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They worked well enough to beat the Luftwaffe out of the skies over the Soviet Union after losing nearly their entire earlier-generation of obsolete fighters. By early 1945, a German plane had a hard time living in the Soviet sky unless he flew high and avoided combat with them.
Right DonL ... here we go again ...
I'm sure the Yak-3's and La-5FN / La-7 pilots would be quite surprised to hear they were inferior considering they shot the Luftwaffe out of Russian skies with great success. Fact is the Luftwaffe was withdrawing for many months before the final fall and there was nothing they could do about it. The inferior Soviet planes also got some Me 262 victories, amongst which was one by Ivan Kozhedub (I have a signed print).
But, you already know we disagree strongly on most things, so this should be no surprise, huh? I will not get into a spat about it since we are in a time of low tolerance for that, but suffice to say we agree about as well as usual.
As to facts, I read history and form opinions after I do that, from several sources. I assume you do the same, so we MUST be using different sources, huh?
But that's OK, really. Cheers.
If we all thought the same, life would be dull, wouldn't it?
I'm very suprised about such a statement, because since 1943, 80% of the LW was fighting against the west Allies at the different frontlines, home, south, west and north. The west Allies cleared the skies about the Soviet Union, because the LW stationed 80 to 90% of their fighters since 1943 against them. Also this you can read at every good researched book.I'm sure the Yak-3's and La-5FN / La-7 pilots would be quite surprised to hear they were inferior considering they shot the Luftwaffe out of Russian skies with great success.
I've been told to take Soviet testing spec numbers with a grain of salt (German too to a degree), especially considering that mass produced operational models generally did not live up to spec.
The next thing I ask, is why the Soviets didn't get this MIG I-220, 221, 222, 224, and 225 operational at the timeline 1945-1949, where the cold war was beginning to get hot since end of 1945, beginning 1946?
Of course, bombers working from 40,000 ft would be lucky to hit Lake Baikal, let alone a factory.
first of all the FTH of MiG-3 was 7.8km, so clearly above 6km, secondly, VVS didn't see need for high altitude fighters because most of the air-combat in the east were fought at low and middle altitudes, so they concetraded to produce low-level fighters andstopped MiG-3 production because it didn't do well at lower altitudes.
According to the Finnish tests, the service ceiling of a LaGG-3 was 7800 meters. It took 24 minutes to climb to that altitude from the sea level. However, the service ceiling of a MiG-3 was far greater, around 10-12 km according to some German tests.