Lessons Learned Pre-War Conflicts

[Jim Oxley]

Much is made of the fact that the Luftwaffe went to war in 1939 with highly skilled aircrew, courtesy of the experience gained in the Spanish Civil War.

British accounts especially make much of this, perhaps as a way of explaining away Luftwaffe successes in tactics in the early part of the war. And perhaps to emphasize how good the RAF was to defeat the Luftwaffe in the Battle Of Britain.

Either way, it is fair to say that the Luftwaffe did develop highly efficient tactics in fighter and ground attack.

But Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union too fought in several conflicts pre war. The Regia Aeronautica fought in Libya, Ethiopia, Spain and Albania prior to WWII.
Japan fought in China and Mongolia.
The Soviet Union fought in Spain, China, Khalkhin Gol and Finland.

Japan learned lessons from those conflicts to effectively employ them very successfully at the start of the Pacific War.

But Italy and the Soviets seemed to have missed a golden opportunity. The VVS especially, given it's combats against skilled adversaries.

Why is that?

[James A Pratt III]

Stalin's purges really hurt the VVS leaderships ect. see BCRS Vol 1

[Jim Oxley]

To a degree yes.

But upon reading Polikarpov I-15, I-16 and I-153 Aces by Mikhail Maslov, its quite evident that the majority of pilots who flew in Spain, China and Khalkhin Gol and Finland survived. And we are talking significant numbers here, well into the thousands. And many had gained reasonably senoir positions (at Squadron and Group level) by the start of the Great Patriotic War.

So the skill level was there in 1941. But the tactics were not.

[Leendert]

The RAF had (also) been busy throughout the British Empire during the Interbellum to quell 'tribal uprisings' and like operations, I gathered.
Sure enough not involved in actual air combats in those years, but a gained experience in air policing (incl. bombing) nonetheless by professionals.

Leendert

[James A Pratt III]

I have read an article a long time ago which pointed out that both the RAF and then USAAC learned little or nothing from the Spanish Civil War. Other historians have blasted the RAF for forgetting all the usefull lessons they learned in WW I by 1939.

[James A Pratt III]

The Soviets from BCRS Vol I p41 in the 1940-41 period greatly shortened their aircrew training periods result a lot of very poorly trained pilots who were easy kills for some Luftwaffe ace. BCRS vol 6 has the VVS going back to its pre 1940 training standards

[James A Pratt III]

It seems the RA learned the wrong lesson of the SCW that Biplane fighters were still needed.

as for the RAF I understand they did not set up a air gunnery training school for fighter pilots until April 1942.

[jednastka]

I would like to suggest an important factor is that when the Luftwaffe decided to re-arm, it did so with almost no military aircraft and few legacy producers. This allowed them to focus on designing the best, from scratch, not trying to upgrade existing models to try and meet the needs. Most established air forces did not.


Vic