Questions re Polikarpov-fighters.

[Graham Boak]

Originally Posted by Franek Grabowski

I initially thought that several Soviet decisions were irrational, but this turned untrue, when my knowledge deepened.

Not just Soviet, I'd like to add. The more study that is made of the wartime decisions, and all the factors acting on the decision makers, the more understandable and reasonable their decisons become. Not always right, no, but very rarely (if ever) irrational. Certainly the "bureaucrats and politicians" come out much better than enthusiasts for given types rush to claim.

Which isn't meant to claim that the I-180 decision was necessarily right.

One point that could be made, following on from comments earlier. It was suggested that the Russians would have been better off with an interim type, of known limitations, than waiting for something that promised to be better. When this is done, the interim type tends to stay in production for too long and the better type may never appear. It is all too often assumed that more of the same is better than the loss of production from the changeover to the superior type. The decision point for such a changeover must always have been one of the most difficult in military procurement. I doubt whether many cases could ever be proved either way, but they do provide lots of discussion points for we who follow on!