VVS Vs. RAF

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del said:
If we factor VVS and RAF only, we have more insight to compare these airforces, or not? Stay it a simple way, we are not comparing worlds just airforces, we also left the economy out here.
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but during WWII the RCAF and RAAF in europe acted under the RAF (well bomber command atleast), surely they should be counted??
 
That's entirely up to you all of course, but without RCAF and RAAF augmentation the bomber force would've just been that much smaller. Just a thought. We do like to be counted where applicable.
 
Glider do you know what squadrons because all I've got here is very sketchy information on the CBI theatre squadrons, some of it is over-lapping;

From December 1941 - May 1942;

113th Squadron. Blenheim IV based at Toungoo.
45th Squadron. Blenheim IV and IVF based at Toungoo.
17th Squadron. Hurricane IIA based at Rangoon.
135th Squadron. Hurricane IIA based at Rangoon.
28th Squadron. Lysander based at Lahore.
139th Squadron. Hudson based at Anadman Islands
11th Squadron. Blenheim IV - I don't know where they were based.

That's all I've got. All though I've got information on squadrons of Buffalo and Hurricane I, I don't know their squadron numbers. I've also got information on rag-tag collections of aircraft flying together. During early January 1942, 267 Group had three squadrons of Hurricane but they only had 10 flight worthy Hurricanes between them.
 
Plan D
Mohawk IV No 5 Sqdn
Lysander No 20 Squad
Hurricane II No 30 Squad
DC2 No 31 Squad
Blenhiem IV No 45 Squad plus 211 Sqdn (Far East)
Havoc No 62 Squad (This I doubt as its too new)
Wellington No 99 Squad
Audax No 146 Squad
Catalina No 202, 205 Squad
Hudson No 233 Squad
Vilderbeast No 273 Squad

I have the following on your details
113 Sqd on Blenhiem in May 1942
17sqd as a Far East unit on Hurricane IIa officially described as destroyed in Burma in May 1942
135 and 136 on Hurricane II in India from May 1942 before that far east
28 Squad On Lysanders in Sept 41 and Hurricane II in Jan 42 as a Far East unit then destroyed in May 42 Part of India from Jan 43
139 Sqdn Another Indian unit on Hudson in Jan 42 but in May 42 in the UK as a Blenheim unit
11 Sqdn An Indian Blenhiem unit from May 42, In Jan 42 it was in N Africa

60 sqdn on Buffalo/Blenhiem was destroyed in Singapore
67 sqdn on Buffalo/Hurricane destroyed in Rangoon
100Sqdn on Vilderbeast destroyed in Singapore
243 Sqdn on Buffalo destroyed in Singapore
258 sqdn on Hurricane destroyed in Java

I don't have any info on bases. Hope this helps
 
Excellent, do you think I would be right in assuming all the Blenheim squadrons had Blenheim IVs?
 

I agree they should be counted here in this case.
 
PlanD In most cases yes but they fought in anything that would fly and some of the squadrons had converted from the Mk 1 only a few months before.
Put it another way a Blenhiem 1 may not be much but she's better than an Audax
 
Anything old and used was delivered to the CBI. Many of the squadrons were recorded as flying Hurricane IIA but in most cases they'd go up with a collection of Hurricane I and IIA with some Buffaloes in there too.

Many of the squadrons arrived from North Africa to try and save Singapore then Burma just to be destroyed by the IJAAF and IJN. The worst thing was the lack of spares, during the early months of 1942 there were three Hurricane squadrons that only had 10 flight worthy aircraft between them!
 
Udet >>
December 7, 1941, while the Germans were around Moscow, a team of operators of a radar station in Hawaii completely failed to interpret what the screen was showing them: a formation of carrier air-borne bombers and fighters approaching Oahu.
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You are wrong. It was not radar operators who failed, radar was clearly showing what operator identified as big group of aircrafts moving quickly toward island. Upset operator imediately contacted comanding oficier but there was none to be found. When finaly he managed to reach somebody he was told to calm down, that what he see is flight of new B17 going to land at base (B17 later apeared over island during attack and some were shot down) and to shut down radar and go home. It was command who failed not radar operator.

I have to add that radar was in testing period, been operated only few ours per day and nobody had experience with it.
 
That's the story I've heard also, he was told to calm down and not let it worry him.
 
Arras:

I am aware of the version you commented regarding Pearl Harbor.

Yet, it does not take 1 single miligram of susbstance away from my view; call it as you wish, they failed to acknowledge the approaching danger.


I am strongly confident when affirming soviet radar operators were not any better than the Brits, Germans and USAers.

Mr. Delcyros has failed to prove the Luftwaffe suffered "heavy losses" at the hands of radar vectored soviet fighters during the winter of 1941.

