Another interesting reply, thank you.
Soviet "quality" was all over the place.
We tend to be highly dismissive of everything the Soviets did, and compared to "Western" production their kit sometimes seemed to be crude. But I also think this perception is heavily tainted by Cold War propaganda. The Russians seem backward at first, but then they adapt, and they have some very, very smart engineers. They surprised us (and their other enemies) many times - the Katuusha rocket, the PPSh, Ak-47, the MiG-15, Sputnik, the RPG, Salyut 1 the MiG-25. The first Mobile phone. Many of their later armored vehicles in WW2.
But I think their greatest "quality" in WW2 was adapting to an incredibly, incredibly difficult, terrifying existential threat, and overcoming it, admittedly with a fair bit of help from the US and British. US and British aircraft - Hurricanes and P-40s, A-20s, later P-39s, Spitfires, B-25s helped hold the line during the critical phase in 1942 and earlier 1943 when the Soviet production was struggling to overcome their catastrophic situation. Along with Valentine and Sherman etc. tanks, lots and losts of studebaker trucks, bren carriers and etc. on the ground. But then (most of) these things were replaced by Soviet types which were better adapted to the local conditions.
The Soviets had a ghastly lethargy in reacting to the early calamities, while millions died. Their system was rigid and based on party loyalty rather than merit. Stalin's mass-murder had decimated the leadership. But they gradually started learning and adapting. Some very smart people did get into the right positions eventually. They figured out which tactics worked and did more of that.
In a way, they were like 'The Borg' from Star Trek in this sense. Slow to react at first. But once they dial it in, they are a force to be reckoned with.
You don't have to be a lover of Marxist-Stalinist ideology to recognize what they did right and see if we can learn from it. Every nation in WW2 had significant flaws in everything from design to strategy. All of the major ones also had their merits. I would also say that some traits of the Soviets extend to the current situation.
But build quality should have been relatively divorced from design choices. Assuming you could actually build the thing to begin with. However if you draft many of the able bodied workers into the army and replace them with unskilled old men, women and teenagers build quality will go down, not something the designer had much control over. They may have been able to take a bit more time or with gained experience (or both/other things) build quality went up even with design improvements. The Yak 9and LA-7 with increased use of duralumin offered advantages earlier versions did not have. The instrument fit and/radio fit increased as the war went on too.
Due to the German invasion they had to move most of their factories to the other side of the Ural mountains, very quickly. They were already dealing with a basically agrarian population which was thrown into industrial production on a mass-scale. The aircraft designs - including the special plywood used in most of the planes - were based on theoretically possible but difficult to implement and in some cases quite new technologies. Training peasants to fly fighter planes was another huge challenge. The scale of the clusterf*k in the early months of the war was mind boggling, beyond comprehension for me.
They also had lower grade fuel, their main engine was the Hispano 12Y (which I like, but was definitely already getting a little old by the start of the war), and they were lacking in many resources.
The crazy thing is that they did adapt.
They were using the Phenol formaldehyde resin (either Bakelite or something close to it) as a bonding agent for the veneer strips they using for the much of the "plywood" used the fuselage and wing structure.
yes and apparently in the later Yak 9s they put a thin layer of that stuff over the outside of the aircraft skin, on the Yak-9U and some other (late) variants.
It may be a fine line. One reason the Spitfire helped win the BoB was that a new Spitfire lasted longer than a new Hurricane pilot (by a few days, New Hurricane pilots lasted about 2 weeks on average.)
Yes, and I have learned that was also the difference between the P-40 vs P-39, Buffalo, Hurricane etc. in the Pacific, China and North Africa (I know not all these types fought in all Theaters). It basically came down to 1) being able to survive more missions without being shot down, 2) being able to keep the pilot alive more often even if the plane was toast, and then 3) causing a fairly high rate of losses of enemy aircraft when conditions permitted, probably due to the heavy armament. I think better survival rates were largely down to good roll and very good dive acceleration (and low altitude power, once they figured that out).
I can't find it at the moment but somewhere I have seen an account of I-16s in use in 1942 or 43 in which they took fewer losses per sortie than most (all?) other aircraft operating in their area. How much experience had to do with it I don't know. There was even talk about putting the I-16 back into production, Then they took another look and the I-16s were also doing less damage to the Germans per sortie. They didn't break down the damage/loss ratio.
That is indeed interesting. I'd say even the later I-16 was slightly below that performance threshold at that point in the war where it could intercept enemy aircraft and escort all the friendly strike aircraft. It could still intercept Ju-87s but they were being phased out by then. It could escort IL-2s but would be hard pressed by German fighters that were 100 mph faster.
The I-16 was quite agile, excellent roll rate and a fast turn, but it was like most Soviet fighters limited in it's dive speed for structural reasons, so while a sharp turn can evade temporarily, it doesn't really have a way to escape. I think by 1942, certainly by 1943, I-16s (and I-153s) were mostly being used for ground attack / light close air support, mainly with rockets, like a lot of relatively slow but agile aircraft were during WW2 and continued to be in the later 20th Century.
An I-16 though would have trouble intercepting a later model Ju -88 I think, and have almost no chance of catching a FW 190 fighter-bomber (which is what started replacing those Ju 87s). It could escort an IL-2, SB, or Su-2, but might have trouble keeping up with Pe-2s. So it's perhaps below the threshold of viability, even if it's got a bit better maneuverability and survival rate.
I would also note that the supply of 20mm ShVAK cannon was not inexhaustible. Many of the I-16 24s had four 7.62mm guns and many of the I-16 type 29s had two 7.62s and one 12.7mm gun, wing guns taken out when rockets were installed but Soviet weapon fit seems to vary by the phase of the moon so their are no guarantees as what a few aircraft out of any batch had.
Another problem was the I-16 never (?) changed it's fuel capacity (or only once) and what gave good if not great range/endurance with 715-820hp engines wasn't so great with 1100hp engines, Yes they hung drop tanks on them but that is not quite the same thing.
Do you really think there was still a shortage of ShVAK in 1943? (Almost) all the Soviet fighters were short ranged.