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
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Regards,
-MailPin