections, armour shrouds would make this difficult and reduce availibity of locomotives.

If you really believe war time propaganda films I can find books printed in WW II that say Curtiss P-40 Warhawks could do 400mph.

P-40 was a typo, I meant to say P-47.

 

[Shortround6]

P-40 was a typo, I meant to say P-47.

Doesn't matter, I can still find wartime publications that say the Curtiss could do 400mph.
Point is the wartime publications, Newsreels and moves for the folks at home weren't any more reliable then than they are now.

SO I am really questioning the armourded trains/locomotives not which plane was shooting them.

 

[Juha]

Hello Colin
Il-2 could take enormous amount of damage and IMHO two 20mm hits on the nose of a Typhoon/Spitfire/P-40 would much more probably bring the plane down than two 20mm hits onthe nose of a Il-2. Of course no amount of armour would make a propeller plane totally immune because a good hit on a propeller blade would bring the plane down.

Juha

 

[Altea]

Naval aviation were the only Soviet air force to use the P-47, and I think they were all stationed in the Black Sea.

One of the main reasons the P-39 was popular and equipped to Guards regiments was its luxurious equipment by Soviet standards (stated by Porkryshin), with three radios and good cockpit equipment. Its M4/T9 gun isn't that hard hitting, the British didn't even want it in their orders (switched for a Hispano 20mm).
The Soviets also requested the four thirties be removed from the wings as they were superfluous and reduced performance. The Q-series in service with some Guards pilots from 1944 were pretty good aircraft but the reputation of the type as a ground attack plane is an American phenomenon.
The Soviets used it as a fighter for aerial combat, or as a fighter-bomber escort for Il2 wings, it was never an anti-tank a/c as claimed by some commercial publications, the Oldsmobile 37mm could barely penetrate 25mm of slab armour at 90-degrees, something your average anti-tank infantry rifle could best. Anything tougher than a Japanese light tank rendered the weapon useless even with AP shells.
By comparison the Vickers S gun at 40mm had better than 50mm penetration and added another 50% to this with improved late war ammunition, whilst the German Mk101/103 could do just about the same at 30mm calibre.
The Oldsmobile gun was great for soft targets or aerial targets at relatively close range, Soviet vets mention a single shot would cause an enemy fighter to simply break up mid air.

Some sources claim 12,000 Il-2 are listed as being in active service at one time late in 1944, the highest number of any single aircraft type in history. Over 30,000 were delivered during the war. Of this some 2500 lost to interception sounds pretty good.

Good post, nothing to add.

Except that: if the P-39 could't take on panzers it was an excellent anti-locomotive hunter. By the way it means that steam locomotives were not made of "hard steel".

and

Over 30,000 were delivered during the war. Of this some 2500 lost to interception sounds pretty good

2500 + a part of the 3414 ones lost for unknown reasons.

Regards

 

[Altea]

THis kinda makes me wonder and Tzar1 touched up this earlier.

If 30k were built, 11k were lost in combat ad there were at most 12k in service, what happened to the other 7k??

But, it seems that VG already gave the answer

1.1 (0.6) in 41
2.6 (1,8 ) in 42
7.2 (3.9) in 43
8.9 (4.1) in 44
3.8 (2.0) in 45 in thousands (-) for combat reasons from krivosheyev.

It makes 23.6 thousands of stormovik lost in 41-45, about 12.4 thousands of them for combat reasons. No?

Altea

 

[Colin1]

But, it seems that VG already gave the response

It makes 23.6 thousands of stormovik lost in 41-45, about 12.4 thousands of them for combat reasons

A plane whose losses to 'other means' competed quite briskly with losses to combat ops, to the point in 1944 where losses to other means outstripped combat losses by more than half.

Remind me, why is this a 'Soviet aircraft the west coulda/shoulda used?'

 

[GrauGeist]

Armour costs money, much more than regular steel.
Armour is almost always in short supply in war time.
a single ton of armour would be almost worthless on a locomotive.
20lbs per sq ft for 1/2in steel (armour or soft steel) (12.7mm) or 100sq ft to the ton.
How big are these locomotives? even if you don't armour the lower 3-4 feet you need 200-300sq ft or more.
Steam locomotives need maintence and inspections, armour shrouds would make this difficult and reduce availibity of locomotives.

If you really believe war time propaganda films I can find books printed in WW II that say Curtiss P-40 Warhawks could do 400mph.

An armored locomotive being serviced, 1942...