VVS Vs. RAF

The USAAF heavies being sitting ducks certainly does not mean they were bad bombers and the same applies to the Il-2. It was a sitting duck but it wasn't a bad aircraft.

The DAF had a numercial advantage in North Africa and they used it wisely to provide good support for their Hurricane IID and IVs. The VVS seemed to lack the ability of protection for their Il-2s, hence the large loss rate of them.

plan_D said:

we all know that the bombers were sitting ducks.

Click to expand...

When B17s, B24s and B29s were flying in formation in daylight, they were heavily armed sitting ducks.

And a rear gunner is not good news. The top scoring FW190 pilot, Otto Kittel, seems to have been shot down by an Il2
http://fw190.hobbyvista.com/kittel.htm

"Flying at a distance of about 100 metres from Oblt. Kittel I saw him dive beneath and behind an Il-2 and attack it. Behind us two other Il-2s pulled up sharply. In the next moment an explosion was seen in his cockpit and the aircraft started to descend".

They might have been heavily armed sitting ducks but without fighter escort they were at the mercy of Luftwaffe interceptors. The USAAF bombing campaign was practically halted in 1943 due to a lack of fighter escort.

The idea of a huge formation of heavily armed bombers being able to defend themselves is flawed. They cannot do it. Fighter escort is a requirement for an effective bombing campaign.

Of course escort fighters are needed, but attacking a formation of heavy bombers is not a total walk over.

arras said:

DerAdlerIstGelandet>> look at profiles of Lufftwafe acces (athttp://www.luftwaffe.cz for example) and you find out that Yaks, LaGGs and Migs are much common shot down planes on the lists than Il-2 ...except 2-3 pilots, but those are exeptions.
Just for example Gerhard Barkhorn (301 kills)
http://www.luftwaffe.cz/barkhorn.html:

1. Yak -1-7-9-3 (109 kills)
2. LaGG-3, La-5 (89 kills)
3. Il-2 (32 kills)
4. P-39 (21 kills)
5. P-40 (8 kills)
6. Pe-2 (6 kills)
7. Hurricane (5 kills)

Il-2 was most produced aircraft of ww2 ...so what makes anybody think it was easy to shot down??? ...for somebody with no real experience, sitting in front of the computer game it is crap and easy shot. Aparently for second highest scoring Lufftwafe pilot it wasn't!

Click to expand...

I dont think you are understanding what people are writing. No where did I say it was an easy target. No where did I say it was the most shotdown aircraft. I was just showing CTO that the Il-2 did not shoot down all those Knights Cross winners like he thinks they did. Go back and read my post if you do not understand it.

As for the bottom post. I dont think I ever said it was the most easy to shoot it down. I was actually defending the Il-2 in several of my posts. And sorry I dont play video games either.

