Hello Broncazonk,
Quote:
Originally Posted by Broncazonk
Given all of the above, does anyone actually trust Russian reports when it comes to calculating...anything?
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It is a great simplification to explain a huge number of "unaccounted losses" in June-July 1941 by items (1)-(5) in your post.
The problem was in the unimaginable collapse and chaos during the first weeks of "Barbarossa". Entire armies had disappeared in encirclements with all their manpower, armament etc ... and with the papers of course.
It isn't exclude some instantaneous false reports of course but in less apocalyptic situation the regular routine documentation about aircraft inventory reflected the reality correctly anyway - among other things simply because it was easy to check.
After restoring of the order the account became reliable (with lists of the factory numbers of planes and their motors - combat ready, in repair, lost etc), with many cross references and comments. At least for my point of interest now (year 1943) the picture of VVS inventory, losses etc is far, far more clear than the same points for Luftwaffe.
"Eagle in Flames" is one of my favorite books about Luftwaffe. Now I have a look at the part of the "
War Over the Steppes" presented by Google Books. It seems (unluckily for me) that the author less familiar with VVS history than with Luftwaffe.
One of the errors seems especially serious: the table III-3 "Soviet air power fuel consumption 1942" (p.114) instead of fuel consumption contains the number of bombs dropped from well-known digest "Soviet Aviation 1941-45 in figures". So the conclusion under the table about VVS consumed 2.75 times more fuel than Luftwaffe is wrong. Really VVS consumed 339,485 tons, not 3,813,367, i.e. far less than Luftwaffe. And it was a big problem for VVS.
Best regards,
Andrey