[Birgir Thorisson]

I posted this question because I wanted to know if more recent information than I posessed, (mainly the book by Gordon and Khazanov) would throw further light on the issue.
The merits of the various aircrafts do not seem to be in question. Engines are a different matter. The Polikarpovs would seem to be better choices all-around than the others, both from the standpoint of operational efficiency, and producton.

The Polikarpov series were progressive developments of the same basic design, moving towards more use of higher quality materials, which as you say, was in short supply. The decision NOT to produce the 1-185 caused disruption in the production process in 1940/41.
The decision to replace the I-180, (with metalworking share in the airframe construction of ca 1/3 with the LaGGs with only 8% share, meant that factory 21 had to turn metalworkers into woodworkers, and suffered from drastic shortage of skilled woodworkers. As result, production quality was so poor, that a lot of aircraft delivered were useless. Same in Swerdlovsk. It is reported (admittently by a self-serving source, Yakovlev), that when the snow melted in 1942, the around the factory airfield was littered with LaGG aircrafts, and aircraft parts. (It is so veird, that I cannot really believe it, that Factory 31 was turned over from producing all-metal flying boats (including the Consolidated Catalina) to producing wooden fighters. There simply must be something wrong with THAT story).

One could compare it with Britain converting the factories producing Typhoons to produce Mosquitoes rather than Tempests.

As the war progressed, the Yak and Lavochkin design bureaus worked on refining their aircrafts, using superior material. Still, it was only in 1944/45 that their products matched the I-185, the preproduction batch of which was reportedly tested in combat in 1942.
Opportunity cost? By autumn 1942, the Soviet Union was receiving sufficient numbers of Lend Lease fighters, to do without the production lines devoted to producing Lavochkins, for 3-6 months. One must bear in mind that it really only with the La5FN version, that it became a viable fighter, in the second half of 1943.
When you have fighter that your experts tell you that is by far the best fighter in the world, (I-185 as reported in spring 1942), it is really strange not to put it into production.
I would argue that the increased efficency that would be garnered from allowing young pilots to survive and aquire skills to challenge Luftwaffe would in very real "near-term" prove superior to trying to keep the skies full of planes, that only provided convenient cannon-fodder for Luftwaffe experts.

The problems with engine supply is less clear. The I-180 competed with other designs for the M-88 engines. Production of Su-2 was stopped, and the DB-3F continued to be the main user of them, until replaced by the ubiqutious Shvetsov M-82. The M-71 versus M-82 is a complex issue. They were closely related design, and produced in the same factory. Could even be 14 and 18 cylinder versions of the same designs. I dont know. Bearing in mind that both Yaks and MiGs with M-82 failed, and that the LaG-5 and early La-5 were indifferent fighters, the M-82 didn´t become a war-winning asset right away. The opportunity cost suffered by the Red airforce in doing without them for say 6 months, in order to get an even better engine that would provide a fighter that would reverse the quality gap vis-a-vis the Luftwaffe, doesn´t seem great to me.

Regarding material shortages. The priority projects in 1940-41, were the MiG fighter and the NKVD sponsored Samolet 100, (designed as fighers, but became the successful Petlyakov Pe-2). The MiG was then cancelled in favour of Ilyushin Sturmoviks. I would tend to think that the Soviet airforce would have been better served with 1000 I-180s rather than 500 MiG-3s (the exchange ratio is a pure guess), or 1000 I-185, and a thousand fewer Sthurmoviks.

The assumption of rational behavior doesn´t mean that the decisions were right. Looking at a decision, one always finds that there were reasons for the decisions. (Although it can sometimes be hard to figure out what exactly were the reasons for Stalins decisions. A very interesting case is provided by Rohwer and Monakovs book, Stalin´s Ocean Going Fleet, were the authors attempt to deduce from the decisions themselves, what was the thinking behind them.)

If one reduces oneself to only looking at why the one and only history we have, played itself out as it did, and say, this was done for that reason, or not done for this reason, one really puts on a blinker, that prevents oneself from seeing the elements of free will and choice in history. I happen to think that Stalinist Russia was atrociusly managed, and the the peoples of the Soviet Union paid with millions of lives for the inefficency of the system, (and this leaves out completely the deliberate acts of repression.)
I visited Russia two years ago, and I was shocked by the adulation shown for Stalin, mainly for winning WW2. Spending Victory Day at the site of the mass graves in Leningrad (St.Petersburg) brought home to me that the people of the Soviet Union defeated the Nazis, not Stalin, or Zhukov, or the leadership. The shear tenacity of the workers, largely female, who slaved like logs to outproduce the enemy, and soldiers who endured enormous hardships, and died in proportions unknown in the west, produced the vicory, despite a leadership which wasted their work, and threw away their lives with callousnes only rivaled by Hitler or the Japanese.

There is a lot more to be said, but this forum is probably not the place for it.

I am off for the Christmass holidays, and will not be checking back until next year. Thank you all who cared to comment.

Happy holidays to everone who seas this post, and may you all prosper in coming years.

Birgir Thorisson