Wild_Bill_Kelso
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,231
- Mar 18, 2022
One could argue that the Soviet fighters weren't really Sten fighters. To qualify a fighter as a Sten fighter the nation in question should be able to produce better fighters, but for one reason or other chooses to build a 'Sten' fighter in order to produce large numbers of cheap fighters. So something e.g. like the Miles M.20 or such.
But the Soviet fighters? Sure, they were Sten designs compared to what the UK and US were fielding in Western Europe. But they were the best the were capable of building, considering the limitations they had in engine power (and as mentioned, suited to their requirements wrt range and altitude performance). For a Soviet Sten design, what about e.g. continuing to produce the I-16 into the early 40'ies (wikipedia says production ended only in 1942)?
That is certainly an interesting question - could the Soviets have built more sophisticated, expensive and possibly more capable fighters, or were they forced to go "Sten"?
I would argue that they were not forced to go the direction they did, though there was certainly enormous pressure since the Soviet State, and maybe a big chunk of the population was fighting for their life.
Soviet fighters were both small and cheap. Other very important aircraft like Spitfires, Bf 109s, MC 202, etc. were also pretty small, if not necessarily as cheap.
The Soviets could have probably built a lot of aircraft equivalent to a Spitfire Mk II let's say, with metal skin, more guns, bigger engine etc. though that would mean in much smaller numbers than their Yak etc. Maybe something like the Polikarpov I-185.
But the Soviets actually had Spitfire MK V available to them, from the British. Later Spitfire Mk IX. But they used these for PVO / air defense in rear areas. For the front line they preferred the Yak and Lavochkin fighers.
Also the IL-2 with it's armored bathtub etc. was not exactly a 'Sten' design, IMO. They built a lot of those.