You will not find any sound evidence of such assertion for there is none available.

You co-relate number of missions of flown with assured success. It can be a misleading pattern.

I know what a winter in the Moscow area is, and I can tell you that the most seasoned pilots of the present-day Aeroflot can wet their pants when approaching Sheremetyevo in poor weather conditions.

It is not difficult to at least see in your mind what the conditions most soviet pilots faced during such winter. Soviet political thugs yelling at them to take off and shoot down fascist snakes. Soviet pilots arguing on the terrible conditions most days observed during those weeks. The thugs accusing them of betraying the motherland.

That they might have flown many missions can be true, but what was it that they achieved.

Now, is the issue of radar vectored soviet interceptors in 1941 some sort of an emerging myth?
 
Yes but the radar operators acknoledged the threat that the radar told him. The whole sitution of Pearl Harbor was botched by the Higher Command and that is why some rightfully lost there jobs.
 
Also, during whole WW2 none of the countries put in to wide use powerful enough mobile radar platform. Most of them were heavy big pieces instaled in pernament sites build of concrete wit suporting buildings. None of the fighting side enjoied accurate radar vectoring when they were on advance. While jumping from one field airfield to another there was not time to build radar sites quickly foloving ground advance. And that was true especialy at the begining of war. Mosth of the radars were concentrated at strategical defence, around main air aproaches to big cities and production centers.

In tactical air war, radar played minor role. That was true for Blitzkrieg, Barbarossa, Alied campaign in Western europe and Soviet in the east.
 
that's because the technology for mobile radar wasn't around at the time, you can't blame anyone for that......

but however both the british and the Germans mastered RADAR (the brits more than the germans) for the role it was intended, baisically home defence............

and the allies found a very effective way af countering their lack of moving radar, stick planes on combat air patrol!
 
Arras
The British had mobile stations from the start of the war. As you would expect they got better as time moved on but even in the BOB we had some. The Germans knocked out one ot the British stations at the start of the BOB and one day later a mobile unit was moved in to fill the gap.
When the Allies invaded France we had mobile units that moved forward with the battle to help out nightfighters cover the allied forces. These were also used to give warning of any German raids.

One amusing aside. I have just read 'Nightfighter' and the pilot visitied one of these stations and was impressed by one piece of technology. As the radar beam passed a spot on the display, the operator could push a button and the display could go back or even stay still, enabling them to concentrate on an action that was taking place. As you could imagine this was very helpfull in a fast moving action.
The controller took him outside into a space below the hut and he saw the secret. The ariel was turned by two men on what was basically a tandem bike. When the button was pushed, a light lit up and they pedalled the other way.
 
How about this one:

The Ar-234B-1 Early Warning Project of 1944. It was a Ar-234 with a rotating FuG-244 "Berlin" panoramic night fighting search radar. It rotated at a 1000rpm and worked at a frequancy of 3300 MHz on the 9cm wave length with a peak impulse of 20kW.

It was captured after the war and used by the US as influence for its AWACS program.
 
The overall strength of the soviet airforces in mid june-1941 is often given with 17.745 planes total. These numbers (compare tmso.leaverworth.army/mil/documents/barabros.htm) are to high in my view. From these planes we have to seperate VVS, POV and the reserve GOK. A number is for transportation and connecting services as well as a larger number for training purposes. Some 2.314 planes awaiting their fading off in this time, too.
The VVS in europe had some 3510 planes (questionable, other sources say between 2204 and 3719, some ~1400 of them in worthy condition), some 1134 planes had the VVS in the far east.
The PVO in europe was seperated in the Moscow, Baku and Leningrad area. They had a number of well prepared airfields with concrete runways. In mid june 1941 for the PVO at Moscow we have two operating Rus-I radar stations (Kiln and Moshaisk) and another Rus-II radar station at Kaluga and 585 fighter planes for the defense of Moscow alone plus numerous AA (no certain number prior to late jule 41: 248 light AA, 796 middle AA and 336 AA MG. Plus 618 search lights and 303 ballons).
The strenght for the other PVO operating zones are unknown to me.
A seperation by plane types is in work but will take some more time.
(deployed at june, 22nd, 1941)
Il-2--------------less than 249
Yak-1-----------+195
Mig-1-----------~80
Mig-3-----------~320
Lagg-3----------
R-5/U-2---------1426
I-15-------------
I-152------------
I-153------------3322 (93 sent to China, 22 captured by Fins)
I-16-------------
Pe-2------------
SB-2-----------
TB-3------------
Pe-3------------
Yak-2----------
DB-3------------
MBR-2-----------
to be continued.....
 
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