I took the Warwick into consideretaion because it has quite a good range: 4.200 Km. And that´s pretty much! The Wellington can go for 4.105 Km with 454 Kg ( and that´s a tiny payload). The Striling, wjhich is the best RAF bomber in this timeframe has a total range of 3.334 Km with 1.588 Kg payload. If you factor the usual wartime calculations, than 1 third of the total range makes the penetration or strike range (a distance where you may carry a considerable payload and return to your base with a reserve of about one fith or less).In the case of our Stirling it is something at 1.100 Km distance from the base. The payload increases with reduced range but thenumbers you referred belong to short distances. With 1.100 Km distance you will not reach Moscow. No Spitfire has the range to escort them over these distances. The Spitfire V has a total range of about 800 Km ( that means it can barely esort the bombers for 350 Km of their way, that is one third of their striking distance). Without fighter escort, even I-16 can wrec havoc under daylight bombers (they succesfully did in 1941, even if this means to ram the enemy)
Comparing to the Luftwaffe, the RAF in 1941 has far less planes and this makes a difference. The Luftwaffe bombers, esspeccially the Do-215, Ju-87 and Ju-88 are planes with some high degree of precision, thanks to dive bombings. Only this method ensured the impact the Luftwaffe had over Russia in 1941. The RAF bombers miss this feature, which doesn´t makes much later in the war (at a time when RAF bombers had airborne air to ground radar) , but makes a lot of difference in this stage.
Just one thing to add: Plan_D, please check the performance of Spitfire V and Mig-3 again. post any altitude where the Spit Vb/Vc (we already excluded the Va because of the worse armrment) has a considerable speed advantage over the MiG-3. Please check the altitudes between 5.000ft and 15.000 ft. A considerable speed advantage means more than 10 mp/h, 20 mp/h are comfortable and 30mp/h and more makes a huge difference. Not even at sea level there is reason to say that the Spit V outperforms the MiG in ALL situations. The Spitfie V is an allrounder but it lacks the initiative of the Mig-3. At the Spits optimal altitudes, the Mig is clearly superior, At lower alts, both are more closer to each other but why do you think the Mig is no worthy contender for the Spit V below 15.000 ft? You have to proove this.
Glider, an interesting feature in your post is the Hurr-IIc with four 20mm. But I believe the necessarities of the front would ask for the Hurr with 40mm guns. Esspeccially to deal with the heavier soviet tanks.
According to the Luftwaffe reports of 1941, the VVS was able to counter strikes even in situations where it obviously had no working CinC-strukture. To a high degree it was ineffective, but they kept on doing so. I rate the VVS / red forces in the offensive because the ground ops and air ops over the eastern front are connected much closer to each other than over any other theatre. On the ground I see more probabilities with the soviets than with the British. And with the british generalities in mind, the RAF strategic targets would be of small military worth but moreso in mind of Douhets theories to break the enemys attitude to keep on fighting. This would be a nasty buisness but without hope of success, I assume. The VVS on the other hand directly fought against military targets, oil fields, airfields, ammo and fuel depots, troop concentrations and so on. O fcourse they had the Pe-8, wich is in 1941 quite comparable to the Stirling, if not even better, but they refused strategic campaigns because of the need of direct (visible) results. Some few propaganda sorties against Berlin (without bombs, I remind) and VIP transports, thats all for them.
A problem of the Hurricane is that it was not superior to the VVS planes. Even the I-16 could be a problem for the Hurricane (some versions of the I-16 made 525 Km/h and that´s pretty much), not to speak of the Yak-1, Lagg-3 or Mig. The Hurricane would be a very easy AA target and very vulnarable, too.

Delc
There is no reason why the British bombers in daylight couldn't be as accurate as the Do215, JU88 and He111. I exclude the Ju87 as thats covered in our GA area.
I would also use the Sterlings and Wellingtons in a similar manner. The point is that the Sterling carries almost three times the bombload of the He111 over the same distance of around 600 miles. Should they get hold of a target airfields, supply dumps they would really work it over. As I have said before I see this as a risk but one worth taking in view of the

a) the difficulty in intercepting them due to distance and lack of Radar.
b) they are better able to defend themselves then the german planes.
c) I am not proposing that they do daylight raids of thousands of miles.
d) ramming was done but it was unusual.
e) with droptanks we could do a decent job of excorting the bombers, certainly no worse than the Germans did using the 109 as escort.

As for the Hurricane I do believe that the Hurrie 2D could live in the skies over Russia (why not, the Ju87 with 37's did) I would still stick with the 4x20's, it will do for most purposes and be able to defend itself. I am not saying that the Hurrie 2c is better than the Russian fighters, but its no worse not in 1941.

I don't see us using the night bombers as a way of breaking morale, but against transport links. You have said yourself that the Germans tried this with limited effect. Where we differ is that I belief that we would have an impact and you believe that we will will not do better than the Germans.

I have never believed in Douhets theories. They depend on breaking the will of the leaders and leaders are almost always protected from harm. I know that isn't what he says but in practice the people are cowed by the authorities and they are controlled by the leaders.

DerAdlerIstGelandet >> I just reacted to your:

In my opinion the Il-2 was not a very good aircraft but she was very good at what she did. One thing that helped her out though was the massive columns of Panzers. There were massive amounts of targets. Overall though the aircraft was heavy and slow and very easy target for the Luftwaffe fighters.

Click to expand...

