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Chuck yeager flew them in combat and was quite praiseworthy of the P-39.
Yeager never flew the P-39 in combat
...Juha, I may have a dim view of Soviet avation at the start of the war, but it comes from what I've read about it. It is quite likely that there were indivudual commanders out there who were solid and ran a good squadron or wing. Still, what I have read tells me that when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, most of the planes did not even get airborne without orders from Stalin to do same. Perhaps that was not the entire case, but a good many planes were shot down or destroyed on the ground due to bad leadership, poor dispersement, and the few that did get airborne were quickly dealt with.
I am open to a more positive view if it can be backed up historically, and will take an interest in that subject for awhile to see if what you are saying might be, in fact, the case.
One thing is certain, since you are from Finland, you are much closer to what was the front line that I am and, as I said above, you reached your opinion for SOME reason or reasons ... so it's worth investigating. I still wonder what the Fins might have done with, say, Spitfires or Me 109's instead of Buffalos ...
The turbo, not the supercharger.I thought the Supercharger was removed from the P-39 production aircraft?
I don't have that one yet, but here's a summary of other accounts of claim/loss in that war (quoting myself from another forum):One fairly good and cheap book on Khalkhin-Gol/Nomonhan conflict is Dimitar Nedialkov's In the Skies of Nomonhan,
So according to those figures, the actual Soviet kills fall well below their own recorded combat losses in the Nomanhan war (around 200 IIRC) though through numerical superiority (Coox's account also agrees) they achieved air superiority over the battlefield; OTOH this wasn't so central to the Soviet success on the ground (as it usually wasn't). Likewise, though I can't offer comprehensive stats, Soviet piloted fighters on the Chinese side in Sino-Japanese War seemed to have an unfavorable real kill ratio v the JNAF, that being mainly Type 96 Fighters (the Soviets arrived mainly after the JNAF stopped using biplanes and Stalin shifted his policy against direct help for the Chinese Nationalists before the Zero appeared in China).
Familiar topic and pointThey used their fighters to keep the enemy fighters off the backs of their own strike aircraft long enough to complete the mission and inflict enough losses on the enemy bombers to make completion of their missions difficult. they never showed a lot of interest in the war in defeating an enemy's fighters. Does not surprise me therefore that their losses of fighters or indeed total aircraft exceeded those of thir opponent. within limits, losses were not important to the Soviets.
The history of air warfare right from WWI onward shows that whatever your doctrine, if your fighters have a poor enough exchange ratio v enemy fighters they won't achieve other missions. 1:2 ratio might be good enough (when a fighter force suffered 1:4 or 5 or more and it's partisans still say 'it still accomplished its mission' that's when it gets a little silly IMO).
In this case as I said, even if you quibbled with the term 'air superiority', the Soviets were able to bomb the Japanese forces and limit the degree of bombing of their own, what I meant. I think you may be thinking of what's termed air supremacy, but anyway the VVS wasn't particularly thwarted overall, we agree. Whether that made much difference in the outcome of the Nomonhan war is another question, reading Coox's detailed accounts from Japanese side I'd say not much, IJA force doomed anyway.
Still, a load of literature from the Soviet Union and Russia since has maintained that the Soviets scored a favorable kill ratio v Japanese fighters at Nomonhan. It certainly seemed to matter to them. So this might also quibble with particular wording but 'never showed a lot of interest in defeating enemy fighters' does seem not wholly accurate IMO. Soviet and later Russian history makes a big point of the improvement of relative combat performance of Soviet v German fighters over 1941-45.
Next, the Defiant; with all intents and purposes, an excellent aircraft that performed superbly in the role it was designed for - as a specialised bomber interceptor. Unlike the P-39 and Buffalo, the Defiant was not stricken with unreliability issues and very few of the pilots that flew it did not enjoy the experience. Of course in combat against enemy fighters they changed their perspective, but somewhat unfairly, it was placed into an arena it was not designed for nor for which could it adequately cope.
Similar to "We don't need more guns on the bomber as it will fly faster than any fighter!" mentality.
The people who say the losses in the pacific were due to circumstances and poor training seem to conveniently forget the very similar but opposite circumstances that occurred during the Finnish experience with the Buffalo. If they had come up against good planes flown by veteran pilots, they might not like the Buffalo so well and might well be losses instead of Aces. If circumstance work against you sometimes, then they also almost certainly sometimes work FOR you, as in the case of the Finnish Buffalos.
But in 1940, it was like shooting sitting ducks, and the Fins DID, even with Buffalos.
Blackburn Roc would get my vote. Slow (even a Stuka could outrun it), underarmed, miserable climb, heavy and I don't know if they shot anything down.