[kalender1973]

Tony,

I don't know Richard Simpkin's book, but only one sentence about "penal batalion" move his work to non-read category. I don't know on what sources his researches are based but definitive not on russian archives, which are only now free for access.

About air support of soviet air force. Could you define the criteria for good or bad performance? If yes, we can go through these and look if soviet air force fullfill the points or not. From my point of view in the second part 1944 and in 1945 the soviet air force developed very formidable methods for massive support of soviet ground force and was key element for their success on the ground. The air support was concentrate primary on the domination over battle field and in the second line the cutting of supply lines and isolation of battle field. And if I understand correct this is the main difference to the air support method of western ally.

The situation with radio equipment is the same. The main problem was solved in the second part of 1944. BTW, if you read "The german air war in russia" by Richard Muller, you will see, the Luftwaffe suffered a problem with the communication equipment in 1941-42 and could not adequate communicate with ground forces