I think you write preaty clear to understand, but if I missunderstud you than I appologize. As for computer gaming it was not pointed directly to you.

delcyros, plan_D >> do you know if stability of Hurricane was not influenced in negative way by recoil forces of 40mm guns?
Soviets were triing to install 37mm guns at Il-2 but they found it unstable for efective gunnery. They did install 37mm gun to Yak9T but that was in propeler axis. Japanese were also experimenting with bigger caliber guns at some of their aircrafts but with no succes, in general recoil forces were found to be too big to aim and fire efectively.

Why are you informing me about the Hurricane IID Vicker-S 40mm? The Il-2 was armed with 37mm cannons.

Smokey, I never said that attacking a bomber formation was a walk over. Read the whole discussion, I stated that German pilots saying; "...attacking Il-2s was hard..." means nothing because they would say the same for attacking Heavy Bombers, but the bombers were still sitting ducks!

plan_D >> I am not informing you, I am asking you if you know something about performance of those cannons and stability of whole platgorm in flight and while gunning.

Il-2 was not equiped with 37mm guns, it was equiped with 2 x 23mm VYa guns.
37 mm guns were experimentaly mounted at some Il-2m3 but guns were found to be cumbersome and recoil forces too big to make it efective in field.

Sorry, that was my bad. I haven't seen anything about the 40mm destroying the stability of the Hurricane. I'm pretty sure if there was a problem in the IID, it'd have been solved in the IV.

After, what I read, Glider, The Stirling wasn´t in regular service prior to feb. 1942. If I am wrong, please feel free to correct me ( I am not sure in the reliabilty of the source). Exclude the He-111. The Ju-88, Do-215 and Ju-87 (as the Pe-2) were more precise because they could dive in or attack at an shallow angle, where the Halifax, Stilings and Wellington couldn´t. At level bombing, the planes differ not much, but the RAF bombers have a better payload.
I must agree to disagree, the use of the bombers you describe is a more reasonable from the view of the RAF. I certainly also agree that the Halifax and Stirlings could protect therself much better than the Luftwaffe bomber. But there are less RAF bombers, this can be a problem over Russia. Strike altitude would bring them in the proper MiG-3 altitude at about 15.000 ft,I would counter them with Mig´s attacking the escorts and waves of I-16 and Pe-3 to deal with the heavys. While in the meantime Yak-1, Lagg-3 and I-16/I-153 together with Il-2 attacking the ground forces or the returning bombers over their bases (best hunting ground: over enemys airfields).
The Hurricane with 4 20mm is a very good GA-plane with self defending capabilities.
The recoil forces you may calculate on your own. Take the single round weight with the muzzle velocity plus some 20 percent for the gaz effects, voilá. Mounted in the wings, the 40mm is suspect to make prolonged aiming impossible because of the recoil effects. In the centerline it wouldn´t effect that much the behavior of the Hurricane. Such problems cannot be solved easily (The Fw-190 A-4/U-15 with two 30mm MK-103 under the wings suffered from bad recoil forces so the guns have been removed in most cases).
The most important figure is still not taken into consideration, the numbers of combat sorties. The presence of enemy planes in the own airspace and the absence of own planes there define air superiority. The VVS can field much more combat sorties than the RAF, and it did. This is often described by waves of waves (and losses of losses) but in the end it ensured air superiority in the late part of the war and in 1941 it took down the Luftwaffe air superiority over Moscow (while in the same timeframe the losses of the VVS are expected to be very high).

Delc
The Sterling flew its first missions on the 10th February 1941 and during 1941 were often used in daylight raids as the bait to get the Germans to come up and fight. It started to come unstuck when heavy long ranged raids were started at the end of 1941 against Germany and Italy where its lower bombload (3,500lbs) to Germany and the difficulty it had in climbing to any height (when going over the Alps) to Italy. became a problem.
Sounds like we agree to diagree over fighters and escort. Your ideas sound good but it would take a lot of organisation to get everyone in the right place at the right time when the performance of each plane would differ and most didn't carry a radio. Throw in a bit of cloud and the USSR have a problem
In numbers we certainly had fewer Halifax's and Sterlings as they entered service during this period but we had plenty of Wellingtons.

