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Hello Drgondog
The story was that the wreck was found in 80s?, in fact when I now think of it I cannot remember was it 110E, F or G, and recovered, the recover team noticed the bullet holes but when they checked LW records they noticed that the loss reason given was engine failure. Happily the crew had made it back to German troops and the pilot had survived the war and was still alive, when contacted he told that when he got back to his base his CO put strong pressure on him that he would give the reason of loss as engine failure. In the end the pilot gave in and wrote his report as his CO had demanded. The reason of all this was that Luftflotte 5 had got an order from OKL that low level attacks against trains were forbidden in order to avoid losses because of precarious state of LW a/c stocks. Local leadership had thought that those attacks were effective way to harass Soviets and their supply traffic and so had allowed the attacks continue and so to hide this disobedience from OKL the real reason of the loss had to be hide.
Juha
Civettone;585929]Yes off-topic but we have been off-topic in this thread for 87 times already hahaha !
In any case, I have started to realize some years ago that the Russian sources are still largely unexplored or at least unexploited when it comes to the history of WW2 or at least the Eastern Front.
Sure, it's usefull to hear both sounds of bell.I have seen so much new information coming from people who speak Russian and can consult Russian documents. Not that these documents are the holy grail, but correlated with German sources the image becomes much clearer.
So I feel a certain humbleness when it.... Also, where does it end? What does it say about all those other Experten??
Kris
Hello Adler
IMHO in this there isn't question of propaganda but secret air force reports on losses and in all air forces replacemets were allocated mostly according to reports on losses. Of course there might be some irregularities same way than there are in LW records, for ex one well known case when a Bf 110G was reported lost because of engine problems when in fact it was shot down by Soviet AA-mgs during a train busting attack. But there was a special reason to that "lying".
Juha
First take the Russian Communist Propaganda and then take the German Nationalist Propaganda and put them together and the truth is probably somewhere in between. I think that the results from both sides are very skeptical, but for some reason I tend to believe the German reports over the Russian reports a little more.
Hello again Altea
I don't have info on AA claims but while checking what I have on the day I noticed that I probably misunderstood what you meant "VVS KBF (Baltic air fleet) lauched at 2 pm...". I understood that it was the take off time of Soviet attack formations but it seemed to be the attack time in Moscow time which was +2h CET and if LW used CET, as they well might have used, in Germany the time had changed from German Summer Time to CET on 2 Oct. So on my old notes the attack time was 14:12 Moscow time, 12:12 CET, so there is still c. 20 min difference, but Germans probably attacked few minutes before Soviets were over their target. Rudorffer claimed 9 Il-2s 11.46-11.56, Broch 2, Tangermann 2, Thyben one Il-2s, altogether 14 Il-2s plus unknown number of AA claims versus 3 Il-2 losses.
Juha
Who knows? It looks like that Sturmoviks were caught at the Libau port, not 60 km east.Hello again Altea
no need to get agitated, the afternoon, LW time, combats seemed to have been some 60km East of Libau, so near/over frontline where there has been a big Soviet offensive, front line seemed to have been stabilized on 27 Oct, so the afternoon combat might well be against Army Il-2s and the noon combat around Libau against Naval Il-2s.
BTW the date when II/JG 2 claimed 15 victories, 8 by Rudorffer vs 3 French P-40s lost was 9 Feb 43.
So - think over the matter: Figures of measurements made up by those unreliable methods seems to you doubtfull, but why figures of calculations based on figures of measurements made up by those unreliable methods seems to you undoubtfull?
It's a contradiction in your position - from logical point of view.
Sorry, methods changed througout the war. Later ones were not such unreliable.But the fact is, that NS-37 recoil power was mesuared by the same unreliable methods and its figures were estimated as equal or a bit more excessive compared to ones of VYa.
I'm not sure, early Il-2 had its 20 or 23 mm canons outside machine guns position. Later ones inside, instead of ShKAS.You should take in attention a little difference in mountings: VYa were installed closer to fuselage as far I remember, than NS-37. Besides, NS-37 were a bit downed relatively axis through point of gravity
Can you send us numbers? AFAIK 13 420 were produced in 1942, 16 430 in 1943, 22 820 in 1944. Maybe were they used somewhere. No? Notice that the Sturmovik was the only plane to carry them, except small LaGG-3 and Yak batches.And what we have: 1) most of Il-2 were armed with Shvak not VYa,
Considering respective YVA and ShVAK production, rate of fire and probably weapon coast was that very usefull?2) VYa were installed on Il-10 so its production wasn't cancelled so what didn't allow to install it in 42-43 as a motor-canon on fighters, if the gun hadn't being installed generally on Il for two or three years, in exception a rather small quantaty?
Don't you know the NS and VYa weights, and quality factors respectivly ? Il-10 either had 2 YVA and 2 ShKAS, or 4 NS-23. ShKAS were called "humane weapons" by russian pilots and counts for nothing. That means Il-10 with NS had a much better firepower. But it had 4 23 mm canons, not 2.3) why on Il-10M (and on Il-10 last batches) were refused of VYa and was made a decision to install NS-23, if the VYa was so good?