Article about the Armavir raid on 25.Oct.42
 

Hello,

I wrote an article with maps and illustrations about the raid on Armavir (Armawir, Армавир) which is described by Wolfgang Dirich in his 'Kampfgeschwader ‘Edelweiss’':

About ten o'clock in the evening on November 4th, one of the Russian harassing bombers happened to drop a light bomb into the fuel dump at the edge of Armavir airfield. There was a flash, and the flames spread to the fuelled and bombed-up aircraft. Since the field had several units on it, and was packed with more than a hundred Ju 88s and He 111s, there was no lack of combustible material. Only one of the II Gruppe aircraft survived without damage.

The article is in Russian, but online translators more or less give an idea of the content of the article. Deepl.com apparently shows the best results.

https://akuznetz.livejournal.com/7004.html

In brief:
Actually the raid was on 25.10.42, which many suspected, based on the fact that in the Genst.Gen.Qu.6.Abt returns there are no losses at Armavir airfield on 4.Nov.42, and on 25.Oct.42 there are (5 Ju88 of II./KG51, 4 of which were total lost) and one transport He111P-6 from Stab KG51.

The report of Abt.Qu. Korück 550 gives the following losses: 5 total lost, 11 severely damaged, 6 lightly damaged, “2000 Liter Öl verbrannt”. Thus, the number of totally lost planes is the same (5), but instead of 1 damaged plane there must have been at least 11 (those in the Korück 550 report are called as severely damaged). This is further evidence that aircraft losses on the ground were accounted for worse than those in the air.

This was a raid by 7 Il-4 bombers of the 50.AD DD (a long-range aviation division, but operationally subordinate to the 4th Air Army), not a 'harassing bomber'. The raid was made as air recce had detected a cluster of German bombers at Armavir.
Also a bombing raid in the morning of 26.Oct.42 by a Pe-2 recce plane, which checked the Armavir airfield, is described.

Please note that ‘Luftwaffe Airfields 1935-45. Russia’ lists both raids on Armavir – on 25.10.42 and the non-existent one on 4.11.42.
Larry, this is by no means a reproach. I realize that it is impossible to avoid mistakes in such a huge reference book.

Best regards,
Andrey