However we both agree over the use of 40mm on the Hurricane. I am sure I read somewhere that the firing of the 40's meant that in the real world, you only had one shot as the shock of firing pushed the nose down by 5 degrees. This would rule out firing automatically and they used the 303 as a 'range finder'. As I said before I would stick with the 4x20's.

Numbers of sorties. Bit of an unknown this. If the RAF were only fighting the USSR then we would have a lot more squadrons available. Not as many as the USSR but it would be a lot closer. The RAF proved themselves capable of generating large sortie rates and generally the planes were robust so short term sortie rates should be able to cope. However you are I am sure, thinking of the long haul, over a period of months.
I think that we would do better than the Germans. We had much better PR abilities and could put considerably more pressure on the Russian infrastructure. So our strikes would be more effective and this would impact the Russian sortie rates.

I should also remind you that we were the world leaders in radio intercept and code breaking. At a tactical level this isn't much help. However as mentioned before, the USSR tend to go for the big push, the set piece battle. We would get warning of these and with our PR we would be better placed to react.

Would it be enough? I really dont know but I think it would. The USSR had its vast size to support it in action, we had a Commonwealth. I think the two would balance out and the final advantage would go to the more technically advanced and better trained RAF

arras said:

DerAdlerIstGelandet >> I just reacted to your:

In my opinion the Il-2 was not a very good aircraft but she was very good at what she did. One thing that helped her out though was the massive columns of Panzers. There were massive amounts of targets. Overall though the aircraft was heavy and slow and very easy target for the Luftwaffe fighters.

Click to expand...

I think you write preaty clear to understand, but if I missunderstud you than I appologize. As for computer gaming it was not pointed directly to you.

Click to expand...

No you read that correctly, and I stand by what I said. The Il-2 may have been able to take punishment because of her armament, but that does not mean that she was not an easy target. She was easily out maneuevered, she was slow and was no match in an all out fight with a Bf-109F, G, K or Fw-190A or D.

All possible, Glider.
You made a point in the radio communication. From what I know almost all VVS planes had radio on board but radio is defined differntly in the VVS. In fact it means that nearly all had a device to receive orders and the squad leaders as well as ground instructors only had sending devices on board. This remained until early 1943, which is quite a long time. It implies a higher degree of unflexibility of VVS ops and in fact could explain why the VVS had such problems even when they sometimes outnumbered the Luftwaffe in 1941/1942.
If you take commonwealth squads for the RAF we have a closer situation, also. But let´s keep it simple and take the RAF, only. what about the numbers? I will search for VVS fielded numbers in 1941, please try to find what was avaiable in fighter and bomber command (we may exclude the coastal command here, suitable bomber planes could be added to the RAF bombers, keep in mind that there would be still a number of planes in the home defense) over the year 1941 on different theatres. The VVS numbers are expected to be higher because of the rapid advance of german ground forces in 1941 (which led to dismantle production lines, esspeccially those of the newer planes like Yak-1, Il-2 and Lagg-3, and rebuild them beyond range). The british ground forces would surely have more problems with the soviets which would give the VVS more time to bring out bigger numbers.

It implies more than just inflexibility but just plain stupid.

Delc, I will do what I can re numbers, but the reference to the Commonwealth was more to do with the support. For example a lot of British pilots were trained around the world e.g. in Canada. They also supplied a lot of machines and supplies and were areas which are obviously safe from attack and with space to train people well.

Deralder, I don't get your last posting can I ask you to rephrase it?

Glider said:

For example a lot of British pilots were trained around the world e.g. in Canada. They also supplied a lot of machines and supplies...

Click to expand...

And personnel.

Nonskim. I wasn't forgetting the people, who are always the most precious of all, but in this context delc was trying to keep it to the RAF.

My mother was engaged to a Norwegian who was killed when his ship was torpedoed, and her father was sunk three times once in WW1 and twice in WW2, so the personal side is always close to us.

Yes, del, we're not leaving the Commonwealth out of this because if you went to war with Britain you went to war with it's empire too. Every Commonwealth country would provide man and machine to fight for Britain. You only don't want the Commonwealth involved because it puts a little strain on your one and only reason that the Soviet Union would win, numbers.