[Paul Thompson]

Hello Gabor,

Thank you for your PM, I’ve replied to it just now.

I wholly agree regarding the Bostons, thank you for the 4th January data! There are two more pieces of information about the VVS in the book and that’s it, then there’s just a lot of numbers about ground forces. Here is the VVS information:

1. It’s mentioned in passing that Il-2 of 5 VA were not able to destroy bridges in Budapest during the Soviet offensive on the city, because the bombs they carried were not powerful enough.

2. There is a typical Soviet table of aircraft survivability in January 1945 measured in terms of missions and hours flown per one loss:
Type Yak-9 La-5 Il-2 B-3 (Boston) Pe-2 Po-2
Missions 60 – 71 – 45 – 52 – 40 – 2380
Hours 48 – 56 – 38 – 73 – 60 – 2588

Regards,

Paul Thompson