Just wondering, why results of Allied side's "parents and grandparents" being honoured here while Russian "parents and grandparents"'s results now being named no less than "just Stalinist propaganda"..

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Good hunting!

Dimmy

Actually not more than 20,000 german a/c were shot down in Eastern front during WWII.

Before 1943 germans had total air superiority, after that it was difficult to find them to shot down, because intensive bombing of Germany took a lot of german fighters. I 've read memoirs of sturmovik pilots, who had more than 100 sorties after 1943 and never saw enemy fighters, all combat losses of their ShAP that time were caused by AAA!

The problem was in very ineffective way of VVS using, outdated tactics and lack of radio equipment till 1943.

It is nothing against our grandfathers, just reality.

Strik,dont be such a snob!You assume that Nintendo players are ignorant of history.I have been known to "occasionally" have a dabble on my sons Nintendo gamecube,purely for relaxation after a gruelling (and intellectually superior?) il-2 session,that doesnt make me a bad person,or does it?So please dont make the big N culpable for the ramblings of every moron out there.

[This message has been edited by oor wullie (edited 06-05-2002).]

[This message has been edited by oor wullie (edited 06-05-2002).]

Last time I noticed Dimmy, the Russians were on our side during WWII and as such were considered Allies.

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You see here though you mad the difference. You can play a game and know a game from the real world. Some children think the real world is what they an control with their joystick and gamepad and when reality bites them in the ass who do they have to blame?

It's always the excuse my parents sucked. Well my parents and my grandparents, and my great granparents didn't suck and they weren't cowards and I still stand by my statement.



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Hi Niklaus,

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Nikolaus:
>[B]Actually not more than 20,000 german a/c >were shot down in Eastern front during WWII.
May I ask for sources of these 20000 claims?

As per information in my possession,
Germans data states 49000 combat losses on EF
Russian claims were 57000
That makes Russian overclaim near 8000 AC.

> Before 1943 germans had total air >superiority, after that it was difficult to >find them to shot down, because intensive >bombing of Germany took a lot of german >fighters.

I believe (according to my data) that TOTAL air superiority was only in Summer-Autumn 1941, as total superiority means
a) inability to takeoff - germans simply and effectively blocked Russian airdromes.
b) problems with AC delivery (not production) rate, which decreases number of AC that country is capable to place on the front-line
c) Total suppression of offensive aviation. Please do not forget that fighter is a defensive weapon in war, and that's bombers which DO the work, while fighters are only supplementary (but neccessary) addon. In this case, Russian bomber aviation was severely mauled, and conducting offensive raids was almost impossible, or created tremendous loss rate in offensive (bomber) aviation on russian side. This forced VVS to use fighters (regarding their performance vs german fighter counterparts) as short-range tactical bombers.

All this, of course, applicable to the West Front "Big Week" and "Steam rolling stock Hunting".
Please notice that I do not qualify numerical superiority to be a key for TOTAL air superiority.

Difficulties with finding german ac? Umm... read K.K. Sukhov's book or something similar - you'll notice that on the contrary russian pilots always were saying that they were outnumbered in combats until the end of 44. Besides, Ju87 strikes were quite effective until mid-43, not saying about Ju-88.

According to memories of russian pilots who participate in WWII, it wasn't hard to find germans even in April 45, and they were fighting to the end in sufficient numbers. It's just that from 1944 these was a tactics change on the Russian front - germans started to strafe advancing hordes of tanks and infantry strongholds, while russians paid more attention to free hunt and air combat with anything what was flying.


> I 've read memoirs of sturmovik pilots, >who had more than 100 sorties after 1943 >and never saw enemy fighters, all combat >losses of their ShAP that time were caused >by AAA!
That's how it should be, as on EF even rifles were used as AAA.
Grandfather of a good friend of mine was IL-2 sturmo pilot (single-seated in 41, then IL-2M3). According to his memories, unprotected IL-2 is almost sure victory for FW-190 (unless IL-2 pilot was very good in turning combat, but these accounts were very rare, and normal sturmo pilot never attempted evasive or attacking maneuvres in horizontal).

>The problem was in very ineffective way of >VVS using, outdated tactics and lack of >radio equipment till 1943.
Agree, but it's only part of the picture. To elaborate on that, here's my addition.
Main problems were, as I guess:
1. Psychological shock (I refuse to name that panic, but according to many russian books, it was something quite close) due all 1941 (that, I believe is a reason which made many russian pilots to lose their combats before even starting them).
2. Low experience of new pilots - 25 hours was considered "expert" training in Russian VVS during 1942.
3. Mostly inferior equipment, and, inferior AC maintenance on russian side all the way to the end of 1942.
4. Misunderstanding of the roles and duties of fighter aviation in modern warfare.

These problems were "fixed" hard way - by trial and error. BTW I do not think, it was possible to fix it any other way in such society.

Regards,
-MailPin

S!

Mailpin please provide the source for your claim that the Germans admitted a loss on the Eastern Front of 49,000 aircraft in combat.

Nothing I have seen would agree with those numbers.

Please do not include aircraft written off active records as a result of normal maintenance procedures. Only include losses in air to air or air to ground combat.

My data in my first post of this thread is as mentioned, taken from the Actual German Gruppe Records as reported by their Commanding Officers to Luftwaffe Headquarters. The Author lists his sources clearly in the appendices to the tables.

Perhaps you could do the same.

Mailpin

in 1939-1945 Germany produced 93000 planes
If 49000 were destroyed on Eastern Front ( we mean combat losses, am I right?), how many were lost in accidents? And how many were lost on the West?
Officialy USSR losses are more than 80,000 ac, 43,000 in combat. It means that combat/non-combat loss ratio is closing to 1 in VVS. What about LW?

S! MailPin

Your info about amount of German a/c lost at EF is very close to mine, which I've typed here during last summer's Great Flame War (I've searched the SimHQ for this topic but looks as it has been deleted at all). It was Boandlgramer, who asked me about such info so I made a special topic for him with such info and digits for German loss at Russian front per months of war. But as people was interested only in flame wars that time and claiming each other "propagandists", "stalinist" and so - I don't think what I'll step in this area again.

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Good hunting!

Dimmy

Dimmy

А классно было бы получить такие данные, похоже это какие-то тайные знания ( я имею ввиду реальные потери люфтваффе на восточном фронте)8)